Before the Ruins

by Victoria Gosling

  I liked people this way, and experienced a shadowy feeling of fellowship with them; like this, I was surprised by how much I suddenly loved them and wished them well, and yet if my neighbor had turned to me and attempted conversation, I would have shrunk from it. I loved my neighbor, but I feared him too.

  My thoughts drifted, my gaze resting on the soft, white backs of the clouds. Something had been playing on my mind ever since my visit to the Cotswolds.

  The game that weekend had not been fixed. If Alice was right and Em had not hidden the necklace in the temple but somewhere else, then where had the ones David found come from? I took out my notebook and under the reading light’s beam, I wrote DIAMONDS REAL? Then I stuffed my notebook in the seat pocket in disgust at my childishness, before once again hauling it out.

  If the diamonds had been real, it would have given someone a reason, a reason to hurt Em. Who would’ve known? Em, because she hid the fake ones? David, because he’d held them in his hands and discerned a difference?

  How far was David prepared to go to get what he wanted? Not just with the diamonds, but with everything? It was a question I was determined to have answered.

  I had chosen to believe Em’s death was an accident. If, at certain unguarded moments, other possibilities had occurred to me, it was not David I fought to keep myself from imagining in the scenario in which someone walked with Em, or followed Em, or was followed by Em, out of the manor and down the snowy drive on the night she died.

  * * *

  Florence was under water. Algorithms had given continental weather events a low priority in my newsfeed, making me wonder what else I was missing. On the plane, the in-flight magazine had featured an article about the poet Dante and his Divine Comedy. In hell, there were circles where souls were tethered in realms according to their earthly failings: one for the lustful, one for the gluttonous, and so on. This made me think of the Internet and how, the more you clicked on something—porn, or shoes, conspiracy theories, or the gruesome reports of violent crimes—the more you saw of it, until it became nearly all you saw, and that real life might be in some way similar, that there were circles you could find yourself in and from which it might take a great effort to break free.

  Rainwater ran in streams, pooling around the drains. In the streets, it roared beneath the pavements. The departure board showed a series of delayed flights and ranks of stranded travelers were standing gazing up at it, mouths open in horror like bystanders in a painting of the Crucifixion. I booked a hotel via an app, something mid-priced and central with good reviews, but some streets were closed and the taxi driver was forced to drive round in circles until he found a way through.

  When I struggled in, the staff seemed surprised to see me. The lobby was empty and the young man on duty slid fearful glances over my shoulder, as though at any moment a monster would loom out of the darkness and menace us through the rain-smeared glass. In the room, the Wi-Fi wasn’t working and I quickly gave up trying to figure out the telly. I slipped into bed.

  At some point during the night, air-raid sirens started howling, and the alarm entered my dreams. It was too late. I was too late. I had slept too long. I dreamed that on waking I would discover that something terrible had happened while I slept for which I was culpable, so that even asleep, I pretended to sleep, and awoke later than I intended, already drained. I reached the breakfast room as they were putting the cereal and cold cuts away. The chef hadn’t come in and the bakery hadn’t delivered.

  Parts of the city were being evacuated on account of the flooding. But the hotel was on a rise. Would it remain open? A young woman was now behind the desk; she grimaced and opened her hands. “My father hasn’t seen this since 1966. Then the river came over the top. It was a catastrophe for Florence. If the Arno breaks its banks…”

  Reluctantly she drew my route for me on a map, while I eavesdropped on a group of game old English ladies. Their leader was instructing a tour guide to find them a boat. “Ruth rowed for Cambridge! And we do so want to see the Spanish Chapel.”

  I went out. It was crepuscular, the rain slant and chill. The few people I saw seemed to have pressing errands. I saw a family, mum, dad, and two kids, climbing into a car packed to the gunnels with their possessions. They had a bichon frise too, and in her arms, the little girl carried a cage with sawdust in it, a hamster wheel, and a little plastic house in which, I presumed, a small creature was huddling. Then there were no more people.

  Traffic lights reflected on the surface of black puddles that lapped at drains, rippling the colors. Rain seeped under my cuffs and ran down my neck, and my feet grew so wet I stopped going around the puddles and started plowing straight through them. The map disintegrated further each time I looked at it, the puddles deepened until turning a corner, I found that the whole street was flooded, and I was wading through water that got deeper as I went on.

  It didn’t occur to me to turn back.

  A greenish river flowed past, leaves and paper coffee cups and plastic bags riding the current, the surface in patches marbled with oil. The sky was wadded with low-hanging clouds, and in front of the houses, at the top of the steps that led up from the street, sandbags had been placed in front of the doors. From somewhere above the city, the sirens were wailing again.

  An upturned chair raced past, its legs pointing to heaven. I plowed on, the water eddying about my legs.

  Galleria Vittorio Buono, the gallery named in Alice’s article, was where it was supposed to be, but still further from the center than I had imagined, sandwiched between a shop with women’s clothes in the window and a stationer’s. There was no sign of anyone as I climbed the steps to ring the bell. No sound came, so I hammered on the door fit to wake the dead. While I waited for a response, I turned to watch the water racing past. Somewhere a church bell had started tolling. My mind was curiously quiet. It occurred to me that if the waters rose any further, it might be risky to try to go back, but I wasn’t particularly concerned about this, or about anything else, so that when I heard footsteps approaching and then the door open behind me, I felt neither fear nor excitement, only a certain inevitability. Still, it was a moment before I was able to turn and face whoever it was who had opened the door.

  * * *

  I watched David recognize me, and then I pushed past him through the doorway, our shoulders brushing.

  “What are you doing here?”

  We were in a white-walled room. There were empty spaces on the walls where paintings had hung. They lay resting in their frames against the wall. More were stacked against a desk.

  “Perhaps I need something to go over the mantelpiece.”

  “The city’s being evacuated.”

  I took off my plastic cape and draped it over a chair. “You’re still here.”

  “There’s the stock. I was moving it upstairs.”

  “Do you think the water will really come that high? I mean up the steps and inside?”

  We turned as one to the window and to the newly born river running down the street. The sky was dark; it only promised more rain.

  I snuck a glance at David. He was wearing glasses and seemed generally more solid, not only heavier but thicker about the neck and forearms, his features more definite but with a loss of tightness about the jaw. He reached for the light and then swiftly let fall his hand.

  “I keep forgetting the power’s out. Oh shit. Oh shit.” Beneath the door a thin stream was seeping serpentine across the floor. “I’ve got to get the paintings upstairs. Will you help?”

  And as though I were a friend who had popped in for a coffee, I found myself roped in. It took almost an hour. The stairs were narrow and twisty and led up to three rooms: a tiny bathroom, a storeroom, and a third space, long and narrow, in which there were bookshelves, a table, and a camp bed on which a twisted sheet and a woolen blanket were encoiled.

  The stairs were too narrow for two, and several times I found myself halting at their foot, the corners of a frame digging into my arms, waiting fo
r David to come down or to indicate that I should come up, and in the moment’s hesitation before one of us hurried forward every question hung.

  The water was coming. In the little bathroom, along with the sliver of soap and a disposable razor, was a tired-out little towel. The photograph Alice had sent me—the huge painting, the rich, powerful man—suggested a greater enterprise than this. I picked up the towel and laid it in front of the door, but it did nothing. In the galley kitchen behind the wooden desk there was a tea towel and half a kitchen roll. I put them down and found myself laughing breathlessly. Beyond the window, the glaucous waters were frothing and gobbling. A stream was flowing in under the door and making for the Turkish rug. Then the last of the paintings was upstairs, David came down, and we rolled the rug up together and put it on the desk, and there was nothing more to be done.

  “They said it would end. They said there would be some slight flooding, a little flooding…”

  “But it won’t come up the stairs. You’re just going to have some water damage down here.” To my own ears, I did not sound convinced. “You don’t have any sandbags, do you?”

  “No. No, I don’t have sandbags.” The rain had got up, was slapping at the window. David stood there frozen, as though seized by indecision. When he turned again it was to look at me properly.

  “Will you risk going back?”

  “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me. The desk isn’t going to fit up the stairs, is it?”

  “No.”

  “I’m staying,” he said. “Do what you want. You always did.”

  And with that he turned and sloshed away through the floodwater, and for a second I suddenly thought he would elude me, throw open the door and be carried off on the current, but then I heard his footsteps on the stairs, achingly slow, and then the sound of him settling in a chair. After a moment, I followed him up.

  Since he had taken the chair, the only space remaining was the camp bed, so I perched on it, feet flat on the floor, our knees a foot apart. David was wearing trainers, and he took them off and stripped and wrung out his socks and laid them on the edge of the table.

  “I don’t have any candles or anything.”

  I had the light on my phone, but the battery was low and it occurred to me that it was actually possible that we would need to call for help. I could hear the water everywhere and once or twice the building seemed to move ever so slightly. Beyond the window, I thought I saw a tree, a whole tree, uprooted and afloat, sail past with a Smart car in its branches.

  “So.”

  But I did not know how to begin.

  “Will the paintings be safe now?”

  “Well, if they aren’t, then neither are we.” But he seemed anxious and his eyes slid to the one he’d kept with him, an indistinct pencil drawing in a small, wooden frame. David took it up and held it in his knees as though the floods were already lapping at it.

  “Why have you come, Andy?”

  “The apocalypse was always my thing, remember?”

  “It was, wasn’t it? Really, what are you doing here? If you don’t tell me I’m going to have a panic attack. Things are not going well. You’ve come at the worst—”

  “You can’t hazard a guess?”

  I felt him peering at me.

  “Divorce? Your therapist sent you. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  And this time, when I answered him my voice didn’t come out as I intended it to at all. Not strong or accusing, but small, almost pleading.

  “I’m looking for Peter.”

  * * *

  I told David about the wedding, and Patricia’s phone calls, how I had visited Rob and Alice, about the clipping from the newspaper.

  “Ah yes, Mr. Domnikov. He never actually paid for that painting, you know. I really thought I had him on the hook. Michele’s convinced I’ve lost my touch.”

  “At the wedding Peter said he’d seen you. Did you see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?

  “In Rome. At the art fair. I saw him from the corner of my eye. I thought, that man looks a bit like Peter. Then he was gone. It was busy. It’s one of the times you can make real money. Russians, Arabs, the super rich. For them, a few hundred grand on a painting is nothing. Lots of business gets done at these things. Not just art.” David ran a hand through his hair.

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Briefly. Later on.” He stood up for a moment and looked out the window. “Andy, I don’t have him here. He’s not hiding in the attic or under the bed. You should probably go, you know, if you can.” He stopped. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “What happened?”

  “He came to my hotel. We had a drink, a few drinks. Reminisced over old times.”

  “I’d like to hear about those old times.”

  “Would you, Andy? Would you indeed?”

  “Do you know where he’s gone? Why he’s gone? Did he seem troubled?”

  “We all have our troubles, Andy. Perhaps I was too busy thinking of my own to notice. Besides, he was always troubled. It was only because everyone was looking at you that it wasn’t so noticeable, when you look back.”

  “Do you look back often?”

  “I’m allergic to the past. To the past and to kiwi fruit, oddly enough. What about you?”

  “Of late.”

  “Any thoughts you’d like to share?”

  So I told him everything I’d discovered since Peter’s disappearance. I expected him to laugh at me. But when I finished, when I had recounted what Alice had said, and my theory that there were two sets of diamonds, that we could have found the real ones, Mortimer’s diamonds, David said nothing for a while. I watched him very carefully, but he showed no signs of guilt or discovery. When he finally spoke, he sounded older and sadder.

  “Imagine that,” he said. “Imagine that, holding the real thing in your hands, Andy, and not knowing it for what it was.”

  * * *

  I went downstairs. The water was to my knees. In the streets it would be to my waist. In the falling dark, all the colors were bleaching. I heard David come down, and suddenly I knew I was playing an old game, threatening to do something dangerous in the hope that someone would stop me.

  “Stay. I’m happy to see you. I am. It’s just the timing.” He laughed suddenly, without mirth. “It’s always the same.”

  So I went back up and we resumed our positions.

  “Why are you holding that picture like that?”

  David looked down at the drawing. “When you were hammering on the door, you know, I thought it was the police. Michele’s having a few problems. I work for him. There’s no Vittorio. It’s just a name with the right sound. Anyway, he’s finally sold the wrong picture to the wrong person. It’s all over for him in this business, for me too by extension. In this country. Anywhere, above a certain level.”

  “Fakes?”

  “It’s not binary, Andy. When something is five hundred or so years old … back then, each painter had whole studios of apprentices and everyone copying one another. Authenticity is on a scale.” He screwed up his face, like the false notes in his voice were hurting his ears.

  “And this picture?”

  “Mine. I sold all the others I had to get it. It’s just a little sketch. I’ve always thought it’s by Montocci. There’s a painting he did in the chapel of San Clemente. It’s of the war in heaven. I’m sure this is a study for one of the figures. It’s always been my favorite. I was certain I could get it authenticated. But not now. I doubt it’s worth a bean now. You can go see it, the original, it’s not far from here. Well, you probably can’t right now.”

  The house was making strange noises, creaking noises, like it was being squeezed in a fist.

  “I hope you have it insured.”

  David put his head in his hands and groaned. “Can we talk about something else?”

  At that moment, I very much wanted to ask David if he
’d ever loved me. Because it was suddenly clear to me that I had once loved David. The way he moved, everything that belonged to him. It had been many years since I had seen him, and I was not the same person. Still, his voice moved me, stirred in me the restless girl I’d once been. I was unable to stop myself remembering certain things.

  “Was it you who called the telephone box? After you disappeared that summer, I used to wait outside. Someone called it, kept calling it, but they never said anything.”

  “No. It wasn’t me. It seemed for the best, Andy. I thought I could walk away from it and always have it, that summer at the manor, like a jewel in my pocket. And it solved certain problems in the end.” David had taken his glasses off. “What was I going to do about you? What were we going to do? Move in with one another, play happy families. Get a Barratt home. We were teenagers. It wouldn’t have lasted and then it would have been ruined. If we’d been a bit older, a bit wiser … I was out of my depth and I didn’t like it. Being on remand was awful, Andy. Being locked up. I still dream about it. The sounds, the smells, the taste of the food. When I got out, I was determined to play by the rules. To keep my head down, to secure some kind of future for myself, money, position, all that. I equated it with freedom, what Rob and Alice and their friends had, but in the end it wasn’t.”

  “Was it Peter who called the police?”

  “He denied it, but it had to be one of you. The police knew exactly who I was. They even knew where Badger’s credit cards were. That weekend we were all at the manor again, the weekend Em died, I asked him. I was pretty harsh with him but he said no. I thought he was lying. I thought about it a lot at the time, after I was arrested. Wondering if it’d been him, or Marcus, Em even. Or you. I was never sure it was about me, you know, what happened between us. That it wasn’t somehow all about you and Peter. But in the end he was the most likely candidate.”

  “Because he was jealous. Because of what we were doing.”