by Ann
‘The trouble is,’ said Laura, ‘walking in Venice becomes compulsive once you start. Just over the next bridge, you say, and then the next one beckons. I’m sure there are no restaurants down here, we’re almost at those public gardens where they hold the Biennale. Let’s turn back. I know there’s a restaurant somewhere near the church of San Zaccaria, there’s a little alleyway leading to it.’
‘Tell you what,’ said John, ‘if we go down here by the Arsenal, and cross that bridge at the end and head left, we’ll come upon San Zaccaria from the other side. We did it the other morning.’
‘Yes, but it was daylight then. We may lose our way, it’s not very well lit.’
‘Don’t fuss. I have an instinct for these things.’
They turned down the Fondamenta dell’ Arsenale and crossed the little bridge short of the Arsenal itself, and so on past the church of San Martino. There were two canals ahead, one bearing right, the other left, with narrow streets beside them. John hesitated. Which one was it they had walked beside the day before?
‘You see,’ protested Laura, ‘we shall be lost, just as I said.’
‘Nonsense,’ replied John firmly. ‘It’s the left-hand one, I remember the little bridge.’
The canal was narrow, the houses on either side seemed to close in upon it, and in the daytime, with the sun’s reflection on the water and the windows of the houses open, bedding upon the balconies, a canary singing in a cage, there had been an impression of warmth, of secluded shelter. Now, ill-lit, almost in darkness, the windows of the houses shuttered, the water dank, the scene appeared altogether different, neglected, poor, and the long narrow boats moored to the slippery steps of cellar entrances looked like coffins.
‘I swear I don’t remember this bridge,’ said Laura, pausing, and holding on to the rail, ‘and I don’t like the look of that alleyway beyond.’
‘There’s a lamp halfway up,’ John told her. ‘I know exactly where we are, not far from the Greek quarter.’
They crossed the bridge, and were about to plunge into the alleyway when they heard the cry. It came, surely, from one of the houses on the opposite side, but which one it was impossible to say. With the shutters closed each one of them seemed dead. They turned, and stared in the direction from which the sound had come.
‘What was it?’ whispered Laura.
‘Some drunk or other,’ said John briefly. ‘Come on.’
Less like a drunk than someone being strangled, and the choking cry suppressed as the grip held firm.
‘We ought to call the police,’ said Laura.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said John. Where did she think she was – Piccadilly?
‘Well, I’m off, it’s sinister,’ she replied, and began to hurry away up the twisting alleyway. John hesitated, his eye caught by a small figure which suddenly crept from a cellar entrance below one of the opposite houses, and then jumped into a narrow boat below. It was a child, a little girl – she couldn’t have been more than five or six – wearing a short coat over her minute skirt, a pixie hood covering her head. There were four boats moored, line upon line, and she proceeded to jump from one to the other with surprising agility, intent, it would seem, upon escape. Once her foot slipped and he caught his breath, for she was within a few feet of the water, losing balance; then she recovered, and hopped on to the furthest boat. Bending, she tugged at the rope, which had the effect of swinging the boat’s after-end across the canal, almost touching the opposite side and another cellar entrance, about thirty feet from the spot where John stood watching her. Then the child jumped again, landing upon the cellar steps, and vanished into the house, the boat swinging back into midcanal behind her. The whole episode could not have taken more than four minutes. Then he heard the quick patter of feet. Laura had returned. She had seen none of it, for which he felt unspeakably thankful. The sight of a child, a little girl, in what must have been near danger, her fear that the scene he had just witnessed was in some way a sequel to the alarming cry, might have had a disastrous effect on her overwrought nerves.
‘What are you doing?’ she called. ‘I daren’t go on without you. The wretched alley branches in two directions.’
‘Sorry,’ he told her. ‘I’m coming.’
He took her arm and they walked briskly along the alley, John with an apparent confidence he did not possess.
‘There were no more cries, were there?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said, ‘no, nothing. I tell you, it was some drunk.’
The alley led to a deserted campo behind a church, not a church he knew, and he led the way across, along another street and over a further bridge.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I think we take this right-hand turning. It will lead us into the Greek quarter – the church of San Georgio is somewhere over there.’
She did not answer. She was beginning to lose faith. The place was like a maze. They might circle round and round forever, and then find themselves back again, near the bridge where they had heard the cry. Doggedly he led her on, and then surprisingly, with relief, he saw people walking in the lighted street ahead, there was a spire of a church, the surroundings became familiar.
‘There, I told you,’ he said. ‘That’s San Zaccaria, we’ve found it all right. Your restaurant can’t be far away.’
And anyway, there would be other restaurants, somewhere to eat, at least here was the cheering glitter of lights, of movement, canals beside which people walked, the atmosphere of tourism. The letters ‘Ristorante’, in blue lights, shone like a beacon down a left-hand alley.
‘Is this your place?’ he asked.
‘God knows,’ she said. ‘Who cares? Let’s feed there anyway.’
And so into the sudden blast of heated air and hum of voices, the smell of pasta, wine, waiters, jostling customers, laughter. ‘For two? This way, please.’ Why, he thought, was one’s British nationality always so obvious? A cramped little table and an enormous menu scribbled in an indecipherable mauve biro, with the waiter hovering, expecting the order forthwith.
‘Two very large camparis, with soda,’ John said. ‘Then we’ll study the menu.’
He was not going to be rushed. He handed the bill of fare to Laura and looked about him. Mostly Italians – that meant the food would be good. Then he saw them. At the opposite side of the room. The twin sisters. They must have come into the restaurant hard upon Laura’s and his own arrival, for they were only now sitting down, shedding their coats, the waiter hovering beside the table. John was seized with the irrational thought that this was no coincidence. The sisters had noticed them both, in the street outside and had followed them in. Why, in the name of hell, should they have picked on this particular spot, in the whole of Venice, unless…unless Laura herself, at Torcello, had suggested a further encounter, or the sister had suggested it to her? A small restaurant near the church of San Zaccaria, we go there sometimes for dinner. It was Laura, before the walk, who had mentioned San Zaccaria…
She was still intent upon the menu, she had not seen the sisters, but any moment now she would have chosen what she wanted to eat, and then she would raise her head and look across the room. If only the drinks would come. If only the waiter would bring the drinks, it would give Laura something to do.
‘You know, I was thinking,’ he said quickly, ‘we really ought to go to the garage tomorrow and get the car, and do that drive to Padua. We could lunch in Padua, see the cathedral and touch St. Antony’s tomb and look at the Giotto frescoes, and come back by way of those various villas along the Brenta that the guidebook cracks up.’
It was no use, though. She was looking up, across the restaurant, and she gave a little gasp of surprise. It was genuine. He could swear it was genuine.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘how extraordinary! How really amazing!’
‘What?’ he said sharply.
‘Why, there they are. My wonderful old twins. They’ve seen us, what’s more. They’re staring this way.’ She waved her hand, radiant, delighted
. The sister she had spoken to at Torcello bowed and smiled. False old bitch, he thought. I know they followed us.
‘Oh, darling, I must go and speak to them,’ she said impulsively, ‘just to tell them how happy I’ve been all day, thanks to them.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ he said. ‘Look, here are the drinks. And we haven’t ordered yet. Surely you can wait until later, until we’ve eaten?’
‘I won’t be a moment,’ she said, ‘and anyway I want scampi, nothing first. I told you I wasn’t hungry.’
She got up, and, brushing past the waiter with the drinks, crossed the room. She might have been greeting the loved friends of years. He watched her bend over the table and shake them both by the hand, and because there was a vacant chair at their table she drew it up and sat down, talking, smiling. Nor did the sisters seem surprised, at least not the one she knew, who nodded and talked back, while the blind sister remained impassive.
‘All right,’ thought John savagely, ‘then I will get sloshed,’ and he proceeded to down his campari and soda and order another, while he pointed out something quite negligible on the menu as his own choice, but remembered scampi for Laura. ‘And a bottle of Soave,’ he added, ‘with ice.’
The evening was ruined anyway. What was to have been an intimate, happy occasion would now be heavy-laden with spiritualistic visions, poor little dead Christine sharing the table with them, which was so damned stupid when in earthly life she would have been tucked up hours ago in bed. The bitter taste of the campari suited his mood of sudden self-pity, and all the while he watched the group at the table in the opposite corner, Laura apparently listening while the more active sister held forth and the blind one sat silent, her formidable sightless eyes turned in his direction.
‘She’s phoney,’ he thought, ‘she’s not blind at all. They’re both of them frauds, and they could be males in drag after all, just as we pretended at Torcello, and they’re after Laura.’
He began on his second campari and soda. The two drinks, taken on an empty stomach, had an instant effect. Vision became blurred. And still Laura went on sitting at the other table, putting in a question now and again, while the active sister talked. The waiter appeared with the scampi, and a companion beside him to serve John’s own order, which was totally unrecognisable, heaped with a livid sauce.
‘The signora does not come?’ enquired the first waiter, and John shook his head grimly, pointing an unsteady finger across the room.
‘Tell the signora,’ he said carefully, ‘her scampi will get cold.’
He stared down at the offering placed before him, and prodded it delicately with a fork. The pallid sauce dissolved, revealing two enormous slices, rounds, of what appeared to be boiled pork, bedecked with garlic. He forked a portion to his mouth and chewed, and yes, it was pork, steamy, rich, the spicy sauce having turned it curiously sweet. He laid down his fork, pushing the plate away, and became aware of Laura, returning across the room and sitting beside him. She did not say anything, which was just as well, he thought, because he was too near nausea to answer. It wasn’t just the drink, but reaction from the whole nightmare day. She began to eat her scampi, still not uttering. She did not seem to notice he was not eating. The waiter, hovering at his elbow, anxious, seemed aware that John’s choice was somehow an error, and discreetly removed the plate. ‘Bring me a green salad,’ murmured John, and even then Laura did not register surprise, or, as she might have done in more normal circumstances, accuse him of having had too much to drink. Finally, when she had finished her scampi and was sipping her wine, which John had waved away, to nibble at his salad in small mouthfuls like a sick rabbit, she began to speak.
‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I know you won’t believe it, and it’s rather frightening in a way, but after they left the restaurant in Torcello the sisters went to the cathedral, as we did, although we didn’t see them in that crowd, and the blind one had another vision. She said Christine was trying to tell her something about us, that we should be in danger if we stayed in Venice. Christine wanted us to go away as soon as possible.’
So that’s it, he thought. They think they can run our lives for us. This is to be our problem from henceforth. Do we eat? Do we get up? Do we go to bed? We must get in touch with the twin sisters. They will direct us.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Why don’t you say something?’
‘Because,’ he answered, ‘you are perfectly right, I don’t believe it. Quite frankly, I judge your old sisters as being a couple of freaks, if nothing else. They’re obviously unbalanced, and I’m sorry if this hurts you, but the fact is they’ve found a sucker in you.’
‘You’re being unfair,’ said Laura. ‘They are genuine, I know it. I just know it. They were completely sincere in what they said.’
‘All right. Granted. They’re sincere. But that doesn’t make them well-balanced. Honestly, darling, you meet that old girl for ten minutes in a loo, she tells you she sees Christine sitting beside us – well, anyone with a gift for telepathy could read your unconscious mind in an instant – and then, pleased with her success, as any old psychic expert would be, she flings a further mood of ecstasy and wants to boot us out of Venice. Well, I’m sorry, but to hell with it.’
The room was no longer reeling. Anger had sobered him. If it would not put Laura to shame he would get up and cross to their table, and tell the old fools where they got off.
‘I knew you would take it like this,’ said Laura unhappily. ‘I told them you would. They said not to worry. As long as we left Venice tomorrow everything would come all right.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said John. He changed his mind, and poured himself a glass of wine.
‘After all,’ Laura went on, ‘we have really seen the cream of Venice. I don’t mind going on somewhere else. And if we stayed – I know it sounds silly, but I should have a nasty nagging sort of feeling inside me, and I should keep thinking of darling Christine being unhappy and trying to tell us to go.’
‘Right,’ said John with ominous calm, ‘that settles it. Go we will. I suggest we clear off to the hotel straight away and warn the reception we’re leaving in the morning. Have you had enough to eat?’
‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Laura, ‘don’t take it like that. Look, why not come over and meet them, and then they can explain about the vision to you? Perhaps you would take it seriously then. Especially as you are the one it most concerns. Christine is more worried over you than me. And the extraordinary thing is that the blind sister says you’re psychic and don’t know it. You are somehow en rapport with the unknown, and I’m not.’
‘Well, that’s final,’ said John. ‘I’m psychic, am I? Fine. My psychic intuition tells me to get out of this restaurant now, at once, and we can decide what we do about leaving Venice when we are back at the hotel.’
He signalled to the waiter for the bill and they waited for it, not speaking to each other, Laura unhappy, fiddling with her bag, while John, glancing furtively at the twins’ table, noticed that they were tucking into plates piled high with spaghetti, in very un-psychic fashion. The bill disposed of, John pushed back his chair.
‘Right. Are you ready?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to say goodbye to them first,’ said Laura, her mouth set sulkily, reminding him instantly, with a pang, of their poor lost child.
‘Just as you like,’ he replied, and walked ahead of her out of the restaurant, without a backward glance.
The soft humidity of the evening, so pleasant to walk about in earlier, had turned to rain. The strolling tourists had melted away. One or two people hurried by under umbrellas. This is what the inhabitants who live here see, he thought. This is the true life. Empty streets by night, and the dank stillness of a stagnant canal beneath shuttered houses. The rest is a bright façade put on for show, glittering by sunlight.
Laura joined him and they walked away together in silence, and emerging presently behind the ducal palace came out into the Piazza San Marco. The rain was heavy now, and they sou
ght shelter with the few remaining stragglers under the colonnades. The orchestras had packed up for the evening. The tables were bare. Chairs had been turned upside down.
The experts are right, he thought. Venice is sinking. The whole city is slowly dying. One day the tourists will travel here by boat to peer down into the waters, and they will see pillars and columns and marble far, far beneath them, slime and mud uncovering for brief moments a lost underworld of stone. Their heels made a ringing sound on the pavement and the rain splashed from the gutterings above. A fine ending to an evening that had started with brave hope, with innocence.
When they came to their hotel Laura made straight for the lift, and John turned to the desk to ask the night porter for the key. The man handed him a telegram at the same time. John stared at it a moment. Laura was already in the lift. Then he opened the envelope and read the message. It was from the headmaster of Johnnie’s preparatory school.
Johnnie under observation suspected appendicitis in city hospital here.
No cause for alarm but surgeon thought wise advise you.
Charles Hill
He read the message twice, then walked slowly towards the lift where Laura was waiting for him. He gave her the telegram. ‘This came when we were out,’ he said. ‘Not awfully good news.’ He pressed the lift button as she read the telegram. The lift stopped at the second floor, and they got out.
‘Well, this decides it, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘Here is the proof. We have to leave Venice because we’re going home. It’s Johnnie who’s in danger, not us. This is what Christine was trying to tell the twins.’
The first thing John did the following morning was to put a call through to the headmaster at the preparatory school. Then he gave notice of their departure to the reception manager, and they packed while they waited for the call. Neither of them referred to the events of the preceding day, it was not necessary. John knew the arrival of the telegram and the foreboding of danger from the sisters was coincidence, nothing more, but it was pointless to start an argument about it. Laura was convinced otherwise, but intuitively she knew it was best to keep her feelings to herself. During breakfast they discussed ways and means of getting home. It should be possible to get themselves, and the car, on to the special car train that ran from Milan through to Calais, since it was early in the season. In any event, the headmaster had said there was no urgency.
