Venice can be so terrifically in your face when you are dealing with it at the mass tourism end. I had thought that to truly enjoy Venice you needed money and lots of it. I had believed there were two Venices, the one akin to Lord Byron’s, albeit a modern take on that, where people moored insanely expensive private cruising craft adjacent to San Marco in the Giudecca Canal and flitted from villas to parties to galleries in private runabouts. The other Venice was where tourists trudged the same old overcrowded paths between San Marco and the railway station, stopping in shops selling trinkets made in China, getting overcharged for coffee, sandwiches and cheap wine any self-respecting quaffer wouldn’t touch at home.
Now I knew that there was a third Venice, the one where the working Venetians lived and co-existed in the quiet backstreets of Cannaregio, frequenting streets and piazze and trattorie that the tourists hardly got to, even the high-end ones. I liked this Venice very much, but I felt it was closed to me, a visitor, and fair enough too. Subjected to a swarm of tourists coming relentlessly, day in, day out, all year, every year (even the Biblical plagues had an end, but not this one), I didn’t think I’d be particularly welcoming in my peaceful little neighbourhood either. Venetians had to preserve a sense of community somehow and somewhere. It would be unbearable otherwise.
Claudio, the bespectacled gay Italian, sent me a text message. Could I make lunch? At a place called Linea d’Ombra in Dorsoduro. Si, that would be lovely. It was such a delightful day.
Reaching the edge of the Giudecca Canal, I was struck by the peace there. The air. The way life went on, boats chugged, people strolled—only without the craziness of San Marco. Two perfectly formed Palladian churches stared over from the island of Giudecca. The Chiesa dei Gesuati o Santa Maria del Rosario stared back at them. I was early so I went in and found it a wonderfully cohesive place compared to the riot some of these churches could be. It still thrilled me that you could walk in off the street somewhere in Venice and be confronted by the work of Tiepolo or Tintoretto. Just like that. I continued along towards Punta della Dogana, the triangular building at the end of the boardwalk with my favourite of Venice’s monuments, twin Atlases upholding a globe with Fortune perched atop, shining newly golden due to the property being renovated by a French art collector and fashion tycoon. Workmen were applying the finishing touches to the building, in time for Biennale. I looked at my watch. It was lunchtime.
Linea d’Ombra had bright-white thick linen tablecloths, snappy-looking waiters and a modern vibe with cleanly elegant furniture. It reeked of expensive and wonderful—unlike some of the neighbouring restaurants with the typical red and white checked tablecloth, waistcoated-waiters-type deal that lured in tourists. I spotted my gay date, Claudio, at the best table in the house, right at the water’s edge on the pontoon that floated outside the restaurant. It directly faced one of Palladio’s perfect churches, while to the left of it you could see the Grand Canal, a flotilla of billionaire boats and all about the sparkling expanse of the Giudecca Canal.
‘Ciao, bella,’ Claudio said, standing up and kissing me on both cheeks. He was wearing a cravat under a very expensive-looking white shirt. I was awfully glad I’d made an effort and had popped my Birkenstocks in my bag and changed into a pair of heels on the stoop of the church. He pulled my chair out and motioned to the waiter to pour me some wine.
I got Lord Byron’s Venice then. The effortlessness of life lived well in one of the most ravishing places in the world. The day was not too hot, the breeze was soft, the boats came and went, glasses tinkled and waiters glided about. And yes, I had a glass of wine, and this was exactly how I had hoped it would one day be: in moderation and for the pleasure of it. There was none of the manic yes–no carry on. I thought it would be nice, so I had it. And it was.
‘So, tell me, where do you live in Australia?’
‘Sydney,’ I told him. ‘My family is from Melbourne.’
‘Are you single?’
‘Ah, yes!’ I said, as if I was saying, as I would have in my seventies schoolyard, ‘derr’. ‘I live in Sydney—the gay capital? There’s a lot of single women in Sydney.’ I laughed, expecting some recognition on his part. He didn’t laugh and no recognition was forthcoming.
‘I have a friend in Melbourne,’ said Claudio. ‘He lives there with his wife. I went there and stayed with them. I want to live there. He is my best friend.’
I wondered what the wife thought of that relationship.
Claudio told me he was a sommelier, in town working on some large catering job for Biennale. He had been to Venice many times before. This was why he’d taken the trip out to San Lazzaro. It was one of the few parts of the lagoon city he’d never been to. ‘Last time I was here I was with my girlfriend. But we were close to breaking up. She did not want to do any of the little trips.’
Girlfriend. Well, sometimes these Italian men were hard to read, but not that hard. Surely. I had one of the world’s most finely tuned gaydars.
‘Do you like to do little trips in Australia? I saw the Great Barrier Reef and I went to the Gold Coast. I liked it very much. The Palazzo Versace hotel on the Gold Coast, oh, so beautiful. Have you been there?’ He continued on in this way for a while, the Barossa, the Opera House … ‘And I love Australian music. My favourite is Kylie Minogue.’
Okay. The gaydar may have its off days, but Kylie love coming from a man can only mean one thing. And not that there was anything wrong with that. I just wondered why he felt he had to make with the girlfriend thing.
‘In Australia, you are very lucky. Your taxation is very low. In Italy, we are taxed so highly. My dream is to open an enoteca in Melbourne. It would be very good. I would open it with my friend.’
The day rolled by, more talk about Australia, more talk about the friend, more excitement about the Australian taxation system. I didn’t mind. He was sweet, though he was either in denial or intent on putting on a show for whatever reasons. It was a perfect Venetian summer afternoon and I was at ease and enjoying myself. Dessert came.
‘So, Julietta,’ he said, taking my hand in his. ‘I love you. Do you love me?’
‘You … I’m sorry, what?’
‘I love you. You must check out of your hotel and come and stay at my hotel.’
Somehow I found myself playing along with this. And when he kissed me goodbye, which was one of the worst, most passionless kisses of my life, I knew for sure that he did not love me, he loved the idea of Australia and its superior tax system. And quite possibly his male friend in Melbourne.
But instead of being an adult and telling him, er, how about no for a good answer, I said okay, I will come and stay with you.
I went back to my apartment and wrote a note to Claudio explaining that I had decided to leave Venice early and thanks for the memories. I went to his hotel, handed it to the front desk as quickly as I could and skulked away.
And then I walked into the crush of San Marco’s madness. It was only ten minutes later that he began texting me relentlessly with protestations of love and imploring me to come back to his hotel and take up where we left off. And it confused me. It really did.
It had been years since a man had even looked like he wanted me that badly, had told me he loved me and had begged for my company. Even though I knew his motivation was suspect to say the very least, my last relationship had been with that man who could not use the L word.
The next day, I was halfway up the Grand Canal to the west, sitting on a pier dangling my legs. It was midday and the churches chimed their daily herald of high noon. Claudio was still texting me, begging me not to leave. From where I sat, it was like all the bells in the world were ringing. There was a chill in the air and rain clouds on the horizon. The weekend was going to be wet.
Twenty minutes later I was in a toilet cubicle by the Rialto Bridge, broken down in a way I hadn’t been since I first stopped drinking. I was a mess of snot and tears and screams I kept silent because I didn’t want to alarm all the holidaymakers in cubicles along
side me.
I had to be me now, I couldn’t be anyone else. Enough of putting someone else’s needs before mine. My needs mattered. They did. That kid who had put all that emotion in the box in the face of her parents fighting, she deserved better than this, way better than men using her as tickets to Australia. Be yourself. Just be you. I thought I heard an angel’s voice.
My head rose above the water. The emotional tide stopped still and I was compelled to wade out. Just walk. Just move. I slid my sunglasses on and pushed myself out into the crowded street. Japanese tour groups following women with umbrellas in the air, fathers with toddlers on their shoulders, teenagers giggling and jostling, Indian touts trying to lure customers into restaurants, they came at me. I saw the doorway to a church and ducked into it, San Giovanni Elemosinario. I sat in a pew, trying to catch my breath. The art was astounding. Titian had painted the portrait of Saint John the Merciful above the altar. The image was of the saint handing alms to the poor. These spaces, these people, they had come to mean sweet solace to me. I asked for my alms. A sign, maybe. Something. Some help.
I left the church, and trying to make my way back to my apartment I got lost. In the state of me, that lost was like being in the depths of the Amazon. The Venetian landscape wrapped around me tight. I gave up on my map, moreover my ability to read it. But I had the thought: if I could keep getting glimpses of the Grand Canal on the left, then I would know I was on track.
The Grand Canal would disappear. And those lanes and bridges would double back on themselves without me realising they had. The Grand Canal would reappear on the right.
Just when it seemed the labyrinth was endless and I would wander bewildered and dazed forever, I unexpectedly came out onto the Grand Canal at the San Tomà vaporetto stop. It looked directly onto Lord Byron’s Palazzo Mocenigo. Completely without design, there I was opposite his balcony. The sun came out and sent the water into sparkles. Such was my beacon, my way forward on this journey, popping up right when I needed him.
Be yourself. Just be you. Lord Byron had never been anything but. It was time I tried me on for size.
I texted Claudio and told him to stop contact. Enough was enough. And he did. But you know what? I was sad. I missed his flowery Italian entreaties. I didn’t miss him, though.
On my last full day in Venice I decided I would go to a cute little neighbourhood campo which I had passed through a couple of times and loved. Go for a bit of breakfast as my outing of the day, before attending to some business and packing, as I was leaving Venice the next morning. I couldn’t remember the name of the campo but figured I’d walked through it three times, I could find it.
I set off thinking that I had finally fallen in love with Venice, on a deeper level than only for her beauty. I loved how you could overhear the local dialect, the people saying ‘che, che’ in place of ‘si, si ’. I’d grown to love the loud blasts of the horn as the water buses approached the Ponte delle Guglie and manoeuvred the sharp dogleg underneath it with what looked like the waterborne equivalent of slamming on the handbrake and letting the rear-wheel skid do all the work. And with absolutely no view of what was coming the other way, I loved how extraordinary it was that they didn’t have collisions on a daily basis. I loved that whole movie-set thing Venice had; step behind the tourism scenery and there was another, totally different life going on. And I loved the blue the sky went at night for the hour or two after the sun had disappeared.
I thought I could maybe live there for a while. If I gave it time, I could crack this nut. Maybe I would come back and do that.
And then I got lost. Again. An infuriating, exhausting, hungry lost. Set out in Venice without knowing exactly where you are going? And without breakfast in your stomach? Big mistake. Venice picked me up and slapped me one last time. She was like all the men I had ever loved, like Lord Byron himself: radiant, powerful, alluring, aloof, inconsistent, selfish and absolutely non-committal. No good could come from trying to love her in the conventional way one loved a city, through familiarity, intimacy, and how it made you feel about yourself. If you chose to love her, you had to do so on her terms. Yes, a lot like those men I’d loved. Maybe that was what I had gone there to learn. If I was ever to have fulfilling love, I had to see where it was not possible. It was not possible in trying to love a city like Venice and have it love me back.
I ended up back in the neighbourhood where I had my coffee every day. On my second caffè lungo, a man slid up from his spot two tables away. We chit-chatted enough to ascertain that he was Carlo and I was Julietta and that neither of us spoke the language of the other. Then he asked me for sex. We may have had no language skills in common but some messages transcended. As did his ‘But I am such a fine specimen of a man, how could you say no?’ reaction to me knocking him back, which I am of course paraphrasing because it was in Italian. But like the language of amore, the language of prideful indignation also transcended.
This was not how it was supposed to be. Where was Gregory Peck on a Vespa, picking me up Roman Holiday style? Had Saint Anthony, to whom I’d sent a very clear message of my romantic desires, muddled my order at the mystic checkout? Or was it me who’d muddled it? Was I destined to be single after all? Did this all come back to that: accepting my life, a lonesome traveller whose advantages were many, just different to the things I’d once expected they’d be?
I paid up, said ‘Ciao’ to the luckless Lothario and went for a final Venetian walk to a fragrance shop that I had found days earlier behind Lord Byron’s palazzo. I wanted to buy a thank-you gift for Nina, whom I would be seeing in Verona the next day. She had organised an apartment for me, and was picking me up at the railway station to take me to it. I’d decided on a week in Verona. Lord Byron had not spent any real length of time there, but it was still the Veneto. I felt my time in Venice was done and so many people I had spoken to thought highly of Verona.
Plus my name is Julietta. Though I groaned each of the many times someone made a Romeo joke upon hearing that, I had this thought that maybe he was there. I was torn between knowing that I should stop looking and needing to remain hopeful and open. Verona was calling me.
13
Verona
She then surveys, condemns but pities still
Her dearest friends for being dressed so ill.
One has false curls, another too much paint,
A third—where did she buy that frightful turban?
A fourth so pale she fears she’s going to faint,
A fifth’s look’s vulgar, dowdyish and suburban …
Beppo
Lord Byron may have had the face of an Adonis and the charisma of well, Lord Byron, but his physical insecurities could debilitate his emotional growth like a teenager addicted to diet pills.
His foot, of course, was the main cause, and the thin calf attached to it. In his early years they were a source of physical torture, as doctors attempted to train them into normalcy with all manner of painful and useless contraptions. There’s nothing quite like enduring prodding and poking and insensitive medical prattle to instil in a young person a sense of being subnormal.
One of the real triumphs of Lord Byron’s story is how, though he could not run, jump or kick a ball, he found physical activities in which to excel: swimming, especially. He was so competitive, both as a result of and despite his disability.
Though not well off, his mother spent disproportionately on expensive cloth and top tailors for fine trousers to cover up and distract from his unusual leg, beginning Lord Byron’s lifelong penchant for finery. In Venice, his look would become its most dandified, though dangerously, sexily so, with gold chains and open puffy shirts, long hair and boots. (Where would Jim Morrison and Michael Hutchence have been were it not for that role model?)
Without the foot and its associated insecurities, without the foppish costumes, without the brooding sense of being damaged, Lord Byron would not have become the figure he was.
The sum of Lord Byron’s myriad aspects was and is
the legend. Without the ego and vanity born of compensation there would be no Byron. Was it the healthiest life? No. Would he have created even more glorious work had he lived long enough to undo all that damage? Maybe. But that question is futile. His life was what it was, meaningful.
A person who brandishes their neuroses as their means of expression may not find the completion of someone who sheds theirs. But we who attempt the shedding need the brandishers, especially the arse-out, honest ones whose stories we can access. Because of Byron’s poems and prolific letter writing, his tale stands astonishingly complete. Like Shakespeare’s flawed heroes—Hamlet, Lear, Richard—he is our shadow. Our own dark secrets. From flawed heroes we have much to learn about ourselves, if we can drop judgment and draw near.
Nina picked me up from Verona train station and drove me into the centre of town where we passed a really big wow: an enormous red medieval castle, the wonderful Castelvecchio, once a military hive, now an art gallery. We made our way down busy Via Cavour, lined with Renaissance palazzi, little bars and restaurants, a twelfth-century church undergoing restoration, and a Fitness First gym. Nina stopped her car outside a palazzo with a big wooden arch of a door. There was a petite, well-coiffed signora in neat pedal pushers and a crisp shirt waiting for us. ‘Ah, there’s the contessa,’ said Nina.
My first Italian contessa! I’d met an Italian princess in Tuscany the year before, and now a contessa! And I was renting from her! Wow. I was so impressed. And also dismayed at myself. I was dressed okay, but that morning I’d travelled across from Venice by train. I tended not to wear my finery riding the European rails. Not that I owned finery. How these Italian women—and men—made it look so easy to be chic was beyond me. In Australia I was often considered overdressed. In Italy, Verona in particular, I may as well have been in pyjamas.
Me, Myself and Lord Byron Page 13
