by Iain Pears
Although perhaps a side of her misses the excitement, the need to live on her wits. She gave something up when she married me, in a way that I did not. I still have the pleasure of taking risks; she put aside a part of her character and it may have been a greater loss than either I, or she, realised. Perhaps that is why she is now disobeying me. I refused absolutely her suggestion that she help me track down where this money was going to, identify the people being paid through these strange disbursements in Newcastle. She pointed out that I could hardly use anyone from inside the company itself. I said no. Absurd idea; and so it was, for the wife of a man like myself. But not for the woman she had been, whom I thought was long since dead. She went ahead anyway, took herself off to Germany and returned to live off her wits, disguising herself as someone else, returning to a way of life I thought was gone forever.
I was so angry, so furious when she told me, that I completely lost control of myself. And, as often happened when her iron will collided with my equally strong determination, we fought. Why should she not help me? She was my wife. Did I really know anyone who could do it better? Could I think of any better way?
All of which was irrelevant. What troubled me most was the light in her eyes as she confronted me; the light of excitement, of adventure. That old side of her, the one I had always feared, the one which could not possibly be satisfied with the company of an old man. She has never given me the slightest cause to distrust her. She has had the occasional lover, I have no doubt. But she has never hurt me. They were nothing more than passing amusements, moments of distraction. This was different; it appealed to her sense of danger and her need for real excitement. She said it was for me, but it was for herself as much.
Giving way was one of the most difficult things I have ever done, and one of the best. I quelled my jealousy, subdued my fears, and let her do as she wished. I let her help me, although our life together has been built on my helping her. But it was hard; I knew, could distantly feel, the pleasure she had in acting thus because I also had once been free to do anything I wanted, without having to look forward more than a day or backwards more than an hour. And that is why I write about Venice, because by seeing how much I remember those days, I can judge better how powerfully her own past draws her now.
I was sombre and ill-humoured when I finally descended for breakfast after my bizarre night with my apparition, only to discover a great reluctance on the part of the hotel to supply me with anything to eat at all. Eventually they condescended to provide some watery coffee and stale bread, the sight of which reminded me that I had eaten nothing of substance for nearly a day and a half. That, in itself, went a long way towards explaining my bad mood and headache and also the delusional nonsense of a few hours previously. I needed a purpose and had none, so decided I might as well take care of business, registering myself with the British Consul and picking up any mail that he might be holding for me.
That at least was easy enough. Francis Longman lived in a small apartment with an office attached a few streets away from San Marco, and welcomed me in with enthusiasm. He was a short, fat man, with a squeaky voice which gave him an air of perpetual excitement. His chins wobbled dramatically every time he became agitated and, as I learned over the coming weeks, he was agitated quite frequently and on the least pretext. His abode did not embody the gravity I expected of one of Her Majesty’s diplomatic representatives, being dark and disordered and covered in books and papers. His situation seemed somewhat sad and, while I was gratified to be received with such warmth, I did find it somewhat peculiar.
“My dear sir!” he exclaimed. “Come in, come in!”
I thought initially that he must be mistaking me for someone else, but no: Longman was merely bored to tears, and had little enough to do. As he told me at some length, once I had signed the book to confirm my presence and cast myself officially under both his and the Government of Her Britannic Majesty’s care while in the city.
“Nothing to do here, you see,” he explained once I had been settled down—quite against my will—into an elaborately carved chair in his office. “It’s virtually the life of a recluse.”
I enquired about his duties. “None, to speak of,” he said. “And a salary commensurate with the responsibility. I keep a fatherly eye on British subjects here and once a quarter compile a report on economic activity for the Board of Trade. But there are few enough visitors and little enough trade.”
“A useful task,” I said drily.
“Indeed. Venice is not as interesting as it was.”
“I’ve noticed. How many people are there here? British people, that is?”
“Never more than a hundred. At the moment”—he paused to glance at his register—“I have sixty-three on the books. Most of those are merely passing through; only about twenty have been here more than a couple of months. And that’s including women and children.”
“I met a Mr. William Cort yesterday,” I ventured. “And a Mr. Macintyre, whom I found quite interesting.”
Longman chuckled. “Ah, yes. Macintyre is one of our more difficult residents. Northern bluffness, you know. He can be quite overbearing on occasion. Cort, on the other hand, is a very gentle fellow. You must meet his wife; she is in the kitchen talking with Mrs. Longman at the moment. I will introduce you before you leave.”
I didn’t really want to meet her, but nodded politely. “And Cort?”
“Mr. Cort, yes. He’s been here about four months now. From the way he talks, he’ll be around for another decade at least. He comes from a good family in Suffolk, I believe, although both his parents died when he was young, and he was brought up by his uncle. Spellman, the architect, you know?”
I shook my head. I did not know.
“He is being trained to take over his uncle’s practise, as there are no direct heirs. But I fear it is not a good idea.”
I prompted, as required.
“No business sense at all. It may be his designs are all very well, but the workmen here run rings round him. I found him crying—can you believe it?—crying, a week or so back. They bully him terribly, and he does not possess the strength of character to impose himself. Not entirely his fault, of course. He is much too young to take on such a task. But it’s ruining him, poor boy. His wife even asked Marangoni about him, she was so worried.”
“Marangoni? Is he the physician of choice among exiles?”
“Not precisely, but he is willing to lend such expertise as he has and he speaks good English. Delightful man. Delightful. You must meet him. About the only Italian whose society is tolerable. He is an alienist, sent by the Government to reorganise the asylum. He is from Milan and so is in exile, like all of us. Anyway, Mrs. Cort asked him about her husband’s state of mind.”
“And?”
Longman sighed. “Alas, no one could understand the answer. These doctors do talk in a peculiar fashion. Nonetheless, it accomplished one purpose. Marangoni is alerted, and Cort is being watched, to make sure no harm comes to him.”
“I’m surprised there are so few people in Venice. English people, I mean.”
Longman shrugged. “Not so surprising, really. It is ferociously expensive, as you will soon enough discover. And terribly unhealthy. The miasmas arising from the canals are poisonous, and sap the vitality. Few people wish to stay for long. The sensible go to Turin.”
“And you have been here…?”
“Far too long.” He smiled sadly. “I don’t suppose I shall ever leave now.”
There was a note in his voice of disappointment, of hopes frustrated, of someone who had expected more from life.
“Now, tell me about yourself, sir.” Here he hesitated. “You are English, I take it?”
“You doubt it?”
“No, no. Not at all. But every now and then some fraud and charlatan does try to hurl himself on our good offices, you know.”
I do not, I suppose, look like an Englishman. I inherited far more of my mother’s looks than my father’s and that side of my an
cestry is very much more obvious. It is another of the things that have always set me aside from my countrymen; the difference is always noticed, even if unconsciously. Others have always been slightly suspicious of me.
I had already sized up Mr. Longman as an incorrigible gossip, and had the distinct feeling that everything I told him would not only be noted, but also relayed to any interested party in due course. Such people can oil the wheels of society, but too great an interest in the doings of others, I find, is often accompanied by a degree of malice which is dangerous. So I replied in as brief a fashion as was commensurate with good manners.
“Then you are rich! Must be!” he cried.
“Far from it.”
“That depends on your point of reference. It may be that three hundred yards from Threadneedle Street you are a pauper among your fellows. But here you will be rich. Few people here have any money. Especially among the Venetians; it is why society is so drab. But one can live a rich life with little money, do you not agree?”
“Of course,” I replied.
“You should be careful, though. It is dangerous to have a reputation for wealth. You will be amazed by how many people wish to borrow money from you, or forget their wallets when you dine with them.”
“Then it would be better if they do not develop a false impression,” I replied, with a slight tone of warning in my voice. I could not tell if he took the hint.
I prepared to leave, and Longman bustled around me to show me to the door. “Mrs. Cort!” he called. “You must meet another resident before he goes. He has already met your husband and has only been here a few hours.”
I turned to present myself to the woman, and got the shock of my life when the door to the little salon opened. Louise Cort was beautiful. In her early thirties, a few years older than I was, with beautiful skin and eyes, and a delightful, rounded figure. About as different from her husband as could be imagined. She looked directly at me, and I felt a soft stirring as my eyes met hers. She never looked at Longman, barely acknowledged his existence as she shook my hand.
I bowed to her, and she nodded. I expressed my pleasure in meeting her, and she did not reply. I said I hoped to meet her again.
“And my husband,” she said with the faintest tone of mockery in her voice.
“Naturally,” I said.
CHAPTER 5
I had a dream that night, which I remembered. This was so strange that it unsettled me for days. Not that I had a dream, but that I should remember it, that it should come back to me. Indeed, it has come back to me ever since. Sometimes, for no reason that I can think of, this insubstantial fragment of memory will well up in my mind. Not very often, only perhaps once every couple of years, although more often of late. It is so very perplexing; great events that I have witnessed, taken part in—momentous events, I should say—I can scarcely recall at all. But a fevered imagining of no reality and less importance still stays with me, the images as fresh as if they were brand-new.
I was standing by an open window and could feel the wind blowing over my skin. It was dark outside, and I felt the terror of indecision. I did not know what to do. About what, I do not know; that was part of the dream. The indecision was independent of all cause. Then I heard a footfall behind me, and a soft voice. “I told you,” it said. Then I felt the pressure of a hand on my back, pushing.
And that was the dream. Nothing more. What was it about? I do not know. Why was it so vivid it stuck in my mind? There is no answer to that, either. And nothing to be done about it; dreams have no reason or explanation or meaning. The strange thing is that from then on I began to have a vague fear of heights—nothing too extreme, I did not become one of those poor souls who feel faint if they are more than a few feet off the ground, or who clutch at the railings halfway up the Eiffel Tower and become dizzy. No; I merely developed a tendency to feel uncomfortable, wary, whenever I was, say, on a balcony, or by an open window. It was a very annoying weakness which I tried not to indulge; the more so because it was so obviously foolish. But I could never shake it off and ended up by simply ensuring I was never in a position to make it appear.
The incident was all of a piece with how my life developed over the next few weeks; I became increasingly introspective. My life slowed down markedly; the urge to move on, which had afflicted me wherever I had been so far, quite left me. I still do not know why; I think it was the hypnotic effect of the sun on the water, such a constant feature of life in Venice, that slowly befuddled my mind and sapped my will. It is hard to think of normal life when it is so easy to watch the twinkling reflections of sunlight instead. Remarkably easy to spend a few seconds, then minutes, then even longer, studying without thought or conscious awareness the effect of light and shade on a wall of peeling stucco, or listen to the mixtures of sounds—people, waves, birds—that make Venice the strangest city in the world. A week went past, then two, then more, and I would only occasionally stir myself to do anything.
In retrospect, it is all very clear; I was uncertain of myself. I wished to do something grand in my life and had prepared myself well for it. But the days of apprenticeship under Cardano were at an end. He had no more to teach me, and I was now faced with a choice. I could, very easily, make more than enough money to keep me and mine in perfect comfort. It is, as I have said, not hard. But what was the point of that? Such a way of life did no more than fill out the space between cradle and grave. Agreeable and with its own little satisfactions, no doubt, but ultimately purposeless. I did not want power or wealth for themselves, and I did not in the slightest desire fame. But I wanted, on my death, to be able to expire feeling that my existence had made the world a different place. Preferably a better one, but even that, at the time, was not uppermost in my mind; I have never had any great desire to abolish poverty or save fallen women. I am, and always have been, deeply suspicious of those who do wish to do these things. They normally cause more harm than good and, in my experience, their desire for power, to control others, is very much greater than that of any businessman.
When I began to weary of my own company, I decided to take up Longman’s invitation, made as I was leaving, to join him at dinner. I did not quite grasp what sort of an occasion this would be, but in effect Longman had been offering to induct me into his particular group of English exiles, for the men all ate together almost every night. This is common in Venice, where there is really only one meal a day, eaten in the evening. Breakfast consists of little more than bread and coffee, lunch of a bowl of broth bought from a cookshop, and so, come dinnertime, the entire population is both exceptionally hungry and, often, quite ill-tempered. Usually people eat in the same place every evening, and then go on to the same café, also every evening. There is a unchanging rhythm to Venetian life which all foreigners eventually adopt, if they stay long enough. There are advantages to being a regular customer: you tend to get better food, always get served more swiftly and, most importantly, the owner will set aside a table for you so you are not disappointed and have to go away hungry.
Longman and his group ate at Paolino’s; not as grand as the establishments in the Piazza San Marco, which already earned their living mainly from visitors, as they had previously from the Austrian soldiers occupying the city. With its simple wooden chairs, cheap cutlery and roughly painted walls, Paolino’s was for the poorer bracket of the respectable ranks, and Longman’s friends were all of this type. I could dine in style, or I could dine in company; that was the choice that the city presented to me. I liked—have always liked—to eat well, but as there was no refined cooking in the city, or none that I had yet heard of, then I was prepared to compromise. Besides, there is a comradely sense among the genteelly impoverished which is often lacking among the wealthy; it was not a great sacrifice.
When I greeted the Consul, there were only two others sitting at a table prepared for six or more; periodically others drifted in as the evening wore on. There was, in fact, a group of ten or more who came there, but not every night; each evening there
was a different combination, some of whom liked each other, others who plainly did not. Cort was one of those present that night, and he greeted me warmly; a quiet, softly spoken American was the other. This man spoke with the gentle, drawling tones of the South of his country, a strange accent and quite foreign until you got used to it. It is a way of speaking well-suited to a dry and lazy-sounding humour, which Mr. Arnsley Drennan possessed in fine degree. He was rugged in appearance, and a few years older than I was, and spoke little until he was ready. When he did, he could be an entertaining conversationalist, delivering pithy observations in a voice which sounded as though he was half asleep, feigning a lack of interest in his own words that added greatly to the delivery. He was decidedly difficult to figure out; even Mr. Longman, far more adept than I was, had failed to breach his walls of discretion and discover much about him. This, of course, added an air of mystery to his person which made him all the more cultivated by others.
“And is your wife to join us later?” I asked Longman.
“Oh, good heavens, no,” he replied. “She is at home. If you look around, you will see there are no women here. You will find few in any dining place, except for those in San Marco’s. Mrs. Cort also eats at home.”
“They must find that a little tedious,” I remarked.
Longman nodded. “Perhaps. But what is to be done?”
Now I might have remarked that he could have eaten at home himself, or that perhaps the company of his wife might be preferable to that of friends, but I did not, and at the time it never occurred to me. A man must eat, and a man must have friends, or what of humanity is left in us? Longman’s dilemma I found as insoluble as he did, but nevertheless my thoughts strayed briefly to consider how much his wife must pine for company. Then they paused briefly on the thought of Cort’s wife in a similar purdah. They did not, however, then move on to considering how my own wife was faring without me.
“Where do you live, Mr. Drennan? Do you have a lonely wife tending the hearth for you?”
