by Mavis Cheek
He laughed. ‘No, no – it is merely a convenient, a courtesy, title. Honorary. My own mother would be very upset. She would, as you might say, turn in her grave.’ He looked, waited, and when I said nothing and fiddled with water, glass and flowers, he asked again. ‘Was it helpful?’
‘It was,’ I said.
‘Good.’
‘It showed that the underbelly of this beautiful place is as corrupt as it ever was.’
‘And the pictures on the walls – fantasies, deceptions, enticements?’
‘No,’ I had to concede. ‘Not deceptions. Fantasies, enticements perhaps.’ The words he was using were not helping the heat in the room.
‘Mama Giovanni is worth meeting and remarkable in any sense. I always think she would have made a fine Mother Superior.’ And of course it was my turn to laugh because he was right.
‘I’m glad it amuses you. I wanted to give you something special for your book. As far as I know the house has never been mentioned in – well – acceptable guidebooks. Smollett did not even visit Venice, and although Goethe came here he says nothing of such places. He probably visited one or two along the way – he, too, came on his Italian journey when he was having a life crisis …’ He paused. We looked at each other. Pointless in denying it. ‘And I hoped that it would be a useful visit – and a kinder memory than the unfortunate experience with the lion’s mouth …’ He looked at my hand and made a little moue of sympathy.
‘But you own the place,’ I said, accusingly. ‘You live off immoral earnings. Or you did.’
‘I lease it to the old one,’ he said. And then he smiled. ‘Morality? You pursue truth and now you pursue morality. You are high-minded.’ And he looked irritatingly amused again. ‘But no – my father lived off immoral earnings, if that is what you want to call them. I have never owned it as a working business. Only as a property. I had thought it would become a wonderful home, a glorious home in fact.’ He laughed and looked at me in a bold way that was very disturbing. ‘Somewhere that would be quite as impressive as the building you so admired on our walk last night. And now I shall pay the price for that. It will take a great deal of money to restore and all of it will be from my personal purse, which I have not got. So it will languish. No more credit.’
‘So you are just the same as …’ He moved a little nearer and my voice trailed off.
‘Did I ever suggest I was anything else? But at least you have the story of it, the existence of it, for your book. And in the meantime I can look at it and dream. You have it for your book as – what is the word? – as a scoop, with my compliments.’ He bowed. I was not altogether convinced that his graciousness was without irony. However, I decided to be equally gracious. ‘That was nice of you,’ I said. ‘But Brando is something of a dilettante. I’m not sure when the book will be finished, if ever. It’s likely to be an unfinished business with him, scoop or no scoop.’
‘Ah,’ he said. And then waited.
I went on folding things and self-consciously rattling on, speeding up. ‘Yes, he’s too rich, that’s the problem, and too interested in the pleasures of research without the pain of actually writing any of it up. It can be very frustrating at times – I like to get on with things, I’m not a good one for unfinished business, not at all, I like to get going and finish the –’ Then he stood up. And I stopped talking. And packing. He walked over to me and put his crooked finger under my chin and stared right into my eyes and said, ‘We have some unfinished business, do we?’
How long can a moment be? A picosecond? An eternity? Both. Enough time, certainly, for me to think that this was probably, marriage or no marriage, the most perfectly romantic moment in my life – a sweetly hot bedroom, scented by lilies of the valley, in Venice, overlooking the canal, about to be made love to by a tall, dark attractive near-stranger. The sine qua non of seduction, I discovered, is that it is most seductive when enacted by one who is experienced in the art of it, and when the one being seduced is aware – exactly – of the possibilities of the situation while being in a safe pair of hands. One of us needed to have a safe pair of hands and mine were all over the place or, rather, coyly and chastely still. The Italian was serious in his pursuit, as I had no doubt he was in all his pursuits, of which there would have been many. And what, exactly, was wrong with that? What is it about the value of chance in love and sex rather than planning, I thought (feeling it was all unreal anyway, some sort of a dream maybe) that overrides something planned as a better way to success? There was no tiptoeing around this eternal picosecond and I did not move away. I did not want to move away. The flowers, the scent of him – not – thank the stars – aftershave but a faint smell of heat and skin. Robert wasn’t here and he wasn’t even on the end of a telephone. I’d been abandoned by him. Forlorn. Here was someone who – well – here was someone. That was it and that was everything. No aftershave, I thought, how clever, as we both seated ourselves, very slowly, on the end of the bed and faced each other.
‘It is warm. For April.’ He undid another button of his shirt. He moved closer. I agreed it was warm. Our thighs were now touching. They were also warm. I looked across at the open window and the sky beyond. Blue, clear, with the waters of the Giudecca rippling and twinkling below. He kissed my neck. The blue sky was oddly full of stars or little explosions and I thought I might hiccough. Certainly I felt dizzy for a moment and I recognised the sensation of thrill. Of non-married thrill. It’s so nice, I thought dreamily, it’s nice. Then the fingers of my hand seemed to be attached to his shirt and undoing yet another button, almost of its own volition, and one of us made a little noise. Me probably. He was far too assured to make indelicate noises, whereas everything inside my body seemed to be moving around and demanding attention, none of which it was getting and all of which it anticipated with rare eagerness.
His fingers were now stroking the top of my arm under the T-shirt sleeve. My bones were no longer rigid matter but made of water and, almost idly, I wondered if I’d ever asked Robert to do the same, stroke me like this, and then with a sharp little pinch of my heart I dismissed him and instead I smiled up at this stranger. Seduction is also about surprise. Oh dear, I thought, smiling and smiling still, I had – even more surprises – undone all the stranger’s shirt buttons now and for the first time since my marriage I ran my fingertips over another man’s naked skin with sex in mind. It felt different, new and responsive – just as my skin was responding to his touch. Someone else’s skin, masculine, I thought, has a deeply seductive feel to it.
It was all taking place like some perfect motion – but I wondered what would happen when this stopped, as it must, and all the other stuff started – the practical stuff – the socks, the shoes on him, the skirt, the bra, the T-shirt on me – how to keep this beautiful rhythm and get undressed. I moved away wanting to begin. He was smiling, eyes very close to mine, lips near – my lips near to his, also smiling. He lifted my hand to his mouth, kissed the knuckles, stroked the bruised part with his thumb. I was most wonderfully compliant – quite resigned to the whole thing – lost in it all.’ ‘You are quite sure?’ he said quietly. ‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘quite, quite sure.’ Those bits of me that should have behaved with the propriety of a married woman, did quite the opposite. Those bits of me that should have remained chaste and thrown him out for his perfidy, did not. ‘Quite, quite sure was the abosolute truth.’ With what I was thinking, I belonged in his whorehouse, a thought that made me all the more aroused. How could it not in this lily-scented, heat-ridden paradise of romantic sensuality? All considerations had gone. This was living in the moment. This was what happened when your husband let you down. Funny how – even at the point of no return – you make a justification for what you are about to do.
I lay back on the bed, quite, quite sure. And he lay beside me, turned towards me, and put his hand to my face. I touched his hand with mine. I could no longer convince myself of his jowls or anything else undesirable. Right then he was entirely and supremely It. ‘Your poor brui
sed finger,’ he said. I felt utterly sorry for myself and for my poor little bruised finger. Robert was a brute, Robert had not understood anything – why, even now Robert was probably in a high-class Florida brothel without thinking about me at all, or at a bar somewhere with his hand on a plastic blonde’s … I looked down at the other hand belonging to this stranger, which was stroking just above my knee. Yes, I thought, that’s probably what Robert is doing, too. Oh, to have left me alone, to have left me alone. And here was someone who really wanted to be with me. And really, really wanted me. ‘I feel very cherished,’ I said.
‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘Very good.’
It was as if I were a child again and being praised for doing something right. I felt even more cared for, even more vulnerable, even more trusting. She who normally cares for others is being cared for herself. Very seductive. Sex is whatever we want it to be and I wanted it to be a yielding thing, without any responsibility on my part. Probably because that way it wasn’t my fault, any of it. I was the passive receiver and therefore I was not answerable. He took my hand and began to kiss the fingers one by one: poor me, poor me. I opened my eyes and looked into his which were beguiling, intent, and so I smiled a reply. A smile of invitation, a smile of aquiescence, impatience even. I had no conscience, only pity for myself. He released my hand and I moved a little closer to him. The heat of the room made our bodies slither as they touched. Casanova, Volpone, who cared? It was perfect for Italy, perfect for Venice on this most perfect of afternoons. Who made Love in the Afternoon? I wondered idly. Eric Rohmer. Why shouldn’t I have this beautiful time, this siesta heat? Ovid praised those afternoons when Corinna came creeping into his bed in the shaded sultriness – May my siestas often turn out that way, he says. I looked up, thinking, And mine.
I touched his bare chest with the palm of my hand, feeling quite bold. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over my neck and shoulder. So far, I thought, he’s not at all bad for his age; in fact, he was quite good for it – slightly tanned, slightly hairy, very different. I wondered what he would think of me. Was I good for my age, too? Did it matter? And then, as I watched my hand moving so easily across his body, the sun glinted on the dented gold of my wedding ring like a little shaft of fire and I thought, Ovid would have removed it before we began. Ovid always took the right steps to ensure satisfaction … Ovid, at least in his poetry, judged seduction and the preambles to lovemaking perfectly. There would be no wedding ring as reminder if Ovid were here to seduce me.
I tried to keep them closed but my eyes snapped open. There was the old gold ring again, dented, accusing. I felt cheated but all I could do was sit bolt upright and say, ‘I can’t do this.’ He opened his eyes wide, looked at me startled, said, ‘Of course you can, cara, of course you can – it hurts no one.’ But when he took my hand and tried to kiss it again, I did the only thing a woman can do under those circumstances – I began to cry. Poor me, indeed. He made all the right noises, made all the right moves, and I should have succumbed. I wanted to succumb, very much. But at the point of being touched again, with that little old ring glinting, I did the only other thing a woman can do under those circumstances – I apologised and moved away. A good seducer knows when it is final. I was still weeping and apologising as he dressed and left. He assured me that I must not be upset, mopped my eyes with a pure white handkerchief, and departed – I suspect in some relief. When the door closed I positively howled. The child had lost its toy.
Out onto the balcony I tottered and watched him walk away, striding away really, along the Zattere, and I cried all the more. Then my phone rang and for the first time ever I thought, Please don’t let it be Robert. It wasn’t. It was Brando. Who thought he might accompany me to the airport as he would enjoy the journey back and forth across the lagoon. He was bored, clearly. ‘You sound – odd?’ he said.
I looked at the now diminutive figure with its jacket slung over its shoulder, the blue shirt bright in the afternoon sun, a hand casually in its pocket, going away, far away, and the tears continued. ‘Just got something in my eye,’ I said. Which was more or less true.
So. Truth? What is truth? said Jesting Pilate. And would not stay for an answer … In the end you must face the mirror. That was it, and that was all. I snapped the suitcase shut. That’s how it is. Do your best, I thought, as I set off down the stairs. Do your best as I waited at the vaporetto stop. I arrived at the other side and walked to where the water taxis waited. Brando was there, looking extraordinary in a pink-candy-striped jacket and sky-blue trousers and the sight of him cheered me up. Dear, familiar Brando. I was comforted. Do your best, I thought, as I watched Brando handle my case onto the deck. Mother’s favourite maxim. Just do your best. And even as I stepped onto the boat, I momentarily froze. But Brando and the conductor hauled me aboard. Mother, I had suddenly thought. Oh God. Home to London and Mother.
Mother – Tassie – Johnno – Robert’s slumped shoulders at the airport – even those innocent and ordinary and thoroughly nice people at the doctor’s surgery. Oh God, oh God … And the nun. And then there was Toni – how could I ever face Toni again? But that was what I had to do now. Face it. All of it. With the sword of truth, too, to quote a well-known politician and liar, reformed. So I settled my face towards the open lagoon. And towards the hell that would certainly be arriving home.
Fifteen
Steehopping: usually applied to women, but not always; not used in any other sense. ‘Her is always steehopping about. Better fit her would abide at home and mind her own house …’
Frederick Ellworthy’s The West Country Book, 1888
ANY FORM OF travelling alone provides a golden opportunity for thinking. Which may be why so many passengers like to get drunk. Thinking, especially over a long and enforced period of idleness, can be extremely depressing, especially when you are thinking about what a fool you are, and what a fool you will continue to be because you can’t change it. I wondered how I felt about the Italian. Did I mind that I had thrown in the towel, or was I pleased? Telling the truth to others can be hard enough, telling it to yourself takes immense courage. I had two gin and tonics in the short time it took to fly home. The pursuit of truth had certainly rekindled my propensity for alcohol. I’d consumed more in these last two days than I had in a month. I winced at where the Campari had nearly taken me. Even so, a little bug whispered in my ear that – well – where it had nearly taken me was an achievement of sorts – for an Englishwoman of certain years. I lingered over the thought for a moment, and then put it away from me. Two gin and tonics may blunt one’s intellect, but it does not cure it. I set foot back on English soil feeling like shooting myself. And I still didn’t know if I regretted not turning into Corinna.
I could do very little immediately about my husband who would not be home for another three days, nor my daughter whom I hoped would not be home for some time, indeed, not come home until her allotted time. (I could imagine in the years to come when she, cradling my first grandchild to her breast, would weep to remember how I had forced her to return from her longed-for travels with my selfishness. Better by far she never had such an opportunity.) My best friend I could do nothing about, because Toni was currently in Edinburgh and would not be home for another forty-eight hours. I’d rung Arturo, dear unsuspecting Arturo, and asked. My truthful and unkind treatment of society at large, which focused on those poor souls at the doctor’s surgery, could not be rectified either, well, not straight away. And in any case, they were racists, even if they didn’t know it. If ignorance is no excuse in matters of breaking the laws of the state, neither was it an excuse in matters of breaking the laws of Nina. Yes, racists were fine to be left. In fact, it would only open old wounds to try to do anything about them.
But there was one offended person I could do something about immediately, one offended person who was no doubt, at this very moment, as I stepped off the plane, sitting grimly on her unremarkable settee thinking dark thoughts about her only daughter and her daughter’s lapse i
nto perverse and wanton lunacy. Hence the continuing feeling that it might be beneficial to shoot myself. Though I did think that of all the various confrontations that lay ahead, the one with my mother might be the easiest to deal with. If I hadn’t thought that way I would never have found the courage. Better get it over with tonight.
Delaying tactics are extraordinary. Subconscious delaying tactics are not only extraordinary, they are believable. I got off the bus at the airport car park at what I thought was the right stop for my row and number – C 47/48 – but it was not. I had already made up my mind that once the suitcase was stowed and I was sitting inside the car, I would take out my mobile – yes, yes I would – and I would phone my mother. I would drive straight over to see her. That was the plan. I discounted the gin and tonics. By the time we had circled, landed, waited for baggage and come through customs, it was a long time ago and much water had been consumed in the meantime. So – having made this monumental decision to go straight to my mother’s house it was hardly surprising, really, that I lost the car completely. Up and down the rows I trundled, pulling the suitcase behind me in the eerie half-light, rather enjoying the justifiable delaying tactic and not minding at all when I got very strange looks from people whom I passed several times. One cheery man called out that he’d been there and got the T-shirt and that the thing to do was to keep pressing the zapper. Eventually I’d be near the car and hear it cough its locks open. Damn him. I did what he said and – all too soon – I was back in the car and back in the land of reality. With no gun handy, I made that call.
My mother was frosty – unsurprisingly – and muttered something about watching Springwatch. I said it would be over by the time I got there. At least she would be in a good mood after all that carnal activity with birds and rutting deer and whatnot. She was not in a good one currently. ‘So, dear – Venice and that homosexual was much better than Florida and Robert? Well, of course it was …’
