He laughed aloud but said nothing. They had passed beneath the wooden Academy bridge and ahead the waters broadened out as the Grand Canal ran once more into the lagoon. On the right the tower and dome of the island church of San Giorgio Maggiore took some eyes, but to the left there came into view that most breathtaking of sights, the powerful, dramatic and unforgettable image which all great cities must possess if they possess any real claim to greatness – the soaring campanile, the oriental façade of the Doge’s Palace, between them the granite columns of St Mark and St Theodore flanking the entrance to the Piazzetta San Marco, and, beyond, the domes of the great basilica itself.

  ‘Isn’t it splendid!’ cried Molly.

  Bob controlled his emotions well and returned only a grunt, but Wendy, lighting a cigarette, paused to say in her flat, hopeless voice, ‘Yes, it’s very pretty.’

  For a moment Michael felt like offering his wife-disposing services free of charge to Wilf, but the man’s own voice came next, saying, ‘Of course, it’s an open sewer all this water. Just take a sniff. Filthy sods, aren’t they? Wouldn’t do back home, I tell you. Local health snoops come round my shop, they think meat shouldn’t bloody well bleed!’

  He saw a sudden still from Chabrol’s Le Boucher – the shop, the meat, the broad-bladed knife, but the psychotic butcher had Wilf’s face.

  Their hotel bedroom was small and stuffy and over-looked a side-alley so narrow that it was doubtful if the sun ever penetrated here. The window opposite was almost touchable by an outstretched hand. Only the presence of a dimly perceived figure behind the dusty glass prevented Michael from trying the experiment as he leaned out in search of air. Below, at the corner of the alley where it joined the wider calle on which the hotel was situated, stood two figures. One was Aristide, the other Wilf. The latter pressed something into the former’s hand. Both seemed to be talking at once. They parted.

  A tip? wondered Michael. Aristide and Dunkerley were now presumably going to slip into the city’s sub-life with which the fat man was doubtless as familiar as that of Florence. He felt a quick stirring of the flesh as he recalled the whore’s long reddened nails raking his skin at the climax.

  ‘Aren’t you unpacking?’ demanded Sarah.

  ‘Yes. In a moment. There’s not much room.’

  He watched her carefully unfold her dresses and hang them in the huge wardrobe which occupied rather more space than the bed. How did they get such pieces of furniture here in the first place? he wondered. And why didn’t he want to think about Sarah? It was the holiday, of course. It was so limiting. You couldn’t have a final, irreversible separation when you were both on one passport. Curious that her feminism had never spewed out protests at that. No, holidays did not cater for the serious things of life, like divorce, disease, and death. With a bit of luck they might see a funeral gondola while they were here. Why should Wilf tip Aristide?

  The room had a washbasin but no shower or lavatory, and though the brochure had implied that the hotel was so full of bathrooms that it was making a major contribution to Venice’s slow decline into the lagoon, Michael had only noticed one, fortunately right next door to their room. He now approached the other wall and listened.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘I’m just checking whether we’re likely to get a good night’s sleep,’ said Michael.

  ‘You’re totally selfish, aren’t you, Michael?’

  He considered the question, but felt no need to offer an answer. Which, he supposed, was an answer in itself. Though of course it could be argued that the totally selfish man could not by definition be aware of his total selfishness.

  ‘Let’s see what lunch is like,’ he said. ‘I’ll unpack my stuff later.’

  ‘Oh, go on. I’ll do it, otherwise it’ll be creased to pieces. I’m not very hungry.’

  ‘I just want something light,’ said Michael.

  As he descended the stairs he thought how easy it was to preserve an armed truce if circumstances required it. Like the unofficial Christmas peace in 1914, it could continue indefinitely, barring accidents or a direct command for hostilities to be resumed. Yesterday had been rather tense, but the difficulty of being alone, the holiday atmosphere, the sense of routine, had all contributed to a postponement of the final scene which they were both rehearsing in their minds. Sarah had been a bit distant but she had not been able to disguise her interest when ripples from the police activity three hotels away had reached them. She had refused to join him in a stroll along the beach to the scene of the crime, but had listened closely (though pretending to read) to his lively account (subtly exaggerated in a Billy Wilder way) of the clash between the Guardie di Pubblica Sicurezza and the Carabinieri about investigatory rights. Something to do with high-tide mark, he guessed satirically.

  She would never forgive him, of course, but she might forget. He toyed with the idea of asking for all his other offences to be taken into consideration. The thought that she might believe that his extra-marital adventures were confined to professional tarts, purchased in drink, really offended him, but it was difficult to contrive a situation in which a general confession would not sound like either remorse or malice. Or, worst of all, imagination.

  Anyway why shouldn’t she forgive him? She was after all a liberated woman with no antediluvian moral taboos. Let her practise what she preached.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ he said and leaned against the wall. It was incredible, but he kept forgetting he was a cuckold. He too had been sinned against, he too had to decide whether to forgive or merely forget. And she did not even have the excuses of drink, Dunkerley and masculine frailty. The thought of her and that skinny French boy made him sick. He should have struck her. He couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  It was Molly managing to look concerned and antipathetic at the same time.

  ‘Yes. The bus journey and the heat. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Can I give you a hand?’

  ‘No.’

  He took a step, felt weak and gratefully grasped at Molly’s offered arm.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. Her bare skin was surprisingly cool. He let his hand slide up to her shoulder. It was slight and bony, like a boy’s.

  ‘You!’

  A hand gripped his shirt from behind and pulled him backwards.

  ‘Bob!’ protested Molly.

  ‘I’ve told you before,’ said Bob.

  ‘He’s sick.’

  ‘That’s obvious. Listen, I won’t tell you again. You practise somewhere else. All right?’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘You stupid great ape!’ exploded Molly, and turning on her heel she walked away.

  ‘Molly!’ said her husband incredulously. He went lumbering after her and Michael after a moment resumed his search for the dining-room. He felt very well now and very peckish and after lunch all Venice awaited him.

  Sarah appeared as he was finishing his coffee and contented herself with a peach. She ate a lot of peaches in Italy, perhaps because she could be certain they did not come from South Africa or Spain. Thank God Portugal was for the moment all right.

  ‘Shall we explore?’ he asked.

  ‘No. It’s too hot for me. I just want to rest for an hour. You go on, though.’

  He shrugged, not understanding how anyone could rest with all this outside the door.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ she called after him. He paused and looked back at her. Was she laughing to herself?

  Outside he followed the drift of tourists till he reached St Mark’s Square. For a long time he just stood and let the pictures scald his mind. The square was like a giraffe – absurd, impossible, and beautiful beyond computation, as if Michaelangelo, Christopher Wren, Walt Disney and God had sat in committee to build it.

  He turned slowly in a full circle, then once more, and once more. The square was crowded, but the other people were to him mere faceless extras, paid to wander aimlessly round and round.

  Then he stopped with his back to St Mark’s. To his right, strolling along in the cool shadow of the arcade of the Procuratie Vecchie, he glimpsed a figure in a bright red shirt. The square was full of garish colours; this was a place for them; there was no sense here of historical incongruity. But this single red shirt glimpsed distantly and intermittently as its wearer moved along behind the arcade’s columns caught and held his eye. He was instantly and completely convinced it was the boy from Rimini. The irrationality of this was so great that he felt it simultaneously, but with no diminution of conviction. And when he set out in pursuit, it was not to test a theory but to confront a foe. Forcing a way through the crowds was difficult. Gaps opened, then closed as he pressed towards them. Family groups in solid phalanx made him divert. A young Italian taking photographs shouted at him as he bumped into his tripod, and two Japanese girls with handfuls of bird-food set a screen of whirring pigeon wings between him and his prey. The extras were being directed by Hitchcock, he told himself. Then with a masterly timing, he was permitted through, ahead was an almost empty expanse of square and, disappearing through one of the archways of the Napoleonic wing, was the red-shirted boy.

  Michael broke into a trot, but the boy was not in sight when he reached the welcome shadow of the arcade. He hesitated a moment. The entrance to the Correr Museum was here. Could the boy have gone in there or would he have continued straight ahead through the rather gloomy passage which must lead to the streets beyond the piazza? He made a quick decision and went forward, turning left, then right. The crowds were here again and he began to feel his task was hopeless. He passed a big ugly church, the first distasteful building he had seen in Venice (he didn’t count the Piazzale Roma as part of the city) and then found himself in a relatively broad street full of antique shops and banks. Ahead just turning right was the red shirt. Or at least a red shirt. He was no longer so certain of himself, but the hunt was up and a man must follow. Another long street with not a red shirt in sight. He hurried along, glancing into shops and bars, till the street broadened out into a campo which contained the inevitable church and another building which felt familiar. When he approached nearer he realized what it was, the Teatro La Fenice where the marvellous opening scenes of Visconti’s Senso took place. This discover) almost diverted him from the chase, but when he gave what was intended as a final cursory glance around the campo the red-shirted boy was standing in the shadow of the church and looking directly towards Michael.

  ‘Hey you!’ shouted Michael.

  The boy seemed to smile, turned, and slipped out of sight through the church door. Michael had taken a couple of paces after him when he felt his arm seized.

  ‘Don’t look now,’ said a voice.

  ‘What!’

  He twisted round, dragging himself free from the grip at the same time.

  It was Dunkerley, smiling knowingly.

  ‘I was going to say, don’t look now, but your religion’s showing.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about? And what are you doing here?’

  ‘Like yourself, I suppose. Gazing on beauty. I saw you staring at the … church.’

  ‘Did you see a boy over there? Eighteen, nineteen perhaps. In a red shirt.’

  ‘There was a young man, I believe,’ said Dunkerley. ‘The city is full of youth.’

  ‘Had you seen him before? The night I met you at the bus stop in Rimini, do you recall him on a motor-scooter?’

  Dunkerley considered.

  ‘There were some youngsters on scooters, I recall. But show me an Italian city where they do not proliferate! Except here in Venice, of course.’

  He laughed, then shook his head.

  ‘No, I cannot bring to mind a particular face. You think you know this boy?’

  ‘I think it’s the same one.’

  ‘Well, it’s easy to check. My translation talents are at your disposal. He went into the church, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on then.’

  They entered the church. It was empty. Michael realized he had not expected anything else.

  ‘Gone, it seems,’ said Dunkerley. ‘Note the fine chancel, though. A design of Sansovino’s, I believe.’

  ‘Is there another way out?’ demanded Michael.

  ‘My dear fellow! They have more escape hatches than a submarine, these places. Being religious never stopped Italians trying to kill each other in church!’

  They went out again into the sun-filled campo.

  ‘Let’s have a drink,’ suggested Dunkerley. ‘I know a place, quite close. The true Venetian ambience, none of your tourist traps.’

  ‘Is the true Venetian ambience anything like the true Florentine ambience?’ enquired Michael, able now that the scent had gone cold to give his full attention to the fat man.

  ‘Not at all,’ assured Dunkerley. ‘Though that could be arranged.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Michael. ‘A glass of beer will do me.’

  Dunkerley did his Oliver Hardy act with a Punt e Mes while Michael took a long draught of his ice-cold German beer and wondered what the purpose of this socialization was.

  ‘This young man from Rimini,’ said Dunkerley. ‘A friend?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Just someone you made contact with?’

  ‘You could put it like that.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Dunkerley. ‘I see.’

  He sipped his drink and closed his eyes to savour the taste.

  ‘I think I may be able to assist you,’ he said. ‘Shall we have another drink?’

  Michael was puzzled. Assistance from a man like Dunkerley would certainly cost high. But what on earth could he offer?

  ‘I don’t think you understand,’ he began as Dunkerley summoned a waiter with a confident snap of the fingers.

  ‘I understand everything.’

  Suddenly the bearded man shook his head, just a single movement as though to dislodge an insect, but as he repeated the order to the waiter, Michael glanced over his shoulder. It was his day for brief glimpses, it seemed. But he was ninety per cent sure that the slim figure just moving from sight about twenty yards down the calle was Aristide.

  ‘Was that your side-kick?’ he asked.

  ‘My …? Aristide, you mean? It may have been.’

  ‘Why did you warn him off? Am I supposed to be about to punch him on the nose?’

  This seemed to amuse Dunkerley, then he composed his features in a naval seriousness such as might have become a captain just instructed to sink the Bismarck.

  ‘You fear he may have made approaches to Mrs Masson?’

  ‘I fear nothing about him or about you, Mr Dunkerley,’ said Michael coldly.

  ‘Of course not. Why should you? Tell me, Michael, do you have children?’

  ‘Yes. Two. Why?’

  ‘Interesting, that. They are being looked after?’

  ‘We didn’t just abandon them,’ said Michael irritably. My mother lives with us. She’s taking care of them.’

  ‘Your mother? How fine a thing is filial piety. We should all return the love we are given. Have you seen Bellini’s ‘Virgin with Child’ series in the Accademia?’

  ‘Hardly. I’ve just arrived, remember?’

  ‘Of course. But do go. They say so much about the relationship. One in particular 1 recall. The child stands supported by the Virgin’s right arm which has grown six inches or so longer than the left, possibly to compensate for the desire, evident in her face, to push him off a balcony.’

  ‘My God!’ said Michael. ‘You’re sick!’

  ‘Why so? Human relationships are always ambiguous, are they not? Have you never detested your mother? Deplored your children? Wished your wife dead and buried? Show me the man who has never rehearsed his demeanour at the funeral of those he loves most dearly and I will show you a monster.’

  Long shot. A high exposed churchyard with the ground falling away sharply beyond the church wall to a rainswept landscape.

  In the foreground, umbrellas like foothills, down which stream cataracts of rain. The only sound the patter of the drops on the taut fabric and their hollower drumming on the coffin in the open grave.

  Close-up. His own face, wet with what could be tears or just rain. The parson starts speaking, his monotonous voice merging with the drumming of the rain which now becomes real drumming and the voice a rhythmic orgiastic voodoo chant. Beside him stands his mother who turns sympathetically towards him and touches his arm reassuringly. But her hand is a claw which scrabbles and tears at the black plastic of his raincoat. In horror he pulls away, the mourners crowd close. He leaps into the grave. And falls like Alice, slowly tumbling through blackness towards …

  Christ! I hammed from Hammer, he thought. Horror is not in graves and ghouls. It lives in glass and concrete hotels and in narrow Venetian streets and sits at café tables drinking with you. Which notion, he decided, was worse than his fantasy. That had been merely melo dramatic, this was pretentious.

  ‘I must go,’ he said, finishing his icy beer too quickly for comfort.

  ‘I’ll walk a while with you,’ said Dunkerley, rising also. He paid for the drinks from a plump Swiss-roll of notes which he kept in a leather pouch hung round his neck.

  ‘Your postal order arrived then,’ observed Michael.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bunter.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Michael strode along energetically, but apart from the odd gasp, Dunkerley kept up with him easily.

  ‘The worst thing is to run away from ourselves,’ he said. ‘Where do you want to go? I shall be your guide.’

  ‘I doubt if I can afford you,’ observed Michael.

  ‘For a friend and a countryman, how should I charge? This way, this way. I see you are bent on making for the Accademia.’

  After several minutes’ stiff walking, which distinguished them from the slow tourist drift like piranha in an English lake, they reached the wooden bridge which Michael recalled passing beneath on the vaporetto that morning.

  Here he halted and peered up the Grand Canal to where a trio of gondolas were moving with their strange lopsided smoothness round the bend which would take them up to the Ponte Rialto.

 

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