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I drew in my breath and looked at the picture, knowing what I would find there.
But I did not. I searched every inch of that canvas. I looked at every face, in the crowd, in the gondolas, in the windows of the houses, in corners, down alleyways, barely visible. There was no Theo. No face remotely resembled his. I saw the young man I took to be the Countess’s young husband, and the figure in the white silk mask with the plume of white feathers in her hair which I supposed was Clarissa Vigo. But of Theo, thank God, thank God, there was no image. I realized that in all probability, he had woken, felt unwell, got up and had his fatal stroke or heart attack. In crashing to the ground, he had shaken floor and walls – he was a heavy man – and the picture had been disturbed and fallen also.
Breaking out in a sweat again, but this time of relief, I went to the telephone on Theo’s desk and dialled the night porter.
It was a desperately sad few days and I missed Theo greatly. The college chapel was packed and over-flowing for his funeral, the oration one of the best I had ever heard and afterwards everyone spoke fondly of him. I was still shocked, my mind still full of our last hours together. From time to time, one thing came to my mind to trouble me. I had satisfied myself, I am pretty sure, that Theo’s death had had nothing to do with the story he had told me, with the Venetian picture or indeed with anything shocking or unexplained. Yet I could not forget the look of terror on his dead face, the horrified expression in his open eyes, the way his arm was outstretched. The picture had fallen, and although there was a perfectly sensible explanation for that, it worried me.
I left Cambridge with a heavy heart. I would never again sit in those comfortable rooms, talking over a fire and a whisky, hearing his sound views on so many subjects, his humorous asides and his sharp but never cruel comments on his fellows.
But I could not remain overly sad or troubled for long. I had work to get back to, but even more I had A
I had told her of Theo’s death, of course – the reason that I had stayed on longer than pla
‘It’s rather fine, actually.’
‘Not the art – I’m sure you may be right. The story. The whole business of ...’ she shuddered.
‘It’s a tale. A good one, but just a tale. It needn’t trouble you.’
‘It troubled him.’
‘Oh, not so very much. It was a story he wanted to tell over a whisky and a good fire on a cold night. Forget it. We ’ve more important things to discuss. I have something I want to ask you.’
Since my days with Theo and his sudden death, I had had one thought. I do not know why, but it seemed very important to me that instead of marrying the following summer, pla
‘I know it will mean we marry quietly, without all the razzmatazz and perhaps that will disappoint you. But I don’t want us to wait. Theo’s death made me realize that we should seize life – and he was a lonely man, you know. No family other than a Cambridge college. Oh, he was contented enough but he was lonely and a college full of strangers, however warmly disposed, is not a wife and children.’
But to my surprise, A
‘It isn’t the money you spend and the fuss you make – a marriage is about other things that are far more serious and lasting. Think of that poor old Countess – think of the wretched other woman. We are very fortunate. We should never forget it.’
I never would. I never will. I could not have been happier and I had a good feeling that Theo would have agreed, and approved. I felt his blessing upon us and his benign presence hovering about us as we made our preparations.
The only hesitation I had was when A
‘I went once when I was fourteen,’ she said, ‘and I sensed something magical but I was too young to know what it was – I think one can be too young for Venice.’
‘Well perhaps we should save it for a longer visit in that case,’ I said, ‘and go down to the south of France.’
‘No, it won’t be warm enough there yet. Venice.
Please?’
I shook off any forebodings and made the booking. Superstitions and stories were not going to cast their long shadow over the first days of our marriage and I realized that in fact I was greatly looking forward to visiting the city again. Venice is beautiful. Venice is magical. Venice is like nowhere else, in the real world or the worlds of invention. I remembered the first time I visited it, as a young man taking a few months out to travel, and emerging from the railway station to that astonishing sight – streets which were water. The first ride on the vaporetto down the Grand Canal, the first glimpse of San Giorgio Maggiore rising out of the mist, the first sight of the pigeons rising like a ghostly cloud above the cathedral in St Mark’s Square, and of those turrets and spires touched with gold and gleaming in the sun. Walks through squares where all you hear are the sounds of many footsteps on stone, because there are no motor vehicles, hours spent at café tables on the quiet Giudecca, the cry of the fish-sellers in the early morning, the graceful arch of the Rialto Bridge, the faces of the locals, old and young men and women with those memorable, ancient Venetian features – the prominent nose, the hauteur of expression, the red hair.
The more I thought about the city in those days leading up to the wedding, the more my pulse quickened with the anticipation of seeing it again, and this time with A
A
EIGHT
O GIVE MYSELF something to do while I wait here, I write what I am begi