Another Death in Venice, page 12
‘See,’ said Dunkerley, looking in the other direction, ‘how finely the sun strikes on the domes of Santa Maria della Salute.’
Behind him Michael made a noise.
‘Yes?’ said Dunkerley.
‘Nothing,’ said Michael. But he had had his third brief glimpse of the afternoon. In one of the gondolas was a woman who he felt sure was Sarah; and she was not alone.
Sarah had finally made up her mind to have an affair. The moment of decision had come as Michael had left her at lunch. Don’t overdo it, she had called after him in simple instinctive wifely admonition. He had looked back at her with an expression of vulnerable uncertainty which had touched her deeply. He thinks I’m getting at him, she realized guiltily. It was this feeling of guilt which had decided her to turn the imagined relationship into reality. If tenderness and pity could touch her now, so soon after what had happened, it would not be long before she would find herself confessing her innocence and perhaps even convincing him of it. A glimpse of a naked man in a shower – what meat for mockery that contained! No, only the real memory of another man’s body inside her own could give her the moral strength to continue with Michael.
Besides it would give her something to talk about or at least hint at in an effort to counter the erotic confessions of her friend Avril. Perhaps she would even manage a long, juddering cry.
Her mind made up, she really wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible and had Aristide been available in the hotel, she felt quite capable of approaching him, arranging matters, and being ready to look at Venice within the hour. It had to be Aristide, of course. She was in credit there, and besides no one else available held the least attraction. She thought of Wilf and shuddered.
‘He’s a bastard,’ said Wendy, sitting heavily beside her so that her large breasts juddered in her skimpy sun top.
Sarah started, wondering if she had been talking aloud.
‘It’s my money, you know.’
‘What is?’
‘Eight thousand quid I had when my dad died, what with the house and furniture and everything. Wilf was a back street butcher then. Half a pound of mince and a bone for the dog was a big order. Now he’s got five shops. Two of them sell veal. Have you noticed what a funny smell this hotel’s got?’
‘Has it?’
‘But the whole place stinks, doesn’t it? Mind you, I’d been married to him three years then, so I knew a thing or two. There were papers signed. Are you going out? You’re better in twos here. These greasy sods will snatch your bag or worse.’
‘I’ve found most Italians perfectly pleasant and helpful.’
‘Yes, I know. They’re cunning with it. So there’s nothing in a divorce for him. It’d be more worth my while.’
‘Why don’t you do it then?’ asked Sarah. ‘You’ve got grounds enough.’
‘You mean the thumpings? I suppose so. Perhaps I will some day. What are we meant to look at in this place, do you know? I suppose it’s all churches and statues.’
They strolled across St Mark’s Square together, Wendy complaining bitterly about the unhygienic nature of pigeons and Sarah meditating on the monstrous strangle-hold religion had applied for so long to human endeavour and social realization.
Their attempt to enter the basilica was thwarted by a strangely dressed man in a cocked hat and wearing a sword who appeared to take exception to Wendy’s sun-top.
‘What’s he want? Do I have to wear a hat?’ asked Wendy replying to the beadle’s gestures by placing the palm of her hand on her head.
‘I don’t think it’s your head he’s bothered about,’ said Sarah.
‘Sod him, then. I hate these damned churches anyway. It’s too hot to walk. Let’s take one of those silly boats.’
‘A gondola? They’re frightfully expensive, I believe.’
‘My treat,’ said Wendy. ‘Come on. It’s all down to Wilf’s thumb on the scales.’
Her casual attitude to money did not extend to giving it away to work-shy foreigners, however. Sarah watched with mingled horror and admiration as Wendy, with no concessions whatever to the language barrier, negotiated with a brawny gondolier.
Matters reached an apparent deadlock which rapidly dissolved as the woman turned away with a bareshouldered shrug worthy of a native.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Sarah as she scrambled aboard.
‘God knows. I’ve told him to paddle around for an hour, that’s all. But I’ve fixed the price.’
She looked ostentatiously at her watch as they set off and the gondolier rolled his eyes.
Of all the things she had done since coming on holiday, this made Sarah feel most decadent and socially parasitic. It was, she assured herself, just like taking a taxi. But taxis did not have tall, well-muscled men propelling them by main force while the passengers lay in cushioned comfort and drank in non-productive beauty on all sides.
In any case, taking taxis made her feel guilty too.
They went slowly up the Grand Canal, under the Academy Bridge, then turned up a side canal between two palazzi.
‘Aren’t they beautiful!’ said Sarah.
‘They must have rats,’ said Wendy, nodding at the water washing up the steps almost to the very doors.
Thirty yards further along, the canal was spanned by a small hump-backed bridge on which stood one or two people, idly spectating.
‘Hey, signora!’ came a cry.
Sarah looked up and saw Aristide.
Her adulterous resolve had been forgotten in the pleasures of the voyage, but now it all came back to her and with it the thought how unattractive the youth looked.
As they passed beneath the bridge, Aristide jabbered away in Italian and when they emerged at the other side, the gondolier swung them in towards the bank and the boy leapt aboard.
‘What the hell is this? A tram?’ asked Wendy.
‘Signora, forgive me. But when I see, I think how nice to speak with the English ladies once more.’
He sat down next to Wendy and grinned across at Sarah who felt embarrassed. It was not after all her gondola, but to point this out would imply that it was her company alone that had attracted Aristide to join them. She believed this to be true, though Aristide now began to direct most of his attention towards Wendy. Perhaps he recognizes the situation and is being diplomatic, she thought. But after a while she began to wonder if it was not merely that vast expanse of sun-flushed bosom which was capturing his interest. The thought piqued her more than she would have believed. She examined the emotion with surprise. At least it boded well for her act of adultery, always supposing she could offer some counter-attraction.
From time to time Aristide spoke to the gondolier, apparently collecting information which he then translated. Wendy, after her initial outburst, seemed reconciled to his presence and even asked an occasional question. Sarah began to feel rather left out of things, and taking from her bag the Instamatic camera with which she always hoped to get better photographs than Michael from his absurdly expensive equipment, she began to snap buildings and vistas.
They must have performed a circle on the side system, for eventually they re-emerged into the Grand Canal and, glancing at her watch, Sarah realized their hour was almost finished.
Suddenly Aristide reached across and took the camera.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘I take a picture of the signora. You sit together. Good.’
He pulled Sarah into his place and crouched in the middle of the gondola.
‘No, wait. Signora Wendy, sit up please, the background must be right. Also the posture. Beautiful woman must show her shape, no?’
Wendy didn’t answer but looked rather flattered and allowed Aristide to pull her from her cushion and seat her on the gunwale. Sarah heard the gondolier say something to which Aristide replied dismissively.
‘Now, beautiful woman, beautiful background. Is good. Smile, please.’
Aristide crouched over the camera which Sarah realized, again with considerable pique, was not including herself in the shot at all.
‘That is good. No. Wait, please. The hair falls over your cheek. I fix.’
He reached forward as if to brush away an errant lock from Wendy’s cheek, lost his balance and fell heavily against the side of the boat. The gondolier shouted as his craft rocked violently. Wendy shrieked as she swayed backwards over the water. Aristide made a desperate lunge towards her, she grasped his arm, but it was too late. She had gone too far, and over the side she went, but with such a firm grip on the youth’s arm that he followed her.
It was a sequence too swift to be taken in immediately, but with strong comic potential. Michael would have found it very funny, thought Sarah, especially the sight of Wendy’s gipsy wig bobbing merrily to the surface a second before its owner.
Then she saw the vaporetto. It was coming at an angle across the canal to a landing point and the two figures struggling in the water lay directly in its path.
‘Aristide!’ shrieked Sarah.
The youth was the closer to the oncoming boat and seemed incapable of doing anything but tread water. Wendy suddenly put in a couple of powerful strokes, seized him by the neck of his shirt, forced herself high out of the water and dived.
The vaporetto passed over the circle of ripples she made only a second later. Then followed what seemed an endless moment while Sarah and everyone else scoured the murky surface of the canal with their eyes.
Suddenly the water erupted almost alongside the gondola.
‘Give us a hand with this stupid bastard,’ said Wendy grimly.
Apart from the loss of her wig and the destruction of her make-up Wendy had suffered comparatively little. Aristide had swallowed a fair quantity of water which gave Sarah some concern. Anyone who fell in an English canal and didn’t have an immediate anti-everything injection could die within the hour, she remembered being told at a conservationist meeting. But Wendy assured her that continental standards of hygiene were so low that the few who survived infancy were immune for life.
The youth seemed to confirm this theory and was almost himself again by the time they reached their hotel. He kept on apologizing to Wendy for his clumsiness, though Sarah noticed he had not offered a word of regret to herself for losing her camera. She felt inclined to abandon him but when Wendy disappeared to her room to get changed, she found she did not have the heart.
‘Those things need to be dried, not to mention cleaned,’ she said. ‘You can borrow something of Michael’s.’
‘Please. No. I am OK. The sun is warm.’
‘You will smell,’ said Sarah. ‘Don’t be silly. Come on.’
She led him upstairs and produced a towel and a pair of slacks which were getting too tight for Michael.
‘I’ll just find you a shirt,’ she said, burrowing into a drawer, ‘and then you can dry yourself and get changed.’
When she looked up, she saw Aristide had anticipated her. His jeans and tee-shirt lay at his feet and he was unselfconsciously towelling himself. She felt that she had been here before.
Sarah glanced at her watch. Wendy would be taking a bath. She was almost certain Michael would not return till dinner-time. Now seemed as good a time as any.
She smiled at the youth, who smiled back, but made no move towards her. What should she do now? A subtle move might be to say ‘How hot it is in here!’ and start removing her blouse. But no! She rejected this as hypocritical and undignified. If a woman wanted a man, she should indicate it honestly and unequivocally.
She went towards Aristide and handed him Michael’s shirt; then, taking his head in her hands, she gave him a short kiss.
Next she reached down, grasped his penis and fell back on the bed.
Unfortunately he showed no desire to fall with her. Indeed he pulled away, which was not a wise move.
‘Oh I’m so sorry, really I am!’ said Sarah, aghast, when his shriek subsided. ‘Are you all right? Is there anything I can do?’
He did not reply but, muttering angrily, he pulled on the clothes she had given him, gathered up his own wet things and made for the door. Here he paused to look back at Sarah. ‘Old,’ he said. ‘Useless,’ he said. ‘Women,’ he said.
The door crashed shut behind him.
Sarah sat on the bed and looked at herself in the mirror. The tears which began to run down her face belonged to another person with other hopes and other sorrows. She knew that. But all the same it was her face and to all outward appearances they were her tears.
Eventually they dried up and she lay down and fell asleep for a while. When she woke up, she washed her face and once more looked her normal capable and (so she was now convinced) totally unattractive self. But inside the tears still flowed.
Worst of all, though she had already locked and double-locked what had happened in the deepest cellar of her mind, she knew she had no capacity for wardership. Sooner or later she would turn the key and let it out, probably at the worst time to the worst person. Avril for instance; yes, it would probably be to Avril. It would be a cry for help, of course; a long juddering cry. ‘Did you hear something dear?’ ‘Only a seagull on the wind.’
Of course, a pragmatist would console herself with the knowledge of the pleasure the story would give her friends. But this was a salve which fortune had not prescribed for Sarah.
Indeed, so deeply hurt was she that at first she felt almost grateful to be diverted by the news, brought hot-foot to her bedroom by an enthralled Wilf, that Michael had been arrested for murder.
II
‘Am I under arrest?’ asked Michael.
‘No. Of course not,’ said Captain Contarini.
‘Then why are you holding me?’
‘Because we want you to confess, of course. Why else?’
Captain Contarini had the expression of smiling, unassailable confidence which Michael recalled on the face of the police chief in Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion. Perhaps Captain Contarini himself was the murderer.
Exactly what the Captain’s rank signified, indeed whether it was a police or some other kind of rank, Michael did not know. He presumed from the uniforms he had seen that he was in the hands of the P.S. rather than the Carabinieri, but nothing was certain. He needed something solid to get hold of.
‘I’d like to see the British Consul,’ said Michael.
‘Of course you would. Unfortunately when we phoned, he was not available. Some committee for the preservation of Venice. You are not with Cook’s?’
‘No.’
‘A pity. We could have got you a man from Cook’s. You will have to tolerate my version of English, I’m afraid.’
‘It’s not a question of English,’ said Michael. ‘It’s a question of representation.’
‘Representation? What do you want with representation? I thought what you wanted was translation, because of my poor English,’ said the captain in his almost immaculate Hollywood upper-crust English accent.
‘The questions you’re asking me are … suggestive,’ said Michael carefully.
‘How? Who is suggesting what? All we require is a little help. Just routine enquiries. Isn’t that what they say?’
‘It’s not what they mean,’ said Michael.
‘Isn’t it? You know English police methods then?’
‘No. Just from television,’ assured Michael.
‘But you wanted to be represented too. That’s significant.’
‘Look,’ protested Michael. ‘Of course I want to be represented. You drag me away from my hotel, take my passport and tell me you want me to confess …’
‘Ah, confess!’ said Contarini, smiling broadly. ‘I see. It is my poor English after all. I use the word religiously, of course. It is a semantic confusion. You are not Catholic, Mr Masson?’
‘No,’ said Michael, trying to work out what had just been said. ‘I don’t quite understand …’
‘It is not easy,’ agreed the captain seriously. ‘So few of your countrymen really understand, even those who acknowledge the Pope.’
‘I meant, I don’t understand how your being a Catholic alters the way you use “confess” …’
‘Catholic? Forgive me, you are confused,’ said Contarini indignantly. ‘I’m not Catholic. I am a good Communist. Mr Masson, please take off your clothes.’
‘What!’
‘It is just a formality.’
‘It may be a formality to you,’ said Michael, ‘but to me it’s a bloody liberty! What the hell’s going on?’
‘You have been awake all the time? You are not using drugs? No? Then how is it you do not know what is going on?’
‘Now listen,’ said Michael. ‘I get back to my hotel. A gang of your policemen all fingering their guns like midnight in the dormitory tell me in broken English that you would like to talk to me about a murder. They more or less force me to come here. That’s all I know about what’s going on.’
‘Which? More? Or less?’
‘Sorry?’
‘And like midnight in the dormitory? I do not know the idiom.’
‘For God’s sake, Captain. I only arrived in Venice at lunch-time. Since then, for most of the time, I’ve been in the company of someone I know. How the hell can I tell you anything about a murder?’
‘Ah!’ said Contarini, flashing the broad smile once more. ‘Again it is a misunderstanding. It is not a murder in Venice we want to question you about!’
‘Not a murder? Well, thank God for that,’ said Michael with heartfelt relief. ‘What is it then?’
‘It is a murder in Rimini. Let us have some coffee.’
After leaving the hotel, he had been taken to a motor-boat which had proceeded to the Questura with scant regard for other craft or for the foundations of the buildings against which it sent barrage after barrage of waves. His confusion had been such that he had taken little notice of their route and it was only now that he really began to pay much attention to his immediate surroundings.
They were in a large room in much need of refurbishing. A once-beautiful desk stood between the captain and himself, but the leather top was torn, pieces of the marquetry decorations were missing and there were gaps also where sections of the ormolu mounts had been removed or knocked off. There was a carpet whose design had long since been trodden out of recognition. The wall hangings still retained a certain shabby elegance and a painting, darkened to a midnight scene by neglect, caught Michael’s eye. While the captain went to the door and rattled out commands, he rose and looked more closely. There seemed to be four figures, one standing, the rest seated.
