Maureen came out of the bathroom wearing a hotel dressing gown. She took the seat opposite her husband and sipped the water.
‘Better take a bottle of Evian with us when we visit the Hermitage,’ said Maureen. Dick looked up from behind his paper. ‘The girl in the gym warned me not, under any circumstances, to drink the local water.’
‘Oh yes, I should have warned you,’ said Dick, as Maureen took a bottle from the table by the window and put it in her bag. ‘Can’t be too careful.’
Dick and Maureen strolled through the front gates of the Hermitage a few minutes before ten, to find themselves at the back of a long queue. The crocodile of visitors progressed slowly forward along an unshaded cobbled path. Maureen took several sips of water between turning the pages of the guidebook. It was ten forty before they reached the ticket booth. Once inside, Maureen continued to study her guidebook. ‘Whatever we do, we must be sure to see Michelangelo’s Crouching Boy, Raphael’s Virgin, and Leonardo’s Madonna Benois.’
Dick smiled his agreement, but knew he wouldn’t be concerning himself with the masters.
As they climbed the wide marble staircase, they passed several magnificent statues nestled in alcoves. Dick was surprised to discover just how vast the Hermitage was. Despite visiting St Petersburg several times during the past three years, he had only ever seen the building from the outside.
‘Housed on three floors, Tsar Peter’s collection displays treasures in over two hundred rooms,’ Maureen told him, reading from the guidebook. ‘So let’s get started.’
By eleven thirty they had only covered the Dutch and Italian schools on the first floor, by which time Maureen had finished the large bottle of Evian.
Dick volunteered to go and buy another bottle. He left his wife admiring Caravaggio’s The Lute Player, while he slipped into the nearest rest room. He refilled the empty Evian bottle with tap water before rejoining his wife. If Maureen had spent a little time studying one of the many drinks counters situated on each floor, she would have discovered that the Hermitage doesn’t stock Evian, because it has an exclusive contract with Volvic.
By twelve thirty they had all but covered the sixteen rooms devoted to the Renaissance artists, and agreed it was time for lunch. They left the building and strolled back into the midday sun. The two of them walked for a while along the bank of the Moika River, stopping only to take a photograph of a bride and groom posing on the Blue Bridge in front of the Mariinsky Palace.
‘A local tradition,’ said Maureen, turning another page of her guidebook.
After walking another block, they came to a halt outside a small pizzeria. Its sensible square tables with neat red-and-white check tablecloths and smartly dressed waiters tempted them inside.
‘I must go to the loo,’ said Maureen. ‘I’m feeling a little queasy. It must be the heat.’ She added, ‘Just order me a salad and a glass of water.’
Dick smiled, removed the Evian bottle from her bag and filled up the glass on her side of the table. When the waiter appeared, Dick ordered a salad for his wife, and ravioli plus a large diet Coke for himself. He was desperate for something to drink.
Once she’d eaten her salad, Maureen perked up a little, and even began to tell Dick what they should look out for when they visited the Summer Palace.
On the long taxi ride through the north of the city, she continued to read extracts from her guidebook. ‘Peter the Great built the Summer Palace after he had visited Versailles, and on returning to Russia employed the finest landscape gardeners and most gifted craftsmen in the land to reproduce the French masterpiece. He intended the finished work to be a homage to the French, whom he greatly admired as the leaders of style throughout Europe.’
The taxi driver interrupted her flow with a snippet of information of his own. ‘We are just passing the recently constructed Winter Palace, which is where President Putin stays whenever he’s in St Petersburg.’ The driver paused. ‘And, as the national flag is flying, he must be in town.’
‘He’s flown down from Moscow especially to see me,’ said Dick.
The taxi driver dutifully laughed.
The taxi drove through the gates of the Summer Palace half an hour later and the driver dropped his passengers off in a crowded carpark, bustling with sightseers and traders, who were standing behind their makeshift stalls plying their cheap souvenirs.
‘Let’s go and see the real thing,’ suggested Maureen.
‘I wait for you here,’ said the taxi driver. ‘No extra charge. How long?’ he added.
‘I should think we’d be a couple of hours,’ said Dick. ‘No more.’
‘I wait for you here,’ he repeated.
The two of them strolled around the magnificent gardens, and Dick could see why it was described in the guidebooks as a ‘can’t afford to miss’, with five stars. Maureen continued to brief him between sips of water. ‘The grounds surrounding the palace cover over a hundred acres, with more than twenty fountains, as well as eleven other palatial residences.’ Although the sun was no longer burning down, the sky was still clear and Maureen continued to take regular gulps of water, but however many times she offered the bottle to Dick, he always replied, ‘No thanks.’
When they finally climbed the steps of the palace, they were greeted by another long queue, and Maureen admitted that she was feeling a little tired.
‘Pity to have travelled this far,’ said Dick, ‘and not take a look inside.’
His wife reluctantly agreed.
When they reached the front of the queue, Dick purchased two entrance tickets and, for a small extra charge, selected an English-speaking guide to show them around.
‘I don’t feel too good,’ said Maureen as they entered the Empress Catherine’s bedroom. She clung onto the four-poster bed.
‘You must drink lots of water on such a hot day,’ suggested the tour guide helpfully. By the time they had reached Tsar Nicholas IV’s study, Maureen warned her husband that she thought she was going to faint. Dick apologized to their guide, put an arm around his wife’s shoulder and assisted her out of the palace on an unsteady journey back to the carpark. They found their taxi driver standing by his car waiting for them.
‘We must return to the Grand Palace Hotel immediately,’ said Dick, as his wife fell into the back seat of the car like a drunk who has been thrown out of a pub on a Saturday night.
On the long drive back to St Petersburg, Maureen was violently sick in the back of the taxi, but the driver didn’t comment, just maintained a steady speed as he continued along the highway. Forty minutes later, he came to a halt outside the Grand Palace Hotel. Dick handed over a wodge of notes and apologized.
‘Hope madam better soon,’ he said.
‘Yes, let’s hope so,’ replied Dick.
Dick helped his wife out of the back of the car, and guided her up the steps into the hotel lobby and quickly towards the lifts, not wishing to draw attention to himself. He had her safely back in their suite moments later. Maureen immediately disappeared into the bathroom, and even with the door closed Dick could hear her retching. He searched around the room. In their absence, all the bottles of Evian had been replaced. He only bothered to empty the one by Maureen’s bedside, which he refilled with tap water from the kitchenette.
Maureen finally emerged from the bathroom, and collapsed onto the bed. ‘I feel awful,’ she said.