‘Sorry I took so long, those pigs kept me locked up.’
‘They’re not pigs.’
‘No? You on their side?’
‘No. I like pigs.’
‘Aaah, yes, I’ve heard about you – the crazy woman who collects animals. La Pazza dei Piccioni.’
‘You’ve been talking to Gio about me.’
‘I have. I know all about you.’
‘You know everything about me?’
She smiled.
‘I will soon. Drink?’
We ordered wine and properly introduced ourselves. Juliana told me she was an artist and she worked at Ca’ Pesaro, the gallery of modern art, to bring in more money.
‘They weren’t happy when I got arrested. I am lucky to still have my job but I charmed them and all is well.’
She raised her wine glass in a toast. I followed suit and said, ‘To your charm.’
She laughed, a deep belly laugh that caused everyone to turn and look.
‘To my charm,’ she said, clinking glasses, ‘may it forever get me what I want.’
She winked at me and finished off her wine.
‘I like pigeons too, you know,’ she said.
‘You do?’
She nodded. ‘Birds are my favourite animal.’
‘Even pigeons? Most people hate them.’
‘People are stupid. I like your tattoos,’ she said, looking at my arms and chest.
‘I travelled a lot,’ I said. ‘I’d get tattoos wherever I went.’
‘But where are you from? Where were you born?’
‘London.’
‘I was born there too,’ she said. ‘My father was born in Venice but moved to London to study and met my mother at university.’
She was interrupted by Gio who hugged her like they were old friends. He greeted me and squeezed my shoulder as he chatted to Juliana. I couldn’t follow their rapid-fire Italian so I sat and watched her. I watched her laugh that mischievous laugh, her whole face lighting up. Her long dark brown hair was tied messily up in a bun with strands falling about her face, stroking her brown skin. As she talked with Gio she poured us more wine and suddenly turned back to me, not missing a beat.
‘We moved back to Venice when I was three,’ she said. ‘We would go to London for holidays and to see my grandparents and I stayed with them when I studied art history there, so I grew up knowing it well.’
I didn’t want her to ask me about my time living in London so I told her of the years travelling with the circus. I painted a romantic picture.
‘So I’ve fallen for a clown?’ she said. ‘You couldn’t be more perfect.’
‘Fallen?’ I said, but she didn’t hear me. Her friends had arrived and she disappeared in a flurry of hugs, laughter and overlapping voices, all discussing the protest and arrests. I drank my wine and watched them together, catching parts of their conversation. Juliana turned to me, pointing, her friends all looking me over. I turned away, pretending to write but trying to listen to what they were saying.
‘Did you miss me?’ she said as she hugged me from behind, her arm across my chest, her head leaning gently on my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen them all since the protest. I was telling them about my Goblin-clown.’
‘Yours?’
‘I’m hoping my charm will get me what I want.’
She leaned in and kissed me fleetingly on the mouth and said, ‘Tomorrow, you and I. Dinner.’
‘A date?’
‘Of course a date.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-four. Why?’
‘I’m older. A lot older.’
‘I’ve dated older women.’
She ran her fingers through my hair, tucking it behind my ear.
‘What does it matter? You’re my Goblin-clown and I’m your criminal artist. We’re meant to be.’
‘Are we?’
‘I feel it,’ she said, placing her hand on her chest.
‘Dinner,’ I said, nodding. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘I’ll meet you here at seven.’
She kissed me again and I held her this time.
Venice, 1960s/1970s
I fell in love with Juliana.
We went for dinner that night, talking for hours. Walking tipsily back to her flat, she whispered in my ear a mixture of English and Italian, telling me what she wanted to do to me before throwing her head back and laughing that raucous laugh. Her flat was a mess of paintings and art materials and I negotiated my way through the flotsam, following her to the kitchen. I stripped for her as she poured us prosecco. She held the glasses awkwardly in one hand, spilling some as she led me through to the bedroom. I fell onto her bed and she poured her drink across my breasts and belly. I laughed as the cold hit my skin, as it rolled onto the sheet in rivulets, as it fizzed and pooled in the concave of my stomach. She parted my legs, kissed my cunt and licked from my belly to my breasts, her tongue flicking at my nipples. We kissed, her fingers massaging my inner thighs, moving to my clit and making me moan and then she was gone and I blinked up at her as she stood over me, removing her clothes. I pressed my hand between my legs as she slowly peeled the clothes from her body. Watching her, I came. She finished the prosecco as I knelt on the bed, my arm around her waist, pulling her to me. I kissed her stomach, breathing in her smell as her fingers threaded through my hair. I pulled her down. I kissed and bit her thighs as she put her legs over my shoulders. I tongued at her clit, tasting her, listening to her, feeling her body shake as she came.
We’d meet in the evenings at Gio’s, we’d walk through Venice together in the middle of the night, enjoying the quiet. We’d sleep at hers or more often mine, feeding the animals, playing with them, taking the dogs for walks. I fell for her but I thought I was just a phase for her, a passing affair. I buried the doubts and let it be, I let us exist in the present.
I thought I was happy until the evening I was tired and I got talking about the circus, giving away too much. I told her about the posters, about David, that I was still searching for the brother who escaped to the sea, but she asked too much so I left the bar early, telling her I had to go home to feed the animals. Instead, I walked to the Grand Canal and lowered myself in.
I swam for a moment, then floated. I thought of the tourists finding my body. I thought what a story that would be. I thought it was a shame that I wouldn’t be there to write about it. Goblin Drowns in Canal, no one mourns.
I let go, sinking. I thought of nothing at all. I felt cleansed in the dirty water. It wasn’t deep. It was a struggle to stay on the bed of the canal, with the rubbish and the fish. I floated and I thought of the animals. Juliana will look after them, I thought. I closed my eyes.
I was pulled and jerked out of my garbage grave. A mermaid, a merman, a pirate, a monster. I was to be devoured and my bones were to be buried beneath the silt and junk. They gripped my arm, so tight it hurt. They pulled me, but not down. Up, up, up we went and I saw the black sky again, a bat’s silhouette flittering across the bright stars. They held me round the chest as they swam for land. The canal spat me out and I spat out the canal.
What monster was this? Or guardian angel?
I heaved in air and rolled over, lying on my back, staring up at my monster-angel; he was small and fat, his face scrunched up and ugly. He shouted, limbs exploding out like pistons. He spat on the ground next to me and left. I turned onto my side and watched him barrelling his way down the street, disappearing into an alley.
I wondered how my monster-angel could just leave me. I could so easily roll over and sink back into the canal. But the moment had passed. My monster-angel knew that.
‘The moment of my death has passed into the past,’ I said and laughed. ‘The past is the past is the past.’
I laughed so hard I shook. I got up and walked back to my apartment, leaving a trail of water, drip drip dripping like black ink.