We wore our masks throughout the speeches, only removing them briefly to drink a toast and to eat the cake. We were ushered through to the adjacent room where a band played for us and we danced into the middle of the night, some wearing masks, others propping them on their heads or holding them like strange trophies.
When the guests left, we stayed. Maria not only offered us a room for the night, but the whole palazzo for several days.
‘I’ll look after your animals,’ she said, fishing in my bag for our apartment keys. ‘You two lovebirddogs enjoy yourselves. Spero che trascorriate una luna di miele da sogno.’
Venice, 1970s
Dad kept on sending postcards and I kept on tearing them up. I told Juliana all about it, about mum, and dad too. One of the postcards I’d torn up the day before, Juliana taped back together. She’d made me breakfast and had placed the postcard next to my plate.
‘What are you doing?’ I said.
‘Making you breakfast. Coffee?’
‘You know what I mean,’ I said, picking up the postcard and reading it again. It said ‘I miss you more than you know.’
One of the cats jumped into my lap. I put the postcard down and petted her. She purred and padded at my thighs until she was comfortable.
‘You’re the one who burned my things,’ I said, as Juliana poured me coffee. ‘You’re the one who said I don’t need the past.’
‘This is the present and your dad is trying to make amends.’
She picked up the postcard and pinned it to the wall above the table.
‘Can you make amends after trying to kill your daughter?’
‘He’s trying.’
I drank my coffee and stroked the cat’s head.
‘I’m here for you,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’
I didn’t receive another postcard for almost a month and when I did it was back to talk of Edinburgh, about a gallery he visited, his chess club. Still no return address. Juliana put them all on the wall. Days could pass with no postcards, but it was all I could think of. It made me angry, how manipulative it all was. There was still no return address.
‘Write to him anyway,’ said Juliana.
Instead, I took them all down and packed them away in a box. The latest one I threw away, but I fished it out later, coffee stained and stinking.
I got in touch with Tim. Do you know where he lives? Do you have his address? Have you seen him? Tim had met him several times, giving him my address, telling him to reconcile.
‘“How can I make amends?” he’d said. I told him just to get in touch,’ Tim said. ‘I hope I wasn’t wrong.’
He gave me his address and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I sat down and I wrote:
‘youcowardlysonofabitch
youcowardlysonofabitch
youcowardlysonofabitch
youcowardlysonofabitch’
I wrote another: ‘Is this your idea of atonement? Telling me about your drawing classes and your fucking chess club?’
And another: ‘I’m well. I’m glad you’re well.’
And another: ‘I’m married now. I’m happy.’
And another: ‘I tried to drown myself. I was saved by a fat bald Italian who called me a stupid bitch and left me on the side of the canal. But now I’m well. I’m glad you’re well. Your chess club sounds fun.’
And another: ‘Fuck you and fuck your fucking chess club.’
And another and another, until I had my own box of unsent postcards. Finally, I had one I put a stamp on: ‘I’m well. It’s been good to hear from you.’ It sat on my table for a week before I sent it. Juliana and I would look at it over breakfast.
‘Today?’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not today.’
Then the day came. I shuffled it into a pile of other mail, hiding it, pretending it wasn’t important as I dropped them all in the post box.
It was the start of months of correspondence, not going much beyond the mundane. I told him about my history tour job, about Juliana and our wedding, about my published photographs and articles, and all the cats and dogs and birds I took in. I told him he would love it here. I imagined him coming. I imagined going to Edinburgh.
He sent me a letter one day. His handwriting on the envelope, that familiar British stamp. I didn’t want to open it, but I did. He wasn’t one for many words. It simply said, ‘I’m sorry for what I did. I blamed you. But it wasn’t your fault. I love you and I’m sorry I failed you.’
I let Juliana see it that evening and she held me in her arms as I cried.
I didn’t respond directly to the letter. His postcards kept arriving as normal and we shared the mundane as normal, but there was a lighter tone. We teased each other. Made each other laugh. We wrote about him coming here, about me going there. But we never met again. I received a letter from a member of his chess club to say he’d died of a heart attack on 22nd January 1973.
Maria and Gio looked after the animals when Juliana and I went to Edinburgh for his funeral. It was a small service, with a handful of people.
His chess club was there. There were four of them after dad had gone, in their seventies and eighties apart from Aaron, a teenage grandson of one of the members. They knew everything about me; dad had never let up talking about me.
‘But he was sad when he talked about you,’ said Aaron. ‘It was as if you were dead. We all thought you were dead until the postcards.’
Not everyone kept in touch when the circus had disbanded, so we weren’t able to notify all the old circus folk. We put a notice in a national paper and picked up some people that way. There was Marv and Horatiu, Angelina and her wife, and old Louise who now looked like a wizened crone. A few of them I didn’t know; they’d joined the circus after I’d left. They all said how sorry they were but they couldn’t look me in the eye.
We had a wake back at dad’s flat. It was quiet and awkward at first and I clung onto Juliana. Once the drink had taken effect the circus folk all came over to me, Marv surprising me with a long hug and telling me over and over what a great man James was. By the end of the evening Marv, Horatiu, Angelina, old Louise and I were all in a corner together, drunk and reminiscing. Juliana drifted round the room, talking with everyone, topping up drinks. Old Louise started singing “We’ll Meet Again” and the room grew quiet, everyone turning to watch her: ‘Let’s say goodbye with a smile, dear, just for a while, dear, we must part, don’t let this parting upset you, I’ll not forget you.’ Juliana sat with me and I leaned into her, crying silently as we listened to old Louise.
People started to leave after midnight, but the circus folk stayed, talking and singing into the early hours, falling asleep on the floor, on the couch, under the table, just like when I lived with mum and dad. There was a subdued melancholy in the morning, everyone leaving to catch trains or buses, making false promises to keep in touch.
A couple of days after the funeral, Juliana returned to look after the animals and I stayed on to sort out dad’s affairs and his possessions. Dad owned the flat and had a small amount of savings. I gave most of the savings to the chess club, some to animal charities and kept the rest to cover travelling. He was frugal and didn’t have much; a few books, and two photo albums. I sobbed as I pored over the photographs of mum, of the three of us together.
I spent some time walking the streets of Edinburgh and getting lost down all the old closes. One of dad’s chess friends told me dad had spent a lot of time walking along Portobello promenade, so I followed in his footsteps.
I didn’t want to sell the flat, so we kept it and we went to Edinburgh on holiday two summers in a row and on our second visit I asked Juliana if she wanted to stay. She took time to think about it, but we’d both been talking about how Venice was changing; more hotels, more tourists, and several of our friends had already left. Juliana felt stuck in her job at the gallery and liked the idea of a new start. We brought Monty with us and Maria took in all our other strays, phoning every week telling me what animal had peed on what piece of priceless furniture. We moved into dad’s flat and Juliana made the spare room into an art studio. Our friends came over for holidays, which eased our transition; a constant stream of Venetians sleeping in Juliana’s studio. We both worked part-time jobs – Juliana a waitress in a local restaurant and I was a cashier in a local shop before getting a job doing ghost tours. It took Juliana a year until she got a job at the National Gallery, and it was then we felt finally settled.