By 350, I was telling myself at each step that if I just did one more I could turn back. With each step I said it again. One more and I will turn back.
At 400 steps, the pain in my knee was excruciating. Every step was like damp fire, a squelching, wrenching boggy pain. I thought, if I collapse now, they’ll carry me to the summit. I wondered how I would be taken down. I imagined a helicopter floating above the roof of the campanile, or teams of abseilers bearing me between them to the ground. I tried to move my attention away from my knee, to focus on my hand instead, or my head, or the bridge of my nose — still aching. But every other step drew me back again to the knee, the bright red pain banging like a fire engine, shouting like a child. With twenty steps to go, I felt something collapse and sag in it, a hollow, desiccated feeling, as though I had put my foot down expecting a step and found none. I knew I could not put any more weight on it. I hauled myself up the last few steps towards daylight with my arms and my one good leg. I thought perhaps I was sweating or groaning, but the pain was so intense it was hard to make anything else out.
As I came out into the sunlight and wind at the top of the bell tower I collapsed with a grunt on the floor in front of the steps. Other tourists gasped and turned to look at me. I crouched on the floor, my injured leg stretched out rigidly. People coming up the stairs behind me stared and walked around me. I heard voices muttering in Italian, asking — when I grabbed a few words from the air and translated them — for a doctor, or what was wrong. And then, mysteriously, I was sure I heard my name. A woman’s voice, saying, ‘James?’ I shook my head. It came again. ‘James?’
I looked up. The woman with the broad-brimmed hat was leaning over me, saying my name. She was directly in front of the sun, her face silhouetted. I held my hand over my eyes to look at her.
She said, ‘James, are you all right?’
It was Jess.
25
She made all the arrangements smooth, as is so often her way. I said, ‘Is it you? Is it really you?’ and little else. She arranged for the guide at the top of the tower to radio down to those at the bottom of the tower to stop incoming and outgoing traffic while we gingerly, with stiff legs and braced arms, made our way down. I said, ‘But is it you? How are you here?’ And she said, ‘Yes. Yes, it is. Now concentrate.’ Her boyfriend, Seth, a double bass player, an Australian, offered to support me. I refused initially, but when it became obvious I wasn’t going to be walking anywhere without help he slipped an arm around my waist and took part of the weight of my body. He appeared fairly good-natured about this enterprise, telling me I hardly weighed more than his instrument. I couldn’t think of any appropriate response to this news.
At the bottom of the tower, we collapsed on the grass — I found I could support myself fairly well with my stick on the level — and Seth brought gelati and packs of crisps.
‘So, James,’ he said, ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’
I nodded and attempted a smile.
‘Are you the one who’s a quazillionaire?’
Jess touched his arm lightly. Her skin was paler than his, the contrast clear when her fingers rested in the springy blond hair on his forearm.
‘No, darling,’ she said, ‘that’s Mark. He also lives in Italy though. Or is that still right?’
I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘we live here.’
I looked at Seth, with his disarmingly open features topped by a mass of dirty blond hair. He reminded me in looks of Jess’s first boyfriend, Christian, whose picture I had seen in a scrapbook in her bedroom. I tried to remember what the first violin from her orchestra had looked like. I wondered if the memory I came up with, of a ham-faced man with a pug nose, ruddy features but, yes, blond hair, was of the right man. Had I been the only aberration in her collection?
‘James?’ said Jess.
‘Hmmm?’ I had evidently missed something while contemplating Seth.
‘I said, if we get a cab into town, do you think you could sit comfortably on the ride?’
I could hardly bend my knee. Still, I would have to go back to the town eventually. I nodded.
They looked well together, Jess and Seth, relaxed in one another’s company. He was at least twice as broad in the shoulder as she — I imagined what he must look like when performing. Like a gorilla in evening dress, constantly threatening to burst the buttons and beat on his chest like Tarzan. I thought again of what Mark had told me, about Jess’s infidelity. It seemed that Jess had sprung directly from my thoughts, like a demon summoned by a magician to answer a particular question.
It was only when we were in the car that I thought to pose the question myself. I was in the front passenger seat. I pulled down the vanity mirror and peered at them in it. His arm was resting casually on her thigh, her hand on top of his.
‘Why are you here?’ I said.
They glanced at each other, then Jess smiled.
‘Sightseeing,’ she said.
Seth looked at her.
‘We have a couple of weeks’ rehearsal break and we thought we’d do churches and cathedrals of southern Italy. How amazing that we should run into you!’
And did you, I wanted to ask, sleep with the first violin of your orchestra, what was his name, something like Rudolph, in Michaelmas term of our third year?
I imagined asking the question. I imagined what she would do in response. Would she blush? Would she deny it? Would her denials be honest? Would I be able to tell?
It occurred to me that she might deny nothing. She might say, ‘Yes, I did. What right have you to ask? You slept with Mark.’ But it was impossible to ask the question of her.
We found a place in a restaurant on the square. Jess asked me again whether I wanted to find a doctor to look at my knee but I repeated that I did not. Seth looked between us, a mildly interested expression on his clear, broad face. We ordered food, then Jess excused herself for a moment, leaving Seth and me alone.
I looked at him surreptitiously while pretending to peruse the menu. His strength was visible in his broad shoulders and powerful calves. In his T-shirt and shorts he looked as though he might have strolled in from a weightlifting competition. I wondered how he managed to play his instrument without smashing it to matchwood.
‘So what do you do then, James?’ he asked.
A waiter brought us beers and antipasti.
‘I teach,’ I said. I speared a prawn with my fork and bit into it.
‘Ah, right,’ he said. ‘In a school?’
‘No.’ I shook my head. I could feel my mouth becoming tighter. ‘I teach English to private pupils.’
‘Ah,’ said Seth, and took a mouthful of beer, foam just touching his upper lip. ‘And you live with the quazillionaire?’
I nodded.
Seth smiled broadly. ‘Pay much, does it, teaching?’
‘Not a lot, no.’
Seth nodded and took another swig.
‘That must be kind of tough for you. Living with someone so rich. When you’re not rich yourself, that is.’ He popped three olives into his mouth at once.
I found myself wishing, for the first time in twenty-four hours, that Mark was there. His presence always discourages these macho pissing contests. No one wants to compare wallet size with him. Jess precluded further such conversation by returning to the table.
‘James,’ she said, sitting down and smoothing her trousers with her characteristic, stiff-handed gesture, ‘you must tell me all your news.’
News, I thought, news. What a curious concept. Of course, other people’s lives moved on in this way. There was news — of promotions, of marriages and children, of new purchases longingly saved for, of holidays planned, business ventures undertaken, dreams brought closer or abandoned. So much of ‘news’ is really about money. The getting of it, the spending of it, the hoarding and increasing of it. Once all possible money has been obtained, what is left of news? Only love affairs, procreation and the passing enthusiasms which substitute for other people’s employment.