The occasional question comes in from Gauguin. Describe Byron’s current appearance. Describe her eating habits. Does she exercise? How was her Spanish? Did she express any views on politics or popular culture? Did she admit to the murder of Matheus Pereyra-Conroy? Did she say anything about me?
She spoke with regret, I replied, but I don’t think it went as far as remorse.
Gauguin asked nothing more.
Talk to us, said mugurski71 one day. Come in and talk to us in person. Let us record you. You won’t be harmed.
Memories of Tokyo, Luca Evard, you won’t be harmed.
A present tense, a memory that is like the present tense, he said before, you won’t be harmed, and now he says it again, and Gauguin is mugurski71 again and I am _why, time has changed nothing, regret changes nothing, hope changes nothing there is only now, and now, and now, this moment, this decision as I say
no.
Running through Venice, past the Hotel Madellena. Every day I buy the loyalties of a housekeeper by the name of Yanna, slipping her a hundred euros in exchange for an answer to the question — is the 206 Club coming here?
“Oh yes,” she says, “it’s all such a fuss.”
The glamour mags, excited, celebrity this, sensational that, is she pregnant, is he having an affair, the 206 coming to strut their perfect, beautiful stuff, so wonderful, we could all be like that one day…
Why is this still happening?! I demand.
There is no proof that Byron will be there, Gauguin replies.
If I could email you a fucking nosebleed you pillock!!
Five days before the party, Rafe Pereyra-Conroy arrived, a beautiful woman I had never seen before on his arm, all legs and hair and teeth and dress. His sister walked behind.
Filipa looked… something in how she stood, perhaps. Something in how she dressed. Lace panelling across her back, down to the coccyx, all suggestive of other things. I’d never spotted before how slim she was, not skinny, but slim, a word which meant better things. If you cared about words.
I am forgettable! I screamed down the data highways and the network links, the secret cables and waiting satellites, roaring it over the darknet at Gauguin.
I will call the police, tell them there’s a bomb. I will rob every journalist blind, I will put poison into your party treats, I will destroy it before it ever has a chance to begin, I will stop this thing if you don’t stop it now!!
Mr Pereyra-Conroy has decided to go ahead with the event, replied Gauguin, he does not feel the risk is significant.
The risk is significant, you coward! You idiot, she will destroy everything and people will die!!
Mr Pereyra-Conroy feels that even if Byron were to attack the 206, this is an opportunity to catch his father’s killer. We are monitoring trains, cars, boats — there are only so many ways in and off this island, if Byron comes near the venue she will…
She is smarter than you all. You are walking to your own damnation and she will destroy you!
I’m sorry, _why. The event will proceed, and if Byron comes, we will apprehend her.
I threw the laptop across the room with a gasp of rage, and sat on the bed, shaking, sweating. Where is your knowledge now, thief, where is your stillness, where your honour, your worth, your code, you nothing, forgettable nothing, having a temper tantrum in your room, little girl, cross that desert. The desert will eat you whole, hey, hey hey, hey Macarena!
Need a friend to talk to, need Luca, need Filipa, need to clear my head, go for a run, go to a bar and pick up a guy, tell him everything, and he’ll nod and smile and say, “Wow, that’s so deep” and we’ll fuck and he’ll forget and it’ll be fine, it won’t mean anything but it’ll be good, it’ll be great, it’ll be me, my power, me, in control, me, using the world to steal, to speak, to live, to survive to live fuck you, fuck you all!
On the balcony, shaking with rage, tears in my eyes.
A boat on the small canal outside, struggling to find a place to park. It’s going to rain soon, smell of it on the air, the cobbles are slippery, difficult to run.
I am the rain.
I am the cold.
I am my breath.
I pick my laptop up from the floor. It’s still working, hanging on in there, sorry about the sulk. I look up “need a friend”.
Need a friend? Choose your option:
1. Talk NOW to a therapist, $50 for the hour online (pay as you go).
2. Talk NOW to a stranger (free!) and find your way through your problems through our online chat.
3. Talk NOW to our online community (free!) and post your questions, anxieties and stories in our online subscription-based community forum.
I try to talk, but no one listens.
I just want to be judged for who I am.
No one ever seems interested.
I went to close the laptop, but before I did, another message, from mugurski71.
This is Luca, it said. This is my number.
Chapter 86
Venice in the rain. The tourists flee, the canals hiss like an angry goose, towers vanish into blurred-out grey, veils of water slipping off the bridges. Hawkers, hair glued to their faces, wheel their tarpaulin-covered wares through narrow metal doors in the basements of undecorated houses given over to the storage of a thousand papier-mâché masks.
Hard to use an umbrella, too many others competing to get through the narrow spaces; those shops that were smart enough to stock brollies now cash in, thirty euros a go. Better off with an anorak, head down, concentrating on placing your feet one before another, the sun gone, dizzying, north-south-east-west, Calle del Magazen, Calle Arco, Calle de la Pietà, Calle Crosera, turn left, turn right and you’re back at the Grand Canal though you could have sworn you were heading in the opposite direction.
I held a new mobile phone in my hand, only Luca Evard’s number saved, and walked.
Come to Accademia, I texted, breaking the lock into the tower of Chiesa di San Vidal as the message sent. He came to Accademia, arriving twenty minutes later, hatless, water dripping off the end of his nose.
I watched him from the tower and texted, Campo Sant’Angelo.
He received the message, looked around, started walking, hands buried in his pockets, a thin attempt at staying warm, towards Campo Sant’Angelo, passing me by, unseen in my perch. A baroque quartet was warming up as I descended the tower, cat-gut strings and horse-hair bows. A lone vendor was left in Campo Santa Stefano selling masks: the Bauta (good for eating in); the Columbina; the plague doctor and the Moretta, Arlecchino, Harlequin and Pantalone; the Volto, the most famous of the Venetian masks, stark white face around which colour bursts, gold and silver, bright greens and polished bronze, have I told you about
focus
Focus.
I passed him at Sant’Angelo, moved a few streets on, took refuge in a café selling pancakes filled with fruit and melted chocolate, ordered one and, as I waited, texted, Campo Manin.
A few moments later, he went by, elbowing his way through the crowd, and I let him pass, and looked for followers, obvious signs of protection or security, and didn’t see any.
Rialto, I said and followed fifty yards behind him, hood over my head, eating my pancake from its paper bag, stopping in doorways only twice, as he looked back.
He walked to the middle of Rialto and stopped at the peak of the stairs, looking down to both ends of the bridge. Rialto Bridge, completed 1591, not the first bridge on the site, at least four wooden predecessors collapsed beforehand and ruin was predicted for the final evolution but here it is hulking above the waters