‘I’m going to have to walk this off, I think,’ said Freja.
‘A good idea.’ We paid the bill, quite reasonable for Venice, splitting it fifty-fifty. I lavishly tipped our waiter, who stood shaking our hands, nodding, nodding, standing on tiptoe to kiss Freja on the cheek, indicating in vociferous Italian that I was a very lucky man, very fortunato.
‘Now I think he’s saying I have a very beautiful wife.’
‘I’m sure you do, it’s just it is not me.’
‘I don’t know how to explain that.’
‘Perhaps it’s easier to let him think I am your wife,’ said Freja, and so that’s what we did.
We walked back to the fine wide street of Via Garibaldi, still busy with local families eating in the pavement restaurants, then turned into a tree-lined processional avenue between grand villas. We walked, and perhaps it was the wine or the beauty of the evening or the medicated plasters, but I was barely aware of the blisters on my toes or the torn skin on the soles of my feet. I told Freja about today’s breakthrough and my plan to lie in wait outside the hotel tomorrow.
‘And what if he doesn’t come?’
‘A free hotel in Venice without his mum and dad? I’m sure he’ll come.’
‘Okay, what if he does? What then?’
We walked on.
‘I’ll ask him to come for a drink. I’ll apologise. I’ll say we’ve missed him and that I hope things will be better in the future.’
But even as I announced the plan, I sensed its inherent implausibility. Who were these two characters, father and son, frankly discussing their emotions? We had barely had a relaxed conversation since ‘cow goes moo’ and now here we were chatting about feelings over beer. ‘Who knows, perhaps if we can patch things up I can get Connie to fly over, and we can carry on with the Grand Tour. There’s still Florence, Rome, Pompeii, Naples. He can bring his girlfriend along if he wants. If not, I’ll take him back to England.’
‘And if he doesn’t want to go back?’
‘Then I have a chloroformed handkerchief and some strong rope. I’ll rent a car and drive back with him in the boot.’ Freja laughed, I shrugged. ‘If he wants to travel on without us, that’s fine. At least we’ll know he’s safe and well.’
We were at the apex of a high bridge now, looking east towards the Lido. ‘I almost wish that I could wait with you, although I’m not sure how we would explain that to him.’
‘“Albie, meet my new friend Freja. Freja, this is Albie.”’
‘Yes, that might be tricky.’
‘It might.’
‘For no reason!’
‘No. For no reason,’ I said, though when I looked down, it seemed that she had taken my hand, and we walked like this back along the Riva degli Schiavoni.
‘And where are you heading tomorrow?’ I said.
‘I’m catching the train to Florence. I have tickets for the Uffizi the day after. Three nights in Rome, then Pompeii, Herculaneum, Capri, Naples. Almost the same route as you. Then in two weeks’ time I fly back to Copenhagen from Palermo.’
‘The holiday of a lifetime.’
She laughed. ‘I certainly hope I never have to do it again.’
‘Has it been that bad?’
‘No, no, no. I’ve seen wonderful, beautiful things. Look at this, now — it is extraordinary.’ We scanned the horizon, from the Lido to Giudecca where an illuminated ocean liner, as gargantuan as some intergalactic cruiser, set off for the Adriatic. ‘And the art and the buildings, the lakes and the mountains. Wonderful things I’ll never see again, but for the first time I’m seeing these things alone. I keep opening my mouth, and realising there’s no need. Of course, I tell myself it’s healthy and good for the soul, but I’m not sure yet that we’re meant to be alone. Humans, I mean. It feels too much like a test, like surviving in the wilderness. It’s a good experience to have, one is pleased to have succeeded, but it’s still not the best. I miss company. I miss my girls, and my granddaughter. I’ll be glad to get back home and to hold them.’ She exhaled suddenly, rolled her head and shoulders as if shrugging something off. ‘This is the most I’ve spoken in three weeks. It must be the wine! I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Not in the least.’ Soon we were back at the pensione, standing on the threshold, facing each other.
‘Today has been the best time of my trip, the gallery and then tonight. I’m sorry it has come so late for both of us.’
‘Me too.’
A moment passed.
‘I hope the ceiling doesn’t spin when I lie down,’ she said.
‘So do I.’
Another moment.
‘Well!’
‘Well …’
‘We both have an early start tomorrow. We should go to bed.’
‘Sadly so.’
I opened the door but Freja didn’t move, and I closed it again. She laughed, shook her head, then in a rush said:
‘I hate to use alcohol as an excuse for anything but I don’t know if I’d have said this sober and perhaps, given your situation, you don’t care for the idea, but I hate the thought of you in that awful little room, and if you wanted to join me, for tonight, in my room, nothing … amorous, not necessarily, just for warmth — well, not warmth, it’s too hot for warmth — for company, just a safe port, safe harbour, is that correct? Well, if you feel you could do that without guilt or anxiety, then I would be most delighted.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’d like that very much.’ And so that was what we did.
Well, that was a mistake.
Despite clinical exhaustion I did not sleep at all that night, though not for the reasons one might expect. Caffeine, wine and a whirring mind kept me awake, much more so than any erotic fervour. In fact Freja was asleep on my shoulder within minutes, her breath smelling strongly of booze and an unfamiliar brand of toothpaste, and while she didn’t snore exactly, there was a certain amount of snuffling and gurgling and the crackle of something catching in her throat. Modesty and self-consciousness required that we both wore T-shirts, which made us uncomfortably warm, and the pressure of even a single cotton sheet on my ruined feet kept me twitching and straining, and sure enough, as the hours ticked by, the undoubted pleasures of the evening shaded into discomfort, guilt and anxiety. With the best will in the world, it was hard to see how lying pinned beneath this woman would save my marriage, and I was acutely aware that in the pocket of my trousers, folded on the chair, my phone remained switched off. Had Connie called back? What if there was news? What if she needed me? Was she lying awake too? As the radio alarm ticked over from three to four a.m. I abandoned any hope of sleep, eased my shoulder from beneath Freja’s head and retrieved my phone.
The glare of a screen at four in the morning is a more effective stimulant than any espresso and within moments I was entirely alert. There were no messages, no texts or emails. Seeking reassurance, with a sentimental desire to see my son’s face animated and smiling, I opened the link to the video of them singing ‘Homeward Bound’ in that unknown Venetian square. Their performance was more appealing with the sound muted, and I even noted a foolish longing look between them that I’d missed before. ‘Maybe you should let them go,’ Freja had said. ‘Let him be.’
Impossible. I typed in kat kilgour once again, followed one or two dead ends and then, on an image-sharing website, found a virtual, visual diary of her travels. Photographs, many, many photographs. Here were Kat and Albie on the Rialto Bridge, pouting, cheeks pressed together, offering up their foreheads to the phone’s fish-eye lens in that pose that has become standard these days. Here was a moody shot of Albie, posturing with his cheek against the neck of his guitar in moody black and white, the caption ‘lover and friend, Albie Petersen’ and a poorly punctuated commentary beneath from KK’s friends and fans — gorgeous!!! back off bitch hes mine, two thumbs up, bring him to sydney, hes easy on the eye damn gurl he beautiful — my strange pride battling with bemusement at this brazen new world that Albie occupied, where ratings were accorded to everything, including the sexual attractiveness of strangers, and where no opinion went unexpressed. No inhibitions, no repression. I would! said one remark. That’s all, just I would! What had happened to loaded conversations and drunken, whispered confidences in back-street trattorias? Good God, I thought, how might I have fared in a world where people were free to say what they felt?