And now here was Albie in a bed somewhere, his bony torso exposed, cigarette dangling like a French film star, and more comments of a personal nature. I could, I thought, have added one of my own without fear of discovery; chipped in with ‘smoking is NOT cool’ and pasted in a jpeg of a diseased lung, but instead I moved on, skimming past a photo of Kat sleeping on a railway platform, and now standing in front of the Tower of Pisa, pushing it back into alignment and I laughed, actually laughed at the thought of Albie succumbing to the temptation of that picture before catching myself and thinking –
The Tower of Pisa. That’s not right.
The Tower of Pisa is not in Venice. It’s in … well, it’s in Pisa.
I looked at the photograph’s date. Today — yesterday. I swore at the f-ing Tower of f-ing Pisa — and put my hand to my mouth.
I flicked back to the previous photograph, Kat on the train platform. The sign above the bench — Bologna. The caption:
Venice u killed us man. 2 many tourists. On the road again!
I swore louder this time, causing Freja to shift and mumble in her sleep. I felt the panic rise in my chest. Stay calm. Perhaps it was a day trip! Where was Pisa exactly? A traveller’s guide to Italy sat on the top of Freja’s packed case. Bologna sat in the centre of Italy’s thigh, but Pisa was in … Tuscany? I was not just in the wrong city, I was on the wrong coast.
I skimmed forward to the Pisa photos, Albie looking surly and bored on the long promenade of the Arno, head resting awkwardly on his guitar case. Albie on a downer. keep moving on, moving on. sometimes travelling is hard, man. bone-tired. need a place where we can lay our heads. So come back to Reading then, you silly boy! Next, a night-time shot, a photo of Albie arguing with a carabinieri, Albie’s face caught in a sneer, the officer’s eyes shaded beneath his cap. ‘That’s a policeman, Albie!’ I wanted to shout. ‘Don’t argue with a policeman!’ Moved on by fascists was all that Kat could say on the subject. What would the next photo bring? Albie bleeding from a truncheon blow? No, a stray cat drinking from the cap of a water bottle. Night night kitty, said the caption. Siena tomorrow!
Tomorrow. That meant today, this morning, in Siena. The current time was eight minutes past four. Gathering my trousers up in my arms, dangling the evil shoes from my fingertips, I tiptoed to the door.
Dear Freja,
I believe this is called a ‘French exit’ — leaving without saying goodbye. I wonder if that is an idiom that you’re aware of? You know all the others. It seems rather dramatic, I know, and possibly a little rude, and I do hope that you are not offended. But you looked so peaceful sleeping there and I did not want to wake you.
The reason for my hasty departure is that I have what we detectives call a ‘hot lead’ on my son’s whereabouts and I need to travel the width of Italy before lunch. Who knows if I will make it in time, or if the trip will prove futile, but I feel an obligation to try. I hope that, as a parent yourself, you will understand.
My other reason for not waking you was that I wasn’t sure what I would say, and felt I stood a better chance of successfully conveying my thoughts on paper, even at this early hour. I thought very hard about leaving a phone number or address at the top of this page, but to what end? I so enjoyed our conversation last night, but it also served to remind me why I am here in the first place, and certain promises and obligations that I carry with me.
So while it seems unlikely that we will ever meet again, this in no way reflects my warmth of feeling towards you, or my gratitude. You are an extremely interesting, intelligent and compassionate woman, with superb vocabulary. While I have no belief in fate or destiny, I was extremely lucky to have bumped into you at a difficult point in my journey. You are extremely good company and also, I might add, an extremely attractive woman, grandmother or no! Part of me would have enjoyed travelling on with you to Florence and Rome and Naples, though sadly this cannot be.
But I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday and, looking to the future, I hope you find happiness, on your own or with someone new, and continue to take pleasure in your beautiful children and grandchildren. For my part, I will always remember the day we spent in each other’s company, will always think of you fondly and with immense gratitude as well as, I suspect, a certain degree of regret.
With very best wishes,
Sunrise found the city abandoned. I hurried through silent streets and squares, encountering not a single soul until the Strada Nuova, where the office cleaners, the hotel workers and waiters on the early shift stumbled along, heads down, inured to the rosy light, the beauty of this place. My one thought now was to leave.
I caught the first train to Florence with three minutes to spare, scalding my hand with the two double espressos that I’d deemed essential to this journey, along with some kind of pastry, greasy as a bag of chips. I wiped my hands on a tiny napkin that disintegrated immediately, then we were out into the startling daylight, the train sliding gingerly along the causeway that connects Venice umbilically to the mainland. To my left, the strangest sight: cars.
The mainland suburbs of Venice were scrappy and dull and I set my alarm for two hours hence, and closed my eyes in the hope of sleep. But the four ill-considered shots of espresso put paid to this ambition and I found the words of my note to Freja running around my head. She would be waking now, finding the note beneath the door, reading it and feeling — what? Embarrassment? Regret? Irritation? Amusement at my misreading of events? Would she give a wry, wise smile as she placed it in the folds of her guidebook, or tear it smartly in two? Perhaps I should have said goodbye in person after all. A thought occurred.
Unlike with Albie, I knew exactly where Freja would be today. In two hours’ time she would be sitting on this very train, looking out at parched suburban gardens, industrial estates and generic office blocks and, like me, regretting that second bottle of wine, and I might easily wait for her at the station in Florence, perhaps with a small gift of flowers. We could exchange a few words and an email address — ‘let’s keep in touch, just as friends’ — and I could still make it to Siena by the afternoon.
Or, more fantastically, I might abandon my quest completely and stay with her for as long as that lasted. Hurl my phone from the train window into the lagoon, leave Albie to his fate, let my wife do what she wanted. Hadn’t Connie always been the instinctive, passionate one? And hadn’t I earnt the right, after all these years of diligence and reliability, to one last fit of selfish spontaneity?