by T A Williams
Pulling out her phone, she did something she had been meaning to do for some days now. She googled his name, Michael Turner, and what she found confirmed her supposition that he must be well-known and successful. There were numerous pages with entries about him and his highly successful career, particularly for somebody who it turned out was barely four years older than her. Apart from a lengthy Wikipedia article about him, she found multiple references to galleries exhibiting his work and a series of news items. One headline in particular caught her eye and, as she read the article, the significance of his careworn expression and the ring on his finger became all too clear.
The article from the online version of the Milanese newspaper Corriere della Sera, dated the fifth of December three years earlier, was entitled University Professor Dies in Horror Crash. As she scanned down the page, it soon emerged that the university professor in question was called Grazia Varese and it mentioned the name of her husband as Michael Turner, the renowned portrait painter. She raised her eyes from the screen and let them roam across the water to the mountains on the far side as she reflected on the true awfulness of what must have happened that foggy winter’s day on the Verona to Milan motorway. She could only begin to imagine what Michael must have suffered and must still be suffering, and a wave of compassion flooded over her, bringing tears stinging to the corners of her eyes.
She sat there for an age, her mind turning over and over the implications of the tragedy that had happened, before she gradually began to pull herself together. In a concerted attempt to change to a more cheerful train of thought, she took a few moments to consider how well things were going between her and Alex. Their final few days in Venice had been great and the two of them had spent a considerable amount of time talking. She had told Alex about Rob and in return had learned that Alex had had a lot of boyfriends, but no special one – apart, maybe, from James. It was pretty clear that she liked James a lot, although she stubbornly refused to let her interfering father railroad her into a relationship. It didn’t take Suzie long to confirm that her original assumption that Alex’s life had been irreparably blighted by the death of her mother was indeed correct. Growing up in that massive manor house, cut off from the real world by a 500-acre deer park, had taken its toll and Suzie was in no doubt Alex needed love… but then, maybe, so did she.
At four o’clock, she changed into her swimming things and went down to the boathouse. Tommy was already there, and he showed her where there was an amazing collection of windsurfing kit, including wetsuits. Over lunch he had revealed that he was James’s cousin and he obviously came here often and knew his way around. Although the air temperature was high, Suzie was under no illusions as to how quickly she would lose body heat if she ended up in the cold lake water, so she chose a shorty summer suit and found it a remarkably good fit. It even still had the shop label inside. Evidently she was the first to wear it and she was very pleased about that, even though she had brought a protective vest just in case. As she knew from personal experience, old wetsuits were not the most appealing of environments. Ever since Rob had told her that the best way to warm up in a wetsuit was to pee in it, she had viewed other people’s suits with considerable mistrust.
James and his father had clearly spent a lot of money on windsurfing kit and she found a good harness and strapped herself into it quite easily. Tommy was all in favour of setting her up with a bulky beginners’ board and small sail, but Suzie chose a virtually brand-new lightweight board and race sail, in spite of his scepticism. The wind had picked up here at the waterside and she could see from the little wavelets further out that the wind strength way out in the lake promised to be exciting. She expressed surprise that James, allegedly a windsurfing fanatic, didn’t want to come out and Tommy explained.
‘He says he’d rather stay back at the villa with Alex.’
Suzie shook her head in wonderment. ‘There’s what looks like a good breeze out there. My old boyfriend wouldn’t have had any qualms about dumping me if the wind was just right. Your cousin must be serious.’
‘Oh, it’s serious all right… on his part. You’d know better than me how she thinks about him.’
Suzie decided it wasn’t her place to interfere in other people’s love lives, so she shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t really know her that well yet, but they look good together.’
The two of them set off and Suzie was pleased – and mildly surprised – to find herself a little way ahead of him by the time they rounded the headland and came into the full force of the wind. This was from the south, but it was still cool so close to the high mountains and she was grateful for the warm wetsuit. As the sail filled, she hooked into her harness and leant back, relishing the acceleration as the board came out of the water onto the plane. It was like being in a sports car, accelerating away from the lights, and she had always loved the sensation. She took off across the lake like a scalded cat and when she finally gybed round to return, she found Tommy close behind her. As he came past, he gave her a big smile and she had no trouble smiling back at him. She did a few more long runs, feeling the board skitter and bounce as she hit larger waves, before finally turning back towards the shore. It was exhilarating and she hadn’t had so much fun for ages. She was still smiling by the time she got back to the jetty. She dragged the board and sail out of the water and sat down, muscles screaming, for a rest on the warm timber.
She had only been there for a minute or so when she discovered she had company. Feeling she was being watched, she turned her head towards the shore and found herself face to face with a big black dog, barely a few feet away from her. It was only then that she suddenly realised that this wasn’t the right jetty after all. Unwittingly, she had landed on the jetty belonging to the small house with the overgrown garden next door to James’s villa and this, presumably, was the owner’s dog. She liked dogs, but she wasn’t sure how this one might react to a trespasser. She was just tensing her muscles, ready to jump into the lake, when the dog’s tail began to wag, uncertainly at first, and then more enthusiastically. Relieved, she held out her hand, knuckles first, and adopted a friendly tone.
‘Hello, dog.’ It probably didn’t matter to the dog that she had chosen to speak in English, but, just in case, she added a quick translation. ‘Ciao, cane.’
The dog came trotting across to her and nuzzled her hand with its cold wet nose. As it did so, she heard a voice and saw an elderly man approaching along the jetty. Unlike the dog, he didn’t look friendly. He was limping heavily and leaning on a stick, but he stopped to brandish it in the air as he approached her.
‘Via, via! Qui é proprietà privata. Via!’ To her considerable surprise, he then looked down at the dog and addressed it directly. ‘As for you, Dogberry, you’re useless. Call yourself a guard dog!’
The unexpected thing was that he spoke to the dog in English and he was quite evidently a native speaker, with a soft Scottish accent. Suzie rose to her knees, by which time the dog had decided she was definitely a friend, rather than a foe, and had buried his head affectionately into her armpit, his tail wagging ever harder. She ruffled his ears as she replied to the old man – in English.
‘I’m terribly sorry. I’m staying at the villa next door and I got my jetties mixed up. I’ll go straight off again. My apologies once more.’ She glanced down at the Labrador, who had now decided it was time to lick her face. ‘I’m afraid your guard dog might need a bit more training.’ Gently dissuading him from putting his big paws on her shoulders, she added an afterthought. ‘Mind you, as an English scholar, it’s always good to meet a dog with a Shakespearian pedigree.’ Dogberry, the bumbling watchman from Much Ado About Nothing, had always been one of her favourite comic characters.
By this time, the old man’s expression had softened. He came closer and lowered himself heavily onto an old bench as he did so. There was a sinister creak – presumably from the bench, rather than the old man – and Suzie found herself hoping it wouldn’t collapse underneath him.
> ‘So, you know your Shakespeare, eh?’ There was definitely the hint of a smile on his face.
Suzie grinned. ‘Well, I know enough to recognise the name of my favourite character from Much Ado.’
‘I called him Dogberry because I got him from a Sicilian lady.’
Suzie nodded. ‘Of course, the play’s set in Messina.’
‘Very good.’ The smile broadened. ‘So, what brings you here to the lake?’
Suzie gave him a brief summary of her background, the collapse of the charity where she had been working and how she had been engaged to accompany Alex to Italy. He nodded along with her account and suddenly looked up as she mentioned her doctorate in English.
‘May I ask the subject of your doctoral thesis?’
‘Um, Shakespeare, actually.’ Seeing distinct interest in his eyes, she spelled it out for him. ‘A fresh appraisal of Italian influences in the works of Shakespeare. You know, whether he ever made it over here, or whether he got it all out of books or from other people who had visited Italy. It is pretty suspicious, after all, that so many of his works are set in Italy.’
‘Well, well, well.’ The old man held out an unsteady hand towards her. ‘In that case, my dear, I am even more pleased you chose my landing stage rather than Lord Witchampton’s. Dennis Macgregor-Brown. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.’
Suzie straightened up so suddenly the dog who had been leaning up against her almost lost his balance and came close to toppling into the lake. She steadied him with one hand and then stroked his ears while she shook the old man’s hand with the other. ‘Did you say Dennis Macgregor-Brown… Professor Dennis Macgregor-Brown of Oxford University? That’s who you are?’ She was truly astounded. ‘I’ve read every book you’ve ever written and your seminal work on Shakespeare in Italy formed a major part of my research. A dog-eared copy of The Foreign Travels of Shakespeare accompanied me wherever I went. I’m truly honoured to meet you in person, Professor Macgregor-Brown. Somehow, I feel I already know you so well.’
He gave her a modest little bow of the head. ‘Thank you for your kind words, but it’s formerly of Oxford University. I’ve been retired for a good while now. But I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Of course, I’m so sorry. My name’s Suzanne Cartwright. Everybody calls me Suzie.’
‘Dogberry and I welcome you to our home, Doctor Cartwright… Suzie. It’s a very happy chance that has brought you here.’ He hesitated. ‘If you can spare the time, I’d be delighted to see you again, maybe when you are fully clothed.’ The smile returned to his lips and the familiar red patches to her cheeks. ‘I’m no longer an evening person, but I’d be very pleased if you felt like coming for lunch one of these days. Paolina, my housekeeper, is an excellent cook.’
‘I would really love that, Professor, but I’m only here until Monday. I don’t know if you’re free tomorrow, by any chance.’
‘I’m always free these days, Suzie.’ There was a more melancholy note in his voice. ‘Dogberry and I don’t exactly enjoy a scintillating social life. Tomorrow will be perfect.’
‘Thank you so much, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.’
‘Absolutely not. But a word of warning – once I start talking about Shakespeare, it’s very hard to get me to stop.’
Suzie laughed. ‘That’s something we have in common. It could be a long afternoon. Now I’ll get out of your hair. My apologies again for the intrusion.’
When she got back to James’s jetty, she found a little group waiting for her. Tommy surprised her by coming over, grabbing her hand in both of his and pumping it up and down.
‘Suzie, you’re great on a board. You should have told me you were a star.’
‘Suzie’s not one to blow her own trumpet. That looked fantastic, Suzie.’ Alex was beaming proudly at her and James even managed to drag his eyes off Alex long enough to pay her some other compliments. Inevitably she found herself blushing and she hastened to tell them that not everything had gone smoothly by recounting her choice of the wrong landing stage upon her return to the shore. When she mentioned the old man and his dog, James gave a snort.
‘Bad-tempered old sod. He keeps sending emails to my father complaining about us making too much noise. And that bloody dog got into our garden a few days ago and we found him in the pool swimming around as happy as you like.’
Suzie grinned at the image and related her connection with Professor Macgregor-Brown and her invitation to lunch. James looked positively astounded at this.
‘He’s invited you for lunch? What, in his house? Not even my father’s been in there.’
‘Your father’s not a pretty girl, James.’ Alex gave Suzie a smile. ‘Suzie, you look really good without the glasses, you know.’
Sensing another flush of embarrassment coming on, Suzie hastily disappeared into the boathouse to return the windsurfing kit, after which she slipped unobtrusively back to her room and ran a hot bath. As she lay in the water and relaxed, her mood was bittersweet. Part of her was happy after the exhilarating sail and the chance meeting with one of her academic idols, while she still couldn’t shake off the image of a horrific accident on a foggy motorway and a heartbroken husband. Life could be so terribly unfair sometimes.
Dinner that evening was excellent and she was feeling quite sleepy by the end of it. The others, not so. James announced his intention of driving down to a nightclub at the southern end of the lake and most of his guests decided to accompany him. Among these was Alex. Suzie, in spite of being barely a year or two older than many of them, felt like an old maid when she told Alex she thought she would give the nightclub a miss. Her conscience pricked her as she found herself wondering whether Lord Tedburn would have expected her to stay by Alex’s side, so she had a quiet word in her ear.
‘Would you like me to come along, Alex? I will, if you want.’
‘Not if you’re tired.’ Alex gave her a grin. ‘And I promise I’ll be a good girl – although in fact if I end up in James’s bed I expect my father would approve. But that’s definitely not going to happen.’
Suzie grinned back. ‘That’s the spirit. Anyway, if you’re sure you don’t mind, I think I’ll head upstairs. Have a good time.’ A sudden thought occurred to her. ‘How are you all going to get there? The Rolls-Royce can’t take that many people.’
‘That’s no problem. James says they’ve all rented cars, so we’ll be quite a convoy.’
An image of the fatal crash flashed before Suzie’s eyes for a moment and she reached out to touch Alex on the arm. ‘Well, you make sure James drives safely. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.’ As she spoke, she realised that she really meant it.
For the very first time Alex leant across and gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘You are so sweet. I promise we’ll take care. Besides, I’ve got James eating out of my hand. If I tell him to drive all the way in first gear, he’ll do it.’
As Suzie climbed the stairs to her room, she reflected on that spontaneous sign of affection from Alex and she was still smiling when she reached her room.
Chapter 8
Very few of the other guests surfaced before mid-morning the following day and Suzie had time to go for a long walk by herself. A stronger breeze was blowing through the branches of the trees and there was something strange about the lake this morning. Unlike the brilliant blue of yesterday, today the colour was a sinister deep grey-green, not dissimilar to the colour of the lagoon in Venice. As she looked up, she could see ominous dark clouds massing over the hills and she felt sure a storm was on the way. She sighed, but couldn’t really complain. They had been in Italy for a week now and had hardly seen a cloud in the sky. Autumn was drawing on, however, and it was inevitable the weather would change sooner or later. From what she could see around her, it looked like that was definitely going to be sooner, most probably today.
There was a shop in the nearby village where she bought a bottle of good whisky as a gift for the professor and chatted to the owner wh
o confirmed that a storm was indeed on its way and advised her not to stay out too long. When she returned to the villa, Alex had just appeared and Suzie sat and had a coffee with her while she ate her cornflakes. She heard all about the trip to the nightclub and James’s attempts to take things to the next level, and was interested to hear what was maybe a wistful note in Alex’s voice as she reported that she had rejected him. She also related how sorry Tommy had claimed to be when he had discovered that Suzie had stayed at home. She gave Suzie a knowing look and a wink.
‘You see, all you have to do is take off your glasses and the men will come running.’
‘I’m quite happy with my glasses and without any man at the moment – running or not.’ She set down her cup. ‘But listen, I’m afraid I have some awful news. I didn’t get the chance to tell you yesterday.’ She went on to tell her what she had read about the road accident and the shattering effect it must have had on Michael. Alex was appalled.
‘Oh, good God, how terrible. Poor lady, and poor Michael. Little wonder he was looking troubled.’ She laid her napkin on the table and sat back. ‘Mind you, it’s been almost three years now, so don’t you think it’s about time you cheered him up?’
‘Me?’
‘Absolutely. It was pretty obvious he’s attracted to you. Why don’t you give him a ring and arrange to meet him?’
Suzie shook her head in bewilderment. She hadn’t noticed anything. Besides, she barely knew him. ‘I was thinking about calling, but I think I’ll wait until we have something to ask him. It’ll sound a bit lame otherwise. And I can hardly just call him and say how sorry I am about his wife. That way, he’d know I’d been checking him out. Anyway, we’ll be in Verona tomorrow night and I’m sure we can come up with a plausible reason for the call.’ She hesitated. ‘But wouldn’t you like to be the one doing the cheering up?’