Every Picture Tells a Story

by Gregory Dowling

  She looked hard at me. “You’ve obviously got a lot to tell me. Come on.”

  “Who else is there?”

  “Well, nobody for the moment. That’s why you can come without creating any problems. We’ve booked up the whole hotel for the course, and all the students have gone to Mantua for two days. Derek thought someone should stay, just to keep an eye on the rooms—check the woman doesn’t start subletting them, which I wouldn’t put past her.”

  “I see.” I was thinking hard; there was no reason why they shouldn’t be staying here. It was just a hotel. “Look, maybe I’d better not be seen by the people at the desk.” I doubted that the woman I’d spoken to would remember me, but there was no point in risking it. And if I could sleep there without handing in a passport, so much the better.

  “If you’re thinking of my reputation, I can only say thanks—but I suppose you’ve other things on your mind.”

  “Well, is it possible?”

  “Yes. The desk is on the first floor, but there’s nobody there permanently. A bell rings when the front door’s opened, so the woman looks out of her kitchen. You just hang around in the entrance, and when you hear me whistle, come on up. Just keep going on up the stairs. I’ll wait for you on the second floor. She’s usually got the television on, so she shouldn’t hear.”

  “Okay. Celeste Aïda, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  This worked easily enough. Lucy had her own key to the hotel’s front door. I hung around in the entrance, heard her say “Buonasera, signora,” and then a few seconds later Celeste Aïda started up. I walked nimbly and quietly up, past the murmur of a soap opera, and joined Lucy on the staircase. “Top floor, I’m afraid,” Lucy said. “I’ve got the only single room.”

  Top floor was the fourth floor. The room was rigorously single in its furniture: one bed, one bedside table, one chair, one light bulb, one sink, one wardrobe, one picture of the Rialto Bridge. Lucy had used her own belongings to give the place a rather more welcoming air of multiplicity. There was a row of books on top of the wardrobe, various postcards of paintings propped up on the table, some blouses and skirts spread along the foot of the bed and the chair, and an array of shoes under the sink. She went over to the radiator and put her hands on it. “It’s on,” she said with relief. “I thought she might have decided…” She took her coat off and tossed it on the bed. I did the same.

  I glanced at the books: Hugh Honour’s Companion Guide to the city, various modern novels, Middlemarch, a book on Palladio,and two novels by Calvino in Italian. She saw me looking at them. “Go on then,” she said.

  “Go on what?”

  “Let’s have the usual sneer at my tastes in literature.”

  “Did I do that?”

  “Yes, always.”

  “Just disguised guilt,” I said, “because I read nothing but rubbish, as you know. No, I’m impressed.”

  “And there’s no need to patronize.”

  “We have gone back, haven’t we?” I said. This semiserious bickering was almost more pregnant with memories than anything that had happened so far. I saw her tugging at the corkscrew and thought back to twenty such evenings in an almost identical hotel room elsewhere in the city. And, as almost invariably on those occasions, she gave up and handed me the bottle. “You prove your manhood.”

  I pulled the cork out without rupturing anything. She poured into two glasses she’d taken from a cupboard by the door. I took one and went over to the window. I opened it and looked out. It’s impossible to resist any elevated view in Venice. I tried to identify the bell towers I could see across the rooftops and chimneys and aerials. Then I looked down to the canal, which was full of moored boats, unmoving in the rippleless water. Leaning out, I could see the patchy white facade of Palazzo Sambon directly to my right.

  “Hey,” she said, “it’s getting cold.”

  “Sorry.” I brought my head back in and closed the window. I went and sat on the bed.

  “Sorry about the lack of chairs,” she said.

  “I’ve been in worse places.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  This dried up conversation on both sides. She was obviously thinking hard and carefully about what to say.

  I said, “You don’t have to pretend it never happened, you know.”

  “I don’t mean to. I want you to tell me about it. Among other things. I want you to tell me everything.”

  “Why did you never—oh, hell.” I took a great swig of wine.

  “Never what?”

  “Never ask me then. About anything.”

  She stared into her glass and turned it slowly in her hands. “I think we were both really silly.”

  “Silly.” I put my glass down on the bedside table. “Extremely silly of me to go to jail. Should have escaped at once, of course.”

  “Now you really are being silly. But no, I was probably the stupider one then. And I had no excuses. But it all just goes to show what—what balls it is when people say that perfect love means understanding. Love means never having to say you’re sorry, and all the rest of the rubbish. I don’t think anybody ever loved anybody like I loved you, and vice versa I’m sure, but we could still both make the stupidest mistakes about each other and what the other was thinking.”

  “Go on, tell me. What was my mistake?”

  “Well, you remember how things were just before you got arrested? You’d had that row with my father—”

  “Hardly row. I’d just asked how it was that the Vatican always seemed to be involved in shady financial dealings. I hadn’t brought the subject up either.”

  “It was your tone, Martin, and you know it. That God-save-me-from-the-dirty-business-world tone.”

  I winced a little. Well, at least she hadn’t categorized it, as she might have done with equal fairness, as greasy chapel piety. Certain things stick, even when you think you’ve shaken them off completely.

  “But anyway,” she went on, “you remember how I defended my father to you afterward.”

  “Yes. And I didn’t criticize you for doing so, did I?”

  “Not directly. But you managed to give the idea that you’d decided we were all a Mafia—and that I had to choose between them and you.”

  “I never said that.”

  “I know, I know. It was all along the lines of, ‘Well, of course if that’s what Daddy says, that’s what you must do.’ Day in, day out. Your stupid bloody Jimmy Porter stance.”

  I said nothing. It was all too fair a description. Me as anachronistic as ever, Looking Back In Petty Peevishness.

  She went on. “Then you got arrested, and when I saw you before the trial you—you—” She faltered. She was obviously thinking back to something she’d thought back to many many times. “Well, you were all kind of stiff and formal with me. It’ll sound stupid, but it really did seem from the way you spoke that you almost welcomed what had happened as a way of breaking things off.…”

  “I what? But I—” I thought back too. “Oh, Lucy.” A slow sad headshake, learned from Adrian. “It must have been nervous reaction. Desperation even. You know I get more antipatico when I’m in the shit.”

  “I know. I know now. But then … well, I suppose I needed—I hoped for—for just one sign that you wanted or needed help from me. Just one tiny sign, of any sort. And you didn’t give it. And I was too stupid to realize just how far your bloody inverted snobbery or pride could go.”

  I was silent for a few seconds. “Yes, it was that too.” I remembered even making some stupid joke about how nice of her to come and see how the other half lived. And she hadn’t laughed. Well, my tone probably hadn’t been particularly jocular.

  “Sorry,” I said eventually.

  “Idiot,” she said at once. “You can say sorry for this afternoon, but for then, well, as I say it was me who was the—the insensitive swine then. And when I did think better about it all, you’d been sentenced and—well, it just seemed too late for anything. I’d screwed things up and pr
obably you wouldn’t want to hear from me again, and quite rightly too. So I just let things ride.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Though if we’re going for total honesty, I suppose I should add that all these feelings and decisions were probably helped by the fact that they were the easiest ones to take, family pressure being what it was. And that’s what makes me feel guiltiest of all.”

  “What’ll you tell Daddy now then?”

  “Look, Martin, I’ll take anything from you now but cracks about Daddy. Okay?”

  “Sorry. Just call me Jimmy Porter when I do it and that’s guaranteed to stop me. Come here.”

  She didn’t move. She said, “I bet all this time you’ve been thinking of yourself as Rick in Casablanca.”

  “What?”

  “You know: ‘a guy with a silly expression on his face because his insides have just been kicked out.’” The imitation of Humphrey Bogart wouldn’t have won any prizes, but I recognized it.

  “You’re right,” I said. “You do know me too bloody well. Come here.”

  “And you’ll kees me as eef it were the last time?” She came and sat next to me. Well, she started off sitting anyway.

  16

  “YOU still haven’t told me anything about yourself and this evening,” she said sometime later. She was sitting up against the pillow, her hair in great spreading disarray.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Things seemed pressing. I wanted to get in before your usual religious doubts did.”

  “Get in,” she said. “How delightfully you put things. Pour yourself some more wine.”

  “Thanks, I will.” I got out of bed and shivered. The radiator was not exactly a furnace. I put my trousers and a sweater on. I poured out two glasses and handed her one. She sat right up with the sheet and blankets pulled around for warmth. I said, “So what do you know about the whole thing?”

  “Just what I read in the paper. How you and that man, whatever his name was, fell into the canal.”

  “No, unfortunately it was only me. Well, I’d better start from the beginning.” So for the second time that day I told the story. And this time I really did get that sense of overwhelming relief and liberation that I’d hoped for when I’d started talking to Alvise, because this time I really did tell everything. It was as much a confession as a narrative. I realized I hadn’t talked so freely to anyone since I came out of prison. I found myself pacing up and down the room and gesturing with my glass. At one point I even mimed my falling into the canal. She listened with her usual responsive attention, her eyes widening and narrowing, her mouth opening and closing (though not necessarily in synchrony). She didn’t interrupt too much, however. She leaped out of bed at one point to hold me tight when I told of the picture burning, and this threatened to lead into an extended digression, but then she sat back down again and I continued. The only thing I did hold back was that vague urge I’d had to kiss Francesca: it hardly seemed essential to the story. At the end I poured out the rest of the wine and she said, “You do get yourself into some right messes, don’t you?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “So what now?”

  “A long sleep, I reckon. Will any of your charges have left a pair of pajamas, do you think?”

  “Be serious.”

  “Are you going to start bludgeoning now?” I asked. “What about the police and my duty as a citizen and all the rest of it?”

  “Look, I understand your—your reluctance, but you can’t be more scared of the police than you are of those thugs tonight.”

  “Let’s say it’s a toss-up,” I said.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” she said, frowning. “That attack in the school was obviously just to scare you, right?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Like the note in the hotel.”

  “So what made them suddenly change tactics and try and kidnap you?”

  “They may have thought that I don’t scare so easily. Wish it were true.”

  “Maybe. It just seems odd to me. And then how had they found out where you were staying?”

  “I’ve thought of that. I suppose they knew the category of hotel I’d left and they just phoned round all the other hotels in Venice of that category as being where I’d most likely move to. It wouldn’t take them that long.”

  “I suppose not. But are you sure that’s how it was? I mean, what about this Elvis guy?”

  “Alvise,” I said. “It’s a common name in Venice, though I’ve never come across it anywhere else.”

  “Never mind about the name. You say he got you to tell him the whole story and then just suddenly upped and offed.”

  “I know what you’re thinking. But I find it hard to believe. He seemed—well, a nice guy. A bit nervous—particularly of the police, but—”

  “Of the police. Well, then.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything necessarily. I’m nervous of them—and so probably is anyone who went through the seventies as a student here. Though he did seem very scared.… Well, I don’t know, I reserve judgment. Because as I say, there are plenty of ways they could have found out where I was staying without it being anything to do with him.”

  “I suppose so,” she said, still doubtfully. She changed the subject. “So the next thing you have to do is speak to Osgood, right?”

  “Right.”

  “He sounds a character,” she said.

  “He’s poison,” I said at once.

  She looked surprised. “That sounded really bitter.”

  “Don’t tell me, I’m supposed to have a soft spot for the lovable old rogue, because after all we’re all in the same business, right? Con artists together.”

  “Martin,” she said, “come here.”

  I obeyed, lying out beside her. She stroked my forehead, which I discovered with surprise was what I really needed at that moment, and she said, “Don’t get twisted up inside.”

  After a pause I said, “You do know why I got involved in all this, don’t you?”

  “Go on, tell me.”

  “It’s because I really care about that painting—those paintings.…”

  “Cima is the tops,” she murmured.

  “Right. I mean it’s not one of the greatest paintings in the world, its rediscovery isn’t going to set the bells ringing much outside Treganzi, but its loss is going to make the world that one bit poorer. In some ways I care for it so much because it’s a minor work. I sometimes think it’s the wonderful smaller treasures that you find in remote places that make Italy special: the fact that every little one-horse hamlet has its jewel. And it’s because of bastards like Osgood that the paintings get pinched or have to be moved to museums, where they just become one more Madonna and Child. With careful catalog notes by Professor Perkins probably. Because it’s not a question of sneak thieves; it’s a very professional business, in which Osgood and his kind are essential elements. Your average sneak thief would be wasting his time pinching a sixteenth-century painting, because who’s he going to sell it to? He’s not going to know the sort of lunatic aesthete who’s prepared to pay thousands for something he’s going to have to gloat over in secret. But Osgood does know these people. And there seem to be more of them than one would think possible, judging by the number of works that disappear every year. And to my mind every painting that disappears is another victory for barbarism.”

  “Martin, you’ve convinced me. Okay, I see you care: you’re a lone knight against the forces of barbarism.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” I said. “I reckon prison must have brought out my latent chapel sanctimony.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I suppose I’m just not used to seeing you so—so worked up about anything. You really do care, don’t you?”

  “Well, it’s something to keep me going,” I said with a shrug.

  “Ah good, that’s more like the laid-back Martin I remember. So long as it’s not all just a clever way of putting off painting again.”

  “What?” I stared at her.

  “W
ell, I always remember how you’d fiddle around for ages between every new painting—saying you had to clean the studio first, or get new brushes, or even just tidy the house. Anything.”

  “Well, only if I was going to try something new.”

  “Exactly. And I bet the one thing you don’t want to do now is paint the same old things all over again.”

  “No,” I said after a moment’s thought. “I can’t think of anything that would depress me more. The same bloody gimmicks.”

  I poured myself another glass of wine and went over to the window to change the subject. “Hey, why don’t I go in and have a look at Palazzo Sambon?”

  “What, now?”

  “When better? Have you got a torch?”

  “Yes, but if you think I’m coming…”

  “No, of course you needn’t.”

  “And what do you expect to find but rats?”

  “I don’t know. But it just seems silly to be so close and not go and have a look.” I opened the window and leaned out again. I looked at the nearest window of Palazzo Sambon. It was on a slightly higher level than the one where we were and had a protruding marble sill resting on corbels. “You know,” I said, “I could probably step across to the window there, and the shutters don’t look all that strong.”

  “I forbid you,” she said. She got out of bed and took a dressing gown from behind the door and joined me.

  “I’d only fall in the canal and I’m probably immune to everything now.”

  “And how do I explain things to the coroner? I’d probably lose my job. You know what Derek’s like.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Okay, I’ll spare your reputation. There’s a loose shutter on the ground floor actually.”

  “Good. I know you like to pretend you’re Indiana Jones, but I’m quite happy to keep you as a boring old artist who—”

  “Plays safe.”

  She was taken aback by my tone. “Martin, have I touched another sore spot?”

  “Sorry, I’m covered in them.”

  We kissed. It seemed the easiest way to conclude the momentary embarrassment. Then we just stood by the window gazing out, listening to the faint sloshing of the boats below, with their ropes squeaking against the poles. No other noise at all.