Clad in smart wellingtons, fur-coated women and trimly dressed men made theirway along raised walkways, constructed from what looked like a long series of trestle tables on metal supports. One or two looked askance at me, up to my shins in canal water.
"Turistici!" I heard one snigger with a shake of his head.
"Yeah?" I muttered. "Fuck off, you neatly dressed Italian."
I was a little concerned about my predicament myself. The sewage arrangements for the city left a lot to be desired. If people weren't discharging all kinds of toxic shit straight into canals, it was sent out through piping to be discharged in the lagoon, where the next tide brought it back in.
Byron swam the width of the Grand Canal and survived. But by the 1950s, when it came time for Katherine Hepburn to fall into a canal in David Lean's A Summer Affair, the filmmakers had to pump the canal full of disinfectant to make sure she didn't catch anything.
Aside from being very cold, therefore, I was sure the water around my legs was even now stripping my skin off. I hoisted myself onto the walkway and went in search of a pair of wellingtons.
It took me a while to find a shop with a pair big enough to fit me. Eventually I had to buy an enormous pair of waders. They weren't ideal. They'd been made to measure for some super-model with my size feet but very skinny legs. She'd never collected them.
I had to take my trousers off to get them up my legs-I figured I could keep my overcoat closed-but even then it was like wearing a pair of thick rubber gloves, except at their tops where they curved out like bugles.
When I left the shop I discovered I squeaked at every step since my thighs rubbed. I looked at my watch. I had an hour before I needed to be back for cocktails. I thought I'd explore a little.
Some of the narrower alleys had no walkways but in my waders I could go anywhere. I quite enjoyed it, except on the couple of occasions I mistook canals for alleys again and almost stepped in. Surprisingly, there was no smell.
St. Mark's Square was submerged to a depth of some two feet and photographers were busy getting arty photos in the water of the reflections of the campanile and the gorgeous basilica with its Byzantine onion domes. Walkways had been set up going all the way into the basilica.
I followed the street that ran behind the church and soon found myself in a warren of much quieter alleys. The shops and restaurants had closed until the flooding subsided. I could see water standing on their marble floors.
I was heading roughly in the direction of the Daniell, the opulent hotel to the east of the Doge's Palace. I wasn't sure what I would do when I got there but I had a number of questions to ask Ralph. Like, was he the Camelot serial killer?
As I headed there, and twilight came, I got increasingly melancholy and not a little spooked. There is a Venice more primitive than the Doge's Palace or the elegance of San Marco Square. Perhaps I was still a little concussed but walking through dingy alleys and lonely squares, past dark, dead stretches of water, the city seemed to sigh with redolences of misery.
Voices echoing from hidden rooms took on sinister overtones. Occasionally I would hear footfalls or on the edge of my vision catch a glimpse of some masked figure, dressed for the carnival, flitting by.
I'd got myself into serious Don't Look Now mode when I walked onto a low, humped bridge. Off to the right the canal broadened enough for three or four gondolas to pass together around a bend. A small quay with two steps down to the water had been constructed at the outer edge of the curve. Beside the quay was the Daniell.
By now it was dark. Yellow pools of light from a lamp beside me swayed on the water below the bridge. I heard the gondola first, the gondolier calling as he reached the blind corner, his voice echoing off the walls of the crumbled palace beyond.
Then the gondola's dark shape approached, silent but for the gentle splash of the oar in the water. I peered down at the passenger as the boat passed beneath the lamp. The face was concealed by a tricorne hat but the long, thin limbs were clothed in what looked like a death shroud, drenched with something dark and sticky. Something that could very well be blood.
I stepped back. I suppose my waders must have squeaked. The masquer tilted his head back to look up at me. I swallowed hard but held his look. His mask had been designed so closely to resemble the face of a stiffened corpse, it would have been difficult to tell the difference. The mask too was splattered with what I took to be blood.
The gondola passed under the bridge. The masquer twisted to have another look at me then said something I didn't catch to the gondolier. The gondolier guided his boat to the dock at the Daniell. Two more masquers, women in long gowns and small black dominoes, stepped in.
I knew my Poe. I recognized that the masquer was in the costume worn by the unwelcome reveller-the Red Death itself-in The Masque of the Red Death. Even so, the sight of him spooked me. I suddenly wanted to be among people again.
I got back to Ca' Dario at about seven. I'd taken the vaporetto to the Rialto and walked through the flooded alleys to the back gate of the palace. The waders were killing me. The streets were by now thronged with boisterous people dressed for the carnival.
Carnival in history has always been a time of licence and of inversion-as Rex had said, lords dressing as layabouts, plebs as princes. Inversion in another sense too-in the costumes, in masks, gender became ambiguous, sexuality even more so. Masks encouraged another kind of licence-outrageous behavior and a lot of sex. Ordinarily I would have felt light-headed at the thought but I was determined that by the end of this long night-the city would be partying until dawn-I would know exactly what had been going on back in England.
I could hear voices on the ground floor but I went straight to my room to change into my costume and get the damned waders off. They felt as if they'd been welded to my knees and calves.
Half an hour later I joined the others. Except that it wasn't just the others. There were about forty people in various exotic costumes and masks that ranged from the simple white dominoes to golden half moons, silver devils, and various animals' features. Some women wore half masks, so that their mouths were visible. Most people in the room, however, had masks that covered the entire face. They had colored straws to allow them to drink their cocktails.
The most unsettling were a couple of tall men dressed as punchinellos, in white costumes with humpbacks. Their cruel white masks were etched with lines across the forehead and dominated by grotesque hooked noses. The mouths were set in lewd grins. They both wore tall, conical hats and carried clubs.
I was wondering how I was going to identify Bridget, Genevra, and the rest when two women wearing black dominoes and with full bosoms spilling from their very decollete dresses headed toward me.
"Hello, poppet," one of them said, kissing me on my papier-mache cheek.
"My chevalier," the other said, kissing the other cheek. "How excitingly mysterious you look."
Bridget and Genevra, both smelling strongly of alcohol.
"But how did you know it was me?" I said.
They both pointed down.
"Who else is going to turn up to the society party of the year in bright yellow wellingtons?" Genevra said. "Do you have an irrational fear of floods?"
"I can't get the bloody things off," I said.
"You must be boiling in your cloak," Bridget said. "Why don't you ditch it until later."
"No, I'm fine thanks-"
But Bridget had already taken the two sides of the cloak and tossed them back over my shoulders.
"That's how you-Nick, you pervert!"
I suppose I must have looked odd, bright yellow waders almost up to my crotch, but what was I supposed to do?
"Oh dear, not just wellingtons then," Genevra said, hiccuping with laughter.
"Do you have a pair of scissors?" I said to her. "Then I can cut them off."
"Ali, someone from the s & in scene in Venice I see," another voice said drily. One of the punchinellos was standing between Bridget and Genevra. He sounded like Reggie Williams
on, but the Reggie Williamson I'd heard outside the barn, not the public one.
I pulled the edges of my cloak together with as much dignity as I could muster.
"Hands off, Reggie," Genevra said, rather sharply. "He's taken."
"Genevra," he said loudly. "It's carnival. Everything is permissible." He leaned toward me. "But do I gather you to mean this is your chap, Madrid?"
I nodded.
"Indeed." He looked me up and down. "People always say to be yourself. In your case, I'd avoid that." He laughed. "You put up a good fight in the joust, however. Though your armor looked rather familiar. Eh?"
"The taxis are here," I heard Rex bellow. He was dressed in braided frock coat, buckled shoes, and a white mask covering his whole face. I looked round wondering which of these people was Buckhalter. There was a stout chevalier on the other side of the room who could have been him. He was facing me and I had the uncomfortable feeling he was staring at me from behind his white mask.
"Come on, Nick," Genevra and Bridget said, taking an arm each.
"What about those scissors?"
"No time for that now," Genevra said.
"Nobody will notice," Bridget added, before the pair of them burst into a fit of giggling.
They dragged me across the room. In one of its many ornate mirrors I saw Williamson standing alone, seemingly watching us go.
Outside the Watergate a flotilla of gondolas were rolling and dipping in the swell, their black, lacquered prows reflecting the blazing torches atop the mooring posts.
"Rex is with some business people so you're stuck with me for the time being," Bridget said as she followed Genevra and me into one of the boats.
The palaces flanking the Grand Canal were shimmering with lights and the canal itself was thronged with many small craft, all with lights ablaze fore and aft, all crammed with partygoers in costume. Music drifted across the water and there was a hubbub of conversations, shrieks, and laughter.
Both my escorts were affectionate, cuddling up to me on a seat intended only for two. I wanted to ask what Faye was wearing but in the circumstances felt that to be rather tactless.
The Ca' Rezzonica, I knew, was now a museum. It had a distinguished history and had once belonged to Robert Browning's son.
"Robert Browning died here," I said as the gondolier steered into the watergate.
"Robert Browning?" Bridget said.
"The poet," I said. Then hurriedly, "Forget it." I've been through that with her before.
There was a short dock actually in the courtyard of the palace. We disembarked and made our way up a flight of wide, worn steps. I looked back in time to see a punchinello get out of a gondola. Whether he was Williamson or the other one I had no idea.
A second flight of stairs brought us to a lavishly decorated entrance. Noise and heat came out from it in blasts.
On the high canopied ceiling and down the walls were elaborate incidents from Roman mythology, intersected by golden cornices and cherubim. Waiters were standing with trays of drinks. Bridget's and Genevra's shoes clattered on the marble floor. I merely squeaked, which set them off giggling again.
The room we entered was packed with revellers in a giddy range of costumes. There were far too many slave girls in brief bikinis to be good for a young man's equilibrium. A number of men were dressed as I was and there were half a dozen harlequins in diamond-patterned costumes and hats.
To be heard everyone was screeching, which only made things worse. The members of a string quartet in front of an immense carved fireplace were sawing furiously at their instruments in a hopeless effort to make themselves heard.
Genevra, Bridget, and I stationed ourselves beside one of two ferocious, giant marble blackamoors, with ivory teeth and eyes, who guarded the entrance to a second room with heavy clubs. Dance music wafted through from a third room we could see beyond the second.
"I'm going to check out the dancing," Bridget said. "Don't move from here. I'll be back."
My priority was to find Faye and her brother since I believed them to be the key to everything. How I was going to know them, I couldn't figure out. I was scanning the two rooms when Genevra touched my arm.
"Nick are you okay? You seem a bit off with me."
I took her hand and squeezed it.
"Still feel a bit weird from the concussion."
"You're looking for Faye aren't you?"
I nodded.
"Well, you're a bloody fool," she said, anger in her voice. "What has she told you about her son?"
"Enough," I said.
"Who the father is?"
An eastern potentate in gold turban and mask and long, scarlet cloak went by, a slave girl draped over each arm.
"She implied ..." I said.
"That it was you?"
I nodded.
"The cow," Genevra added vehemently.
"Hey, steady."
"What were her exact words?"
"That if I saw him I'd know immediately."
Genevra nodded slowly. She spoke more gently.
"And you took that to mean it was you? Nick, I've seen him. It's not your child. And if it's not yours and it isn't Askwiths who does that leave?"
"Rex," I said, looking at her blank porcelain face. "And that's why you're so against her."
"It isn't Rex, I assure you. Faye is one of the few he hasn't managed to bed. So who's left?"
"I don't know!" I shouted, causing a nearby harlequin to turn his head and look our way. I was angry because I wasn't sure I wanted to know. My fear was that I was about to have my youth snatched away, a part of my personal history rewritten.
"What about her brother?" Genevra said.
"Her brother?" I recoiled, felt the marble statue at my back. "Don't be putting yours and Rex's stuff on Faye."
"Mine and Rex's stuff?" she said stiffly. "What exactly do you mean?"
"It's pretty obvious you and he are-well, that you have been-"
"You think we're having an affair?" Her voice trembled with emotion. "You think I'd sleep with my own brother? What kind of person do you think I am?"
"The same kind of person you think Faye is," I spat, equally angry. "Except you're an aristocrat-you have different rules to the rest of us."
I blocked her swing at my face pretty easily. It was the knee to the groin that got to me, even though my cloak took most of the force.
"What have I ever said or done to give you that idea?" she said, both hurt and anger in her voice.
I didn't answer until I could stand again. I glanced round the room. Nobody seemed to have noticed a thing.
"I saw you cuddling in the window at Wynn House. There's something secretive between you two. When you were talking about all that Arthur and Morgan le Fay stuff I saw the way you were looking at each other."
"We often cuddle. He's my brother. But it doesn't mean anything. And the secret we were keeping was Faye's not ours, you great charlie."
"That's a ruder word than you think-it's rhyming slang."
"I don't give a flying fuck." She took a deep breath and touched her mask where the scar was on her lip.
"Remember you asked me about the accident my father was killed in?"
I nodded.
"It was a family celebration. Nothing grand-only down the pub. We had quite a jolly time. Everybody had a lot to drink. Except Rex. He was on antibiotics for something, I forget what. Father was reeling. Rex drove us back in father's car. Father never wore a seatbelt. On principle."
She paused for a moment. Looked down.
"Rex wasn't used to father's Bentley," she continued. "Big, heavy old thing. There's a road a couple of miles from Wynn House that is really treacherous when it's been raining. It's been closed because of flooding for the past few weeks. Going down that, Rex skidded off the road. Hit a tree. Father was in the front passenger seat. Went through the windscreen. I was in the back. I went face first into the seat in front. Caught my mouth on a metal ashtray ..."
I fished a tissue out of t
he top of my left wader. Well, I didn't have any pockets.
"What were you celebrating?"
When she had composed herself, Genevra said:
"Father had invited Rex and me to meet his new fiance. An actress from Bath called Felicity. Sweet but Rex and I thought `Here we go again-rouche curtains."'
She moved closer to me.
"Nick, Faye used you," she said fiercely. "All the time you were at Oxford. She and her brother had been lovers since she was fourteen. She avoided going out with boys at Oxford by pretending to have a boyfriend at home. Then her parents grew suspicious so she needed someone to fool them with-you. She never slept with you because-and I'll give her full marks for fidelity-she was sleeping with her brother.
"What she didn't know-at first-was that her brother was pretty much pansexual. You might have guessed that from the fact he seduced his own sister. Ralph would sleep with anything with a heartbeat. He tried it on with me when I was sixteen. But he was also screwing around with most of the blokes in their group."
"They were all gay?" I said dumbly.
"It was very fashionable to be bi back then, don't you remember?"
I remembered. All the boys were at it. And while I didn't want to appear provincial it didn't appeal to me. I only wanted to have sex with girls, albeit every girl I saw.
"Nick?" Genevra said. "Focus. When Faye told Ralph she was pregnant by him he pissed off because, child that he was, he couldn't handle that."
I recalled Faye saying wistfully earlier in the day that Ralph had never been good at facing up to his responsibilities.
"Hang on," I said. "He went because he'd pushed Bernard Frome down the stairs in an argument."
"Says who?"
"Everybody."
"Who actually saw it?"
"I don't know. Nobody had to see it if Ralph admitted it."
"Did he?"
"I don't know."
And I didn't know. Genevra was right. There was a lot going on at the time that I had no idea about. The problem was I didn't know if I wanted to know.
"Nick, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you these things but I care about you and I think you should know. Even though it means you'll want to shoot the messenger and I'll lose you. And I don't want to lose you."
The Once and Future Con Page 19