Overture in Venice

by Hester Rowan

  ‘And for all I know, you were deliberately planted on the Rialto Bridge with the intention of persuading me to bring you here. If you know Zecchini, you might be up to anything!’

  We glared at each other furiously. ‘How dare you,’ I furned. ‘Considering you’re supposed to be Owen’s friend …’

  ‘I can’t worry about Owen’s ridiculous emotional entanglements. My concern is to protect Signor Crespi – and I also want to know what Alberto said to you last night.’

  ‘I don’t know what he said to me! How many times do I have to keep telling you that I didn’t understand him!’

  Guy smiled without using his eyes. ‘Unfortunately you gave yourself away by listening to my conversation with Signor Crespi. And don’t try to deny that you understood that.’

  The old man straightened himself, put a hand on Guy’s arm and began to whisper hoarsely, glancing fearfully in my direction.

  ‘Signor Crespi would like you to leave,’ Guy said slowly. ‘But much as I’d like to get rid of you, I’m not letting you go without me. I must know what Alberto’s message was, and why he was murdered.’ He spoke to the jeweller, who gestured towards a narrow stair at the back of the shop, leading to a single door.

  ‘Will you please wait up there in the storeroom until he and I have finished our conversation?’ Guy demanded curtly.

  I objected, strongly. ‘I’ll do nothing of the sort! I’ve already told you everything I know, and you can talk perfectly freely with me here because –’

  But what was the use? Guy Lombardi was too pig-headed to believe me, and I was only wasting my breath. The sensible thing would be to walk straight out of the shop and leave him to his evil-minded suspicions – except that, much as I disliked him, at least I wasn’t afraid of him. And that was more than I could say of the gross man who was loitering outside.

  I went reluctantly to the foot of the stairs. ‘I have to catch that coach at noon, you know.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll escort you there myself. The sooner you’re out of Venice, the better I’ll be pleased.’

  ‘If this were England,’ I said as I went up the stairs, ‘I’d call the police.’

  He shrugged. ‘There’s nothing to stop you calling them here. Go ahead, here’s a telephone. Or is there some reason why you’d rather not?’

  ‘I don’t speak Italian!’ I exploded.

  ‘Tell that to the gondoliers,’ he said pleasantly.

  I wrenched open the storeroom door. ‘Do all Italian shopkeepers treat their customers like this?’ I demanded as an afterthought.

  ‘Only when they’re at the cheaper end of the market.’

  I slammed the door behind me. Its vibration, and the angry pounding of my own blood in my ears, must have masked the sound of light footsteps coming up the stairs behind me. All I was conscious of hearing was the sound of the key turning in the lock.

  My first reaction was one of total disbelief: this couldn’t possibly be happening to me.

  I tried the handle of the door. The unbelievable had happened, and I was furious. I slammed with the flat of my hands on the panels.

  ‘Let me out! Do you hear? How dare you lock me in! Let me out at once!’

  There was no sound from downstairs. I rested my voice, shook my tingling hands and looked round the room. It was smaller than the shop, if that were possible, filled with a dusty jumble of empty boxes and cartons, old ledgers and display stands. The small window was barred.

  I ran to it and looked down into a paved yard, cramped in by high walls. In the opposite wall was a door; if only I could reach that, I would be able to get away.

  I looked at the window bars, wondering whether I could possibly squeeze between them. They were old and rusted … I pulled at them, hoping that they might give, and then realized with relief that they were not set in the window-frame but were simply a reinforcement of the window itself – a protection against would-be thieves, not a means of preventing escape. I fumbled with the rusted catch and, holding my breath as the metal screeched, pushed the window open.

  It was a good sixteen feet above the ground, but just below me was the tiled roof of a lean-to – possibly Signor Crespi’s workshop. It sloped steeply away from the window and the tiles looked insecure with age but it was my only possible route.

  I tried the door again. It was still locked and I hammered on it and shouted in the hope of allaying any possible suspicion that I might be devising my own exit. Then I ran to the window, slipped off my sandals, committed myself by tossing them and my sling bag into the yard, drew a deep breath and climbed through.

  The tiles offered no foothold at all. I clung desperately to the window-sill, letting myself gradually slide down the roof until I was stretched to my full length. For what seemed like minutes I hung there blindly, arms aching, cheek pressed against the rough tiles, unable to pull myself up again and not daring to let go and fall crashing into the yard. And then, when I thought I could hang on no longer, my scrabbling toes found the security of a gutter.

  I let go of the window-sill cautiously and allowed myself to slide. My feet were caught and cradled. I put my weight on the gutter and gathered myself in an awkward crouch, ten feet above the ground.

  The guttering, old and rusted, began to sag beneath me.

  I swallowed hard. Below in the yard was a pile of mouldering cartons and cardboard boxes; if I could land on them, they would at least break my fall. I put my hands on the edge of the tiles, took my weight off the creaky guttering, shut my eyes and sprang off to fall in noisy confusion on Signor Crespi’s rubbish dump.

  He and Guy must have heard, but I didn’t wait for them to rush out. I snatched up my bag and sandals, ran limping on bruised feet to the door in the wall, dragged it open and – almost – stepped straight into a canal.

  It was a narrow canal, dark and unpleasant, threading between crumbling slime-green walls. Lines of unappetizing laundry were strung above it and on its surface floated watermelon rinds, squeezed oranges and plastic cups, the detritus of some nearby café. I stood motionless on the step, appalled to find that after all my efforts there was still no escape, while the thick water slopped menacingly over my feet.

  Chapter Four

  But something must have made the water move. I looked along the canal in the other direction and saw a boat; nothing as elegant as a gondola, but a scruffy old tub manned by a youth who seemed to be scavenging in the canal with a net and bucket – though for what I didn’t care to speculate.

  It was hardly a desirable form of transport. But then – looking down at my once-crisp pink tunic and trousers, now crumpled and streaked with dirt – I was in no condition to be fussy.

  ‘Per favore,’ I called to him, wishing that I’d had the sense to spend the week before the holiday learning the real essentials of Italian, like how to ask for help, instead of for cups of coffee: ‘per favore, Signor!’

  At first I thought he hadn’t heard. I repeated my call and he raised his head and looked at me in astonishment. I beckoned to him urgently. ‘Per favore, per favore!‘

  His face opened in a slow grin. With maddening deliberation he picked up a long oar, fitted it into the single rowlock at the stern, and standing to his work moved the boat towards me with long sweeping strokes.

  I fumbled in my bag. I had no idea how much to offer him, and the exchange rates had gone completely out of my head. I pulled out one of the pantomime-sized Italian banknotes that I’d been saving to buy my aunt’s present, and waved it hopefully at him.

  ‘Canale Grande, per favore,’ I called as he approached, ‘Ponte Rialto.’ I needed an urgent adverb and dredged my memory for fragments of long-ago music lessons. ‘Vivace, Signor, per favore.’

  He seemed to understand, but found it difficult to believe. He pointed to me, and then incredulously to his boat; like him, it needed a good scrub. I countered by pointing sadly to the snagged and stained knees of my trousers and spread out the banknote for him to see.

  The youth needed n
o further urging. ‘Canale Grande, Ponte Rialto, si, si,’ he agreed. He held up his hand to help me; looked at it, bent to splash it in the water, wiped it on the seat of his muddy jeans and proffered it again, handing me down into the boat with all the grace of an eighteenth-century courtier.

  I pushed aside some wet rags so that I could sit down to put on my sandals. ‘Grazie mille,’ I said, giving him a heart-felt smile.

  My gondolier beamed. And whether delighted by the prospect of the money, or simply because he felt it his duty to entertain stray tourists, as he shot his boat round two short corners, into the Grand Canal and across to the Rialto landing stage he raised his voice in a prolonged and tuneless serenade.

  Predictably, when I met her at the coach station, Jennifer gave me a thorough grilling. I had had time to hide in a cloakroom long enough to wash the dirt off my face and brush my clothes, but I was uncomfortably aware that I still looked as though I had spent the morning sliding down a roof. And because I couldn’t bear the thought of trying to explain what had really happened, I gave her and Richard an amended version.

  The state of my clothes? Oh, that was after I left Guy – I tripped and fell flat on my face as I was coming back to the Rialto Bridge, just by the vegetable market, wasn’t it stupid of me, these stains will never come out; twisted my foot too, that’s why I’m limping. Guy? Oh yes, he’s quite handsome, I suppose, if you go for dark sardonic-looking men – good heavens, no, I’m not in the least interested in him, he just happens to be one of Owen’s friends. Owen? Yes, well, I met him in St Mark’s Square last night and he is rather special – no, I didn’t mention him because you had other things on your mind at the time, remember? It was because I was Owen’s friend that Guy offered to take me to a better jeweller. Yes, much cheaper, a lovely selection … no, Guy couldn’t escort me back to the Rialto because he had some business with the jeweller, besides I could find my own way back perfectly well … yes, and fall on my face in the process, I know, don’t go on about it, there’s a dear. No, I’m not seeing Guy again – yes, I’ll certainly be seeing Owen, I’ll introduce you, I’m sure you’ll like him … this coach is making me terribly drowsy, you don’t mind if I take a nap, do you?

  I feigned sleep. At least I thought I was feigning it, as the coach swayed at speed along the autostrada across the flat North Italian plain between fields of maize and sunflowers, but when I woke two hours later we were already at the southern end of Lake Garda.

  At first the lake seemed to offer disappointment: more grey than blue, and wide and dull and placid in a landscape as flat as Lincolnshire. But then, as the coach continued up the western shore, the Alpine foothills began to close in nearer and nearer, crowding the lakeside villages right to the water’s edge.

  The lake narrowed sharply. The water began to chop and sparkle, bluer than I’d have believed if I’d seen it in a travel brochure. The coach twisted through narrow village streets, past shallow-roofed houses coloured in sun-faded red and blue and ochre, past quaysides of painted fishing boats, hotel terraces sprouting pink and green umbrellas, vine-shaded courtyards; past orange groves, terraces of lemon trees, acres of vine and gardens lush with magnolia, ilex, camellia, cypress, oleander.

  And then the hills grew up into mountains, and pressed to the edge of the lake. The road rose from water level to take a route that had been hacked out of the mountainside and tunnelled through rock; seventy tunnels, the coach driver told us, in a distance of fifteen miles, but who could bother to count? It was a magnificently exciting road. The driver took it at speed, his horn blaring a musical warning as we flashed in and out of the rock, and I blinked with delight each time we roared out of the darkness into hot sunlight and saw the water shimmering below us and the mountains on the opposite shore rising sheer from their own reflection in the lake.

  I longed for the coach to stop, if only for a few minutes, but although between the tunnels there were usually a few places where cars could park, they were understandably full. I envied the independence of the private drivers who could stop to stretch their legs and gaze at the view, admire the pink and white oleanders that grew wild beside the road, buy fruit from the enterprising boys who held out tempting branches on which oranges and lemons were tied side by side as though they were growing, and even in some places climb down from the road through the scrub and rocks to reach the sparkling water.

  It was the water that dazzled and tempted me most of all. My body felt grazed and grimy, wearied from sitting too long in spoiled clothes. I’m not a strong swimmer, but I love to bathe; I had resisted the lure of the Lido at Venice because I thought that Jennifer, in her delicate emotional state, ought not to lie in the sun brooding – but now that she was no longer my responsibility, I determined to bathe in the lake at the first opportunity.

  Our hotel was on the northern shore, a traditional shallow-roofed building newly coloured in terra-cotta, with delicate ironwork balconies at each window, facing the sun down the hazy length of the lake. The promenade ran directly in front of the hotel but across the road was a lakeside area that was also part of the hotel property. There was a terrace with tables and chairs shaded by an overhead trellis of vines, a wooden staging on which guests were sunbathing, and a jetty from which others were swimming.

  I ran up to my room, stripped off my beaten-up clothes, put on my swim-suit and a wrap and rushed eagerly down to the jetty for a first plunge in the lake.

  The water was very warm and less refreshing than I’d hoped, but afterwards I lay drying in the sun and felt completely relaxed for the first time in twenty-four hours. The darker side of Venice – the humiliating incident with Guy Lombardi, the murder of Alberto Crespi, the fearful realization that I was being followed by the fat man – had been washed away in the beauty of Lake Garda. Now, as I bit dreamily into a luscious peach that I had bought from a stall on the promenade, I remembered too, with some pleasure, that I should be seeing Owen Williams again before the week was out.

  We spent a very pleasant evening at the hotel, Jennifer and Richard and I, eating an excellent meal and drinking appropriate quantities of wine to celebrate their engagement. And after they had stolen away together I ran out for a moonlit dip in the lake – this time a short sharp cold one – before going to bed.

  Perhaps it was the lake that was the trouble: on reflection, it was almost certain to be polluted, especially so near the hotel. Or perhaps it was the peach that I stupidly ate without peeling, or an overdose of sun, or the food, or the wine. Perhaps it was simply the injudicious mixture of so many unfamiliar ingredients. Whatever the cause, I spent most of the night in the bathroom expecting to die, and hoping that it would be sooner rather than later.

  When I eventually tottered back to the room that I shared with Jennifer she woke full of health and solicitude.

  ‘Don’t you feel well, Clare?’

  I flopped on my bed and groaned.

  ‘Oh you poor dear! Was it something you ate, I wonder? But then, we all had the same and I feel fine … come to think of it though, that mushroom sauce we had with the veal was terribly rich …’

  I fended her off and made for the haven of the bathroom but Jennifer followed me and insisted with an heroic firmness that would have won the approval of Florence Nightingale, on holding my head.

  I don’t wish to be thought ungrateful. Obviously some people find it a comfort to be cossetted through minor illnesses, but others of us want nothing except to be left in decent obscurity until we feel civilized again. I tried to tell Jennifer to go away and leave me alone, but I was as weak as a dormouse; my feeble protests only seemed to encourage her ministrations. And eventually because I hadn’t the strength to resist, I submitted to the indignity of having my face washed and being tucked into bed like a two-year-old.

  When I woke from an uneasy doze the morning sun was trying to beat its way into the room round the edge of the shutters, and the worried faces of Jennifer and Richard were peering at me through the gloom. They were whispering about docto
rs, but although my head was stuffed with polystyrene and my body as sore as though a performing bear had spent the night lumbering on it, I knew that I was going to live. The knowledge was not, at that moment, welcome, but at least it helped me to assert my independence.

  ‘Hallo. Sorry about that, Jennifer,’ I said, trying hard to sound normal and mortified to hear my voice coming out in a tiny croak. ‘It’s just the usual travel bug – nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Richard. ‘Wouldn’t it be best to see a doctor?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ I said, hoping that my wavering voice would carry conviction. ‘I’ll be fine after a day’s rest. Don’t let me spoil your holiday, just leave me to sleep it off.’

  ‘As if we’d dream of leaving you,’ scolded Jennifer. I swear she was enjoying herself, getting her own back for the care-taking I’d given her in Venice. ‘We’re just going down to breakfast, but I’ll come straight back. Would you like me to bring you anything to eat?’

  I shuddered. Fortunately Richard saw my queasy look and tactfully drew her away, but half an hour’s doze later she was back, setting a tray on my bedside table.

  ‘Now I know you don’t really feel like eating, Clare,’ she said, ‘but Richard talked to the owner’s wife – he’s pretty good at Italian, you know – and she understood exactly what you need. It’s just a glass of tea without milk or lemon, and a slice of dry toast. Do try to take it, you’ll feel better with something inside you. Oh, and these tablets – she says they’re the best remedy for holiday sickness.’

  I sat up gingerly and looked at the package of proprietary tablets, understandably and incomprehensibly Italian.

  ‘How many am I supposed to take?’

  ‘Richard checked. Two tablets three times a day. Perhaps you’d better start them right away.’

  I forced down the tablets with a sip of tea. Jennifer sat watching me earnestly. ‘Do you think you feel any better?’ she asked. ‘Because if not, we’re going to get a doctor.’