Now, I feared the wurst.
94. soft mints
Sadly we left before breakfast and took an early taxi through the sleeping city to Munich Airport, about which there is little to say. Picture an airport.
I dreaded England. Like a failed football team returning from some nine-nil humiliation, we sat in the departure lounge, quite unable to speak or even raise our eyes. I’d like to apologise for my son. Forever I would carry with me the sight of his face, the shock and shame, as if I had slapped him, which in a way I had. And it was here, I suppose, that the football team analogy broke down. We weren’t a team. I was the goalie who had let in all nine goals.
Would I go back to the office nearly two weeks early? What would they say? Would they sense it? This man’s holiday was so bad that it destroyed his family! They fled, actually fled; one in Holland, one in Germany. Even if I didn’t go to work, even if Connie and I stayed at home with the curtains drawn, we would be tormented by the absence of Albie. As I remarked more than once, he might be having a perfectly civilised time. He had a passport, a phone, access to money, Camus and a highly sexed girlfriend; in some ways it was an enviable situation. But without knowing for sure, with those words still between us, it was impossible not to squirm with anxiety. Apologise for my son. Was he in some crack-den in Berlin? Drunk on a branch line in the Czech Republic, stoned in a squat in Rotterdam, beaten up in an alley in Madrid? Would he return in September, October, Christmas, at all? What about college? Would he abandon the education he had fought for, albeit rather feebly? What if Europe simply … swallowed him up?
I could no longer sit still. ‘I’m going to go for a stroll,’ I said.
‘Now?’
‘There’s plenty of time.’
‘I’ll see you at the gate,’ she shrugged. ‘Take your bag.’
There’s a certain optimism in going for a walk in airports. What on earth do we expect to find – something new and enchanting? I strolled off to see what a German newsagents looked like and, having discovered that it looked like a British newsagents, was about to purchase some Soft Mints with the last of my loose euros when my phone rang.
I scrabbled in my pocket. Perhaps it was Albie. The display indicated a +39 number – Spain, Italy?
‘Signor Petersen?’
‘Oui, c’est moi,’ I said, disorientated.
‘Buongiorno, I’m calling from the Pensione Albertini, about your reservation?’
‘Ja, ja,’ I said, jamming a finger into my other ear.
‘I have done my best, but I’m afraid that I cannot bring your reservation forward at such short notice. My apologies.’
‘My reservation?’
‘Your change of plans. You are now arriving in Venice tomorrow night?’
‘No, no, not at all. Not for three, four days yet.’ That was our plan, a train across the Alps then one night each in Verona, Vicenza, Padua then on to Venice. ‘When did he, I mean I, when did I call?’
‘Perhaps fifteen minutes ago.’
‘By telephone?’
Pause for the lunatic. ‘Sì…’
‘My reservation was for one single and one double room. Which did I ask to rearrange?’
‘The double room.’
‘For tomorrow?’
‘Sì, tomorrow. But we spoke about this just fifteen minutes —’
‘Did I by any chance say where I was calling from?’
‘I don’t understand …’
‘And you’re sure it was a Signor Petersen?’
‘Sì.’
Albie! It must have been Albie calling, tampering with my itinerary, trying to use our hotel reservation to save money. They were on their way to Venice after all.
‘Well, grazie mille for trying.’
‘So we will in fact see you in Venice in four days’ time as we had previously arranged?’
‘Sì, sì, sì. In four days.’
‘Splendid.’
‘You’ve been very helpful. Auf Wiedersehen! Ciao!’
I was some way from the newsagents now, the Soft Mints warming in my grip, unpaid for. A fugitive! I checked the departure board. Boarding commencing. Checked my pockets. Phone, passport, wallet, all I would need. In my hand luggage, a phone charger, a book, a tablet computer and a history of the Second World War. I stepped back onto the concourse, saw Connie, saw some stairs leading to a raised balcony above the lounge. I climbed the stairs and watched her, unseen.
I watched her for fifteen minutes as departure time approached, eating my way through the contraband Soft Mints, a real bandito. I watched her quite, quite full of love, despite her palpable irritation and impatience at my absence, and I came to a decision.
I would not lose my wife and son.
If the notion was unacceptable to me, I would not accept it. I would not return to England now and spend our last summer slowly dismantling our home, watching Connie separating herself from me, dividing us in two and making plans for a future that did not include me. I refused to live in a house where everything I saw or touched – Mr Jones the dog, the bedside radio, the pictures on the wall, the cups from which we drank our morning tea – would soon be allocated, mine or hers. We had been through too much together, and it was not acceptable, and neither was it acceptable to have my son wandering the continent in the belief that I was ashamed of him. It could not, would not be allowed to happen.
I finished the stolen mints. There’s a saying, cited in popular song, that if you love someone you must set them free. Well, that’s just nonsense. If you love someone, you bind them to you with heavy metal chains.
95. final call for the heathrow flight …
Connie was standing now, anxiously looking for me, left and right, no doubt thinking, this is strange, this isn’t like him at all, always there two hours before departure, laptop in a separate tray, liquids and gels in a Ziploc bag. Well, not any more, my love! The new me dialled her number, watched as she groped in her handbag, found the phone, glared at the screen, picked up …
‘Douglas, where the hell are you? The gate is closing in five—’
‘I’m not catching the flight.’
‘Where are you, Douglas?’
‘I’m in a taxi. In fact I’ve already left the airport. I’m not going back to England.’
‘Douglas, don’t be ridiculous, they’re calling our names—’
‘Then get on the plane without me. Make sure you tell them I’m not coming, I don’t want to inconvenience anyone.’
‘I’m not getting on the plane without you, that’s insane.’
‘Listen to me, Connie, please? I can’t come back until I’ve put things right. I’m going to find Albie first, and apologise face to face, and then I’m going to bring him home.’
‘Douglas, you have no idea where he is!’
‘Then I’ll find him.’
‘How can you find him? He could be anywhere in Europe by now, anywhere in the world …’
‘I’ll find a way. I’m a scientist, remember? Method. Results. Conclusion.’
I watched her now as she lowered herself back into the seat. ‘Douglas, if you’re doing this to … prove something … to me … well, it’s very touching, but it’s not really the point.’
‘I love you, Connie.’
She spanned her forehead with her hand. ‘I love you too, Douglas, but you’re tired, you’ve been under a lot of strain, and I don’t think you’re thinking straight …’
‘Please don’t try and talk me out of this. I’m going to go on alone.’
A moment passed, and she stood. ‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’
‘I am.’
‘What will I tell people?’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Will you at least call me?’
‘When I’ve found him. Not before.’
‘Can I talk you out of this?’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘All right. All right, if that’s what you want.’
‘I’m afraid you?
??ll have to carry the suitcase. Get taxis, won’t you?’
‘But what will you wear?’
‘I’ve got my wallet and my toothbrush. I’ll buy myself clothes along the way.’
Her head lolled backwards; in distress, perhaps, at the thought of me buying my own clothes. ‘Okay. If you’re sure. Buy nice things. Look after yourself.’ She put her hand to her eyes. ‘Don’t fall to pieces, will you?’
‘I won’t. Connie, I’m sorry we won’t see Venice together again.’
‘I’m sorry too.’
‘I’ll send postcards, though.’
‘Please do.’
‘Kiss Mr Jones for me. Or shake his paw.’
‘I will.’
‘Don’t let him sleep on the bed.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘Seriously, because if he gets into the habit—’
‘Douglas. I won’t.’
‘I love you, Connie. Did I say that?’
‘You mentioned it in passing.’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve let you down.’
‘Douglas, you have never—’
‘I won’t let you down again.’
She said nothing.
‘You’d better catch your flight now,’ I said.
‘Yes. I’d better. Gate …?’
‘Gate 17.’
‘Gate 17.’ She shouldered her bag and began to walk.
‘You’ve forgotten your book,’ I said. ‘It’s on the chair.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, picked it up, then hesitated a moment. It didn’t take her long to search me out on the balcony above. She raised her hand and I raised mine back.
‘I’ll see you when I see you,’ I said.
But she had already hung up. I watched Connie walk away and then I set off to save my son, whether he needed it or not.
BOOK TWO
the renaissance
part five
VENICE AND THE VENETO
–
Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she should find herself in a difficult position, so that she might have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
96. proposal
In Venice I proposed to Connie.
Not the most original scenario, I know. In fact, there was nothing much original in our trip that February, the third anniversary of our meeting. We entered the city by water taxi on a bright, crisp day, nestling in seats of burgundy leather as we bounced across the lagoon, then standing wind-whipped on deck as the city appeared and two thoughts battled in my head: was anything in the world more beautiful, and was anything in the world more expensive? This was my Venetian state of mind; awe versus anxiety, like browsing in a wonderful antiques shop where signs constantly remind you that breakages must be paid for.
And so we did what tourists do in Venice in the winter. We sheltered from the rain and when the sun came out drank bitter hot chocolate in chilly squares of quite staggering grace and beauty, and sipped Bellinis in dim, expensive bars, bracing ourselves for the bill. ‘It’s a tax on beauty,’ said Connie, doling out the notes. ‘If it were cheap here, nobody would ever leave.’
She knew the city well, of course. The trick in Venice, she said, is to see St Mark’s once, then bounce off it to the outer edges. The trick is to be spontaneous, curious, to get lost. Instinctively, I resisted the notion of getting lost. For accomplished and enthusiastic map-readers like myself, Venice offered untold challenges and I spent a great deal of time tracing our route until Connie snatched the map, lifted my chin with her finger and commanded that I look up for once and appreciate the beautiful gloom of the place.
This was what surprised me most about Venice: just how sombre it could be; all those tourists taking snaps and thinking about death. Venice was my first experience of Italy, so where were the floury-handed mammas and tousle-headed rascals that I’d been led to expect? Instead this was a city of closed doors, its besieged citizens narrow-eyed and resentful – understandably so – of the endless waves of visitors even in winter, like house-guests who will not take the hint and go. Even the festivals were gloomy; the Venetian idea of a good time was for everyone to dress up as skeletons. Perhaps it was a legacy of the plague, the silence or the shadows, the dark canals or the absence of green spaces, but walking the deserted alleys and rainswept esplanades, I found the melancholy quite overwhelming, yet also weirdly pleasurable. I don’t think I’ve ever been as simultaneously sad and happy in my life.
Perhaps this ambiguity did not make it the best spot to propose marriage. Too late for doubt, though; the engagement ring was packed, concealed in the finger of a glove, the restaurant table booked. We had spent a light-hearted morning on the cemetery island of San Michele, Connie posing in her overcoat and taking photographs of tombs, then marching arm in arm from Cannaregio to Dorsoduro, ducking into under-lit churches and gloomy courtyards along the way, and all the time I wondered: should I kneel when I ask her? Would that be amusing or embarrassing for us both? Would she prefer a simple ‘Will you marry me?’ The formal, period-drama feel of ‘Would you give me the honour of becoming my wife?’ The laid-back ‘Hey, let’s get married!’? We returned to the hotel, dressed up and strode out and had a wonderful dinner of tuna carpaccio and grilled fish, my hand travelling intermittently to the ring – antique silver, single diamond – in my suit jacket. ‘Indigestion?’ asked Connie. ‘Heartburn,’ I replied. There was beautiful gelato, some kind of almond digestifs and then out we walked, our heads spinning, into a crisp bright night. ‘Let’s stroll to La Salute!’ I suggested casually and there, with the great marble church flaring like magnesium in the moonlight and St Mark’s Square illuminated across the Grand Canal, I reached into my jacket, retrieved the ring and asked Connie, ‘Will you be my wife?’
Think how romantic it would have been if she’d said yes. Instead she laughed, swore, frowned, bit her lip, hugged me, swore, kissed me, laughed and swore and said ‘Can I think about it?’ Which was reasonable enough, I suppose. Few decisions are more life-altering. Even so, I couldn’t help wondering why it had come as such a surprise. Love led to marriage, and weren’t we in love?
Thankfully the ‘Yes’ did come, though not until some months later. So while the question was ‘popped’ in the moonlight by the Grand Canal, it was answered at the delicatessen counter of the Sainsbury’s on Kilburn High Road. Perhaps it was my choice of olives that swung it. Either way, there was much jubilation and relief over the cured meats and cheeses, and a tearful and emotional check-out.
Perhaps I should have taken Connie back there, to Kilburn Sainsbury’s. I’m sure we could have made it that far at least.
97. hannibal
But I am leaping backwards and forwards simultaneously. I’m still in Germany where, after watching my wife walk away, I scrambled into a taxi, returned to Munich and the scrappy chaos of the Hauptbahnhof, dabbing at the touchscreen of a ticket machine and hurling myself onto the late-morning train across the Alps to Venice via Innsbruck, changing at Verona, with just a shoulder-bag and passport, quite the Jason Bourne.
The train compartment, too, was of the kind favoured by spies and assassins and that journey only got more exciting as the train left the suburbs, crossed a wide green plain towards the mountains then suddenly, within the space of a few hundred metres it seemed, we were in the Alps. As someone born and raised in Ipswich, I have never been complacent about mountains, and I found the Alps extraordinary. Peaks like hounds’ incisors, vertigo-inducing plunges, the kind of landscape that might have been imagined by a deity or an ambitious CGI-effects supervisor. Good God, I murmured to myself and instinctively took a photograph on my phone, the kind of desultory, mediocre photograph that is never seen by anyone and serves no purpose, and I thought of my son, and how, had a falling meteor lopped the top off the highest peak, he would still not have raised his camera.
After Innsbruck, the terrain became even more spectacular. It was by no mean
s a wilderness – there were supermarkets, factories, petrol stations – but even in high summer there seemed to be something lunatic about people living and working in such a terrain, never mind building a railway through it. The train skirted another escarpment, the valley falling away beneath us to meadows of the same lime green as the model railway landscapes I’d built too far into my teens. I thought of Connie, of how she would be getting home soon, saying hello to Mr Jones, opening mail, throwing wide the windows to renew the air, breaking the seal on the empty, stale fridge, loading the washing machine, and I thought of how much I wished she could see all of this.
But awe is a hard emotion to sustain for hours on end and soon it all became rather boring. In the buffet, I ate a croissant with pastrami and mozzarella which, gastronomically speaking, covered all the bases. Back in my compartment I dozed, waking to find that Brenner had become Brennero. The church spires changed, the mountains softened into hills, pines gave way to endless vineyards. Germany and Austria were now far behind and I was in the Italian Alps and, before too long, in Verona.
98. … where we set our scene
A lovely city, russet brown and dusty rose and baking in the August afternoon. So keen was I to catch my quarry that I had only allowed myself a two-hour window here, stomping across beautiful piazzas and over mediaeval bridges, ticking them off the list – an appalling way to see a city, really, a betrayal of our original intent when planning the Grand Tour. No matter – there were more important things than culture now. I noted the fine Roman amphitheatre, third largest in the world – tick – saw the Torre dei Lamberti, the market on the Piazza delle Erbe, ornate Piazza dei Signori – tick, tick, tick. Marching along a marble-paved shopping street, I followed the crowd through an alleyway into a packed, cacophonous courtyard beneath a stone balcony – Juliet’s balcony, supposedly. It looked as if it had been glued to the wall, and sure enough my guidebook informed me with a sniff that it was only built in 1935, though given that Juliet was a fictional character, this seemed to be missing the point. ‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo!’ shouted wags from around the globe. In the heat of mid-afternoon the courtyard was a literal tourist trap, but I watched dutifully as perspiring visitors took it in turns to pose with a kitsch-y bronze statue of Shakespeare’s heroine, her right breast worn grey from a million hands. Fondling her breast brought good luck, apparently. A Japanese gentleman nudged my arm and mimed a camera, international sign language for ‘do you want me to take your picture?’, but I struggled to imagine that a photograph of me squeezing the breast of a bronze statue would be anything other than soul-crushing and so politely declined, pushing my way towards the exit, pausing only to read the graffiti’d wall, layer upon layer of Simone 4 Veronica, Olly + Kerstin, Marco e Carlotta. I could have added to it, I suppose: Connie and Douglas 4ever. Je t’aime, I read, ti amo, ik hou van je, the declarations so densely inscribed as to resemble a Jackson Pollock.