12 April, 1.15 a.m. local time
Caroline sleeps most of the flight and wakes groggy; the champagne and the wine have muddied her mind. And she’s very tired. It’s been a long week, tonight was meant to be Friday night nothing, Saturday sleep in. But her bag is the third off the carousel, and then she is through the green lane and out into arrivals where the nice young man holds a broad card with her name on it. CAROLINE HUNTER. He speaks almost no English and she has even less Italian but they know the international signs for yes, that’s me, and follow, and please take your seat, here, in this ludicrously luxurious little speedboat that is also a taxi, all wood panelling and lace curtains. And then they are off, he is driving the boat and Caroline is wide awake, can’t keep the grin from her face, they are powering down the channel to the island and she can see the old lights, and the towers, walls and there, just peeking over the wall, a spire, the top of the campanile perhaps, it might be San Marco, it might be another church, it is there and gone as the taxi speeds over the waves thrown by the boats it passes. He is a young man and he drives like a young man.
1.45 a.m.
The ride, the water, the waves, the wind are successful in their conspiracy to please; Caroline is wide awake and delighted. The taxi enters the Grand Canal; the Guggenheim palazzo is on her left. Caroline remembers when she and Pete went there, how they spent the whole dinner that night talking about what they’d do with a house like that, what it must be like to live in such a place, to have the water so close, so part of your home.
She thinks about the first time she came here, with The Bloke Before, with John. So many mistakes with him and then that last mistake, coming to Venice, agreeing to come away with him when she’d already had enough of his possessiveness, arguing with him and running out of the nasty little bed and breakfast he’d booked for her birthday treat, running out and leaving him. Calling the B&B owners and struggling for the right words, the language to pass on the message that she’d gone back to London, heart-wrenching messages from John begging her to come back, to try again, and then, as the days and weeks wore on, angrier messages, messages she has tried hard to forget.
She hadn’t gone back, she stayed on in Venice, furious with John for being so demanding and yet calling her possessive. Caroline was certain something had been going on and, sure enough, the next day, watching him across a square she’d seen him chatting with a couple of girls, chatting and then laughing and then, yes, just as he’d accused her of the day before, there was the exchange of numbers, then the kiss on both cheeks, too friendly, too lingering. John was the slut he’d called her, and she knew he was.
Caroline looked down at her handbag, Pete’s notes inside, with her return ticket. God, she was lucky she’d run from John. But that first time here with him, when they’d arrived at the airport and walked down to catch the vaporetto and she’d assumed they were riding the waves to an island… she hadn’t quite understood, not from the books or the movies, that it really was all water. No roads, no cars. Caroline had not been able to imagine no cars. And all those bridges, the dead ends, the alleyways that appeared to go somewhere and just returned to water instead.
That was then, with John. Caroline knows better now, knows Venice better. A little at least. She knows it with Pete, where they like to stay, to eat, to drink.
Caroline is now with Pete and this is a lovely gesture on his part, but actually she is starting to feel a little lonely. It is dark and colder than she expected and Pete’s surprises, his games, are all very well, but she prefers to play with him rather than for him. She will explain this, tomorrow perhaps, over breakfast; that she is grateful for his romantic gesture, and maybe, anyway, it would be more fun to be together than apart, in touch than not.
San Marco is on the right now, they are closer to the southern shore, so maybe the taxi is turning off soon. The boy-racer driver has slowed a little, Caroline is sure there must be laws about driving too fast here, though the canal is wide and virtually empty. It is late, later than at home. The Accademia Bridge and then an opening. The taxi turns south. He drives her down one wide canal then into another more narrow, then there are smaller turns, dizzyingly fast. Even though she realizes, technically, they must be driving slower, the boat’s speed seems faster. The canal is so narrow here she could reach out and touch the sides. The tide is out and the taxi is low in the water. The edges of the canal loom over her. Caroline does not want to touch the sides. It is dark, cold, wet. She looks ahead and now it seems as if they must have come back on themselves. If she leans to the side, if she looks past the young driver’s head, she can see the Doge’s Palace, more distant now, it is down one, two, maybe three widenings of this narrow canal they are in. Then under another bridge, very low this time, another left turn, another left, back in on themselves again, and then the taxi stops. It is dark, and the silence is sudden. He turns and smiles. Here.
2.20 a.m.
Here. There is no hotel that she can see, no welcoming light. There is no light, just the faint milky sheen from a half-moon high above night-white cloud. Caroline repeats the boy racer’s words as he picks up her bag and jumps up on to the canal side. There is apparently no dock either. Caroline had been envisioning one of the pretty little side-canal docks she’d seen from the Grand Canal, the lovely hotels with their own landings. She takes the boy’s hand and he hauls her up on to the waterside. She slips a little, grazes the hand he isn’t holding, brings it to her mouth without thinking, partly to stem the yelp she doesn’t want to let out, partly the animal desire to lick a wound. She tastes a little grit, unravelled skin, maybe a tiny touch of blood, but the predominant taste is the dark silty water of the lagoon, a flavour of algae too, that particular soft pale green that is the water of Venice on a bright blue day. Pete’s ex-wife had those light green eyes, the colour of the water. He told her, once, only once. She didn’t want to know and Pete never mentioned Susannah’s eyes again. The young man is standing her up straight now, looking into her eyes, she doesn’t understand the words, but she knows he is concerned. Caroline is exhausted, she has half-fainted, swooned – has she swooned? She thought women only did that in old romance novels, but then, she is in Venice, Venice is an old romance novel in itself – she stands straight. She is fine, assures the young man in English he, in his turn, does not understand. But the hotel, where is the hotel? she asks.
These are words he knows. He smiles, nods, leans down to tie up the boat, a rope procured in semi-darkness from a corner. He takes her bag with one hand and guides Caroline with the other. He holds the hand she has grazed and there is almost comfort in feeling his skin on her ripped skin, the sting of his hand’s moisture seeping in to the flesh of her own. One corner, another, and then, just at the point Caroline was going to dig in her heels, say no more, try to call Pete again, call out for anyone, worried, frightened, not wanting to follow this young man, with his warm hand and insistent yes/si/yes/follow/andiamo, there it is, the Hotel Angelo. Tiny sparkling lights around a door and the windows on either side. A discreet sign and an older man in a dark coat in the doorway, waiting for her. He thanks the driver and pays him, taking Caroline’s bag and ushering her in, welcoming her, expecting her. “Benvenuta, Signora Caroline.” He pronounces the “e”. The man knows her name, her room is ready, come in.