I would never find him, I knew that now. The quest was absurd, a delusional attempt to salvage some dignity from this whole disastrous trip, to make amends for years of fumbling, mumbling incoherence. People travelling in Europe do not bump into each other, it’s just not possible. If he returned, and surely he would return eventually, he would do so in his own time. The image that I’d cherished, that I would carry him back to my wife like a fireman emerging from a burning building, was a vain and self-indulgent fantasy. The only reason I remained in Europe was because I was too scared and humiliated to go home and face the future. I closed the page of images of Albie.
The YouTube searches remained open underneath. I would try one more time. I typed in pompidou paris accordion cat street performer, flicked though screen after screen of beat-boxing flautists, Siamese cats on piano keyboards and depressing clips of living statues, and there in the bleak, uncharted depths of the fourth page of search results, was Cat in an unseasonable velvet top hat, playing ‘Psycho Killer’ on the forecourt of the Pompidou. ‘Yes!’ I said out loud.
I let the video play, the four hundred and eighty-sixth person to do so, and read the prose beneath.
Saw this gr8 busker wen in Paris. She great, she crazy buy her Cd Kat play rock accordion — styl!!!!!
Underneath, another contributor was in a more critical mood:
haha she sing like u speak English … i.e. wewy wewy painful where u lurn English dum boy hahaha
The debate continued in Socratic form for several exchanges. The video, I noted, was two years old. No matter. I had made a small breakthrough: Cat was a Kat.
Encouraged, I began my search again: kat accordion cover version, kat street performer and found her once again, sitting on a bed in a crowded, candlelit room. Melbourne, apparently. The video had been uploaded some six months before, had been viewed a modest forty-six times and consisted of a spirited rendition of ‘Hey Jude’, with the other party guests banging beer bottles together, playing the bongos, etc. The video was twenty-two minutes long and seemed unlikely to ‘go viral’. Had I been immortal I might have watched it all, but there was no need because in the description I found:
Our old friend Katherine ‘Kat’ Kilgour from Theatre Factory still singing the songs and doin’ her thang. Love u Kat Babe, Holly
Kat Kilgour. I had a surname, and not a Smith or Evans either. I searched again, striking a rich seam now, linking from one video to the next until I found what I’d been searching for.
In an Italianate square, in blazing sunlight, Kat and Albie perched on the steps of an ornate church, singing ‘Homeward Bound’, the old Simon and Garfunkel song. A strangely old-fashioned choice of song, as distant in time to my son as the Charleston was to me, but part of the very small cultural legacy that I had passed on to Albie. Connie had never cared for Simon and Garfunkel, thought them too middle-of-the-road, but as a small boy Albie had loved them, and on long car journeys we’d play the Greatest Hits, Albie and I singing along, much to Connie’s irritation. Had he suggested the song to Kat, or vice versa? Did he even think of it as something that he’d taken from me? Did he want to come home?
‘Too loud!’ said the war-gaming boy to my left, and I realised that I had been singing along too. I apologised, pulled on a pair of greasy headphones and turned my attention back to the video, posted two days previously and viewed a modest three times. The description, while at least literate, provided no further assistance. ‘Saw these guys on our tour of Italy and talked to them afterwards. She’s called Kat Kilgour and she’s really talented!!!’ And what about Albie, hm? In truth the harmonies were experimental, the crowd small and indifferent. Still, I felt such pleasure in seeing him again. He looked well. Perhaps not ‘well’, exactly — skinny and hunched and none too fresh — but he looked exactly like a student backpacker should, and he was safe.
But where was he? I played the video once more, a detective looking for clues. The church, the café, the pigeons, the square, the tourists — it might have been anywhere in Italy. I freeze-framed, took screen grabs, zoomed in on Albie, his clothes, his face, looking for goodness knows what. I zoomed in on the faces of the few indifferent tourists, on the shop fronts and walls in case of street names, I let the video play and play again, grabbing shots at key moments until something drew my eye to a knot of people coming into frame in the final seconds, a man crouching at a café table to confer with a tourist, a striped T-shirt, a black hat with a ribbon.
A gondolier.
‘Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!’
Taking full advantage of my online anonymity, I left my comment — ‘You guys are excellent! The boy in particular! Please, please stay in Venice!’ — then emailed myself a link to the page and hurried back to the pensione, hobbling but in high spirits. Tomorrow was the day that our pre-paid reservation at the hotel came in to force. Lured by the offer of free residency in a nice hotel, chosen for its comfort, convenience and romance, might not Albie take the room? Connie had been calling him from our home in England. Clean sheets, a shower, no parents, a chance to impress his girlfriend with one of her beloved buffet breakfasts? I felt certain he would come. All I would need to do was take a seat at a pavement café nearby and wait. What I would say, other than sorry and come home, remained a mystery, but I would have got something right for once.
Pausing at reception, I wrote a note on the back of a flyer for The Vivaldi Experience.
Freja, apologies for my rudeness today. You must think me unhinged, and you are not the only one to do so. Please let me make amends by buying you dinner tonight, then perhaps I can explain a little too. If the idea does not appal you I am in room 56, the super-heated cupboard near the roof. And if I don’t hear from you by eight p.m., it was extremely nice to meet you. I enjoyed our trip to the ACCaDEMia very much! Best wishes, Douglas
Before I could reconsider, I handed it to the receptionist for the Danish lady travelling alone. Freja Kristensen? Grazie mille. Then I climbed the stairs stiffly and sat heavily on the bed. The treacherous running shoes were removed with a queasy sucking sound. Where was their promised comfort now? Despite my best efforts with bandages and plasters, my feet looked as if they’d been eaten by crabs. The blisters on the knuckles of my toes had burst, the new flesh rubbed raw, and on the soles of my feet dead skin hung down like tattered flags. Swelling rendered my other shoes, a pair of serviceable brown brogues, unwearable, and so I did my best to patch my wounds while I waited for my lady friend to call.