Cat O'Nine Tales: And Other Stories (11 page)

“What about the
amber collection?” asked Dick, as he topped up her water
glass.
“I thought that was a no-miss.”

“I’d already
scheduled in the amber collection and the Russian Museum for Sunday.”

“Sounds as if
you have everything well organized,” said Dick, as a waiter placed a bowl of
borscht in front of his wife.

Maureen spent
the rest of the meal telling Dick about some of the treasures that they would
see when they visited the Hermitage. By the time Dick had signed the bill,
Maureen had drunk the bottle of water.

Dick slipped
the empty bottle back in his pocket. Once they had returned to their room, he
filled it with tap water and left it in the bathroom.

By the time
Dick had undressed and climbed into bed, Maureen was still studying her
guidebook.

“I feel
exhausted,” Dick said. “It must be the time change.” He turned his back on her,
hoping she wouldn’t work out that it was just after eight p.m. in England.

Dick woke the
following morning feeling very thirsty. He looked at the empty bottle of Evian
on his side of the bed and remembered just in time. He climbed out of bed,
walked across to the fridge and selected a bottle of orange juice.

“Will you be
going to the gym this morning?” he asked a half-awake Maureen.

“Do I have
time?”

“Sure, the
Hermitage doesn’t open until ten, and one of the reasons I always stay here is
because of the hotel’s gym.”

“So what about you?”

“I still have
to make some phone calls if everything is to be set up for Monday.”

Maureen slipped
out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom, which allowed Dick enough time to
top up her glass and replace the empty bottle of Evian on her side of the bed.

When Maureen
emerged a few minutes later, she checked her watch before slipping on her gym
kit. “I should be back in about forty minutes,” she said, after tying up her
trainers.

“Don’t forget
to take some water with you,” said Dick, handing her one of the bottles from
the table by the window.

“They may not
have one in the gym.”

“Thank you,”
she said.

Dick wondered,
from the expression on her face, if he was being just a little too solicitous.

While Maureen
was in the gym, Dick took a shower. When he walked back into the bedroom, he
was pleased to see that the sun was shining. He put on a blazer and slacks, but
only after he’d checked that none of the bottles had been replaced by the hotel
staff while he’d been in the bathroom.

Dick ordered
breakfast for both of them, which arrived moments after Maureen returned from
the gym, clutching the half-empty Evian bottle.

“How did your
training go?” Dick asked.

“Not great,”
Maureen replied. “I felt a bit listless.”

“Probably just
jetlag,” suggested Dick as he took his place on the far side of the table. He
poured his wife a glass of water, and himself another orange juice. Dick opened
a copy of the
Herald Tribune,
which
he began to read while he waited for his wife to dress. Hillary Clinton said
she wouldn’t be running for president, which only convinced Dick that she
would, especially as she made the announcement standing by her husband’s side.

Maureen came
out of the bathroom wearing a hotel dressing gown. She took the seat opposite
her husband and sipped the water.

“Better take a
bottle of Evian with us when we visit the Hermitage,” said Maureen. Dick looked
up from behind his paper. “The girl in the gym warned me not, under any
circumstances, to drink the local water.”

“Oh yes, I
should have warned you,” said Dick, as Maureen took a bottle from the table by
the window and put it in her bag.
“Can’t be too careful.”

Dick and
Maureen strolled through the front gates of the Hermitage a few minutes before
ten, to find themselves at the back of a long queue. The crocodile of visitors
progressed slowly forward along an
unshaded
cobbled
path. Maureen took several sips of water between turning the pages of the
guidebook. It was ten forty before they reached the ticket booth.

Once inside,
Maureen continued to study her guidebook. “Whatever we do, we must be sure to
see Michelangelo’s
Crouching Boy,
Raphael’s
Virgin,
and Leonardo’s
Madonna
Benois
”

Dick smiled his
agreement, but knew he wouldn’t be concerning himself with the masters.

As they climbed
the wide marble staircase, they passed several magnificent statues nestled in
alcoves. Dick was surprised to discover just how vast the Hermitage was.
Despite visiting St. Petersburg several times during the past three years, he
had only ever seen the building from the outside.

“Housed on
three floors, Tsar Peter’s collection displays treasures in over two hundred
rooms,” Maureen told him, reading from the guidebook. “So let’s get started.”

By eleven
thirty they had only covered the Dutch and Italian schools on the first floor,
by which time Maureen had finished the large bottle of Evian.

Dick
volunteered to go and buy another bottle. He left his wife admiring
Caravaggio’s
The Lute Player,
while
he slipped into the nearest rest room. He refilled the empty Evian bottle with
tap water before rejoining his wife. If Maureen had spent a little time
studying one of the many drinks counters situated on each floor, she would have
discovered that the Hermitage doesn’t stock Evian, because it has an exclusive
contract with
Volvic
.

By twelve
thirty they had all but covered the sixteen rooms devoted to the Renaissance
artists, and agreed it was time for lunch. They left the building and strolled
back into the midday sun. The two of them walked for a while along the bank of
the
Moika
River, stopping only to take a photograph
of a bride and groom posing on the Blue Bridge in front of the
Mariinsky
Palace.

“A local
tradition,” said Maureen, turning another page of her guidebook.

After walking
another block, they came to a halt outside a small pizzeria.

Its sensible
square tables with neat
redand
-white check
tablecloths and smartly dressed waiters tempted them inside.

“I must go to
the loo,” said Maureen.

“I’m feeling a
little queasy. It must be the heat.” She added, “Just order me a salad and a
glass of water.”

Dick smiled,
removed the Evian bottle from her bag and filled up the glass on her side of
the table. When the waiter appeared, Dick ordered a salad for his wife, and
ravioli plus a large diet coke for himself. He was desperate for something to
drink.

Once she’d
eaten her salad, Maureen perked up a little, and even began to tell Dick what
they should look out for when they visited the Summer Palace.

On the long
taxi ride through the north of the city, she continued to read extracts from
her guidebook. “Peter the Great built the Summer Palace after he had visited
Versailles, and on returning to Russia employed the finest landscape gardeners
and most gifted craftsmen in the land to reproduce the French masterpiece. He
intended the finished work to be
a homage
to the
French, whom he greatly admired as the leaders of style throughout Europe.”

The taxi driver
interrupted her flow with a snippet of information of his own.

“We are just
passing the recently constructed Winter Palace, which is where President Putin
stays whenever he’s in St. Petersburg.” The driver paused. “And, as the
national flag is flying, he must be in town.”

“He’s flown
down from Moscow especially to see me,” said Dick.

The taxi driver
dutifully laughed.

The taxi drove
through the gates of the Summer Palace half an hour later and the driver
dropped his passengers off in a crowded
carpark
,
bustling with sightseers and traders, who were standing behind their makeshift
stalls plying their cheap souvenirs.

“Let’s go and
see the real thing,” suggested Maureen.

“I wait for you
here,” said the taxi driver. “No extra charge. How long?” he added.

“I should think
we’d be a couple of hours,” said Dick. “No more.”

“I wait for you
here,” he repeated.

The two of them
strolled around the magnificent gardens, and Dick could see why it was
described in the guidebooks as a “can’t afford to miss,” with five stars.

Maureen
continued to brief him between sips of water. “The grounds surrounding the
palace cover over a hundred acres, with more than twenty fountains, as well as
eleven other palatial residences.” Although the sun was no longer burning down,
the sky was still clear and Maureen continued to take regular gulps of water,
but however many times she offered the bottle to Dick, he always replied, “No
thanks.”

When they
finally climbed the steps of the palace, they were greeted by another long
queue, and Maureen admitted that she was feeling a little tired.

“Pity to have
traveled this far,” said Dick, “and not
take
a look
inside.”

His wife
reluctantly agreed.

When they
reached the front of the queue, Dick purchased two entrance tickets and, for a
small extra charge, selected an English-speaking guide to show them around.

“I don’t feel
too good,” said Maureen as they entered the Empress Catherine’s bedroom. She
clung onto the four-poster bed.

“You must drink
lots of water on such a hot day,” suggested the tour guide helpfully. By the
time they had reached Tsar Nicholas IV’s study, Maureen warned her husband that
she thought she was going to faint. Dick apologized to their guide, put an arm
around his wife’s shoulder and assisted her out of the palace on an unsteady
journey back to the
carpark
.

They found
their taxi driver standing by his car waiting for them.

“We must return
to the Grand Palace Hotel immediately,” said Dick, as his wife fell into the
back seat of the car like a drunk who has been thrown out of a pub on a
Saturday night.

On the long
drive back to St. Petersburg, Maureen was violently sick in the back of the
taxi, but the driver didn’t comment, just maintained a steady speed as he
continued along the highway. Forty minutes later, he came to a halt outside the
Grand Palace Hotel. Dick handed over a wodge of notes and apologized.

“Hope madam
better soon,” he said.

“Yes, let’s
hope so,” replied Dick.

Dick helped his
wife out of the back of the car, and guided her up the steps into the hotel
lobby and quickly toward the lifts, not wishing to draw attention to
himself
. He had her safely back in their suite moments
later.

Maureen
immediately disappeared into the bathroom, and even with the door closed Dick
could hear her retching. He searched around the room. In their absence, all the
bottles of Evian had been replaced. He only bothered to empty the one by
Maureen’s bedside, which he refilled with tap water from the kitchenette.

Maureen finally
emerged from the bathroom, and collapsed onto the bed. “I feel awful,” she
said.

“Perhaps you
ought to take a couple of aspirin, and try to get some sleep?”

Maureen nodded
weakly. “Could you fetch them for me? They’re in my wash bag.”

“Of course, my darling.”
Once he’d found the pills, he
filled a glass with tap water, before returning to his wife’s side.

She had taken
off her dress, but not her slip. Dick helped her to sit up and became aware for
the first time that she was soaked in sweat. She swilled down the two aspirins
with the glass of water Dick offered her. He lowered her gently down onto the
pillow before drawing the curtains. He then strolled across to the bedroom
door, opened it, and placed the
Do Not
Disturb
sign on the door knob.

The last thing
he needed was for a solicitous maid to come barging in and find his wife in her
present state. Once Dick was certain she was asleep, he went down to dinner.

“Will madam
be
joining you this evening?” inquired the head waiter, once
Dick was seated.

“No, sadly
not,” replied Dick, “she has a slight migraine. Too much sun I fear, but I’m
sure she’ll be fine by the morning.”

“Let’s hope so,
sir. What can I interest you in tonight?”

Dick took his
time perusing the menu, before he eventually
said,
“I
think I’ll start with the
foie
gras
,
followed by a rump steak...” he paused...”medium rare.”

“Excellent choice, sir.”

Dick poured
himself a glass of water from the bottle on the table and quickly gulped it
down, before filling his glass a second time. He didn’t hurry his meal, and
when he returned to his suite just after ten, he was delighted to find his wife
was fast asleep. He picked up her glass, took it to the bathroom and refilled
it with tap water. He then put it back on her side of the bed. Dick took his
time undressing, before finally slipping under the covers to settle down next
to his wife.