Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (6 page)

The vacuum left by the vast, unrealised promise of this encounter meant that his gathering excitement turned immediately to anxiety. He replayed bits of their meeting – odd words, moments, glimpses – but lacked the concentration to turn them into anything other than a source of torment. A single word started beating like a tattoo in his head: shit, shit, shit. But – shit! – he shouldn't have been thinking like that. He was happy, he had that animating – i.e., anxiety-inducing – sense that it was occasions like this that made life worth living. The immediate solution was to walk to the bar and grab another bellini. One of the very last on offer, it turned out. A few moments later the waiters stopped serving. He saw Dave Glanding, went across and laid his hand on his shoulder. He'd known Dave for almost twenty years. Technically, this made him one of Jeff's oldest friends. And he was, at least in the sense that Cyril Connolly had in mind when he said that old friends are all but indistinguishable from enemies. Dave was part of another loose group of people going to Haig's Bar. Phil Spender, still in the trademark cream suit he'd been wearing at Stansted, was coming. So was the Kaiser. Melanie too, with other people from the ICA. There was an interval of milling around while everyone waited for
everyone else, then they all trooped out of the party, drunk, full of the excitement of the first night of the Biennale.

Because of the heat and the mass of people, everyone at Haig's Bar had spilled out onto the piazza, as far as the Gritti and the Grand Canal at one end and, at the other, the gleaming white façade of Santa Maria del Giglio. The Kaiser went inside and bought a round of drinks, beer mainly. Jeff was surrounded, now, entirely by people from London, many of whom he saw at art openings and book launches: home from home, Soho in a Renaissance setting with a heatwave thrown in. Lots of women in nice dresses too, but without this one woman in her yellow dress the night was abruptly devoid of promise. How quickly the world got narrowed down to one person, to one woman. Even the most inveterate womanizer must have succumbed to periodic pangs of monogamy. He was happy here, he was having fun, but, having met Laura, he also had a gnawing sense of lack, had to keep reminding himself to tune back into the conversations that were bubbling all around.

Jane Felling came over and joined the group. She and Jeff had slept together a couple of times, years ago. They'd never officially gone out together, which meant that they had never split up either. She was here with her new boyfriend so Jeff had to suppress his tendency, when drunk, to flirt somewhat crudely with her. Or maybe not, since she started flirting with him.

‘You're looking extremely handsome tonight, Jeff,’ she said, kissing him on the lips.

‘So are you, Jane. Pretty, I mean.’

‘Your hair looks different.’

‘I'll be honest. I had it dyed.’

‘It suits you and it's very subtle. I knew something had happened, but couldn't work out what.’

It was surprising how little impact having sex with someone could have on your relationship with them. Or at least it was surprising how something that usually defines a relationship can sometimes make so little impact, leave almost no trace, become just another part of the rough and tumble of metropolitan life. Jane was reminiscing, too, with Phil and the Kaiser, about the circumstances of her first ‘date’ with Jeff.

‘If you could dignify it with that word,’ she said, putting her arm through his. ‘We went to … Actually where did we go? I can't remember.’

‘The French House.’

‘That's right. Anyway, we had this lovely dinner. He was charming and witty and I thought he was definitely worth a shag. And when the bill comes, what did he say? What did you say?’

‘“Can you claim this back on expenses?”’ This supposedly showed Jeff in a poor light, but it was one of those occasions when he felt rather proud of himself.

‘Classic Atman,’ said the Kaiser, slapping him on the back.

‘And the great thing was,’ said Jeff, ‘(a), she could, and (b) …’

‘I shagged him anyway!’ They clinked glasses amid much laughter all round. To be honest, it was not the first time they had showcased this anecdote together. After a certain number of drinks, it was always favourably received. Still, he was glad Laura wasn't around to hear it. There was something too London – maybe it was that word ‘shag’ – about it.

‘Well, I can repay the favour now,’ he said. ‘Who would like another drink? On
my
expenses.’ Silly question.
Everyone
wanted a drink.

In the bar, waiting to get served, Jeff decided that, following the example of Tracey Emin's
Everyone she'd ever slept with
tent, if he were an artist he would build a one-to-one scale
model of all the booze he'd ever poured down his gullet. Beer, wine, champagne, cider, the lot. Christ, he'd need a gallery the size of an aircraft hangar just for the beer: the pints, the tins, the bottles. It would be a portrait not simply of his life but of his era. Some of the brands he'd started out with had since disappeared: Tartan, Double Diamond, Trophy, the inaptly named Long Life. And it would be international too; not just the domestic beers, but the ones you swilled when abroad – Peroni, for example, five of which he ordered from the busy barman. The bottles, when they were handed over, were cool rather than chilled. Jeff asked if there were any colder ones to be had.

‘Even the magnificent fridges of Venice are struggling to cope with the heat and the insatiable demand for cold drinks that it generates,’ the barman replied, in epic English. Jeff took the coolish drinks outside to the waiting, thirsty Londoners.

Jane's new boyfriend, Mark, had joined them. One of the people who'd asked for a beer had disappeared so he gave the spare one to Mark. He was one of those guys, not particularly good-looking, not particularly anything, but as soon as you saw him you liked him. Jeff took a slug of his lukecold beer. When Mark got drawn into conversation with another group of people, Jane said, ‘You know what I love about him?’

‘What?’

‘He's so easy-going.’

‘I know what you mean. I love easy-going people. Even though I know I'm not one myself. Perhaps that's why I like them so much.’

‘There's something so manly about it.’

‘I used that very word only a short while ago, in a different context, but I know what you mean. The corollary of that is there's something so
un
manly about being uptight.’

‘You're lovely, though.’ She kissed him on the cheek.

‘Thank you, Jane. You too.’ And that was it. She went off to join Mark, but what a pleasant little exchange it had been! So much so that he decided to head for home. There were still four days to go; it would be wise to make it back to the hotel on this, the first night, without getting totally fucked up. And tomorrow he had a lot to do, all of which had to be done while keeping an eye out for Laura. He said goodbye to various people, waved to others and began walking.

Within minutes he was lost. Confronted with sudden deadends and bridgeless canals, he kept coming across other lost souls, squinting into maps beneath dim lamps. At one point a sign indicated that if he turned left he would come to San Marco and that if he turned right he would come to … San Marco. We rely on signs to make choices for us – or at least to enable us to make choices. This sign made a nonsense of itself. It might as well not have been there. Where it was meant to clarify, it succeeded only in confusing. Or did it? Perhaps it announced some larger truth about Venice: whichever way you went, even if you tried to avoid it, you would end up in San Marco. Whatever you did, whichever way you turned, the result would be the same.

In certain states – if you were exhausted, desperate for bed, on your last legs – the city's impossible geography could have driven you insane, but tonight it was fine, it was fun, part of being in Venice, having the Venice experience, the same experience everyone else was having. Still, Jeff was relieved when, without warning, miles from where he'd left it earlier in the evening, his hotel obligingly appeared. The night porter was asleep – always difficult to tell whether this was a job best suited to people suffering from insomnia or prone to narcolepsy – but attained consciousness for long enough to hand Jeff his key.

The a.c. had made his room as chilly as a fridge. He flicked it off and the silence thickened by several degrees.

He dreamt he was asleep, not in his room but by the side of a canal, a wide, fast-flowing Venetian canal. The city looked even older than it really was, more decayed and dirty, rubbish-strewn. He was woken by something pulling at his arm, tugging at him. Then the tugging grew painful, sharp. He opened his eyes to see a dog, with ancient eyes, chewing his arm. He tried to fend it off with the other arm but there was no other arm, only the one that was in the dog's bloody teeth. In the dream he was awake but he could not wake from the dream in which the dog was biting his arm, threatening to sever it. Or perhaps he was being unfair. He was soaking wet. Had the dog dragged him out of the canal, saved his life? Impossible to say. He woke up from the dream, bathed in sweat. He was in his room and there was no dog, just the canal-damp sheets.

The sun was roasting the roof of the hotel (which was also the ceiling of his room). Sharp light peered in through the shutters. It felt like the afternoon but, looking at the clock, he saw that it was only 7:45. He was hungover, dazed from the dream, far from rested and far too excited about the various things the day held in store to stand any chance of getting back to sleep.

He flicked on the a.c. again, opened the curtains and shutters. In a flash, the room was filled with enough sunlight to power a small town. He directed a yellow rope of piss into the toilet, catching a glimpse, as he did so, of his new, dark-haired self in the mirror. Shit, with his hair like this he looked five years younger than he had a week ago. Hangover and lack of sleep made him feel five years older so, once everything was factored in, he had come out quits. He showered,
shaved, brushed his teeth, put on shorts and a favourite T-shirt – infinitely faded, blue, with a discreet Element skateboard logo – and headed out for breakfast.

It was already desert-hot outside, but what did it matter? He was in Venice, happy to be alive, happy to be on the lookout for Laura, glad to be in Venice – which was already up and running and probably had been for hours. Fruit and veg were being sold from barges, or whatever they were called, a few gondoliers were punting for business along the canals. People were looking out of windows, shouting and waving. Barrows of produce were being wheeled through the narrow streets. It was like being in
The Truman Show.
Every day, for hundreds of years, Venice had woken up and put on this guise of being a real place even though everyone knew it existed only for tourists. The difference, the novelty, of Venice was that the gondoliers and fruit-sellers and bakers were all tourists too, enjoying an infinitely extended city-break. The gondoliers enjoyed the fruit-sellers, the fruit-sellers enjoyed the gondoliers and bakers, and all of them together enjoyed the real residents: the hordes of camera-toting Japanese, the honeymooning Americans, the euro-pinching backpackers and hungover Biennale-goers.

One of whom was walking aimlessly but with great purpose, looking for a café where he could get exactly the breakfast he wanted and to which he could return every day.
It
needed to have fresh orange juice, good coffee (easy enough in Italy), half-decent croissant or cornetti (almost impossible), and he needed to be able to consume all of this while seated in the shade with a view of some kind of piazza (but not one of the really big ones, where the price of a coffee could leave you clutching the bill and saying two words –
‘How
much?’ – to yourself over and over, in a state of uncomprehending shock).

He found such a place quickly, on a tiny square, with a
view, at the end of a long, tree-ornamented street, of the Giudecca Canal. The coffee was sensational and by hooking out the honey – which he hated – he was able to turn the cornetto into a tolerable croissant. Someone had left a copy of
La Repubblica
, which he sort of read. The big news, understandably, was the eat.
Che caldissimo!
Only nine-thirty and already it was as hot as noon.

It was a mistake ordering coffee
and
orange juice. Returning to the hotel to pick up everything he needed for the day, he had to trot the last hundred yards and sprint up the stairs to make extravagant use of his en suite bathroom. Considerable though it was, the relief at having made it – just! – was shortlived. The phone began ringing while he was still sitting on the toilet.

‘Pronto.’

‘What is this “pronto” shit?’

‘Oh, hi, Max. I was trying to go native.’

‘Well, I've been trying to ring you for ages.’

‘I've been out. For breakfast. What time is it there? I didn't think you got into the office so early’

‘I'm on my mobile. Why don't
you
get a mobile? You're the only person in the world who doesn't have a mobile. And you're supposed to be a journalist.’

‘I don't know. I find the prospect of choosing one rather daunting. The phrase “call plan” makes me anxious.’

‘I'll tell you what's making me anxious. This interview. Have you spoken with her yet?’

‘I only got here last night.’

‘So you
haven't
spoken to her yet?’

‘I left a message,’ Jeff lied.

‘And how is she meant to respond to that message, if you don't have a phone?’

‘I do have a phone. In fact, unless I'm very much mistaken,
I'm talking on one now. Let's see. It's got a mouthpiece you speak into and—’

‘Very funny.’

‘Yes, yes. I'm even hearing a voice in my ear, the voice of someone from another country who I'd rather not be speaking to. That clinches it. It's definitely a phone.’

‘We've got to get this interview. Understood?’

‘Roger that.’

‘And the picture.’

‘Affirmative.’

‘You really are a wanker,’ said Max. Then he hung up. How pleasant it was, dealing with someone with whom you had a working relationship going back almost fifteen years. Such a relief to be able to dispense with distracting pleasantries and irrelevant chit-chat. As a belated but symbolic riposte, Jeff flushed the toilet.