Provender Gleed (8 page)

Rubbing his own nose, Arthur lumbered up to Provender. His shoulder butted against Blaise's and he turned and peered at her as if he hadn't even realised she was there. Then, facing Provender again, he addressed him as though the two of them were already in the middle of an argument.

'And another thing, Prov,' he said, 'if anyone ought to be bloody on the bloody primogeniture line, it ought to be bloody me. I mean, I'm the bloody one with the acting career that's going bloody well even if I do say so my-bloody-self. I'm the one people bloody see on the TV and the cinema screen all the bloody time. Who'd be better as the next bloody Gleed heir? Who'd be better to carry on the bloody bloodline? Not bloody you, Prov, mate. Me! Bloody well me! Someone people know, someone people bloody see, not someone who bloody hides away all day. And someone whose bloody blood hasn't been bloody thinned like some bloody blood I could ment--'

'Arthur,' said Provender, stemming the blood-flow, 'have you met Blaise Wynne? Blaise, this is my cousin Arthur. In case you hadn't guessed, a Gleed.'

Blaise required no further prompting. In an instant, Provender was forgotten. It was as if he had never existed. She grabbed Arthur by the arm, hard, sinking her claws into him. Arthur winced with pain and tried to prise himself free, but she held grimly on.

'Arthur Gleed!' she crooned. 'Yes, I know you. Well, I've
seen
you. I watched you in that series, what was it called...?'

Provender sidestepped smartly away. Only when there was a decent margin of safety between him and Blaise did he brave a look back. She was bent forward over Arthur, still clutching his arm. Arthur was shrinking from her, bewildered, trying to fathom what had just happened to him. Who was this woman? Why would she not let go? Provender saw him touch the hilt of his stage-prop sword, no doubt for reassurance, but perhaps wondering whether to draw it. Somehow Provender didn't think the weapon, wielded, would deter Blaise. She'd regard it, if anything, as a sexual come-on.

A quick check of his watch told him it was just gone half-past eleven. There was a fireworks display scheduled at midnight. Provender loved fireworks and knew he ought to get down to the southern end of the party site so as to find a spot with a good view. Of greater urgency, though, was the need for a drink. He was also keen to find a certain member of the waiting staff again. There were several Harlequins and Columbines within sight, all bearing beverages, but he ignored them. He was after one particular Columbine and would take a drink off no one else's salver.

He hunted for her through Venice. He could not say exactly what it was about her that had so intrigued him. She was extremely pretty, she had bright, clever eyes, was alluringly curvaceous - but looks alone were not the whole story.
Pert
was the word that kept occurring to him. It seemed to sum her up.
Quirky
also applied. And she hadn't been overawed by him, by what he was, and he liked that, too. She had called him 'sir', but in her job that was how you addressed every man, it was just one of the rules; and even as she was being polite and deferential towards him, Provender had been able to tell that she didn't think he was any better than her. She wasn't Family-struck, as so many people were. She had given no indication that the accident of birth which made him a Gleed was, in fact, of any consequence to her. As far as she was concerned, he was a person, just as she was a person. They were, essentially, equals.

She had been in his thoughts while he was with Gentian and even more so while he was with Blaise. She had been lodged in his brain unshakeably from the moment he met her. Even if he had liked either of the other two women, they wouldn't have stood a chance. The Columbine towered head and shoulders above them. He must find her!

She wasn't anywhere he looked. She seemed to have vanished. He searched through every alley, every narrow Venetian street. Guests greeted him from time to time. He blanked them, forging past, head down. He could have put his mask back up in order to spare himself this awkwardness, but he didn't want to be hampered in any way. He needed his eyesight unconfined - full peripheral vision. Where was she? He scanned every piazza he came to. He began to wonder if she wasn't hiding from him, spooked, perhaps, by the way he had talked to her. Maybe she thought he was like his father, a chip off the old block, hounding after anything in a skirt. Or maybe she thought he was just
odd
. He might not have given the best account of himself during their brief exchange of words. But that simply made it all the more imperative that he find her, so that he could have a stab at redeeming himself.

Eventually, as midnight loomed, persistence was rewarded. Provender was crossing the Bridge of Sighs for what seemed like the dozenth time, and feeling, as he did so, the full appositeness of the bridge's name - and there she was, coming the other way. She spotted him at about the same time as he spotted her. As their eyes met, she looked pleased, and then she looked thankful - not quite the same thing. This perplexed Provender for all of a nanosecond. He had found her, that was all that mattered. She hadn't fled the party or anything. He hadn't scared her away. Here she was.

All at once, he was stuck for what to say. He stammered out a sentence, 'So we meet again,' something along those lines, fumbling and banal. She, with marginally greater confidence, said, 'You never got a drink off me, did you?'

He said, 'I never did.'

She said, 'Now's your chance, then.'

He said, 'Indeed.'

She said, 'Wine, maybe?'

He said, 'Why not?', and cringed, because it sounded like an attempt at a pun. He grabbed a glass of rosé off the salver and downed it in a single, hurried gulp.

'So,' he said, gasping.

'So,' she said.

'They're going to start shortly.'

'What?'

'Sorry. The fireworks.'

'Ah.'

'Do you like fireworks?'

The Columbine's mouth curved up at one corner. 'I don't
dis
like them.'

At that moment, a Harlequin strode past, coming from the same direction the Columbine had. Provender threw him a glance - big, sturdy fellow, muscles bulking out his black-and-white diamond pattern leotard. He looked back to the Columbine. Her eyes, which had also been on the Harlequin, flicked back to Provender's face.

'Do you have a name?' Provender asked.

It was a straightforward enough question. He wanted to know the answer. But at the same time, both of them knew he was asking for a whole lot more. If she told him, she would be opening up the border between professional and personal, stamping his passport and giving him the go-ahead to walk through.

'I don't think I ought to --'

'No, no, of course.'

She paused, deliberating, then said, 'Is.'

'Eh?'

'That's my name. Is.'

'Really? Short for...'

'Just Is.'

'Oh. Unusual.'

'Says a man called Provender.'

He smiled. 'Yes. Quite. So then ... Is. Those fireworks. Would you like to come and watch them with me?'

'I can't.'

'Ah.'

'I'd like to, but ... you know, I have a job to do, and if my boss catches me watching fireworks when I should be serving drinks...'

'He'll give you a rocket.'

This time the pun was intentional. That didn't make it any funnier, though.

'Right,' said Is.

'Is that the only reason?'

'The only reason...?'

'You won't come and watch them with me.'

She thought about it. 'Yeah.'

'Then not to worry. You won't get into trouble, I promise. I'll sort it out. I'll go and see your boss afterwards. I'll say I gave you permission to take half an hour off. I thought you'd been working so hard, you could do with a break. Actually, fuck it, why don't you take the rest of the night off? Spend it as my personal guest. On full pay.'

'I don't think...' She shook her head uncomfortably. 'No.'

'OK, just the half an hour then. For the fireworks.' Provender was thinking he had lost her. He had pushed too hard. Been greedy. 'Please?'

But he hadn't, hurrah, lost her. 'Perhaps,' she said slowly, 'just for the fireworks, I could, I suppose...'

'Brilliant!'

'You promise you'll talk to my boss afterwards.'

'Swear. Cross my heart.'

She took a deep breath. 'All right then. Aren't they about to start?'

Provender consulted his watch. 'Any minute. We'd better hurry if we're going to get a good position.'

She nodded at her salver. 'I need to find somewhere to put this down first.'

'Leave it here.'

'Can't do that. The catering marquee's just that way. It won't take a moment.'

'I'll come with you.'

She cocked her head. 'If you like.'

He followed her down one of the narrower alleys. His mother had told him the streets of Venice were categorised under various names, according to size and proximity to water. The narrow residential type, which this alley aped, was called a ...
ruga
? Something like that. He thought about sharing this little factlet with the Columbine, Is. But he didn't want her to take him for a show-offy know-all.

Soon they were crossing the perimeter of the party site, and the catering marquee appeared in front of them, voluminous and candy-striped, like a huge canvas cake. From within came a clatter of cutlery and glassware, and also the sizzle of cooking and the sound of chefs shouting at one another. Is entered through one of the flaps, emerging empty-handed a moment later. Provender, eager, pointed towards Venice's south edge.

'That way,' he said.

'Why don't we go over there instead?' said Is, gesturing past the side of the marquee.

Completely the opposite direction. Nothing lay that way except a copse of silver birches, an expanse of lawn, and beyond, the untended pasture and woodland which constituted the majority of the estate.

'There's a rise,' she explained. 'I saw it this afternoon. I bet up there we'll have an uninterrupted view. No one else around to get in the way.'

Provender took this in; thought he knew what she was implying; liked it.

They headed off side by side, into the dark. Provender was delighted at how things were turning out. He didn't the least bit mind Is taking the lead in this way. He knew, of course, the rise she was referring to. He pictured her and him sitting atop it. She was wrong about the view from there being uninterrupted. Most of the ground-level detonations, the Roman candles and Catherine wheels, would be obscured by Venice, but the rockets and mortars, the big loud airbursting bangs which were really the point of a fireworks display - these would be visible in all their scintillating, percussive glory. And if his hand should happen to settle next to hers on the grass, if their fingers should brush, their shoulders touch ... it would not be an unwelcome development at all. Provender was expecting no more than that. He wasn't expecting Is to pounce on him, Blaise-style. He didn't want her to, and didn't think she was that sort of girl. Just her presence beside him, her companionship, while the night sky exploded, was all he required.

They were passing the copse. The ground was starting to slope upwards. The light from the party site threw everything into dim relief.

To Provender's right, at the periphery of his vision, something moved. He thought it was the trunk of one of the silver birches, swaying in a sudden breeze.

Then he saw that it was a figure. He glimpsed diamond-shapes, black on white. Someone who had been perfectly camouflaged amid the piebald trees.

Bearing down on him.

Before he could say or do anything, an arm banded around his chest. A hand clamped over his mouth.

'Quick!' a hoarse voice yelled, right next to his ear.

Provender struggled, but the man holding him was stronger, much stronger, than him.

He saw Is fumbling among her skirts.

'Quick! Fucking get on with it!'

From a pocket she produced a small, thin, cylindrical object. It gleamed.

A hypodermic.

Provender struggled harder, but no more effectually. He yelled, but with his mouth muffled the yell came out a growl. Belatedly, he remembered the stick he was carrying. He had forgotten he still had it with him. He lashed backwards with it, going for his assailant's head, but the angle was awkward, he couldn't get in a decent blow.

With almost casual ease, the man batted the stick out of his grasp. It spun uselessly away.

Is moved in with the hypodermic. She grabbed the sleeve of Provender's cape and yanked it up to expose his bare arm.

A needle winked, poised over his biceps.

'Do it, for fuck's sake!'

Provender felt the jab. A sting, then deeper, muscular pain.

And suddenly brightness, a wash of crimson over the scene, followed immediately by a huge, hearty
thump
.

Distant cheering.

And further flashes of brightness followed, and a thunder peal of
thumps
. The tree trunks were lit up in a succession of colours. Is's face was lit up too. Provender watched her, even as his legs began to grow numb and crumple under him, even as the man braced him so that he remained upright. Is was growing further and further away, shrinking, and her face, as it receded and blurred, shifted through a palette of hues: sombre magenta, fierce scarlet, deep gold, shrewd green, cruel blue.

More cheering. Whoops of firework joy.

Coming from a far-off world.

Somewhere in dreams.

9

'Where
is
Provender?'

This time Cynthia Gleed said the words less with a sigh, more with a frown.

A fusillade of explosions erupted overhead, like dandelions made of fire, one overlaying another in rapid succession The partygoers oohed their appreciated. Faces were upturned, mouths agape. Fireworks made children of everyone.

Cynthia, the only one not looking upward, studied the crowd by the flickering play of pyrotechnic light. No sign of her son in his sombre, somewhat sinister get-up. She could see Gentian, though, and Blaise, the latter with her arm around nephew Arthur (although the embrace, from certain angles, looked not unlike a headlock). Neither girl had found favour with Provender, and Cynthia, while disappointed, was also not surprised. In hindsight, Gentian was perhaps a little too winsome for him, and Blaise was definitely far too forward. Cynthia had had her hopes ... but she perceived now that her choices had not been right. Ah well. She was learning from her mistakes. Soon she would have narrowed down the perfect woman for Provender. She already had the next couple of candidates in mind, and she also had a network of friends, relatives and acquaintances quietly, discreetly looking on her behalf, rifling through their address books, winnowing out likely young ladies to submit for her consideration. In time, she would find the Girl, the One.