The Breaking Point (16 page)

Perhaps it was more potent than the night before, or perhaps, in my disturbed mood, it had a greater effect on me. Whatever it was, the curaçao went to my head. My nervousness vanished. The man in the white mackintosh and his evil influence no longer troubled me. Perhaps he was dead. What of it? Ganymede remained unharmed. And to show his favour he stood only a few feet away from my table, hands clasped behind his back, on the alert to serve my instant whim.

‘Do you never get tired?’ I said boldly.

He whisked away my ash-tray and flicked the table.

‘No,
signore
,’ he answered, ‘for my work is a pleasure. This sort of work.’ He gave me a little bow.

‘Don’t you go to school?’

‘School?’ He jerked his thumb in a gesture of dismissal. ‘
Finito
, school. I am a man. I work for my living. To keep my mother and my sister.’

I was touched. He believed himself a man. And I had an instant vision of his mother, a sad, complaining woman, and of a little sister. They all of them lived behind the door with the grille.

‘Do they pay you well here in the café?’ I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘In the season, not so bad,’ he said, ‘but the season is over. Two more weeks, and it is finished. Everyone goes away.’

‘What will you do?’

He shrugged again.

‘I have to find work somewhere else,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I go to Rome. I have friends in Rome.’

I did not like to think of him in Rome - such a child in such a city. Besides, who were his friends?

‘What would you like to do?’ I inquired.

He bit his lips. For a moment he looked sad. ‘I should like to go to London,’ he said. ‘I should like to go to one of your big hotels. But that is impossible. I have no friends in London.’

I thought of my own immediate superior, who happened to be a director, amongst his other activities, of the Majestic in Park Lane.

‘It might be arranged,’ I said, ‘with a little pulling of strings.’

He smiled, and made an amusing gesture of manipulating with both hands. ‘It is easy, if you know how,’ he said, ‘but if you don’t know how, better to . . .’ and he smacked his lips and raised his eyes. The expression implied defeat. Forget about it.

‘We’ll see,’ I said. ‘I have influential friends.’

He made no attempt to seize advantage.

‘You are kind to me,
signore
,’ he murmured, ‘very kind indeed.’

At that moment the orchestra stopped, and as the crowd applauded he clapped with them, his condescension perfect.

‘Bravo . . . bravo . . .’ he said. I almost wept.

When later I paid my bill, I hesitated to over-tip in case he was offended. Besides, I did not want him to look upon me merely as a tourist client. Our relationship went deeper.

‘For your mother and your little sister,’ I said, pressing five hundred lire into his hand, seeing, in my mind’s eye, the three of them tip-toeing to Mass in St Mark’s, the mother voluminous, Ganymede in his Sunday black, and the little sister veiled for her first Communion.

‘Thank you, thank you,
signore
,’ he said, and added, ‘
A domani
.’

‘
A domani
,’ I echoed, touched that he should already be looking forward to our next encounter. As for the wretch in the white mackintosh, he was already feeding the fishes in the Adriatic.

The following morning I had a shock. The reception clerk telephoned my room to ask whether I would mind leaving it vacant by midday. I did not know what he meant. The room had been booked for a fortnight. He was full of excuses. There had been a misunderstanding, he said; this particular room had been engaged for many weeks, he thought the travel agent had explained the fact. Very well, I said, huffed, put me somewhere else. He expressed a thousand regrets. The hotel was full. But he could recommend a very comfortable little flat that the management used from time to time as an annexe. And there would be no extra charge. My breakfast would be brought to me just the same, and I should even have a private bath.

‘It’s very upsetting,’ I fumed. ‘I have all my things unpacked.’

Again a thousand regrets.The porter would move my luggage. He would even pack for me. I need not stir hand or foot myself. Finally I consented to the new arrangement, though I certainly would not permit anyone but myself to touch my things. Then I went downstairs and found Prince Hal, with a barrow for my luggage, awaiting me below. I was in a bad humour, with my arrangements upset, and quite determined to refuse the room in the annexe on sight, and demand another.

We skirted the lagoon. Prince Hal trundling the baggage, and I felt something of a fool stalking along behind him, bumping into the promenaders, and cursed the travel agent who had presumably made the muddle about the room in the hotel.

When we arrived at our destination, though, I was obliged to change my tune. Prince Hal entered a house with a fine, even beautiful façade, whose spacious staircase was spotlessly clean. There was no lift, and he carried my luggage on his shoulder. He stopped on the first floor, took out a key, fitted it to the lefthand door, and threw it open. ‘Please to enter,’ he said.

It was a charming apartment, and must have been at some time or other the salon of a private
palazzo
.The windows, instead of being closed and shuttered like the windows in the Hotel Byron, were wide open to a balcony, and to my delight the balcony looked out upon the Grand Canal. I could not be better placed.

‘Are you sure,’ I inquired, ‘that this room is the same price as the room in the hotel?’

Prince Hal stared. He obviously did not understand my question.

‘Please?’ he said.

I left it. After all, the reception clerk had said so. I looked about me. A bathroom led out of the apartment.There were even flowers by the bed.

‘What do I do about breakfast?’ I asked.

Prince Hal pointed to the telephone. ‘You ring,’ he said, ‘they answer below. They bring it.’ Then he handed over the key.

When he had gone I went once more to the balcony and looked out. The canal was full of bustle and life. All Venice was below me. The speed-boats and the
vaporetti
did not worry me, the changing animated scene was one of which I felt I could never grow tired. Here I could sit and laze all day if I so desired. My luck was incredible. Instead of cursing the travel agent I blessed him. I unpacked my things for the second time in three days, but this time, instead of being a number on the third floor of the Hotel Byron, I was lord and master of my own minute
palazzo
. I felt like a king. The great Campanile bell sounded midday and, since I had breakfasted early, I was in the mood for more coffee. I lifted the telephone. I heard a buzz in answer, and then a click. A voice said, ‘Yes?’

‘
Café complet
,’ I ordered.

‘At once,’ replied the voice.Was it . . . could it be . . . that too-familiar American accent?

I went into the bathroom to wash my hands, and when I returned there was a knock at the door. I called out, ‘
Avanti!
’ The man who bore in the tray was not wearing a white mackintosh or a trilby hat. The light-grey suit was carefully pressed. The terrible suède shoes were yellow. And he had a piece of sticking plaster on his forehead. ‘What did I tell you?’ he said. ‘I arrange-a everything. Very nice. Very OK.’

He put the tray down on the table near the window and waved his hand at the balcony and the sounds from the Grand Canal.

‘Sir Johnson spend-a the day here,’ he said. ‘All the day he lie on the balcony with his, how-do-you-call-them?’

He raised his hands in the gesture of field-glasses, and swerved from side to side. His gold-filled teeth showed as he smiled.

‘Mr Bertie Poole, different altogether,’ he added. ‘A speed-boat to the Lido, and back here after dark. Little dinners, little parties, with his friends. He made-a de whoopee.’

The knowing wink filled me with disgust. Officiously he began to pour out the coffee for me. It was too much.

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I don’t know your name, and I don’t know how this business has come about. If you have come to an understanding with the clerk at the Hotel Byron it’s nothing to do with me.’

He opened his eyes in astonishment.

‘You don’t like-a the apartment?’ he said.

‘Of course I like it,’ I replied. ‘That’s not the point. The point is, I made my own arrangements and now . . .’

But he cut me short.‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ he said, waving his hand. ‘You pay here less than you pay at Hotel Byron, I see to it. And nobody come to disturb you. Nobody at all-a.’ He winked again, and moved heavily towards the door. ‘If there is anything you want,’ he said, ‘just ring-a the bell. OK?’

He left the room. I poured the coffee into the Grand Canal. For all I knew it might be poisoned. Then I sat down to think out the situation.

I had been in Venice for three days. I had booked, as I thought, my room at the Hotel Byron for a fortnight. I had, therefore, ten days left of my holiday. Was I prepared to spend the ten days in this delicious apartment, at what I had been assured was no extra expense, under the aegis of this tout? He apparently bore no malice towards me for his tumble in the canal. The sticking plaster bore evidence to his fall, but the subject had not been mentioned. He looked less sinister in his light-grey suit than he had done in the white mackintosh. Perhaps I had let my imagination run away with me. And yet . . . I dipped my finger in the coffee-pot, and raised it to my lips. It tasted all right. I glanced at the telephone. If I lifted it his odious American voice would answer. I had better telephone the Hotel Byron from outside, or, better still, make my inquiry in person.

I locked the cupboards and the chest-of-drawers, and my suitcases too, and pocketed the keys. I left the room, locking the door of the apartment. No doubt he would have a pass-key, but it could not be helped. Then I went downstairs, walking-stick at the ready in case of attack, and so out into the street. No sign of the enemy anywhere below. The building appeared uninhabited. I went back to the Hotel Byron and tried to get some information from the staff, but my luck was out. The clerk at the reception desk was not the one who had telephoned me in the morning about the change of room. Some new arrival was waiting to check in, and the clerk was impatient. Because I was no longer under the roof I did not interest him. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘it’s all right, when we are full here we make arrangements to board our guests outside. We have had no complaints.’ The couple waiting to check in sighed heavily. I was holding them up.

Frustrated, I left the desk and walked away. There seemed nothing to be done. The sun was shining, a light breeze rippled the water of the lagoon, and the promenaders, without coats and hats, strolled peacefully, taking the air. I supposed I could do the same.After all, nothing very grave had happened. I was the temporary owner of an apartment overlooking the Grand Canal, a matter to strike envy into the breasts of all these tourists. Why should I worry? I boarded a
vaporetto
, and went and sat in the church by the Accademia to gaze at the Bellini Madonna and Child. It calmed my nerves.

I spent the afternoon sleeping and reading upon my balcony without benefit of field-glasses - unlike Sir Johnson, whoever he might be - and nobody came near me. As far as I could see none of my things had been touched. The little trap I had set - a hundred lire note between two ties - was still in place. I breathed a sigh of relief. Possibly, after all, things would work out well.

Before going out to dinner I wrote a letter to my superior. He was always inclined to patronize me, and it was something of a coup to tell him that I had found myself a delightful apartment with quite the finest view in Venice. ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘what chance is there at the Majestic for young waiters to train? There is a very good lad here, of excellent appearance and manners, just the right type for the Majestic. Can I give him any hope? He is the sole support of a widowed mother and orphan sister.’

I dined in my favourite restaurant - I was
persona grata
by now, in spite of the lapse of the night before - and strolled on to the Piazza San Marco without a qualm.The tout might appear, white mackintosh and all, but I had dined too well to care. The orchestra was surrounded by sailors from a destroyer which had anchored in the lagoon. There was much changing of hats, and laughter, and demanding of popular tunes, and the audience entered into the fun, clapping the sailor who pretended to seize the fiddle. I laughed uproariously with the rest of them, Ganymede by my side. How right my sister had been to encourage me to go to Venice instead of to Devon. How I blessed the vagaries of her cook!

It was in mid-laughter that I was carried out of myself. There were clouds above my head and below me, and my right arm, outstretched on the empty chair beside me, was a wing. Both arms were wings, and I was soaring above the earth. Yet I had claws too. The claws held the lifeless body of the boy. His eyes were closed. The wind currents bore me upward through the clouds, and my triumph was such that the still body of the boy only seemed to me more precious and more mine. Then I heard the sound of the orchestra again, and with it laughter and clapping, and I saw that I had put out my hand and gripped Ganymede’s, and he had not withdrawn it, but had let it remain there.

I was filled with embarrassment. I snatched mine away and joined in the applause. Then I picked up my glass of curaçao.

‘Fortune,’ I said, raising my glass to the crowd, to the orchestra, to the world at large. It would not do to single out the child.

Ganymede smiled. ‘The
signore
enjoys himself,’ he said.

Just that, and no more. But I felt he shared my mood. An impulse made me lean forward. ‘I have written to a friend in London,’ I said, ‘a friend who is a director of a big hotel. I hope to have an answer from him in a few days’ time.’