Us (29 page)

We placed our feet in the marble indentations. ‘Perhaps I should have brought my husband here,' she said.

‘Do you get on now?'

‘As well as you can with someone you've hated. It is “amicable” – is that the word? Amicable,' she said and raised her fists.

At the Caffè Rosso our coffees were extruded from an immense brass contraption that hissed and steamed like the boiler of a locomotive. We took them outside to the sunny terrace of that wonderful square, with its lopped-off
campanile
at the western end, snipped through cleanly as if by giant scissors.

‘What happened to the church tower?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘Douglas, I thought you would have an interesting story. I thought you knew everything.'

‘I didn't have time to look it up. Sorry.'

There was an expectant silence. Freja had confided in me, and it was my turn now to offer up some explanation as to why a dishevelled man in middle age was circling Venice in a teenager's trainers. Instead I found my attention drawn to the young violinist who had begun to play across the square, mournful music in a minor key. Bach, I guessed. If I ever find a piece of music depressing beyond belief, I assume that it is Bach.

‘So, Douglas. You and your wife, are you together or separated?'

I lowered my coffee cup, opened and then closed my mouth.

‘I hope you don't mind my asking,' said Freja. ‘I have been boring you all this time about my life, I thought you might like an opportunity to bore me in return.'

‘That's only fair. And I'd tell you if I knew. We're in a … transitional state. By which I mean we're physically apart, but still together. The process has not … we're in flux. I'm not explaining this very well, am I?'

‘You mean you haven't yet decided if you want to stay together.'

‘Oh, no. I've decided. She hasn't.'

‘I see. At least I think I see. Do you mean that—?'

‘Freja, I hope you won't mind, I realise you've been very open, and I'm not being coy. But my reason for being here, here in Venice, it's more complicated than … it's not entirely … what I mean is, I'd prefer to keep it to myself. Does that make sense?'

‘Of course. I apologise.'

‘No need. Please don't.'

We listened to the violinist for a while as he performed elaborate trills and variations on the same repeating sequence of minor chords. He was a young man in scuffed shoes and an untucked shirt, with that rather unworldly air that musicians sometimes share with scientists and mathematicians. I wondered, perhaps Albie might have taken to the violin instead of the guitar. Perhaps we should have pushed him in that direction.

‘He's very good,' said Freja, ‘but I find this music far too sad,' and I too felt saddened, and chastised. ‘It's winter music,' she added.

I'd like to apologise for my son
. I had lost sight of my purpose and forgotten why I was here. I had become distracted by an absurd and irrelevant flirtation. All these sideways glances, these confidences, this pathetic affectation of culture and sophistication – I was making myself ridiculous. I should leave.

‘Of all the ones I've seen, I like this square the most,' said Freja. ‘I've been trying to understand what makes it different and I think it's the trees. In Venice I don't miss the cars at all, but I do miss the colour green.'

‘I must go,' I said, standing abruptly.

‘Oh. Oh, really?'

‘Yes, yes I have to, I'm behind schedule, I must … start walking.'

‘Perhaps I could walk with you.'

‘No, I really need to cover some ground. It's hard to explain.' My heart was racing suddenly; too much coffee perhaps, or fear. ‘The fact is, Freja, my son has gone missing. That makes it sound as if he's been abducted; he hasn't, he's run away and I have a theory that he's here in Venice and I have to find him. So …'

‘I see. That's awful, I'm sorry, that must be a worry for you.'

‘It is. I apologise.'

‘Why do British people apologise for being in distress? It isn't your fault.'

‘But it is! It is! That's the whole bloody point!' I was leafing through my wallet now, panic rising. ‘I'm sorry, I only have twenty euros.'

‘I'll pay.'

‘No, I'd like to pay. Here, take it.'

‘Douglas, please sit down.'

‘No, no I must keep going—'

‘Two minutes will not make a difference.'

‘Here, take the twenty—'

‘Douglas, I'm leaving tomorrow morning.'

‘That's fine, I don't want any change, but I really must—'

‘Douglas, I said I'm leaving. Venice. I probably won't see you again.'

‘Oh. I see. You are? I'm sorry, I …' Perhaps I should have sat down at this point, but I continued to stand. ‘Well, it was very nice to meet you, Freja,' I said and offered my hand.

‘And you,' she said, taking it with little enthusiasm. ‘Good luck. I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for.'

But I was already running away.

We were different after the affair.

Not unhappy, but more formal, on our best behaviour. As Connie became quiet and withdrawn so I became overly attentive, like a waiter who constantly asks how you're finding the food. How was your day? What would you like to do tonight, what shall we eat, what shall we watch? But pretending that nothing has changed is a change in itself. The fact remained that one of us had wronged, one of us had been wronged, and my determination to overlook this fact had turned me into a particularly unctuous and ingratiating parole officer.

There had been conditions for her return, a certain ‘laying down of the law', but nothing too onerous or unreasonable. Of course, she would not see or speak to this ‘guy' again. We would try to be more open and honest about our dissatisfactions and irritations. We would go out together more, talk more, be kinder to each other and, for my part, I would endeavour not to refer to the infidelity. It would not be forgotten – how could it be? But neither would it be wielded as a weapon or a negotiating tool, or a justification for infidelity on my part, a condition that I happily accepted.

More importantly we decided that we would commit wholeheartedly to the project of starting a family and, sure enough, within a few months of almost breaking up, I received a telephone call.

‘Have you had lunch yet?' she asked, with affected casualness.

‘Not yet.'

‘Come and meet me in the park, by the Serpentine. We'll have a picnic!'

Outside my window it was a blustery day in late October, hardly picnic weather. ‘All right. All right, I will,' I said, and then I knew. I knew why she wanted to meet. I hung up and sat for some time at my desk, not moving, but laughing quietly to myself. We would be parents. I would be a father – a husband
and
a father. It felt like some wonderful promotion. I told my colleagues that I'd be late back.

In Hyde Park, I saw her some way off, standing by the Serpentine, hands in pockets, collar raised. The grin that she struggled to suppress confirmed my suspicions and as I approached I felt such … it's a very broad term, ‘love', so elastic in its definition as to be almost useless, but there is no other word, except perhaps adoration. Adoration would do too, at a push.

We kissed, briefly, casually. I had decided to play dumb. ‘So. This is a nice surprise.'

‘Let's walk a little, shall we?'

‘I've not brought anything to eat.'

‘Me neither. Let's just walk.' We walked. ‘What time do you have to be back at the lab?' she said.

‘No rush. Why?'

‘Because there's something I wanted to tell you.'

‘That sounds intriguing …' Perhaps I rubbed my chin, I can't recall. I've never been obliged to choose between science and a career on the stage.

‘Douglas. I'm pregnant!'

And then there was no need to act, we just laughed, and hugged and kissed. She took my arm, and we walked around the Serpentine three, perhaps four times, talking, speculating, making plans until the day grew dark and the streetlamps came on. She would be a wonderful mother, I had no doubt, and I – well, I would do my best. The notion that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger is patently nonsense, but we had sailed close to disaster, my wife and I, and survived, and we were now about to embark on this next chapter with renewed zeal. We would not be apart again.

Some wag once remarked that married couples only have children so that they have something to talk about. A rather cynical view, I suppose, but it was certainly true that Connie's pregnancy led to something of a renaissance in our marriage. The highs and lows of the process are so well documented in film and television that they are scarcely worth recounting here, except to confirm that, yes, there were bouts of morning sickness, insomnia, aching feet and tempestuous mood swings. There were comical food cravings and times when the sheer strain of carrying that ever-growing load drove Connie into tearful rages. In the face of the irrational demands and sudden furies, I adopted the persona of an attentive butler, thick-skinned, uncomplaining and able, cooking careful meals, organising visitors, making tea. It suited me.

And pregnancy suited Connie, too, as she swelled and bloomed in magnificent ways. The smoky parties, the late nights and hangovers were set aside with surprising ease, almost relief, and now she was rarely without a bag of desiccated fruit or some awful juice of a pondweed green. That's not to say that she became pious or saintly about the condition. She was funny again, pretending irritation, fury sometimes at this new encumbrance. ‘Look what you've done to me! Look!' We stayed at home now, hibernating through the winter into spring. Watched films and banal quiz shows. Lay on the sofa, reading. The spare room was finally acknowledged as the nursery and we equipped and decorated it in a defiantly unisex fashion, classical music playing on the stereo, proper grown-ups now. At night I pushed my thumbs into the hard soles of her aching feet. We were home-making, a dreary and pedestrian activity to anyone but us, and we were happy.

We returned to the hospital for our second scan with only a small amount of trepidation, just enough not to seem complacent. After all, we were healthy and responsible adults in a medically advanced country in the final years of the twentieth century. The chances of anything going wrong seemed vanishingly small and sure enough, there it was on the screen, a blurred comma of flesh and soft bone animated with those jerky movements suggestive of a stick puppet. Beautiful, we said. Objectively, of course, there is no such thing as a beautiful scan; it's a bad photocopy of a vertebrate that looks, frankly, like something you might find in an underground lake. But does any parent find this not beautiful? There was the heart, the size of a raspberry, pulsing away; there were the fingers. Does any parent ever shrug and refuse the printout? We held hands and laughed.

But the ‘it' was troubling. Would we like to know the sex? Yes please, we said, and squinted at the image I couldn't see it myself, but apparently it was a girl. I would have a daughter, and although I had never expressed a preference, I must confess that I was secretly pleased. I had experienced, and was continuing to experience, the awkwardness of the father–son relationship, but didn't all daughters love their dads and vice versa? Probably there was a certain amount of relief, too; wouldn't our daughter look to Connie for advice and guidance? Wouldn't she be the role model and soul-mate, as well as the butt of the biggest rows? They'd swap clothes and confide and when adolescence came around, the doors would slam in Connie's face, not mine. As a father to a daughter, all I'd have to do was provide the lifts, the pocket money, the understanding ear and proud paternal hug at graduation. All I'd have to do was worry about her, and that was entirely within my abilities.

We took our smudged image home and stuck it on a pinboard, surrounded by Post-it notes with all the names we liked – or rather all the names Connie liked, my imagination balking at anything more esoteric than Emily, Charlotte, Jessica, Grace. Perversely, Connie settled on Jane, a name so ordinary that it was practically avant-garde. We rubbed the bump with oil. Connie stopped work and readied the house, I worked long hours on a new project, zebrafish now, and waited for the call.

And here, with some reluctance, I must return to that notion of time as a loop of celluloid. The first snip of the scissors came on London Bridge on the night I met my wife, but where was that second cut? While her affair had been traumatic, it would be worth reliving if only for the happiness of what came after, the winter and spring of her pregnancy during which our marriage once again made perfect sense.

But some things cannot be lived through twice and so, if asked, I think I'd like to make that other cut round about now please.

Could there be a clearer indicator of the dizzying pace of technological change than the demise of the internet café? Once so space-age, so cutting-edge, portals to a world of knowledge and fantasy, until cheap wifi and the smart phone rendered them obsolete, and they became as quaint and anachronistic as the telegram office or the video rental outlet.

In Venice, only one internet café remained, situated in a gloomy little parade of shops near a housing estate in Cannaregio. Exhausted and made lame by my second circuit of the city I took refuge in its cool, dark interior, squeezing past a wall of telephone booths where Indians and Pakistanis, Arabs and Africans chattered urgently, to the computer bays where the poor and desperate joined the scammers, the blackmailers and stalkers, all of us hunched and furtive on swivel chairs leaking yellow foam in the unhealthy glow of the screens. Explosions and laser-blasts could be heard to my left where a nine-year-old boy was hammering his keyboard as aliens disintegrated all around, while to my right an earnest young man stared intently at a page of dense Arabic script. I smiled hello and turned to my computer. The console and keyboard were ancient and filthy, the dirty cream of old Bakelite, but I was exhausted and almost out of credit on my tablet and so I sat there, grateful, in the room that smelt of wet cardboard and instant coffee, and took my quest online.