in from the lagoon, and sad with the cries of seabirds — started to seem strange. Alone, I’d have been
permanently lost, needing a pocketful of pebbles or a ball of white wool to trail behind me, marking out my path. But Richard
could invariably find our way, and I let him take over, take charge: liking this, that I could be so dependent, that I didn’t
have to struggle.
Our hotel room looked out on the Ponte della Liberta. The room was wide, high ceilinged, as though devised for people much
larger than me. There was a bed, vast as adult beds seem to a child, a long mirror, a padded window seat, and out the window
the shimmer and lilt of the water.
Our days fell into a pattern. In the morning we’d wander the city, exploring some mossy basilica of a church or walking beside
the canals, where the little waves lapped at the steps of the crumbling palaces, stuccoed dull pink or purple like rotting
fruit. After lunch in some hushed restaurant, we’d go back to our room and he’d take off my clothes and make love to me on
the window seat, so if the curtain moved in the breeze I worried we might be visible from the street. And at night we’d make
love in the big bed, and again perhaps at three or four, when the yowling of cats woke us.
As a lover he was sure, quiet, definite: a man who knew his mind, who never spoke except to say what he wanted. But now that
we were married and away from the flat where he’d lived with Sara, I found him less reserved, more adventurous. Or perhaps
it was something to do with the staginess of Venice itself, the self-consciousness it inspired, so even the most intimate
act seemed to require extravagant props, red ropes or velvet handcuffs, and to be acted out with a certain panache, as though
for a secret audience. I was very willing, and intrigued, and he never hurt me. But it wasn’t quite how I’d imagined marriage.
I’d thought this kind of thing was for mistresses, not wives. That marriage was a safer, quieter place — that it wouldn’t
have quite this urgency, nor all this apparatus of desire.
He liked to buy me things. I wanted a souvenir, so in a little dark shop by the Rialto, where everything smelled of the fish
market, he bought me the masks that hang now on our wall. But mostly he bought me clothes or jewelry: a filmy dress, pearl
earrings, silver chains, and a long fringed scarf of white silk with a pattern like frost on a window. When we made love he
liked to see me in the things he’d
bought me: the silver chains he twisted round my ankles or wrists when he made love to me in front of the long mirror, and
the white silk scarf he sometimes liked to tie around my mouth.
The sex — the memory of it, the anticipation — was always there, so the smell of him seemed to permeate my skin. Yet in some
ways we were almost formal still. There were subjects that were closed between us: We never talked again about his marriage
to Sara or my childhood. Mostly we talked about art or classical music; he knew a lot and taught me, and I liked that. Sometimes
I looked at him and felt I scarcely knew him. Yet mostly it was happy, and we were at ease with each other.
On our last day, we had our first disagreement, and about something so trivial. We were in a café near St. Mark’s, sipping
coffee from tiny gold-rimmed cups, when I was aware of him watching a woman at the next table. She wore high strappy heels,
a dress that was tight and shiny. She was perhaps fifty-five, and plump: She bulged in her glossy clothes. As she got up to
go, he raised his eyebrows at me, made a disparaging gesture.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, a little sharply.
“Old women shouldn’t dress like tarts,” he said.
“I thought she was just fine,” I said. “She was enjoying those clothes, enjoying her life.” There was an edge to my voice.
“Why shouldn’t she wear what she wants?”
He looked across at me, surprised. Then he patted my arm.
permanently lost, needing a pocketful of pebbles or a ball of white wool to trail behind me, marking out my path. But Richard
could invariably find our way, and I let him take over, take charge: liking this, that I could be so dependent, that I didn’t
have to struggle.
Our hotel room looked out on the Ponte della Liberta. The room was wide, high ceilinged, as though devised for people much
larger than me. There was a bed, vast as adult beds seem to a child, a long mirror, a padded window seat, and out the window
the shimmer and lilt of the water.
Our days fell into a pattern. In the morning we’d wander the city, exploring some mossy basilica of a church or walking beside
the canals, where the little waves lapped at the steps of the crumbling palaces, stuccoed dull pink or purple like rotting
fruit. After lunch in some hushed restaurant, we’d go back to our room and he’d take off my clothes and make love to me on
the window seat, so if the curtain moved in the breeze I worried we might be visible from the street. And at night we’d make
love in the big bed, and again perhaps at three or four, when the yowling of cats woke us.
As a lover he was sure, quiet, definite: a man who knew his mind, who never spoke except to say what he wanted. But now that
we were married and away from the flat where he’d lived with Sara, I found him less reserved, more adventurous. Or perhaps
it was something to do with the staginess of Venice itself, the self-consciousness it inspired, so even the most intimate
act seemed to require extravagant props, red ropes or velvet handcuffs, and to be acted out with a certain panache, as though
for a secret audience. I was very willing, and intrigued, and he never hurt me. But it wasn’t quite how I’d imagined marriage.
I’d thought this kind of thing was for mistresses, not wives. That marriage was a safer, quieter place — that it wouldn’t
have quite this urgency, nor all this apparatus of desire.
He liked to buy me things. I wanted a souvenir, so in a little dark shop by the Rialto, where everything smelled of the fish
market, he bought me the masks that hang now on our wall. But mostly he bought me clothes or jewelry: a filmy dress, pearl
earrings, silver chains, and a long fringed scarf of white silk with a pattern like frost on a window. When we made love he
liked to see me in the things he’d
bought me: the silver chains he twisted round my ankles or wrists when he made love to me in front of the long mirror, and
the white silk scarf he sometimes liked to tie around my mouth.
The sex — the memory of it, the anticipation — was always there, so the smell of him seemed to permeate my skin. Yet in some
ways we were almost formal still. There were subjects that were closed between us: We never talked again about his marriage
to Sara or my childhood. Mostly we talked about art or classical music; he knew a lot and taught me, and I liked that. Sometimes
I looked at him and felt I scarcely knew him. Yet mostly it was happy, and we were at ease with each other.
On our last day, we had our first disagreement, and about something so trivial. We were in a café near St. Mark’s, sipping
coffee from tiny gold-rimmed cups, when I was aware of him watching a woman at the next table. She wore high strappy heels,
a dress that was tight and shiny. She was perhaps fifty-five, and plump: She bulged in her glossy clothes. As she got up to
go, he raised his eyebrows at me, made a disparaging gesture.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, a little sharply.
“Old women shouldn’t dress like tarts,” he said.
“I thought she was just fine,” I said. “She was enjoying those clothes, enjoying her life.” There was an edge to my voice.
“Why shouldn’t she wear what she wants?”
He looked across at me, surprised. Then he patted my arm.
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