They arrive by boat. It is sunset and the water laps against the sides of the Paradiso like liquid gold, carefully passing it forward. The men at the port have hauled their bags aboard and stowed them safely inside the sheltered cabin, but Vera and Luke sit in the seats at the rear, gazing at the perfection of the postcard they are entering. When the sea narrows into the Grand Canal of Venice, without realising it, Vera holds her breath and remembers to exhale only when Luke’s bitten nails gently scratch against her palm.
The light begins to melt into the water as they wind their way around gondolas floating majestically in the molten darkness. She and Luke bounce malleably between the two worlds of density and translucence. Tourists are everywhere. They hold hands and board boat rides, wilfully letting the romance of the place whisk them into unreality while locals scurry through the shadows, propelled at a faster speed, charged with the business of their visitors’ imaginations. It seems a necessarily protracted journey, the gentle rocking of the boat lulling them into the otherworldly atmosphere of Venice.
Lulling them like a lullaby.
Luke smiles. They alight opposite the vast dome of the Salute and leave the last remnants of their London existence on the boat to drift away.
Inside the hotel, they unpack in their separate rooms. Vera glances every now and then out of the window to the canal. Sometimes the flow of the water fills her with a welcome feeling of forward momentum; sometimes childish noises splash against her sides, dragging her back. Not that it is a case of forwards or backwards, past or future, truth or lies. But it feels like that. It is indeed one or the other. Vera tries not to think about Charlie who will be at the children’s home by now. She tries not to imagine that he may have allowed her to go with him. He will have waited at the restaurant, she imagines, for half an hour or so before giving up on her. And by the time he received her text message, sent hurriedly from the parked car outside Lynn’s house, he would undoubtedly have left, angrily. Vera remembers what Charlie is like when he is angry. Not violent, not loud, but a little cruel. He has not replied to her message.
Half an hour later, she and Luke meet in the lobby. It is their plan to stroll through the nearby streets that lead to St Mark’s Square and Luke has bought a map for them to follow. He walks half a step in front of her and zealously calls out the road names as he finds them, whisking them around corners and through other couples who dawdle and mosey and create a lethargic bustle. It is useful for the landscape to occupy conversation for a while. Many weeks have passed since they spoke of the territory that is their relationship. Since learning about her son, it somehow fell into the periphery and now it has been a long time since Vera has even thought of it properly, or noticed it, or noticed it slipping away. Dragged away, she should say, dragged under, by the heaviness of lies, by an absence of truth. Luke calls out another street name that he has correctly located, his confidence in his navigation growing, and Vera longs for him to feel such certainty again about her. She quickens her pace slightly and tries to catch him. When she feels familiar hands touching her shoulders, it seems that they are helping to nudge her along.
Because of the cold weather, the streets are not packed and they find a restaurant with a table for two with relative ease. It is outside but under a canopy and surrounded by cylindrical heaters with the advantage of being exactly in the middle of one side of St Mark’s Square. They sit facing each other. Behind Luke hangs the backdrop of the famous Basilica, like an oil painting on display. Vera takes out her camera and frames a photo. But in it, Luke’s head is turned slightly to the side, looking over her shoulder, as though another painting is hanging there.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks him as the menus arrive.
“Nothing.” He buries his head behind the ‘specials’ insert. “What a beautiful place, isn’t it?”
“It’s magical.”
The waiter appears and they order, Luke in Italian. Vera opens her mouth to speak but then closes it again. Around them, other couples clink their glasses of wine and gaze into each other’s eyes and play footsie. She and Luke apologise to each other and make room when their legs accidentally brush.
“It’s a rather small table isn’t it?” he says. “Everything here feels close, and interconnected.”
“Unified,” Vera offers hopefully.
“Perhaps,” he shrugs. “But a little disorientating. Anarchic. This square’s like the open expanse at the heart of a maze, but beyond it those roads we came through were so narrow and winding and all looked the same, and they all fed into this one spot, did you notice? It seems like this is the only place you can breathe and get a bearing.” He pauses. “Would you remember the way back?”
“We came from over there,” Vera points but, as though slightly saddened, Luke laughs.
“Sweetheart, we came from the corner opposite that one.”
Their starters arrive: Luke’s a sweet melon clothed in Parma ham; Vera’s a simple salad. Tucking in, they exchange easy culinary raptures, Luke smiles at her and tentatively, Vera reaches for his hand.
“You never really know a place,” he says suddenly, as though there has been no gap in the conversation.
“What do you mean?”
“Perhaps the rest of the maze is misleading. How do we even know if we’re at the heart of it?”
“Your map shows us,” Vera volunteers light-heartedly, but Luke doesn’t seem to realise that she is joking. There is no pronouncement of funny or not.
“No, I mean, how do you ever know if the space you’re occupying is really what you perceive it to be? Do you need to go outside it to look back in?” Luke holds her eyes now, imploring her to solve this confusing riddle as though the answer is urgent and necessary before he can return to the activity of eating his ham. Vera lays down her fork and tries to decipher exactly what it is he is asking. Does he want to go outside of their relationship to look back in? Does he know that she’s been seeing Charlie? Does he know something more? Vera’s leg rattles against the table. Abruptly however, Luke laughs. “What a romantic city,” he says, overly brightly as he digs again into the soft, juicy flesh of the melon, and now Vera wonders if perhaps his reflections are nothing to do with her at all.
“Are you alright Luke?” she asks him.
“Romance makes me philosophical,” he replies, as if this is an answer. “C. S. Lewis once said that good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, than because bad philosophy needs to be answered. You should read some C. S. Lewis.”
“I have.”
“I don’t just mean Narnia.”
Vera flinches.
Luke looks up at her, then shakes his head at himself. He looks devastatingly sad. “Sorry.”
The main courses arrive. While they are eating Vera asks him about work and buoyed by the language of policy and politics, gradually Luke unfurls. He tells her about the latest progress of his health initiative in the DRC: they are going to launch a massive anti-cholera drive, help the country to develop a clean water system. The minister has finally been convinced, the Prime Minister is on board… His eyes light up green as he speaks, luminous in a way Vera only now realises has been absent, and slowly, in response, Vera too finds herself enthusing. She talks about St George’s, about the journey she feels she is on, about finally being able to taste the first flavours of her own faith. And about the trouble she still has in knowing which path she should be following.
“It’s just determination. You can do it,” Luke says, listening to her with what seems like fresh interest, and tucking into his pasta.
Vera smiles, hesitantly, savouring the affirmation she hasn’t felt, nor perhaps sought from him in so long, remembering how empowering it is. But she wishes she could describe the paths honestly, tell him that while one fork leads directly to him, the other leads to her son, and there is nothing but brambles in between. She feels duplicitous. She yearns to talk to Luke about Charles. Even if he hates her for it, he would know what she should do. She opens her mouth. But then Luke looks up, his fork hovering mid-twirl while he weighs his next sentence. And apprehension churns her stomach.
“What?” she prompts.
“It’s just, well, you do have to decide to have determination. It’s a decision. And you mustn’t abandon it, you mustn’t abandon... ”
“What are you getting at Luke?” Vera watches him selecting his words carefully.
“When it’s challenging I mean…” She doesn’t speak, and now he hurries. “It’s like going to church, my church I mean… You could have stuck with it a bit longer.”
Suddenly Vera feels indignant. “You mean I could have stuck with your mother?”
“No.” Luke puts down his fork.
“Be truthful, Luke.”
“You be truthful.” He takes a breath. “I don’t want to do this now.”
“But you’re angry,” Vera says, only just realising. She cannot believe that she hadn’t noticed and wonders how long he has been angry for.
“Yes, okay, I have been angry about it,” he says, lowering his voice and staring at her meaningfully. “But I’ve been angry about lots of things.”
Vera’s stomach churns again. “You haven’t said a thing.”
“What do you want me to say?”
Vera doesn’t answer and Luke allows a long pause. He seems tired.
“What do you want me to say?” he repeats slowly, as much to the universe now as to her.
But Vera doesn’t have an answer. She has not counted on Luke’s own lingering feelings about the existence of her son.
“What shall I ask you?” Luke continues. “How could you have abandoned a child? How could you have kept it from me? How could you have lied outright to my mother? And then abandoned her too, while she’s dying?!”
“I didn’t abandon her Luke, she kicked me out!” Vera retorts abruptly. She knows that this is the least of the indictments, but it is the only one from which she has a corner to fight. “She scratched me with her fucking, sorry Luke but fucking, long nails, and she told me not to come back. And then she told everyone at your bloody church about my ‘abortion’.”
“What?”
Vera takes a breath.
“What?”
“She told her friends at your church.”
Luke pauses. He picks up his fork, then puts it down again. “She shouldn’t have done that.”
Vera says nothing. They sit like this for a long time.
“Everyone’s fallible,” she murmurs finally. He nods and she is encouraged to continue. “I mean, there’s no such thing as a good Christian, is there?” He nods again. “We’re all sinners aren’t we? I am. And even you.”
Luke’s eyes darken. She did not mean her words as an attack but he seems to have taken them as such. “I’ve tried to be a good Christian,” he protests. “I’ve tried. I’ve never had sex, or done drugs, or stolen, or lied. I’ve followed God’s teachings as best as I can. I don’t drink. I’ve always been to church. I chose a job that would allow me to help people. I’ve helped you, haven’t I? Haven’t I? I’ve done my part in being a good Christian.”
Without meaning to, Vera laughs at this. His defensiveness is stunning to her, he who is so negligibly flawed.
“Are you calling me a hypocrite?” he demands.
“No Luke, no,” she laughs. “I’m just saying that everyone is fallible.”
“Well of course they are.” He speaks slowly, restraining his voice from rising amidst the other diners. “Of course we are. ‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’ Romans 3:23. We know that. We’re human. Every human sins. But I try not to, is what I’m saying. I try to be as good a Christian as I can be. I try to follow Jesus. I try. I’ve tried. Why are we even talking about this?” he asks suddenly.
“Because you - I - ” she falters.
“You think I should be home with my gossiping mother?”
“What? No. And she - ”
“You think I haven’t been a good son?”
“That’s not it at all.”
“You think I’ve neglected my duty to her?”
“Luke, you’re a wonderful son.”
He stops. Suddenly deep lines spring across his brow. “If I was so wonderful I wouldn’t have left my mother with a carer,” he says abruptly, resting his head in his hands. His voice is riddled with pain and his eyes tip up at her nervously from their couch in his palms. “I wouldn’t have would I? I shouldn’t have left her. I just - I can’t stand to watch her deteriorate.”
“I’m sure the carer’s amazing, Luke.”
“I know.” He pauses. “I know she is.” He pauses again. And all at once his eyes harden and he is somewhere far away again. Vera finds herself struggling to stifle tears. They are still a little novel and she doesn’t quite know what to do with them. With her thumb and forefinger she pinches her thigh so as to keep them at bay. Luke lowers his head as if in prayer, and despite the busy tourists around them Vera feels acutely alone with him, peculiarly intimate. Raw. She has a sudden, consuming urge to tell him the truth: “I left my baby on a doorstep!!!! I thought he was dead!!!!” She wants to shout it. Scream it. Confess it. Truth, truth, truth, truth. She feels herself leaning towards him, her lips poised to speak. But now? Now, while Luke is so fragile? She opens her mouth, then closes it again. Is now not the time for her to be silent and strong? Then again, perhaps it would help him. Perhaps it would remind Luke that his sins, whatever he thinks they are, are as nothing. They are both flawed, they are all flawed, she and Charlie and John and Lynn and yes, even Luke, but Jesus loves them anyway.
“Luke, you’re so much better than I could ever be,” Vera begins. But before she can continue he looks up, green-grey shining straight into her.
“I should have asked you about it,” he says. “About the baby, about how you reached such a point of, I suppose, well, how you came to know it was the best thing for him?”
Vera shrugs, slowly, guiltily.
“I mean, I suppose, well, you were doing what was right for him? Making his life certain? Settling him? Not thinking of yourself???”
Vera does not hear the question marks. And so she says nothing.
“Tell me something true,” he pleads of her.
And it is time. She takes a breath. Then another. Luke smiles encouragingly. “I - I’ve been seeing Charlie,” she begins. “I’ve been seeing him because - ”
Luke raises his hand. “Too much,” he murmurs. “Too much, too much.” He hangs his head low and shakes it gently. As they leave the restaurant and stroll out into the Piazza, Vera notices how the cathedral casts pools of golden light onto the square. People walk through them, unaware of the radiance that remains for a while on their shoulders. But Vera notices. And passes through it with Luke before leaving it behind. They walk together, separately, all the way from the Piazza back to the hotel and down the corridor. Vera’s hands twitch for want of holding onto Luke’s, but his are pinned firmly to his side. He is silent, and when they arrive at their rooms he gives her only a brief goodnight.
Their rooms share a bathroom, plush, beautifully tiled, and Vera closes both doors before sitting on the edge of the marble-clad bath to run it. She turns the taps onto full and tries not to wonder what Luke is thinking on his side of the heavy door. Or, while she is at it, what Charlie is thinking on the other side of the sea. Or what Charles has been thinking for three years about the mother who abandoned him. Does he understand that he has been without a mother? Does he miss a presence he cannot remember? Would he want her back, if she could come back, if she could bring herself to be at the mercy of a man she does not love and who would lord his power over her for the rest of her life? If she could bring herself to give up Luke? Luke. Who is sitting, silent, just feet and a door away from her. Who unlike Charlie she does love, and admire and respect and feel sorry for, and who she has ignored and neglected, and perhaps blown everything with.
Vera fingers her engagement ring, sheds her clothes and steps into the hot, cleansing water. The bubbles cover her with a welcome whiteness and the warmth of the liquid soaks into her bones. Immediately she feels calmer. Reaching for the purple hotel soap she begins to clean herself all over, then she closes her eyes and sinks further beneath the water. Without meaning to, she finds herself talking to God. Help me, she says, then in words with which she’s been learning to articulate herself better: Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus, I ask you to send your Holy Spirit to come upon me. I ask that I now receive your power by the Holy Spirit. I ask that the Holy Spirit come to live in me and be my heavenly Companion forever in life. Amen. She feels a weight upon her shoulders, heavier than usual but warm - hands supporting her. She breathes in deeply. Then the weight moves forwards and down her chest. She opens her eyes. Luke is standing in front of her. She hadn’t heard the door to his bedroom creak open, or his bare feet pad across the tiles.
“I - ” he begins.
Vera sits up. Luke removes his hands from her chest but as she moves Luke smiles and she realises that her change of position had sent the bubbles flooding away from her, dispersing her frothy shroud. Rearranging them quickly she remains under the water and begins to reach for the nearby towel. “What on earth are you doing in here? Didn’t you hear the water?” she asks, whispering, as though this might prevent either of them from hearing or noticing what is taking place, but Luke doesn’t whisper back. His voice is firm.
“Don’t,” he says, intercepting her hand. “I want to see you. I want to touch you. I don’t want to wait anymore.”
“What?” she stammers in disbelief, then, “We mustn’t. We said we wouldn’t. Luke, you said we should wait.” She continues to reach for the towel but Luke lifts it away from her.
“We’ll be married soon anyway. And it feels right, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
He keeps hold of the towel, but now lowers it slightly, offended. “Charlie’s seen you.”
At once, Vera feels tears threatening again. “Don’t do this Luke,” she implores him, opening her hand for him to relinquish the towel, and the moment. “It’s not the way you think - ”
“You’ve given yourself again and again to Charlie.”
She reaches once more for the towel. “You’re just upset Luke.”
“You’ve been a whore for him.”
“Luke,” Vera hushes. She takes a breath. “What’s wrong?”
“You offered yourself to me before Vera,” he says in answer.
There is desperation in his tone. Something is happening within him, though Vera doesn’t know what. Is his mother’s disease making him feel impotent? Does it make him need to exert some kind of control? Is it his guilt at leaving her? (She knows all about that kind of guilt.) Or perhaps it is Charlie? Perhaps Luke has concocted some imagining of what he thinks has passed between them. Better or worse than the truth?
“I’m different now Luke. Now I want to wait.” Only as she says this does she know fully that it is true. It isn’t like before. She no longer wants raw physicality. Now, she wants intimacy, commitment, and to undress their souls slowly, so that they can be truly naked before each other. As husband and wife. She wants Luke. Forever. Quite how much she wants this is reaffirmed for her suddenly.
“Vera, come on. It’s what you wanted.”
“How can you even ask me to?”
“How can you deny me?” He hangs the towel over the radiator on the far side of the room then sits on the edge of the bath, dipping his hand into the water and reaching for her thigh. She stands up. Luke smiles as she drips in front of him, an edgy, dangerous smile that months ago Vera would have done anything for. But now she storms over to the other side of the room and retrieves the towel. A choking sadness tightens around her lungs.
“How can you do this?” she demands wrapping the towel taut around her. “After everything you’ve said to me? After all your rules and principles and values? Do they not apply because I’ve had sex before? Because I gave up my baby? Because I’ve sinned? Will I always be a sinner to you? Is there no coming back?”
Suddenly, Luke’s smile changes. “We’re all sinners, aren’t we?” he says, his voice wavering ambiguously. “I knew that you had to see that. That was all. It was a test sweetheart. Just a test. And you passed it.”
With that he kisses the top of her head, leaves the bathroom, and closes the door. And Vera stands, wet, her whole body shaking.
It is almost an hour later that, while quietly collecting her toiletries from the bathroom, Vera hears the muffled sound of heavy, male sobs. Her heart constricts painfully and she rests her palm on the adjoining door. Hands push her forwards. But she shrugs her shoulders until they feel free of interference. She does not open the door. She does not say goodnight, or goodbye. She is careful not to make a sound long after she has walked the glorious corridor that takes her to the lobby, and into a taxi, then to the airport, and London again.