Stansted. They are flying Ryanair to Treviso: tickets out of Heathrow were too expensive. Jomier would have been prepared to pay the extra but Judith has insisted that she will pay for herself and he senses that she has not got much money. Their original intention was to take the Underground to Liverpool Street and then the Stansted Express but Judith has a large suitcase: it is difficult to travel light in winter because of the bulkiness of warm clothes. They take a minicab: Jomier pays and enters the £70 into the mini-spreadsheet on his Palm Treo. The airport is crowded: the Christmas rush. They wheel their suitcases towards the check-in desk for Treviso. They join a long queue. Judith holds Jomier by the arm. She is excited. Jomier does his best to persuade himself that he too is excited but sneaks an envious look towards ‘Arrivals’: in a week he will be back.
They reach the front of the queue. They present their printouts and passports. There is extra to pay for consigning two suitcases to the hold. Judith offers to pay. Jomier: ‘Isn’t it simpler if I pay for now and we settle up later?’ Judith agrees. They join new queues to pass through security and passport control. At security a uniformed Sikh searches Judith’s hand baggage. He passes her tub of cold cream and small bottle of Body Shop eau de toilette but singles out a can of Klorane spray-on deodorant. Aerosols may not be taken on to the plane. Judith is angry but impotent against the Sikh stickler for anti-terrorist regulations. How is he to know that Judith is not a jihadist or a reanimated sleeper from the Baader–Meinhoff gang? The Klorane spray-on deodorant is consigned to a plastic bin.
‘You can buy some more in Venice,’ says Jomier.
‘No, I can’t,’ she snaps. ‘It’s almost impossible to find.’
‘Deodorant?’
‘Klorane. You can only get it in France.’
‘What’s so special about Klorane?’
‘There’s no aluminium.’
‘Aluminium?’
‘Other deodorants use aluminium. It gives you breast cancer.’
Jomier waits while Judith goes into the WH Smith bookshop. She comes out with two paperbacks in a plastic bag and a copy of the Independent. They now start the long walk to a far-distant gate reserved for the skinflint passengers of Ryanair. Judith takes his arm again. ‘I’m sorry I got cross.’
‘Don’t apologise. It’s maddening.’
They reach the gate and sit waiting for their flight to be called. Judith reads the Independent. Jomier enters the sum he paid for the checked-in baggage on to his Palm Treo.
They are summoned to board the Boeing 737. Cold-eyed Mädchen in Uniform herd them down a ramp onto the tarmac. They walk in the drizzle towards the plane, climb the steps and shuffle like sheep in a sheep dip looking for empty seats. Jomier and Judith have elected to travel from Stansted to Treviso but they have not paid for ‘priority boarding’. They must sit where they can. Judith finds an aisle seat: Jomier squeezes in between an Italian matron and a bronzed hunk en route to the skiing slopes of the Dolomites. Travel, ‘mankind’s diabolical invention which, for complication, fatigue, danger, time wasted, and nervous expenditure has no rival except war: with the difference that travel costs the shirt off your back, whereas in war at least one is paid for’. Costas in Montherlant’s Pity for Women. In the 1930s, when the novel was written, the shirt off your back bought you a ticket to Venice on the Orient Express: now, for one dirty sock + the 50p wheelchair charge, you are packed into a Boeing. Like sardines.
At Treviso, Jomier and Judith drag their suitcases out of the barn-like terminal building to the coach waiting to take Ryanair passengers to Venice. They lift their suitcases into the belly of the coach and join the queue to get in. Jomier climbs the steps, taking out his wallet to buy a ticket. No, no. The driver waves him off. He must buy his ticket in the terminal. Jomier and Judith squeeze past the passengers standing behind them. Should they leave their bags on the bus? Jomier is afraid it might depart without them. Their suitcases are now hidden behind a wall of other suitcases, holdalls, rucksacks . . . Jomier breaks down the wall to retrieve them. They walk back into the terminal, find the ticket counter, wait in a queue to buy tickets, buy the tickets (€9 × 2 = €18), and once again make their way out of the terminal. The coach has gone. Will there be another? They return to the terminal to try and find out. ‘Si, si. Un altro . . .’ They return to the coach stop and wait.
Pale winter sunlight. From the vaporetto taking Jomier and Judith along the Grand Canal, La Serenissima looks superb. But she is incontinent. They disembark at the Ponte dell’Accademia and find, when they reach the Sestiere Dorsoduro, that they must walk on duckboards to reach their hotel. The ground floor of the Albergo Manzoni is under water but the hotel itself remains open for business. The concierge behind the desk neither apologises nor explains. He shows Jomier and Judith to their room. It is small but light with a fine view of the Giudecca and the church of San Giorgio Maggiore. There is a shower and lavatory in a windowless annexe. The concierge explains that the sala da pranzo e chuiso but breakfast can be brought to their room. The room is chilly. With a certain reluctance he stoops to switch on an electric radiator on the wall.
It is now late afternoon. The light is fading. Jomier and Judith agree that it is too late to start sightseeing. The smell of singed dust rises from the radiator. Jomier and Judith remove their damp shoes and lie under the bedclothes to rest. ‘This is no good,’ says Jomier. ‘We’ll upgrade tomorrow.’
At seven, they walk out on to the duckboards and rise above sea-level as they pass the Accademia and find a small restaurant near the Fenice. It has been recommended by an online website but Jomier pretends that he knows it of old. It is not wholly a pretence. Jomier certainly ate at a restaurant like this restaurant somewhere around the Fenice when he was in Venice with Tilly thirty years before. Over supper he confesses to Judith that this might not be the same restaurant or, if the same restaurant, it may be under new management. Judith smiles. She does not complain. They are both hungry. The food is not bad. Mozzarella and tomato salad, risotto ai funghi, scaloppine al limone for Judith: bresaola, linguine napolitana and a veal chop for Jomier. A bottle of Chianti. No pudding. No coffee. No grappa. No sex once they are back at the hotel. An early night. Reculer pour mieux sauter . . .
The next morning the waters have subsided: a mournful African is mopping up the muddy residue in the lobby of the hotel. They check out and move to the five-star Hotel Palazzo Solaia. Jomier has told Judith that he will pay. She has said ‘nonsense’ but with less conviction than before. ‘Well, I’ll pay for the upgrade,’ said Jomier. They are offered a ‘Christmas package’ by the hotel: two nights in a deluxe double room, complimentary buffet breakfasts, a bottle of prosecco, home-made sweets and biscuits on arrival, a Christmas surprise, and Christmas lunch in the hotel restaurant to include wine. Judith hesitates. Jomier can see a ‘Isn’t this rather vulgar and horribly expensive?’ look on her face. Jomier jumps at it. €670 per person plus the extra nights at a special rate.
Judith is happy. Jomier is happy. Judith is happy because there is a bath tub, not just a shower; Jomier is happy because there is a multi-channelled 18-inch TV. Judith does not take a bath. Jomier does not switch on the TV. It is only eleven in the morning. Culture comes first. They start at the Piazzetta San Marco, water still glistening on the flagstones from yesterday’s flood. Jomier points to the four bronze horses on the portico in front of the cathedral and tells Judith how they were taken from the Forum in Rome to Constantinople, then stolen from the Byzantines and brought to Venice, then taken by Napoleon to Paris and only returned to Venice after his fall. Sic transit gloria mundi. Not mass transit but transit of the spoils of war. The bronze horses. The relics of St Mark, plundered from Alexandria.
It is cold. They go into Florian’s and find an empty table. They order cappuccinos. The cappuccinos arrive, large cups with generous, creamy froth sprinkled with chocolate powder. They sip them. Jomier laughs at the moustache left on Judith’s upper lip. She laughs too, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. Most of the others in the cafe are, like Jomier and Judith, North Europeans or Americans of a certain age. They do not mind. They are happy, away from their judgemental children. They finish their cappuccinos. It is time to move on. Jomier calls for the bill. He hands the waiter a €50 note. There is scant change. Jomier puts the receipt into his wallet.
Jomier now leads Judith across the square to the Museo Correr. Judith asks whether, given the artistic treasures that are available in the churches and galleries of Venice, they really want to look at a display of pottery and local costumes. ‘Wait,’ says Jomier. He leads her past the display cabinets to one of the paintings hanging on the wall, Carpaccio’s Two Venetian Women. ‘Ruskin,’ he tells Judith, ‘thought this the best picture in the world.’ They stand looking at the Venetian painter’s depiction of pigeons, a peacock and two old whores.
‘And you?’ asks Judith.
‘What?’
‘Do you think it is the best picture in the world?’
‘No.’ He laughs. They leave.
‘Let’s go to the Accademia,’ says Judith, taking Jomier by the arm. She talks with a familiarity that suggests she knows Venice as well as, if not better than, Jomier. Both have been there before; both want to impress the other with their familiarity with La Serenissima, but both are reluctant to go into detail of their previous visits because they had been in the company of former lovers – or, in Jomier’s case, a wife. Jomier is also reluctant to admit that his previous visit was thirty years before, or that his knowledge of Venice comes from guidebooks and the Internet, not a cosmopolitan persona. The little restaurant behind the Fenice; Ruskin’s ‘gem’ in the Museo Correr . . . Why did he feel he had to pretend to Judith that he knew his way around Venice? Why do men feel that they have to impress women? Why do women make men feel that they have to impress them?
Veneziano – Paolo and Lorenzo; Bellini – Giovanni and Gentile; Giorgione, more Carpaccio, Titian, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Guardi, Veronese . . . Jomier and Judith study the paintings conscientiously and, every now and then, point out on some canvas a poignant depiction or masterly touch. Jomier drops his pose as connoisseur: it is quite evident that Judith knows more about art than he does – particularly Titian and Tiepolo. Jomier finds that he dislikes the work of both those painters but does not say so: he is not so sure of Judith that he dare risk appearing to be a cultural dunce. He does dare sigh at some point and say: ‘Isn’t it time for lunch?’ ‘Of course,’ says Judith – brought down to earth by Jomier’s carnal needs.
They go to Harry’s Bar. It is now two o’clock. There is a table. The menu lists the dishes on offer in both English and Italian. Jomier is irked to see that a dish offered in Italian does not appear in English translation. He asks the waiter what it is. ‘A Venetian speciality. Not for tourists. You no like.’ The man speaks disdainfully. Jomier’s hackles rise. He orders the dish. The waiter shrugs. Judith chooses a salad. Jomier’s choice, when it arrives, is inedible – chunks of gristle in a viscous sauce. He eats what he can. Judith says nothing. When they have finished, the waiter clears his plate piled with chunks of masticated gristle. His glance and demeanour express what he does not say. ‘Imbecille!’
Both would like to return to their hotel for a siesta but the winter day is short. Daylight fades. Churches, scuole, museums close. They do the Scuola dei Calegheri and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari before calling it a day. They are back at the Hotel Palazzo Solaia by five. They rest. They read. Jomier catches CNN news at seven. He sees that there are pay-to-view channels with recently released movies and an ‘adult’ option. Jomier is tempted by one of the movies but not by the porn. Why watch when you can do?
Jomier and Judith have not yet made love on their king-sized double bed. They are waiting for the most opportune moment when neither is tired nor bloated. Jomier must plan ahead: he has to take a tablet of Viagra half an hour or so before. Subsequent to that first coupling when the novelty and romance had done the work of the drug, Jomier has had to call upon Pfizer’s elixir to boost the pumping power of his heart. He has made no secret of this from Judith; she too makes use of unguents that would be unnecessary for a younger woman. They are able to laugh at their physical shortcomings and agree that they do not detract from the end result. In Judith’s case, as observed by Jomier, that is self-evident; in Jomier’s case, as observed by Jomier, it was, like his familiarity with Venice, a few steps short of the truth. The actual sensation is not as pleasurable as he remembers it; indeed, at times it verges on pain; nor is ejaculation as ecstatic – not the gusher from a newly tapped oil well but a coughing splutter from a rusty pump.
But here they are, two lovers in a luxury hotel with a king-sized bed. Eschewing sex is not an option. Both rest. Jomier nods off. When he awakes, Judith is in the bath. She returns to the bedroom wrapped in a huge, fluffy white towel. Jomier goes to the bathroom. He washes down a capsule of Viagra with water from the disposable plastic tumbler. He stands in the shower, streams of hot water cleansing his body. He returns to the bedroom, also wrapped in a huge, fluffy white towel. He lies down beside her. She is reading one of the novels she bought at Stansted. He closes his eyes and waits for the Viagra to take effect. At the first stirrings, he tilts his body so that he can look into Judith’s eyes. She removes her glasses, puts them on the bedside table and turns towards him. Her look is loving, sensuous, inviting. He kisses her – a pleasant, lingering kiss with touching tongues. Her lips are not as plump and cushioning as those of a younger woman; he can feel her teeth beneath her skin. No doubt she can feel his. Jomier thinks of the skull on one of the tombs in one of the smaller churches they looked into that afternoon. The thought does not stymie his desire: there is still flesh on the bones of them both. He pulls the towel away from her body; it is still pink and warm and moist and fragrant from her bath. He kicks away his own towel. They make love.