‘I need to go to Venice,’ Luisa says suddenly, while they are – somewhat ironically – halfway through a bowl of pasta.
‘What?’ Jamie almost splutters. He feels sure it’s not the quality of his cooking, or lack of, which prompts Luisa’s outburst. ‘What do you mean? When? What for?’
He’s not entirely sure why he bothers to ask for reasons, since it’s obvious. They’ve skirted around the subject of The Box since Luisa’s outburst in London, and he has tolerated – or tried to ignore – the time she spends on it. But why else would she want to go to Venice? To find some answers, to quell his wife’s insatiable curiosity. To give her some peace. Of course.
‘Um, just for a few days,’ Luisa says hurriedly into her plate. ‘I was thinking fairly soon. Work’s quiet at the moment – I thought I should take the opportunity.’
In contrast, Jamie chews his pasta slowly. For what seems like an age, it’s the only sound in their orbit.
‘Jamie? What do you think?’
He looks up. ‘Lu, you know I can’t go right now, let alone afford it. I’ve got those two auditions lined up in the next few weeks, and then what if I’m called back—’
‘I don’t mind going on my own,’ she says abruptly. Jamie is a seasoned enough actor to know she’s been preparing the line, word for word. He thinks back to when they both went to Venice for an indulgent, romantic weekend. When was that? Three, four years ago? Then, Luisa didn’t think about her family heritage, even though she knew her roots were there. They went as tourists, fed the pigeons in San Marco, rode the waterbus the entire length of the Grand Canal and paid exorbitant prices for coffee outside elegant cafés. It was fun. They walked for miles, talked intensely and made love often. They were in love. These days their relationship feels more like work, which this trip promises to be. He wonders, does he really want to go? And besides, it’s abundantly clear she’s not asking him to.
‘Can’t you persuade one of your mates to go with you? It’s not much fun travelling on your own,’ he says, then remembers when he first met Luisa. She’d just returned from six weeks’ backpacking in Africa on her own – sticking to a well-worn trail of travellers, but solo nonetheless. It doesn’t faze her.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she says, almost as if she’s booked her ticket already. Clearly, she was never asking for his approval.
‘And what are you going to do once you’re there, Sherlock?’ He’s trying to make light of it and mask the hurt inside.
‘Find her,’ she says defiantly. ‘What else? I’m going to find my grandmother, her history – discover what she was really like.’
Jamie wants to ask: To what end, for what eventual purpose? She’s dead and you can’t even ask her. But that seems petty and futile. It’s plain that Luisa is still grieving, for her mother possibly, but also for what her mother didn’t allow her to have – connection and intimacy. As an only child and with a father largely absent, and then dead by the time she was a teenager, Luisa is grasping at any link with her past. Her relationship with her mother was strained, but it was still a string on which to hang. Now she has nothing.
Jamie tries to imagine how he would feel if his two brothers and both parents were gone – suddenly not there on the end of a text or the phone. But he can’t. Luisa is an adult, yes, but effectively an orphan at thirty-three. How could he possibly know how she feels? Especially since she won’t confide in him, preferring to invest her thoughts within those scraps of paper. Her fervour and her grief as she sinks into that box and the promises within are obvious, and Jamie has little choice but to pray that the attic hasn’t been hiding a painful Pandora’s Box.