Then I heard a noise, a sound of laughter, and sensed at the same time an immensely powerful feeling of not being alone. I turned around swiftly (Venice is an exceptionally safe city, but I did not know that at the time) and saw a most peculiar sight. There was a torch burning in a socket on the wall of a palazzo some thirty yards away from me, although I swear it had not been there before. And underneath, there was a small boat, which contained one man standing amidships, and singing. I could not see clearly in the flickering light, but he seemed short, wiry and almost ethereal, as though you could see the stucco of the building through his dress coat and breeches. His song was not one I had ever heard before, but it sounded, at one and the same time, like a lullaby, a lament and a love song, delivered in a soft but slightly reedy voice. Extraordinarily beautiful and affecting, although circumstance perhaps made it seem more so than it was.

I did not know to whom he was singing; one window, I now noticed, was unshuttered and slightly open, but there was no light within, and no figure to be discerned. The only human being in sight was this man, who was dressed in a manner more suited to the eighteenth century than to the present age. I saw this without any sense of it being unusual or strange. All I knew was that I desperately wanted to know what the song was, who was the singer, and whether the woman being so serenaded – surely that was what was taking place – was receptive to his song. Who was she? Was she young and beautiful? She must be, to produce such a wistful sadness in the man's voice.

I moved to get a better view, making enough noise to carry over the water. The man stopped singing – not abruptly, but rather as though he had finished his tune – and turned to look at me, making the slightest of bows in my direction. My first impression of age was correct; he had no beauty. His features were not horrible, but they were terribly old. He seemed as old as the city itself.

I watched, immobile, as he settled down in the boat, picked up the oars and began to row away from me, and then the spell broke. I walked, then ran after him, over the bridge, and left, up an alleyway which ran parallel to the canal, hoping to overtake him – he was not rowing very fast – and get a better look. After a hundred feet or so, another turn took me down to a small jetty, and I ran there, and began looking up and down. There was nothing. The boat had vanished. And as I stood there, wondering where he had gone, I heard faint laughter echoing over the water.

I was shaken by this, by my own reaction as much as anything, and turned round to retrace my steps. When I got back to the bridge, the windows of the palace were now firmly shuttered, and looked as though they had not been opened for years.

There was nothing else to do but to leave, and make my way back to my hotel, which I reached (after many false turns) about an hour later. I slept, finally, at about four in the morning, and slumbered until ten. But it was not an easy sleep. The atmosphere of that place had suffused my mind, and like some childish and irritating tune that lodges itself and will not be shaken out, the images of those few moments repeated themselves in my head all night.

CHAPTER 4

Why do I write this? I have spent many an hour, many an evening, at these notes now. It has no real purpose, and I am not used to doing anything without a purpose. Only Elizabeth can manage to make me waste time, although with her nothing is a waste. It is worth any sort of nonsense or frivolity to make her happy, see her smile, to have her turn and say – thank you for putting up with that. For her I even learned to dance, although never well; but I am content to behave like an elephant to see her graceful, to feel her body move as I hold her in my arms. I am not even aware of others. I can honestly say that not once have I thought of how others might admire her and envy me, although surely they do.

But my happiness with her has been different from the sort I found in Venice. We have never experienced together the sort of irresponsible carelessness that I tasted that one time. Inevitably, I am sure; when I met her I was too old to make a fool of myself in the way that only the young can manage, and her life had been too hard, too much of a struggle, ever to be carefree. No; we have made something very different; a world that is safe and warm. We have done grand things, exciting things, pleasurable things together, but never foolish ones. Such things are not truly in my nature, and she knows too well the dangers of them.

Although perhaps a side of her misses the excitement, the need to live on her wits. She gave something up when she married me, in a way that I did not. I still have the pleasure of taking risks; she put aside a part of her character and it may have been a greater loss than either I, or she, realised. Perhaps that is why she is now disobeying me. I refused absolutely her suggestion that she help me track down where this money was going to, identify the people being paid through these strange disbursements in Newcastle. She pointed out that I could hardly use anyone from inside the company itself. I said no. Absurd idea; and so it was, for the wife of a man like myself. But not for the woman she had been, whom I thought was long since dead. She went ahead anyway, took herself off to Germany and returned to live off her wits, disguising herself as someone else, returning to a way of life I thought was gone for ever.

I was so angry, so furious when she told me, that I completely lost control of myself. And, as often happened when her iron will collided with my equally strong determination, we fought. Why should she not help me? She was my wife. Did I really know anyone who could do it better? Could I think of any better way?

All of which was irrelevant. What troubled me most was the light in her eyes as she confronted me; the light of excitement, of adventure. That old side of her, the one I had always feared, the one which could not possibly be satisfied with the company of an old man. She has never given me the slightest cause to distrust her. She has had the occasional lover, I have no doubt. But she has never hurt me. They were nothing more than passing amusements, moments of distraction. This was different; it appealed to her sense of danger and her need for real excitement. She said it was for me, but it was for herself as much.

Giving way was one of the most difficult things I have ever done, and one of the best. I quelled my jealousy, subdued my fears, and let her do as she wished. I let her help me, although our life together has been built on my helping her. But it was hard; I knew, could distantly feel, the pleasure she had in acting thus because I also had once been free to do anything I wanted, without having to look forward more than a day or backwards more than an hour. And that is why I write about Venice, because by seeing how much I remember those days, I can judge better how powerfully her own past draws her now.

I was sombre and ill-humoured when I finally descended for breakfast after my bizarre night with my apparition, only to discover a great reluctance on the part of the hotel to supply me with anything to eat at all. Eventually they condescended to provide some watery coffee and stale bread, the sight of which reminded me that I had eaten nothing of substance for nearly a day and a half. That, in itself, went a long way towards explaining my bad mood, headache and also the delusional nonsense of a few hours previously. I needed a purpose and had none, so decided I might as well take care of business, registering myself with the British Consul and picking up any mail that he might be holding for me.

That at least was easy enough. Francis Longman lived in a small apartment with an office attached a few streets away from San Marco, and welcomed me in with enthusiasm. He was a short, fat man, with a squeaky voice which gave him an air of perpetual excitement. His chins wobbled dramatically every time he became agitated and, as I learned over the coming weeks, he was agitated quite frequently and on the least pretext. His abode did not embody the gravity I expected of one of Her Majesty's diplomatic representatives, being dark and disordered and covered in books and papers. His situation seemed somewhat sad and, while I was gratified to be received with such warmth, I did find it somewhat peculiar.