Deborah Forster

Kate was always a terrible packer and today was no different. Into the suitcase went the pencil that was supposed to have come from Venice topped by a small St Marks’ lion, five poetry books, winter pyjamas and her old sandals.  It would be hot and damp, but she never trusted weather forecasts. She took an oatmeal coloured dress she liked and a yellow cardigan and that was about it, apart from the journals. She found a black dress and some runners and tracksuit pants for the plane. Also, a pale blue dress she’d never worn. There were far too many underpants but only the bra she was wearing. She sat on the bed and wondered why she was doing this, and the answer was for herself but also for Michael. He needed to meet his father. But this was not easy. She didn’t cook dinner that night. She believed she would not come back. Someone will pack up the pots she’d made and store them. Michael had taken away the pots she made for each of his birthdays.

They board a jet to Marco Polo airport in Venice but in Dubai the plane was delayed. After five hours sitting in a foyer, they were awarded twin beds in a room at the Dubai Hilton and though they were tired and the room was like comfortingly cold, they found themselves chatting, free ranging like old friends instead of mother and son. He said, ‘I listen to you talk about Luca and I don’t think I’ll ever have that kind of relationship.’

Kate says ‘Listen: Luca is far from perfect, he went away and didn’t come back, and I never told him about you either. So, no one is perfect. But I love what I remember of him, well I think I do. It may not be there still.  But show me a perfect person. Life is not perfect nor meant to be.

‘As for you, well, I know you will love deeply and well because you are a decent man with a good heart.’

‘Yeah, Kate, mothers say that about their sons, but I want you to tell me how you knew that he was the one for you.’ She sighs.

‘It’s silly really. I was so young and had come to look at the house in Carlton to rent a room. I liked the way he looked, it looked moved me, but there was much more. He was so genuinely kind that I let my guard down and we talked all afternoon as the sun was setting, but I didn’t recognise it as love. It was always simple. He was sincere and funny and beautiful and very proper, but that was a long time ago. If there is anything to take from our story, it’s that you never know, so be prepared for the feeling of love. It is unmistakable.’

Then they slept as if they had fallen down a soft cool well for four hours and then the alarm woke them.  Looking at Michael’s sleeping face she recalled Luca all those years ago.

In the afternoon, arriving in Venice airport she sees birds roosting in corners of the building. And a plane way up high taking people somewhere else, leaving comet tails and feathers behind.  They take a cab to the train station. The driver handles the roundabouts like Fangio and sick and sorry, Kate and Michael, board the train to Treviso.  The trip took about thirty hours.

When they arrive in Treviso, it’s early evening and according to her phone, humidity is 83 per cent. They had been waiting for someone to let them into the flat, but there was no sign of her so they adjourned to a little café and had a glass of wine and snacks. The misty sun fell around them like a cloak.  When she finally arrived, the rental woman was small with a black garden tattooed on one arm. The lock to the flat flashed electric blue arcs in the gloom of the corridor.  In the tiny room, Michael nearly knocked himself out on the ceiling. But then the joyous bells from the cathedral rang out and she remembered Luca talking about the bells. Michael leaned out of the window toward them to hear them better and tried to speak over them. And gave up laughing. He took the side room without the air conditioner and the camp bed, and she took the fold out couch and the air conditioner.  He insisted. The bathroom flooded enthusiastically when they used the shower or basin, and the washing machine was an impenetrable puzzle. Cleanliness became a limited concept.

The next day it was a stormy Wednesday, and speckles of rain scattered like gravel on the roof. Tiny bugs were lifted by warm air near the exhaust fans and the bugs just kept rising. The view from the window was of roof tops with round skylights below like flying saucers and the hip of the Duomo was in clear view. The trees sighed in this light rain. Raindrops lined up along the windowsill.

So, they returned to their beds again and thunder rumbled most of the night.

By next morning, it was raining hard, and the low sky was surrounded by what looked like a shawl of deep violet. They went to a café close by with smudgy lights and shared the umbrella and got pastries and weak milky coffee. Coming home from the lighted café, she imagined Luca’s building.

Then it occurred to her that Michael may have been in touch with his father for some time. Would he do that? She turned to him.

‘Have you been in touch with Luca?’

He’s quiet. ‘Why is that important to you now? We’re here, but yes, I did get in touch. I just wanted to see how he was placed. Look mum, I didn’t want you to get hurt by him again. He’s had one go at it and I think that’s enough.

‘And how is he placed?’ She says.

‘Very well, he has a PhD, and he works for the council to Save Venice.’

‘You know what I mean Michael, is he married?’ and she laughs, ‘Has he got six kids and a wife.’ It’s not funny and Michael can manage only a small smile.

‘No, he’s not. He has Anna, his daughter, and no wife. He lives with his mother, Julieta who is now very old and they help her. He has three sisters who also helped to look after Anna when she was little.’

She breathes out not believing she could be so reckless.

In the cobbled streets, small shops selling beauty, are dotted around, there are paper journal shops, cookware, sweets and even children’s shoes from Australia.

She feels she is everywhere and yet suspended. Meeting him again has taken so long. To come here after all the stories, well, she doesn’t know what she thinks but she fears rejection from him more than she fears most things and her hands shake.

Soon Kate and Michael move to a flat above the Camellia Cake Shop. The pastrycook took pity on them and rented the flat to her. Michael has his own room. The flat is furnished with cushions and couches. It reminds her of home and the smells from the cakes follow her upstairs and comfort her. Today she had to have a panna cotta and caramel ice-cream at three, sitting at the small green tables with the sun falling down and the wisteria beside her. On the balcony she sketches ideas for new pieces. Michael’s out exploring.

She goes out at about six on the hour with the church bells ringing.  The light is the colour of peaches. The noise of the street rises back, women calling children home, doors slamming, other bells, bicycle bells. She hears children playing behind a wall onto a lane in the late afternoon and the breeze lifts feathers of laughter and disagreements that disappear. Michael walks for hours, trying to understand the force of the rushing green canals. There must be underground springs he decides. He buys a bag of pear drops for Kate. He is meeting Luca tomorrow, a Friday. One at a time they thought.

Back at the flat, he looks through his clothes. ‘He’s got to be a pretty cool dude and look at me, a worker. What will I wear?’

‘I have just the thing.’ She brings him a bag and in it is a white linen shirt and she had judged his size well. ‘I love it, it’s perfect. Thanks, mum.’ He slips it over his head, ‘and it fits!’

She thinks if you had one day to choose, it would be Friday. She has green apples and dark chocolate and movies to watch on the computer. She has left it up to Michael to decide whether she should meet Luca again. If he’s against it, that will be it. She needs to stand back from this a bit.