A Man of Genius by Janet Todd

Author:Janet Todd
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908524607
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press

21

She enquired about tickets and bookings from the few offices still open in the heat-racked town and requested a pass for travel to France. Everything took time.

She must use the interval to find them lodgings out of Venice, somewhere where the water didn’t stink in the high heat and the rooms were cheaper. Without her in this city Robert would fall even further into debt: he had no notion how to rein in expense.

When she was gone he might leave and live somewhere else: he might not be there when she returned. He might not. And she would not know where he had gone.

Then she would not be free of him – that was a hopeless dream – for she would spend her days imagining him sitting, smoking, talking, drinking, becoming again for someone else all those people he had lost. A Bianca? The idea, so tenacious, could still kindle that passionate anguish that surely by now should have been cold dead, not just resting.

She trusted Tommaso for, when she’d come to buy his cheap muslin, he’d not urged her into anything more costly. He was from outside Venice and might be able to suggest other nearby towns where she and Robert could live more cheaply.

Padua, he’d said at once. The place was full of students. They didn’t want expensive rooms. He’d heard she taught English to the Savelli Signorina; she might find pupils there among the young men.

If they moved she’d have to give up her lessons with Beatrice. No Padovan student could mean as much to her as this young girl. Her heart felt heavy at the idea of losing her company – at starting over, and being still with him. Yet Beatrice had hidden something from her she should have known.

She determined on the visit. If they liked the town they could move and start over again.

Perhaps Robert would grow calmer. Perhaps some of the savagery had come from the Savelli influence. Perhaps in a new place he might be renewed. Perhaps he could work his charm once more and gain them some more credit. Perhaps.

She doubted all of it. Since the departure of the Bigg-Staithes, he’d made less effort in his manner and dress. Signor Balbi was not a poor man but he was a traveller and was not arrayed so finely as his fellow citizens: sometimes he appeared shabbily clad, so perhaps he noticed less. But surely even he had seen the change in Robert.

His paunch was smaller, no longer firm – she supposed it was because he drank more than he ate. The bald part of his head looked unpolished, and his tawny hair once so cared for round the rim was now too long. It made him seem an old man – or a mangy dog.

She pretended they were going to Padua to see art as well as find other lodgings. But as usual he showed no interest. The glories of Venice had not awakened him; he anticipated no more pleasure from old art in more decrepit towns.

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