lawn, snipping with a pair of shears, and the rhythm was faultless, crisp: either he did not hear, or he was lying low.
‘And that’s fine,’ Annie boomed, ‘when you’re on the receiving end of his attention. The problem is that the attention span of that kind of bloke tends to be short …’
The regular chirp of the shears’ blades sounded like a slow walk on stiletto heels.
‘What am I saying? All men are like that. Slaves to testosterone, and they have the cheek to imply that we women are heavy on the hormones.’ She added, ‘Men are dogs.’
‘Annie,’ I countered, ‘dogs are loyal.’
‘You’re thinking of Hal, and Hal’s a eunuch.’ She reached to stroke him. Even her hands provided no rest for the eye, demanded attention: her fingernails were scarlet. ‘Ah, Hal,’ she purred, ‘life is simple, for you, eh?’
‘But short,’ I qualified.
‘But sweet,’ she enthused.
‘And of course: with only twelve years or so to live, he should have nothing but pleasure.’
‘Hal, you hear that? Don’t you have a good deal.’
‘Twelve years is a good deal?’
Suddenly, she said, ‘You’ve had a bad couple of years.’ And then, looking across the garden at Philip, ‘You’re so lucky, to have him.’
He was lunging into the long grass with each snap of the steel jaws as if he were trying to catch something.
‘I know, I know.’
Closing my eyes, I detected the scent of the honeysuckle that Philip had planted for me. The white wisteria had finished flowering; Philip planted that for me as well. Opening my eyes, I saw the pastel Icelandic poppies that were mine too. And behind, indoors, at the south-facing sash window, my terracotta-potted banana tree: a present from Philip. I had wanted that plant not for bananas, of course, but for the leaves: the broad, thick, bottle-green leaves typical of a tropical plant, but with irregular marks that look so endearingly artificial they could have come from brushstrokes.
It was midsummer’s eve, but suddenly I was thinking of its shadow, the winter solstice; some lines from a Donne poem:
He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.
Philip rose, with more of a bounce than an unfolding. Rubbing his head, he probably smeared soil on to his bristly hair, dulling the grey. He had his back turned to us, and seemed to be puzzling over something in the flowerbed, but I knew that whatever his expression, his face would bear the impression of a smile: even his frowns are teased by smile lines. Earlier, he had told me that he was going to cook my favourite risotto for our evening meal: my compensation, he had whispered, for having to cope with Annie.
I knew, and he knew, that he was the one who would have to cope with her for hours while she scraped the remains from each bowl and confided in her captive audience. He tolerates her very well. He tolerates anyone and everyone: his tolerance is diligent, perhaps even enthusiastic, if that is not a contradiction in terms; certainly practised, because of his job. Watching him focusing on his flowers, I was struck that his relation to the social world is primarily one of tolerance: he deals with the world, and then he comes home.
Often he says to me, At the end of the day, all that I want is you.
And, always, I wonder why; why me?
Annie mused, ‘He’s good-looking … funny … kind …’ This lacked envy: her kind of man is a rogue; she is that kind of woman. She decided, ‘He’s perfect.’
I laughed. ‘If he’s perfect, why is he married to me?’
‘Oh, he loves you to death.’
Do I want to be loved to death?
‘Annie, you said that all men are dogs.’
She prepared to concede, ‘Well, of course, you know him better than I do …’
‘No, he is perfect.’
‘So: the exception that proves the rule. You’re very lucky.’
‘Yes.’ Perfect husband, perfect marriage.
Whatever is wrong, is wrong with me.
The first time I ran away from Philip, I went to Venice: Venice, late last November. Venice, on the brink of winter. I told him that I was going away for the weekend with an old but rarely-seen friend, Lizzie, to her parents’ cottage in Dorset: she had been low, lately, I said. The truth was that she was in Dublin with her new lover.
Ran away? I flew. I have been flying since before I can remember, and have seen so many changes: year by year, there is more of everything. Except propellers. And accidents. The only problem with flying, nowadays, is the boredom. Airports are purgatory. I hate that they have so little sky: so few windows, none of which open. The air sticks to my skin as a thin, burning layer. Too many smokers savour a last cigarette in the queues for check-in and passport control; again, as they sprawl in the departure lounge; again, as they pace before boarding.
Passing the time before my flight to Venice, I drank coffee and read the destinations on the screens: my favourite, Port au Prince, that tricky mix of foreign and familiar. I watched names of cities moving very slowly up the screens, approaching their evocative, flashing last call. I watched for pilots: stray pilots, on the ground, always in pairs, just as in the air; always a path clearing for them, just as in the air. Those creases in their trousers, those caps, cuffs, shoes: I have never seen a pilot with scuffed shoes. No wonder, if they so rarely touch the ground, and then only the tiled floors of terminals.
I delayed passing into Departures, into the queue of people who are tense for the alarm that they imagine they will cause even though they know that they have nothing to hide. One of the X-ray operators yelled at people to stop looking over his shoulder for the juddering geometry that was their own bared luggage.
My guidebook claims that Venice has an annual total of twenty million tourists. I was happy, for those few days, to disappear into that immense crowd. The book complains that native inhabitants are in a minority, but I like cities that belong to no one in particular, cities that people have to make their own. I arrived by a vaporetto which veered, slammed into and bounced off each platform of wooden planks, and swayed on oil-black water, the motor groaning like a fog horn. The route was busy, the subdued air of the cabin was sheared time and time again by the sliding door. I envied the passengers their impressive coats. Most were travelling singly, and briskly; busy with newspapers. Several of them made perfunctory calls on their mobile phones, and I presumed that I was overhearing the Italian equivalent of, I’m on my way home, darling.
Close to St Mark’s, I found a one-star, family-run hotel: family photos on the wall amid the obligatory views of the Piazza under floodwater. A tabby prowled the reception desk while a cheerful, pregnant twentysomething recorded my details in her curly continental script. An inquisitive feline nose scanned the drying ink. The building was typically Venetian: tall and narrow, badly lit
