My mouth being occupied, I could only look a question at him: Holmes tended to be unforgiving when it came to music. Also when it came to much else in life, true, but particularly music.
“Mr Porter, despite being a remarkably talented young man, wishes nothing better than to write light musical pieces for the theatre. Songs, rather than sonatas. And he chooses to build those songs around the stuff of infatuation: champagne and shining hair, a longing gaze and a bit of witty repartee.”
I replied, somewhat stickily, “We can’t all be gloomy Germans, Holmes. Especially not young men married to wealthy and indulgent women.”
“Yes, it’s easy to think of Porter as a dilettante—and indeed, he pretends his interest is superficial. However, I’ve seen a slavey put less effort into scrubbing her steps with the housekeeper looking on than Porter does when no one’s in earshot. And though it is true Linda encourages him, it is more than mere indulgence.”
“That’s his wife? Linda?”
“Yes. An interesting relationship. One of considerable affection, and yet, by all appearances and much local gossip, the marriage is a ‘lavender’ one.”
I coughed on a bit of bread—I wouldn’t have imagined he even knew the phrase. “An arrangement of…convenience?”
“Hmm.”
“Does she suspect?”
“Oh, I’d say she is quite aware of his outside interests.”
“Good Lord. Oh, the poor thing.”
He stirred his coffee as he considered his reply. “Russell, I imagine that you have had any number of acquaintances make assumptions about your marriage to me.”
I was so startled, I could only stare at him.
“In fact, the permutations of marriage are wide and many. One such is that of the Porters. On the surface, theirs appears a fa?ade, convenient to both but ultimately sterile. However, having spent the day in their company, I saw nothing but affection and respect. I saw two people for whom solitude is loneliness, and loneliness is horror. So, together they face the world, and amuse one another when the world is elsewhere.”
“I see.” Although I wasn’t entirely sure I did.
“I would also say their social life stands in for the kind of shared interests that bind more conventional couples.”
“Parties are their children?”
“The guests are, certainly. Pampered and groomed, their preferences considered, their entertainment paramount. The Porters’ guest lists are closely discussed for balance, size, and personalities.”
Did I hear a point coming, out of this most unexpected conversational detour? “Are you talking about their invitations for the party on Saturday?”
“I am. I have not yet seen it in detail, but I am to understand that it includes not only the cream of Venetian aristocracy and American wealth, but key members of the new Italian power structure as well.”
“Fascists?”
“That is, after all, where power currently lies. One can hope there are enough footmen to keep them away from the Socialists.”
“You think a rich American homosexual would invite Fascists to a drunken bash?”
“Until one has seen Blackshirts kicking a man, Fascism may be merely a political party. I imagine that, unless something comes along to remove Signor Mussolini from power, most high-ranking Italians will join the party, at least in name.”
This cheerful morning conversation was interrupted by a rapping at the door—my new beach pyjamas, each one proving more exotic than the last. Holmes gave a polite shudder and went off with his new violin. I chose the garment I judged least likely to cause a riot, packed it into my bag alongside a small set of binoculars and a large map of the lagoon, and put on normal clothing to go hunt down my gondolieri.
As I mentioned, the Lido is a long, thin sand-bar that keeps the Adriatic away from the calm lagoon waters. Tides rush in and out through a series of channels, three of which are suitable for ships. The oldest, and for most of Venice’s history the only deep channel, is in the centre, called Malamocco. Halfway between it and Venice proper—and thus ideally situated both to serve incoming ships and to be a first line of defence against a seagoing enemy—stands the island of Poveglia.
It, too, had spent some time as the quarantine place for suspected plague ships. It, like San Clemente and San Servolo, changed purpose as Napoleon closed the houses of religion, as the plague faded—and, as roads provided an alternative route to invaders.
My detailed map of the lagoon showed Poveglia as a patch of some fifteen or twenty acres divided into three sections. A foot-bridge joined the two northern parts. The small southern bit had the octagonal shape of a military fortification.
That was the full extent of my knowledge of this island—that, and it was haunted.
Not that spirits weren’t commonplace throughout the Venice lagoon. Even that most populated of tourist sites, the Piazza San Marco, has an entrance that locals automatically veer around, since the space between the two columns (stolen from elsewhere, like most of Venice’s landmarks and treasures) was long used as the city’s execution ground. Suspect islands ranged from San Servolo’s “windowless, deform’d and dreary pile” to the wailing surrounds of San Clemente and the long-time leper colony of San Lazzaro. Further out, where lights and bustle gave way to swamp and mists and tidal mutters, there were places where fishermen hesitated to cast their nets, where the stoutest of gondoliers would not go even by day.
And chief of those, it would appear, was Poveglia. Which was why it seemed a good place for a closer look.
My chief gondolier did not agree.
“No, Signora, no no no, you do not wish to go there. There is nothing on Poveglia. Ruins and ghosts, evil things. No, it is a bad place. Very bad.”
Sounding better and better.
“You may be right. Still, I’d like to look at it, even from a distance.”
“The vaporetto to Malamocco,” Giovanni decided firmly. “It goes past. Very, very close. But there is nothing to see, nothing but ruins and mad things.”
The last phrase caught my attention, but Giovanni’s growing agitation made it obvious he was on the point of ending our arrangement. Since I doubted that any of his prettier colleagues would prove more stout-hearted, I stepped away from my insistence, gave them an alternative assignment, and made my way to a steamer that meandered its way down the Lido.
The day’s haze was just beginning to rise from the water as we chugged near to the haunted island. I raised the field glasses, propping my shoulder against the boat’s cabin to keep them steady.
The northern island was solidly framed by a sort of hedgerow composed of small trees and large shrubs, its interior hidden from anything short of an aeroplane. Vegetation leaned over a narrow waterway, then resumed on the other side. In this middle section, buildings could be seen above the greenery: vine-draped roof-lines, a derelict church tower. Then came the octagonal section I had seen on the map, its sloping sides made of tightly fitted stones that would hold it above the winter storms.
As we approached the Malamocco dock, I asked the vaporetto man if this boat continued south, or turned back up the Lido. He gave a brusque nod in the direction we had come, so I resisted the disembarking crowd and went for a word with the man at the wheel.
“Signore, I would very much like to go back by way of the other side of Poveglia. Just for my interest. Perhaps…?” He glanced down at the lira I was slowly passing from one hand to another. I paused, added another, paused. At the third, he nodded and the bills vanished.