Iain Pears - Stone's Fall

Ambrosian was much too cautious a man to accept. He looked almost shocked. Well, not quite, but he did have the air of someone who is being taken for a simpleton. He did not object to me trying, of course, and he knew perfectly well that I knew he would not accept the offer.

'I can see no reason to sell what may turn out to be a fine stream of future profits,' he said reproachfully. 'Particularly as my investment gives me complete rights to the machine.'

'Well, I cannot blame you,' I said with a smile to indicate I understood perfectly well. 'None the less, my interest remains. Should you change your mind . . .'

I left, feeling very thoughtful. My offer to acquire Macintyre's debt had had the desired effect, I thought; Ambrosian was prepared to take me seriously. It would have been a different matter had he suddenly accepted the proposal. The last thing I wanted was to spend money on a machine that might well be useless. If that was the case, he could keep it. But if it did work, he would keep it. Should the trials be a success, he would certainly refuse to put in any more money, call in the debt and take full possession of the patent. Macintyre would have nothing more to do with it, except, perhaps, as an employee, a declared bankrupt who would have to work for whatever pittance he was paid.

A pity the machine wasn't a complete disaster, I thought. That would not be good for Macintyre, but at least he would have the pleasure of realising that Ambrosian had lost its money as well. Small compensation, and I didn't think it would give him much joy. Only financiers think like that. But . . .

It made me think though, and as I walked across the Piazza San Marco, I ran through all the possibilities in my mind.

I stopped, and smiled happily at a group of urchins throwing stones at a washing line, seeing if they could knock a sparrow off it. That was it, of course. The only problem was how to organise it.

Anyone reading this might be surprised that I was not more concerned at Ambrosian's assertion that Macintyre was some sort of crook. Often enough such characteristics are something of an impediment to good business. But not always, and not if the scoundrel is in no position to do you harm. I had not the slightest intention of giving Macintyre any money in a manner I could not control. He could not abscond with what he did not have. Besides, such people can be useful, if they are working for you, rather than against you. The past life of Xanthos, for example, is not something I would wish to know too much about – although when he came knocking at my door I did discover that it would be unwise ever to send him anywhere controlled by the Sultan, as it would be a long time before he was let out of gaol. But now his devious skills are employed to my advantage, and he has been a good and loyal employee, up until recently.

So Ambrosian's beliefs about Macintyre did not worry me much. But it would be wrong to say I was not intrigued, and I was impatient that my dear friend Cardano, to whom I had written some time previously, had not yet replied. Until he did, there was very little I could do. I could find old newspapers in Venice, some basic reference books, but little more; the sort of information I required could only be found in the dining rooms and board rooms of the City of London, and then it would be available only to those who knew how to ask.

So I had to wait, and become a proper tourist for once, and indulge my ever-growing passion. Four more days, in fact, before the letter finally reached me – wonderful days, spent in the autumnal warmth, and often enough with Louise, for the more rendezvous I had with her the more I wanted. After the events at the Marchesa's salon, we threw off all caution and discretion. I began buying her presents, we walked together in the city, were seen together. It made me proud and uncomfortable at the same time – I once had to tell her to be more discreet with her husband.

'I will leave him now, because of you. Now I know what it is really to love someone, I cannot stay any more. We can be together for ever, then,' she said, turning to look me in the eyes. 'We can be like this forever. Just you and me.'

'What about your son?'

She made a gesture of disgust. 'He can have him. He is not my child; I merely bore him. There is nothing of me in him at all. He will be like his father; weak, useless.'

'He's only four.' She had spoken with a harshness I had never heard in her before. There was real cruelty in her words and they disturbed me.

I must have reacted, for she instantly changed. 'Oh, I love him, of course I do. But I am no good for him. I don't understand him.'

Then she put her arms around me once more, and changed the subject totally for an hour. But I left our rooms with an uneasy feeling that afternoon; it faded soon enough, but did not disappear entirely.

It also changed the way we were together; Louise did not refer to leaving her husband again, but more and more often the conversation came round to her desire to be with me. I could understand why her life was hellish, and why she so desperately sought a means of escaping. When I considered the weals and cuts, Cort's behaviour at the séance, his hallucinations, the indignities and humiliations she endured when no one was there to see, it was hardly surprising she clung to me.

And I was besotted with her. So why did I not leap at the chance to capture her forever? It could have been done. A separation of some sort from my wife was possible, messy and unpleasant though it might be. But Louise and Venice were linked too closely together. Love and city were intermingled; I could not imagine one without the other, and I think my hesitations and doubts were linked to my sluggish awareness of my growing immobility. The Marchesa was right; Venice was like an octopus, which slowly and stealthily entangled the unwary in its tentacles until it was too late. Longman would never leave; Cort might not either; in other Englishmen I met in that period I learned to recognise the slightly vacant look of the entranced, the people hypnotised by the light, who had lost their will-power, voluntarily given it up, like the followers of Odysseus on the island of the lotus-eaters.

They did not enter a state of bliss by so doing; Venice does not offer happiness in exchange for servitude. The opposite, rather: melancholy and sadness are its gifts; it allows the sufferers to be all too aware of their lassitude and inability to leave. It taunts them with their weakness, but still will not let them go.

Some were immune; Drennan seemed unaffected, for example. Nor did it have any effect on Macintyre, because he scarcely knew where he was. For him Venice was merely the place where his workshop was; he had sacrificed his will to his machinery already; there was nothing for the city to take.

And some were driven into madness. Cort deteriorated rapidly after his explosion at the séance; I saw little enough of him, indeed I tried to avoid him, but could not but notice how he looked more haggard by the day, heard reports that he was receiving visitations from his phantom more often. He worked obsessively, but got nothing done; until then he had actually been making progress. Macintyre's internal buttressing was all but complete. But now most of his workforce abandoned him as his behaviour became so erratic they did not want to come near him. So he worked alone, furiously making drawings that no one would execute, ordering materials that lay in the courtyard untouched until he sent them back and began an argument with the supplier.

'Is Cort insane?' I asked Marangoni. I fully anticipated his reply, and was astonished by what he in fact said.

'Well, do you know,' the doctor replied in his heavy accent, putting the tips of his fingers together to look more professional, 'I do not think he is. Unbalanced, certainly. But I do not think he is insane. His mother's name was Annabelle,' he said, in total breach of the normal notions of discretion. 'She died when he was born, and he worships her memory. The idea that she was displeased with him shook him to the core. He told me this a couple of days ago.'