Alex Connor - Isle of the Dead

Of course, if she had had the guts, she would have got out of PR years ago. But now she was forty-six, at the top of her game, and earning impressive amounts of money. Her friends were envious, coveting the first-class flights and the goodie bags dished out at every promotional event. Goodie bags worth more than a week’s wage for most people. And all in the name of eyeshadows and lipsticks.

Harriet had grown bored with the lotions which had undergone intensive, ground-breaking scientific research and promised superb results. They never delivered, of course. But she promoted them because she was paid to. Paid to keep her own make-up pristine, her urchin face and figure perfectly in tune with the fashion, her clothes following the messianic dictates of Dolce and Gabbana and Vivienne Westwood. She wore Rouge Noir on her nails, until it was commonplace, then switched to Jade. Her perfume depended on which launch she was attending, her scent in tune with whichever paymaster was signing off her expenses that week.

It was all so very chic. So very covetable. But all so very anodyne. As her friends had married, had children or divorced, Harriet had spun like a gadfly around the continents. She didn’t see that she had aged until it was too late. She didn’t notice that she was lonely until she realised it was three years since she had broken up with Arlene. And all that had been kept a secret, because a lesbian wasn’t supposed to know about fashion and beauty. And because, if she was honest, Harriet didn’t like being gay. The fact that she was attracted to women had been an embarrassment to her, only made acceptable when she entered a secure, long-term relationship with Arlene. But when that broke up, part of Harriet’s self-image broke too. Suppressing her lesbian feelings, she found it easier to stay busy and deny herself any close relationship.

Reaching for her luggage, Harriet pulled the case off the carousel, moving away when she saw a man watching her. It was strange how much attention she received from men. It was ironic how many were attracted to her, never suspecting her inclinations … Sighing, she made for Customs, passed through and then paused, deciding she would go to the Ladies before she left the airport.

Entering the door marked with the Japanese symbol for toilet, Harriet walked in. Nodding to two uniformed cleaning women, she moved into a cubicle and relieved herself, taking a moment to straighten her clothes before she washed her hands. Her image in the mirror annoyed her and after fiddling with her hair for a few moments she lost patience. Then she found, to her amazement, that she was crying.

The sobs came deep and low as Harriet sat on her suitcase and clenched her fists. What had she done? Why had she wasted her life? Not taken enough time to think it out, to plan. She was meticulous, clever, practical in her work – why had she been so casual with her life? It was all so much waste. Days, weeks, months spent talking about foundation and primers, discussing the subtleties of colours which few customers would even notice. Why did it matter if the lipliner was taupe rather than bisque this year? It was all so fucking stupid, so small, so pointless. So undemanding.

Her hands clenched even tighter, nails scraping her palms. When she started she had had such ambition! A few years in fashion and beauty, then set up her own PR company and move on to health and lifestyle. She had imagined that she would then progress into interior design, investigating how a person’s mood could be altered by a colour or a painting. Then, finally, she would enter the world of antiques. She had so much knowledge about art. Had, for a time, been fixed on the idea of working in an auction house. But in the end she had changed tack – and all her culture had been wasted. She had fallen for the almighty dollar, then the almighty yen.

Empty, Harriet stared at the tiled floor of the washroom, unable to find the energy to move. She despised herself. Despised turning her back on the woman she had been, to become an automaton circling the globe and chattering endlessly about mascara. In her twenties she would have cringed to see herself now, would never have believed that someone erudite enough to write about art would sell themselves out for cash.

But maybe it wasn’t too late, she thought hopefully. She had put quite a bit of money aside. She could give up the beauty business and nurture her intelligence instead. It would be difficult – and financially tough – to make the switch, but anything was better than sitting in a Japanese toilet, trying to work up enough energy to get a cab to another dreary Hilton hotel.

Rising to her feet, Harriet lifted her case and slung her handbag over her right shoulder. She was tired, drained, but ready to step off the goodie train, stop the antidepressants, sleeping pills and amphetamines and get her mind clear. It wasn’t too late, she told herself as she moved to leave the toilet cubicle.

But it was.

As the door opened Harriet felt a blow to her face which was so violent it knocked her backwards, splitting her nose and sending blood down her throat. Choking, she fell on to the tiled floor, cracking her head and falling into semiconsciousness. But she was still aware. Harriet Forbes lived long enough to see her attacker lock the door. Lived long enough to feel the knife tearing through her flesh and ripping into her organs. Lived long enough to feel – in her dying moments – her skin being severed, then torn from her breasts.

Venice, 1555

A banquet was held last evening in one of the palaces on Grand Canal, a little way from the Rialto and opposite the fish market. Pietro Aretino, defying the cold and the elements, invited the elite of Venice to attend, his pack of cohorts ready to greet the hardy who ventured out into the bitter night. As before, I watched him. As before, he saw nothing of me. Yet he seemed more callous than usual, his hair dyed black, his girth hardly encased in cloth of gold.

Beside him at the table sat Titian. Elegantly reserved, good-humoured and attentive to the ladies present, he wore his brilliance lightly and was all the more admirable for his humility. In a blatant effort to impress, a feast was served on solid silver plates, and when the diners finished, Aretino ordered the servants not to clear the plates but to throw them out of the window. Such is his wealth. His vulgarity amused those present, yet later, outside and beyond sight of the company, I saw the servants pulling in nets from the water, saving the silver dishes from the clutch of the outgoing tide.

Reserved, Titian remained in his seat while the bawdy Aretino danced with some of the most celebrated women in the city. Once or twice I saw the artist sketching in a little notepad he always carries with him, then applauding as the Contessa di Fattori rose to dance. The clock was striking the half hour after midnight when she excused herself from Aretino’s grip and took another dancing partner, Angelico Vespucci.

He dances with perfection, but his vices tell on him, the dark lidded eyes puffy, his mouth a little slack as he moves in time to the music. His hands open and close like the mouths of drowning men, his palms unnaturally white. And as he moves in step with di Fattori the candles about them shuffle and belch their smoke.

And meanwhile Titian paints on.

22

The last person Nino expected to see as he entered Gaspare’s hospital room was a tall, elegant black man, his expensive clothes marking him out immediately as wealthy. Impatiently, Gaspare beckoned for Nino to approach.

‘This is Triumph Jones,’ he said, turning back to the American. ‘And this is my surrogate son, Nino Bergstrom. You can say anything in front of him – we’ve no secrets.’