Salley Vickers - Miss Garnet’s Angel

Perhaps it was the young man’s obvious indifference which acted as a catalyst to the surprising form she found her answer taking–for she had not, in fact, yet formulated in her mind where she might go, should the flat prove acceptable for letting to Messrs Brown & Noble.

Across Miss Garnet’s memory paraded the several coloured advertisements for far-flung places which, along with some magazine cuttings concerning unsuitable hair dye, she had cleared from Harriet’s oak bureau and which (steeling herself a little) she had recently placed in the dustbin. One advertisement had been for a cruise around the Adriatic Sea, visiting cities of historical interest. The most famous of these now flashed savingly into her mind.

‘Venice,’ she announced firmly. ‘I shall be taking six months in Venice.’ And then, because it is rarely possible, at a stroke, to throw off the habits of a lifetime, ‘I believe it is cheaper at this time of year.’

It was cold when Miss Garnet landed at Marco Polo airport. Uncertain of all that she was likely to encounter on her exotic adventure she had at least had the foresight to equip herself with good boots. The well-soled boots provided a small counter to her sense of being somewhat insubstantial when, having collected her single suitcase with the stout leather strap which had been her mother’s, she followed the other arrivals outside to where a man with a clipboard shouted and gestured.

Before her spread a pearl-grey, shimmering, quite alien waste of water.

‘Zattere,’ Miss Garnet enunciated. She had, through an agency found in the Guardian’s Holiday Section, taken an appartamento in one of the cheaper areas of Venice. And then, more distinctly, because the man with the clipboard appeared to pay no attention, ‘Zattere!’

‘ Si, si, Signora, momento, momento. ’ He gestured at a water-taxi and then at a well-dressed couple who had pushed ahead of Miss Garnet in the shambling queue. ‘ Prego? ’

‘Hotel Gritti Palace?’ The man, a tall American with a spade-cut beard, spoke with the authority of money. Even Miss Garnet knew that the Gritti was one of the more exclusive of Venice’s many expensive hotels. She had been disappointed to learn that a Socialist playwright, one whom she admired, was in the habit of taking rooms there each spring. Years ago, as a student teacher, Miss Garnet had, rather diffidently, joined the Labour Party. Over the years she had found the policies of succeeding leaders inadequately representative of her idea of socialism. Readings of first Marx and then Lenin had led her, less diffidently, to leave the Labour Party to join the Communists instead. Despite all that had happened in Europe over the years she saw no reason now to alter her allegiance to the ideology which had sustained her for so long. Indeed, it was partly Venice’s reputation for left-wing activity which had underpinned her novel notion to reside there for six months. Now the long plane flight, the extreme cold rising off the grey-green lagoon waters and the extremer fear, rising from what seemed more and more like her own foolhardiness, joined force with political prejudice.

‘Excuse me,’ Miss Garnet raised her voice towards the polished couple, ‘but I was first.’ As she spoke she lost her footing, grazing her leg against a bollard.

The woman of the couple turned to examine the person from whom these commanding words had issued. She saw a thin woman of medium height wearing a long tweed coat and a hat with a veil caught back against the crown. The hat had belonged to Harriet and although Miss Garnet, when she had seen it on Harriet, had considered it overdramatic, she had found herself reluctant to relegate it to the Oxfam box. The hat represented, she recognised, a side to Harriet which she had disregarded when her friend was alive. As a kind of impulsive late gesture to her friend’s sense of the theatrical, she had placed the hat onto her head in the last minutes before leaving for the airport.

Perhaps it was the hat or perhaps it was the tone of voice but the couple responded as if Miss Garnet was a ‘somebody’. Maybe, they thought, she is one of the English aristocracy who consider it bad form to dress showily. Certainly the little woman with the delicately angular features spoke with the diction of a duchess.

‘Excuse us,’ the man spoke in a deep New England accent, ‘we would be honoured if you would share our taxi.’

Miss Garnet paused. She was unaccustomed to accepting favours, especially from tall, urbane-mannered men. But she was tired and, she had to own, rather scared. Her knee hurt where she had stupidly bashed it. And there remained the fact that they had, after all, pushed in front of her.

‘Thank you,’ she spoke more loudly than usual so as to distract attention from the blood she feared was now seeping observably through her thick stocking, ‘I should be glad to share with you.’

The American couple, concerned to undo any unintentional impoliteness, insisted the water-taxi take Miss Garnet to the Campo Angelo Raffaele, where the apartment she had rented was located. Miss Garnet had chosen the address, out of many similar possibilities, on account of the name. Devout Communist as she was, there was something reassuring about the Angel Raphael. She found the numerous other saintly figures, whose names attach to Venice’s streets and monuments, unfamiliar and off-putting. The Angel Raphael she knew about. Of the Archangels of her Baptist childhood, Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, the latter had the most appeal.

The water-taxi drew up at shallow broad stone steps, covered in a dangerous-looking green slime. Miss Garnet, holding back the long skirts of her coat, carefully stepped out of the boat.

‘Oh, but you have hurt yourself!’ cried the American woman, whose name, Miss Garnet had learned, was Cynthia.

But Miss Garnet, who was looking up, had caught the benevolent gaze of an angel. He was standing with a protective arm around what appeared to be a small boy carrying a large fish. On the other side of the angel was a hound.

‘Thank you,’ she said, slightly dazed, ‘I shall be fine.’ Then, ‘Oh, but I must pay you,’ she shouted as the boat moved off down the rio. But the Americans only waved smiling and shouted back that it could wait and she could pay what she owed when they all met again. ‘Look after that leg, now,’ urged the woman, and, ‘Come to our hotel,’ boomed the man, so loudly that three small boys on the other side of the canal called out and waved too at the departing boat.

Miss Garnet found that the departure of the newly met Americans left her feeling forlorn. Impatient with what seemed a silly show of sentimentality in herself, she caught up her suitcase and her hand luggage and looked about to get her bearings. Above her the angel winked down again and she now took in that this was the frontage of the Chiesa dell’Angelo Raffaele itself, which lent its name not only to the campo but also, most graciously, to the waterfront before it.

‘ Scusi ,’ said Miss Garnet to the boys who had crossed the brick bridge to inspect the new visitor, ‘Campo Angelo Raffaele?’ She was rather proud and at the same time shy of the ‘ Scusi ’.

‘ Si, si ,’ cried the boys grabbing at her luggage. Just in time Miss Garnet managed to discern that their intentions were not sinister but they wished merely to earn a few lire by carrying her bags to her destination. She produced the paper on which she had written the address and proffered it to the tallest and most intelligent-looking boy.

‘ Si, si! ’ he exclaimed pointing across the square and a smaller boy, who had commandeered the suitcase, almost ran with it towards a flaking rose-red house with green shutters and washing hanging from a balcony.