VENICE
Sam slams her front door and walks briskly away. Keep breathing, she tells herself. Get on the bus, pay your fare and keep breathing. In her handbag is the ticket, floppy and slippery between her fingers. It has been hidden in her knickers drawer for a week. Lucky it hasn’t been found. Nothing is usually safe in their house.
Everyone on the bus looks so dismal: bored in fact. Is that how she usually looks? Probably. It seems almost sinful. But she, too, spends her days like a donkey pulling a cart; eyes focused on the track ahead. Now is different. A weekend in Venice, alone. She’s pulled it off.
Check-in goes smoothly. Magazine bought, she settles down with a coffee, but doesn’t read a thing: there is so much to see. No child pulls her arm for attention; no man informs her of what he wants to do and expects her to follow. She has time to look.
On arrival a taxi transports her to Venice: peach coloured buildings, stand shoulder to shoulder, propping each other up; stoic as they crumble into the greedy seawater swirling beneath them. Narrow cobble streets beckon and she sets off. Venice will lead the way.
Washing hangs in U shapes across windows. Women walk by with bags full of groceries. The colour of their goods and the sunshine make the everyday task exotic, something to be envied.
It is lunchtime in Venice -a good place to be. She chooses an outdoor table decked in white linen. A waiter appears. Under his gaze, everything she says is funny; every flick of her hair a turn on. She orders more wine than usual, feeling herself melt and expand. The dishes come quickly, – anchovy salad with olive bread, spaghetti marinara, fresh fruit salad with ice- cream.
After coffee she leaves. It is two o’clock. The children will be going to their Nana’s after school. Michael is going to pick them up. She wonders if this is the buzz cross-dressers experience when they go out at night with a new name and persona. The freedom of it is exhilarating. She could start a whole new life from scratch here.
“Are you alone?” a heavily accented male voice interrupts her thoughts.
“Yes!”
Quickly, he suggests a drink together.
“No,” she replies. Not one second is to be wasted with someone else.
There are so many tourists in Venice, mostly Japanese taking yet another shot of a Gondola gliding silently by. She has no camera and doesn’t need one. Her soul is on record.
By seven o’clock her feet ache from walking. Michael will be home with Rebecca and Pat. She imagines them in the kitchen, wondering where she is. She wants to ring them. It could ruin everything, but she decides to risk it.
“Hello,” Michael answers the phone, sounding tired. She hears Rebecca and Pat screaming at each other in the background.
“Hi, it’s me,” she says on her mobile, in the middle of the street.
“Where are ya?”
“Venice.”
“Ha, bloody ha. I’m starving and so are the kids.”
“Michael… I really am in Venice, and I love you.”
“I love you too,” he replies automatically.
“Come over,” she urges him. “Bring the children. It’s beautiful here. You’d love it.”
She hears him shoo the children out of the hall into the kitchen.
“Sam, what are you talking about? How can you be in Venice?”
“I got a ticket and flew here.” He says nothing to this. “I had to get away.”
“What about money?”
“I saved it up. I had to do it, Michael. I needed to feel like I could be just me again. Do you know what I mean?’
“I do,” he says slowly.
“Will you come?”
Silence.
Her stomach cringes, she shouldn’t have rung. She’d been happy for a while.
“You can’t do this Sam. You can’t just fly to Venice on a whim.”
“I already have.”
He sighs, while she looks up at red geraniums, against warm yellow walls. The contrast with the greyness at the end of her phone is stark.
“This is our chance,” she whispers. “This is our last chance.”
She waits, and at last he speaks. “I’ll see if your Mam will take Rebecca and Pat for the weekend.”
“You don’t want to bring them?”
“No, let’s make it just us.”
She nods, tears streaming down her face.
“Bye.” She rings off, her eyes on cobblestones beneath her feet – no longer seeing washing hanging from balconies or women passing with shopping – her mind on making love.