The First of July by Elizabeth Speller Page B

don’t stop loving me. I don’t think I could bear it.”
    Her irises were a hundred different flecks of color: blue, yes, but violet, gray, green too, and her eyes were filling with tears.
    “You’re a man,” she said. “Just a man. A human being like me. I don’t expect you to be more than that. I can’t offer you more than that myself, and I don’t want you to be more than you are. Together we’re better than apart—that’s all and everything.”
    Looking back, he scarcely remembered the details. There was just the relief. That this perceptive, loving woman was his. That he was cured. All the rest, everything they saw or tried, was just a stage set for loving her. His appetite for her shocked and delighted him; and her abandon, which had so surprised him at first, heightened his hunger for her. They might be gazing at paintings of unknown saints, laughing about the smell of the water or buying Murano glass as green and dark as the stagnant canals, but much of the time he was thinking about how it would be back in their hotel.
    If he thought of the past at all, it was in disbelief. How could he have imagined for so long that his life was over, that he could never love again? Every young man had rushed into love and behaved stupidly when it went wrong; many men had to watch the woman they desired in the arms of a rival. But few had to accept her as their mother. Few had to live with the consequences of thwarted passion.
    They were in Rome by late June. Then, on their last day, they decided to walk into the countryside. A light carriage dropped them at the centuries-old tomb of Cecilia Metella on the Appian Way. Then they were completely alone. Glimpses of ancient cobbled road continued up into hazy hills, deep ruts worn in its surface from the carts and armies of ancient time. They sat on fallen stonework and looked up at the ivy-covered tower. The high-pitched song of larks dipping and soaring was the only sound in the silence, except for the rustle of dry grass as they moved.
    Poppies and cornflowers grew untidily around the base of the tower. Marina had brought her paper and pastels, but she made no attempt to start drawing.
    “Sometimes memories are better than pictures,” she said. “I can’t paint sounds or the smell of hay and pines. Anyway, now that we’re married you don’t have to pretend you think I’m a good artist.”
    He cleared his throat. “Well, now is the time you’ve been waiting for.” He pulled out a small book with a shabby cover. “Lord Byron,” he said with a flourish. “Who, you suggested, was a less than good husband. In fact it was after his honeymoon that his wife went scuttling back to her parents speaking of unmentionable vices.”
    “What were they?”
    “They were unmentionable, Marina. But he was an imaginative man. Or it could have been the poetry.”
    They were back through the city gates as the sun was setting and the day was beginning to cool. She sat in the carriage with her head on his shoulders. On one side, the palaces of the Caesars were a vast and forbidding cliff; on the other, a wide area of worn turf followed the lines of a chariot track. The sky was fiery and streaked with violet.
    At the hotel, the porter was in his office. Raised voices could be heard. He emerged almost immediately, apologizing with a curt nod of the head.
    “I am sorry. The events of the day have unsettled the staff.”
    They took their key. As the lift went up, with an older couple beside them, Marina whispered “What on earth do you think happened?”
    He shrugged. The other man said, in an English accent, “Apparently the heir to the Austrian emperor has been assassinated in Sarajevo. Not a young man and it’s hardly likely to affect Italy, but I fear there this may well mean more trouble in the Balkans. However, I wouldn’t let it spoil your vacation.” After a short pause, he added: “Although I believe the waiter is from those parts and is all for taking up arms tonight.