Us

The fact was I loved my wife to a degree that I found impossible to express, and so rarely did. While I didn’t dwell on the notion, I had presumed that we would end our lives together. Of course, this is a largely futile desire because, disasters notwithstanding, someone has to go first. There’s a famous artefact at Pompeii — we intended to see it on the Grand Tour we had planned for the summer — of two lovers embracing, ‘spooning’ I think is the term, their bodies nested like quotation marks as the boiling, poisonous cloud rolled down the slopes of Vesuvius and smothered them in hot ash. Not mummies or fossils as some people think, but a three-dimensional mould of the void left as they decayed. Of course there’s no way of knowing that the two figures were husband and wife; they could have been brother and sister, father and daughter, they might have been adulterers. But to my mind the image suggests only marriage; comfort, intimacy, shelter from the sulphurous storm. Not a very cheery advertisement for married life, but not a bad symbol either. The end was gruesome but at least they were together.

But volcanoes are a rarity in our part of Berkshire. If one of us had to go first, I had hoped in all sincerity that it would be me. I’m aware that this sounds morbid, but it seemed to be the right way round, the sensible way, because, well, my wife had brought me everything I had ever wanted, everything good and worthwhile, and we had been through so much together. To contemplate a life without her; I found it inconceivable. Literally so. I was not able to conceive of it.

And so I decided that it could not be allowed to happen.

part two FRANCE

‘And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be — and whenever I look up there will be you.’

Her countenance fell, and she was silent awhile.

Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

17. note to self

Some guidelines for a successful ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe:

Energy! Never be ‘too tired’ or ‘not in the mood’.

Avoid conflict with Albie. Accept light-hearted joshing and do not retaliate with malice or bitter recriminations. Good humour at all times.

It is not necessary to be seen to be right about everything, even when that is the case.

Be open-minded and willing to try new things. For example, unusual foods from unhygienic kitchens, experimental art, unusual points of view, etc.

Be fun. Enjoy light-hearted banter with C and A.

Try to relax. Don’t dwell on the future for now.

Be organised, but –

Maintain a sense of fun and spontaneity.

At all times be aware of Connie. Listen.

Try not to fight with Albie.

18. posh inter-railing

The holiday had been Connie’s idea. ‘A Grand Tour, to prepare you for the adult world, like in the eighteenth century.’

I didn’t know much about it either. Connie said that it was once traditional for young men of a certain class and age to embark on a cultural pilgrimage to the continent, following well-established routes and, with the help of local guides, taking in certain ancient sites and works of art before returning to Britain as sophisticated, civilised men of experience. In practice the culture was largely an excuse for drinking and whoring and getting ripped off, arriving home with pillaged artefacts, some bottles of the local booze and venereal disease.

‘So why don’t I just go to Ibiza?’ said Albie.

‘Trust me,’ said Connie, ‘this will be much, much more fun.’ We were sitting at the kitchen table on a Sunday morning — this was in happier times, before my wife’s announcement — my old Times Atlas opened on a map of Western Europe, and there was a kind of glee in Connie that I’d not seen for a while.

‘You have to remember this was all in the days before cheap mechanical reproduction, so the Grand Tour was their one chance to see all these masterpieces outside dodgy black-and-white engravings. All the great works of the ancient world and the Renaissance, Chartres Cathedral, the Duomo in Florence, St Mark’s Square, the Colosseum. You’d take fencing lessons, cross the Alps, explore the Roman Forum, look down into the crater of Vesuvius and walk the streets of Naples. And yes, you’d drink and whore and get into fights, but you’d come back a man.’

‘Ibiza it is, then,’ said Albie.