'All subjects that have passed me by. To think that I wasted my time at school on Virgil, when I could have been preparing myself for a life of gainful labour.'
'You're useless to me, then.' He sighed once more, turned round, then slid down the door to sit disconsolately on the ground. The he glanced up.
'The builders haven't shown up,' he said. 'Again. We're two months behind schedule, autumn's come on and the roof's come off. They're impossible. A nightmare. Time is a concept they simply do not understand.'
'This is your house?'
'Palazzo. And no, it's not. I'm an architect. Of sorts. I'm supervising its restoration. I had a choice. This or building a prison in Sunderland. I thought this would be more fun. Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Have you ever felt suicidal?'
A chatty fellow, but I did wish he wasn't sitting on the ground like that. I didn't feel like joining him in the dirt, and it was awkward talking down onto the top of his head. He had fair, sandy hair which already showed signs of thinning on top. A small man, slightly built, but neat of movement and quite engaging in his manner, with a broad mouth and easy, open smile.
'How long have you been waiting?'
'About an hour. Don't know why I bother. They're not going to show up today. I might as well go home.'
'If you could tell me of somewhere to eat, I would be delighted to offer you breakfast, if that would help to ease the pain.'
He jumped up instantly and held out his hand. 'My dear fellow, I take it all back about your being useless. Come along. William Cort by the way, that's my name. Call me William. Call me Cort. Call me whatever you want.'
And he shot off, left down a dark alley, right at the end, across a small square, moving as fast as a ferret. I had barely time to introduce myself before he started talking again. 'Trouble is, I'm stuck here until the place is finished, and at the rate we're going, I might well die of old age before I see England again. I don't reckon they had any idea what sort of condition the place was in when they bought it.'
'They?' I asked, panting a little in my effort to keep up.
'The Albemarles. You know? Albemarle and Crombie?'
I nodded. Had he asked I could have told him the magnitude of the bank's capital, the names and connections of all the directors. It was not a serious challenger to houses like Rothschild or Barings, but it had a reputation as a good solid family bank of the old-fashioned variety. Entirely wrongly, as it turned out; it stopped in '82, and the family was ruined.
'Bought this place without even looking at it and sent me off to do what was necessary. Lord only knows what they want it for, but the client is always right. My uncle wants to build their country house, y'see, so he couldn't displease them and say it wasn't a job for us. Besides, it was supposedly good for me. My first solo job. It's enough to make me want to go into the Church.'
'I don't recommend it,' I replied. 'I think you need more patience than you have shown so far.'
'Probably. Doesn't matter anyway. I'm going to die here. I know it.'
'So you are an incurable optimist as well as an architect. I suppose the two go together.'
He didn't answer, but turned into a dank and unwelcoming doorway which I would never have guessed was some sort of public eating place. Inside there were just two tables, one bench to sit on, and no people at all.
'Elegant,' I commented.
He smiled. 'And by far the best eating place around this quarter,' he said. 'I take it you've not been here long?'
'A few hours.'
'Well, then, you will soon discover that the magnificence of the city conceals the utter degradation of the inhabitants. There are few restaurants, and those are poor and hideously expensive. The wine generally tastes like vinegar, the people are lazy and the accommodation horribly overpriced and uncomfortable. I long for a good piece of roast beef sometimes.'
'Venice seems to have won a place in your heart, then.'
He laughed. 'It has. No, I mean it. I can complain about it for hours, list all its faults in relentless detail, grumble incessantly about every facet of life here. But, as you notice, I have come to love the place.'
'Why?'
'Ah, it is magic.' His eyes lit up with something of a twinkle. 'That's all I can say. I think it is probably something to do with the light. Which you have not yet witnessed, so there is no point in trying to persuade you. In a short while – tomorrow maybe, when the weather picks up, maybe this evening – you will see.'
'Maybe so. But in the meantime, I'd like some breakfast.'
'Ah, yes. I'll see what I can do.' And he disappeared into a back room, from which there came, after a while, the sound of banging pots and shouting.
'All sorted,' he said cheerfully when he returned. 'But they were quite reluctant to serve us. You have to plead with them. Luckily, I come here quite often, and so do the builders. When they show up.'
The thought put him into a mood of melancholy again.
'Do they often do this to you?' I asked.
