'Oh, goodness, yes. I will have a meeting with the foreman one evening, he will look me in the eye and swear blind they will all be there at eight sharp the next morning. We will shake hands and that will be the last I see of any of them for a week. And when I complain the reaction is generally astonishment that I should expect anyone to show up on St Sylvia's day, or the morning of a regatta, or something like that. You get used to it after a while.'
'You don't seem very used to it this morning.'
'No. Today is special, not least because there is no roof on the place, and I have an engineer coming to advise on strengthening the walls. That sort of thing isn't an area I know much about, I'm afraid. I can design buildings, but what exactly keeps them up is quite beyond me.'
The coffee and bread arrived, both equally grey and unappetising. I looked at them doubtfully. 'Not one of the great culinary capitals, Venice,' Mr Cort commented, dipping bread in cup with enthusiasm. 'You can get decent food, but you have to look hard and pay high. They probably have fresh bread out there somewhere, but they don't think highly enough of me yet to let me have any. They keep it for their own.'
He swallowed a lump of bread, then waved his hand. 'Enough. What are you doing here? Passing through? Staying a while?'
'I am without plans,' I said airily. 'I go hither and thither as I wish.'
'Lucky man.'
'For a while, anyway. I was thinking of staying here for a few weeks, at least. But I cannot say you are the best salesman for the city. Ten minutes of you and any reasonable man would pack his bags and head for the railway station.'
He laughed. 'You will find we like to keep the place to ourselves.'
'We?'
'The ragbag of drifters, idlers and adventurers who wash up in this place. There are few foreigners in Venice, you will notice. The railway and the end of the occupation is beginning to change that, but as there are few places for visitors to stay when they get here, there is a limit to how many people will ever come.'
An interesting comment, which I placed in the back of my mind for the future. As I wandered the streets over the next few weeks, I realised that Cort was right. There was an immense market for decent accommodation of the sort that would shield the traveller from the beastliness of Venetian life. The French, I knew, were well ahead in this area, constructing gigantic palaces in the centre of cities which offered every luxury to travellers prepared to pay well to avoid any real contact with the place they were visiting. Fed by the railways, organised by Thomas Cook, any hotel placed at the end of a line in an appealing destination could hardly fail to prosper.
Even at that stage, I turned down in my mind the idea of involving myself with Mr Cort in any commercial way. I learned early that liking someone, trusting someone and employing someone are three very different things. Mr Cort was going to stay firmly in the first category. I have always had the tendency to pick people up from all manner of places; my fortune and my judgement are one and the same. Being agreeable and being of use are not necessarily incompatible, but they are not identical either.
Cort was an amiable man, intelligent and amusing. Honest and decent, as well. But to give him any position of authority would have been foolish. He was too prone to despair, too easily discouraged. He could not even control a dozen or so recalcitrant workmen. He had some desire to be successful, but it did not burn so strongly in him that he was prepared to overcome his character to achieve it. He desired peace more; alas, he achieved little of either.
Nonetheless, we passed a pleasant half hour together, and I found his company charming. He was a good raconteur, and a mine of information about the city, so much so that I invited him to dinner that evening, an offer he accepted until he remembered that it was Wednesday.
'Wednesday?'
'Dottore Marangoni's at home, in the café.'
'At home in a café?'
He laughed. 'Venetians do not often entertain in their home. In six months I have scarcely passed the front door of a Venetian's abode. When they do entertain, most do so in public. Tonight is Marangoni's entertainment. Why not come? I will happily introduce you to my limited acquaintance, such as it is.'
I accepted, and Cort looked guiltily at his watch. 'Goodness, I shall be late,' he said, jumping up from his seat. 'Macintyre will be furious. Come and meet him. I expect you will hate each other on sight.'
He shouted a farewell through the door, jammed his hat on his head and headed off. I followed, saying, 'Why should I not like him? Or he me? I consider myself quite amiable normally.'
