‘Mamma is wonderful, but I feel like a child around her.’
‘You’re not a child.’
She nodded, holding his eyes.
‘And while being an adult has its drawbacks, the great advantage is that you can do what you like.’
‘Within reason.’
‘Even without, sometimes.’
He stood staring at her, beaming like an idiot.
‘It’s wonderful to see you, Cristiana!’
Judging by the slightly severe suit and silk blouse she was wearing, she had come straight from work.
‘Have you had dinner?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘You?’
‘No. And there’s nothing in the house.’
‘I brought some stuff. Nothing fancy, but at least we won’t starve.’
Embarrassed by his emotion, Zen walked over to the sofa and picked up the book which Cristiana had been reading, a thick volume entitled The History of the Venetian Republic, 727-1797. The title page was inscribed ‘To my dear wife, this testimony of our glorious heritage, with love, Nando.’
Zen looked up at Cristiana.
‘Gripping stuff?’ he inquired ironically.
‘It’s not bad. Your family’s mentioned quite a lot. One of them was a rabble-rousing reformer and another one a famous admiral.’
‘And if I remember correctly, they both made a habit of winning all the battles and then losing the war. It must be a family trait. Living proof of that “glorious heritage” your husband makes so much of.’
Cristiana raised her eyebrows slightly.
‘You really don’t like Nando, do you?’
Zen shrugged.
‘I don’t like politicians in general.’
‘But there’s more to it than that.’
He nodded.
‘Yes, there’s you.’
She smiled and turned away. There seemed to be something about her which did not quite fit the crisply professional clothes, some hint of intimacy, some chink in her armour.
‘I’m starving,’ she said. ‘I’ll put the pasta water on.’
Zen followed her out to the kitchen. On the table stood a stoppered litre bottle of red wine, a packet of spaghetti, a fat clove of purple-skinned garlic, a small jar of oil which was the opaque green of bottle glass abraded by the sea, and a twist of paper containing three wrinkled chillis the colour of dried blood.
‘Aglio, olio e peperoncino,’ he said.
‘I told you it was nothing fancy.’
As she set the heavy pan on the stove and tossed a hail-flurry of coarse salt into the water, Zen suddenly understood the rogue element in her appearance. Her breasts moved waywardly inside the sheath of silk, belying the brisk message of her formal clothing with their seditious whisper.
‘Presumably all this overtime means that your work is going well,’ she remarked casually. ‘Or are you just trying to beef up your pay cheque?’
‘I thought I was on to something today, but then someone stepped in and spiked it. Local politics.’
‘Politics?’
‘I mean interests, alliances,’ he said, taking a broad-bladed knife out of a drawer. ‘Mutual protection.’
‘Nando says that’s all politics is anyway.’
‘And he ought to know.’
‘I mean that’s all he thinks it should be. He says the rest is just dogma and outdated ideology.’
Zen laid the blade of the knife on the clove of garlic and hit it sharply with the heel of his hand.
‘Where did you learn that trick?’ asked Cristiana in a tone of admiration.
Zen lifted the tissue-thin skin away and set about chopping up the clove.
‘From my mother.’
‘Nando can’t even make coffee. “I fly planes, you look after the house,” he always says. “Any time you want to swop, just let me know.”’
‘He’s a pilot?’
‘He flew ground-attack helicopters for the air force. He often says it was the high point of his life. That’s why he went into politics, I think, in search of new thrills. He tried business, but it didn’t have enough edge.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He’s a partner in a firm called Aeroservizi Veneti. They cater to rich people needing to be taxied to and fro, businessmen wanting to charter a small jet to Budapest, that sort of thing.’
She laughed.