Alex and Christine quarrelled that evening in Venice, and with uncharacteristic rancour. At worst, usually, they were a little acerbic in front of other people. The quarrel began with nothing: began in fact, though she would never know it, with Lydia, because she was irritating Alex, and Christine sensed it, and felt defensive on behalf of her friend. Zachary and Christine had dipped the escalopes of veal in egg and breadcrumbs and fried them in olive oil with sage leaves, while Lydia read some crime novel and smoked, stretched out on a spindly sofa upholstered in pink and gold stripes. Nathan and Alex played Scrabble – they were well matched, and too good at it for the others to ever beat them, so that they’d given up trying. These two were locked in vicious competition for the whole holiday, playing game after game whenever they got the chance, bent with ferocity upon victory: although Alex never acknowledged by any look or shout of triumph or defeat that he cared either way. Nathan was less contained. On this occasion, in fact, Alex lost: Nathan got city on a triple, and then later added toxi in front of it, which reached another triple.

At the table, squeezing lemon on her veal, Lydia said she’d had enough of beauty, she thought she might need a rest from it, tomorrow. — I need to contemplate a tower block or a Jack Vettriano or a Burger King or something, she said. Christine knew that Alex was chafing, too, at the round of churches and art galleries and idle pauses. He looked at the paintings absorbedly, and remembered them as exactly afterwards as Christine did, as well as having a better grasp of the political and social history behind them; when he turned away from looking, though, it was as if he closed a book and didn’t want to speak about it. Speaking was crass and everyone’s responses were predictable, he winced at them, and despised the guides with their unstoppable bland flow of knowing. Abruptly he’d have seen enough: he’d leave the others to it and wait for them downstairs, or in a cafe. His patience, at the time they took, was ostentatious.

Now he looked at Lydia moodily across the supper table, resenting her voicing what he felt. — You have a lemon pip beside your lip, he said. Lydia dabbed at her face with the kitchen paper they had in lieu of napkins; Alex had dropped his attention to his plate; it was Christine who reassured her that the pip was gone. — What’s everyone’s plan for tomorrow? Christine said with steely cheerfulness.

Alex objected without looking up. — Do we have to have plans?

— Let’s not have plans, Lydia said. — I hate plans. I might just stay here and be lazy.