— Well why don’t you? Christine said. — Laziness feels like the right response to Venice. I can always go and soak up more paintings by myself, play the indefatigable tourist.

— Zachary’ll go with you, he’s indefatigable too.

— I need to get online, Alex said. — I have work to do.

The promised internet connection in the palazzo was a disappointment – or, Christine insisted, a relief. Alex had a deadline for making a grant application; Nathan, who wrote reviews, was sending off copy which was already late. He stayed up writing it after the others went to bed; they heard the furtive clacking of his keyboard, pausing and resuming, forging his opinion, which occasionally he chuckled at audibly, or groaned over. He and Alex had found a grubby and cramped little internet cafe.

— Alex, that’s such a bore for you, said Lydia sympathetically. — Can’t it wait?

— Well, no, actually. There’s a deadline.

— Because of course, Christine said, — Alex always has to be doing something more important than everyone else.

But her comment wasn’t fair, because the grant application really did need to go in: she had reassured him, when they were still in England, that he would be able to submit it from here. She regretted at once, when Alex directed at her a glance of pure dislike, the antagonism she’d unleashed – and the others looked at her in surprise. This was her blunder sometimes, mediating Alex’s difficulty for others when actually they didn’t mind it, or hadn’t even registered it. But she couldn’t take back her words, so she might as well unfurl the whole flag of her resentment. — You’ve noticed how he bestows his presence on us, as if he really ought to be elsewhere, she said, pretending to be teasing. In response Alex was coldly vicious, implacable. — Chris is always trying to enlist me in her latest scheme for enjoyment. I’m never supposed to enjoy myself in my own way.

— But Alex, do you know how to enjoy yourself? You’re always so angry.