2

Venice, at night

Every so often, like sporadic irregular implosions from the seabed or deep in the unconscious, the short muffled notes of a guitar can be heard.

What we see now is like a dream.

A very beautiful dream: a deserted Piazza San Marco under the waters of an acqua alta. The piazza looks huge, its unforgettable porticos and palaces framing the square lake lapping at its columns.

Across the piazza a long, narrow footbridge has been erected to allow people to cross. But for the moment, no-one is using it.

Then, at night, in this city that is mysterious by definition, Fred Ballinger appears in the distance on the narrow footbridge.

Laborious and frail, he is taking short footsteps, like all elderly people.

Fred looks up. At the other end of the footbridge, he can make out the statuesque figure of a woman coming towards him. The two continue to walk towards each other, the only human beings in this unreal and flooded Venice. Now they are coming closer, about to pass each other and, with ill-concealed amazement, Fred focusses on the woman: she is one metre and eighty-five centimetres tall, so impossibly beautiful that she seems artificial, with black hair and green eyes. She is wearing a swimsuit with a sash around her that says MISS UNIVERSE.

She is walking along the footbridge with that solemn unnatural strut that top models employ for fashion shows. But the footbridge is only a metre wide, so both move to one side to allow the other to pass without ending up in the water. Inevitably, they brush against each other, Miss Universe’s robust cleavage touching Fred Ballinger’s meagre pectorals.

He looks at her from the toes up, as if examining something both tragic and benign.

Like all beauty queens, the figure’s frosty gaze is lost in empty space and she ignores the ambiguous, fleeting touch of her perfect body against Fred’s.

Having overcome the risk of an accident, they continue on their way. Seen from behind, Miss Universe goes off swinging her hips under the full moon, surrounded by the mass of water as if in some dubious dream-like advert for Dolce & Gabbana.

Fred continues along the footbridge and starts to feel frightened – and with good reason – because the water level is suddenly rising. It covers the footbridge, swamping his feet, his ankles, his knees.

Fred tries to move more quickly, but he is old and the water pushes at him. He turns round and gives a strangled cry, as if asking Miss Universe for help.

“Melanie! Melanie!”

But Miss Universe is no longer there. She has vanished into thin air.

Fred struggles a little way forward, the water up to his chest, now his neck, his chin, and in his panic gives another strangled cry when, fortunately . . .

3

He wakes and immediately gathers himself together. He struggles to get up from the armchair. It is late. No-one is around except, far off, a knot of night-owl hotel guests.