A String of Beads

There was a string of blue and silver beads amongst the things my brother sent to me after he cleared out the old family home before it was sold. I didn't recognise it at first, but then the memories came flooding back — it was the necklace she had worn the day we met. After all those years, it was the blue I remembered, standing out against the white of her blouse, matching the blue of her eyes.

I had been in Venice for almost a week at the end of a long and exhausting trek around Europe. Instead of rushing around trying to see all the places tourists were supposed to visit, I was content to stroll from caf¾ to caf¾, sample the coffee, and watch the passing parade. Then, when I decided I was totally lost, I would search for one of the faintly stenciled 'Vaporetto' signs to point me towards the Grand Canal and those small water buses which would take me back to more familiar territory.

She quite literally fell into my arms when she recklessly jumped the widening stretch of water to board a crowded vaporetto as it was pulling out from the wharf. I tried to ask if she was okay in my almost non-existent Italian, but she replied, "I'm sorry, but I don't speak Italian." The accent sounded Scottish. It was, and it went with her long, flaming red hair and clear, fair complexion. It didn't take us long to discover we were staying at the same hotel and arrange to have dinner together. After that, we were never apart — awake or asleep — for the three days that were left of her Venetian visit.

After a passionately tender farewell, I carried her bags to the railway station and saw her safely aboard the train. She said she was going straight back to Scotland after a brief stopover in London. In a few days I would be off to Rome, then back to Australia. We exchanged addresses and promised faithfully to write.

I discovered the necklace on the floor by the bed in my hotel room when I returned from the station. It was well made and looked expensive, not just a piece of cheap junk. Because she said she was unsure how long she would be at the address she gave me, I decided to wait until I began receiving replies to my letters before posting it back to her. I wrote or sent a postcard almost every day for weeks but waited in vain for a reply, until one of my early letters, now with a red ink scrawl of 'No Longer At This Address,' caught up with me months later.

After more than thirty years, two marriages, and four children, I had completely forgotten that I still had that string of beads. The memories it stirred probably explain why I had never wanted to return to Venice. Nothing could ever live up to those three wonderful days and nights.

It seemed a shame to throw out such a beautiful piece, so I wrapped it carefully and put it aside. It would look beautiful on Julie, my blue-eyed daughter. I will lie to her and say that it had belonged to her grandmother.