Venetia stiffened. ‘What man?’
‘Come on, Venetia, don’t give me that,’ the redhead scoffed. ‘The man you’ve just danced with. We saw him the other day crossing Piazza San Marco at sunset. At the time, I even commented on your strange behaviour, if you remember. Al tuo confessore, medico, avvocato, e amica Francesca, non tener il ver celato, “To your confessor, doctor, lawyer – and your friend Francesca – do not hide the truth,” we say in Italy.’
‘I don’t recall that,’ she answered in a somewhat stilted voice. She did not wish to be pushed into discussing Paolo, afraid of what she might be forced to admit – either to Francesca or to herself.
‘Look here, Venetia, if you don’t want to tell me about it, that’s fine with me, but don’t take me for an idiot. I’ve known you too long, and anyhow, I’m not blind. He was there at the exhibition today, devouring you with those fabulous blue eyes, and he left when he saw you were otherwise engaged with il Conte.’
Venetia sighed. Clearly, Francesca was not going to let go of this. ‘Fine, I’ll tell you some other time. This is neither the time nor the place. Anyhow, I’m tired now and I’m going home.’ She got hold of her clutch bag and was about to get up but her friend placed a hand on her arm.
‘Won’t you wait for the others? We’ve got the office launch and we’ll drop you off. It won’t be long now.’
Venetia paused and looked towards the dance floor where most of her party was now rocking to the psychedelic rhythm of Madonna’s ‘Beautiful Stranger’.
‘No, look, they’re all still dancing. You’ll be here until dawn, I’ll bet. I need to get a good night’s sleep because I’d like to go to Torcello tomorrow. I want to examine those mosaics again.’
Francesca eyed her friend with concern. ‘You should rest. You’ve had a heavy week, and after tonight we’ll have work pouring into the office.’
Venetia pulled a face. ‘Not if Count Umberto has anything to do with it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I told him off,’ she chuckled.
Francesca’s green eyes widened incredulously. ‘You didn’t!’
‘Yes, I did. But that’s another story which will have to wait.’
‘Won’t you just give me a taster?’
‘He was harassing me about his proposal and I told him where to get off.’
Francesca nudged her and raised her eyebrows. ‘You’re mad not to accept his proposal, you know. Half the women of Venice would sell their soul to il Conte Umberto Palermi di Orellana.’
‘Well, I’m not Venetian, I’m English,’ she retorted.
Francesca laughed. ‘But you’re living in Italy, and if I remember rightly, you said not so long ago that you would never go back to living in England.’
‘True. I love Italy and its people, but I find the machismo of the men here unbearable, and the Count is certainly no exception. And now I really must go or I’ll be unable to get up in the morning.’
‘Then spend the day in bed!’ Francesca rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the hurry? Torcello will still be there in a couple of weeks, after you’ve had some rest. You need to relax, Venetia. You’ve been living on your nerves ever since Giovanna decided to have this exhibition.’
‘Look, it’ll be a relaxation getting away to Torcello, I promise you. The island at this time of year is almost deserted and the weather forecast for tomorrow is good too. I might not get another chance before the end of March, and after that it’ll be Easter and the tourist season will have begun.’
Francesca shook her head. ‘What shall I say? Si pu solo portare un cavallo all’acqua ma non puoi costringerlo a bere, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.’
Venetia flicked her friend a teasing little smile. ‘Ha, ha! Very funny! And now I really must go,’ she said as she kissed Francesca affectionately, got up, waved at Fabrizio who was sitting at the bar, and left.
She picked up a water-taxi from outside Hotel Cipriani a few buildings down. As the boat descended into Byzantine shadows, winding through canal after canal in silence, Venetia’s mind turned to Paolo with ambivalent thoughts. He was even trying to break into her daydreams. She still loved her own world, the world where she must be alone, where no one could touch her and where she was touched by nothing. And yet she could not deny it, that man with his quiet, searching eyes, his rather sweet and yet pushy manner – that man had struck a chord in her heart, which had been closed for almost a decade.
She stared into the darkness outside and gave a quivering smile as she recalled the way Paolo’s strong arms had slid around her languid body… arms she had not resisted but had welcomed. It had come so naturally, as though their bodies had found each other and were dissolving in the opiate sexual tension that sighed and throbbed between them.
Venetia closed her eyes as her old fears raised their ominous heads. Danger! her subconscious shrieked at her. The thought of more disillusionment was terrifying. She resolved that even though her body tonight might have developed a mind of its own, there would be no encores. She must be ruthless and stamp on these feelings, the potency of which she had long forgotten. Relationships brought with them risk, pain and humiliation. Besides, Paolo wasn’t a free man. Venetia’s heart twisted as she recalled the young woman at the restaurant: whether she was his wife or his mistress, or even a mere girlfriend, clearly there was no place for Venetia in his life; so it was a situation which, one way or another, was a recipe for disaster.
Judd’s features floated before her. She hadn’t seen him in almost ten years and hadn’t thought of him since she had come to Italy; yet suddenly now he was on her mind. In the last weeks she had caught herself reminiscing, wondering if he ever thought of her, wherever he was. The pain had also come back with his memory – the ache, the bitterness and the anger. Venetia opened her eyes and watched the dark labyrinth of the canals slip by, engulfing her in its tenebrous vortex.
* * *
Paolo sat on the veranda of his bedroom at the Schiaparelli Hotel, a glass of Rémy Martin VSOP resting on the small enamelled table next to him. He stubbed out the sixth cigarette he’d had since he had come back in after his visit to La Scala. Before lighting his seventh, he took a gulp of the potent cognac.
Venetia’s tall, slender, long-limbed silhouette swam in front of him, a mass of golden-brown hair falling in lush ringlets down her shoulders, as it had been when he had initially set eyes on her in the street that first night. He could see her face so clearly: delicately sculpted, with high cheekbones, a mouth that was made to be kissed, and curved eyes a shade lighter than her hair, which betrayed a fiery temperament despite having something disciplined about them.
Paolo was used to women swooning over him, and though he was aware that he did not leave Venetia completely indifferent, she was unlike any other woman he had met. She did not seem to have great experience of men. Though obviously efficient at her job, there was nonetheless something… unworldly… almost pure about her; and yet, paradoxically, he was almost certain she had been hurt by a man. Until he had sat opposite her in the noisy, crowded caffetteria on that gloomy wintry night, the only emotion women had been able to awaken in him was animal lust. But Venetia was different: the gold-flecked eyes fringed with thick lashes that met his scrutiny from time to time strangely mirrored a sadness he recognised all too well.
He recalled the warm pressure of her willowy frame blending so easily into his embrace on the dance floor earlier that night. And those small, delicate hands touching his body… it was intoxicating, and also threatened to breach the dam of his self-control. He had tried so hard to stop his attraction to her from overwhelming him.
What was it about this woman that consumed his imagination? Now, tortured by the memory of her body against his, dragging with it an aura of fantasy, he felt his need for her swell, grow and spiral into an emotion deeply buried in himself: the echo of a dream
long forgotten. But the alarming feeling came and went, a transient illusion slipping away from him now, in the same way that the memory of her features was fading as he felt the bright star consumed by the darkness around it.
He would dream of her tonight, as he had dreamt of her every night since they had met. Those dreams were always tormented, painful – almost nightmares – from which he invariably woke panting and in a sweat, with at best only a vague recollection of the details. But one thing remained clear: Venetia was always at the heart of them. Was she a danger to him somehow, is that what his subconscious was trying to tell him?
Finishing the cognac in his glass, he stood up abruptly. Paolo’s cool blue eyes clouded as they looked into the night. Over the gardens of the hotel in the distance, the ghostly glimmer of the immutable, crumbling Gothic palazzi stood guard on the banks of the canal, all a perfect evocation of a city that would one day sink beneath the sea. There was something repellent about it, much like an exotic, heavily scented flower may repel despite its loveliness. Beyond the wall, the lagoon sang its ageless, silent, interminable song. Paolo stood motionless in the moonlight, an impression of fatality resting upon him. He felt claustrophobic, as if La Serenissima’s old stones were closing around him. Maybe tomorrow he should get out of Venice for the day. He sighed, glancing up at the stars in the inky canopy above him, as though to find answers to his tormented questions; then slowly he turned and went back into his room.
Chapter 3
The sun shone bright and warm. In the clear, still morning there was a velvety quality to the air as the boat to Torcello pushed its way through the dark-blue sea. Venice swayed away southwards, and the quayside and the city became a shadowy blur of vanishing tints. Venetia’s spirits lifted, an excited feeling of anticipation coursing through her. Dressed warmly in jeans, a winter-white cashmere roll-neck jumper, boots and a brown leather jacket, she breathed in deeply, letting the tangy sea air fill her lungs. In doing so she thrust Judd, Paolo, Umberto and everything else that had been niggling at her for days out of her mind.
Murano, with its odd lighthouse built of drums of white marble, was quickly reached. Passengers climbed out, and then the vaporetto was off again. Gliding past the windless wall of the island’s glass factories, they came out into the open lagoon. To the north, hundreds of telephone posts and poles defining the boat channels stuck out of the water, and to the right the ancient cypresses of the tiny Isola del Deserto made a dark-green screen of rich vegetation that seemed somewhat anachronistic in this otherwise stern, industrial environment. Ahead, there was the leaning tower of Burano, while beyond, low on the horizon and scarcely visible, stood the solitary tower of Torcello. The island of Burano was their next stop, with its low-lying gardens, the verges overhanging with broom and tamarisk; but as the station was deserted and Venetia was the only one left on the boat, she signalled to the driver to press on to Torcello.
When they arrived, Venetia got out of the boat and headed for the island’s famous cathedral, Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta, a ten-minute walk from the dock. At last, the smell of clean air and the sight of green grass and trees, she thought as she made her way along the canal, though it was a pity that it was too early for flowers.
The island was deserted, its marshes and sandy wastes of seaboard fringed with stunted pines, their black trunks bent landwards from long battling with winter storms. None of the few residents of the island seemed to be around; everything was wrapped in a profound melancholy silence, which was how she liked it. In this timeless, desolate landscape it was easy to imagine the first settlers in their wooden houses on stilts, fishing the waters and picking out an existence until driven further into the lagoon by Attila the Hun’s barbarians. How incredible it was to think that alongside this struggle for survival had been such an aspiration to create great beauty, and ultimately the building of Venice, she thought.
Passing the lithe fifteenth-century Torcello Bridge, nicknamed ‘Il Ponte del Diavolo’, Venetia smiled to herself; she delighted in Italian folklore. There were many bridges all over Italy labelled The Devil’s Bridge. The name went back to the legend spread throughout the country during the Middle Ages, according to which many bridges were the work of the Devil, who was building them in exchange for souls.
It was not long before she reached the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta. One of the most ancient religious buildings in Italy, it was a seventh-century wonder of Venetian-Byzantine architecture, standing like a solemn witness to the birth of its nation. Venetia loved its stark and strong frame, with its simple campanile of rose-pink brick, so different from the rich and elaborate architecture of the majority of Italian churches. Entering, she was always overcome by its extraordinary sense of quiet and dignity – of peace. Perhaps this was because, denuded of the extravagant embellishments usually seen in Italian religious buildings, it echoed in her mind the relative plainness of the Anglican churches back home.
The Virgin and Child mosaic in the central apse was in a precarious state. She wondered how the experts would tackle it without causing large areas of the timeworn gold tesserae to break away. In the right apsidal chapel there was still some scaffolding erected over the mosaics being restored. Looking upwards through this frame, Venetia could see great-eyed figures of saints and angels peering down at her, with wonderful, alive expressions.
The only mosaic that seemed in reasonable condition was the vivid representation, in blue, white and gold, of the Last Judgement that took up the whole of the west wall, over the entrance. Not for the first time, Venetia marvelled at the intricate attention to detail in the immense tableau: on the right, the wrathful river of flames pouring over the naked, tormented damned, with worm-eaten skulls below; to the left, the faithful being ushered into heavenly paradise by beautiful angels; and the aged figures of Adam and Eve kneeling at the blowing of the last trumpet. She longed to be able to touch their rough, shining surfaces but even if that were possible, her trained eye, despite the distance, could perceive that there were many loose patches, and the mosaicists would have an immense task keeping the picture intact.
‘And so we meet again.’
Venetia caught her breath. She didn’t need to look round to recognise the dark, velvety voice that had just made her jump. She turned to find Paolo standing behind her, an enormous smile lighting up his face and his eyes shining with amused surprise. He looked suitably casual in a pair of blue jeans and a sky-blue jumper over a crisp white shirt. With a Bordeaux polka-dot silk foulard tied around his neck and tucked into the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, he had all the relaxed and natural elegance of a magazine model.
‘Forgive me if I startled you.’
She stared at him, her lips parted on an amazed breath, her pupils dilating. She blinked. What on earth was he doing here? The memory of his arms around her the night before, and his body pressed against hers, flooded her mind, taking away her ability to form any words.
Paolo pointed at the mosaic and crossed his arms. ‘Hell is horrid, Paradise is splendid, there is no sentimentality here, no softening of the blows, wouldn’t you say?’
He continued to look at her directly, clearly enjoying her confusion; but his gaze was also alight with something more, something that was sending warm shivers down Venetia’s spine, and somewhere lower, unexplored.
Her heart was pattering hysterically beneath her breast, but somehow her voice managed to emerge cool. ‘Ah, buongiorno, Signor Barone. What brings you to Torcello?’
Paolo beamed. ‘The same thing that has brought you here on such a fabulous morning, I suppose: the need to get away from Venice and breathe some fresher air… But to come back to the mosaics you were so engrossed in, I’m curious about your opinion. Don’t you agree that it’s a formidable illustration of what may await us after death?’
‘That’s because the incidents of the story are laid in with all the powerful, uncompromising drawing of the period,’ Venetia said, looking up
at the mosaic as she launched herself into a stream of rhetoric to hide the havoc his sudden appearance had created inside her. ‘Though the brilliance of the dramatic vision here is exceptional, and its blend of eastern pre-Islamic artistic traditions with Christian imagery is striking.’
Her pulse was leaping like a mountain stream bounding over rocks, and she hoped he didn’t notice the slight tremolo in her voice. ‘It was the time of the Inquisition and the fight against heretics, a reaction against the other growing religious movements in the world…’ She continued to look up, feeling his eyes still on her. ‘The Church used art as a way of ensuring that faith was absolute and crystallised in people’s mind for the dogma to reign supreme.’
‘You’re very knowledgeable, Venetia – you allow me to call you Venetia?’ He was smiling at her, admiration and a hint of amusement lurking in his eyes.
She ignored both the compliment and the question, and turned to face him, her brows shooting up. ‘Don’t you think that we keep bumping into each other a little too often?’ Her manner was abrupt, almost unfriendly, but he seemed oblivious to it.
His features relaxed into a soft, musing smile. ‘The long arm of Fate, wouldn’t you agree?’
Paolo’s question caught Venetia by surprise. She was intensely conscious of him standing too close beside her, and it made her feel nervous. All the same, she tried to muster her composure. ‘I don’t believe in Fate. One forges one’s own destiny.’
‘I’m afraid that I disagree. I believe there is no flight from Fate. But maybe we could continue this discussion over lunch. It’s almost one o’clock and I know of a small restaurant where they serve the most delicious goh risotto. It’s only frequented by locals, which is usually a good reference.’
‘Thank you, but I’ve brought a sandwich.’
His black brows contracted. ‘Thanks, but goodbye?’ His tone was gently sardonic.
The Echoes of Love Page 7
