Deep and Silent Waters

by Charlotte Lamb

  She had brought out a pile of lire with her, having locked her credit cards, cheque book and cash in a cupboard in her room at Ca’ d’Angeli. She was sure she had enough.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, and his olive-skinned face split open in a wide grin.

  ‘Half money now, half when I finish?’

  She slid a hand inside her anorak and pulled out some cash, counted it into his hand and hoped he wouldn’t just run off with it, but he put it away carefully into a bum-bag and gestured at a stool.

  ‘Please. Sit.’

  She sat on the low wooden stool, feeling the chill wind at her back, blowing off the Grand Canal straight from the lagoon. Any second now it would snow – and heavily.

  The art student sat down on another stool, and indicated his palette of colours. ‘Please, choose. What you like?’

  She ran her eyes over the range, chose a delicate mauve, a very pale green, silver and black.

  ‘Is good,’ said the boy, and a second later took her dark glasses off her nose.

  His other hand came up to push back her hood but she grabbed it and held on firmly. ‘No, leave my hood!’

  That surprised him but he didn’t argue: there weren’t many customers around in this weather. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said. ‘Now close your eyes, please. I start with them.’

  She did so obediently and felt the soft hairs of his brush begin to glide over her skin. Laura sighed, enveloped in the strange calm that always descended on her when she was in makeup.

  It was so soothing to have someone touching you, soundlessly, gently, making no demands on you. She always felt at those times that she sank deep inside herself, leaving her mind free to wander. Today she thought about her parents, to whom she had talked before she left for Venice. They had told her that in Northumberland the weather was far worse than it was here, snow making the narrow, winding roads along the Wall impassable, imprisoning the family for days at a time. Yet she wished she was there: she loved the silences, or the sharp wail of the wind through bare thorn trees, the blue, blue sky on really cold days, the frosted white of the fields.

  The art student said, ‘Okay, finished, you look now.’

  He was holding up a mirror in a hand-painted wooden frame. Her eyes were framed now in triangles of silver and black, her forehead and cheeks seethed with mauve and green wavy lines, with dots of black here and there, the design continuing down to her chin.

  ‘Terrific!’ she said, then grasped for her few words of Italian. ‘Bella, molta bella, grazie tante.’

  He beamed. ‘You like?’

  ‘I like.’ She got up and hunted in her pocket for more of her Italian banknotes. She gave him a tip on top of the rest of the agreed fee, and he thanked her eagerly, delighted.

  ‘Ciao!’ she said, flipping her fingers at him.

  ‘See you, baby,’ he said, in an exaggerated American drawl.

  Laughing, Laura walked away, following the side canal, watching the first drifting flakes of snow falling, melting on the surface of the dark, oily water. Lights from windows high up in blank, brick walls were reflected there, too, shimmering, rippling, dissolving, never still, always changing, while up above in the late-afternoon sky a faint wraith of the sun gleamed between those heavy clouds. There were very few people about. No doubt they were all in St Mark’s Square, listening to music she could vaguely hear.

  The winter wind blew across squares, made flagpoles rattle on hotels, tumbled Coke cans across the stone pavements, set up eddies of dust and paper in doorways, down narrow alleys. As she turned a corner she heard whispers in the dark, laughter from open windows, balconies. Someone was singing in a gondola on the Grand Canal: the sound echoed from stone walls and up from the secret depths of the water.

  It was a longer walk than she had realised: she was getting tired and cold. She would have gone back but she had forgotten the way. Every time she turned a corner she hoped to see St Mark’s, but she never did. She was lost.

  It reminded her of a disturbing dream she sometimes had, in which she was always lost, afraid, running without ever finding whatever she was looking for.

  A second later, someone came out of an alley. Laura was confronted by a white-painted face, cut in half by a black mask over the eyes, hair hidden under a black tricorn hat. The figure was ambivalent too: a swirling black coat hung to the feet hiding gender, shape, age.

  Nervously Laura forced a smile. ‘Buona sera.’

  The eyes glittering through the holes in the mask showed no reaction.

  Not Italian? There were a lot of Americans in Venice at the moment.

  ‘Hi,’ she offered instead. ‘Excuse me, but could you tell me the way to St Mark’s? Silly, I know – but I seem to be totally lost.’

  Below the scalloped line of the mask a red-painted mouth curled in a smile.

  From under the cloak a hand emerged, holding something Laura recognised a second too late. The knife flashed down.

  Chapter Ten

  When Sebastian walked into Florian’s café in St Mark’s Square there was no sign of the crew. They had asked for a chance to do some shopping before meeting up and he had expected to find them scattered like confetti all over the square, but he hadn’t spotted them among the crowds in the dusk, hair deckled with snow, faces ruddy with cold. Where was Sidney? Valerie? They should be here by now – he was late himself.

  The snow wasn’t deterring tourists any more than they had been driven off by the rising tide. Duckboards criss-crossed the square; people trod along them, the wise ones wearing boots, children sloshing through the puddles, shrieking and giggling.

  A green tarpaulin-draped stage had appeared: there would be concerts every night during carnival week, rock bands blasting away, the crowds dancing, and sometimes classical music with audiences seated in rows as in a concert hall, or sheltering under umbrellas if the rain came down.

  Thank God he wasn’t staying in one of the nearby hotels; the noise would be hideous. Most of the students here would sleep by day and party by night, so it wouldn’t bother them.

  ‘Signore?’ A waiter had materialised beside him.

  ‘Un bicchiere … vino rosso.’ This was red-wine weather; Venetians would say it warmed your blood.

  He hadn’t been specific enough for the waiter, who suggested, ‘Valpolicella? Bardolino?’

  ‘Bardolino, si.’ Sebastian always enjoyed the local Veneto dry red, on its own or with food, especially fegato alla Veneziana, thin strips of liver fried with onions in a wine sauce. A flash of memory brought a picture of himself sitting at the kitchen table in his childhood home, his mother cooking liver in a large, black pan, the smell of wine and onions, the red blood oozing from the thinly sliced offal, his mother’s creamy skin as she stirred the sauce, her cheeks pink from the heat against the fire of her hair.

  The waiter still hovered. ‘Cichetti?’

  Sebastian came back to the present. ‘No, I won’t have a snack just now.’

  But the waiter brought him a saucer of pistachio nuts, anyway. He would pay for them, of course, they weren’t free, but he accepted them. He sipped his wine and lost himself in the cloudy mirrors lining the café. He loved their blistered, quicksilver surfaces. They no longer reflected truly, the light too diffuse to give back an unbroken image. Instead it flickered with movement, part of a face here, a hand there, as if you were looking into a world you could not see clearly, perhaps peering back at the past.

  His mother had brought him here sometimes. He could almost believe he saw himself, and her, in the mirrors – he tousle-haired, just at the level of the tables, big-eyed, taking in everything around him but even more aware of his beautiful mother, her gorgeous clouds of red hair and those entrancing eyes, her generous smile. Men at other tables tried to catch her eye – even as a young child Sebastian had been aware of the attention she attracted, and of her amused, sidelong glances, acknowledging men’s interest. She had enjoyed male attention, just as Clea had.

  Once, on a hot summer day, he had been ea
ting vanilla ice-cream with chocolate wafers, resenting the way men stared at his mother. He had looked up and seen the crowds outside, floating like coloured clouds in the mirrors behind the reflection of him and his mother.

  Could he use that image in the film? A scene was set in Florian’s at the end of the Second World War … His mind quickened. A double image – yes, first the German soldiers going by, in the mirrors, not goose-stepping or carrying rifles, but off-duty, laughing, whistling at local girls, a fade, then American or English soldiers. Not original, okay, a pretty standard switch, but it would save time, time he needed to save: he had so much to cram into this film. He’d talk to Sidney about it. The book contained quite a long passage about Venice, just after the war. When Sebastian had read it he had imagined much of it happening in Ca’ d’Angeli, although the palazzo was given another name.

  Canfield had been a private man, reluctant to talk to either the press or the literary beavers burrowing away in his work. If he had visited Ca’ d’Angeli the Contessa would know, thought Sebastian. He must talk to her. He had been putting it off because he disliked her so much, and knew that this was mutual.

  For months now Sebastian had been digging inside himself to find the essence of the film, not quite sure in places what Canfield had intended. He couldn’t switch off, day or night, had to keep focusing on the film; it was exhausting, but necessary. It was the only way he knew to make a film work. He had to give it everything, couldn’t spare time or attention for anything else.

  Making love to Laura just now had been a brief respite from that intense absorption. For a little while he had broken free, back to the real world, to sensuality, human contact; touching her warm breasts, her smooth thighs, poised to plunge into her, desperate to reach that little death, which came at the height of pleasure.

  And then she had shattered the moment. Had she really seen eyes watching them from the ceiling?

  With any other actor he would have thought nothing of it – they took drugs like kids eat popcorn. But he’d have bet his life on it that Laura wasn’t into that scene. He hated drugs because you lost your mind, became a stranger to yourself. Oh, he’d tried them, when he was younger, tried everything during those years with Clea – until he grew out of it, hating himself for ever having been such a fool. But Clea had had good reasons for wanting to lose her mind, her memory, herself.

  When he first met Laura he had known she was a virgin; she was as shy as a fawn, trembled when he spoke to her, even though her eyes and mouth had told him she was aware of him: his desire for her was mirrored in her face. He had burned to touch her, but held off all those weeks while they shot the film, because he loved knowing that she was untouched. He wanted her innocence like shot silk in every scene.

  Clea hadn’t been so lucky, or so sensible, however you liked to look at it. She’d been used, abused, passed around like a joint at Hollywood parties. The whole world knew the famous story of the party to which she had gone naked, except for a fabulously valuable black mink wrap, to save the men the trouble of undressing her.

  ‘I’m your birthday present,’ she told her host, pivoting on one toe. ‘No need for a bed. Just lay me down on the the floor.’

  By the time she arrived the guests had been stoned or drunk. They had stood in a circle, clapping and shouting encouragement, as their host had pushed her down on to the marble floor, spread the mink as a mattress, and fucked her while she screamed with laughter until she went into wild, convulsive orgasm, excited by the audience as much as by the sex itself. Clea had always loved to be watched, whatever she was doing.

  He closed his eyes, pushing away the image. She was dead. Gone. For ever. But he couldn’t forget her. He tried hard enough, God knew, but nobody would let him. The media brought up her name every time he was mentioned. Clea, Clea, Clea. He was sick of having it all dragged up, sick of the guesswork, the hints and implications, the guilt trip laid on him without any of them knowing what had really happened the day she fell.

  No, no, no.

  He could almost hear her scream the words again, as she tumbled like a dying bird, down through the bright air to the hard, unrelenting earth.

  Had Laura felt that Clea was up there, looking down at them?

  He felt a stir in the café and opened his eyes. Customers at other tables were staring out of the misty windows into the square because people were running past, shouting, pointing, away from the canal, to the far end of the square. Sebastian craned his neck.

  Laura! he thought. Someone must have recognised her. Hadn’t he told her not to walk here, all alone, from Ca’ d’Angeli? Didn’t she know the Venetian papers had been full of the fact that she was going to star in The Lily? As the book was set largely in Venice everyone here was fascinated by the filming of it. Her picture had dominated the front pages ever since the first of the film crew arrived.

  Leaping to his feet he dropped some money on the table and hurried out, only to walk straight into Sidney, who clutched his arm and blurted out, ‘Laura – she’s been—’ He was breathing hard as if he had been running and, for a second or two, couldn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘What? What?’ Sebastian demanded. ‘Where is she? What’s happened?’

  ‘St-st-stabbed,’ Sidney got out, and another fleeting image of Clea falling, screaming, flew into Sebastian’s mind. Of his mother dying in the misty waters of the Grand Canal.

  He was suddenly icy cold. I’m cursed, he thought. Everyone I ever love dies suddenly, violently.

  ‘Is she—’ Dead, he thought. She’s dead. She has to be.

  Sidney was almost in tears. ‘God, Sebastian, there’s blood everywhere, poor girl. Why would anyone do that to her?’

  Sebastian began to run through the hazily lit square, following everyone else. Sidney followed him, his breathing shot to pieces.

  ‘Turn – l-left, down the alley – as if you’re going to San Moise, that church – amazing gargoyle of a place,’ he panted.

  ‘You’ll have a heart attack if you keep talking and running at the same time,’ Sebastian yelled, over his shoulder. ‘Stop for a minute, get your breath back.’

  A second later, he saw the crowd, huddled together, like sheep, not knowing what to do.

  A couple of Carabinieri were pushing back the crowds. He heard their raised voices. ‘Prego … prego, signori … Non spingete … Passare avanti, signori …’

  The chugging of an engine made the crowd stir, then comment noisily, ‘They’re coming … the ambulance …’

  It was in sight on the back canal: faded cream paint, a sandy brown stripe along the side, the ambulancemen in their orange jackets at the wheel.

  Sebastian put on speed to get to Laura before the ambulance did.

  The Carabinieri moved to push him back, then recognised him, permitted him to go through, to kneel down beside Laura’s body.

  He gasped when he saw her face. ‘What the hell is that?’ It hadn’t been painted silver, mauve, green and black when he left her in Ca’ d’Angeli – how long ago? Half an hour? Three-quarters?

  The zigzags of colour made her look like an alien, a beautiful, strange creature from another planet – if he had passed her on the street he might not have known her. Her eyes were shut, the lids pale green, her breath coming through lips so colourless they were almost white under the sheen of silver covering them, except for spots of blood where she had bitten down and torn her flesh.

  Sebastian drew a short, choked breath.

  Look at all that blood. Sidney had said there was blood everywhere and he was spot on. Sebastian thought, as he had the day Clea fell to her death, that blood was redder than you expected it to be. Such a bright colour, puddled here like spilt wine, on the broken paving stones, on her clothes, her face, her neck. There was blood everywhere.

  Was she dying, right here, in front of him?

  He groaned, and at the sound her eyes opened wide, fiercely green in the light of the street-lamp. They had the glare of a wild cat’s eyes when it scents d
anger.

  ‘You’re alive …’ He couldn’t believe it. His eyelids felt hot and as if they were full of sand. He bent closer, put out a hand to stroke her cheek.

  She shrank away, and he read fear in those glowing eyes.

  The Carabinieri saw it, too. One of them took his shoulder and pulled him to his feet just as the ambulance boat tied up and the men on board leapt out.

  ‘Dr Garrieri? They didn’t say you were here. That was lucky. How bad is she?’ Someone asked a grey-haired man in a camel-hair coat.

  Sebastian strained to hear the reply but the doctor lowered his voice, conscious of the listening crowds.

  A stretcher had been set up, the two ambulancemen lifted Laura gently on to it and covered her with warm red blankets. Then, each took one end of the stretcher and carried it to the boat swaying on the water.

  ‘I want to go with her.’ Sebastian tried to free himself but the policeman’s grip tightened.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, Signore. No.’

  The other policeman was using a walkie-talkie, his head turned away so that Sebastian couldn’t hear what he was saying. When he had finished, he turned back and said politely, ‘We would like you to come to the station with us, Signor Ferrese. There are some questions we need to ask.’

  Sebastian saw in their eyes that they wouldn’t let him refuse. He saw, too, that they thought he had done it. They’d seen her fear and drawn their own conclusions.

  His mouth twisted. Of course, they would start by suspecting him. He had been here before. Here we go again. The same old merry-go-round. Questions, answers not believed, long, frozen silences, more questions, more disbelief. Guilty, even if they can’t prove it.

  Sidney had arrived, still panting, his face red from the exertion. ‘Is she … How is she? Did she say anything? Tell you who did it?’

  ‘Go with her in the ambulance,’ Sebastian curtly told him. ‘You know my mobile number. Ring me at once if – if anything happens.’

  The story led the late news on television that night. Nico saw it in his studio where he was working on a clay model with blown-up photos of Laura propped in front of him. He rarely watched TV, but tonight he had switched on just in time for the news. He missed the first few words, but caught the end of the sentence.