The Golden Locket (Unbreakable Trilogy, Book 2)

by Primula Bond

  I quicken my pace past the mostly closed pizzerias with metal chairs piled up against the doors. In the summer this fondamenta would be buzzing with colour and voices, the hot smells of tomato and basil, of hot sugar and dripping raspberry gelati. I take a picture of a restaurant door hung with a red and white ribboned curtain to keep out the flies in the summer – and what, or who, in the winter? The garish over-tinted photographs of the pizzas and sweets offered within could not be less appetising if they tried.

  I walk over a bridge, my feet vaguely directing me towards the Rialto area and then home. Although I’m loving being back here, breathing the old, cold, slightly dank air, although I like to think of my feet making their own faint permanent print on these ancient stones, I miss Manhattan. In the month or so that I’ve been there, I’ve got used to being a city girl, used to being up high looking down, pushing my way along the busy sidewalks, being buffeted by the wind that slices round the corners and whistles up and down those ruled, reined-in streets.

  And I’ve got used to coming home to Gustav every night. Watching his face melt from its accustomed wariness when he sees that it’s me who’s come back to him.

  How cold that face was, refusing even to look at me when he walked out of the apartment.

  Now I’ve come to a halt and I’m sitting on an old well in the middle of a pink- and apricot-painted campo, eating ciabatta stuffed with avocado and Bel Paese cheese. And then I hear them. The bells. All over the city the churches start tolling their bells. Always reminiscent of Italy, even if I hear one tolling in England. The Italian bells have a richer tone. Deeper, holier, somehow. Maybe this is something to do with the Carnevale.

  I must be right under a bell tower, because the curls inside my ears and even my bones seem to be ringing. I glance around me. I can’t see any church here. The campo is a tiny square of quiet, shuttered houses, paved now, once green and planted. The only movement is coming from the inquisitive pecking of pigeons at my ciabatta crumbs, but in the far corner is an alleyway. I glance up above it, and a block or two away there’s a bell tower with a massive iron cross on top.

  I know that tower. That cross. The sound of that bell. I scurry down the pitch-dark alleyway, a sottoportego, which is more of a tunnel with a very low ceiling, bowed from the building above.

  My heart jumps about in my chest as I venture down this tunnel now.

  Yet again I think about Gustav. What he’s doing. Who he’s talking to. What expression would have been on his face when he returned to the empty apartment after his angry exit, maybe ready to say sorry to me, instead finding not me but my abandoned iPad lying on the sofa with his ex-wife dominating the screen.

  Yet again, thank God for the Weinmeyers. When I left the apartment I headed straight across Central Park like a homing pigeon. I was half-expecting to run into Gustav in the park, actually, but his long legs had taken him far away from me by then. So when I got to their mansion I told them that something had gone very wrong between me and Gustav, a terrible misunderstanding about his brother, and I begged them to get me on the first plane out to Venice. They invited me to stay the night while they organised the flight, astonishingly laid not one finger on me (other than a very long, very scented hug from Mrs Weinmyer), and the next day they had their driver take me to the airport and out of New York.

  There’s no barrier at the other end of the alley so that I nearly slide over the slimy stretch of paving and straight into the khaki waters of an unexpected canal. A few feet along to my left is a dead end, barred only by a little stone bridge with no balustrade. This is where I first saw that little nun, Sister Perpetua, on that boiling summer night. This is where I tried to ask her for directions, and she saw me, and her hands flew up in fright as if I had startled a rabbit from its nest. She ran away, and I followed her.

  I run my hand along the crumbling walls as I try to retrace those steps. They say you will find your way out of a maze if you keep your right hand on the topiary at all times, but only a skein of thread would work in this labyrinth. I have a really strong, desperate urge to find that convent again. The photographs I took here last summer were the bulk of my first exhibition, and the images of those nuns whipping themselves in penance in their lonely cells helped to launch me as the voyeur photographer. Maybe this time I should get permission to come in and take some photographs, rather than skulking round the staircases and corridors like a thief in the night.

  I pause as I come to a crossroads. I can’t remember which way to go.

  A bell chimes softly but it seems further away now. I start walking again, fumble my way along the wall, looking for the little gate that the nun led me through that other time. I’m certain I can even smell the sharp prick of lemon from the little trees that stood about in the hidden courtyard.

  But the convent has gone. Perhaps it was never there. My fingers run along the length of the wall without finding any lemon tree, nor any gate.

  ‘You don’t understand. The silver chain joins us. It’s physical, as if it’s right here, tugging me back to him.’ I stop and bend over, clutching my stomach. I jab my finger at the exact spot in my navel.

  Crystal regards me wordlessly for a moment, holds up the leaflet as if she’s about to deliver a lecture and studies the map the hotel receptionist gave her this morning. Then she stops on the little bridge and points across to the next one. ‘This is it. Campo San Barnaba. And see, at the base of that bridge is the costume shop where according to this information we will find the ball dress of your dreams.’

  I shake my arm from her digging fingers. ‘I’m not in the mood for a ball.’

  ‘You want to cancel your commissions? Lose the most influential clients you’re ever likely to have?’

  Crystal glides on down the bridge, glancing at the oversized vegetables heaped on the hefty barge moored there and surrounded by equally hefty housewives. Amongst the shapeless coats and head scarves she looks as if she’s just landed in a spaceship. Tall, skinny and wearing enormous sunglasses, she’s also wearing a dark-purple jumpsuit that suits her frame perfectly, topped with a boxy mahogany fake-fur jacket. She’s given up the struggle of persuading me to look suitably businesslike so I’m wearing my favourite dark-green leather jacket and indigo jeans.

  She pauses halfway along the fondamenta running between the two bridges. ‘We have to get your gown for the ball and I want to surprise the Weinmeyers with something sensational.’

  I let her walk on ahead of me. I glance down and notice two stone footprints. I’m standing on the Ponte dei Pugni, the bridge of fists. This was one of the official spots where warring factions were directed to meet and fight, placing their feet in the demarcated spots before throwing each other into the canal.

  I allow myself a tight grimace. I would love to throw someone off this bridge. Since my solitary walk yesterday my sorrow seems to have turned into the restless anger I haven’t felt since I was an adolescent in Devon with no horizon but the view from the cliffs. I’m cut adrift in this confusing city, which is what I wanted. But how can you be free on the one hand and yearn to be securely rooted on the other?

  Crystal is gesticulating at me. I raise my camera and take a picture of her. In the shop window behind her a jumbled display of scary faces crowds forwards, the visages sporting various expressions ranging from mirthless hilarity to fathomless doom. The reflection of the grey sky with its desultory smattering of clouds muddles the glass, making the faces look as if they are grinning and winking with a life of their own.

  Crystal waits, because she knows that I will come to her. Her mouth is a thin line stained the same purple as her jumpsuit, as if she’s been eating crushed blackberries. Her button eyes are hidden by the shades. But she reaches out her leather glove and gives my thick plait of hair a sharp tug before we turn towards the shop.

  A little bell on the door jingles as we enter, setting the bevy of masks dancing manically on their ribbons, eyeless faces lunging at us, long-nosed ones pecking at our shoulders like birds.
Crystal runs her hand along a rail of heavy brocade dresses with square lace-trimmed Marie Antoinette necklines.

  I take a few steps further into the dark shop where the costumes seem to loom out of the shadows as if inhabited by long-dead bodies. Crystal is busy trying to lift a very heavy powdered wig off a polystyrene head.

  A small woman dressed in a flowing gold kaftan and matching turban appears from the back of the shop and spreads her hands in welcome. Crystal raises one finger to keep the woman waiting, and comes back to me.

  ‘Your mission is to be the belle of the Weinmeyers’ ball, Serena. Take the photographs, fulfil your commission, then you can go back to New York, or London, or wherever you want to go. Until then you remain ambassador for the Levi/Folkes brand whether you like it or not.’

  Crystal picks up a huge Japanese fan decorated with a picture of Mount Fuji painted in black brush-strokes. She flicks it open, sending a spray of silk poppies adorning a particularly enormous headdress bouncing and nodding. When I don’t respond, she tweaks my beret.

  ‘I might stay here.’ I sit heavily on a vast carved chair that the woman in the kaftan has just vacated. ‘Just go and choose whatever you think is suitable.’

  Crystal pats me on the cheek, and the lady beckons us to enter an Aladdin’s cave of Venetian costumes and jewellery. As soon as we enter I am reminded of Pierre’s theatre, the dancers, the music, the burlesque dance. What a perfect source this would be for his costume business. I remember Polly declaring her discoveries about the business and the apartment he lived in, as if they proved he was a fraud, but he’d already told me and Gustav that his London business was failing and he’d told me that he didn’t own the theatre in Manhattan and was still living in Margot’s flat. He’s a loudmouth costume supplier with delusions of grandeur but with undeniable talent as a designer. There was no faking the respect he commanded from everyone in that theatre. Just like a Levi. But what will bring him down in the end is that he’s a liar, and what liars do is compound their lies and make everyone else think they are going mad, and what everyone else should do is step away.

  I came so close to liking him when we talked in the Gramercy Bar about the scars we both carry. But no sooner do you warm to him then the next lie pops up, this time on my iPad. Margot was in the theatre. I didn’t imagine it.

  Oh, why did I run off like that? Half of me wants to confront Pierre, demand answers, warn Gustav that he is not to be trusted. The other half wants to drag Gustav away so that neither of us ever sees or hears from Pierre Levi ever again.

  Crystal and the lady pull me inside the changing rooms. The lady makes a beeline for an outfit already laid out and I stand there like a dummy while the two women fuss and flutter.

  ‘Why was kaftan lady so insistent that I wear this costume? Why did she go on and on about having to wear exactly five feathers in my hair?’ I remark as, an hour later, we emerge with a grand dress complete with wig, headdress, cloak and mask, all sealed inside a kind of bodybag. ‘How did she even know I was coming?’

  ‘I get the impression someone might take a back-hander for directing visitors to her select little shop. Who knows? There’s probably some significance in five feathers, too. A secret emblem so you can be recognised amongst the masks? Anyway, we’ll have fun making you up as the Principessa Serena. But now we’re going to cross the Grand Canal like true Venetians.’

  Crystal hooks my spoils carefully over her arm as we find our way via a cicchetti bar where we stand and eat fried calamari, tuna balls and slices of eggplant and mozzarella. A curious calm comes over me as I let her order my food. We each down a couple of shots of sambuca, then Crystal leads me on, lecturing me calmly on the surrounding architecture, churches and scuole until we reach the nearest traghetto stop. To our left is the soaring hump of the Rialto Bridge with its market and infinite river of sightseers. To our right the wide canal curves towards the brighter light of the lagoon, lined with the pink and white palazzi with their Gothic arched windows, fluttering now with bunting and flags.

  ‘Think of all the lovers who have lived here,’ Crystal remarks as we stand on the scooped-out gondola and the ferrymen row us silently to the other side. ‘Casanova, who had two sisters on the go at once, both nuns. His favourite he called elle-même. One of Lord Byron’s mistresses threw herself out of a window just like the ones overlooking us now. Georges Sand stayed in your very room at the Hotel Danieli, you know. I think her lover was sick and she went off with the handsome young doctor who came to tend to him.’

  ‘I can’t be without Gustav, Crys.’ I drag my feet as she stalks through the streets as if she was born here. ‘I need to speak to him.’

  ‘Have patience. And dignity.’ She slaps my arm. ‘If he wants you, he’ll come to you.’

  The city snaps into electric light as dusk falls. Lamps in windows, fairy lights round colonnades, dazzling arc lights rigged up beside loudspeakers pumping disco, jazz or rock from the corners of the busier streets and squares as the city revs up for tonight’s festivities.

  ‘Well, you know what they say. If you can’t be with the one you love,’ I remark glumly, ready to be sucked into the hustle of Piazza San Marco.

  Crystal blows me a playful kiss.

  ‘Love the one you’re with.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It’s dark now, or at least as dark as a city can get when it’s alight with flame and music.

  I turn on my narrow embroidered kitten heels to wave at Crystal as the hotel taxi backs away from the quay to drop its other guests at their own parties, but already she’s been swallowed up by the traffic on the canal. I hoped she was coming with me to this ball, but she has dressed me, bewigged me, made me up and perfumed me, and now she’s abandoned me.

  She’s also been tanking me up with some very strong gin-based cocktails while transforming me from ragamuffin to royalty in a silk brocade ball gown in the same emerald green as my eyes and set off by the five peacock plumes pinned to my powdered pompadour wig. The plunging neckline squeezes my breasts and pushes them to bulge over the bodice. My three-quarter-length sleeves are trimmed with creamy lace and a pair of emerald satin gloves cover my little bracelet. The only other jewellery is the golden locket, nestling at the base of my throat, another permanent reminder of Gustav, and some amazing dangling green glass earrings that Mrs Weinmeyer gave me earlier, insisting that I wear them tonight.

  Over the ensemble Crystal has tied a green velvet hooded cloak, which is sewn onto the back of my dress like a weight to stop me floating to the surface.

  ‘Cinderella,’ Crystal murmured earlier in the water taxi as it joined the flotilla of other boats, gondolas and vaporetti taking guests all over the city. ‘Just make sure you don’t lose your glass slipper.’

  ‘Sans Prince Charming,’ I mumbled. The taxi thrust its gears into reverse as we came alongside the Palazzo Weinmeyer’s private jetty furnished with a golden canopy and carpeted in rich matching gold, lit by beacons the height of grown men, throwing flames into the air. Footmen stood to attention in golden frogged tailcoats and breeches.

  ‘These Weinmeyers sure know how to go to town!’ I whispered, glancing round at all the gilded accoutrements. ‘They have a Midas complex.’

  ‘Or Goldfinger,’ Crystal whispered back.

  ‘So am I the only person who isn’t painted like an Oscar statuette?’

  ‘No. There will be every colour of the rainbow in there. Now, before you enter the ball like a conquering heroine, hold still. I need to take a picture of you before you are ravaged by the festivities.’

  The other guests on the boat, a motley mixture of devils and angels, virgins and executioners, had all stopped talking and were nodding and smiling at me.

  ‘Hold your mask by the edge here. Hide the ribbon for a moment,’ she urged as she held the phone up and illuminated me with the flash. ‘And look as if you own the place.’

  Now she’s gone, taking the phone with her. Glowing away inside that phone’s memory is a vision
in emerald green glittering with gold sequins, my mask half lowered like a yashmak so that it covers my mouth, my eyes wide and staring and sparkling with heavy make-up and unshed tears. Behind me looms the superb rose-ochre backdrop of the Palazzo Weinmeyer draped in gold flags, the striped mooring posts standing proud in the water, and a seething blur of humanity parading along the corniche above the landing stage.

  What would Gustav think if he could see me now? What if he could see me through his telescope, far away in Europe? Is he worrying about me, what I’m doing, who I’m with? Or is that why he’s sent Crystal to watch over me? Is he regretting turning on me like that? Is he subsiding onto his favourite suede sofa in front of the window overlooking Central Park, remembering the feel of my lips on his, my mouth sliding down his chest, over his stomach, curling my tongue around him to pull him into my mouth? Will his hand go down to take hold of the hardness growing there, and will he wish that I was there, ready for him to come inside?

  ‘Welcome to Palazzo Weinmeyer!’

  A matching pair of animated gold statues take my invitation and escort me into the marbled hallway and up a wide flight of stone stairs flanked by more flaming beacons throwing elongated and exaggerated shadows onto the gloomy oil paintings. I am ushered through an arch into a ballroom on the piano nobile which I wasn’t shown when I came here for dinner. The room extends along the entire width of the building, the Gothic-arched windows framing views of the Grand Canal crammed with flotillas of water craft bearing revellers.