Irresistible You

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘Elena?’

  Elena froze for a vital, stupid moment and then darted, like an arrow from a bow, to the ladies. The mask! She had to get the mask on. There was nobody in the ladies and she reached for the mask and tied it on. She couldn’t take a chance on becoming trapped in the cubicle - invisible or not. She had to risk it here.

  ‘Elena?’ Prof’s voice was outside the door.

  Her heart drummed madly as she tied the black ribbons around her head with shaking fingers and waited for the tingling to begin. She counted silently to herself as the warmth flooded her body and she watched in astonishment as her solid self began to fade away.

  ‘El? Are you in there? Open up? It’s me - Prof!’

  Elena bit her lip. Just a few more seconds.

  ‘If you’re not coming out then I’m coming in,’ he said in a sing-song sort of way as if she might be playing games with him.

  Elena screamed silently. There was still the faintest outline of her body - like a strange mirage.

  ‘Okay,’ Prof yelled from outside and, sure enough, the door opened and he was there, staring right at her - through her.

  The mask had worked its magic but she didn’t know what to do next.

  ‘Elena? Are you in here?’ Prof’s expression was one of extreme puzzlement, like the one he wore when doing The Times crossword. ‘I know you’re in here,’ he said but he didn’t sound at all sure of himself as he approached the cubicle door. ‘El?’

  Of course, there was nobody there and he frowned at his mistake as he stood right next to her. Elena didn’t dare breathe in case he heard her, and she didn’t dare move in case he became aware of her presence. They stood, inches apart, only a tiny channel of air separating them. She could see the pores of his skin and the tiniest of shaving cuts. She could smell the deep sandalwood of his aftershave and, if she stretched out a finger, she’d feel the wild scratchiness of his tweed jacket.

  Her dearest Prof had come all this way to see her but he didn’t know where she was staying. How did he propose to find her, she wondered? Was he just going to wander around Venice in the hope of running into her? But wasn’t that exactly what had happened?

  Elena wondered what had made him stay at the Danieli. She knew he had plenty of money tucked away but to spend so much in the hope of finding her was rather silly. And what was he to think now? Would he believe the evidence of his own eyes? Or would he think he’d merely imagined seeing her?

  Elena watched as he sighed and shook his head just as a woman entered the room, unleashing a torrent of Italian which, luckily, he couldn’t understand but which made Elena smile in intense relief as he backed out of the toilets and disappeared down the hall.

  Chapter 26

  Rosanna was ready to pounce on Elena as soon as she got back to the apartment.

  ‘You’ve missed him,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mark! Who else? You knew he was going to be coming over this evening. Where have you been all this time?’

  ‘He could at least have waited for me,’ Elena said, tired and confused.

  ‘He did - for nearly two hours! But the poor guy got the feeling you were avoiding him.’

  ‘Well, did he say where he was staying?’

  Rosanna shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Then how am I meant to meet up with him?’

  ‘I guess he’ll come here again.’

  Elena sighed. She had three fiancés in Venice who might turn up, unannounced, at any time. This was absolute madness.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Rosanna announced. ‘I’ve had enough of today.’

  Elena mirrored her sister’s yawn and suddenly realised how tired she was. It had been the longest, strangest of days. She felt inside her coat for the mask and brought it out for one last look. Stefano had told her to have fun with it and she’d certainly done that today, but it was also becoming obvious that the mask was a necessary tool for coping with the over-zealous men in her life.

  *

  The Umbrian hills rolled gently into the midday heat haze in pale shades of emerald and amber. The only road visible was a tiny track up to the farmhouse which had been bleached a pale peach by hundreds of years of sunshine.

  Shutters were flung wide open into a garden which rambled over rough ground. Great terracotta pots, stuffed full of herbs, jostled for space on a tiny but perfect terrace complete with wooden chairs and a table on which dishes for lunch were laid. It all looked so glorious, so picture-perfect. Until …

  A dark-haired girl’s head popped out of an upstairs window.

  ‘MAMA!’ she shouted. ‘Mirella’s pulling my hair! MAMA!’

  ‘Now, you just stop that, Mirella! Leave Leda alone,’ Rosanna called.

  ‘It wasn’t me, Mama. It was Chiara!’ Mirella cried.

  ‘Chiara! Get down here.’

  A few minutes later, a tiny doll-like girl appeared on the terrace.

  ‘What do you have to say for yourself, Chiara?’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault. Fabio started it.’

  ‘Where’s Fabio?’

  ‘He’s hiding. He’s had a fight with Fabrizio.’

  Rosanna rolled her eyes. Those twins would be the death of her. As if she didn’t have enough to cope with with the three girls, and another baby due in the autumn.

  ‘Go and get them both - NOW!’

  Her head felt ready to split down the middle with pain. She sat down for a moment, her swollen hand resting on her engorged belly. Judging by the size of her, she wouldn’t be surprised if it was twins again. That would be all she needed.

  She looked down into the valley and wished she could take off and fly right into it…

  ‘Rosanna?’ a male voice called.

  ‘I’m out here.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Corrado asked, walking out onto the terrace in a foul mood.

  ‘I’m trying to get away from everyone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m just having five minutes’ peace and quiet.’

  ‘Well, you’ve had all you’re having. Now, get back in the kitchen or lunch will be ruined.’

  Wearily, and without a helping hand from her husband, Rosanna got up and shuffled back into the kitchen.

  ‘Just look at the state of the place!’ Corrado complained.

  Rosanna looked around the room in despair. There was an avalanche of dishes in the sink and the work surfaces were covered in cooking experiments that had gone wrong.

  ‘It looks like Pompeii after the eruption of Vesuvius! And just look at that crostata! It looks like diarrhoea,’ Corrado snarled. ‘It’s not like how Mama used to make it.’

  Rosanna didn’t dare say that it was like that because nobody ever leant a hand - that it was like that because she and she alone had to run the house and look after everybody.

  ‘My house never looked like this, did it?’ Irma complained, hobbling into the kitchen and staring accusingly at her with raisin eyes.

  ‘No, it certainly didn’t, Mama. But this one doesn’t care as much as you!’

  ‘Doesn’t care?’ Rosanna said, aghast, finding a little courage at last. ‘Doesn’t CARE? I’ll have you know, your bloody mother only had one child to look after - not five, with another on the way, and a husband who does nothing but grow a few vegetables and complain of backache, and a mother-in-law with a whip for a tongue!’

  ‘What did you say?’ Corrado demanded.

  ‘What did she say?’ Irma screeched.

  A sudden sound of crying came from upstairs followed by the thunder of footsteps on the stairs as five children burst into the kitchen - each one crying as if they’d lost a limb.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Irma shouted. ‘Stupid, selfish girl! And what do you think you’re doing wearing such a dress for cooking? Scarlet! Pah! It’s the colour of a whore!’ Irma’s eyes glinted with malice.

  The first photo frame hit Rosanna square on the nose. She was too stunned to react. Suddenly, Irma was throwing one after the o
ther until Rosanna was suffocating beneath a mountain of silver. The onslaught didn’t stop. Still, there were more, flying through the air, affording her a brief glimpse of Corrado at varying stages of childhood before they hit Rosanna in the face. Where were all these photo frames coming from? There seemed to be an endless supply. She was drowning.

  ‘MAMA!’ the children wailed.

  ‘Help me!’ Rosanna wailed back.

  ‘Rosanna!’

  ‘Help me!’

  ‘Rosaaaaaaaaaaana!’

  ‘Here I am! I’m here!’

  ‘I know you are! Wake up!’ Elena called.

  And she did.

  ‘Elena?’

  ‘Rosanna! Are you okay?’

  She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Elena had put a bedside lamp on and Rosanna slowly allowed her eyes to adjust to the light. ‘I think so.’

  ‘You were waving your arms around like a windmill.’

  ‘I was suffocating.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘In photo frames.’

  ‘What?’

  Rosanna cradled her head in her hands in despair. ‘It was horrible! It was like tea today but much, much worse.’

  ‘Irma? You’re dreaming about Irma Taccani?’

  Rosanna nodded. ‘I was trapped in this isolated farm house with Corrado and Irma and hundreds of kids. And I was fat and pregnant! It was horrible!’

  ‘God! You’ve really got to do something about this, haven’t you?’

  Rosanna closed her eyes and let out the deepest, most grievous of sighs. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘There’s no supposing about it,’ Elena said, swinging her legs out of bed and grabbing her dressing gown from a nearby chair. She winced as she saw the time on the alarm clock. It was only three in the morning. ‘How about some hot milk?’

  ‘Merda!’

  ‘Hot chocolate?’

  Rosanna nodded. ‘That might be nice.’

  Elena went downstairs, turning on lights and finding herself more awake than she thought she could be at that time of the morning. Rosanna followed her and curled up on a sofa, hugging a cushion to her as if it were a life belt.

  ‘I don’t think I want to marry Corrado,’ she said a few minutes later when they sat warming their middle-of-the-night hands around their mugs of hot chocolate.

  ‘I know you don’t,’ Elena agreed. ‘You’d have to be certifiable to choose Irma Taccani as your mother-in-law.’

  Rosanna sighed. ‘That phrase mother-in-law shakes me to the core. The word mother is scary enough on its own without linking it to the word law.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad we’ve finally established that.’

  ‘But what do I do now?’ Rosanna asked.

  Elena had never seen her sister looking so fragile and she put her arm around her shoulders and kissed her on her cheek. ‘You have to tell Corrado.’

  The wide eyes closed in realisation. ‘Mio Dio! Do I?’

  ‘How else can you end all this?’

  ‘It’s just-’

  ‘What?’

  ‘So scary!’

  ‘Tell me about it. Remember, I’ve got to break off two - I mean - one of my engagements,’ Elena stumbled but Rosanna didn’t seem to hear her blunder; she was too bound up in her own problems. ‘At least you’re not engaged.’

  ‘But Irma will flail me. I know she will! She’ll probably break into the apartment when I’m asleep and drag me out and drown me in the lagoon!’

  ‘Rosanna! She’ll do no such thing!’ Elena sighed, trying not to look over her shoulder into the dark shadows of the apartment. ‘She has nothing to do with this. It’s between you and Corrado, okay?’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t let her get to me but I can’t tell you how much that woman terrifies me,’ she confessed.

  Elena bit her lip. That Irma Taccani, like the overbearing woman in the Danieli, needed taking down a peg or two.

  ‘Don’t you worry about Irma,’ Elena said, giving Rosanna’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘I have a feeling she won’t be causing you any more problems.’

  Chapter 27

  Elena woke early despite the disturbed night’s sleep. She got out of bed and looked across at Rosanna who was still fast asleep. Her skin was pale and she looked as if she wouldn’t wake up for at least another few hours so Elena left the room quietly and sneaked downstairs for breakfast. There was something she had to do.

  Picking up Rosanna’s address book, Elena found Corrado’s address and jotted it down on a piece of paper which she put in her inside pocket - along with the mask. She scribbled a quick note for Rosanna.

  Hope you had a good lie-in. Have gone out. Don’t wait for me for lunch. If anyone turns up, tell them I’m due back at any moment! Love, Elena x.

  After the quickest of breakfasts, Elena left, closing the door quietly behind her. She knew roughly where the apartment was and it didn’t prove hard to find. It was strange to think that Rosanna had been there, in that very spot, less than twenty-four hours ago, feeling anxious and alone. Elena felt her blood boil at the thought of how her sister had been treated and, with a particularly angry finger, she pressed the buzzer of the Taccani flat. No answer. She pressed it again. And again. Then she remembered Rosanna complaining that Irma had been rude to her over the intercom and then refused to open the flat door. Was she in or just ignoring the buzzer?

  Elena tried a different buzzer.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello,’ Elena said politely. ‘I have a delivery of flowers.’

  Without even asking whom the delivery was for, Elena was buzzed in. She climbed the stairs and stood outside flat number five before knocking loudly on the door. Again, she waited, her ear pressed up against the door. She could definitely hear somebody in there and, from the lightness of step, it was a woman.

  Elena decided to put the mask on. There was only one other flat on that floor so she’d have to take a chance on being seen. The transition from solid to invisible took an impressive ten seconds. It was getting quicker each time she wore the mask.

  Standing in the draughty corridor, Elena contemplated what to do next. There was no way that Irma was going to answer the door, that was for sure, so Elena had to rely on her instincts which was why she’d got there early in the morning. And she was right.

  She didn’t have to wait long before the door opened and Irma Taccani, all four foot eleven of her, emerged. With a large basket over her arm, and a deep scowl etched across her forehead, Irma looked ready to do battle with the world.

  Elena followed her down the stairs and out into the dazzling morning sunshine. She guessed where she was going: to the fish market by the Rialto. It was the perfect place to buy fresh produce and Rosanna was a big fan of their fruit and vegetables, coming back with large bags stuffed full of rocket and tomatoes the size of apples which glowed like rare rubies.

  Crossing the Rialto, Irma Taccani turned right and Elena followed. One of the joys of being invisible meant that she didn’t have to keep her distance but, in the jostle of people, Elena suddenly realised what it truly meant to be invisible. She hadn’t really stopped to think about it before. But she was beginning to find out that, just because she had the ability to disappear, it didn’t mean that she disappeared altogether - she still took up space and that, for Elena, was a real problem as she’d always bruised easily and people just kept knocking into her as if she wasn’t there, which, of course, she wasn’t. It wasn’t as if it was their fault; they weren’t doing it on purpose but Elena had the feeling that she’d end up completely black and blue when she finally took the mask off.

  Following somebody you don’t particularly like was rather tedious, Elena decided. She’d have to spice things up a bit. The problem was, there wasn’t really much she could do at the fish market, was there? She looked around her. It was an extraordinary place: a rosy red-bricked building with tall stone columns decorated with fantastic fish heads rising into fine arches, huge lanterns hanging from the beamed roof, and the early morning sunshine casti
ng a red glow onto the stalls through the bright canopies. The stalls were simple structures with lights hanging overhead so that the fish glowed and glistened as if still underwater. Most of the fish rested on beds of ice and there were buckets under the stalls to catch the melt water.

  There was an incredible swordfish on one of the stalls but the back of his body had been amputated and he looked lost and forlorn. He didn’t belong there, and Elena felt guilty for looking at something which had about as much business being on a table as she had being at the bottom of the ocean.

  She watched as one stall holder watered his produce with a small orange watering can. The floor was also wet, shining like polished marble. Elena, who’d never really liked fish, felt almost sad as she saw the heaped bodies of prawns, their tiny black eyes seeming to accuse the shoppers who passed them by. See what you’ve done, they seemed to say.

  And then she saw the crabs: their spiky limbs tangled together as if they were fighting for space. Elena looked up to see where Irma Taccani was. She was just inches away from Elena, and Elena found her invisible hand reaching out and picking up one of the crabs. Without being seen, she dropped it into Irma’s shopping basket.

  ‘Mio Dio!’ Irma Taccani exclaimed a few seconds later, pulling the crab out of her basket and dropping it onto the table in front of her. The man behind the stall stared at her and then started laughing.

  ‘What are you laughing at, you lumbering idiot! You put that in there for a joke? Some joke! Am I laughing?’

  ‘I didn’t go near your basket. And you be careful who you call an idiot, you old crab!’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘You think yourself lucky that I don’t charge you for that!’

  ‘You wouldn’t catch me paying for anything from you!’ she spat, her tiny eyes flaming with anger and humiliation as she stormed out of the fish market as fast as her little legs would carry her. Her mouth was working overtime as she spat out oaths and curses over the incident in the fish market and Elena did her best not to laugh out loud.