Chapter 30
The following day, we have breakfast at the bar, just like my very first morning in Venice. Only this time, Leo isn’t the cold, distant boy he was then. He’s the boy I kissed in a gondola, the boy who rowed through the mist with me at sunrise.
Another difference is that we’re sitting at a table instead of standing at the counter, because Martino Ballarin is here too.
It’s the first time I’ve had a proper look at him – not a painting, not a mural, not dressed in costume, but himself.
Mustard chinos, shirt buttons straining, a red scarf tied in that neat Italian way.
It’s the same colour as the blood-soaked hats of redcap goblins from Scottish folklore.
A collage forms in my mind: pebbled leather for his skin and a hard shiny metal for his calculating eyes.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing your self-portrait, Leonardo. Is it going to be last in the schedule as I requested?’
Leo opens his mouth to answer, but a yawn escapes instead, and that sets me off too. He bumps my knee under the table and I freeze him a micro-glare to cut it out.
‘Don’t know.’ Leo tears a layer of pastry off his cornetto. ‘I thought you didn’t like the float parade anyway.’
Martino frowns. ‘A gallery exhibition would have been more suitable, but there will be a lot of eyes on this so it makes sense to save the highlight for the end, correct?’
Leo makes a face. ‘Who says it’s the highlight?’
‘You’re my son, aren’t you?’ Martino slaps his back, not noticing when Leo scoots out of reach.
‘It’s a group project, Martino,’ Veronica reminds him. ‘The students have produced some great art. Evie’s style has evolved so much since she arrived.’
Warmth flares through me – she’s noticed my effort.
But it fades almost immediately. Because whatever progress I’ve made here, all this joy, it’s built on a lie.
My parents still don’t know I’m here, and it hits me how easily I’ve stopped thinking about all that these past few days – caught up in the ball, in Leo.
But if Griselda goes ahead with her threat to send Paola to the dorm, this whole thing could still blow up in my face.
‘We should think about branching out into more contemporary styles,’ Veronica says.
I cough quietly. That’s new.
‘Keep the focus on portraiture,’ she continues. ‘But make space for modern approaches too. Silvia thinks there’s an appetite for—’
‘Silvia, Silvia, Silvia.’ Martino loosens his scarf. ‘It’s my name on the building, and that carries expectations.’
I catch Leo rolling his eyes, and I can’t help thinking – if I’d seen him with his dad from the very start, would I have understood him better?
‘Perhaps my name should be there too.’ Veronica winks at us over the rim of her cup like she’s making a joke … but is she?
I hang back with Leo when we leave. ‘What your mum said about having her name above the door – isn’t she a Ballarin?’
He looks confused for a second then shakes his head. ‘Women keep their maiden names here. Pretty standard for married couples to have different surnames.’
‘Oh! I like that. I think I’d want to keep mine too.’ I blush instantly. God. He’ll think I’m already hinting at marriage. I hurry on. ‘That’ll be why I couldn’t find her on Google. There’s loads about your dad … but I bet your mum’s work’s amazing too. She’s such a great teacher.’
Leo frowns. ‘I’ve never googled my parents. Is that weird?’
‘Normal, I think. For me, anyway. For a family like yours? I’ve no idea.’
Leo kicks at a loose stone. ‘He wasn’t always like this, you know.’
‘Like what?’ I play dumb, because the only words that come to mind are ‘pompous’ and ‘self-important’, and it’s too early in … whatever this is between us … to be insulting his dad.
He gives me a do-I-really-have-to-spell-it-out look.
‘What was he like before?’ I ask instead.
‘Well, for one thing … he taught me to row. We’d go out on the water all the time. Then he started getting these big commissions abroad. He kept promising he’d be around more after the next one … then the next.’ He shrugs, as if he’s said too much. ‘So yeah. That’s him.’
I want to add something comforting, but we’ve arrived at the studio and everyone’s greeting Martino Ballarin like he’s a reality TV judge. My fingers catch briefly on Leo’s sleeve before I let go.
With three days left until the showcase, the studio is no longer the serene workspace I walked into on my first day. Planks line the walls, and tools and brushes clutter every table. Nadia’s painting – The Lagoon’s Seasons – is right at the front, her spring figure crowned with reeds and driftwood.
Martino runs his eyes over it. ‘Push the colour. It needs more vibrancy.’
He makes his way around the room. Leo’s is almost complete, and it earns him another clap on the back.
I hover near mine. It’s close to done, but still in that awkward stage where one wrong brushstroke could wreck it.
Martino’s nose almost touches the canvas as he considers it. ‘I’m glad you worked together on this. I can see Leo’s hand in it.’
I glance at Leo to find he’s already smirking at me. The truth is, Leo never did the work for me like they wanted. And it wasn’t because he was being lazy or uncaring like I first thought. He was encouraging me, the way Rebel does on the app.
So why doesn’t my painting feel like a win?
When Martino moves off to the next student, Leo hooks his pinkie around mine and tows me to the back of the room.
‘Look at this.’ He slides his phone towards me.
There’s a portrait on the screen; a delicate, drippy watercolour with whole stretches of white space left bare. The features are only hinted at: a blur of cheekbone, the suggestion of an eye, colour bleeding down the page. It feels unfinished, fragile … yet somehow powerful.
I touch a finger to the screen. ‘I love it. Not yours though, right?’
‘Nope. Take a guess.’
I groan into his shoulder. ‘Oh, don’t you start interrogating me. I didn’t study art history, remember?’
‘You’re the only one who’s bothered about that, Nessie. Anyway, it was a trick question. You’d never guess. Because … it’s my mum’s.’
He zooms out to show me a younger Veronica standing in front of the painting, maybe university-aged, already stylish, already in monochrome.
‘You googled her?’
‘Yeah. I found this buried on page ten of the results. I was about to give up.’
Buried like her art, I think.
It’s different to Martino’s formal commissions, or Leo’s reinvented classics. It’s nothing like my myth-inspired digital work, either. But that’s the beauty of it – how much space it leaves, how much it lets you feel without spelling everything out.
‘Wow,’ I whisper. ‘I wonder what this school would be like if your dad wasn’t running it behind the scenes.’