Chapter 8
8
Cate started reading the rest of the email from Flo-Go Productions, one eye on the luggage belt:
Please be assured Mandy’s unfortunate absence will not impact the filming schedule for Luxe Life Swap . Our local representative, Lucia, will meet your flight as planned.
Her smart, chocolate-brown, leather-trimmed case emerged from the top of the luggage chute. She shoved the phone back into her bag.
‘Excuse me, umm, permesso ?’ She stepped across a harassed-looking mother. The woman didn’t respond, too busy trying to comfort one wailing toddler whilst grabbing the legs of a slightly older boy determined to hurl himself onto the luggage belt.
Cate wrestled her overstuffed case to the floor. The luggage label was still attached, all zips safely done up; at least one part of her increasingly fraught trip had gone to plan. She clutched the handle, negotiating her way through the somewhat chaotic atmosphere out to the Arrivals area.
A young woman, chic in a simple, orange blouse and coffee-coloured skirt, was holding up a card with the Flo-Go Productions logo and Mrs Cate Beresford written in large letters. Cate’s apologetic message about Phil’s absence had clearly been received.
‘Cate, piacere !’ The woman pushed her hexagonal sunglasses up into her long, black hair. ‘I am so happy to meet you. My name is Lucia.’
Cate felt the tension in her shoulders ebb away. She took the woman’s dainty hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘Travelling can be tiring, a coffee or perhaps a drink? The camera crew are by the water taxi, but they can wait. Or would you prefer to go straight to the palazzo?’ Lucia continued, taking hold of the handle of Cate’s case and heading in the direction of the exit at a rate of knots that defied her high heels.
Cate strode beside her. ‘I’m happy to go straight there. I can’t wait to see where we’ll be staying for the next fortnight.’
‘Mandy was so happy when we sent over the pictures of the count’s house. Your husband will love it when he arrives. He comes tomorrow, yes?’
‘I’m so terribly sorry…’
Lucia waved a dismissive hand. ‘It is no problem; we adapt, create a few, how you say, filler scenes. We will visit some of our best Venetian boutiques, show you some of our Italian fashions. The countess shops in the streets around St Mark’s. All the big-name designer brands are there but we will visit the smaller boutiques she favours. You can see a unique selection, the best of Italian designers from the Veneto region. It will be fun, sì ?’
‘Thank you, I would love that.’
It would be interesting to experience shopping Italian-style, and it wasn’t something Phil would mind missing at all. It sounded terribly spoilt but she’d got bored with London’s designer stores. At first, the doors held open by uniformed staff, complimentary champagne, soft music and hushed voices had made her feel like royalty but after a few visits, the novelty of being handed a box-fresh blouse to try on had worn off. And although the scent of the floral displays in Christian Dior was far more pleasant than the aroma that had hung around the changing rooms of Oxford Street on late Saturday afternoons, shopping in Bond Street wasn’t half as much fun as the days when she and Natalie had illicitly shared a changing room in Topshop, snorting with laughter as they tried on armfuls of clothes before skipping off to Primark for something cheaper they’d take it in turns to wear on Saturday nights.
‘Cate, meet our television crew.’
Cate snapped back to the present. They’d reached the landing stage. She tried to take in the names as Lucia introduced the make-up girl, the director, and the camera crew led by a burly fellow sporting a red, padded gilet, despite the warm evening, and his achingly cool female assistant whose sleeveless, khaki shirt revealed brown shoulders and arms, strong and sinewy from lugging equipment around.
After a brief conversation in Italian that went straight over her head, a dusting of face powder and the application of a rather vivid lipstick she was too overwhelmed to protest about, Cate was deemed ready. She stepped into the sleek, white water taxi, holding the arm of the driver for support.
Lucia sat down beside her. ‘We will not begin filming until we are nearer to the Grand Canal. Do not worry if you cough, or sneeze or are not always smiling. We will only use a few small clips of this journey, just enough for the viewers to see you on the water. It is the shot of you arriving at the palazzo that is the important one. But if it is not right… pfft! We film it again.’ She paused and spoke to the driver before turning back to Cate. ‘Franco, he knows we may have to approach the palazzo’s canal front entrance several times if the director is not happy. Now please sit back and enjoy the journey.’
Cate leant back and relaxed as Lucia chatted knowledgeably about the floating city she called home. There was something calming about being out on the water.
‘We will focus on the intimate moments as you contemplate your new surroundings,’ Lucia explained. ‘And then a door from the library will open and Natalie will come out to meet you.’
‘Natalie?’
Lucia frowned. ‘You did not receive the email from us about poor Mandy?’
‘Yes, I did but I had only read part of it when my case appeared on the luggage carousel. It was almost the first one off; that never happens.’ Cate laughed. ‘But Mandy, how is she doing? I should have asked straight away…’
‘Do not apologise. It is overwhelming arriving in a new place, especially under these circumstances: passports, luggage, customs, remembering where you are going…’ Lucia smiled. ‘Mandy is doing well, but of course this is a serious operation; the poor woman’s plans for the next months have been, as you say, turned inside out. Luckily, Flo-Go Productions has acted swiftly. Within a few hours, they arrange everything. They sent out this replacement lady, very nice, Natalie Spencer.’
‘Natalie Spencer?’ Cate’s stomach lurched as though the Venetian lagoon had been replaced by the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean. In a storm.
This had to be a bizarre coincidence. It couldn’t be that Natalie Spencer from school. Cate had seen Nat once and only once on television, many years before. She’d turned on a new afternoon children’s show and when the camera closed in on Nat’s face, she’d jabbed poor baby Oli in the face with a spoonful of banana puree. For a second or two, Cate had sat mesmerised by her old classmate’s hideous dungarees, the smiling face made up with lots of pink blusher for a child-friendly look. Then she’d snatched up the remote control and changed channels. She’d concentrated on mopping squelchy pudding off Oli’s puce-red face, hushing his cries before adding Panda’s Place to the list of unsuitable TV shows she left with the au pair. And, despite Nat’s fancy media studies degree, Cate had never seen her on television again. So how could she possibly be presenting a super successful, prime-time show, stepping into the towering heels of national treasure, Mandy Miller?
‘ Sì , Natalie Spencer.’ Lucia beamed. ‘You have heard of her? I think she is not so well known.’
‘No, I…’
The producer gave a hand signal.
‘We are about to start. It is best not to speak,’ Lucia said. ‘The camera will pan the whole area, lingering on you just for a few seconds at a time. A smile is all we need, although a look of awestruck wonder would be perfect.’
Cate nodded. ‘Awestruck, got it.’
The driver turned into the Grand Canal, the scene instantly recognisable from a thousand photographs. And from her school trip. But she couldn’t think back to those days if she had any hope of composing her features into a natural-looking smile.
A gondola glided past, the gondolier sporting the iconic striped top of his official association. His two passengers were cosied up on the red leather seat, the girl clutching a fan, obviously bought as a souvenir, gazing at her lover as though all the wonders of Venice could not compare. Cate felt a pang of envy. She needed Phil here, someone to walk through the city with, to talk to over breakfast, to hold her at night. What if he missed more than one day? What if he didn’t turn up? She gave herself a ticking off. She must stop being so negative. Phil would be here tomorrow; they’d go riding in a gondola of their own. And he would love this city. She could hear him now, rhapsodising over the architectural beauties that surrounded them.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Lucia subtly motion towards the shimmering mosaics on the front of a grand, white palazzo. The sun was getting lower, the light changing, bathing the waterfront properties in an ethereal, golden glow. Cate flicked back her white-blonde hair and turned her elegant neck, conscious again of the camera on her. She thought of her two boys, Oli and Max; they always made her smile. Her life was perfect, like nothing she could have dreamt of back at St Margaret’s. She would not allow anyone or anything to wreck her happiness. Certainly not Natalie Spencer, the girl whose careless words had torn Cate’s world apart.