Chapter 12
12
Natalie’s fish appeared, surrounded by herbs on an oval platter. The flesh was cooked to perfection, but it was hard to savour the subtle hints of thyme and rosemary whilst the careless words she’d uttered so many years ago were going round and round in her head.
She speared another piece of fish, biding her time, wondering what she could possibly say to lighten the atmosphere. Suddenly, something caught in her throat: a piece of bone, perhaps. She coughed but nothing happened. She coughed again more violently but still it didn’t dislodge. Her eyes began to water.
Cate looked up from her veal. ‘Are you okay?’
Natalie shook her head, tried to cough into her hand so the whole restaurant wouldn’t hear.
‘You have a fish bone?’
It was an Italian voice, male and strangely familiar. She looked up into the concerned face of the white-haired mask maker.
‘ Sì , a bone,’ she spluttered.
‘Allow me.’ The sharp thump of his hand on her back took her by surprise.
The bone shot onto the tip of her tongue. She discreetly removed it. ‘Oh, thank you, grazie !’
‘ Di niente , it was nothing. I could not have you choking to death; it would be bad for business.’ He had a twinkle in his eye.
‘You own this restaurant?’
He spread his hands. ‘Alas, no. But my younger son, he is the chef here and I could not afford to support him if this place closed down.’ He gave a little chuckle. ‘But I will have to complain to the kitchen; this dish should be filleted, should it not?’
‘No, please… it was my fault for eating too fast.’
‘Do you do everything fast? You departed my shop in a big hurry yesterday. Whoosh…’ He flung out an arm. ‘And you were gone!’
Natalie’s face burned.
‘You two have met before?’ Cate said.
‘I’m so sorry, how rude of me, I must introduce you. This is Cate; she and her husband, who arrives tomorrow, are appearing in the television show I am presenting… Cate, this is Pietro, a very talented mask maker, he has a shop and workshop in the Dorsoduro area of the city.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’ Cate held out a slender hand.
He took it in his large, hairy paw. ‘Enchanted. Please excuse my appearance; I assure you my hands are clean, just stained by the dye I have been using. And now I must leave you to enjoy your meal. I did not wish to interrupt. Ah, there he is! Eraldo!’ He raised a hand towards the doorway.
The watch restorer let the osteria’s heavy door swing shut behind him. Natalie felt the tail end of the draught. Eraldo signalled to the waiter that he was in no need of assistance and approached Natalie and Cate’s table, running a hand through his dark hair, his expression somewhere between surprise and pleasure.
‘ Buonasera . Natalie, what a coincidence! I did not think… but now… allora , we meet again.’
‘You are lucky Eraldo is looking more presentable.’ The mask maker grinned. ‘Earlier today, he was not fit to be seen!’
‘I have been working too many hours. I have barely left my workbench.’
‘I found him upstairs asleep when I unlocked the shop this morning.’ Pietro laughed.
Eraldo gave a rueful smile. ‘I am a little obsessive, what can I say.’
‘I went out and brought him cornetti for breakfast but he cannot live on those and coffee. I had to bribe him to leave the workshop and have a proper meal with the promise of this fine food. But first, I had to send him home to shower and change.’
‘And I am now glad that I did… I mean… well, it is a smart restaurant; I do not like to look out of place.’
‘Eraldo, this is Cate,’ Pietro interrupted, making the introduction Natalie had failed to. ‘And now, if you excuse me a moment, I will go into the kitchen to greet my son.’
‘ Piacere , pleased to meet you, Eraldo.’ Cate smiled.
‘And you.’ Eraldo’s eyes landed on Cate’s eternity ring, the row of emeralds glittering in the candlelight. ‘That is a beautiful piece of jewellery.’
‘My husband had it made for me at a little workshop in Hatton Garden.’
‘I studied gemmology, but I rarely use precious stones in my work.’ Eraldo’s eyes stayed on Cate’s ring.
‘What exactly do you do?’ Cate asked.
‘I am a watch restorer. I like to take unwanted or broken antique timepieces and give them a new life, to add my own twist, to create something unique.’
‘How talented you must be.’
Cate was probably just making conversation but the way she beamed at Eraldo made Natalie determined to butt in.
‘Eraldo is working on a secret watch,’ she said. ‘The face is hidden beneath a rotating pyramid.’
‘Thanks to you bringing me the watch parts I have been waiting for.’
Natalie wished she’d accepted Cate’s suggestion of a second glass of wine; the combination of Eraldo’s dark-chocolate eyes and the passion in his voice was making her feel unusually flustered.
‘You take commissions, I imagine,’ Cate said. ‘I’ve been wondering what to get for my husband’s birthday. He is so hard to choose presents for, but he collects watches and a restored antique watch would be perfect. Phil has an appreciation for fine things and he’s such a wonderful man, he deserves something special.’
‘Phil’s company creates incredible furniture; he has a royal warrant.’ Natalie could relax now Cate was gushing about her husband. She didn’t know why the thought of her ex-classmate flirting with the handsome Italian should bother her. It wasn’t as if Natalie was interested. She wasn’t here to look for a partner; she wasn’t even here to make friends. She was in Venice for one reason only: to work. And that was a good thing. People always let you down in the end. Especially the ones who meant the most.
‘Ah, Pietro is back from the kitchen at last, and I must join him,’ Eraldo said. ‘The delicious smells in this osteria are making me very hungry.’
‘Of course. It was so nice to see you again,’ Natalie said.
‘A most pleasant surprise. And lovely to meet you, Cate. Do visit my workshop if you find the time. Come tomorrow if you like and we can talk about a commission.’
‘Thank you, I will, if that’s okay with you, Natalie?’
‘Of course.’
‘I look forward to meeting you again, Cate,’ he added. ‘And Natalie, of course.’
‘Me too.’ She just wished she could meet him again without crossing the mask maker’s floor.
* * *
‘I do hope you had a lovely evening.’ The housekeeper ushered Cate into the palazzo.
‘Yes, thank you, Nunzia.’
‘May I fetch you a drink?’
‘That is so very kind but I think I will have an early night,’ Cate said.
She just wanted to be alone, to unpack her things, and to send a goodnight message to Phil. She wouldn’t phone him; she knew he’d catch something different in her tone of voice and before she knew it, she’d be spilling the whole story of her soured friendship with Natalie Spencer. And she wouldn’t be able to do that without letting slip the secret she’d kept from him.
She climbed the stairs, turned the handle on the bedroom door. The Gold Room seemed marginally more homely now that her perfume bottle and hairbrush stood on the marble-topped dressing table, her travel alarm clock and the new Marian Keyes novel on her bedside chest.
The housekeeper had unpacked all Cate’s belongings, her suitcase squirreled away, out of sight. She opened the doors on the triple wardrobe; the aroma of cedar wood mingled with the fragrance from the vast vase of fresh flowers set on the tallboy. Her clothes had been hung on wooden hangers, arranged by colour, accessories stashed in cubby holes.
She stepped out of her dress, hung it up carefully and shrugged on the sumptuously soft, oversized robe left out for her on the chaise longue by the window. The thick, white material brushed against her ankle bones; the cuffs nearly reached the tips of her fingers. Reflected in the dressing-table mirror, her head looked tiny, as though it had been photoshopped onto the body of a polar bear.
She wished she felt tired enough to climb into the great high bed, lean against the painted headboard, read for a few moments then drop off. But she was wide awake, with nothing to distract her mind from harking back to the night of the school trip that had upturned her world.
She sat down on the velvet-topped dressing-table stool and opened her travelling jewellery box, a clever fold-up design given to her by Lucy. A slim compartment lay beneath the orange, velvet lining. ‘I use mine for hiding my lover’s letters,’ Lucy had said. Cate wasn’t quite sure if Lucy was joking; even after years of mixing with Phil’s upper-class friends, she didn’t always get their sense of humour.
She slid out the photograph and the torn scrap of brown paper she kept hidden there. Cate didn’t recognise herself in the picture but she could tell this was her christening day. Mum and Dad, barely more than children themselves, looked as though they’d raided the dressing-up box, her mother Lina in a polka-dot blouse with huge shoulder pads.
Cate smoothed out the piece of old envelope. She’d unearthed it from the bottom of Dad’s sock drawer when she’d been packing up his belongings to take to The Evergreens. A moment’s inattention and the paper would have gone straight in the bin. But her eye had recognised the handwriting, identical to the message inside her book of nursery rhymes.
Just a few words were written in the smudged, blue-black ink. A return address in Burano, Venice.