Chapter 14
14
VENICE, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER
Miss Morrison led the way, striding across the Accademia Bridge in her sensible, lace-up shoes.
‘Look over there, girls. That’s the church of Santa Maria della Salute!’
‘It’s really beautiful,’ Natalie piped up, aware that no one else was paying attention to her favourite teacher’s enthusiastic pronouncements. Every head had swung round to gawp at the group of boys behind them.
Even at this distance, Natalie could tell these boys were a different breed from the slouching, mumbling pupils at the boys’ school round the corner from St Margaret’s. These fine specimens swaggered, chins up, across the wooden bridge as if the iconic views on either side were something they’d seen a hundred times before. At their head marched a golden-haired youth, as handsome as any statue they’d seen in the Doge’s Palace.
‘Keep moving, no loitering on the bridge.’ Mrs Nickson glowered.
Several of the girls began giggling. Natalie’s best friend Cathy yanked at her lank fringe, desperately trying to obscure her pimple-strewn forehead. Julie Paine arranged her features into an expression of casual disdain. As the blond boy drew nearer, she accidentally on purpose let a packet of chewing gum fall from her fake Burberry handbag like the heroine of a period drama dropping a handkerchief at the feet of an eligible squire. Mrs Nickson gave her a look that would dry up the Grand Canal.
The boy picked up the gum and handed it back, letting his fingers brush against Julie’s. The other boys sniggered, striking confident poses, all except two, who hung back awkwardly. One fiddled with the edge of his shirt; the other stared down at his super-cool trainers with bright-yellow laces.
‘Come on, girls!’ Miss Morrison said gamely, trying vainly to separate the two school groups, now merged on the bridge, blocking anyone else’s chances of coming or going.
‘Stop messing around, Upper Fifth!’ a man’s voice commanded. The boys sprang to attention. ‘Ladies first,’ he added, poking one of the boys in the back to allow Mrs Nickson and Miss Morrison a clear passage. Natalie’s school party moved on towards the Accademia.
They’d only got as far as the first of the display rooms before the two school parties crossed paths again. Natalie tried to concentrate on what Miss Morrison was saying despite the nudging and giggling. Close up, the boys were far less interesting than the three-dimensional faces carved into the gallery’s coiffured ceiling.
Julie Paine burst into snippets of songs from Madonna’s new Ray of Light album whenever they passed another depiction of the Holy Mother. Cathy laughed loudly even though it had only been funny the first time. Natalie peered at the white labels by each painting as they moved from room to room: Titian, Veronese, Carpaccio. She hung back as her classmates moved on, fixing her gaze on an oil painting of Mary in a blue robe and faded-red dress flanked by two serious-looking young women. Her classmates’ voices drifted away.
She felt someone come up behind her. She turned, expecting to see Cathy, imagining her best friend, bored of Julie’s japes, would have come back to find her, but it was one of the schoolboys. The one with the fancy trainers.
‘Oh, you gave me a fright.’
He took two steps back.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled to the floor. ‘I just… just wanted to… you know, get away from the others, look at these paintings properly.’ His voice was friendly; he didn’t speak with a posh, Prince-William accent like most of his classmates did.
She moved aside to let him read the label.
Madonna with the Child between Saints Catherine and Mary Magdalene
‘Yeah, Giovanni Bellini, I thought it was.’
‘How did you guess?’
‘I just like art: the old stuff anyway.’ He shrugged.
‘Same here.’
‘What do you like about this one?’
‘The fabric of their clothes. How do they make it look so real?’
‘Dunno… the brush strokes?’ He lapsed into silence.
The peace was broken by the squeak of shoes on the gallery’s terrazzo floor.
‘There you are!’ Cathy’s voice was cold. She grabbed Natalie’s arm. ‘Come on, everyone’s wondering where you went.’
‘Err, bye, see you.’ Natalie let her friend drag her away.
‘What were you doing with him?’ Cathy hissed.
‘Nothing, just looking at the pictures.’
‘Yeah, right.’
They slipped back into her school group, now several rooms ahead.
‘I found her,’ Cathy said rather loudly.
Julie Paine sidled up. ‘Did you really go off with one of those boys?’
‘I didn’t go off with anyone.’
‘She was with that boy with the Nike trainers.’
‘Bet you fancy him,’ Julie said.
‘Of course not! Don’t be so stupid.’ Natalie forced herself to keep her voice down. She didn’t want Mrs Nickson standing nearby to hear anything, let alone the boy’s friends, some of whom were looking over at her with interest. She tried to move away towards where Miss Morrison was pointing to a giant painting covering an entire end wall and holding forth about the genius of Veronese but Julie blocked her, arms akimbo.
‘Yeah, you do.’
‘No, I don’t.’ She longed to smack Julie’s smirking face.
‘Nat never fancies any boys,’ Cathy said, like it was some sort of character flaw. It wasn’t true, Natalie did like some boys, but so what if she did or didn’t?
‘I know why,’ Julie said. ‘I reckon you’ve got a crush on Miss Morrison.’
‘No, I don’t; she’s nice, that’s all. You tell her, Cathy.’
Cathy said nothing, just smirked.
‘Let’s go and talk to that really good-looking blond boy.’ Julie grabbed Cathy’s arm and steered her away.
Miss Morrison tapped Natalie on the shoulder. ‘Next, we’re going to look at Tintoretto’s The Removal of the Body of Saint Mark ; you’ll like that one.’
Natalie tried her best to look interested as Miss Morrison waxed lyrical about the artist’s use of colour but all she could think about was Julie’s stupid false laugh coming from the far side of the room, followed by Cathy’s giggles.
At last, the visit was over. The girls filed back across the Accademia Bridge, leaving the artworks and the pupils from the boys’ school behind.
* * *
‘This is Simona Rinaldi, our first boutique,’ Lucia said.
Natalie snapped back to the present. She had to put the school trip out of her mind but she could still recall the hurt she’d felt back then. Julie and Cathy skipping off arm in arm had seemed like the biggest betrayal. But it was nothing compared to what happened next.