Chapter 25
25
Natalie wrapped her arms around Cate’s slender frame. There was no need to ask how the visit had gone; Cate’s eyes met hers with the glazed stare of an earthquake survivor.
‘I’m so, so sorry.’
Cate broke away. ‘I’m fine. Let’s get some lunch. I couldn’t eat a thing but you must be starving.’
Natalie didn’t move. ‘You’re not fine.’
‘Don’t tell me how I’m feeling! I’ve survived without Mum since I was six months old and I’ll keep on surviving. If she doesn’t want to see me, I’ll just have to respect that.’
Natalie bit back the words she wanted to say, instead asking, ‘Are you sure it was her? Did you get to speak to her?’
‘No, she was upstairs; they said she didn’t want to see me. But it was her. The little girl said her nonna had lived there thirty years. Look, Nat, we could dress this up any which way but I’m never going to have a relationship with Mum again. I don’t want to talk about it any more. Let’s go back to those eating places on the canal. I need a drink.’
‘Okay, sure.’ Natalie rather fancied a glass of something herself and her stomach was gurgling like an emptying drain.
They retraced their steps through the interlocking courtyards, down the narrow passage, emerging back on to the main square. Tourists smiled and laughed amongst racks of lacy clothes, groups of friends clogged the little bridges over the canal, voices rose from tiny tables crammed side by side. It was almost as if she’d imagined the silent square they’d left behind.
‘Over there.’ Cate marched towards a vacant table at the edge of the canal with the tread of someone used to getting her own way. Natalie took in the group of chic women drinking from long-stemmed wineglasses, the small blackboard chalked with the day’s menu in Italian only: a proper, authentic trattoria; Cate had done well to spot this. And the scents, oh! Garlic and fresh herbs deliciously mingling. A memory of Eraldo’s nose twitching with pleasure made her smile, then sigh as she recalled how she’d shied away from him.
Cate squeezed into a seat facing away from the canal, affording Natalie the view.
‘A glass of Soave, a large one, please. Nothing to eat for me.’ Cate addressed the waiter who’d sprung from his post by the door at the sight of his chic, blonde customer. Natalie didn’t need any more time to decide, ordering the same to drink and the bigoli con le sarde , a local dish of pasta and sardines she’d been longing to try.
The wine appeared in oversized glasses but that didn’t stop Cate from glugging back half of hers the moment the waiter had set it down. Natalie forced herself not to put out a restraining hand. This was half her fault. Luxe Life Swap was responsible for Cate’s trip to Venice and without Natalie urging her on, Cate might never have had the courage to visit her mother’s house. She sipped her wine: cold and crisp.
‘Cate…’
Cate raised her hand. ‘Don’t! I’ll be fine in a minute. Please don’t fuss.’ She sniffed, took another great mouthful of wine. ‘I’m lucky. I’ve got a wonderful life whether Mum’s in it or not, Phil’s a great husband and we’ve got two healthy, kind, bright boys who I adore. Really, I’m blessed.’
‘Have you got any pictures? I don’t know why I didn’t ask you before.’
‘Probably still in shock from running into me again. I didn’t offer to show you before…’ Cate paused.
‘Because you didn’t want to rub your perfect life in my face?’
‘Well, now you know it’s far from perfect. But I’ve no reason to feel sorry for myself, especially since I’ve found you again. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have an old friend.’ Cate swiped roughly at her eyes.
‘Aww! Stop it, you’re making me all embarrassed. I’m glad I found you too. It’s like all those years in between never happened.’
‘If anything goes wrong again, we will talk it through, won’t we? I couldn’t bear it if we fell out now. I keep up with a couple of girls from uni and go out with a few of Phil’s friends’ wives but there’s no one like you, no one who really gets me.’
Natalie raised her glass; she clinked it against Cate’s. ‘Same here. There’s no one like an old friend. Nothing will come between us again, I promise.’
Cate fished into her bag. ‘Here, you drink your wine, let me find some photos. I’ve got lots of cute ones from when the boys were small but they’re going through those self-conscious years now. They have a magical way of vanishing whenever I try to take their picture and when I do get some, they insist on inspecting them and making me delete the ones they don’t like. I’ve got far more pictures of the dog!’
‘Ted?’
‘Yes, look, isn’t he adorable?’ Cate’s face softened, all traces of her earlier anguish gone.
Natalie took the phone. A rather scruffy mutt, white save for a black splodge over one eye, stared back at her, one ear cocked; the other appeared to be half-missing. She’d imagined Cate owned a sophisticated Afghan hound or a silky, super-slim whippet.
‘Oh, he is cute!’
‘Swipe along if you like; I’ve taken rather a rather a lot of him.’
Cate wasn’t kidding; there were an awful lot of pictures: Ted in a blue, quilted coat outside the old vicarage front gate; Ted lolling in a rather fancy woven basket; Ted in the garden; in the park; by a lake with a yellow tennis ball clamped in his jaw; by the sea putting a tentative paw in the surf. After showing a suitable level of enthusiasm, she handed the phone back. Her meal had arrived and she feared it would be stone cold by the time she’d worked her way through every image of the pampered pooch.
‘Ted’s the best,’ Cate cooed. ‘Every time I work at the shelter, I want to bring some sad puppy home with me but I wouldn’t want to upset him; I think he likes being an only dog.’
Natalie supressed a smile. She twirled a few strands of the spaghetti-like bigoli around her fork. It wasn’t the most photogenic of dishes – she made a mental note not to eat it whilst they were filming – but the mixture of sardines and onions cooked until they were translucent and meltingly soft was something else.
‘You volunteer at the dog shelter?’
‘Yes, a couple of days a week when I’m not helping in Phil’s office or visiting Dad. Sometimes, I get lucky and answer the phone; other times, I’m cleaning out the cages.’
‘Not dressed like that.’ Natalie raised her eyebrows.
‘I’ll have you know I wear a very fetching navy-blue boilersuit.’ Cate laughed. ‘What’s your food like? It smells divine.’
‘Tastes amazing.’
‘I’ll get one too; I’m ravenous.’ Cate waved over the ever-helpful waiter and ordered a plate of bigoli and another two glasses of wine even though Natalie had barely started to drink hers. ‘Let me find some pics of our boys whilst I’m waiting… Oh, here’s one of Max by a Spitfire at the air museum. We went there for his last birthday. He’s still determined to be a pilot when he’s older even though we’ve tried to persuade him it won’t be half as exciting flying a Boeing for Ryanair.’
‘But it will be a lot safer.’ Natalie studied Max’s freckled complexion, mop of red hair and confident air.
‘Yes, but I’d still rather he stayed on solid ground. That’s typical of all mums, I suppose… well, some of them.’ A cloud crossed Cate’s face.
‘What about Oli, your older boy?’
‘He wants to be a furniture designer like his dad; he’s very artistic. I’ll try to find you a decent snap.’ Cate frowned down at her phone. ‘To think once upon a time I could take as many as I liked: on the climbing frame, at the zoo, even in the bath! Ah, here’s some where he’s playing cricket. I usually get away with taking a few then; he’s secretly rather proud of being on the team. Max looks like me apart from the red hair but Oli takes after his dad.’
‘Let’s see.’ Natalie laid down her fork. It was hard to make out the boy’s face, his ill-defined features thrown into shade by his white cap, but he shared an upright bearing and confident aura with his younger brother.
‘Swipe along – there’s probably two or three.’
‘This is a good one.’
Oli was holding some sort of trophy, looking straight at the camera. There was something oddly familiar about the older brother’s face. Something that made Natalie feel as if invisible centipedes were crawling over her skin. Oli’s face was the face of the boy from her school trip: the face of the boy who’d attacked her. But that was ridiculous. It had to be a strange camera angle, a trick of the light. She swiped to the next photo. Now she could barely discern any resemblance between Cate’s son and the youth who’d followed her the night of the masked ball. Venice, with its years of history, its myths and shadows, was sending her imagination into overdrive.
Cate smiled expectantly; she’d been too busy thanking the waiter and digging into her newly arrived bigoli to spot Natalie’s temporary unease.
Natalie handed back the phone. ‘They look like two lovely boys.’
‘They are.’ Cate wiped a tiny smear of olive oil from the side of her mouth. She dug her fork back into the pasta. ‘Sorry I don’t have a decent one of Phil; he’s even worse than the boys when it comes to getting his photo taken. Actually, I couldn’t believe it when he agreed to apply for the show, but I suppose the possible boost to his business overrode everything. And I guess being filmed is easier than posing for photos, not knowing what to do with your hands or the rest of you!’
‘Mandy Miller makes it look so easy.’
‘It’s smiling and looking natural all at the same time that’s hard.’ Cate pulled a face.
‘You’re a pro.’
‘I hope Phil won’t look and feel too awkward. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s what’s been bothering him lately: worrying about how he might come across.’
‘He is okay, isn’t he?’ Natalie tried to sound casual. Luxe Life Swap didn’t deal in stress and marital strife.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Cate rubbed her hand across her forehead. ‘He’s never been good at showing his feelings. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s get the bill. I know we talked about going to the Lace Museum but I’ve seen enough of Burano to last a lifetime.’
‘I suppose we could try to change the filming schedule,’ Natalie said, although Floella would probably kill her.
Cate smiled brightly. ‘It’s okay. We’ll come back here for the filming; I won’t let you down. Look at the colours, the quaint little houses; your viewers will love all this. And Phil knows it’s on our itinerary. I don’t want him questioning why things have changed. I can’t have him worrying about me. You won’t tell him about today, will you? Promise me.’
‘No. I promise. Shall we go?’
‘Coffee, ladies? Some dessert, perhaps?’ The waiter, as if sensing a shift in mood, had reappeared.
‘Just the bill please. This one’s on me, I insist.’ Cate opened her wallet. ‘Here, this will more than cover it; keep the change.’
‘ Grazie .’ The waiter slipped the cash into the pocket of his apron.
‘Thank you, that was kind.’ Natalie stood up.
‘Wait a moment.’ Cate rooted in her bag. She scrunched up the piece of brown envelope with her mother’s address and dropped it into the aluminium ashtray. ‘I won’t be needing this any more. I think the vaporetto stop is over that way. Come on, let’s go.’
‘After you.’ Natalie hung back, just for the split second it took to palm Cate’s cast-off scrap of paper into her bag.