ventiquattro
If she could just secure the €100,000 from Tiziano, Lucia knew she could get by. Between what she could borrow, her savings, and hopefully some extra money on account of the Venezia, Ovunque! project, she could see hope at the end of the next sixty-eight days.
Or something that vaguely resembled it, at least.
So, that Saturday morning, as planned, Lucia knocked on Tiziano Zorzi’s door and waited. After a moment she could hear the shuffling of delicate feet approaching from within, and then she was face to face with Tiziano’s elderly maid.
Lucia was welcomed in and shown to the same chair she had sat in during their last meeting. Tiziano was nowhere to be seen. His round glasses sat poised on the leather-topped desk, and Lucia noted how the lenses were smudged and greasy. To her left lay a few newspapers, and to her right was an ashtray dotted with crumpled, burned-out butts.
‘Lucia!’ The energy with which he had announced her name lit a spark in her eyes. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting.’
That trademark rotund belly slowed Tiziano’s walk to a waddle as he entered the room and crossed to his desk, and Lucia distinctly heard his knees crack as he eased himself into his chair. His cheeks were rosy and his eyes wide.
Surely this is a good sign?
‘How are you, Lucia?’
What Lucia wanted to say was that she felt like a nervous wreck. That all her hopes and dreams to secure La Scuola Rosa wholly in her name rested upon her good faith in him, and on him being true to his word. She wanted to grip the edge of the desk to steel herself, as no matter how she tried to fight it, the flight response in her legs wanted to carry her far from this palazzo, and back home to Foscari and Calle del Leone.
But she swallowed it all and buried it behind her bravado.
It’s time to play the game, Lucia. You can do this . . .
‘Despite the past few weeks of waiting and dealing with this issue,’ she gestured with both hands to the space between them, ‘it has been a busy time for us at the school. New students, fresh curriculum, Carnevale starting next w—’
‘I heard about the photo, Lucia.’
Lucia blinked. ‘The what?’
‘The viral social media post.’
Lucia was unable to stifle her deep swallow. ‘ You know about that?’ She felt the blood drain from her face.
Cazzo.
‘ Sì , all of Venice is talking about it.’ He collected his glasses, gave the lenses a rudimentary clean on the lapel of his blazer then popped them on the edge of his nose. Lucia saw him notice the greenish tinge to her bruised forehead and struggle to restrain a grimace. ‘It’s not a good look, Lucia. To be honest.’
Now there was no hiding her trembling fingers or the vibration in her voice. ‘Tiziano . . . that . . . that was all out of my hands. I played no part in that. Honestly.’
‘That may be, but I can’t have any part in that negative press. Particularly an incident that took place at my ball. If that were ever confirmed . . .’
The realisation of what was to come hit Lucia like a cannonball. It sucker-punched her in the belly, metaphorically pinning her to the chair as her legs hollowed to empty shells.
She watched her life play out in slow motion before her. Vittorio Gatti’s slimy, sleazy grin greeting her every morning as he entered the school, key legitimately in hand. His cold and calculated erasure of her parents and their legacy of community service. And his certain pressure to dismiss Mariella, once and for all.
A knot of nausea threatened to be her final undoing. The shuddering cold sweat. The taste of bile.
But she managed to keep it all down. For now.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, somewhat rhetorically, as she could already guess what his response would be.
‘Lucia, I want no part in this PR disaster. You know how conservative the local media are. These sorts of things don’t happen to just anyone in Venice. But they always seem to happen to you .’
Her voice finally broke. ‘ Always ? But—’
‘First the tragic accident coverage. Then the surveillance operation on your calle for the tenth anniversary. Now this . . .’ He tutted disapprovingly. ‘I rely on those media outlets to support and promote my work. For the coverage and the return they afford me. If word got out – even if our agreement was reached before the incident – it still reflects poorly on me and my estate.’ He gave his head a solemn shake.
Lucia’s eyes welled. ‘Are you refusing me the money because of that Instagram post?’
‘On a technicality, no .’
‘What?’ Was there a glimmer of hope? A sliver of possibility? She pulled herself to the edge of her chair, poised with both hands pressed to the leather desktop.
‘I had already made up my mind before word of this latest incident. Before the magic and memory of the ball was overshadowed by l’Orfana seeking a man.’
Her jaw tightened. That word tormented her. She despised it. Yet she had to push through the conversation, charging onward for clarity if nothing else. ‘But you said that your donation was riding on the ball turning a profit.’ Her eyes traced frantic lines across his face. ‘Did it not make any money?’
‘It did. A tremendous, unprecedented profit, in fact. But no one remembers the ball, Lucia. It got no press coverage at all. All we saw was your face. Again .’
Lucia steeled herself and chose to side-step his callous comment. As if she had a choice in the matter. But as much as she wanted to disappear, she needed answers. ‘If the ball turned such a handsome profit, why have you decided to renege on our verbal agreement?’
‘Just as I told you at our last meeting. A further condition to my donation would be dependent on a more tempting offer presenting itself.’ He sat back in his wingback chair and crossed his hands sagely over his belly. ‘Well, I had a better one from this year’s investor in the ball. We arrived at an agreement that if the ball reached a target of increased profitability I would hold out on donating to third parties for a period of twelve months. The ball almost doubled that target.’
‘You actually meant that?’ Lucia’s blood ran cold. ‘Who is this investor?’
‘Vittorio Gatti.’
Lucia leaned over the edge of the fondamenta as far as was possible without tipping in. There, in that quiet place just off the Grand Canal, she allowed the contents of her stomach to spill out. It came in waves marked by convulsions and shivers. She held her gathered long hair in one hand, and braced herself with the other.
Eventually, once there was nothing left, she lay down on the embankment and gently sobbed. There was no audience. No prying eyes. No one ever travelled that far down the canal. There was nothing to see except for the abandoned waterlogged palazzi and the green waterlines of the acqua alta , proudly marking their territory. Humans were no longer welcome there.
With her chin resting on the cold pavers, Lucia looked down into the emerald-tinted waters. The reflection of her eyes was immediately lost against the water.
To Lucia, it felt like the universe had imploded. Everything that had ever made sense in her life was hanging by a thread. There she was, with that same thread wound around her neck, punishing her for having cared enough to fight for her independence and her parents’ legacy. And now, she felt as though she’d been left there to dangle.
Eventually, once the nausea subsided, she rolled onto her back and looked upward. The clouds and sky shared the same pallid grey tones, indistinguishable from one another. Just an ominous vacuous expanse, mirroring the numbing nothingness that weighed down her limbs.
Prying herself carefully from the fondamenta , Lucia sat upright. She reached into her bag in search of a tissue to wipe her mouth, but instead her fingers found something sharp. Withdrawing it, Lucia was insulted to find it was Vittorio’s business card.
Imprenditore vecchio stile.
In Lucia’s book he was nothing more than a manipulative crook. The idea of him being anything else, let alone an old-school entrepreneur , as he professed, made her stomach churn once more.
She scowled and folded the card in half, and was just about to throw it in the water, when suddenly she noticed an address on the back.
His address.