Chapter Thirty-One
By the time the water taxi had transported me gently through the blue-black, lights-on-water, Venetian night, my teeth were chattering.
Before coming out I’d had the hottest shower imaginable, the water violently rattling through the length of the hotel’s pipes as though it was fighting its way out.
I’d lotioned and potioned myself to the max (my expensive perfume definitely counted as a potion) and spent a long time on my eye make-up and my lipstick, as that was all that was designed to be seen behind my mask.
On the surface, I told myself I was doing this for my own sake, and perhaps I was, but I would have been lying to myself if I didn’t admit that I also wondered what Olly would think of my appearance.
He was used to tired Lizzy, competent, presentable but corporate Lizzy.
I had to admit it to myself now: I wanted to dazzle him. I wanted him to want me.
The gown fitted perfectly. As I had buckled my sparkling shoes, I chided myself, told myself to enjoy the evening.
Not to be a spoiled brat longing for PJs and a bowl of pasta, when I was going to a Ball in Venice.
But somehow every signpost in my mind was pointing to the exit.
In the past I’d learned not to ignore those signposts. And yet, here I was.
Disembarking, I followed the directions on the back of the invitation, walking away from the shimmering, oil-black water down a narrow street, its stones smooth with age, then through an archway, into a dramatic torchlit courtyard where there was a firebreather and a fire juggler, the flames brilliant and hypnotic in the night.
There was already a scattering of people, dressed in brightly coloured costumes.
I felt a twinge of irritation that I wasn’t able to identify who everyone was.
There was no chance of me controlling this situation.
‘Sweet, sweet Lizzy.’ It was Esme, masked herself, but her low, carefully modulated voice was totally recognisable.
Her tone was as rich as any actress set to recite Shakespearean sonnets – she had had voice training when she first ventured on to YouTube – and I had the sense that every inflection, every catch in her voice, which always gave the sense that she was full of feeling, was somehow deliberate.
Had she always sounded like that? I wondered now.
Or had she carefully calibrated herself over the years as she grew ever richer, ever more remote from normal life?
She was wearing a corseted silk red gown, high to the throat but almost entirely backless, and my eyes darted over her, trying to catch an impression of her shimmering silhouette, the smooth gold of her mask, decorated with red gems. As I approached her, she raised her mask, but I did not raise mine.
‘Good evening,’ I said, executing a mock curtsey.
She air-kissed my mask. ‘Colombina really suits you.’
‘And this’– I gestured to her outfit – ‘really suits you. Have you greeted the host?’
‘Of course,’ she said throatily. ‘It was the first thing I did. He’s delighted to have us here. Wants us to kick back, all of us.’
‘How many of us are here?’ I felt weird about it; surely Anderson’s invitation had been meant for Esme and Ajax alone. Another reason why I would have been happier in my hotel room.
‘Eight, or thereabouts,’ said Esme, hazily. ‘You know what it’s like. I don’t like leaving people out.’
I nodded, my gaze raking across the courtyard, steeling myself against her lack of accountability.
‘I feel like I disappoint you, Lizzy,’ she said, trying to hold my gaze. Typical Esme, to dive right into this at the most inopportune moment. The firebreather let out a billow of flames and some bedazzled partygoers shrieked with delight.
‘Sorry you feel that way,’ I said briskly. ‘My bad.’ I needed to wrap this up: a freezing, flame-filled Renaissance courtyard wasn’t the place to have a work autopsy. ‘Let’s just get the app done, and you and Ajax wed.’
I saw a slight flicker in her expression, but couldn’t read it. She reached forward and squeezed my arm, engulfing me in her perfume. ‘I have to get back to my king,’ she said. ‘Enjoy the party, my Lizzy. Canapés and amusements now, hard partying from eleven.’
I nodded and watched her float away across the courtyard.
When she’d disappeared inside, I pulled my mask back and took some deep breaths of the Venetian air, shot through with smoke.
The moment I did, some of the other revellers joined me, identifying themselves and sounding frankly relieved that they had worked out who I was.
‘Guess who!’ squealed one voice, and when I looked around, I saw Sasha.
She was wearing a purple mask, richly decorated in gold filigree patterns and with a plume of what looked like peacock feathers.
She put her arms around me and squeezed me, and I had to resist the impulse to step away.
‘What do you think?’ she said, and I could smell the alcohol on her breath. ‘Am I the belle of the ball?’
‘Very likely,’ I said, somehow managing to usher her away from me. Luckily, at this point we started moving as a group into the main building, more revellers arriving behind us. I put my mask back on.
Inside, the main room was dramatically lit with pools of darkness and light: chiaroscuro, like a Caravaggio painting.
The walls were decorated with astonishingly elaborate wooden marquetry depicting flowers and birds; the ceiling was gilded.
The room was perfumed with dense, incense-like scent, but nothing could quite block out the smell of alcohol, emanating from the vast silver punch bowls dotted around the room, full to the brim.
‘I’m as drunk as a skunk,’ muttered Georgia from Finance, leaning against me as she passed. ‘I only had one tiny glass of the stuff. Don’t get any on your hands, it’ll take your nail varnish off.’
Masked waiters were handing out tiny blinis dotted with caviar and bruschetta topped with aubergine. I declined them and went in search of a non-alcoholic drink. Instead, I found some champagne, and allowed myself a glass, which I sipped in the darkest corner I could find.
As I stood there, I watched as a figure entered the room and looked around.
They were wearing a costume covered in multi-coloured diamond shapes, a black mask and a tricorn hat.
It was a ridiculous costume, the tight trousers too short.
And yet, there was a familiar broadness to the shoulders, a certain uprightness to the walk, which made my heart beat faster in recognition.
I watched in something like a daze as Georgia pointed in my direction and he strode across the room, stopping a foot away from me.
‘Hello.’
I felt relief uncurl in my stomach at the sound of Olly’s voice.
Until that moment I hadn’t realised how tense I was.
I had to hold myself back from reaching out and touching him, grounding myself against him.
Easy, I thought. We might be in masks, but you’re still working.
I looked up at him; beneath the mask, those brown, glittering eyes were unmistakable.
‘Hey!’ It was Amber, arriving at Olly’s side in a gust of intense and fruitily sweet perfume. I recognised her from her hair. She looked so well-groomed, it was almost as though she was lacquered. ‘Lizzy,’ she said, ‘are you Colombina?’
‘Er, yes, you?’
‘Same.’ She didn’t sound entirely pleased about it. ‘Are we all Colombina?’
‘I’m not,’ said Olly.
Amber erupted into laughter.
‘On the sauce already?’ Olly said to me, nodding towards my champagne glass.
‘I was going to stick to water, but Esme referred to Ajax as her king, so there we go.’
He snorted. ‘I understand perfectly.’
‘Eeek.’ Amber frowned, then tapped Olly’s arm. ‘I think there may be cocktails in the other room. Come with?’
‘Sure.’
I had no way of gauging his expression, what he was thinking.
I couldn’t see his face, but there was that stand-back, military-straight rigidity about the way he was standing; maybe my questions by text had put him off.
My heart sank; modern relationships felt so much like a game of chess, with their don’t-blink-first subtleties. I just had to brazen it out.
‘See you,’ I said, in a sing-song voice, trying to sound playful.
As Amber started to drag him away, he touched my hand. ‘I will see you later, yes?’ There was a sudden seriousness to his voice, the slightest hint of insecurity, that turned a key inside me. This wasn’t a game. And I was mad for him.
‘You will,’ I said softly. He nodded and followed her.