Five Days in Venice

Chapter One Venice Tuesday 9 January 2018

Chapter One

Venice

Leo Greene walked into the frescoed lobby of Palazzo Tesoro on the Grand Canal in Venice, on the first day of the book festival.

The milling throng – readers, authors, publicists and the odd curious tourist – watched him with the usual pleasure and admiration.

People were always pleased to see Leo Greene.

He was one of those men – good-looking, clever, successful – for whom the crowds and the gods smiled, and more than once upon a time, Olivia Sackville had almost been in love with him.

Of course, she had to be standing right at the edge of the bookish crowd as he strode through the lobby, wavy hair pushed back from his face, hazel eyes sparkling, vintage leather satchel slung from his shoulder.

Of course, she happened to be holding a copy of his bestselling novel, Midnight Echoes, down by her hip – one that she was now quietly edging behind the canvas of her tote bag.

‘Olivia!’ Leo stopped right by her, his eyes wide in surprise, his smile confirming what she knew she’d feel if she were to ever see him again. ‘You still have great taste in books, then?’

‘Leo,’ she replied, trying to make his name not sound like an accusation or an entreaty.

She stopped trying to hide the book that three seconds before the catastrophe of his entrance, Olivia’s publicist, Meryn, had handed her, saying rather too casually, ‘Leo Greene is also going to be on the panel, too, did anyone mention . . . ?’

Olivia’s thumb was over Leo’s name. All Leo Greene’s books had a similar cover: dark background, neon font, this one with a fleeing figure in shabby overcoat and chef’s trousers disappearing around a damp-bricked corner. She felt her pulse in that thumb.

‘It’s nice to see you again,’ Leo said. He was wearing black jeans, a dark wool pea coat, a striped scarf he was spooling off. ‘How have you been?’

‘Great thanks, you?’ Olivia replied robotically. How have you been? was a simple question, a light exchange between some, but between a man and a woman who had not seen each other for three years, and had left on less than friendly – some might say disastrous – terms, it was not.

‘I’ve been OK. What are you promoting?’ Leo asked. He was five inches taller than her. His eyes were the rich green and brown and gold kaleidoscope she had so often tried to avoid. ‘The Curator on Church Street? Another big hit, I bet.’

‘The Curator, yes,’ she replied. With her free hand, she adjusted the waistband of her oxblood leather midi skirt; her silk blouse had become a little untucked. She unnecessarily handed his book to him, like it was a grenade, making sure their fingers didn’t touch.

‘I was only invited yesterday.’ Leo shrugged at the book, opened the flap of his leather satchel and slipped it inside. No wedding ring, she noticed. ‘I’m a stand-in. Louise Welland-Phillips broke her leg.’

‘Shame,’ Olivia said coolly, although her heart was a jumping jackrabbit under the silk of her blouse. She flattened her arm against her bag for the reassuring feel of her neatly lined A5 notebooks, her rainbow set of pens, her pencils. ‘I was looking forward to seeing Louise.’

There was a twitch of another smile at the corner of Leo’s lips, then his eyes turned serious. ‘It really is great to see you again,’ he said, his gaze set fast on her face. ‘It’s been . . . well, it’s been a while. How are you, Olivia – really?’

She couldn’t bear the sudden warmth in his voice, the richness of his enquiry, the history of the two of them lurking right behind it. He had no right to be looking at her this way. With friendliness. With curiosity.

‘I—’ she started.

‘Leo Greene, goddamn it!’ boomed a voice.

It belonged to Anthony Beau, porcine author of the brilliant contemporary Jeeves and Wooster-esque books, The Edwin Hurley Chronicles.

He had been behind Olivia, holding court with some young Italian book bloggers and the fourth attending author, Frances Holland, but stepped forward and thrust out his pallid hand. ‘Nice to see you, my lad.’

‘And you, mate,’ said Leo heartily, that curious expression leaving his face as the one of professional author snapped back on.

Olivia stepped away, relieved, making a final adjustment to her blouse and skirt.

She didn’t want to listen to Anthony, in tweedy suit and flat cap, grumbling on again about yesterday’s flight from London City airport.

She didn’t want to look at Leo – how unsettling that he was here!

– or think about the last time they’d been together in Italy.

She took a further step back, seizing gratefully on an adjacent fresco: a pastoral scene – maiden, milk jug, lamb.

‘Glorious, isn’t it?’ Meryn came to stand next to her. ‘Of course, all the buildings in Venice are glorious, but this is something else. I think the organisers of An English Writer in Venice may have found the prettiest palazzo in the city.’

Palazzo Tesoro was a faded old lady of Gothic beauty; a three-storey slab of Venetian wedding-cake in weather-blanched plum, studded with narrow arched windows and ornate balconies.

A water taxi had dropped them off this morning at its rickety wooden jetty with mooring poles like giraffes’ legs, and, inside, they had climbed two floors of the old stone staircase in awe, to reach the lobby of the Sala Grande.

‘It’s stunning,’ agreed Olivia. Meryn, in her red, snappy wool skirt suit and her leather knee-high boots, had knocked for Olivia at the hotel at 10 a.m. sharp, armed with coffee and Italian cookies.

In the water taxi, in the splash and morning steam of the Grand Canal, Olivia’s publicist had marvelled at the splendid, toppling skyline of the city, as she had never been to Venice before.

Olivia had, but not to Palazzo Tesoro. She admired its intricately painted walls and ceilings in muted shades of dusky peach and gilded rose, its cool, marble floor the colour of linen. ‘Oh look, they’re opening up!’

She kept her sights on two members of the palazzo staff – black skirts, white shirts, neat high ponytails, who were easing open the two huge gilded doors at the rear of the lobby – and nowhere near Leo Greene, somewhere behind her, talking to Anthony, Frances and a gaggle of admirers.

She could hear laughter, mostly female. Anthony’s bluster.

Leo’s seductive rumble. Olivia smiled tightly at one of the ponytails.

She had to keep a hold of herself. She had to batten down any part of her that might flap open and betray the effect Leo Greene was having on her, but she also wondered how he was feeling about seeing her.

She had known Leo. She had witnessed the masks he liked to wear with peppy lightness and cheery concealment.

The staff members were being instructed by the British organiser of An English Writer in Venice, Felicity Dunn, and the Italian co-organiser, Valentina Cavilleri.

The doors, once opened, revealed a room longer than it was wide, its floor pearly in weak sunlight from three tall arched windows at its far end.

Huge paintings and a sentry of grand walnut doors galleried the walls, and in front of the windows was a long table covered in a generous white cloth – with four seats.

‘I haven’t been put next to Leo, have I?

’ Olivia whispered to Meryn as they walked in with the other attendees.

Gilt chairs, laid out in rows and dissected by a central aisle, like at a wedding, filled the elegant room that smelled of beeswax and history.

An enormous unlit chandelier lorded above, prettily catching the pale winter light.

‘Erm, I’m not sure.’ Meryn’s blank look told Olivia she was fibbing. Olivia Sackville and Leo Greene were both big-hitters. Having them on a panel together – the crime writer, the romance doyenne – was quite the coup.

‘Hi, Olivia!’

A middle-aged woman in a green anorak and big owl-like glasses had tapped Olivia on the shoulder. She smiled at one of her favourite authors from under a silvery-blonde fringe, her hair short and flyaway.

‘Beth! You came.’

‘Of course I did! I saved all my pennies and told my husband to fend for himself. He’ll be living on baked beans and cheese sandwiches all week, but never mind!’

Beth was a book blogger from Warrington (@bookWireGirlie68), with quite a big following on most of the social media channels and a talent for writing expansive and thoughtful reviews.

‘Where are you staying?’

‘A little guest house behind St Mark’s Square. It’s gorgeous. I see Leo Greene is here,’ Beth whispered, lobbing a thrilled look in his direction. Leo was taking his seat at the table, two chairs in, and still talking animatedly to Anthony Beau. ‘What an addition!’

Leo laughed at something Anthony said, before reaching across the table to shake him by the hand. Leo’s eyes briefly flicked over to Beth and Olivia, and Olivia quickly looked away.

‘Have you been to Venice before?’ she asked Beth.

‘No, never. It’s amazing! I’m sure it’s quite different now to how it is in the summer, but it’s really atmospheric, isn’t it?’

It was January, and yes, there was definitely something magical about Venice in winter, Olivia thought – a season in which the city was washed in quite a different palette.

Its summer hues – terracottas, plums and yellows – were tempered by the watercolour brush of winter to elegantly faded pastels or, when fog crouched low over the canals, to a pencil sketch of black and grey, the coats and hats of tourists in St Mark’s Square flicks and dashes in inky olive.

Olivia had written about Venice in winter in her notebook last night at the hotel.

Just a few lines of prose, some observations.

She liked to capture people and moments in her lined books with the plain covers.

It was something she’d always done: a pretty scene glimpsed on a foreign shore, the play of light on a morning church steeple, the way a parent looked at their baby.

‘I love your new hair,’ Beth added. ‘It suits you.’

Olivia smiled her thanks. Most of her life she’d had a neat blonde bob, dead straight, but now she had let her hair grow to her shoulders and embrace its natural wave. She was almost forty, after all; why not change a little something?

‘It’s a thing I’m trying. So, have you got some good questions lined up for me?

’ she asked Beth. Felicity and Valentina were ushering the last people to their seats.

There was a faint clatter to their left from an open walnut door, and through it Olivia spied two elderly ladies bent over a gilt trolley, orchestrating rows of upturned cups on saucers.

‘Of course,’ Beth answered. ‘Especially now.’

‘Now?’

‘Olivia? Could you please take your seat?’

Felicity, calling over, was a volume of burgundy cord. A rather doughy woman, of schoolteacher haircut and Alice band, she gestured to the author’s table.

‘Sorry. Of course,’ Olivia replied. ‘What do you mean, “now”?’ she enquired of Beth, as she moved from her side.

‘I read crime and romance,’ Beth responded, a cheeky look on her face. ‘You’ll see, pet.’

As she reached the table, Olivia heard, ‘I believe you’re next to me. I hope that’s OK.’

Leo was boyishly patting the seat of her waiting chair.

‘I guess so,’ she said, reluctantly sitting down.

She could smell Leo’s familiar aftershave and that putty-type product he raked into his hair with his fingers.

She could hear the echo of his voice, the one she had once hoped might tell her that he loved her.

She could taste her own regret. And she could reach out and touch him, if she wanted to.

And she had often really, really wanted to.

‘You sure you’re OK?’ He had that look again, warmth and curiosity. She didn’t know what to do with it.

‘Yes, fine, thank you.’

She glanced out to the audience, twenty to thirty people, some smartly dressed, some casual. She caught Beth’s eye and accepted a small wink. Then she took a deep breath and tried to still herself, to keep herself contained, but she imagined she might fail.

She was not fine. How on earth was she going to survive this week in Venice with Leo Greene?