Chapter Five
The ‘secret garden’ behind Palazzo Tesoro was pretty.
A small square enclosed by the backs of the splendid buildings of Venice’s plainer cousins, it had neat, biscuit-textured paths and a maze of semi-circular dwarf hedges around a central grassy disc.
A small round table had been set up on the disc.
The two catering ladies who had served coffee were now hovering over tall flutes of sparkling Prosecco and small platters of canapés as, behind them, a trio of patio heaters flared: orange flames and woody grey smoke licking up into the air.
Felicity and Valentia had herded the four authors and the two publicists down a narrow flight of stairs, through a ground-floor salon to the rear of the palazzo and out to the surprise of the garden.
It was bitter out here, the January wind bothering the tops of the hedges and whipping up the corners of the ladies’ black aprons, a low grey sky above.
Olivia fastened the top button of her coat and pulled her cashmere scarf from her bag to wind around her neck.
They stood in an awkward circle, the authors, the publicists, and Felicity and Valentina, both smiling rigidly.
Leo was to Olivia’s right. She was trying to subtly move away from him – leaning her body to the left, towards Anthony, clamping her bag to her side again. The pens. The notepads – when Leo clinked his glass with hers.
‘Well, that was lovely,’ he said.
‘Wasn’t it?’ She was forced to straighten her body. They weren’t on stage any more. The show was over, she thought. The audience dispersed. They were left with only stilted words and the suspended chill of the past between them.
‘I’m sorry to hear your godmother is in a hospice.’
‘Thank you.’
She didn’t want to look into his hazel eyes, but there they were looking into hers.
She didn’t know how to interact with him.
Be with him. It had been three years since they had last said a word to each other.
Three years since she’d disappeared into that car on a Tuscan lane, the cicadas chorusing in the night hedgerows as Leo stared at her from a softly lit farmhouse doorway, everything destroyed between them .
. . ‘And your parents?’ she asked, as brightly as she could. ‘Are they well?’
‘Yes, very well.’
‘How’s Balth?’
Leo pulled a face. ‘He’s the same. How’s Annabel? And Stella?’
‘Both great, thanks. Stella’s flying out here at the end of the week, actually. I’ve wangled her an invitation to the Final Dinner.’
‘Sounds fun!’
Stella was on her way to meet a man in Verona she’d met online. She was stopping off in Venice for the free dinner and the chance to spend the evening with her friend, following an accounting conference in Rome.
‘Things are always fun with Stella.’
They sipped their champagne. A bird flitted on to the hedge nearest them, looked around, then scuttered off, climbing into the bone-grey Venice skyline.
‘So, we wrote the same scene,’ he said. ‘Apparently.’
‘Well, I’m sure we didn’t . . .’
‘Interesting, though. All that food . . .’
‘There’s a lot of food in Italy. And in Italian restaurants. My scene was in London, by the way.’
He looked at her. ‘So was mine.’
‘Oh.’
They fell silent for a few seconds. Sipped a little more of their Prosecco.
‘Not married then?’ she asked him eventually. She couldn’t help herself.
‘No. You?’
She waggled her empty left hand at him. ‘No.’
There was silence between them for a few seconds, then Leo asked, ‘What are you doing now? Next? After this?’
‘Now? Going back to the hotel for a lie down, I expect.’
He looked surprised, but she was tired. She wanted to lie on her bed and eat the contents of her mini bar. She wanted to digest Leo Greene being here in Venice, and what that might mean.
‘Anthony mentioned the four of us going on to Harry’s Bar. With Meryn and Tanya.’
‘Harry’s Bar?’
‘For lunch, if you fancy it?’
‘Oh, I’m not sure . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Why not? It’ll be great.’ She realised he was standing too close to her.
She could smell his aftershave again, the reminiscent scent of summer days and rainy afternoons.
‘Unless you’d really rather go back to the hotel to start reading my book .
. .’ She chucked a look at him. ‘I’m just kidding,’ he added.
‘You know I am. I know it’s a long time since you’ve read anything of mine. ’
He was looking serious again. This unnerved her, and she remembered something else about chapter twenty-five of The Curator (Leo was right, it was easy to forget certain details of her books, especially as, by the time they came out, she had usually written a whole new one and started another) – just after that restaurant scene, Justice and Kath had their huge row and tore their lives apart.
‘Will you come?’ He ran a hand through his hair. He was vintage Leo, classic Leo, she thought, the green and tiger brown of his eyes a hairpin trigger to many of her regrets. ‘Everyone would love you to come.’
Now his tone was kind. This was what had always thrown her about Leo, had her feeling she might fall for him, time and time again.
His ability, sometimes, to say just the right thing, at exactly the right time.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied, ignoring that tone.
The side of Leo she had almost loved. ‘Sorry.’
‘OK. Totally your call.’
He looked down at his cowboy boots then back up at her with a resigned smile. She wanted to run. She wanted to flee from this place right now, and from that look in his eyes. She was lost here. She’d lost hold of herself the moment he’d breezed into the palazzo.
Meryn appeared, a glass of fizz in one hand and a mini mushroom bruschetta in the other. She rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘Anthony’s being a pain,’ she said. ‘He’s panicking about bow ties and stuff for Friday. You don’t happen to have a spare, do you?’ she asked Leo.
‘At the hotel. I’ll go and talk to him,’ Leo offered, and he moved away, Olivia’s eyes trying not to follow him.
‘Apparently, we’re all going to Harry’s Bar,’ said Meryn, before popping the miniature bruschetta in her mouth.
Olivia shook her head. ‘I’m not.’
‘You have to!’ Meryn was horrified. ‘Anthony has promised to tell us what happened at his publisher’s Christmas party!’
‘No.’ Olivia shook her head. ‘I’m not going. I want to go back to the hotel.’
‘That’s disappointing. You’ll be missing out.’
Olivia didn’t answer. They both took sips of their Prosecco.
‘That was interesting what Beth said, wasn’t it?’ Meryn ventured finally. ‘About your books. You and Leo.’
‘It was insane.’
‘Fancy both doing the same thing!’ Meryn’s expression was that of an unrelenting ferret. She was never ‘off’, Meryn – her mind always whirring, plotting, shooting off at tangents. It was what made her such a good publicist.
‘We didn’t!’ Olivia protested. ‘It’s just a coincidence.’ That was becoming such a tired line already.
‘Beth’s put something about it on social media.’
Olivia nearly choked on her fizz. ‘Really?’
‘Yep! On Instagram. She’s posted a photo from the panel and written about the two restaurant scenes in your books, giving page numbers. There’s quite a lot of chatter online already.’
‘Oh, God . . .’
‘Chatter is good, Olivia, as we know. All publicity is fantastic publicity.’
‘Hmm . . . well, I hope you’re not looking to get some sort of opportunity out of it?’ Olivia raised her eyebrows.
Meryn grinned. ‘Of course not! But there is one right now, if I can change your mind. A chance to have your photograph taken at Harry’s Bar with the other authors.
It’ll be great, we can put it everywhere, along with a big fat image of your book.
And the food there is soooooo good! You can’t be the only English Writer in Venice who doesn’t go! ’
‘Now you’re making me feel guilty!’
‘Good. Please, say you’ll come – please, for meeeee.’
‘Oh God, Meryn, not the face . . .’
‘Are you relenting?’
‘Maybe.’
‘So, you’ll come?’
Olivia threaded her arm through Meryn’s and dipped her head on to her shoulder. ‘I’m only coming for you. And for the publisher. And my book sales.’
‘Let’s get a top-up,’ Meryn said, thrilled, and, still arm in arm, they wandered over to the table, where the ladies refilled their glasses.
Leo and Anthony were standing by the fountain, talking earnestly. Anthony had his hand on his hip and was leaning in like a teapot. Leo’s face was lit up in the receipt of Anthony’s merry barbs.
‘When did you first meet Leo Greene?’ Meryn asked Olivia as they glanced over and sipped their fizz.
‘A few years ago. On the circuit.’ She could go to Harry’s Bar, Olivia thought. She could go and talk to everyone, do the photo, fly the flag. She could survive the week, if she didn’t have to look into his eyes.
‘What, a book event or something?’
‘Yes, must have been,’ Olivia continued the lie. She had lied to Frances and now she was lying to Meryn. Sometimes, the wrong words just escaped her.
‘I think most people would know exactly where they were when they met Leo Greene,’ Meryn replied, with a quick smile. ‘Don’t you think so?’
Of course, Olivia knew. She knew exactly when, and where. It was 1998, in London, and she was nineteen. And she was never supposed to see him again, but she did.