Chapter Thirteen Venice Tuesday 9 January 2018
Chapter Thirteen
Venice
The past was a shallow puddle you could barely see your own face in, she thought. The past was the dark water of a canal you could stare down into for a lifetime and still not be able to rewrite or change.
The authors and the publicists had taken the river taxi back to the Figo, having said goodbye to Beth near the alleyway to her guest house, but Olivia hadn’t gone with them. She needed to clear her head, she’d said. She had drunk a little too much. She wanted to walk around a little more.
‘But it’s freezing!’ Frances had cried.
‘I know. It’s fine. I’ll see you all later.’
Leo had tilted his head. ‘You sure?’ he’d asked, with too much unfathomable concern in his eyes.
‘Yes!’ and ‘Go! Go!’ she’d told them, and they’d peeled off in a bluster and a chatter into the crowds of Venice, the cold and the hint of afternoon fog.
Olivia had wandered through the alleyways of Venice for a while, alone.
Among the damp walls and beside the canals – flat and still in some stretches, chopped up into devilish peaks by rocking boats in others.
Among the people: the tourists, wandering or purposeful, wrapped up in coats and scarves, industrious with online maps on their phones, halting to gaze into unusual shop windows or to frown at the prices on a menu displayed under glass outside a bustling restaurant.
She grew tired of these streets – when, who, would ever grow tired of these streets?
– as she reached yet another shop selling masks, overlapping on posts outside like molluscs on a ship’s mast, so she turned back on herself, and headed to the Grand Canal, where she descended two damp steps, stared into the dank water for a while, and then hailed a gondola.
‘Ninety euros, thirty minutes,’ said her captain, a tall, skinny male of middle age and enthusiastic beard.
Olivia handed over the cash. It was extortionate, but everyone knew that on their visits to Venice, and, besides, most people had someone to share the fare and the journey with.
There was a heap of blankets where she took her seat, thick and grey like army surplus and smelling of wet dog. She pulled two gingerly over her for it was bitterly cold out there on the water, and sat back to take in the view.
Her gondolier was humming, right from the off.
They headed down the canal, slow and undulating, the slap of the water against the side of the vessel, Olivia’s future winding before her, the past lying behind, still but never silent.
She gazed up at the buildings left and right, enjoying their dwindling colours, their pale, pretty details; the way everything was beautiful, but nothing quite perfect.
The palazzos and basilicas and guild halls pressed together wonkily to keep themselves upright; the mooring poles creaked in the shallows; the eyes of a thousand windows looked sleepily on.
They passed under the Bridge of Sighs, and the gondolier started to softly sing. An Italian lullaby maybe, and she was cocooned in the red and black wood of the gondola, safe for now.
She didn’t want to see Leo again today. She would order room service, take a long hot bath, hunker down at the hotel.
She wished Stella would come early. She might phone Annabel tonight, at her big old ramshackle farmhouse in the country, her phone ringing under a pile of papers among the contented chaos of the evening, the school clubs, the running around – Andy asking where his shoes were, Annabel answering in a rush – harried, but pleased to hear her friend’s voice.
Olivia smiled at the thought of that. The thought, too, of Stella, with her man in Verona.
Having drinks, dressing up, planning dinner.
Feeling hopeful. Olivia needed these thoughts of her friends; she didn’t need her memories, but they always came.
Of the people she had lost. Far too many.
One of them right here in Venice – her godmother, Gillian, lying in a bed in a hospice until Olivia was brave enough to go and see her.
Contact between them had been minimal for so many years now.
A few postcards, including a new-address card sent from Venice, a couple of short letters, a piece of writing Olivia had posted to Gillian, in the hopes of what she didn’t know.
Maybe forgiveness, for something she could only guess at, for Gillian had never put it into words.
Maybe understanding. Something. Gillian had never once mentioned that piece of writing she had mailed.
Once upon a time, she had written her god-daughter long letters as meandering as the Venice canals, when she was out of the country, working abroad somewhere exciting on a secondment; Olivia had run to check the letterbox after school for Gillian’s chatty news and views, for tales of other cities, for advice and encouragement.
Dear Olivia, it’s sunny in Paris today and the new art pieces that have come into the gallery are astonishing. Lucky me! How is school? How did you get on with your book review of Great Expectations? I’m sure you got a really good mark for it . . .
Dear Olivia, there’s a stiff breeze in Barcelona today, otherwise the city is lovely. Hope school is going well and you’re looking after your father. Thank you for sending me that piece you wrote about the coffee shop. It was wonderful! Keep going, I really think you have a great talent . . .
Dear Olivia, it’s busy, busy in the gallery at Lisbon today! I miss you both a lot, though. Did you write that short story for the Young Writers competition in the end? I think the deadline is the 24th . . . P.S. Sorry about the handwriting, I’m scribbling on my lap as I drink my tea . . . xx
The gondolier started humming ‘That’s Amore’, really playing his part. A man at the canal edge called to his wife. A tourist dropped their old-fashioned camera into the water with a plop.
‘Disastro!’ muttered the gondolier, then resumed his song.
Venice, the watery city, continued on its day.
The city held another person lost to Olivia – Leo Greene – and she didn’t know what to do about that when seeing him always stirred so much within her.
Their history, their mistakes, when at one time to see him had been to find solace, but it had been fleeting; time with Leo was a fleeting ride on the surface of deep, deep water.
Her gondola passed another. A wrapped-up young couple, sharing a kiss and a future.
Olivia pulled one of the grey blankets further under her chin and looked the other way.
Kisses and imagined futures were deceptive.
Stolen nights could be crimes. And a rainy afternoon in London, far away, full of sadness and regret, could lead to both release and farewell.