Chapter Eighteen
From the outside, the Hospice Calma Bianca at Castello could have been one of Venice’s less extravagant hotels: a pearl-white frontage studded with small windows – some circular, some oblong; four tiered storeys stacked neatly on one another; and a pale oak door with a honey-coloured portico.
Olivia and Leo went through the portico and into a glass-backed, simple lobby beyond it, the circular, herringbone path of a courtyard that showcased a modest fountain at its centre.
The lobby was painted white and was very light; a nurse behind a marble desk, in pale blue starched uniform and old-fashioned white scrub cap, made no sound as she moved from computer console to digital pinboard, detailing the quiet schedule of today’s doctors.
‘I think we need to sign in,’ Olivia commented to Leo, in a whisper – she felt that everyone must speak in whispers here – as they approached the desk.
They signed in, adding their plain-looking English names to the list of Italian ones, and, nodding at the nurse, made their way through the glass sliding doors to the courtyard, around the herringbone, and along a path to a two-storey building with awnings in dusty pink that reminded Olivia of an American road-trip motel.
Olivia led Leo to the second floor. She noticed how he still tugged at the knees of his trousers before he climbed a flight of stairs. How he kept his head down, concentrating. How he smiled gently at her when they reached the top. Who was he? she thought. Who was he in Venice?
They walked along a blank corridor, their footsteps echoing. A soft wail came from behind a distant closed door. They reached the door of Room 201, which opened, and a nurse carrying a jug of water glided out.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can I help you?’
‘We’re here to see Gillian Goddard,’ said Olivia. ‘I’m her god-daughter. And next of kin,’ she added.
‘Of course,’ said the nurse. ‘Please go in. I was just refreshing Gillian’s water.
I’m Piera.’ She had excellent English, a round face and curly hair wrestled into a neat bun.
She started walking away down the corridor.
‘She’s tired. But it’s good you are here,’ she said, over her shoulder.
‘And you have brought a handsome man, so that’s even better. ’
The two visitors entered the room. Inside were crisp white sheets on a high motorised bed; a circular window behind with a view of a beautifully jumbled skyline; a vase of soft winter foliage on a bedside table; and Gillian Goddard in a very un-Gillian periwinkle woollen bed jacket, her once charcoal hair now a pale silver and combed off her face.
‘Hello, Gillian.’
Gillian looked so different, Olivia thought, to the person she had known.
That robust woman, full of steel and laughter, had paled to this frail woman in the bed, and she had brought none of the material manifestations of the past with her.
There were no photographs in this room, no books, no art, no personal mementos.
There was nothing from the house in Pimlico.
Just Gillian, the bed, two chairs and a bedside table.
‘It’s Olivia.’ Leo hung back. Olivia stepped towards the bed. ‘Olivia Sackville.’
‘Olivia. You came.’
Was she pleased? It was hard to tell. Gillian’s face was softer than it had been years ago. There were fleshy domes under her eyes, lines at the side of her mouth. Was the mouth smiling? But her eyes looked bright.
‘I’ve brought someone with me. Leo Greene. He’s another writer. We’re here at a book festival, and we’ve just come from the house. We’ve packed up the last of your belongings, got everything sorted.’
‘How are you doing?’ Leo asked. He approached the bed and took Gillian’s hand. The Leo Greene charm saw Gillian’s face momentarily brighten.
‘Handsome,’ she muttered. ‘What do you write?’
‘Crime,’ Leo replied.
‘Excellent,’ she said. Gillian knew all about Olivia’s career, she must do.
She had sent a Congratulations! card in the post when Olivia’s first book had been published.
But that was all. Her scant correspondence never added up to much, and everything she had sent had read as so hollow.
Olivia had no idea how to make amends with her own words, have them fill in all the gaps and make their relationship whole again. She had no idea what to say.
There was silence. Olivia waited. Gillian grimaced a little and shifted her body under the sheets – a shrouded leg pricked to the left, an elbow rising.
‘How can I make you more comfortable, Gillian?’ Olivia stepped closer to the bed. Gillian shook her head, and Leo said, ‘Let me.’
He plumped up Gillian’s pillow as she meekly lifted her head.
He tucked the sheet firmly around her and gently stroked her elbow through it, until her body was peaceful and still.
He then took the chair at the left-hand side of the bed, and Olivia sank into the other, opposite, shrugging her coat off.
‘Thank you for making me next of kin,’ Olivia said eventually. ‘I didn’t know whether that meant you actually wanted to see me, but—’
‘You look so much like your father,’ said Gillian. For the first time, she was looking directly at her god-daughter and she had tears in her eyes. ‘I really miss him. Still.’
‘Me, too,’ Olivia replied, but so quietly.
‘I’m sorry it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.
’ She thought about the time she had stood outside the house on the Lido and walked away.
She thought about all the years, over thirteen of them, in which she had felt Gillian’s cold shoulder and colder heart from a distance, always from a distance, and here they were, unsatisfactorily reunited at last. ‘Are they looking after you well, here?’
Good start, she thought, to skirting all the way around.
Her words were like Gillian’s postcards, messages sent through the air, polite, signalling some small desire to make contact, but not a great deal of it.
Not enough. Just enough to keep lines of communication open, not enough to have them singing.
‘Yes, they do. It’s calm. Tranquil. I even forgive it its uninventive food.’
‘Forgiveness is a wonderful thing,’ Leo commented.
Olivia looked at him. Why had he said that?
He and Olivia had not forgiven each other, how could they?
And it would not happen here today with Gillian.
She was certain of that already. ‘And how bad can the food be? It’s Italy! Can I fetch you some water, Gillian?’
Gillian nodded, then reached up a hand from under the sheet to touch her hair.
‘I look a mess,’ she said, only to Leo.
‘You look lovely,’ Leo replied. He poured Gillian some water from a fresh jug on the bedside table into a plastic tumbler, and helped hold it while she sipped from it gratefully.
Olivia felt redundant. Leo’s kindness was elbowing her out of the room.
She knew why he was doing it, acting all solicitous; he was quilting over the painfully apparent void between godmother and god-daughter.
Stitching together the awkwardness. ‘Do they ever let you look out of the window at that magnificent view?’ he asked.
‘Seldom,’ Gillian replied. ‘Although occasionally they turn the bed around. Mostly, Piera describes it for me. Her English is so effective.’
‘That’s good,’ Leo said. ‘Sometimes you need someone else’s words.’ He stood up and peered through the window. ‘Would you like me to describe the view for you today, Gillian?’
‘Yes, please,’ Gillian said with a smile, closing her eyes.
Olivia stood up. ‘I’m going to get a coffee. Would you like one, Leo?’
‘Oh, yes. Black, please.’
Olivia left the room and walked to the small vending machine at the end of the corridor. When she returned, Leo was back on his chair with his head bent towards Gillian’s, and Gillian was softly laughing.
‘You two look like you’re up to no good,’ Olivia commented, handing Leo his coffee.
Leo looked up at her. ‘We’re talking about you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Gillian was asking me about your career recently. I was filling her in.’
Gillian could ask me herself, Olivia thought. Why can’t you bear to look at me? she thought. Why can’t you?
‘Why did you make me next of kin?’ Olivia asked. It just came out, and she could bear it no longer, this skirting around. They had skirted around each other for nearly fourteen years.
‘I don’t have anyone else,’ Gillian responded. She coughed, then coughed again, giving a little splutter – her hand coming to her mouth. Olivia was already out of her seat.
‘More water, Gillian?’ She quickly refilled her godmother’s tumbler, raising it to her lips. ‘Not too much,’ she warned. ‘Careful.’
‘I’ll be quite alright,’ said Gillian briskly and, with that, the conversation was shut down and Olivia knew she couldn’t open it up and dig down deep.
There was a small knock at the door and a nurse appeared in the doorway: short, stocky and clean-cut, with floppy brown hair and a uniform of pale blue baggy trousers and a crackling cotton tunic.