Chapter Twenty-Seven Venice Wednesday 10 January 2018 #2
Before them was an uneven, unwieldy staircase made from an almost papier-maché compression of old and no longer usable books, destroyed by floods, soaked by the acqua alta of Venice, but preserved as squelched-together stacks, in bled-out, melted colours – like piled-up skeins of fabric in a haberdasher’s.
Plastic mats marked each tread. At the top was a wall, and beyond, the canal.
It was a living staircase of books and words, water and history, and Olivia found it utterly charming, as did Anthony and Frances, who appeared behind them with Tanya.
‘Go on up,’ Tanya said. ‘And sit at the top. I’ll bring you hot drinks and something to eat.’
‘I’m not going up there!’ Anthony looked horrified. ‘As pretty as it is, I might do myself an injury. Who wants to go to that lovely trattoria I spotted across the square instead?’
Frances glanced down at her high heels. ‘Me, I think,’ she said. ‘No one minds, do they? I don’t think there’s room for all of us up there, anyway.’
They disappeared back into the bookstore. Leo shrugged at Olivia and, tugging at the knees of his trousers, started walking up the right-hand side of the haphazard book steps, holding his hand out to her again.
‘I can manage,’ she said, but then she changed her mind, and she took his hand again.
The steps were surprisingly firm. The summit, a delight, with its view of the canal. Leo sat down and she sat next to him, their feet dangling over the smushed-together book steps. She could still feel the sensation of her hand in his.
‘Well, this is different,’ he said. ‘You’re not too cold?’
‘No, I’m alright.’
‘Did you enjoy the signing? Did you notice that man who joined all four queues?’
‘I did.’
‘Widely read,’ Leo commented, and Olivia smiled. They looked around them politely, to the canal, and tried to peer at some of the books for any faded titles on their spines, until Tanya appeared with a tray hosting two mugs and a plate of biscuits.
‘Hot chocolate,’ she proclaimed, ‘and biscotti.’ She handed the tray up to Leo who bent to receive it. ‘According to Beth, who gave me a hand, the hot chocolate is in your book, Olivia, and the biscotti is in yours, Leo.’
‘Is it?’ Olivia knew it was. She knew that in chapter four of The Curator, Kath and Justice sit in the little Italian café in Primrose Hill and drink hot chocolate, just after they bump into each other for the second time.
She had no idea about Leo’s book, but clearly Beth was right as Leo said, ‘Correct!’ They watched Tanya go.
Leo took the first sip. ‘Very nice,’ he commented.
‘There’s a place here called Inizio’s. It’s where all the old boys go for their coffee in the morning, and they do the most amazing hot chocolate.
It’s tiny. All the old men jostle at the bar, and chat and drink their espressos before heading off to begin their days.
You’d love it. Whenever I’m in Venice I go there.
I stand at the bar and wonder about the stories of some of those old boys, where they’re on their way to, if they have wives, children, grandchildren . . .’
‘I’ve been there,’ Olivia admitted. ‘Once. When I came to Venice that time. It was mentioned in a guidebook I had.’
‘The time after us?’
She baulked. ‘Yes. I didn’t see my godmother but I stayed here a week anyway.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Why would you?’
They sipped their hot chocolates. Olivia could hear the gentle lapping at the edge of the canal below them.
‘She seems a tricky character,’ he said. ‘Gillian.’
‘Yeah, she is. Coming here was kind of a pilgrimage for me, I guess, in seeing her, but I don’t think it’s going to work out.’
‘It still might.’
She shook her head. She thought about her planned visit to the hospice on Saturday. She still really couldn’t see that happening.
‘And this was all from the funeral? When you asked her if she resented you?’
‘You remember that?’
‘Of course.’
She nodded. ‘That wasn’t all,’ she said.
‘There was something else from the funeral.’ Why was it sometimes so easy to talk to him, she thought, particularly when they were alone?
Why could she just tell him things, straight from the heart?
Was he right, and did he know her better than anyone else, too?
‘My reading. The one I wrote, anyway. I couldn’t read it, the celebrant did.
What a disaster it was. How inadequate. It was so awful that Gillian had to take over. ’
‘Go on . . .’ He was listening like he had in the Rivoli Bar, all those years before. That was why she could talk to him, she realised. It was how he listened.
‘Well, I felt so wretched, so guilty I hadn’t been there, so terrible that I’d never said the right words to him, that I couldn’t write any true, meaningful words, either.
What I wrote was too factual, too impersonal.
I’d thought, what was the point, when it was too late?
He had gone. So it was just a simple summing up of an entire, good life.
No one laughed, no one even cried. I had not done him justice, and Gillian’s face, when the celebrant had finished, said it all.
I was supposed to be this budding writer, I was supposed to put into words what we both were feeling about him, but I didn’t.
And she took over. She was only meant to be reading a poem, that one about the ship, but instead she spoke about my dad.
She spoke off the cuff about northern soul, about their school days, about what a lovely man Charlie was, how proud she was of him – as a single father, as a carpenter, everything.
While I just sat there. I just sat there. ’
Leo looked thoughtful. One vessel honked at another on the canal beneath them. A lone gull caw-cawed above the skyline. Olivia waited for his response; his condemnation, maybe.
‘Perhaps you could write something for your father now,’ he said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, have you ever thought of writing him into one of your books? To honour him in some way? To say all the things you didn’t say at the funeral? To say all the things you wanted him to know?’
He had her attention. ‘Have a character who’s a carpenter, you mean?’
Leo nodded. ‘Yes, something like that. A wonderful character, who’s also your dad.’
Like Ben Midnight? she wondered. Leo’s chef that Olivia knew he had written for Isaac, but Isaac wasn’t wonderful.
He was not a wonderful father. They’d had a row once, her and Leo, a big one, here in Italy – the one that had brought an end to them – and Isaac and Charlie had both been in it.
But Charlie had been wonderful. Charlie could be honoured.
‘And maybe he has a daughter, who has the right words.’
Something surged within Olivia. A hope. An opportunity. A chance to do something she knew would be really good for her. That hope swelled up in her like a wave approaching the shore, and she was grateful for it. ‘That’s a lovely idea,’ she said. ‘I like that a lot. Thank you, Leo.’
‘You’re very welcome.’
They held each other’s gaze.
‘And thank you for helping me at my godmother’s house this morning, and for coming to the hospice. I really do appreciate it.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he repeated. ‘As long as I’m not being too saintly,’ he added. ‘I mean, I don’t want to be accused of that again.’
She laughed. ‘No, Leo Nightingale,’ she said, ‘not too saintly.’
There was a beat. ‘I’m not planning to make any wrong moves here,’ Leo said quietly. ‘I want you to know that. I’m trying to be very careful here in Venice. With you.’
She didn’t quite understand what he meant. ‘OK . . .’ she said, studiedly neutral.
‘I’m trying,’ he repeated. ‘So, you’re not going to run away?’ he asked her, a gentle smile on his face, a tender look in his eyes.
‘I thought about it, but no.’ She smiled at him. ‘I’ll stay.’
They sat in silence for quite some time.
‘Can I get you anything else?’ he asked her eventually. ‘More hot chocolate? More biscotti?’
‘No, I’m OK, thank you,’ she said.
‘Shall we go back down? Find the others?’
‘Alright.’
She had felt she could sit up here with him for hours, on this unwieldy, damp pile of books. She had felt comfortable with him. Calmed. Better. But it was time to go.
Leo stood up. Far too quickly. To steady himself, he shifted his left foot, and then his right, but the edge was there, and his foot was away from him, and he was grabbing at the air, limbs flailing, and he landed on the lower tier of books, flat on his back with his legs in the air, like an astonished ant.
‘Are you alright?’ she called down, and he was motionless for a second, his eyes closed, but then he opened his eyes and his mouth, and he absolutely howled with laughter.
Tears ran down his face, and he said, ‘Bloody clumsy idiot!’ in such a sweet, funny way, she was laughing, too, and wiping her own eyes, and the sound of their laughter echoed around this small space and was carried down to the canal.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But that was really, really funny.’
‘See, we can have fun! Reminds me of the peacock,’ he added, still lying on his back. Still giggling.
‘The peacock?’
‘Yeah, the peacock in Tuscany. Do you remember?’
‘Let me help you,’ she said, and she wended her way down the wobbly staircase made of books, and she helped him to his feet, which he got to with an exaggerated groan.
‘Are you really alright?’ she asked him.
‘I’m fine,’ he responded, patting himself down. ‘Don’t you remember the peacock?’ he asked again.
‘Of course I do.’ She was still holding his hand. She liked how it felt. But the mischief of the peacock meant Tuscany, and Tuscany not only meant almost falling in love with him, but saying goodbye once again.