CHAPTER 11
Joanna
Venice A week later
It felt bitter-sweet for Joanna to be back in Venice.
She was swept up in the memories of her previous visit – when she and Martin had been so new, so happy, embarking on what they’d thought would be a whole life together.
They’d explored the canals by vaporetto, they’d walked miles through narrow streets and alleyways, they’d admired the churches, the frescoes, the crumbling buildings.
They’d drunk prosecco in tiny bars and watched the sun setting over the Canal Grande.
And just before they left, he’d turned to her.
‘We’ll come back, Jo,’ he’d said. ‘One day when we’re old and grey, we’ll come back. ’
‘Of course, we will,’ she’d laughed. And here she was – not old and grey and not with Martin either.
‘You’re going off again already?’ Harriet had said when Joanna had told her sister and her mother about her forthcoming trip a week ago.
‘I have to, it’s my job.’
‘A bit like running away, though, isn’t it, Jo?’
‘No!’ Joanna was stung. Of course she hadn’t wanted to leave West Dorset so soon after she’d arrived, but Toby had left her with little choice.
At least Mother had been understanding. She had shushed Harriet and said, ‘Of course you must go, darling. Joanna has to work, you know, Harriet.’
‘And I’ll be back in a few days.’ How soon she had become sucked into the slipstream of Mulberry Farm Cottage, she thought. Into the feelings of guilt and very different shared responsibilities from the ones she’d shared with Martin.
Harriet had shrugged. ‘It makes no difference to me,’ she said.
Was that what her sister really felt? Joanna didn’t know. Something had happened the day before; Harriet had looked quite nervous when she left the cottage, having borrowed Joanna’s leather jacket. But whatever it was, Harriet wasn’t going to share.
Joanna had thought – naively as it turned out – that her being at home again would give them a chance to get closer, that maybe after all these years she might discover a softer side to Harriet’s character that hadn’t been available to her in childhood or when Martin was around.
But if there was such a side, Harriet was keeping it well hidden.
And it had always been that way. It had always been Harriet and Father, Father and Harriet.
Mother in the kitchen and Joanna left out in the cold.
But whatever her sister thought, at least Joanna knew she was doing something to help – in real and practical terms. And she hoped that this project would help her too, because already, Emmy’s pathway had inexplicably become her own.
And here she was. Seeing once again the glorious and ornate palaces on the Grand Canal that Emmy had spoken of in her letter.
And exploring the bridges . . . Joanna was beginning to understand Emmy’s fascination.
There were, she had learnt from her research, over four hundred in Venice.
They ranged from delicate little fairy bridges over the narrowest of canals to wide, graceful arcs spanning Venice’s primary waterway. Like this one.
Joanna spread the city map flat on the table next to her cappuccino and croissant and took out her notebook.
She was sitting outside a café in the vibrant labyrinth of sellers, sounds and smells that was the Rialto, near the famous bridge of the same name, planning the route of the first bridge walk.
Opposite the café, the bleached red facade of the Hotel Rialto seemed to gaze back at her in placid contentment.
But Joanna wasn’t running away, she really wasn’t.
That wouldn’t solve anything. She couldn’t run away from what was happening to Mulberry Farm Cottage and to her mother.
And she couldn’t run away from Martin either.
Harriet was right in one way. Joanna must face up to things, deal with it all, sort it out.
She must decide what to do about her marriage and she must help Harriet deal with Mother. And she would.
But for now . . . She’d spent the last two days scouting around La Serenissima, getting a feel for the territory, drinking in the city’s sights and smells, its textures and flavours.
Joanna sipped her coffee and licked a flaky croissant crumb from her finger.
She’d decided which bridges to include in the walk, and most importantly, where to finish.
The end shouldn’t just tail off, it should finish with a flourish.
Once again, she pulled Emmy’s letter from Venice from her bag.
Many people regard Venice as the most beautiful city in the world, she read, and it is plain to see why.
As we visit the elegant caffès and piazzas, and admire the richly decorated churches and art and sculpture of the Renaissance, it is hard to believe that this place was once made up of mudbanks inhospitable enough to provide a safe haven for refugees fleeing the barbarian destroyers of the Roman Empire.
Joanna would find out more about that later, before she wrote up the copy, she decided.
But Emmy clearly had more pressing things on her mind. She noted the art and architecture of the buildings, which presumably were in better shape then than they were now after decades of water damage, Joanna thought. But her mind – and heart – was on her Rufus.
I did not begin to live until we met . . . Joanna read. And now I miss you, more than I would oceans or the sun, more than I will the stars in this velvet Venetian sky.
What would it be like, Joanna asked herself, to miss someone that much?
She looked down at her wedding ring of white twisted gold and her engagement ring, a solitary diamond also set in white gold.
Martin had been so self-conscious the day he gave that ring to her – not knowing if he’d done the right thing, or if she’d turn him down.
And she had loved that in him. Oh, Martin. How things had changed.
Joanna’s sight blurred with unshed tears.
She refocused on Emmy’s letter from Venice.
There was so much sadness in the missing.
Did that mean . . . ? Was there more to Emmy’s relationship with Rufus than met the eye?
What is next for us? she read. Were Emmy and Rufus considering their next step?
Children? Travel? And, we are all searching for the way.
Did she mean a way forward for her painting perhaps?
Joanna could certainly empathise. She too was searching for her way – she had a decision to make that would affect her future dramatically. Could it have been the same for Emmy?
She gazed across the misty water of the canal.
The sky was platinum blue; the city existed in a dreamy shimmer.
But although it was romantic, it also possessed an unexpected edge.
The scent of sweet pizza and pastry dough laced with tomato and oregano, porcini and Italian sausage fought a running battle with stale canal water, while the seductive richness of roasting coffee seemed to sink into the damp grey and white stone.
This morning before breakfast, Joanna had crossed the Lungo at the Lido where she was staying and walked to the seafront.
She’d pulled off her shoes and let her feet sink into the pale brown sand, relishing the grainy feel of it against her skin.
The sea was flat and vast with a grey-green glint that reminded her of a rare family holiday in Cornwall when she was a girl.
Usually, their parents were too busy with the farm to go away, but on this one occasion something had happened; her mother had been upset, though Joanna had no idea why, and her father’s younger brother had stepped in for a few days so that they could go away.
The resulting holiday had now acquired an almost dream-like quality in her mind.
The beach at the Lido was so deserted at this time in the morning that Joanna had a glimpse of how wonderfully unique Venice must have been for the Venetians – before tourists interrupted their idyll. She’d almost felt she owned it: this shoreline, this silvery day.
She brushed her lips with the napkin and took another sip of coffee. Shifted her position so that her perspective of the Ponte Rialto shifted too. According to Emmy, she must be ready to see things in a different way . . .
Why hadn’t Emmy painted this bridge? Joanna wondered.
It was high and masterful with steps of marble and stone and it boasted magnificent views over the palaces and domes lining the Canal Grande and the vaporetti, motorboats and gondolas that chugged and wove along the wide waterway.
Better still, its stony backside hosted part of San Polo’s Rialto market, tiny shops selling glass, linen, scarves and soft, sweet-smelling leather.
Joanna pondered. Which came first, the market or the bridge?
According to her research, it was the market traders; the bridge itself had a history of collapse – it had been rebuilt several times.
And perhaps it wasn’t quite elegant enough for Emmy.
Joanna liked to think she was getting to know this possible ancestor of hers and she reckoned Emmy would prefer a quieter and less obvious sort of beauty.
A text pinged in to Joanna’s phone and she sighed. It would be Martin. She checked anyway.
Surely you know she means nothing to me? was all it said.
Joanna sighed. And how was that the point? Didn’t that even somehow make it worse? She should, though, she thought, at least go back to Crouch End for some of her things – she had been dithering about this ever since she’d left. It would mean seeing Martin, but she couldn’t avoid him forever.
But she wouldn’t reply to his text, she decided, not yet. She was working – the last thing she needed was to get into another pointless exchange of messages; there’d been enough of those already.
I miss you. I love you. When are you coming back?
Moving on to: Don’t you think you’re overreacting, Jo?
No, actually.
Joanna thought of the day they’d met. She’d been drawn to him from the first moment she saw him in the bar.
It had been so easy to chat to him, then later to dance with him, kiss him on the lawn outside the halls that stood thirteen storeys high, looming into the darkness behind them.
It had been easy to fall in love with him when she discovered he wasn’t quite as confident as he appeared, even easy to marry him, because by then she couldn’t imagine any alternative. But now . . .
In her letter from Venice, Emmy had been searching for the real heart of the city and Joanna wanted to do the same.
But in the rest of her life, she felt in danger of losing her way.
When had she and Martin stopped doing things together?
When had they stepped apart? When had he started looking elsewhere?
She gazed into the watery distance. And more to the point, could they come back from this?
Did she even want to? They had been together for such a long time that it was hard to visualise a life without him.
And yet Joanna still felt the dead pain of betrayal.
She had returned to the place where they had been happy.
So, was she going forwards or backwards? She wasn’t sure.
She frowned, reached for her notebook. Venice, she wrote, is a disorientating city. Unsure of her direction. She and I should get along just fine . . .
She liked the idea of mingling with all the other people in a city, being as anonymous as she chose.
Here in the Rialto, people thronged the streets, milled up the steps of the bridge, jostled in the famous archways in front of the outer balustrades that looked out over the Grand Canal, searching for the right position, the perfect photograph or selfie that would somehow capture the multiplicity in water and stone, the reflections, the light, the romantic, musical soul that was Venice.
Everywhere she looked, there were people – and yet Joanna knew no one.
At a table nearby, a couple kissed and she looked away.
They didn’t notice her, didn’t care – and why should they?
She turned to a new page in her notebook.
Clean pages were full of possibilities. And she smoothed the map out once more, marking with a bold asterisk the place where the bridge walk would begin. Ponte degli Scalzi.
Slowly and carefully, she traced a line on the map, marking the path she would follow.
The walk would begin in Santa Croce among the art galleries and bookshops of Dorsoduro.
She would conclude, of course, with the bridge Emmy had painted and that Joanna had now identified as Ponte Accademia, the bridge from the painting in her childhood bedroom, with its criss-crossed wooden structure and high wide arch.
Emmy’s bridge, as she liked to think of it. Where else?
She would follow Emmy’s example and avoid the obvious. This – she tapped the map with her fingernail – would be a walk designed to find the real city, or at least part of it. Bridge to bridge to discover the heart.
Joanna folded up the map and put it in her backpack with her notebook and camera.
She got to her feet. And now she would take a vaporetto to the beginning.
She moved towards the bus stop, closer to the bridge, to the water.
The silvery blue light this morning made the tall buildings on either side of the canal seem almost surreal, their edges blurred as if they were gently swaying.
A gondola crammed with Japanese tourists swept by, the strains of an Italian opera – Madame Butterfly or Tosca perhaps – momentarily strung through the air.
A vaporetto chugged towards the station, slowed, screamed into reverse and thumped against the landing stage, making it shiver.
She was close to Emmy’s moment of pause, she realised.
The contemplation. At least she was getting there.
Was that what Emmy had meant in her letter to Rufus?
After a few days, perhaps Joanna too would decide which way to go – backwards or forwards.
Beginnings, endings . . . Which would it be for her?