CHAPTER 14 #2
When she’d finished her coffee, she went upstairs, more to take a look around the upper floor of the interesting little café than to use the facilities.
The upstairs gallery was laid out like a sixties coffee bar, with wooden benches arranged like islands and lots of scarlet cushions.
The smallest room was bizarre. The cistern was low, she had to crouch over it, the window was open and only a blue canopy prevented a full view of people walking alongside the canal, barely a few feet under the window.
She returned downstairs and gathered up her things, leaving some change for her coffee on the table.
Of course, she had to try the ice cream at the Millevoglie – otherwise how could she write about it?
She decided on strawberry. There was no doubt, Italian ice cream was the best. Beyond the gelateria was the geometric and marbled wedding-cake facade of Scuola Grande di San Rocco, all icing and show.
She took a picture. Masks were everywhere in Venice.
But it was what lay underneath the facade that Joanna most wanted to find.
She asked an Italian passer-by the name of the tree growing next to the Frari building.
He flashed her a dazzling Italian smile. ‘Pitosforo.’
Joanna smiled back at him. ‘Can you write it down for me?’
‘But of course.’ He took the pen from her and wrote in her notebook with a typical Italian flourish. ‘Anything else I can help you with, signorina?’
Joanna laughed. ‘No, signore, but grazie.’
‘Prego. You are very welcome, beautiful lady.’ His gaze lingered on her face.
Hey, she still had it then: something . . . The Italians were such charmers. But it was good to hear – especially when you’d just found out your husband had been playing around.
She thought of Harriet, of the man she’d seen pictured on her sister’s computer screen and the way Harriet had looked when she went out that day.
Was her sister doing online dating? Was Harriet, after all these years, looking for a man?
Joanna chuckled. She wouldn’t blame her sister for wanting someone to share her life with, but she was surprised.
Harriet had never shown any interest before.
Or had she? What did Joanna really know about her sister’s life?
In Campo Santa Margherita, there was a small fish market, the stalls laden with fresh squid, white and speckled pink; the sharp grey fin of a swordfish, a cuttlefish sitting damply in its own black ink; white fleshy scallops and blocks of blood-red tuna.
Joanna bought a slice of pizza from a nearby café, sat down for a moment to eat.
The bridge walk had gone well so far. She would write it up tomorrow and then walk it again to double-check the details as if she were a tourist who had never been here before.
She was moving into a very different area now. There were more cafés, bookshops and stationers. The people on the streets were younger, many of them students, she supposed, for they were approaching Accademia – and Emmy’s bridge.
In the canal, alongside the walkway, was a barge stuffed full of vegetables: a floating market selling shiny red peppers, glossy purple aubergines, courgettes with bright yellow flowers, bulging artichokes, small tight green cabbages.
Joanna paused, caught by the reflections in the canal.
As her eyes adjusted, she could see not only the shape of the boat, but the buildings opposite, a woman in a fluorescent pink coat and an upside-down man swinging his arms, as he walked along the pavement on the other side of the canal.
The more you look, the more you see. The bodies and the buildings ghostly and gliding moved with the water, rippling, it seemed, almost into another reality. Joanna stood still to watch.
When you lost something – and in a way, with Martin, she had – maybe your sense of the surreal became more potent?
Maybe you somehow became more open? But who would read these brochures?
Who would do a bridge walk in Venice? Who would care what colours the buildings were or what fragrances of rich roasted coffee or sweet tomato and pastry tiptoed out of cafés and bars and onto the walkways by the canal?
Who would want to explore what was underneath the facade?
All of a sudden, Accademia Bridge was in front of her.
Joanna climbed the steps to the top. She had reached Emmy’s moment of contemplation.
There were fabulous views from the wide wooden bridge, out over the busy waterway of the Grand Canal.
She stood there, letting it wash over her – the never-ending silvery sky, the broad expanse of the waterway lined with white domes and colourful palaces, a yellow vaporetto at the water bus stop below.
Lazy jazz music floated up from the musicians playing at the bottom of the bridge and the fragrance of damp wood and fresh coffee filled the air.
And underneath it all?
She looked up to a place beyond the bridge where the sun glimmered on the water, transforming it into golden olive. Look carefully. Blink and it might be gone.
Her eyes had become accustomed to reflection, accustomed to light. She felt as if she could see, in a different way, almost for the first time. She blinked.
Deep in the water was a young woman of maybe seventeen. She was wearing a blue dress. She was running, her long fair hair half untied, tumbling down her back and flowing behind her in the watery wind. She was laughing, laughing with delight.
What was she running from? Joanna shielded her eyes.
Why was she laughing? There was nothing behind her, just an empty space.
And then she realised. The girl was running towards something, or someone.
Towards her future perhaps? She was running and laughing and the sun was shining, glinting on the golden ribbon in her hair.