Chapter 4
Venice
They’d chosen a good day for it, soaring through a cloudless sky across France and over the snow-capped Alps into Italy, before gazing down at Venice and the lagoon below them, then finally landing at Marco Polo airport.
Having made their way through passport control and retrieved their cases from the carousel, Fen and Disa headed out to Arrivals to be greeted by a woman with a clipboard, who directed them out to the waiting taxis.
‘Shall we wait for the boys?’ said Disa.
Boys. Then again, she was seventy-two, she was allowed to call them that.
‘No.’ While they’d been queuing to have their passports checked, Fen had seen Jamie and Leon behind them being engaged in conversation by a group of women clearly delighted to be meeting them.
The last thing she wanted was to look like a fangirl.
Besides, they were here now, and she wanted to be able to concentrate on taking in her first sight of Venice without being distracted.
It took no longer than twenty minutes to leave the airport on the mainland behind them, travel across the high road that took them over the water to the island itself, and arrive at San Basilio, where their home for the next seven days waited for them, white and gleaming in the sunshine.
The short gangway led up to the reception area, all plush jewel-toned wallpaper, glamorous Italianate lighting, exotic potted plants and highly polished wooden flooring.
Disa pushed her dark glasses to the top of her head. ‘Not too shabby. I think I can cope with this.’
‘Good, said Fen. ‘I’m glad we don’t have to catch the next flight home.’
Once they had checked in at the front desk, they made their way up a small flight of stairs to their cabins. Since these were identical, they explored Fen’s together.
‘Smaller than a hotel room,’ Disa observed, ‘but every bit as luxurious.’ She ran her fingertips lightly over the silky coffee-and-cream fabric that covered the walls and ceiling, and the matching curtain blinds pulled up to reveal the glorious view through the picture window, of glittering turquoise water lapping against the side of the ship, and the spectacular buildings hundreds of metres away, on the opposite bank of the Giudecca Canal.
‘Fabulous bed,’ Fen exclaimed, throwing herself onto it and spreading out like a starfish.
‘Plenty of storage space.’ Disa nodded with approval, opening and closing wardrobe doors.
There was a TV on the wall. A velvet-soft white robe.
A dressing table and chair, although Fen had never once in her life sat on a chair in order to do her hair and make-up.
Presumably some people did. Bouncing off the bed, she opened the door to the bathroom, again small but well appointed, and containing everything you could need.
At that moment they heard high-pitched shrieks of delight in the corridor outside the cabin. A female voice exclaimed, ‘Can you believe it? We’re in Venice, we’re actually here.’
‘This ship is bougie.’ A second woman sounded even more excited. ‘First things first, let’s get to the bar and see if that fit guy’s arrived yet.’
Wryly, Disa said, ‘I think we’ll leave them to it. Unpack first, then explore the rest of the ship and have a drink later.’
Hattie heard his voice before she saw him, but because it couldn’t possibly be his voice, she ignored it.
There were other guests up here on the top deck of the ship, enjoying the sunshine and the magical view, but she was currently alone.
Having failed to track down the good-looking rugby guy in the bar at the front of the ship, Kayla had consoled herself with three cocktails on an empty stomach and was currently sleeping them off in their cabin.
Shielding her eyes from the sun, Hattie watched as a noisy flock of birds flew squawking overhead, their beaks and necks elongated. Were they herons maybe? Or storks?
Then, coming up the steps behind her, she heard a woman say, ‘Guy, stop it!’ and almost tipped over backwards, because that was a similarity too far.
Spinning round and banging the side of her leg painfully against one of the wooden sunloungers, she saw a slender brunette in a racerback white Lycra vest and leggings, followed a couple of seconds later by a rather more overweight man in his forties.
A mind-bogglingly familiar man, at that.
She had been married to him for seven years. It made him difficult to forget.
But what on earth – assuming he wasn’t a hallucination – was he doing on this ship?
Was this some kind of bizarre joke?
‘Will you look at that?’ Guy was marvelling at the deck, walking on the spot. ‘I thought it was wooden planks, but it’s actually carpet. Isn’t that wild? It looks exactly like—’ His gaze met Hattie’s and he stopped dead.
A pigeon flew low overhead and the woman with him said, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t believe it.’ He looked as stunned as Hattie felt. ‘This is . . . crazy.’
His hand was pressed to his chest. Hattie said, ‘Are you OK?’
‘What?’ He shook his head. ‘Yes, of course. But I could be in shock. What are you doing here? Did you know we were going to be on this ship?’
She blinked. ‘Does this look like the face of someone who knew you were going to be on this ship?’
Guy was frowning now. ‘So you didn’t book the same holiday on purpose?’
‘Are you serious? Why would I do that?’ Was he actually trying to make her out to be some kind of stalker? ‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘of course I didn’t. That’s the last thing in the world I’d do, and you know it.’
Guy broke into his trademark broad smile. It seemed she’d convinced him. Moving towards her, he held out both arms. ‘In that case, it’s one of those crazy coincidences. Come here, Hattie, it’s good to see you. You’re looking wonderful.’
‘Hattie?’ echoed the woman in Lycra. ‘You mean this is your ex-wife?’
‘The very same.’ He kissed Hattie on both cheeks, then stepped back and said cheerfully, ‘Let me introduce you. Suzanne, meet Hattie. Hats, this is Suzanne.’
Whose name he hadn’t shortened, Hattie noted.
It might have been a couple of years since they’d last seen each other, but there was no way Guy could have forgotten how irritating she’d always found it when he called her Hats.
Nevertheless, she did the polite thing and said a friendly hello to Suzanne.
Because it was easier all round than getting snippy with Guy within ninety seconds of bumping into him again.
‘How long have you been divorced?’ Suzanne’s own smile was fleeting.
‘A while, I suppose.’ Guy gestured vaguely. ‘A few years?’
‘Six years separated,’ Hattie reminded him. ‘Divorced for five.’
‘And why did you break up?’ The woman had quite an intense gaze, like a bird of prey. You had to have chutzpah to come out and ask a question like that.
‘We just drifted apart, didn’t we, Hats? Hattie,’ Guy hastily amended when she shot him an intense look of her own.
‘That’s it.’ She shrugged. ‘Just one of those things.’ It was easier not to elaborate, and not really that interesting, with hindsight. They’d turned out not to be as well suited to marriage as they’d thought, that was all. Guy especially hadn’t.
‘And who are you here with?’ He glanced across at the cluster of guests at the other end of the boat. ‘Got yourself a new chap, I’m guessing. Or have you come on your own?’
‘I’m here with Kayla.’
‘Really? Wouldn’t have thought this was her kind of holiday.’
Kayla’s neighbour had advised her not to tell everyone she’d won the cruise in a competition, because other guests who’d paid full whack might resent her for it. Hattie said, ‘It is. I wouldn’t have thought it would be your sort of thing either.’
Guy looked surprised. ‘Why ever not? I’ve always wanted to visit Venice.
Suze and I found this trip online, didn’t we?
By sheer chance, a chap at work was raving about river cruises, banging on about how amazing they are.
Then I saw that this one had Jamie Hamilton on board, and that was it, I was sold.
So here we both are. Wild. It’s like that time we were on holiday in Portugal, d’you remember?
Sitting outside one of the bars in Albufeira, and who should walk by?
Only Stu and Josie from the cricket club! Crazy how these things happen.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Instantly wide awake, Kayla sat bolt upright in bed.
‘I wish I was.’ Hattie sprayed her face and cleavage with sunscreen. ‘It was weird enough seeing him again, let alone here, of all places. We’re going to be bumping into them the whole time.’
‘Is it going to ruin your holiday?’
‘No, of course not. I can cope. It was a shock, that’s all.’
‘What’s the girlfriend like?’
‘Younger than me. Model figure. Asked me why we’d broken up.’
‘Did you tell her?’
‘That her boyfriend never got his head around the basic rules of being married? That it meant preferably not going out with his mates all the time and actually staying at home with his wife every so often? No, I’d only have sounded like a bitter ex.’
‘You’re allowed to be bitter.’ Kayla unscrewed the cap on the bottle of water next to her bed and gulped half of it down. ‘I might casually mention it to her.’
‘Let’s not. We’ll just try to keep away from them. I mean, they’re not going to want to bump into us either, are they? What are you doing?’ Hattie stared as Kayla hopped out of bed and began stripping off her clothes.
‘I’m going to jump in the shower.’
‘Curtains are open!’
‘Hello?’ Kayla turned to gesture at the vast expanse of water separating them from the buildings on the other side of the canal. ‘No one’s going to see me from all the way over there.’
The next moment, just as she unfastened her bra, a boat full of camera-snapping tourists chugged past the window a few metres away. Hattie let out a squeak of alarm, but Kayla, undaunted, gave them a wave and a jaunty boob-jiggle.
‘Kayla!’
‘Oh, come on, they’re on holiday, don’t they deserve a little treat?’