Chapter 40
Ivy
I’m still in shock.
I thought the care home coup was some impressive masterminding on Xav’s part, but this is another level. It seems everyone else in my life is a mastermind too, even the twins. Who would have thought they’d use their evil genius and epic lying skills for good?
I should be at home, cleaning and packing up the flat ahead of our house move this time next week.
Instead, I am sitting in business class on a British Airways flight to Venice.
Venice.
Beside me is the handsomest man I’ve ever known, looking awfully pleased with himself, as well he should.
We moved Dawn into the new care home the same day we visited it, which was midafternoon.
Things move quickly when you’re Xavier. She found the journey distressing, but at some level, her nervous system seemed to register that she was safe once she arrived there.
She’s not exactly lucid, but she’s been calmer than I’ve seen her in a long time, and she’s even stopped trying to rip off her cast. I’ve spent every day with her since, and even I can admit that I’ve felt surplus to requirements given the standard of care she’s receiving.
I’ve mainly been showing up for the baked goods.
The twins have gone to stay with Flora in Little Venice for the weekend.
She came around to meet them the other evening.
To say they didn’t give me the time of day when I said goodbye this morning was an understatement.
She’s going to take them to see their mum in the morning.
They’re already big fans of the care home.
The devious little minxes even gave Xav my passport. Lily asked me for it a few days ago, claiming their Life360 app needed to update its parental ID.
So, you see, everyone’s been in on it.
A chic flight attendant refills my champagne glass.
They even give you actual glass in business class!
This was definitely not the case on the last flight I was on, which was part of a dirt-cheap package holiday we all went on to Tenerife a couple of years ago.
I used my Alchemy tips to take Dawn and the girls away for some sun.
At that point, we thought her LBD was rheumatoid arthritis, and I was hoping the heat would help.
It didn’t.
But it doesn’t help to ruminate on that. Right now, I’m heading to the city of my dreams with the man of my dreams.
Yesterday doesn’t exist.
Tomorrow doesn’t exist.
And Selena Wentworth definitely doesn’t exist.
Xav told me, when he surprised me (understatement) with the Venice bomb, that he was worried about us visiting the city in the dead of winter.
He said he would much rather have taken me in May or September.
The unspoken truth, of course, was that it was now or never.
May and September will never come for me and him.
Still, I’m so here for Venice in December that it’s not funny.
I have gorged myself on reels day and night since he told me on Tuesday.
Sure, the days will be shorter, but the weather forecast is for beautiful winter sunshine this weekend, and the reels I’ve seen of ghostly gondolas emerging from the midwinter fog have sucked me in big time.
Even the dark side of Venice looks unspeakably romantic.
Xav tells me laughingly that we’re not here for romance, that he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t complete my artistic education in the time we have left.
He’s been a few times—of course he has—and he knows the cultural highlights well.
He says there’ll be a test at the end of the weekend, and that I’ll need to pay attention.
But the look on his face as he says it tells me I’ve already passed.
Even before we land, I’m speechless. He made me take the window seat on the flight and told me that he chose the right-hand side of the plane for the best views. Sure enough, we fly over what look like endless flooded fields. Salt marshes, maybe?
And then—there it is.
Oh my God.
It’s like looking down on a fairytale: a miniature enchanted island of domes and steeples in grey and white and pink, the calm, endless blue of the lagoon sparkling around them. I screech and grab his arm, and he laughs.
‘It’s something, isn’t it?’
‘It doesn’t look real,’ I say with a gasp. I have a feeling I’ll say the same thing over and over again this weekend.
‘That feeling never goes away,’ he says softly. ‘That it even exists feels like a miracle, every time. Sometimes I think about it, or I see a photo, and it feels impossible to believe that something this perfect is out there, existing without me. It’s very special.’
He sounds wistful, and there’s something about his word choice that makes me think Venice is a good analogy for our relationship: a perfect slice of fairytale magic that has no place in the real world.
I know that when I think of Xav out there, moving through life without me, it will feel unreal and unbearable in equal measure.
We land at Marco Polo and Xav leads me knowledgeably through the airport to the sign for water taxis.
I have to admit, I’m a bit worried about that part.
I’m not a massive water girl. But the glossy, retro-looking teak boat we step into is pretty cool.
It’s long, with a closed-off indoor compartment and an open-air seat at the back.
Given that I’m wearing a huge and outrageous floor-length coat from Canada Goose—my early Christmas present from Xav, apparently—I have no intention of spending a minute indoors.
We sit on the bench at the back of the boat, Xav’s arm tightly around me, and I experience the surreal delight of bombing it across the lagoon to Venice.
There’s an actual boat superhighway, picked out by huge piles, and soon we’re standing up, looking over the boat’s low top as islands come into view on our left, ancient, mythical-looking buildings rising up from flat, floating bites of land.
Xav stands beside me, stupidly hot, his aviators on and the wind whipping his dark hair, grinning at my rapidly increasing excitement levels, but I can’t help it.
I’ve never felt this exhilarated in my entire life.
I’ve been transported straight to heaven, and I’m giddy with it.
Nothing, though, can prepare me for the reality of arriving in Venice.
As we pass Murano to our left, an old, peeling frontage looms in full view, glowing in the winter sun.
Before I know it, we’re disappearing into one of the deep chinks in its facade and following a gloomy canal: an artery leading, hopefully, to the heart of the city.
I clamp my hand to my mouth at the sheer, timeworn beauty of it.
Every shabby, saggy building is perfectly beautiful.
Indecently charming. They’re so close to us that I could almost reach out and touch them.
So close that it feels invasive to be able to pass right in front of people’s homes like this.
‘Oh my God,’ I laugh-cry to Xav. ‘Are we here?’
He wraps his arm more tightly around me, smiling down at my reaction. ‘We’re staying on the other side. The taxi will cut right through; you’ll see. Wait for it. I’ve asked the driver to take us down the Grand Canal for the last part.’
I’m trying to take everything in, but it’s so much.
Gondolas, so sleek and long, the gondoliers in their iconic striped tops making the steering of them look so easy; bridges so low and old that we have to duck our heads to pass under them; building after building with terracotta roofs and white paint and outrageous, glorious architectural flourishes.
Every single thing is eye-porn. Every view breaks the heart.
‘Here we go,’ Xav says. ‘This is the Grand Canal.’
We turn out onto a wide canal with all manner of boats.
Water taxis. Gondolas. Vaporetti, which are like small ferries and, according to Xav, act like public buses.
There are even cargo boats, and I spot a DHL one piled high with boxes, which is so bizarre.
There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason—or direction—to the way any of the drivers are steering them, but somehow no one seems to be crashing or drowning.
Meanwhile, all around us, the blue water laps and the buildings that flank the canal grow even more beautiful. We pass under the Rialto Bridge, iconic and bustling, and follow the canal’s gentle curve around.
‘This is the Accademia Bridge,’ Xav tells me. ‘We’ll walk across it tomorrow on the way to San Rocco.’
It’s stunningly beautiful, with its huge art gallery on the right.
As we pass under it, the buildings grow grander, more agonising in their beauty.
I gasp and twist and take hasty, blurry photos with my phone.
Palazzo after palazzo comes into shot, all terraced, all mismatched, all divine.
I could spend hours obsessing over each one.
I need a year to process the beauty in this place.
But nothing compares to the huge white church looming in front of us, impossibly ornate, its grey dome majestic against the pretty white clouds. It looks octagonal, from what I can see.
‘What in the utter hell is that?’
‘Santa Maria della Salute.’ He kisses my temple.
‘It means Our Lady of Health—the Venetians built it in offering for having been delivered from the plague. There’s a lovely Titian altarpiece in there.
Don’t worry, we’re going to sit right across from it at lunch so you can gorge your pretty little eyes on it. I got us the best seats in the house.’
Of course he did.
‘Should have mentioned,’ he says casually. ‘Our room overlooks it, too.’