Chapter Thirty-Six
‘Oh, Emily, this is so glamorous! Why haven’t you brought me here before?!’
‘I haven’t been here before, Mum! Wonderwick isn’t the kind of thing they show at the Venice Film Festival!
’ I said gently, as we cruised from Venice airport to our hotel.
We were staying in the city, but the festival itself took place on the Lido where there were fewer luxury hotels.
I had huge cat-eye sunglasses and a headscarf on and I felt exactly like a movie star.
‘If I’d known you doing independent films would mean I got to take a speedboat across the Venice lagoon, I’d have told you to start doing them sooner,’ she said, squeezing my hand.
It was so humid that it felt like being in Singapore again, but I was so excited to be there that I didn’t care.
My mum was my official date to the world premiere of Orientations, while Josh was on a boys’ holiday in Ibiza with Max and Tommy and some of their friends.
Not that he’d have been my date at the festival: we hadn’t even talked about him coming with me.
It felt safer to take it slow. If I had my way, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops.
I knew I shouldn’t obviously, but I was just so fizzy with feelings for Josh and I hated having to keep a lid on them.
Wonderwick Woods: The Far Shores had exceeded the studio’s expectations breaking all previous records for the franchise, in large part thanks to the kiss which was now surely the most re-blogged GIF in Tumblr’s history.
Now it was time to turn my attention to publicising Orientations.
We checked into the hotel – the Gritti Palace – and I made sure to accompany Mum to her room just to see her reaction.
She’d stayed in nice hotels when chaperoning me before, but this was something else completely.
The opulence of the room was breathtaking and it was worth every penny to watch her face beam with delight at the sight of it.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ She looked around, taking in the chandelier, the hand-painted wallpaper, the huge gilt-framed mirror, all of the authentic antique furniture in curving polished wood and button-backed upholstery, the herringbone wooden floor covered with immaculate rugs.
It was totally gorgeous, and that was before she walked over to the window for the view of the canal.
‘It’s incredible, Mum. I’m so happy you’re here.
Thank you for coming with me.’ I knew she’d been having a hard time with the trial separation, the fallout from the gambling debts, and that I hadn’t been there enough.
I’d thrown money at the problem because that was what I could do, but I wanted to show that just because she wasn’t my chaperone anymore that didn’t mean she wasn’t part of my life and my work.
Being able to do this for her, including her in this life, made me feel like the luckiest person in the world.
I joined her at the window and opened it so we could survey the Grand Canal like it was ours.
Boats cut through the water, leaving satisfying trails of white in their wake.
Happy tourists, commuting Venetians, people who had come to town for the festival, all of human life was down there.
Including . . . No! God, why! Of course Ben was here, of course I knew he would be here intellectually, knew that we would have to do press junkets and red carpets together, but I hadn’t actually properly thought through what it would be like to be forced back together with him. Horrible.
I got a text saying the Italian glam squad had arrived, courtesy of Vespucci, so I kissed Mum goodbye and headed back to my room.
We’d meet again later to travel by boat to the Lido, where the Palazzo del Cinema would host the world-first screening of Orientations.
I had someone painting my nails while someone else blow-dried my hair while someone else did my makeup.
I almost felt like I was in a car wash, being buffed and polished from all angles.
But it was worth it. By the end of the afternoon, I felt incredible.
Obviously Lucy and my mum hyped me up, Edgar gave me an inscrutable compliment and Ben ignored me, but it was only when I stepped off the water taxi that I understood what a moment this look was for me.
The press release announcing my status as Vespucci’s spokesmodel was going to all major world press as I stood there.
‘What are you wearing?’ asked an Italian Vogue journalist.
‘Vespucci couture,’ I told her, looking down at the magnificent dress I’d been fitted for over several sessions back in London.
It was a strapless dress with a corset bodice that came to two sharp points on either side of my chest (very bitchy, as Chloe had put it), in the deepest petrol blue-green silk printed with huge warped flowers.
It was nothing like anything I’d worn before, a mix of sleek old Emily and the experimental new era I was in.
My hair was scraped back into the slickest bun you’ve ever seen, showing off a huge gothic floral cuff snaking its way up my right ear.
For someone known as a ‘natural beauty’ for so long, I really leaned into the drama of the look and took the Vespucci makeup artist’s suggestion of going for a blood-red lip.
But real blood, the way it darkens as soon as it meets the air.
It was a striking contrast against the pared-back approach he had taken to the rest of my face, and I absolutely loved it.
When we all had to line up on the steps of the Palazzo del Cinema for the photo call, I made sure I was at one end of the line, with Lucy and Edgar providing a buffer between Ben and me.
It’s not like I was trying to make it an awkward vibe, I just wanted him to understand that we were absolutely not friends.
I’d already had to fend off questions about him from entertainment journalists on the red carpet, politely wheeling out stock phrases like, ‘No, sadly that relationship didn’t quite work out for us but he’s a very talented actor,’ and ‘As you’ll see in the film, we worked very well together as colleagues.
’ Fortunately, I couldn’t answer questions all night: we had a film to screen.
Because I’d been so busy with Wonderwick promo, I hadn’t been able to watch Orientations yet myself.
It wasn’t until the lights went down that the nerves hit me: I’d been too distracted with everything else to actually wonder if the film was any good.
I knew it probably was, and knew I didn’t have anything to worry about, but what if Edgar had gone mad in the edit?
What if it turned out completely differently to the film we thought we were making?
As the opening credits rolled, it really hit me how much the film meant to me. I desperately wanted it to work.
And work it did.
I couldn’t help looking around at people’s reactions as Orientations played on the screen in front of us, the film illuminating their faces.
Maybe I was being completely deluded, but I had a sense that the whole Palazzo del Cinema was spellbound.
God, I hoped I had got this one right, that this gamble had paid off.
I couldn’t imagine a room full of people watching Dinky Daffy and the Detective Squad like this, anyway.
While the closing credits rolled, we were extracted from our seats and led up to the stage again.
The response was deafening. We just stood there, beaming, as the audience applauded.
I waited for them to stop, desperate to be able to debrief with someone, excitedly rehash the whole experience with my mum.
But they didn’t stop. It just went on, and on, and on, and on.
‘What do we do?’ I whispered to Lucy.
‘Stand here and look pretty until they stop,’ she said.
I’d heard of these mad standing ovations at the end of films at festivals, but this felt completely ridiculous, and utterly wonderful.
Looking out at this sea of faces, I didn’t have to wonder anymore if they liked it.
I knew they did. I knew they loved it. I had to fight back tears as I realised Lucy had been right that morning in the café: this was going to be big for me.
I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I knew I liked it.
Finally, the applause petered out and we were allowed to leave the stage, allowed to head back to the hotel and try to sleep.
I was overflowing with joy and excitement, and wished Josh was here to share it with me.
I understood why he wasn’t, that it was too soon and we weren’t ready to go public yet, but that didn’t stop me missing him.
As I was getting ready for bed, a text came through from him.
That’s my girl! So, so proud of you.
I fell asleep feeling like I couldn’t really ask for anything more.
Over an early breakfast the next morning, I addressed the elephant in the room with Mum.
I had a full day of press, interviews with journalists from around the world about Orientations now it had screened, but I wanted to carve out this time just for us.
‘How’s the, you know, the trial separation going? ’
She shrugged, threw her hands up in defeat. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t want it in the first place but it felt like a way to draw a line under the whole thing. I couldn’t just let everything carry on as normal, I needed him to really think about what he had done.’
I nodded. It made sense, not being able to just move on from something like that. ‘And now?’
‘We’re talking more, so that’s something,’ she said. ‘And—’
But before she could finish her sentence, a figure loomed over our table.
‘Buongiorno, Emily. Just thought it would be polite to say hello rather than studiously avoid you,’ Ben said.
He held out his hand gallantly. ‘Lovely to meet you, Mrs Montgomery.’
I waited for her to gently encourage him to call her Ruth, but she didn’t.