The Girl Behind The Fan (Hidden Women) (14 page)

This was so strange. Marco and I had not corresponded properly in months and now it was as though that last week in Venice had never happened. Just like old times. I took a chance.

‘I wish you could take me through your findings. I’m staying at the Bauer. I’ll be there until the end of the week. Why don’t you come and join me for dinner? You can tell me all about it then.’

‘Not this week,’ he responded. ‘I’m away.’

‘On business,’ I finished the sentence for him.

‘Took the words right out of my mouth.’

‘You’re very busy for an international playboy.’

‘I haven’t been a playboy for a very long time.’

‘But your work does seem to rather dominate your life. I mean, it must have been quite some crisis in Hong Kong that made you abandon such a big party back in February.’

‘It was.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘I don’t want to bore you.’

‘You could never bore me.’

‘I don’t want to take the chance. But if you’re really interested, I had to fly to Hong Kong to visit one of the cruise line’s offices. A senior manager quit under a cloud. I had to support the other staff and try to avert a scandal. The timing was terrible, I admit. Believe me, I had been looking forward to that party as much as anyone. I was especially looking forward to seeing you in that dress. Did it fit?’

‘It did. Though quite how you got my measurements . . .’

‘I had Silvio make a wild guess. He’s quite good at that sort of thing. Takes much more of an interest in women than you’d suppose. Did you like it?’

Of course, if Marco was telling the truth about having been away on business, he wouldn’t have known that I didn’t actually wear the dress. Then why did I have the sense that this throwaway comment was intended to put me off the scent? Was it a clever double bluff?

‘I imagine you were the belle of the ball.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I wrote. ‘Everyone looked so wonderful. You have some very beautiful friends.’

‘It’s easy to be beautiful in a mask.’

‘I saw a man I thought might be you,’ I continued. ‘Right height. Right hair. And he was in the library. I had this idea that you might wait for me there, since it was the scene of so much of our virtual friendship. Would have been the perfect place to meet for the first time, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ said Marco. ‘If I had been there, I probably would have tried to lure you to the library.’

‘Scene of the crime,’ I interjected.

‘Ha! You could say that. I suppose I’m lucky that guy who was in the library that night didn’t choose to impersonate me, in that case.’

Marco was sticking to his story. Was there any point in my trying to call his bluff?

‘He might have been in the library with the intention of making off with Luciana’s papers. I suppose I should have introduced myself. Let him know I had my eye on him.’

‘Perhaps you should have.’

Was that another carefully planned response to lead me away from the truth?

‘The really weird thing was, he was there one minute but when I looked in on the library again just a few moments later, he was gone, without having walked past me on the way out. I don’t know how he did that, unless he climbed through a window. Or is there a secret door?’

‘Ha. No. Maybe he did jump out of the window.’

‘It’s a long fall.’

‘Our friend Luciana made a bigger jump every night. Look, I really am sorry that I didn’t make it to the ball. It was supposed to be a grand romantic gesture and it backfired because I had to put work first. But that’s my life, Sarah. Back when you and I first started writing to one another, I was having a quiet spell, but right now I have got so much going on I barely have time to sleep. I certainly don’t have time to be writing to you like this. It’s why I haven’t been in a relationship for so long. It isn’t fair. When you’re in a relationship, you have to make time for the other person. I can’t make time for anything but spreadsheets and AGMs right now.’

‘I understand,’ I wrote.

‘And I’m sure you’ve got work to do too. I’m glad I could help out by letting you loose in the library again.’

‘Thanks. I really appreciate it.’

I was in the middle of typing some more, about feeling especially honoured given that he’d refused access to Bea, to keep him online for a little longer, but he had already logged off.

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye,’ I typed to the empty air.

I sat back and reread our conversation. Was it friendly? Was it perfunctory? Was it back to square one? Two strangers talking about history? I tried to take comfort from the fact that, though he’d logged off in a hurry, he was the one who had initiated the conversation. And I had that peculiar feeling again, the prickling of my skin that told me he was nearby.

About an hour later, I left the library again.

On my way out of the house, I stopped in the courtyard garden and sat down on the stone bench between the two statues, which I now knew to be Orpheus and Eurydice, saying goodbye for the last time. I pretended to be absorbed in a message on my phone, but really I was waiting to see if Marco would be tempted to reveal himself. I waited for several minutes. No sign of him. I waited until Silvio came out into the courtyard and expressed his surprise that I was still there.

‘I thought you had gone,’ he said.

I waggled my phone at him.

‘Stopped to return a text.’

‘Ah. Everyone is always on their phone these days,’ he said. ‘Living in a virtual world. I don’t understand it. People live whole lives without ever seeing the people they love any more.’

‘It isn’t healthy,’ I agreed.

‘It isn’t natural,’ Silvio echoed. ‘And it isn’t any substitute for hearing a loved one’s voice and seeing her beautiful smile.’

He shook his head and wandered off. It was the closest thing Silvio and I had had to a conversation.

Chapter 18

I went straight from the Palazzo Donato to meet Bea for lunch. She looked remarkably demure. She had always been a big fan of miniskirts and cleavage – believing as she did that you should maximise your assets – but that day she was wearing a pretty tea dress. It was clear that her new boyfriend was having quite the effect on her. I hoped her personality wasn’t becoming similarly subdued.

‘So how are you finding Paris?’ she asked.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Though it’s been harder for me to find my feet than it was here, not having the automatic social life associated with turning up at a university.’

‘Don’t you know anyone out there?’ Bea asked.

‘I know
one
person in Paris. At least, I think he’s still there. My ex-boyfriend Steven,’ I reminded her. When Steven had written to me, asking if there was any possibility we could rekindle our relationship, I had told Bea all about it. Almost all. I hadn’t told her exactly why we’d broken up and neither had I told her about the conditions Steven had suggested before we could effect any reconciliation. That is, he wanted me to consider how we would avoid slipping back into a ‘vanilla kind of life’. Specifically with regard to sex, of course.

‘Ah. The ex-boyfriend,’ said Bea, a smile creeping across her lips. ‘You know, I googled him. He’s really very good-looking. Are you telling me it’s not worth looking him up for old time’s sake?’

‘Please,’ I sighed.

Bea was the kind of girl who stayed in touch with all her ex-boyfriends. That way she was never short of a date in an emergency. I knew what she would do in my situation. But I didn’t think I could ever go back to Steven, even as a friend. Though, as the months had passed, it was getting easier to remember the good times as well as the ugly ending, I didn’t think we could ever rebuild the trust which was important for a solid relationship, sexual or otherwise. I couldn’t see how it was possible that we weren’t irrevocably broken.

‘You should drop him a line. At the very least, you need to have someone in Paris you can contact in an emergency,’ Bea continued.

‘The concierge in my building is very nice,’ I responded.

‘You know what I mean,’ said Bea.

I did my best to change the subject and convince Bea that I wasn’t bothered about my ex and certainly didn’t need to be in touch with him, but I thought about Steven still. Of course I did. You can’t spend seven years with someone and expect to forget about them in as many months. But lately I wondered if I had ever felt as connected to him as I did to Marco. In his emails to me, Marco had occasionally been goofy and vulnerable. I didn’t feel that Steven ever really let his guard down in the same way. He was always the cool guy. The funny guy. I was the one who got teased. We got along just fine so long as he was feeling confident. When Steven wasn’t feeling good, he would shut down and become a different person. He wouldn’t express his vulnerability and if I tried to help him through some rough patch or other, he would eventually act as though I had caused it.

Marco and I had an email conversation about it once.

I’d asked him, ‘Isn’t intimacy about showing our vulnerabilities and knowing that they won’t be held against us?’

Marco’s reply surprised me. Or perhaps it didn’t. He wrote, ‘We men more often find it hard to forgive our loved ones for uncovering those vulnerabilities in the first place. We don’t want to know it’s safe to be weak in your arms. We want to be the strong ones. We want to be perfect for you.’

Steven would never have admitted such a thing. But had I eventually pushed for too much intimacy from Marco too?

Thankfully, Bea changed the subject.

‘I just can’t believe you’ve got a suite at the Palazzo Bauer and no one to share it with! That’s such a waste.’

‘Well, how about you stay there with your security guard? I’ll stay in your apartment tonight.’

‘I don’t need a fabulous setting to get romantic with Ugo. How about you find yourself a man and make the most of it?’ A sly smile spread across Bea’s face. ‘You could call Nick. He’s still single. Still utterly besotted. I can’t tell you how excited he was to hear that you were coming to town. He’s been moping since you left.’

I batted away Bea’s teasing. Inside I was thinking, it’s always the way: there’s always the lover and the loved. Nick was besotted with me, while I saw him as nothing more than a friend. At the same time, it seemed I was in love with a man I’d never met. We were all miserable as a result.

That afternoon, I indulged myself by taking a wander around some of my favourite spots in the city. The weather was glorious. I jumped on a vaporetto and criss-crossed the Grand Canal until I got to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. What an amazing woman she must have been. I wondered if Marco had ever met her. His parents must have known her, as they vied to throw the best parties in Venice every Carnevale.

The museum was busy. Tourist season was in full flow. Still, I found my favourite exhibit almost totally ignored in favour of the larger, flashier pieces. It was a stool, a simple stone stool, carved with the words
savor kindness for cruelty is always possible later
. How very true, I thought. I took a photograph of it on my mobile phone and set it as my screensaver. It was a sober message but a useful one. It was an exhortation to make the most of what we had. I was in Venice on a beautiful summer’s day. I was staying at a hotel I could never have afforded on my own. With that in mind, I wasted no time in taking myself for a gelato at Grom on the Campo San Barnaba. I chose Bacio, my favourite flavour. It means ‘kiss’.

In the evening I met up with Nick, Bea and Ugo the brooding security guard. We visited just about the only restaurant in Venice that doesn’t serve fish. There was a long queue to get in and we had to hang around in the square, drinking spritz for almost an hour, before we got a table. We talked in stuttering Italian for the sake of the guard, who did not speak any English. Not that he seemed especially interested in the conversation anyway. He was only interested in watching Bea’s lips move.

Nick remembered the Martedì Grasso ball at the Palazzo Donato. He told Ugo about how Bea and I had switched costumes to fool my mysterious billionaire boyfriend. He managed not to make it sound completely ridiculous.

‘They had wigs too, so you really couldn’t tell them apart. Two peas in a pod. They’re exactly the same size. Have you noticed, Ugo? Same height, same . . .’

Nick had had a couple of drinks. More than a couple. He mimed a pair of voluptuous breasts. Ugo frowned as though he thought Nick might be making an especially off-colour comment about poor Bea.

‘Nick,’ I warned. ‘I really don’t think your Italian is up to it.’

Bea, thankfully, changed the subject to a party that she and Ugo would be attending later that week. It was to celebrate Ugo’s cousin’s wedding. I could tell that this was a huge deal for Bea. She was being introduced to yet more of Ugo’s family. That had to be a good sign.

After dinner, all three of them walked me back to the Hotel Bauer. They left me in the lobby, with much nudging about the honeymoon suite.

As I undressed, I thought about the evening. It was always fun to be with Nick and Bea. The conversation ranged wide and was always peppered with plenty of laughter, but that evening what stuck with me was Nick’s telling of the anecdote about the ball.