Unmasking Elena Montella (26 page)

‘
God! You know I don’t earn enough for this kind of place. Especially if we’re not even going to bother enjoying the food!’

Rosanna stood up, scraping the chair back noisily and causing half the restaurant to turn and stare at them. ‘I didn’t want it to be like this, Corrado. We’ve had some good times together and I wanted us to be friends.’

‘
Oh! Spare me the ‘friends’ speech!’

‘
I’m only trying-’

‘
Don’t!’

There was a prickle of ugly silence as they stared at each other. It was just the kind of uncomfortable moment that Rosanna had been so desperate to avoid but now she guessed it was unavoidable.

‘
I’m going to go now,’ she said in a very small voice. Corrado said nothing and so she turned to leave the restaurant just as the waiter arrived with two bowls of soup. Rosanna just had time to see that Corrado had, at least, got her choice of starter absolutely right.

‘
It’s so easy to get overweight in Italy, don’t you think?’ Anastasia asked Prof in a restaurant on the mainland.

Prof nodded, his mouth otherwise occupied with yet another glorious concoction.

‘
I’m lucky,’ Anastasia continued. ‘I mean, I get paid to review this sort of thing as part of the travelling scene so my weight is an occupational hazard I’m quite happy to put up with.’

Prof’s eyebrows rose. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your figure, I can assure you,’ he said.

‘
Thank you, darling!’ she said. ‘You are a sweetie.’

Prof smiled. So many compliments had been fired at him that day that he felt he couldn’t possibly take any more. ‘Please!’ he said, raising his hands as if he could deflect further praise.

Anastasia just laughed. ‘You are funny!’ she smiled, shaking her head so that her red curls bounced off her cheeks. ‘So,’ she added, ‘tell me more about these students of yours.’

‘
What would you like to know?’

‘
Everything! Have you ever had a difficult student? I imagine teaching to be one of the hardest jobs in the world.’

‘
Well, when they come to university, most of them have gone through that difficult phase already and are actually happy to buckle down and work.’

‘
So, you haven’t any juicy tales of student rebellion?’ Anastasia asked, taking a sip of wine, her eyes sparkling in the dim light of the restaurant.

Prof looked thoughtful. ‘There was one time,’ he began.

‘
Go on,’ Anastasia said.

Prof grinned. If she sat any further forward on her seat, she’d be in his lap, he thought. ‘We were about half-way through our study of Charles Dickens,’ he said, ‘and I’d noticed that one of my students hadn’t been to any of the classes. I’d asked around and none of her friends seemed to know anything about it. As I was about to hand out the coursework assignments, I thought I’d better get things sorted out and so I left a note in her pigeon hole to arrange a meeting.

‘
She came to my room at the designated time and I looked for any tell-tale signs of illness or work-overload but nothing seemed to be the matter. She’d never been the most out-spoken of students but it did seem odd that she should miss so many classes so I asked her why she had.’

‘
And what did she say?’ Anastasia asked with the eagerness of a journalist scenting a story.

‘
She said she didn’t
do
Dickens.’

‘
Didn’t do Dickens?’ Anastasia repeated.

‘
That’s right!’ Prof said. ‘I was somewhat dumbfounded and I waited for her to explain.’

‘
And - did she?’ Anastasia asked when Prof paused for a moment.

‘
Oh, yes! When I gave her another copy of the coursework I wanted her to do, she handed it right back and, when I asked her why, she told me that Dickens had killed her father.’

Anastasia’s eyes stretched in surprise. ‘How extraordinary.’

‘
And,’ Prof said, ‘unfortunately, true. Her father had worked as a salesman and was obsessed with audio books. Apparently, he listened to them all the time and, well, he was listening to one when he hit a patch of ice travelling through Northumberland and came off the road down a ravine. The police reported that
Oliver Twist
was still playing when they arrived on the scene.’

Anastasia’s mouth opened a fraction. ‘That’s so sad!’ she said.

‘
Isn’t it?’

‘
And what did you say to her after she told you that?’

‘
What could I say? I gave her an alternative essay to do.
Bugger the Dickens
, I told her!’

‘
Oh! You dear man!’

‘
Other than that, I’ve had a long career with very little of interest happening to me. No major disruptions from students or fellow members of staff. In fact, put like that, I sound quite boring.’

Anastasia stretched a hand across the table and placed it on his. ‘You’re not boring,’ she said and her dark eyes sparkled at him. ‘You’re wonderful. Simply wonderful!’

Rosanna had had some headaches in her time but none quite like this one. What had started out as an anaemic tap dance had now transmogrified into an army of hammers in her head. With each step, her head reverberated with pain so that even the short walk down to the vaporetto was an unbearable torture.

She wished she could magic herself back to the apartment. No. She wished that she’d never come out in the first place. What on earth had made her think Corrado could behave in an adult way? He’d never needed to be an adult - not whilst he still lived under the same roof as his harpy of a mother.

She struggled on down to the vaporetto, the cool air doing nothing to ease her throbbing head. For a moment, she wondered if she’d actually be able reach home at all. She felt ready to collapse at any moment.
Don’t be silly
, she whispered to herself.
You’ll be home in less than an hour.

‘
Are you all right?’ a voice suddenly asked. Rosanna could hardly see who it was through a veil of tears which she’d been trying not to spill.

‘
What?’ she asked.

‘
I said are you okay?’

The voice sounded familiar. Rosanna wiped her eyes, resolving not to be such a baby and, looking up, saw a dark figure standing next to her. It was Reuben.

‘
You’re not all right, are you?’ he said. ‘What a bloody stupid question to ask.’

Rosanna felt her new resolve crumble in an instant and new tears sprung up in her brown eyes.

Reuben instinctively placed an arm around her shoulder. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘come with me. You’re not in any state to go anywhere on your own. You’re heading back to Venice, yes?’

Rosanna nodded.

‘
Come back to my room and we can have something to drink and I’ll take you back to your apartment after that, okay?’

‘
Yes!’ she cried, her vision blurring through more tears.

When the vaporetto arrived, Reuben helped Rosanna to a seat indoors and she closed her eyes as they sped over the lagoon back towards Venice. The rocking motion made her feel even more queasy but, luckily, it was a short crossing.

‘
Come on,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘We’re here.’

Feeling shaky and dazed, Rosanna allowed herself to be led out. ‘How far is it?’ she asked.

‘
Not far. I’m at the Danieli. It’s not far,’ he assured her, and it wasn’t.

‘
Here,’ he said at last, guiding her into a room just a short time later.

‘
I’m so sorry, Reuben. I don’t want to bother you but I really don’t feel so good,’ Rosanna whispered, her hands seemingly trying to squeeze the pain out of her head.

‘
Can I get you anything? Aspirin? Paracetamol?’

‘
Please!’ she said.

Reuben rooted around in a toiletries bag and produced a packet of aspirin. ‘Two?’

Rosanna nodded lightly, feeling that two packets wouldn’t shift this particular headache. ‘Have you some water?’

‘
Of course,’ he said, taking a new bottle from his bedside table.

Rosanna undid it, took the pills and had a good drink. ‘Would you mind if I had a sleep?’ she asked. ‘If I could just close my eyes for a while -’

‘
Of course!’ Reuben said.

‘
I’m so sorry,’ Reuben,’ she said again.

‘
It’s okay -
really
,’ he said, motioning to the bed. ‘I’ll give you some peace.’

‘
Oh! Please don’t let me disturb-’

‘
It’s okay,’ he interrupted, ‘I usually go down to the bar at this time of night - it’s great for catching up on my sketches. Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll see you later, okay?’

Rosanna heard the door close behind him and allowed her head to sink into the pillow on his bed.

‘
This is amazing!’ Anastasia cooed as Prof escorted her through to the lobby bar.

‘
It is rather special, isn’t it?’

‘
Special! I feel like a movie star!’ she said.

Prof looked around the bar and immediately saw his English acquaintance, Reuben, sitting in the corner with his sketchbook out. For a moment, he wasn’t sure how to approach things. He’d told Reuben that he was engaged, hadn’t he? And now he’d brought back a woman to his hotel who wasn’t his fiancée. Not that there was anything going on between them, he assured himself. They were merely passing time in one another’s company - enjoying the occasional meal and drink together. He had no intention of it going any further than that. He was engaged, after all.

‘
Are we going to get a drink?’ Anastasia asked.

‘
Yes. Of course,’ Prof answered, hoping that Reuben would be too wrapped up in his art to come over and force an introduction.

Reuben liked his position at the back of the bar. He might just as well have been invisible, he thought, for the little attention he attracted. That was how he liked it, of course, but he had caught Sigmund’s eye as he’d walked into the bar with a gorgeous red-head he’d naturally assumed was his fiancée. He caught her vibrant elegance with a few quick lines on the page, and then he stopped. It was hard to concentrate when there was a beautiful woman asleep in your bed upstairs. He’d wanted to stay and watch as she’d curled up on the bed, her dark curls spilling out over the pillow and her large, brown eyes closing against the world. Her olive skin looked drained of colour and he’d wanted to make sure she was all right.

He whistled, long and low, between clenched teeth. That’s not what he’d wanted at all, was it? He’d wanted to undress her and leap onto the bed with her -
that’s
what he’d wanted!

His pencil pressed darkly into his sketchbook as he drew angrily, wondering what she’d been doing on the Lido. She’d been wearing a dress the colour of dark amethysts. Had she been on a date? He didn’t even know if she had a boyfriend or not. Perhaps that was why she was so upset - she’d argued with somebody. From what he’d seen of Rosanna, he knew she had a temper.

Reuben put his pencil down and looked at his watch. He’d been in the bar for over an hour now and really couldn’t afford to sit there ordering drinks all evening. In fact, he was planning on booking out of the Danieli in the morning as it was far too luxurious for his wallet.

Getting up, he left the bar and wandered outside the hotel where he stood and gazed out over the dark lagoon. There was a bitter chill in the breeze now which reminded him that summer was still a long way off.

Reuben’s mind ticked over the past few days. It had been extraordinary and not at all what he’d expected from a trip to Venice. He’d come in order to sort things out with Elena but he didn’t feel as if they’d got anywhere. And then, he’d met Rosanna. What exactly was going on there? He walked along the waterfront, his hands deep in his jacket pockets. He was engaged to Elena but he was falling in love with Rosanna.

‘
Hell fire’ he exclaimed into the night air, turning round and marching back towards the Danieli. He was going to tell her. There was no other way around this: he was, for once in his life, going to give in to honesty - whatever the consequences.