Unmasking Elena Montella (28 page)

‘
I’m coming in,’ Rosanna said, knowing there wasn’t a lock on the door and, suddenly, the two sisters were facing each other.

‘
Reuben’s gone,’ Rosanna said.

‘
Didn’t he have anything to say to me?’

‘
Not whilst you’re in this mood.’

‘
And what sort of mood would you expect me to be in when I’ve just found out that my sister and my fiancé are having an affair?’

‘
We’re
not
having an affair! I never said that, did I?’

‘
Don’t play games with me, Rosanna! I saw the way you were looking at each other - it’s obvious.’

Rosanna sat down heavily upon the bed, her face framed with pain. For a moment, neither sister spoke. It was as if they were waiting for something to come and take them away so they wouldn’t have to face the next few moments.

Rosanna looked up. Elena was still standing in the middle of the room clutching the mask between shaking fingers.

‘
Why are you holding that stupid mask? You’re really freaking me out, Elena!’

‘
I’m
freaking
you
out?’ Elena yelled. Suddenly, it was attack time again. ‘You’re the one who’s run off with my fiancé!’

‘
And you’re the one with
two
fiancés!’ Rosanna spat back.

‘
That doesn’t mean you have the right to come and choose one of them for yourself!’

‘
You make it sound like I wanted this to happen.’

‘
Well, didn’t you?’

‘
No! I didn’t plan any of this-’

‘
It just happened! Is that it?’ Elena asked sarcastically.

Rosanna sighed heavily and she held her hands up in the air in a gesture of pure hopelessness. ‘I don’t know what the hell happened! How can I explain?’

‘
And you weren’t going to, were you? If I hadn’t come downstairs and heard you, you weren’t going to tell me.’

‘
I wanted to get things sorted out first. Look, Elena, this has only just happened. I wasn’t sure-’

‘
I don’t think I can talk about this just now,’ Elena said, her calm, quiet voice cutting across her sister’s hysterical one.

‘
Then when will we talk about it?’

‘
When I get back,’ Elena said.

Rosanna frowned. ‘What do you mean? Where are you going?’

‘
I’m going to see Mama.’

‘
What?’

‘
That’s all I can do right now,’ Elena said, walking across the room and taking out her suitcase.

‘
You were going anyway, weren’t you?’ Rosanna said. ‘You’ve already packed. You were running away again, weren’t you?’

‘
I’m not running away.’

‘
Yes you are! You’re always running away from something! That’s why Reuben came out here to see you - because you were running away from him. And Mark too.’

‘
Don’t you
dare
start lecturing me in things you know nothing about!’

‘
What do you mean,
things I know nothing about?
I’m your sister, for God’s sake! If
I
don’t know what goes on in that head of yours,
nobody
does!’

Again, their eyes locked in battle.

‘
I’ll sleep downstairs tonight,’ Elena said, a tiny quiver in her voice the only betrayal of her otherwise rigidly calm demeanour. ‘And I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.’

‘
I think you should stay,’ Rosanna said but Elena was already out of the door, her suitcase in one hand and the mask in the other.

Reuben crossed the Piazza San Marco and stopped in the smaller, more intimate Piazzetta. The bright pink lamps were lit and the arches of the Doge’s Palace took on a hauntingly beautiful quality. The Campanile towered behind him, shooting up into the inky night. It was all exactly the same as when he’d walked across it less than an hour ago with Rosanna, yet so much had happened. Elena knew; he’d betrayed her. And yet the world was still a beautiful place. How wrong that seemed, and how awful it was that he wished Rosanna was with him now. How was it possible to fall in love so quickly? Had he ever really been in love with Elena? What had it been other than love? He’d proposed to her, for goodness’ sake, and yet he’d been able to cast her aside so brutally within a few days.

He could still see the hurt haunting her eyes as she’d stared at him in Sandro’s apartment. He’d stood, torn and useless, between the two sisters, no longer knowing where his allegiance lay. So, he’d left - like a coward who can do nothing else.

He wondered what was happening there now. The vain and base part of him wished he could have stayed to see the two sisters fighting over him. He’d never had the pleasure of being desired by two women before. Staring out over the lagoon, he tried to imagine the scene.

‘
He was mine first!’ Elena would shout.

‘
That doesn’t mean you love him more!’ Rosanna would retort.

‘
How do you know how much I love him?’

‘
Because no heart is bigger than mine when it comes to Reuben! Nobody could possibly love him more than me! I would drown in the lagoon for him!’

‘
And
I
would drown
you
in the lagoon for him!’

They would then lunge towards each other, nails and hair flying …

Reuben shook his head, feeling ashamed, if somewhat turned on, at having envisaged such a scene and proceeded to punish himself by envisaging quite a different one:

‘
You can have him, you slut!’ Elena shouted.

‘
You must be joking! I don’t want your soiled goods!’

‘
I was going to break up with him anyway. He’s no good to me any more.’

‘
Well, throw him in the lagoon because I don’t want him either,’ Rosanna spat.

‘
I’ve got a better idea - we’ll
both
thrown him into the lagoon - with his paint box tied round his neck to make sure he sinks!’

‘
You’re on!’

Reuben shivered. That scene was probably closer to the truth, he thought, his features glum. He should never have left the apartment; he couldn’t bear not knowing what was happening there.

The truth was, nothing half as dramatic as Reuben had imagined was taking place in the apartment. It was stonily silent. After their initial fight, Elena had gone downstairs to bed and Rosanna had shut her upstairs bedroom door. Each remained in their self-imposed isolation as if an ocean divided them rather than a flight of stairs.

Neither could sleep. Elena couldn’t get comfortable in the single bed in the spare room and kept tossing and turning as if the mattress were harbouring a hundred hibernating hedgehogs. Finally, she got up and switched on a bedside lamp. It was a strange room with a low, slanted ceiling. It was also home to stacks of Sandro’s canvasses and Elena found herself looking through them. There were several of Rosanna, and Elena’s eyes narrowed at her new enemy. Luckily, there were no palette knives lying around or goodness knows what might have become of Sandro’s paintings.

Elena groaned. Why hadn’t Rosanna been happy with her own artist, Sandro? Why did she have to go and steal
her
artist? For one dreadful moment, Elena wondered if Rosanna was finally getting her own back for the time when she had poached one of her boyfriends. It had been so many years ago that she’d almost forgotten about it. But, no, it wasn’t as simple as revenge, was it? She’d seen the way Rosanna and Reuben had looked at each other. Rosanna wasn’t using Reuben to settle some long-standing score. That would have been easy to sort out. Love, on the other hand, couldn’t be sorted out, could it? You had to just let it be.

Elena had to face the fact that she’d lost Reuben, and she was in the process of losing Prof as well by the look of things. He’d seemed so at ease when she’d seen him with the red-haired woman. How had he met her, she wondered as she returned to the uncomfortable bed? Perhaps she’d come with him to Venice? Yes! After Elena had hung up on him the other night, he’d gone out and found himself a new woman to bring to Venice in order to get his own back on her. Or, worse: he’d found out about her and Reuben. He’d sussed her out - invisibility mask and everything - and decided that she wasn’t worth the bother.

Elena tugged angrily at the lumpy duvet and sighed in despair. Everyone was getting their own back on her, weren’t they? Only Mark was hanging on in there for her but she wasn’t at all sure she wanted him to. In fact, she’d done a good job of wrecking things with him already. He was probably back in London already, crossing her name out of his little black book and deleting her from his mobile phone. Or was he still in Venice? She’d have time to find out before she left for Positano in the morning. She could settle things then - make a clean break. Reuben and Prof might well have given up on her but she wasn’t going to let that happen a third time. As she gave her pillow one last thump before closing her eyes, she made a decision:
she’d
be the one to finish things with Mark.

Prof lay awake in bed staring at the dark ceiling. He’d crossed the Piazzetta two hours before Reuben but hadn’t been thinking about the beautiful architecture; he’d been thinking about the beautiful Anastasia. They’d taken forever to say goodnight to each other outside her hotel.

‘
Did I tell you about the time I visited Verona?’ Anastasia had asked.

‘
I must just tell you about this fabulous restaurant in Primrose Hill,’ Prof had said.

It was as if they were delaying saying goodnight for as long as possible.

‘
Seeing as we’re both on our own here,’ Prof had finally said, ‘how about lunch tomorrow?’

‘
It can get so lonely sometimes, and I detest eating alone - it’s so depressing!’ Anastasia had said.

When she’d turned to go, Prof had felt a strange emptiness like a child being left at the school gate for the first time. He’d wanted to call after her and find some other useless piece of trivia to discuss but she’d disappeared.

He’d never had that with Elena, he’d thought. She’d always just left. A quick glance at the clock and off she’d trot. He’d always felt that he was a bit of an inconvenience to her - that she had somewhere else to be or someone else to see. With Anastasia, he’d felt as if he was the complete centre of her attention.

Walking down the Riva towards the Danieli, Prof wondered what was happening to him. He’d come out to Venice with the distinct idea of setting a date for his wedding. He’d flown out a man in love - impatient to get his life moving in the right direction at last. So what had changed?

Anastasia.

Surely he wasn’t as fickle as that? He shook his head, his feet marching right by his hotel and on down the Riva until he reached the spot overlooking the famous Bridge of Sighs which was very appropriate, he’d thought, letting a long sigh out into the still night air.

The easy companionship of Anastasia had made him see Elena in a different light. He had only been with Anastasia for half a day and yet he knew so much about her.

‘
Here’s my mobile number,’ she’d said after lunch, handing him her business card.

He’d got absolutely no idea what Elena’s number was. She’d even told him that she didn’t have a mobile phone but he’d once heard it beep during a seminar.

‘
I’m the youngest of three girls,’ Anastasia had said by the time dessert was presented to them.

He didn’t even know what Elena’s sister was called. No, when it came down to it, Prof knew very little about Elena Montella.

But, lying in bed at the Danieli now, he felt in a bit of a quandary. He was an engaged man who had fallen under the spell of another woman. He’d never been in that sort of a situation before. Life had always been so simple for him: he’d been a bachelor with the occasional girlfriend. Now, he had two beautiful women and one important decision to make.