by Ann Turner
Guido’s strong arms worked like machines as he flung slabs of bacon into bubbling oil and cracked huge eggs into a saucepan. The glassblowers of Murano were special. I had never doubted that Guido would support me in my hour of need.
I fell upon the food: Stephen being alive gave me an enormous appetite.
‘I want you to take my brother’s van,’ Guido said solemnly. ‘It’s parked at Mestre. I’ll load it with glassware. If anyone asks, you’re taking a delivery for me, but obviously don’t give your real name. They can phone and I’ll back it up. I’ll program in the safest route for the border crossing on the van’s GPS. Places aren’t patrolled these days, except recently the coast road – and they’re only looking for dark-coloured people.’ He shook his head disapprovingly.
I thanked him profusely but worried police at this very moment might be tracing the email address I’d just used.
We crammed down the last blissful mouthfuls and Guido led me into an adjacent room where a long table displayed vases of exquisite beauty: swirls of aquamarine, rich deep blues, ghostly grey and all the colours of the Venetian lagoon danced through clear, pristine glass. The vases were alive as sunshine breathed into them, through them, sparkling and enriching their lustre. At any moment it felt like they would heave and sigh with the tide. Guido picked up a vase in the hues of sunset and dawn across the sea. It glowed as if lit from within. He wrapped it and passed it across like a swaddled baby.
‘For luck. I will come and see where you put it at home,’ he said. Then we went into another room filled with crates of Ludovico’s glass, which we carried to Guido’s boat.
The sky was crystal-blue as we sped smoothly across to Mestre. In the vast car park we rapidly loaded the anonymous white van – I didn’t know whether the police had located the sports car and were watching the area – and I couldn’t get away fast enough.
Without speaking Guido pulled me into a bone-crushing hug. For a moment I wished he could come with me but I reassured myself that I’d driven from Venice to France before, and no one could trace me now. Guido put my carry-on bag on the passenger seat and I hauled myself into the van and fired up the engine, blowing heartfelt kisses to him as I circled past. He was still waving as I left the endless aisles of cars and set off for Paris.
• • •
The GPS led me easily on a back road across the border, past an old guard hut, long abandoned. I sailed through. Even though I was in the unmarked van, I took minor roads the whole way. It was just after dawn when I reached Ludovico’s place on the Left Bank of the Seine, in a narrow street in the sixth arrondissement. I found a park directly outside the gracious nineteenth-century building. Beside the sleekly painted door, Ludovico’s name peered out among the tenants; I buzzed up.
‘I’ll come straight down, Becca,’ he purred in a rolling Venetian accent.
He hugged me so solidly I felt instantly reassured, his slender body strong from breathing life into glass the traditional way. At twenty-five, Ludovico had not yet developed the thicker build of his uncle. His glossy black hair and dark eyes above generous lips and friendly smile made Ludovico popular.
‘Quickly, I don’t want you to be seen,’ he whispered. ‘You’re in the news.’ He stole a furtive look around; it was too early for many people to be on the street.
‘It’s a very local area,’ he murmured. ‘The walls have eyes.’ He ushered me through to a small courtyard with a bubbling fountain at its centre, and took my hand as he led me hurriedly up three flights of stairs.
The apartment was small with massive windows that stretched to the ceiling. Ludovico’s glass creations glowed in rich colours of the rainbow. As he went back to unload the van I used his computer to look up the news online.
There was a short article in the French press saying I was wanted by the Italian police for questioning and had not returned to my hotel on the Amalfi coast. My photo was posted, along with a request for anyone who saw me to contact police. There was also a picture of the red sports car, and I consoled myself that it was miles away in Mestre.
When Ludovico came back with my bag I set about making myself as unrecognisable as possible. I plastered on make-up and swirled my hair into a bun. I donned clothes that looked the least like those I was wearing in the photo – a much more formal dress and shoes – and I borrowed a stylish straw hat from Ludovico. If I kept my sunglasses on at all times I might just go unnoticed.
• • •
‘It was here.’ In the Tuileries Gardens, Ludovico led me to a wrought-iron table beneath a plane tree. We sat down, and Ludovico ordered us coffee and croissants. In the distance a circular boat pond glistened in the sparkling light and Parisians and tourists were already draping themselves on the elegant slatted seats that surrounded the water. A few children floated replica sailing craft, poking them around with long sticks.
I was momentarily overwhelmed with relief to think that Stephen had been here so recently but then I felt sick – he’d been here with Priscilla.
‘It’s going to be a perfect day,’ said Ludovico, trying to surreptitiously glance at his watch.
‘When do you need to get to your exhibition?’
‘Soon. I’m sorry, will that be all right? I need to display some of the new pieces that you’ve brought.’
‘Of course. I’m so grateful to you. But before you go, would you . . . Could you tell me every detail about Stephen?’
Ludovico ran long fingers through his matt of hair. ‘So,’ he leaned close, ‘Stephen was sitting here with a blonde woman. About your age. Thin, blue-eyed. Well dressed. Sexy. They were deep in conversation when I called out. I was over there, closer to the kiosk.’ Ludovico scrunched his eyes, recapturing the scene in his mind. ‘Stephen had his back to me. When he turned, I saw that his beard was shaved. He didn’t respond at all; stared like he’d never known me. Then I started thinking it wasn’t him. He seemed intimate with the blonde woman, and that felt wrong.’ Ludovico cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Sorry, Becca, but I’m going to tell you everything in precise detail like I’m making a vase.’
I nodded and waited, trying to hide how difficult I was finding it to hear every word.
‘I realised they’d been holding hands.’
I gritted my teeth and forced myself to keep listening.
‘After I waved, the woman let go as if he’d burned her but he just mumbled calmly. He put money on the table and they walked off. That way, towards the fair.’ Ludovico indicated a Ferris wheel and sideshows that squatted along one side of the gardens near the Rue de Rivoli. ‘I followed them, curious to see if it really was Stephen. Perhaps I’d been mistaken?’
‘But you know what he looks like. You’ve met him lots of times with me at your uncle’s place.’
‘Si, si. That’s why it was so strange. Anyway, they soon stopped and bought frozen drinks.’
‘Can you show me?’
‘Of course.’
We called to the waiter to tell him we would be back and then Ludovico led me to a multi-coloured granita stand, where banks of orange, lime, pineapple and strawberry concoctions were stacked one on top of each other in giant dispensers.
‘It’s not like Stephen to want one of these.’ I frowned as I surveyed the garish frozen drinks.
‘Perhaps it wasn’t him?’
‘Or his tastes have changed. Was it hot?’
Ludovico shrugged. ‘Maybe humid.’ His long eyelashes fluttered up and down. ‘It was, you know, morning. A sunny day.’
We walked back to our table past cheerful sideshows, carnival clowns with open mouths sitting ready to take the small white balls and spit out numbers so every child could win a prize the world over.
‘We’ve always loved this carnival. It’s Erin and James’s favourite.’ I looked up at the giant replica ape waiting to beckon the evening crowds to his roller-coaster. We passed the dodgem cars, silent now. ‘They’ll be raucous tonight,’ I said, remembering our family visits on warm su
mmer evenings that stretched until eleven o’clock when the gardens shut. It would still be light, a long, exquisite twilight, the moon hanging like a prop in a school play. I shuddered at the thought of Priscilla sharing such a moment with Stephen.
Back at our table in the cool shade of the trees we ate quickly, in silence. Ludovico gulped his coffee and kissed me lightly on the cheek. ‘Good luck today,’ he said with a smile as he strode away through the dappled light.
Now I could move – but in my exhaustion I couldn’t think where. I looked around through the shimmering trees. Might Stephen take a walk here today? Where else could he be – the Musée D’Orsay, or having breakfast in a cafe in the Latin Quarter? Would he lunch with Priscilla in the Marais beneath the gracious arches of the Place des Vosges? My heart shrank. Rage surged through me, clearing my head.
I reminded myself to think like an archaeologist. Narrow the possibilities. To find Stephen would take a random search through his favourite haunts, in the vast arrondissements of Paris, relying on chance. On the other hand, Priscilla was here on study leave and I expected that even in the flush of romance she would be far too driven and ambitious to waylay her research. I’d been to archives in Paris and I knew from talking with colleagues which ones held the best resources for French historians. Research the researcher. It was far more likely I could find Priscilla.
I would follow her and let her lead me to Stephen.
25
I made my way to the twirling art-nouveau sign on Rue de Rivoli that signalled the entrance to the Metro. I hurried down the long flight of stairs, bought tickets from the automatic machine and was soon on my way to the Archives Nationales in the Marais, a logical place for Priscilla to do her research.
I walked past Hôtel de Soubise, the imposing building that used to hold the archives, and through a verdant garden to where a new building housed the collection. I went upstairs to the long reading room, peering like a hawk for its prey. Green lamps proliferated like a field of flowers above timber desks. Scholars had their heads down, working hard. There was no sign of Priscilla.
I thought rapidly. Another possibility was the new Bibliothèque Nationale – I wasn’t sure where it was, having only been to the old one in Rue du Richelieu, but I’d heard French historians complain that a vast majority of the collection had been moved there. I hurried to a taxi stand, and thirty minutes later through heavy traffic the driver dropped me on the street beside a vast flight of steps in the thirteenth arrondissement. At the top, a forecourt stretched far and wide, with monolithic buildings on each of the four corners rising up to the sky. I walked through the stark concrete landscape to an elevator that took me down to the library, where rooms were spaced around a wild, tree-filled courtyard bigger than two football fields. For admission I had to show my academic credentials, which I always carried with me in my wallet, and then wait for a day ticket. My stomach tightened as I handed over my photo ID, which didn’t look particularly like me and today less so with what I was wearing, but I was terrified that my name might be recognised from the news. To my relief the girl behind the counter didn’t give me, or my card a second glance.
I sat impatiently, planning where I would go next if Priscilla wasn’t here. Then I paced up and down a corridor with a wall of glass giving views to the forest that had been transplanted here. The place felt odd – too new, its subterranean rooms looking out into the strange greenery, displaced. When I finally got into the reading rooms it took an inordinate amount of time to search, and by the end I was weary and deflated. Priscilla was nowhere in sight.
In desperation, I caught a taxi back to the first arrondissement to the original Bibliothèque Nationale. Inside, I paced around the circular, colonnaded edge of its stately room. And suddenly, there she was: Priscilla, wearing a chic, sleeveless pale-lemon dress, sitting in the centre at one of the long tables, a stack of ancient manuscripts piled high in front of her.
Standing against the rows of bookshelves a distance away, I waited. The normality of what she was doing disgusted me. Soft light glowed a pearly blue through the stained-glass dome as Priscilla tapped notes into her tablet. Every so often she would photograph a page with her phone. I noticed every detail. Had Stephen wound his arms around her this morning? She looked light and summery. Bile rose and I forced myself to stand still and not run and rip her limb from limb. She and Stephen were here, living a life together.
Finally she stood. I held my breath. She boxed up the papers and carried them to a nearby returns shelf, then retrieved her handbag, stowed her tablet into it and sauntered out of the building. I was quick to follow, a safe distance behind, my heart pounding. Soon I would be with Stephen.
Priscilla moved quickly on the street, and descended into the Metro. On the hot, howling platform I waited until she was on board and then leaped into the back of the carriage, from where I had a good view. At Gare Saint-Lazare she hopped off the train and I followed like a bloodhound.
She went into the country ticket office and bought a fare. I hovered in the queue, trying to ascertain which train she’d booked, but she was too far away for me to hear. She and Stephen must be staying out of Paris. I found this odd – but, then, Stephen was behaving so strangely it was fitting.
As soon as she left I pushed my way to the front. Speaking French, I asked the man who’d sold Priscilla her ticket where she was heading. I finished with an embarrassed shrug. To my eternal gratitude he obliged. ‘Vernon,’ he grinned, clearly thinking we were lovers who had just had a fight.
I jumped onto the train as it was pulling out. The landscape swept past and half an hour later I alighted in a tiny, picturesque village in Normandy. In the distance Priscilla walked purposefully towards a bus that heralded Giverny as its destination. My breath caught in my lungs. Monet’s garden in Giverny was a favourite haunt of Stephen’s whenever we were in France. She was going to meet him.
Another bus rolled up behind the first, also headed to Giverny. Tourists thronged and I mingled with them, taking the second bus.
I tried to think what to say to Stephen, but my mind went blank. In what felt like seconds we pulled in beside a field of scarlet poppies bobbing and shimmering in the breeze. I let Priscilla get ahead along the tiny cobbled streets of the town, where roses and hollyhocks soared against mellow walls. At the ancient stone building that housed the ticket office, the queue was long to enter the artist’s garden. I waited a distance behind Priscilla, my legs jittering, refusing to keep still. I wanted to see Stephen, to demand an explanation. But most of all I wanted him in my arms to feel his warmth and strength, to go back to what we’d had; wipe the slate clean. Start again. A second chance.
Once inside, I lost sight of Priscilla. I walked past the dusty pink walls and green shutters of Monet’s house, shrouded in roses, red geraniums in front, a scene that framed Stephen’s smiling face on my study bookshelf at home. Home. The house that we may not have for much longer, the house that he’d gambled away. Quickening my pace, I raced past the arches of the Grande Allee, with its nasturtiums in gaudy splashes of red and orange overflowing onto the path.
A riot of scarlet roses scrambled up a fence as I strode down into an underpass that swept beneath the road. On the other side, the fecund lily pond, the scene of Monet’s famous paintings, came into view. Stephen would be here, on the bench we always shared, gazing at the tiny wooden boat moored beneath a weeping willow. As a gardener, Stephen had felt it a spiritual journey to walk the gravel paths, immersed in the shimmering plants that morphed into an impressionist painting wherever the eye was drawn.
I looked for him among the spellbound throngs of visitors hustling quietly about. People of all nationalities lingered on the Japanese bridge gazing at the pale water lilies below, posing for photographs, but neither Stephen nor Priscilla was among them. I headed around the pond, past tourists ambling by cascades of pink roses that dipped into the water.
Every step took me closer to the wooden bench – Stephen’s bench. But when I reached i
t, I stopped abruptly. The bench was empty.
One more time I went around the lily pond, pushing through the tortuously slow crowd of sweaty bodies, their rank perfume hanging sourly in the air. Rounding a bend I saw Priscilla standing at the path’s edge gazing at a patch of water lilies. Her expression was glazed, her mind far away. She was alone.
I bit my lip so hard droplets of blood beaded as I strode towards her.
‘Rebecca!’ She reeled back as she focused on me, a look of disbelief changing to acknowledgement that I was actually here. My disguise hadn’t fooled her.
I walked up close. ‘Where’s Stephen?’ I asked forcefully.
She blinked, confused. ‘I’m so sorry, Rebecca, to hear what happened. I didn’t realise you were in France. Are you here to see Melinda?’
Now it was my turn to be confused. ‘I’ve come for Stephen.’
‘You don’t think he’s with me, surely?’ she said, her voice shaking.
‘The game’s up, Priscilla.’
She took my hands and I flung her off. ‘Whatever he’s done isn’t enough to drive me away,’ I said. ‘I know you picked him up on the Amalfi coast and brought him here. I’ve come to take him home.’
Tears welled in Priscilla’s eyes, unnerving me.
‘I’m in Paris doing research for my book. The only person from work I’ve seen is Melinda,’ she said gently as if I were a wounded animal that needed calming. ‘I called to her but she slipped away. On purpose, I’d say. I’m sure she saw me.’
‘Melinda’s in America,’ I snapped. ‘I need to see Stephen now. The kids are desperate. Let us know he’s all right. Please.’
Priscilla’s expression was full of alarm and pity but she did not speak.
‘Oh God, he is here, isn’t he?’ My body began to tremble uncontrollably.