Sandra advised depriving her of things she did want to do.
“Sandra,” said Eliza, “she doesn’t want to do anything as much as getting her own way.”
She wondered whether having another baby would help. Matt was very keen, but she wasn’t sure whether she would be able to cope.
“Supposing she took against the baby; then what would I do? Nightmare.”
“She won’t,” said Matt cheerfully. “She’s not like that. I think we should go for it, Eliza; she’ll be at least three at this rate, and that’s a big gap.”
Eliza stopped taking the pill for a couple of months, then panicked as Emmie’s behaviour worsened, and went back on it.
“I don’t care how big the gap is, Matt; I’ll be in a loony bin at this rate by the time I have the baby, and then what will you do?”
“Bring them in to join you,” said Matt jovially.
She missed Charles dreadfully. She had seen him only a handful of times over the previous year and a half, at family gatherings, and he had seemed distant, reluctant to be alone with her. They had had lunch at her insistence, but he had been wary of any attempt to get him to open up to her.
“I just don’t know what to do about it,” said Eliza to Maddy. “I know there’s something wrong, but he won’t talk to me. We’ve only been to the new house once, and then there’s another thing: I’d have thought they’d have had a baby by now; Juliet was so keen, and Charles is besotted by Emmie.”
“Well, maybe that’s it,” said Maddy. “Maybe she’s just not getting pregnant, and they’re depressed about it, and don’t want everyone asking them all the time.”
“Maybe. I don’t know, Maddy; my whole life is filled with things I can’t sort out. Charles, my parents, that little fiend I’ve given birth to. God when I think how a couple of empty pages seemed like a problem—I didn’t know what worry was.”
Scarlett was at Athens airport with two hours to kill and realised she had nothing to read. The news kiosk yielded a lot of Greek books and newspapers, but she did finally manage to find one out-of-date copy of the English newsmagazine Time and Tide. She ordered herself a coffee and sat down in the departure lounge, and was flicking through the magazine when she saw quite a long article on Venice. Venice, which she knew and loved so well …
She started to read the piece and found herself instantly and extraordinarily there, and not just in the spectacular set pieces of St. Mark’s Square and the Grand Canal, but exploring the narrow backstreets, wandering from one bacari (the small bars that are Venice’s speciality) to the next, growing slowly tipsier, discovering the lesser-known churches, like the lyrical marble San Giorgio Maggiore best viewed by moonlight, and combing the flea market in the Campo San Maurizio. It was an extraordinary piece of writing.
She looked for the writer’s name, thinking she must find more of his—or her—work, and saw the article listed at the front of the magazine—by one Mark Frost.
“Oh, my God,” said Scarlett aloud, and gazing at her intently from the title page, there he was, complete with wire-framed spectacles, floppy dark hair, and extremely solemn expression. “Mark Frost,” it said, “one of the finest travel writers around today, and author of My Favourite Train Journeys, gives his unique and vivid take on one of his favourite cities, Venice.”
Geographical research indeed! Well, she supposed it was, in a way.
“Now, look, Eliza, and don’t start cutting up rough, please, but I’m going to have to cancel our trip.”
“You what! Oh, Matt, no. Please, please, no. I’ve been looking forward to it for so long.”
“I know, I know, and so have I. But we’re having trouble with this second development, the one out Swindon way, and I just can’t be away at the moment. Look, I’m sorry. I could go mid-November.”
“For Lord’s sake, Matt, I am just so sick of playing second lead to your work.”
She went out of the room slamming the door, her eyes full of tears. Tears of anger and disappointment. She had done so much these two years, tried so hard to be good, and this was his way of thanking her. A fortnight in the sun, he had promised her, well, a week in the sun in Bermuda, straddled by a few days either side in New York; she couldn’t remember when she had looked forward to anything so much.
She went to bed in the spare room that night; when Matt knocked on the door tentatively sometime after midnight, saying he was sorry, and he loved her, more than more than, and please to come to bed and let him prove it, she told him to fuck off.
She was still fuming in the morning when Mariella phoned, and so she poured out her story, tearful and angry still. Mariella’s reaction was predictable.
“You can come and have a holiday with me, cara. I would love it, Giovanni would love it, it is beautiful here in September, and we can do some shopping; I can show you my beloved Milan—”
“Oh, God, Mariella, it sounds wonderful. But I’d have to bring Emmie.”
“But of course you must bring her. There are plenty of people here to help, and we can buy her a new chic wardrobe from Milan.”
“Oh, it sounds so tempting. Are you really, really sure?”
“But of course I am sure. Tell me when, and I will be ready for you. And we can teach the bambina to speak Italian. Ciao, bella.”
“Ciao, Mariella. Love to Giovanni.”
“No,” said Matt, “no, sorry, that is not acceptable. I don’t want my child left in the care of a lot of wops.”
“What makes you think I’m leaving her in the care of anyone? And don’t use that disgusting word.”
“And who is going to look after me while you’re away?”
“You can look after your fucking self, Matt. I’m going.”
Eliza had stayed in a great many beautiful houses in her life, and done photographic shoots in many more, but in nothing quite as splendid as the Villa d’Arice. Set in incredible gardens right on the shores of Lake Como, it was actually a small palace, built in 1600, in a style that could only be described as fantasy-classical. As Mariella’s (surprisingly modest) Fiat 600—“Italian ladies don’t drive big smart cars on their own”—drew up in front of it, Eliza let out a yelp of pleasure.
A great white edifice, it was four storeys high, pillared and columned and balconied, with the lake shining before it and the mountains brooding beyond.
Mariella had met them at the airport and chattered the entire way to the villa. Giovanni was standing on the steps to greet them, immaculately dressed in slacks and a blazer, his handsome old face smiling. A beige standard poodle sat on either side of him; Mariella’s small white poodle, Pucci, was running to the car. It would have made, Eliza thought, a wonderful fashion shot.
“Eliza, cara. Welcome to our home. And this is the bambina! Oh, she is so beautiful.” He reached out a thin brown hand to stroke Emmie’s cheek, murmuring to her in Italian; Emmie smiled at him, enchanted.
The entrance hall was immense, marbled and chandeliered, with a staircase of great grace and grandeur rising from it; Giovanni led them down an arched corridor opening on one side onto formal gardens, and into a smaller but exquisite salone, with a low table set with tea and a display of sandwiches and pastries that would not have disgraced the Ritz. Emmie made for the food, her large blue eyes shining.
“Emmie! No,” said Eliza, but a smiling girl in a black dress and white apron moved forward, took Emmie’s other hand, and led her to a chair, where she took her on her knee, swathed her in a large napkin, and fed her the cake in bite-size pieces, tenderly wiping her face free of chocolate between each one.
“This is Anna-Maria,” Mariella said. “She will be helping you with Emmie all the time you are here. She comes with very good … good reviews.”
“References?” said Eliza.
“Yes, perhaps. I hope that will be all right. Of course, if you would rather not …”
Eliza, feeling she had suddenly come home, said it was very much all right.
They dined, the three of them, in a room overlo
oking the lake, dark now, shot with thousands of lights, and the clear sky with millions of stars. Mariella had popped her head into Eliza’s room as she was getting ready and told her that although Anna-Maria would sit with Emmie during the evening, if Eliza preferred, she could be with them. Eliza said she would much prefer it if Emmie was not with them and that she was already fast asleep.
“Bene. Then we can all have a very lovely dinner. Very, very informal, cara; do not dress up.”
Eliza knew what “very informal” would mean: not black tie. She wore a black silk dress and high-heeled sandals; Mariella was in palazzo pyjamas, Giovanni in an exquisitely cut smoking jacket.
It was an absurdly relaxed evening, given the setting and the constant attendance of staff. Giovanni spoke perfect English; Eliza, who spoke no Italian at all, felt embarrassed, and even said so, but he smiled at her and said it was good for both of them to speak English.
Giovanni clearly enjoyed gossip; Mariella chattered away about mutual friends, about clothes and shops, about their summer on their yacht, moored at Portofino.
“Everyone leaves Milan in the summer months,” she said. “You cannot buy so much as a loaf of bread. It is deserted. The families have to leave, the city is so hot, unbearable even out here.”
“And the mosquitoes are terrible; you are eaten alive,” Giovanni said. “Milan is built on a swamp, you see, surrounded by the mountains. People go to the seaside, the country, a few to chalets in the mountains. We have a place there, in Cervinia, but we usually only use that in the winter.”
“And do you ski?”
“A little. Mostly we just eat lunch.” Giovanni smiled at her, refilled her glass. “You must think we are very idle. I don’t suppose Mariella has told you about her charity work. That redeems us both, I hope.”
“She hasn’t, no,” said Eliza, intrigued. “What charity work, Mariella?”
“Oh … I help other ladies raise money for the poor children of Milan. And once a year, I go to Lourdes with some of the sisters from the convent here, and other volunteers; we accompany the poor pilgrims on their journey. It is a long journey on the train, or sometimes for the very worst cases by ambulance and coaches. They need much help, and some have no families. It is very, very sad at times. But wonderful, nonetheless.”
“Tomorrow, we have a more interesting evening for you,” Giovanni said, clearly in need of a change of subject. “A few friends, two of them English.”
“English!”
“Yes, there are many English working in Milan. It is an industrial city and an international one. I try to support our motor industry,” he added with a smile. “Mariella has her Fiat and I have a Lancia. But then in the garage, we have an English Rolls-Royce.”
The next morning, Mariella said they would drive into Milan.
“Emmie can come if you wish; we will take Anna-Maria too, and then if the little one gets bored, they can go for a walk.”
Eliza had been to Milan in her work but, moving from hotel to fashion show to photographic studio, had simply seen it as a plain, if stylish sister to Florence and Rome. Now she was able to appreciate it so much more, to see it above all as a working, lived-in, sleekly fashionable city: large avenues lined with balconied houses, with smaller charming ones, little more than lanes, turning abruptly off them, the chic streaks of color that were the fashion streets, the treasure troves of Via della Spiga, Corso Venezia, Via Sant’Andrea; the sudden glimpses of tranquil, tree-filled private courtyards opening off the busy streets; the orange trams with their blazing headlights carving their way through the city; the palazzos, great and small, set so casually among the streets and squares; the wide piazzas; the vast open space occupied by the Duomo; the elaborate wedding cake–white cathedral, topped by La Madonnina—and the great curving colonnade of the most famous shopping street of all, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, leading from it, for another kind of worship altogether. And all of it bathed in the brilliant clear light of autumnal Milan.
And the Milanese women: so chic, so perfectly presented, with their strong features and wonderful hair, in their exquisitely cut jackets, brilliantly colored scarves, and their high leather boots. It was a visual gluttony; Eliza found herself constantly sighing with pleasure.
Mariella’s main preoccupation, it appeared, was preparing for the Milan social season.
“It starts on December seventh, every year, the day of Saint Ambroeus, the patron saint of Milan. Everyone goes to La Scala; that is the great social event of the year. Always Verdi, although just very occasionally Rossini. Heads of state attend, and very often monarchs from other countries. Certainly from France and Austria, and I think sometimes your Queen? There are pre-Scala parties the night before, very, very grand, and, of course, many, many afterwards. So, you see, one needs so many dresses. Today we will visit my dressmaker. And also I have an appointment with Mila Schön, my favourite Milanese couturier. I thought you would be interested in that. But before we start, we will go to Cova for coffee. You will like it.”
Anna-Maria took Emmie for a series of little walks, and they visited Mariella’s dressmaker, where she had fittings for six long dresses—three silk, three satin—then to Mila Schön, where she ordered two cocktail suits; then to Sebastian in Via Montenapoleone for some shoes.
“Nothing for you?” Mariella asked.
“No, I really mustn’t. I’ve spent all next year’s dress allowance already.”
“Then I will buy you a little present. Some gloves? Perhaps a handbag? Yes, we will go to Prada. We must walk down the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele; it is very, very important.”
“Yes, I do know,” said Eliza, suddenly anxious not to appear a fashion bumpkin.
“Yes, yes, of course you do, but also it moves between Milan’s two great landmarks, La Scala and the Duomo. Come. Look, the little one is asleep in her chair-push. Now, there is Rinascente, our great department store. Look at the windows, Eliza; are they not wonderful? They have a brilliant young man dressing them, Giorgio Armani. I think he will go far. Come, to Prada.”
Mariella marched towards Prada, through the great vaulted arcade of the Galleria, and ushered Eliza inside. Anna-Maria sank into a chair in one of the cafés nearby.
They knew Mariella in Prada. A great deal of greeting and fast-fire Italian went on; five handbags appeared on the counter with great speed.
“There. You choose, cara. You need a bag. The one you have is not worthy of you.”
“Oh,” said Eliza, enchanted by the notion of being worthy of a bag, protested a little longer, and then gave up and decided it would be rude not to accept.
The one she chose was a glorious soft pouch of a thing. “That will hold the kitchen cupboard, I think,” Mariella said. “Why not something a little more chic?”
“No, this is what I want, please,” Eliza said, “and I often have to take the kitchen cupboard when I go out these days. So—”
“Bene,” said Mariella. “Then have it, with my love.”
They left, no money apparently having changed hands.
“And now,” said Mariella, “shall we have lunch?”
“I couldn’t eat lunch,” said Eliza, laughing, “and I think Emmie has had several lunches already.”
“Then we will have an early tea and go home. And prepare for our dinner party.”
The dinner party was fun, conducted for the most part in English, as a clear courtesy to Eliza: the guests included a delightful Italian couple, a fashion editor on Italian Vogue called Allessandra and her banker husband; an Italian woman friend of Mariella’s who had once been a dancer, who was very grand until a few glasses of wine had gone down and then became rather bawdy and even sang a Billie Holiday number at one point, rather well; and an Englishman called Timothy Fordyce, who worked, it transpired, in advertising. And not only in advertising, but for KPD in Milan.
“I don’t believe it,” said Eliza, laughing. “I had no idea they had a branch in Milan.”
“Oh, they do,” said Fordyce. �
�KPD is everywhere. You know the one in London, of course.”
“Of course. A … a friend of mine, a great friend actually, worked there—Jeremy Northcott. He’s in New York now—”
“Oh, Jeremy. Yes, I’ve met him a few times. He’s running the office there now, meant to stay six months and they won’t let him go. Tell me, has he married yet? I heard some English beauty broke his heart; is that true?”
“Um … it could be,” said Eliza.
“The English beauty, Timothy,” Mariella said, “she is sitting next to you.”
“No! Good lord. Is that right; was it really you?”
“There could have been another one since,” said Eliza feebly. “I don’t know.”
“Well, small world,” said Timothy Fordyce. “Wait till I see him. I’m off to New York in a few weeks, big agency conference.”
“Well, give him my … my regards.”
“I will. And you’re married, are you?”
“Oh—yes. So, what do you do at KPD?” she asked. “Are you on the account side?”
“Yes. We service all the international clients. There are several English agencies in Milan, as a matter of fact: McCann’s, JWT. The art directors are all English too; they despise graphic design at the art schools here, only teach them the classical stuff. And you, what do you do?”
“Eliza and I, we met in Paris,” said Mariella. “She is a very famous fashion editor.”
“On?”
“A magazine called Charisma.”
“Charisma! No! Marvellous magazine. Absolutely marvellous. Fashion pages are incredible. Well … clever old you.”
Eliza felt very sad suddenly, rather like Cinderella at the ball, only less fortunate, for where was the prince who could save her and keep her in this enchanted kingdom? Then she told herself she was being ridiculous, and that she wasn’t here to mope, but to be amusing and earn her keep.
She fell asleep with the curtains open, a full moon streaming onto her bed. Emmie slept sweetly and peacefully; a note on Eliza’s pillow said that if she wanted to stay in bed late, she had only to ring for Anna-Maria when Emmie awoke.
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