by Helen Mcginn
‘I think so.’ Johnny tried his best to appear convinced.
‘It’s just that, I don’t know… before all this happened, I thought grief was about crying, sobbing, falling to the floor, you know? I just wasn’t expecting it to be so… well, quiet.’
‘Now that does make sense.’ Johnny thought back to the time in the hospital waiting room, the long walk out of the hospital, no one able to say even a word, just stunned silence. ‘Flo,’ he took her hand across the table again, ‘it’s going to take time and I don’t think it’ll ever go away. But we have so much to look forward to.’
Flora blinked back the tears. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have had that Martini.’ She smiled at him across the table. ‘Gin always makes me cry.’
22
The sound of bells found its way through the heavy curtains and darkness to Flora’s ears. She turned and looked at the clock: a little earlier than she’d hoped, but the thought of a cup of tea in bed almost made up for it. Padding across the room to the small table with a tray of assorted teas, cups and a small kettle, she stubbed her toe on the edge of the bed. ‘Ow.’
‘What time is it?’ Johnny croaked. ‘Ow,’ he said, clutching at his head with both hands.
‘I know. Me, too.’ Flora rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s eight o’clock. Tea?’
‘Yes, please.’ He turned on the bedside light and propped himself up on the pillows.
She flicked the switch of the small kettle and walked back towards the bathroom. Turning on the tap, she splashed cold water on her face, peering at herself in the mirror. She realised she was looking more like her mother every day. Oh God, her mother. Thoughts of their last conversation came flooding back, Kate’s words in her ears. She made a mental note to avoid using the word ‘fine’ when talking to her in future.
She thought of her parents, sitting as they did at the table, her father at one end, her mother at the other, and Flora resolved to talk to Johnny about her predicament with her father. Then at least she could weigh up what to do. But not quite yet… She pushed the thought back down, along with all the other feelings she wanted to ignore for now, and set about making two cups of tea.
Johnny stretched and yawned noisily. He reached over and picked up his phone. ‘So, you sure you’re happy just walking about today?’
‘Definitely.’ Flora carried the two cups back to the bed, handing one to Johnny. She put hers down, then climbed back into bed. ‘Well…’ Johnny yawned again. ‘I worked out a route that takes in two churches and a museum, as you suggested.’
‘When did you do that?’ Flora laughed.
‘When you fell asleep, about two seconds after we got back here last night.’
Flora looked at him. ‘Oh God, sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise. I’m just happy you slept well.’
Flora stretched out under the covers, finding his feet with hers. ‘Thank you, I did.’ She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept without waking up at least a couple of times in the night.
After breakfast they headed out and over the narrow bridge by the hotel. The pale blue sky was clear, and Venice looked impossibly beautiful with the winter sun on its face. They headed away from the Grand Canal into a warren of quiet streets lined with ochre, orange, yellow and pale pink buildings. Shutters remained closed, the shops not yet open. A few empty tables and chairs sat outside cafés. Flora felt quite disorientated, the painted signs on walls for ‘Al Vaporetti’ the only clue as to the direction of the canal. After a few dead ends the streets began to widen a little and before long they’d crossed a wide square, empty except for the few Venetians, heads down, crossing it with purpose on their way to work.
They passed a church, over another quiet canal lined with empty boats, catching another glimpse of the Grand Canal as they crossed the bridge. Then, with a sharp right followed by a sharp left, they walked alongside another small canal and a great, imposing church loomed into view. Flora looked up at the vast red-brick walls, positively plain compared with the intricate lace-like front of St Mark’s Basilica.
‘Is this the one we’re looking for?’ Flora looked at Johnny.
‘Yep, this is the one. It’s Gothic, apparently.’
Stepping inside, they saw the space was overwhelming. A vast marble floor spread out before them, chequered with orange and white squares. Stone pillars stood solidly, their size drawing Flora’s eyes up to the ceiling. Unlike the painted gold domes of the previous evening, this church roof was a seemingly endless web of arches and beams. Stone figures peered down on her everywhere she looked. Huge paintings hung on the walls, each one forcing visitors to stop and look.
A small boy ran across the empty space in front of them, the smack of his sneakers on the stone floor echoing around them.
Flora and Johnny walked slowly towards the altar at the end, passing another open door on the left. ‘That’s one of the Titian paintings, The Madonna of the Pesaro,’ Johnny whispered to Flora, pointing.
Flora looked suitably impressed. They stopped to soak the picture in, the vivid red, gold and blue colours making it stand out despite its grand surroundings.
‘That’s St Peter in the middle and to the right, Mary. And the family on the bottom left are the Pesaros, whoever they were.’ Johnny glanced from his phone back to the picture.
There was something about the way the baby in the picture played with his mother’s veil, his foot raised playfully, that drew Flora’s eye. He looked so lifelike, she thought he might step out of the picture at any moment.
They carried on walking towards the altar through a stone arch and into a chamber lined with carved wooden pews. Just before she reached the front, Flora caught sight of a line of candles flickering on a small shelf against a wall off to one side. She made her way towards them and stood for a moment looking at the flames, watching them dance as if to an invisible tune. She dropped a coin into a wooden box and picked up an unlit candle, lighting it from another before placing it alongside.
‘You look like your heart is broken.’ An older woman stood beside Flora. She wore a black down coat, her glossy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiled kindly, her green eyes glinting.
‘It is.’ Flora spoke without hesitation. ‘My brother died, quite recently, actually.’ She looked back at the candle she’d just lit, its flame now joining the others in their dance. ‘Unexpectedly.’
The woman lit her own. ‘My brother died, too, a long time ago.’ They both looked at their respective candles for a moment. The woman spoke softly. ‘Hearts stay broken. But I promise it gets easier to bear.’ Flora searched for the right words to reply but before she could find them, the woman smiled, turned and walked away.
‘You OK?’ Johnny was now at her side.
‘I think so. A weird thing just happened.’ She looked around to see if she could see the woman again but there was no sign of her anywhere. ‘I was just lighting a candle, thinking about, you know… and a woman came up to me, looked at me and told me: “Hearts stay broken”…’
‘Wow, that’s quite an opening line.’ Johnny looked around for the woman as well.
‘Yes, but then she said it gets easier. She lost a brother too, apparently.’
‘How long were you two talking? You were only gone a moment.’
‘Well, that’s just it. That was pretty much all she said. I just stood there, I didn’t even say thank you.’ Flora looked again. ‘And now she’s not here.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Johnny gently tipped her face back to his.
‘I am. I’m OK.’ And in that moment, she really meant it.
They walked on, up towards the painting that hung above the altar at the front of the church. Another Titian, Flora guessed, the colours as bright as those of the other one, the same movement in the clothes and bodies so beautifully captured in oils.
The space around her felt calm, peaceful. The words spoken by the woman sat in her mind. For months she’d been wishing the feelings would stop. Sometimes pain
, sometimes a kind of numbness. Often it could leave her feeling physically sick. And she constantly felt so, so tired. But then there were days when she felt so completely wired she wondered if she would ever sleep properly again.
But if hearts really did stay broken then, perhaps, she needed to learn to carry that grief. To live with it, instead of waiting for it to leave. She thought of the kindness in the woman’s eyes again.
‘Shall we go and find coffee?’ Johnny whispered.
Flora looked up at the painting one last time, then back at Johnny. She smiled. ‘Perfect timing.’
They walked slowly through the quiet streets of the Dorsoduro, with its tiny, unexpected squares and houses that seemed to hint at having seen better days. The occasional washing line crossed the narrower alleys from one house to another, high above their heads. The quiet canals here were charming, lined with houses of pale yellow, faded red and orange, empty window boxes clinging to the sides of the buildings below dark green shuttered windows. An old wooden barge loaded with fruit and vegetables sat beside one of the bridges, the easy conversation of the locals with the sellers on the barge reaching Flora and Johnny’s ears as they crossed.
They passed windows of mask shops and jewellery shops, their shiny displays a challenge to the eye with so much detail to take in all at once. Standing aside to let people pass, Flora noticed there were more locals than tourists in this part of town.
A wine shop caught her eye on the other side of the canal, a scalloped-edge green awning hanging over faded gold letters spelling its name. ‘How about we forget coffee and go straight to a Spritz?’
Johnny looked at his watch. ‘Well, it is after eleven.’
They crossed the small bridge and walked into the cantina, where bottles of wine jostled for position in the window and on shelves on either side of the entrance. Inside the shop, bottles sat all the way from the tiled floor to the wooden-beamed ceiling, and on the right-hand side there was a long glass-fronted counter lined with small plates piled with cicchetti. Crostini, their precariously piled toppings held in place by toothpicks, tempted Johnny over for a closer look. Figs and parmesan, salmon and mascarpone, tuna and leeks, whipped salted cod and plump prawns flecked with paprika – the choice was seemingly endless. Cherry tomatoes were skewered on sticks alongside chunks of creamy mozzarella the size of golf balls, and pieces of Gorgonzola were topped with slices of pear and drizzled with thick, glossy balsamic vinegar.
Flora had gone straight to the wine shelves, drawn by the display of bottles. Each one bore a handwritten price tag on the neck, the selection of local Soave, Valpolicella and Amarone unlike anything she’d ever seen. She moved on to the Chiantis and Super Tuscans before coming to the big-ticket Barolo and Barbaresco wines. She stared in wonder. Seeing some of the names of places and winemakers she’d studied writ large on wine labels was thrilling, despite the price tags putting them quite some way out of her reach.
Two men stood behind the counter, the younger one with his back turned as he cranked the coffee machine while the older loaded up small plates with yet more freshly made cicchetti from a silver tray. Johnny ordered a plate of assorted ones to try, along with two Spritzes.
‘This is a wonderful place you have here.’ Johnny smiled at the man putting his selection on a paper plate, gesturing to the shop.
‘Thank you.’ The man nodded, placing the plate on the counter followed by two paper cups, now filled with bright, effervescent liquid, ice and a wedge of orange. ‘She likes the wine?’ He looked towards Flora, still walking slowly along the shelves, peering closely at bottles.
‘We run a wine shop where we live, in England. But we’ve only just opened. You look like you’ve been here much longer.’
‘One hundred and twenty years.’ The man chuckled, his eyes wrinkling at the edges.
‘Well, you’re obviously doing it perfectly.’ Johnny picked up the drinks and the plate. ‘Thank you. Is it OK to take this outside?’
‘Please.’ The man gestured to the door. ‘Hang on, I forget your olives.’ He skewered a couple of salted olives with toothpicks and popped one in each of the Spritzes. ‘There you go.’
Johnny set down the cups and plate on the wall outside overlooking the canal and perched on it, waiting for Flora. He watched her move along the shelves, turning the occasional bottle round to look at the back label. He sometimes felt helpless, knowing how much she must be hurting. Most of all, he felt helpless at being unable to make it better. But seeing her now, lost in temporary wonder, he felt sure that she would, in time, feel happy again.
She came to the door. ‘There’s a bottle in there I’m going to buy, one I know we’ll never get our hands on back at home. I’m going to take it back with us and we’re going to drink it in the sun in the garden in the spring.’ She clapped her hands in delight at the thought. ‘Won’t be a minute.’
‘Well, don’t be long or I might have to drink your Spritz.’ He took a sip. The bittersweet sharpness of the Aperol made his mouth water.
Back inside, Flora put the bottle on the counter, a Soave Classico from a small producer she’d read about but had never had the chance to try.
‘Good choice.’ The old man looked at her. ‘You know this wine?’
Flora beamed. ‘Actually, no. But I have heard about it and always wanted to try it.’
‘The family have been making wines for over four hundred years. And the vines that grow the grapes to make this one,’ he tapped the label, ‘are more than seventy years old. The wine is amazing. The secret,’ he tapped his nose this time, ‘is in the soil.’
‘Thank you, I can’t wait to try it.’
‘You have a wine shop, too, your husband tells me.’ He started wrapping the bottle in tissue paper.
‘Yes, we do. Yours is really special.’ She glanced around the shop again.
‘You are very kind. It’s not always easy but, you know, wine is life.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘There you go. Hope you enjoy back in England.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Flora smiled at him as she took the bottle. ‘We will. Ciao.’
Flora went to join Johnny, putting the wrapped bottle carefully in her bag as she left the shop. She picked up her Spritz and took a sniff, then a sip, first tartness, then sweetness, then a hit of salt, the bubbles prickling her tongue. ‘You see, why don’t we always have one of these at home before noon?’
Johnny laughed. ‘I’m not sure we’d get much done in the afternoon if we did.’
‘I’m talking about just the one, like the Italians. It’s such a civilised custom.’ The cool liquid ran down her throat. She picked up one of the crostini. ‘Want to share?’
‘No, I picked that just for you. I thought it looked right up your street.’
It was the pear and Gorgonzola one, and Flora devoured it in two bites. ‘Oh, my goodness, that’s so good.’ She spoke with her mouth full, eyes bright. ‘Want to split that?’ She pointed to the one with prawns on the top.
‘I think that’s also got your name on it.’
‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
She popped it into her mouth. They sat, sipping their drinks, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of this quiet corner of Venice.
‘Maybe we should do something like that in the shop, with the food?’ Johnny picked up the last of the crostini, offering it to Flora.
She shook her head. ‘No, you have it. How funny, I was just thinking the same thing. We could definitely try that, maybe for summer next year when the town’s a little busier.’ She tipped up her cup, draining the last of her Spritz. ‘And I tell you what, these are definitely going on the menu.’
23
The early afternoon sun shone down, the blue sky now dotted with clouds. Their Spritzes had put a prosecco-fuelled spring in their step. Flora and Johnny headed through the streets back towards the Grand Canal and, on Flora’s wishes, to the Guggenheim Museum. Kate had always talked about it as one of her favourite places in Venice but all Flora could really r
emember was sitting outside on a bench with Billy, waiting for their mother to finish looking around inside.
‘Let’s just have a quick look. I’m dying to see a Jackson Pollock in real life,’ Flora pleaded, knowing Johnny’s love for modern art did not run deep.
They wandered the calm white corridors of the museum, small statues on plinths around every corner and instantly recognisable paintings hanging in every room, from Magritte to Miró, Picasso to Pollock, much to Flora’s obvious delight.
She stood in front of one of his paintings – a mass of splattered paint, so far as Johnny could make out.
‘I don’t get it, Flora, I really don’t.’ He peered closer.
‘You don’t have to. It’s just not the painting for you.’ She sat down on the small bench in front of it. ‘I like looking at it, and that’s enough for me to enjoy it.’
‘But… doesn’t it make you think you could have done that?’
‘But the point is, I didn’t. He did. You could say that about anything.’
‘I suppose.’ Johnny sat down beside her, his eyes still on the painting. He reached across and took her hand. They sat for a while, just looking, both lost in their own thoughts.
Johnny hoped the change of scene had lifted her spirits a little, that perhaps this break away would bring Flora back to him.
All Flora wished was that she could hear Billy’s voice again.
They left the quiet of the museum and stood on a small terrace overlooking the Grand Canal, now busy with vaporetti carrying tourists as they snaked their way through the city’s canals.
‘What’s going on there?’ Flora pointed to the right where a makeshift bridge bobbed on the water, supported by floating jetties. People streamed across, mostly in their direction.