Here Come the Girls (31 page)

‘
Arrivederci, signorina, Capitano
. We will see you again soon, we hope.’

Nigel herded Ven quickly out of the café.

‘You stopped me practising my Italian,’ she protested.

‘The thing is . . .’ began Nigel.
How to put this?
‘The Venetians have a different way of putting things to most of Italy,’ he bluffed. ‘It’s a little like the difference between a Glaswegian accent and a Cornish one. What Frankie taught you . . . er . . .’ he searched for the words ‘doesn’t translate properly here.’

To his relief, Ven appeared to buy that. ‘Oh, I see. Well, that was a waste of time learning that then,’ she sighed.

‘Think it might be best if you let me do the talking,’ said Nigel with Irish gallantry, leading the way out of the alley.

Olive stepped off the vaporetto water bus as it pulled in at the little island of Murano.

‘I’ve always wanted to come here,’ she said to the other two. ‘Barnsley was famous for glass-blowing at one time, you know. That’s why there is a glass-blower on the coat-of-arms.’

‘You sound just like Mrs Euston,’ said Roz, pulling a face at the mention of the horrible old form teacher in their school whom they had all hated. ‘Just don’t start growing a unibrow like she did.’

A tall, good-looking Italian man was welcoming the crowd who were disembarking and asking them to follow him.

‘Wow, now I’m interested,’ said Frankie.

‘Where’s he taking us?’ Roz wanted to know.

‘Heaven and back, I hope,’ joked Frankie.

But she knew, as they all did, that they were being shepherded towards a glass-blowing demonstration and then on to a shop in the hope they would be buying a Murano glass souvenir – or even better, getting a huge mirror or chandelier shipped home. They followed Mr Handsome-Italian into a workroom filled with benches and brutal-looking tools and a fire-filled kiln. There, waiting for the crowd to assemble, was a round old man with chimp-hairy arms, chequered shirt and very tatty and baggy jeans. He looked more tramp than artist as he was introduced as Enrique who was a master craftsman. Apparently the glass-blowers of Murano were the rock stars of history. Very greatly desired as husbands. Roz hoped that in the Middle Ages they wore better-fitting clothes than old Enrique. He made the Rolling Stones look smooth.

Boring as Roz thought all this might be, and although she had just come along because Olive wanted to, she found it as fascinating as the others to see a blob of glass be heated and rolled and pincered into a fragile Ferrari horse. Old Enrique deserved the round of applause he got at the end. Not that his sex appeal had changed any. He might have been brilliant at his job but no one was throwing their knickers at him.

The girls wandered around the shop together, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the magnificent mirrors and lamps and trying not to bump into anything.

‘I’m going to buy this for Ven,’ said Olive, picking up a red glass heart threaded onto a leather thong. ‘Just a little extra present for her and a souvenir of Venice.’

‘Get the matching earrings as well and I’ll half you,’ said Roz. ‘It’ll serve as an apology later when we get back to the ship. Unless she did get her tits felt and enjoyed it.’

‘Add the bracelet and let’s pay a third each,’ put in Frankie, fishing her purse out of her handbag. ‘I really hope she found that hotel without having to ask for it.’ She gasped. ‘Oh my, you don’t think she practised her Italian out on the Captain, do you?’ The three women looked at each other and broke into a naughty fit of laughter. Even a Murano jewellery set wasn’t going to fully make up for this one.

Ven and Nigel found the Hotel Ani, tucked into a corner at the side of a bridge. Big pots of red flowers flanked the door. It looked romantically shabby with its balconied windows above loaded with pink and white flowers. Ven could imagine Juliet leaning over there and having a conversation with Romeo below.

‘Well, Lady Venice,’ said Nigel, ‘I shall now get back to my duties aboard the good ship.’ He added politely, ‘You’ll be able to find your way back okay?’

‘Thank you, Captain, I will,’ said Ven, looking up at the crumbling façade. Nigel waited for her to go inside before he left her, but she wasn’t making any move to.

‘Aren’t you going in?’

‘No.’ Ven shook her head. ‘I’d never be able to gesticulate that I just want a look around.’

Nigel looked at his watch, then said, ‘Come on, I’ll take you in.’

‘No, it’s fine, really,’ said Ven, although her face said otherwise and Nigel pushed open the door of the Hotel Ani and beckoned her to follow him.

‘You can’t come all this way and not go the last furlong.’

Ven followed him. It was so cool inside, painted cream walls with the slightest green tint and beautiful ancient furniture, all mismatched pieces but perfectly suiting their surroundings with their understated grandeur. Nigel approached the reception desk where a very slim woman in a black dress was standing and began to talk to her.

‘
Chiedo scusa, sarebbe possibile se la mia amica desse un’occhiata in giro? Vede, i suoi genitori quarant’anni fa hanno speso la loro luna di
miele in questo albergo, e siccome non ci sono più, la mia amica voleva vedere il luogo in cui era stata concepita . . . rimarrà solo pochi istanti
.’

‘
Ma ci mancherebbe, ci dia un’occhiata. Siete i benvenuti!
’ replied the lady with kind enthusiasm, beckoning Ven forwards.

‘I asked her if you could look around for a few minutes,’ explained Nigel. ‘I told her that your parents honeymooned here and she said that you are very welcome.’

‘
Si, si
,’ waved the pretty young receptionist, throwing her arms open to gesture to Ven that she was free to wander at her leisure.

‘Venice, I am going to leave you. I feel as if I’ve intruded enough on your plans,’ said Nigel. ‘Will you be all right? The water launch is—’

‘Yes, yes, I know where to find it,’ said Ven. ‘Thank you so much, Nigel. You really haven’t intruded at all.’

‘Don’t forget to meet me by Reception at half past four for your bridge visit,’ he reminded her.

‘Oh yes, we’ll be there.’ Ven smiled. ‘We’re all really looking forward to that.’

Nigel mock-saluted her and Ven waved as he left the hotel, then she shyly began to look around.

Her parents had been in this very room. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine them skipping down the staircase as new-lyweds. It was too easy and her eyes blurred with tears. What a lovely place to begin their married life, she thought. It was so calm and cool and beautiful, and the huge picture windows looked out onto the nearby canal and the gondolas rowing their passage along them. She knew her mum and dad had taken a gondola because they told her they had. How could they not? Who could come to Venice on honeymoon and not take a gondola ride? And in one of these rooms in this hotel, their child was made and they couldn’t have called her anything else but Venice, however pretentious it might have sounded for a Barnsley council-estate couple.

Ven felt as if the hotel was ‘hers’ in some way. How nuts was that? Did that make her really part-Italian, being conceived in this lovely city? More Italian than Frankie who was actually born in Sheffield?

She sat down on one of the pale golden slipper chairs. The furniture looked terribly old but beautifully preserved. It all fitted so perfectly into its surroundings that she wondered if the hotel had been built around it. She suddenly shivered, because it was as if her world had sailed close to one in which her parents were now, and the thin skins between them had brushed. She gave her head a little shake to get rid of the rising emotion. It was a ridiculous thought, of course, because once you were dead you were dead. She wished she believed in a heaven, but she didn’t. There were no ghosts, no after-life and so such thing as reincarnation. Anyway – every programme she’d seen about reincarnation involved someone who ‘used to be’ an Egyptian priestess. Oh, for the days when she couldn’t get to sleep in anticipation of Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy because Ven knew she had lost the ability to see magic, after all the events of the past few years. She badly needed to believe in some, but the luxury eluded her.

Venice took a final long look around the stucco walls, the dark portraits in their heavy gilt frames, the chairs and huge glass tables with the intricate legs, the beautiful kind receptionist, the views from the tall windows.

‘G
razie, signorina
,’ she said.

‘
Prego
,’ the receptionist replied with a sweet smile.

Ven opened the front door to the sunshine, and the real world once again. Her memory was made and she would take it home and treasure it. More than one memory, in fact, because there was also the interlude with lovely Nigel who had rescued her from a sadness that she hadn’t anticipated. She just wished that every time she felt lonely from now on, he would leap out from nowhere to treat her to ice cream and coffee.
Yeah, like that was going to happen to someone like you, Venice Smith!

Now she had to get back to the ship and face a grilling from the others as to why she’d been spotted in an ice-cream parlour with a handsome Captain when they’d left her to go hotel hunting.

Chapter 48

Nigel was waiting for them when the four women arrived in Reception at half past four and he was back in his uniform. Ven had to suppress a low growl in her throat. It put the cheap fake uniform her ex-husband had in his ‘stripper’s closet’ to shame. She had a sudden vision of Nigel stripping off to the
Full Monty
theme tune and had to pull herself to order. The dress code for that evening was semi-formal, but as it was Ven’s birthday, they had upgraded it and were all in long evening dresses.

As Ven had anticipated, the others were gagging for details when she got back to the ship and Ven was forced to explain – right down to what flavour sauce she had on her ice cream.

‘That Italian you taught me wouldn’t have been understood, by the way,’ said Ven, wondering why Frankie’s eyes seemed to suddenly dilate. ‘Apparently the Venetian dialect is different to the rest of Italy.’

‘Oh, who told you that?’ asked Frankie.

‘Nigel,’ said Ven. ‘He said he’d do the talking for me when we were looking for the hotel. He can speak fluent Italian
and
Venetian.’

‘Did you . . . did you try your newly learned Italian out on him then?’ Frankie asked, whilst doing her best to look innocent.

‘I did,’ said Ven proudly. ‘And I think he was secretly impressed by my accent, you know.’

‘Thank You, God,’ said Frankie silently when Ven’s back was turned. The gentlemanly Captain went up even further in her estimation.

Eric and Irene, Royston and Stella joined them five minutes later, also dressed for dinner as there wouldn’t be a long time after sailing out of the Grand Canal before the restaurant bing-bong sounded. They brought cards for Ven, and Stella had bought her a gorgeous pink Venetian mask too. The group was twittering like kids on a school trip. It was a first for all of them, apparently, going on the bridge.

They went up to deck twelve in the forward lift, then through a Staff Only door and along a passage. Nigel drew back a curtained door and gave them all a glimpse into his office. Then they travelled up a steel set of steps, along a passage and cleared a security door. Then they were on the elusive bridge, which was nothing like any of them had imagined.

The space was remarkably clear, except for a concentrated bank of telephones and computers in a central console, where two officers sat with the Venetian pilot happily drinking tea. He was the man who would help guide the mighty ship out of the Grand Canal and into the open sea, without actually touching the controls himself. Nigel explained that there was less than three-foot clearance under the ship in the canal. It was a complicated manoeuvre getting out.

Aided by tugs, the
Mermaidia
began a long and laboured three-point turn in the shallow waters. The whole ship juddered as she struggled through the mud, but eventually, they were on their way. The pilot’s job done, he headed downstairs to take the boat back to Venice, and the
Mermaidia
began a smooth cruise down the Grand Canal.

There was little conversation from the party who stood in true awe enjoying the scenery.

Ven could feel Nigel directly behind her, looking over her head. She imagined him leaning forwards, placing his lips on the side of her neck, his hands around her waist. Then Roz rudely awoke her from her fantasy with a sharp nudge to alert her to the last view of Saint Mark’s Square.

‘It’s absolutely beautiful,’ said Stella breathlessly.

‘Stunning,’ added Eric. ‘What a treat.’

Ven gulped down a surprise of tears as the ship nosed into the open sea on course for the Croatian island of Korcula. It would have sounded daft had she said it aloud, but she felt that she had left something of herself in Venice – that part of her would be forever anchored there. Her mum and dad had been so lucky being there as lovers. Ven only hoped she would return to it with a lover of her own. She knew it would be too hard to come back to alone.

Then Eric’s ecstasy levels went into overdrive as Nigel highlighted a small blob on one of the screens.

‘That’s actually the ship over there,’ he said, pointing through the window to the real-life vessel ahead of them. All the details of the ship flashed up on screen – the name of it, how long it was, where it was destined for and that it contained some hazardous material – it was surprisingly fascinating stuff. Eric’s questions for the Captain came thick and fast, and Nigel answered them all quite happily.

‘Quick, look!’ cried Irene, pointing to a pod of dolphins, lifting and diving into the sea as if trying to outwit the ship. However, by the time Ven had moved from the control bank to the window, all she saw was a slight splash in the water. She so wanted to see some dolphins in the wild and had been terribly unlucky so far on that score.

Olive too was standing, looking out to sea but her eyes were unfocused because she was quietly thinking. Her life with David and Doreen felt like a million light years away. And a million planets away. And from one of those planets the full picture of her marriage was clearly visible and it wasn’t a pretty one. Looking at everything from a distance and gaining perspective was frightening. What she had wasn’t a life –
this
was living. Having holidays, going out for meals, taking the time out to sit and read a book, having a laugh. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed, or even smiled, in 15, Land Lane.