Irresistible You (17 page)

After the strange Elena-mirage, Prof had spent the whole morning trying out his patchy Italian on unsuspecting shopkeepers and café owners, proffering a small photo of Elena which he kept in his wallet. He was met with nothing more than shrugs and shaking heads. It wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be. He’d naively thought Venice would be rather like a friendly village where everybody would know each other, but it was no different from any other city.

To make himself feel slightly better, he visited the Peggy Guggenheim Collection where he marvelled at the modern art even though he hadn’t been able to understand a single brushstroke, and squinted at some rather phallic blue glass which he knew Elena would have had him blushing and laughing at had she been with him. It all left him feeling rather hungry so he found a very nice restaurant overlooking a pretty square.

Choosing a table outside because the weather was really very mild and the sunshine was most pleasant on a tweed jacket, he ordered himself lunch with a glass of house white. A chap could very easily get used to this, he thought, stretching his legs out under the table. He looked out at the houses across the quiet square: they were painted in shades of fondant pink and mellow red which had the most pleasing effect on the eye. He smiled, turning back to take a sip of the wine that had arrived.

It was then that he noticed a young woman sitting at a table opposite his. He hadn’t seen her when he’d first sat down and he couldn’t understand why. She had a mass of auburn curls which caught the spring light and danced in the breeze as if they were a part of it. Her skin was pale and she had a smattering of freckles over her nose as if a child had flicked a paintbrush at her. Prof couldn’t help but smile. He’d always been rather susceptible to a pretty face and this one was Pre-Raphaelite pretty. He watched her for a moment and tried to see what she was doing. She’d finished her lunch and was writing in a lined pad with a bright silver pen.

As if he’d called out her name, the woman looked up and caught him staring at her. Prof immediately felt himself blushing and felt ashamed that he’d intruded into her private space but the woman returned his smile, quite unselfconsciously.

‘You’re English, aren’t you?’ she asked him suddenly.

He nodded, surprised by her boldness. Anyway, how could she tell he was English? Had his Italian accent been that bad when he’d ordered his meal or was there something unmistakably English in his tweed jacket and bow tie?

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You?’

‘Of course!’ she replied in an accent as sharp as cut glass.
‘Although my name isn’t terribly English - Anastasia Dupres.’

Prof smiled at her very confident but seemingly natural way of introducing herself.

‘I’m Sigmund,’ he said shyly.

‘Pardon?’ she said, leaning forward in her seat. ‘I’m afraid we won’t be able to hold a satisfactory conversation if you sit all the way over there.’

‘Oh!’ Prof said, looking confused.

‘I meant
, would you like to join me?’

Prof
felt another blush spreading over his face but found himself nodding and standing up, walking towards her table and sitting down.

‘Now, darling,’ she said, as if she’d known him for aeons, ‘what did you say your name was?’

‘Sigmund.’

‘Sigmund?’

Prof nodded, waiting for the laughter which inevitably followed whenever he introduced himself. ‘Yes. Sigmund Mortimer,’ he said, extending a hand to shake hers.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone called Sigmund before,’ she said with a gorgeous, open smile whilst shaking his hand firmly. It was the best reaction he’d ever had to his name. ‘You’re the first,’ she added flirtatiously.

Prof wasn’t sure how to respond to that and became even more flustered when the waiter came out and scowled at him. ‘Oh, I’ve moved,’ he explained unnecessarily.

‘It’s so nice to have somebody to talk to,’ she said. ‘Travelling alone can be so dreadfully dull.’

Prof nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘And I do an awful lot of that with my job,’ she added.

Prof noticed how she effortlessly fed him conversation starters. It was a rather enjoyable experience and he allowed himself the pleasure of going with the flow.

‘Don’t you want to know what I do?’ she said.

‘Oh! Sorry!’ Prof said, realising that he’d missed his cue because he’d been watching the way the sunlight shone through her hair, turning it a wondrous ruby red. ‘Of course! What do you do?’

Anastasia laughed. ‘I’m a travel writer. I’m doing an article for
Vive!
at the moment.’

‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘I know it’s not the best of papers to write for but they pay well and the exposure will do me good,’ she said, uncrossing and crossing her legs to the side of the table, giving Prof a quick glimpse of her shapely legs.

Prof picked up his glass of wine and took a generous mouthful, feeling very hot all of a sudden.

‘Do you read
Vive!
?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said.
‘Hardy and Dickens mostly.’

‘Really!’
She laughed again, a wonderfully light laugh which reminded him of champagne bubbles. ‘You know, when you first came and sat down, I had a feeling you were a teacher.’

Prof smiled. ‘Was it that obvious?’

‘Yes but in a good way. I bet you’re a wonderful teacher,’ she said. ‘You look kind, approachable-’

‘Lenient!’ Prof interrupted.

‘Are you?’

‘Well, I do have one or two
students who can run rings around me,’ he said, thinking of Elena and her ever-extending deadlines.

‘I bet you do,’ Anastasia said, her eyebrows rising naughtily. ‘I wasn’t so lucky at my old school. We had nothing but nasty nuns. I never had anyone as nice as you.’

‘Well,’ Prof said, not quite knowing how to respond.

There was a moment’s silence when he was very aware that her eyes were glued to him. It had been a long time since he’d felt so completely at the centre of somebody’s attention. He’d never quite had that feeling with Elena. She always seemed as though she was only partially with him - as if part of her was somewhere else. It was like the emotional equivalent of looking over somebody’s shoulder at a party in the hope of finding a more interesting person to talk to.

‘So,’ she said, ‘what is Sigmund doing in Venice?’

‘I’m engaged,’ he said.

‘Oh!’ Anastasia said, her eyes widening in what looked like surprise.

Prof
felt a little abashed. Perhaps he should have mentioned it before. ‘I’m actually here to see my fiancée,’ he explained further.

‘Where is she?’ Anastasia asked, looking around as if she might fear her arrival at any moment.

Prof gave a little smile. ‘I’m not really sure.’

‘You’re not sure?
You mean, you’ve lost her?’

‘No.
Not exactly. It’s more like I haven’t actually found her.’

Anastasia frowned. ‘This is confusing!’ she said. ‘Do tell me more!’

As the waiter arrived with Prof’s meal, Anastasia ordered a bottle of wine for them.

‘I followed her out here, you see,’ Prof began, loading his fork with spaghetti. ‘She’s here to see her sister and has absolutely no idea that I’m here.’

‘You mean she came out here on her own and left you behind?’

‘Yes.’ Prof said. ‘YES!’ he nodded. ‘Well, I wasn’t going to have that!’ he said, suddenly getting excited.

‘Good for you, kitten!’

‘So, here I am.’

‘But you don’t know where she is!’

‘That’s it!’ he said.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘Well, no, actually - I don’t! How could your fiancée up and leave without telling you where she was going?’

Prof swallowed a mouthful of spaghetti and then shrugged. ‘Because I let her, I suppose.’

‘Oh!’ Anastasia said thoughtfully. ‘Then she’s one of these pupils of yours who runs rings around you?’

‘Yes,’ he said dolefully. ‘She always gets away with merry hell.’

‘And you didn’t think to ask where she’d be staying?’

‘No.’

‘But she didn’t even leave a phone number for you to contact her at?’ Anastasia asked.

‘No.’

‘Has she a mobile?’

‘No,’ he said, twisting his fork into another mound of spaghetti.

‘Sweetie!’ Anastasia said breathily. ‘It sounds to me like she doesn’t want you to be able to contact her. Have you thought of that?’

There was a moment’s pause; it was Prof’s turn to frown.

‘You hadn’t, had you?’ she said, her frown mirroring his perfectly.

Prof’s spaghetti untwisted from his fork and fell in golden coils on his plate. ‘No,’ he said at last.

Anastasia gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘Sweet man,’ she said, and laid a hand over his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

*

There was no stopping Elena as she left Irma Taccani’s apartment. She’d been at it all morning: knocking people’s hats off, tapping people’s shoulders and even going as far as nipping a very cute gondolier’s bottom as he touted for custom by the side of a canal. He’d looked so shocked that she was quite lucky he hadn’t actually fallen into the murky green water and taken her with him.

By lunchtime, she was quite exhausted and found a quiet calle in which to take the mask off, slipping into her old self with the tiniest of tingles. Was this what Superman and Wonder Woman felt like when they turned into super-humans, Elena wondered, and then felt
guilty. What she’d been doing had been far from super-human. She’d done nothing but cause havoc for her own amusement. Apart from dealing with Irma Taccani: that had been a truly inspired piece of divine justice. Elena wished she could share the joke with Rosanna but realised that that wouldn’t be possible.

Following the calle round, Elena came out into a quiet square she hadn’t seen before. That was all part of the joy of Venice: there was always something new to discover. The lunchtime light shone full-blast, lighting up the houses which seemed to guard the little square and giving everything a golden glow.

There was a restaurant on the far side and Elena thought she’d treat herself to something. Walking across the square, she heard the pleasant sound of laughter coming from one of the tables and noticed a beautiful red-haired woman. She looked so happy, sitting in the sunlight, a glass of wine in her hand and the light breeze lifting her hair away from her face that Elena didn’t notice her companion at first. She completely overlooked the tweed jacket, the glint of the sun on the round glasses and the unmistakable bow tie.

It was her dear old Prof - with another woman.

‘Mark!’ Rosanna cried, opening the door. ‘What are you doing here?’

Mark gave Rosanna a puzzled look. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she said, and then sighed. ‘I’m sorry. That sounded so rude of me. Please, come in.’

Mark followed her up the steps, knowing what he would find at the top of them - or rather, what he wouldn’t find.

‘I take it Elena isn’t in again,’ he said and the hopelessness of his tone made Rosanna’s heart ache.

‘No, she isn’t,’ she said. ‘But you know you didn’t leave your address last night?’

‘I do know. I didn’t feel like leaving it,’ he said sounding, at once, both sulky and regretful. ‘Here,’ he added, taking a notebook and pen from his pocket and writing it down. ‘If she wants to get in touch, she has no excuse now.’

‘Mark-’

‘Yes?’

Rosanna could see the pain deep in his eyes as well as hear it in his voice and, at that moment, she wanted to tell him absolutely everything there was to know about her sister. She wanted it to be as clear to him as it was to her; she wanted him to understand.

‘Mark, I-’

‘What?’

She paused and, in that brief moment, she lost her nerve. ‘Would you like something to drink?’ she asked.

‘A large glass of arsenic would go down a treat,’ he said, following her through to the kitchen. ‘You’re not working today?’

She shook her head. ‘No, thank God! Are you missing your work?’ she asked, quite glad to enter the realms of small talk.

‘Are you joking?’ he said, giving a little laugh. ‘As soon as I go back, I’ll be counting the days until the next holiday.’

‘So, what have you been doing today?’ She turned to face him and saw a pair of melancholy eyes staring into space.

‘I’ve been pounding the streets of Venice.’

Rosanna nodded, sympathising immediately with the trials of a fellow pounder. ‘I know how that is,’ she said.

‘You do?’

She gave him the faintest of smiles. ‘Oh, yes!’ She poured hot water into the mugs of coffee and they walked through to the living room where they sat on one of the huge sofas. There was a few moments of silence when they both deliberated over who should be the first to intrude on the other’s privacy.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Mark said finally and his voice sounded brittle and broken.

Rosanna looked across at him and was sure she could see tears threatening to fill his eyes. ‘You have to talk to Elena.’

‘I KNOW! But how am I meant to talk to her when she avoids me as if I had some kind of contagious disease?’

‘No,’ Rosanna said. ‘I mean you have to
really
talk to her.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve never done that, have you? I don’t mean that as a fault in you; I know what she’s like, believe me! I know she hides away and keeps things deep inside her. But you have to get past that. You have to
talk
to her!’

‘That’s why I came out here,’ Mark said quietly. ‘I knew something was wrong. What is it, Rosanna?’

Rosanna sighed. ‘I can’t tell you that, Mark. You must ask Elena.’

‘Is it something I’ve done?’

Rosanna shook her head gently. ‘No. It’s nothing you’ve done.’

‘Because I’ve been wracking my brains and going mental over the last few days.’

‘Don’t give up on her, Mark,’ Rosanna found herself saying. She wondered where the words had come from and why she’d said them. She realised the implications - she was saying that she hoped Mark would win through - over Reuben. She looked at Mark as he sat next to her. He looked drained of colour and so unsure of himself - like a little schoolboy who is stuck on a sum but is too afraid to ask the teacher for help.

‘I won’t give up,’ he said, giving Rosanna a weak smile and, at that moment, she felt sure that he wouldn’t. He might not have been as roguishly handsome as Reuben nor have his arrogance or confidence but there was something else of the hero about Mark. He had a depth to him that made Rosanna feel as if he’d always be there to take care of things. There was a kindness in his eyes and a gentleness in his expression that touched her heart and made her feel sure of him.

‘And you’re sure you can’t tell me what’s really going on here?’ he asked again.

Rosanna shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t really want me to, would you?’

Mark sighed and shook his head. ‘I guess not.’

Rosanna looked nervously at her watch. Why did Elena’s fiancés always turn up when she had to be getting ready to go out? She had a few hours yet but she needed to be alone in order to psych herself up for the evening ahead and, as much as she hated the idea of Mark leaving the apartment without seeing Elena again, she knew she was going to have to persuade him to go pretty soon.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to get in the way here. It seems I do nothing but pester you. You’ve been so kind, Rosanna.’ He stood up from the sofa and Rosanna immediately felt guilty at having wished he would leave.

‘Anytime,’ she said, standing up.

He then did something most unexpected: he leant forward and hugged her and there was
a warmth in his embrace and she felt stunned and flattered all at once.

‘Thanks,’ he whispered to her and, before she could say anything, he left.

*

‘Elena!’ Stefano said in surprise as she entered the mask shop. ‘What brings you back so soon?’

‘Is there somewhere I can sit down?’ Elena asked, suddenly feeling drained of all energy.

‘Wait one moment,’ Stefano said, disappearing through the door at the back of the shop - the door through which customers were not permitted to pass. Elena looked around. Once again, the shop was empty. She’d only ever seen one customer other than herself. How on earth did Stefano and his wife make a living, she wondered?

‘Here,’ he said, coming back with a small wooden chair. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘
A water would be lovely, thank you.’

Once more, Stefano disappeared into the back leaving Elena alone with the hundreds of faces hanging from the red walls.

‘What are you lot looking at?’ she said, taking her bad mood out on the innocent watchers. There was a particularly petulant-looking plague-doctor mask - its long nose looking very haughty.

‘Oh, shut up!’ Elena snapped.

‘Pardon?’ Stefano said, coming through with a glass of water.

‘Nothing,’ Elena said, feeling very foolish.

‘Talking to the masks, eh?’ Stefano chuckled. ‘I know all about that! They’ve been my companions for years, some of these fellows.’

Elena looked around the walls with renewed interest.
‘Really?

‘Oh, yes. Some of them are permanent fixtures, you see. Work colleagues, you could say. They will never leave this shop.’

‘Which ones?’ Elena asked.

‘The one you were talking to.’

‘How do you know which ones-’ Elena paused. ‘You just know, don’t you?’

Stefano nodded. ‘And he does have the cheekiest of expressions, doesn’t he? It’s as if he can read minds, that one.’

Elena’s eyebrows rose. ‘Can he?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘Read minds!’

‘Of course not!
What made you think that?’

‘Because -’

‘- of the mask I gave you?’ he finished for her.

‘Well - yes!’

‘They’re not all magical, you know.’

Elena shook her head. ‘I don’t understand how some are magical whilst others aren’t.’

‘How come some people are ignorant pigs whilst others are angels?’

Elena laughed.

‘Things just are. I don’t control them,’ he said with a shrug.

‘But you knew about the mask you gave me.’

Without a word, Stefano turned sharply on his heels and disappeared through the little door. Elena sat forward on her chair, her eyes on the door, waiting for him to return. But he didn’t. The masks hanging on the wall next to her seemed to titter and snigger.
You shouldn’t have said that!
they seemed to say.
You naughty girl! You’ve done it now!

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What’s he going to do?’ Elena whispered to them as if they could hear her. She felt nervous. Perhaps she should leave Viviana’s. Just go whilst Stefano was in the back room. What was he doing back there? Had she offended him? Was he going to demand that she gave him the mask back? Her hand flew inside her jacket pocket to check that it was still there. It was.

‘Stefano?’ she called quietly.

At last, he came back into the shop.

‘What were you doing out there?’ she asked, her nerves betraying her.

‘I had to go to the toilet! Who are you?
My mama?’

Elena couldn’t help but smile as she watched him bend over his worktable behind her.

‘What are you making?’

‘I’m never quite sure,’ he admitted. ‘The masks kind of evolve.’

Elena narrowed her eyes as if she didn’t quite believe him. She remembered art lessons at school were teachers drummed it into you that you must plan, plan, plan. Art didn’t
evolve
- it was researched, mapped out and edited before the thing took on any real life of its own.

‘Why did you come here today?’ Stefano asked her.

Elena sighed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it any more. After the incident with Prof, she’d felt so angry and confused and, at first, was going to march right up to him and punch him on the nose before demanding to know what he was doing. But she’d merely stood and watched for a few minutes as he’d chatted easily to the woman with the red curls, and she’d felt all her anger draining out of her body. It had been the strangest of sensations. Now, she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it.

‘I was going to yell at you.’

‘Really?’

Elena nodded. ‘It’s the mask. I think it’s doing strange things to me. I can’t explain it. It’s as though I’m becoming somebody else.’

‘That’s the true magic of masks. You should watch a person when they first put one on - it’s as if they were taking a drug or drinking that one drink that will take them over the edge into their other, truer selves. Masks can give you a confidence, an arrogance, a distance from yourself. They can make you feel invincible, invulnerable and -’

‘Invisible!’ Elena interrupted his little speech.

‘Well, yours can.’

Elena frowned. ‘I was invisible today.’

‘Good!’ Stefano said, nodding his approval. ‘I told you to have some fun with it.’

‘No!’ Elena cried. ‘I mean, I was invisible when I took the mask off!’

‘Eh?’

‘I saw somebody I know but he didn’t see me.’

Stefano’s white eyebrows narrowed. ‘And you didn’t speak to him?’

‘I didn’t know what to say so I came here.’

‘I can’t give you a mask for that, I’m afraid.’

Elena sighed. What had she expected from Stefano? It had seemed quite natural for her to head for the little mask shop when she’d found herself in trouble but she knew in her heart that he couldn’t really solve her problem.

Watching Stefano wielding the most delicate of paintbrushes, something occurred to Elena and she reached for the mask in her pocket once more.

‘Stefano,’ she began, holding the mask up to the window so that it shimmered and shined like a little sun. ‘You realise that you could make an absolute fortune from this mask, don’t you?’

Stefano looked up from the mask he was working on, frowned and shook his head. ‘What do I want with a fortune?’ he scoffed. ‘I am happy. This is enough,’ he said, gesturing around the shop.

Elena stared at him in disbelief. ‘But you’d never have to work again. You could retire and live anywhere you chose! Just think - you and Viviana could buy a villa on the Amalfi coast or-’

‘No, no, no! I don’t think so.’

Elena’s forehead creased in bemusement. She couldn’t quite believe him but, as she continued to watch him as he worked, she realised that some people actually enjoyed their work - loved it even. Stefano’s work was his life: it was the air he breathed and the energy that coursed through his veins.

‘But think what this could mean to the world!’ Elena said, trying another line of reasoning.

‘Pah! The world! What world is there outside of my shop? What could compete with the day to day existence of creating beautiful things which people treasure?’ he said, gesturing to his friends on the wall behind him where rows of exquisite faces seemed to wink back at him. ‘What could compare with choosing the paints, the ribbons, the sequins and feathers; of blending knowledge and imagination to create something unique? Eh? I don’t want anything else,’ he said simply, putting his paintbrush down and looking at her directly. ‘I gave the mask to you, Elena. It is yours to do with as you wish but I wouldn’t advise giving it to anybody else.’