Irresistible You (4 page)

Rosanna was not sure whether she’d got through to Elena that first night but they went to bed in good spirits and she was happy to leave things like that. She knew she could be a bit bossy sometimes but it only came from caring deeply about her sister. She wanted Elena to be happy, of course but, most of all, she wanted her to be safe. If Mama was around, she’d be reeling in horror. She’d never approved of Elena’s conduct with the opposite sex and would quiz her at every opportunity.

‘No supper until you tell me who you’ve been with!’ Mama would yell from her permanent position in the kitchen, waving a wooden spoon like a gladiatorial weapon.

Looking back, she couldn’t really blame Mama. Having a daughter like Elena must have been a nightmare. The telephone would never stop and they’d seriously considered installing one of those rotating doors to ease the flow of all the boys who came and went.

It had been strange sharing a bed with her sister again especially a bed that was so intimate. Sandro had said she could use it but she couldn’t help feeling a little bit strange about sleeping in his bed. Elena had been too tired to stay awake talking long into the night like Rosanna had hoped they would, but there was time enough for that, she reasoned. She’d listened to her light breathing and had felt the warmth of her skin through the white sheet that covered her. She’d smelt of primrose soap.

She looked at Elena in the darkness and wondered what secrets she was hiding from her this time. It wasn’t something as trivial as wanting to catch up on sisterly gossip. Nor was it of catastrophic proportions as before - of that much, she was sure.

Rosanna often wondered if she thought of that time so many years ago. They never talked about it now but she knew Elena still felt it keenly. Rosanna would often see the old pain fleeting in her sister’s glance or turning a smile downwards as quickly as a cloud swallowing up the sun. It was a grim truth that the past never left. Every moment of every life was only a memory away and, although the pain might be buried deep, nobody knew when it would surface again.

Rosanna stroked the dark hair which spilled out over the white pillow next to hers. Her dearest Elena. She’d come home to her and she wouldn’t let her down.

Her little, big sister.

Elena woke up to an apartment filled with spring sunshine. Rosanna was already up and she could hear her bustling around the kitchen. She’d certainly settled into the place and who could blame her? It was incredible. Elena could get used to it herself. Maybe she wouldn’t want to go back to cold, grey London at all. Maybe she could find herself a little place in Venice and start again. But, even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew that that was the coward’s way out of the situation. She also knew that she’d been there before. She didn’t openly admit it to many people but there had been a few times in her life when, instead of facing a situation, she’d turned and run away from it.

It had been the same that summer. She hadn’t wanted to face the truth and so she’d ran and, if she was absolutely honest with herself, she was still running. She’d even dreamt about it last night. She would have thought that sharing a bed with her little sister would have made her feel safe and, after a day of travel, she should have slept soundly, but the past had hunted her down, locking her in a silent nightmare from which she hadn’t been able to escape.

It didn’t happen very often - not anymore but, when it did, she was left feeling as if all the stuffing had been knocked out of her and there was only one thing that could get her back on her feet again.

‘
Coffee!
’

Rosanna’s voice cut through the fog of her brain with welcome relief. It was funny how that one word could act as a cure-all. A bad morning’s teaching
, a weary journey or dreams that had assaulted the very core of your heart could all be banished by a cup of good, strong Italian coffee.

Elena pulled on her dressing gown and treaded softly down the wooden steps before padding across the stone floor to the kitchen.

‘Did you sleep well?’ Rosanna asked, setting the table for breakfast. ‘I didn’t want to wake you up - you looked so peaceful.’

Elena nodded. What was the point in upsetting her? What was the point in saying that she wished to God she
had
woken her up and rescued her from the shadows of her past.

‘I slept like a baby,’ she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

‘I’ve never slept so well as I do here,’ Rosanna said, taking a sip of coffee. ‘It’s so peaceful. And that bed - it’s like falling asleep on a big white cloud.’

‘Not like your place in Mestre, then!’

‘I never want to go back there again,’ Rosanna sighed, sitting at the dining table. ‘It was like trying to get to sleep in the middle of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.’

‘But Sandro won’t be away forever, will he?’ Elena asked, forgetting her own problems and focussing on those of Rosanna. ‘So, do you plan on marrying him so you can stay here?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she protested. ‘I’m not in love with him!’

Elena laughed at her. She was so unlike her. There were so many reasons to fall in love with a man, she had found: he might have a kind smile or beautiful hands; a warm heart or sensitivity. But he might also have a very nice apartment on the right side of town and that, to her, certainly shouldn’t be discounted just because his smile might not be quite as winsome as you wished. But Rosanna was of the opinion that ‘the one’ had to have all these things and, in Elena’s experience, that just didn’t happen. Take Mark, for example. Out of Elena’s three fiancés, he was the best suited to her in terms of personality: he knew what she was thinking - some of the time - and he gave her the space she needed but, on the negative side, he hadn’t got two pennies to rub together. Prof, however, had a beautiful three-storey Victorian house in a leafy street in Ealing, several healthy bank accounts, and took three holidays a year, but he wasn’t on quite the same plane as her and she often saw the disappointment in his eyes when he recalled a television programme from his youth and she had to admit that she had no idea what he was going on about. Ruben was rather a mix. Emotionally, they were very
similar: they liked their own space and wouldn’t pry into each other’s private lives. He was generous, attentive when she needed him to be but, on the negative side, he could be extremely volatile.

Elena wondered what Sandro Constantini, Rosanna’s artist and owner of this apartment was like and if she really couldn’t make some sort of compromise on the love front in order to move in permanently.

‘That reminds me,’ she said, ‘how’s Corrado?’

Elena flinched at the force with which Rosanna tore open her bread roll at the mention of Corrado’s name.

‘He’s fine,’ she said, her tone of voice instantly informing her that she was
far
from fine.

‘Still living with his mother?’

Rosanna nodded, her dark eyes narrowing into angry slits. ‘I don’t know why I put up with it! It’s like the umbilical cord was never cut!’

‘Then why
do
you put up with it?’ Elena asked, glancing around the massive studio again and knowing exactly what she’d do if she were in her position.

Rosanna pouted in exasperation which left Elena feeling frustrated. If she’d been Rosanna, Corrado would have been left in a cloud of dust about a year ago, together with his tyrant of a mother.

‘Anyway,’ Rosanna began, ‘what would you like to do today?’

Elena took a sip of coffee. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said, although she knew she was desperate to get out and get some fresh air. ‘Do you need any shopping?’ she volunteered.

‘You can run an errand for me if you want,’ Rosanna said, walking to the far side of the room where she bent down and picked up a canvas. ‘This is ready to deliver,’ she said. ‘It’s an address in Dorsoduro. It’s been paid for so you only have to drop it off. I’ll wrap it up first.’

‘You don’t want to come with her?’ she asked.

‘You want me to?’ she said, her left eyebrow rising into a question mark. ‘I thought you wanted to be by yourself for a while.’

Elena smiled. She hadn’t said a single word but her sister knew exactly what was going through her mind.

‘Venice is the best place in the world for thinking,’ she said.

‘I know,’ Elena smiled. ‘That’s why I came here.’

*

Bouncing out over the bright water, the water bus headed out into the lagoon. The air was fresh and nipped the edges of Elena’s ears reminding her it wasn’t quite summer yet, but it felt so glorious that she contented herself with standing outside on the bus, holding onto the rails as they skirted the island.

It took about half an hour to reach San Marco. Elena had forgotten how large Venice was. Everybody said how tiny it was but it was only when you were out on the water that you could see how big it really was. She could have caught another bus to take her to Dorsoduro, but she wanted to walk from San Marco. The painting under her arm was a little cumbersome but it didn’t retract from the pleasure of walking across the square. Music was playing outside Florian’s famous café and grey clouds of pigeons landed at the feet of tourists armed with bags of feed. Elena felt a smile beginning to stretch across her face and a spring had definitely found its way into her step. She was in the heart of Venice on a beautiful April morning.

Leaving the square, she wound through the streets until she finally reached the Academia Bridge. A crowd of cameras were pointing at the white dome of Santa Maria della Salute but
she didn’t stop. She wanted to get the painting delivered. Then, and only then, would she afford herself the luxury of time.

Rosanna’s address was easy to find and Elena left the painting with its new owner, wondering where he’d hang it as his walls were already a Piccadilly Circus of pictures. She thought of her own bare, rented walls back in London and how nice it would be to have the money to spend on something beautiful to look at. But Sandro’s paintings were far too expensive on her teacher’s salary and she’d have to be happy being a mere delivery girl of fine art.

With her mission accomplished, she decided to explore Dorsoduro. Tiny golden-stoned bridges, fine as cobwebs, threaded the streets together. People were eating lunch and drinking coffee at sunlit tables in the squares whilst gondoliers, in straw hats with jolly ribbons, flirted for business.

Elena gazed up at the houses and wondered how she could have chosen to live somewhere as drab as London where everything was grey and beige. There was no comparison when you looked at the colours Italians painted their houses. Tangerine, apricot, strawberry and cherry - Venice was a fabulous fruit bowl of colour. Balconies were stuffed with plants and dark green shutters were flung wide open in praise of the sun.

Only a few tourists had made it this far: the ones who had done their homework and knew where they wanted to go; those who wanted to buy something rather special. Not for them were the cheap, mass-produced masks with a tube full of glitter spilt lazily over them. Dorsoduro was home to the most beautiful mask shops in the world.

The streets were narrower and quieter there. They seemed darker too but for the bright windows of the mask shops. Elena had never been that fascinated by masks, she had to admit. They were beautiful and there was something rather compelling about the people who chose to wear them. Masks, she thought, were as much about what you revealed as what you concealed. Still, she secretly thought that they were a bizarre cross between a piece of jewellery and a muppet but there was something about one of the shops that drew her to it. It was called Viviana’s
and it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, in fact, it was probably the smallest and least enticing of shop fronts, but there was one mask in the window that caught Elena’s eye. It was a plain gold half-mask with very little in the way of ornamentation but it had a warmth about it that made her smile.

Maybe it was just her natural magpie tendency but, before she knew what was happening, she opened the door, a little bell tinkling merrily over her head. There was nobody about and she shut the door behind her before taking a look around.

There was a huge wooden table at the back of the room which was choking with jars of brushes of every size from wisp-of-hair-thin to horse-tail thick. Behind these, stark white masks lay in wait for the colours that would bring them to life. Pencils, plant sprays, kitchen roll, scraps of paper, and boxes stuffed with rainbow ribbons jostled for space and, everywhere, mirrors which bounced back the light and made the room seem doubly filled with faces.

Every wall was covered by masks and it felt peculiar to be stared at by so many eyeless faces, and Elena was intensely curious to see the maker of these masks. There must have been dozens of mask shops in Venice where you can see the magic being created before your very eyes, and Viviana’s
was obviously such a shop.

The outside may have been rather unprepossessing but the inside was a feast for the eyes. It held colours you couldn’t even imagine and shapes in which dreams - and nightmares - were formed. There were half-masks, cat masks, plague doctors with toucan-shaped noses, wood spirits, harlequins, clowns and jesters, sunbeams and moons. Elena’s eyes couldn’t keep still for a second.

Blues and silvers, reds and golds, feathers and leather, harlequins and sequins, velvets and damasks, golden braids, lacy veils, flowers, pearls and musical scores. It was a visual rollercoaster; a mass of magical mayhem. There was too much. She was spinning.

‘Can I help you?’ a voice floated from behind her and she spun around to see a tiny man with bright white hair standing behind the table. She stared at him for a moment. Where had he been? And then she saw a door she hadn’t noticed before. It was slightly ajar, at the back of the shop. Had he been watching her? Waiting to see what she’d choose? She suddenly felt embarrassed; she hadn’t come in to buy anything. She really didn’t know what had made her come in at all.

‘Is there anything I can help you with?’ he asked again.

Elena bit her lip and felt herself
blushing a scarlet to match the walls of the shop. ‘No, thank you,’ she said and, rather flustered, she left, the little bell tinkling as she closed the door behind her.