Deep and Silent Waters (11 page)

‘How is Niccolo?’ Sebastian asked.

‘Very well, as always, thank heavens. He will be pleased to meet you again. He’s a fan of yours, he admires your films, especially the way they look. You know, the set designs, costumes, the backgrounds you choose. That’s what interests him in the cinema, not the acting or the plots. The look of things. If he wasn’t a sculptor I suspect he would love to be a theatre designer.’

‘A sculptor?’ Sebastian looked up at the house. ‘Does he work in the old studio?’

‘Of course. Where else? He went to art school in Florence and I hoped he would paint, like his father – it’s in his blood, after all – but from the beginning it was sculpture that obsessed him.’

Sebastian’s smile froze.

Why did he look like that? There was some subtext to their conversation, but Laura had no clue to its content, only that it disturbed Sebastian. ‘What sort of sculpture?’ she asked, to distract the older woman, who looked at her quickly, laughing with a shrug of those plump shoulders.

‘Don’t ask me! He says he represents the human form by what he sees in the personality. Not that I can see what he’s trying to do, but the critics seem impressed with his work, so I have learnt to say nothing. I’m old-fashioned, he tells me.’ Her voice was complacent; if her son did call her old-fashioned she seemed to take it as a compliment. ‘I expect his father would have understood what he was trying to do. I’m a strong believer in heredity. Aren’t you, Miss Erskine?’

Laura could still feel Sebastian’s tension. What on earth was all this? Something to do with the Count? Had the Count been unkind to him when he was a child? The Contessa spoke about her husband in the past tense, which indicated that he was dead, but childhood terrors could haunt you all your life.

‘I’ve never thought about it much, but no doubt you’re right.’

‘Oh, I am right,
certo!
No question.’

The Contessa had the absolute certainty of one who has never doubted her own beliefs or decisions. Laura wished she had a fraction of that assurance.

The dark eyes scanned her face. ‘Sebastian directed your first film, didn’t he? I remember it, a very exciting début! We saw you on television, too, this afternoon.’

Suddenly Laura remembered the TV camera filming her and Sebastian during their tussle by the lifts, and flushed. What had they made of that, this woman and her son?

‘Really? We were on the TV news? My agent will be delighted with that. Publicity is so important in our business.’ She knew her voice sounded very English, which it rarely did now. Living in the States you picked up their intonations, phrasing, without meaning to, especially if you found it easy to mimic the way people spoke, and actresses usually did: it was an important part of their technique. Suddenly, though, she was speaking in clipped English, retreating into formality and reserve in self-defence.

‘I know nothing about the film industry, I’m afraid, except what I read or see on TV.’ The Contessa’s smile was smug.

Laura smiled back. ‘Your English is terribly good, which is a relief. I’m afraid I know very little Italian. I must try to learn some more before I come to Italy again.’

‘I was taught English at school as a girl. I have kept it up since – there are so many English and Americans living here – one is always meeting them at parties – and they speak such bad Italian that one has to speak to them in their own language.’ The Contessa chuckled dismissively, then offered Laura her hand. ‘Sebastian didn’t introduce us. I am Vittoria d’Angeli.’

Although she must have been in her sixties, her skin was smooth, unlined, her fingers plump but strong, yet Laura had to fight a desire to pull herself free. Something in the woman’s touch chilled her, like touching a snake, she thought. Yet the Contessa seemed friendly enough. Laura told herself her imagination was working overtime.

‘Now, you must both come upstairs, to the
sala
. Niccolo is up there.’ The Contessa turned her head upwards to where pale pink columns stood along the first floor with a terrace behind them. The sound of Mozart drifted out from an open window hidden somewhere at the back of the shadowy terrace. The pianist played a false note and stopped for a second before beginning again.

Startled, Laura said, ‘I thought it was a recording! Is that your son playing?’

The Contessa nodded, smiling.

‘But he’s brilliant!’

‘Yes, he is good, he could have been a concert pianist if he had been prepared to work at it, but he is too talented. He can paint and write songs too, and doesn’t work at them, either. Sculpture is the only art form he cares about enough to work at.’ She looked at Sebastian. ‘I hope you will both stay to dinner. It will be nothing special, I’m afraid, a simple supper – pasta with a plain pesto sauce, and
calamari ripieni
– that’s squid stuffed with garlic, tomato and anchovies. It has a strong flavour, but it is delicious. Then Lucia has made a little
zuppa Inglese
. Sebastian, do you remember Lucia?’

He looked blank. ‘Lucia?’

‘Our cook – she has worked for us for forty years. She makes such delicious
zuppa Inglese
. You loved it when you were a little boy.’

‘Soup?’ queried Laura.

Sebastian laughed shortly. ‘Trifle – they call it English soup here, their idea of a joke!’ Why was he so sombre, so brusque? She wished she knew more about his early life here, the reality of his relationship with this aristocratic Venetian family – the way the Contessa talked it was hard to be certain how she felt about Sebastian.

‘Lucia soaks the sponge cakes in amaretto,’ the Contessa said. ‘Do you know amaretto, Miss Erskine? It is almond liqueur, delicious. She makes her own custard, and on top of that puts whipped cream, sprinkled with pieces of almond. Sebastian, you remember how you and Nico used to fight over who got the last spoonful from the dish?’

‘I remember,’ Sebastian said, his eyes distant, fixed on the past, perhaps.

He would have seen far more of the cook than of the Contessa, thought Laura. Had the reminder been deliberate? Or was the Contessa genuinely unaware that she was treading on delicate ground when she spoke of his childhood, his father’s position in this house? Vittoria d’Angeli smiled a good deal: whenever you looked at her that bland smile was on her face, but what was behind it?

‘You must go down to the kitchen and talk to her later, after dinner, about old times,’ she said, and again Laura wondered if that was a subtle reminder that the kitchen was where he belonged, in spite of his fame, his success, his money. She could see nothing in Sebastian’s face to betray what was going on inside him but Laura picked up an echo of pain, anger, and felt an instinctive urge to protect him from the soft, smiling murmurs of the Contessa.

Her mother had often said she loved drama too much, put more of it into daily life than was really there. She hoped she was overreacting: she would hate to see Sebastian – or anyone else – get hurt.

‘I’m afraid I have to get back to the hotel, Contessa,’ she said, politely. ‘I would have loved to stay for dinner but it is impossible. Someone is waiting for me.’

The dark brows made a half-moon of amused query. ‘Ring him and ask him to join us.’

Laura knew she had flushed and was angry with herself. ‘She’s my agent, and we are having dinner with some important people this evening. I have to be there.’

The Contessa pouted like a child. ‘Oh, but you could change the time. Meet them later. You know, we eat very late, in Venice – you could eat a little pasta with us, then have dessert with your important people.’

Sebastian drawled, ‘I’m afraid I have to get back, too. My whole team are waiting for me. We are planning a celebration meal after finishing our last film, I can’t back out.’

‘Nico will be very disappointed,’ the Contessa said reproachfully.

‘I’m sorry, some other time, perhaps. But I know Laura would love to see something of the palazzo before we have to go.’

‘Of course, please, come in – ah, here is Antonio.’

The man had appeared silently in the doorway: very thin, slight, in a black waistcoat and white shirt, black trousers, giving the impression of a uniform. He had grey hair, olive skin and dark eyes.

‘You remember Antonio, Lucia’s husband, Sebastian? He, too, has been working for us all his life. He remembers you, don’t you, Antonio?’

The man smiled faintly, bowing. ‘
Si, si, già
, Contessa.’

Sebastian shook hands with him, spoke in rapid Italian. Laura picked up a touch of frost in him, sensed that he did not much like this man, and she could understand why: Antonio had secretive, cold eyes behind those heavy lids and black lashes. He kept them veiled most of the time but when you did catch sight of them they betrayed a chilly subtlety, which made you shiver.

‘Some wine, Antonio,
per favore
.’

‘
Si
, Contessa,
subito
.’ He vanished and the Contessa waved Sebastian and Laura after him, into the house.

‘My husband’s family is one of the most ancient in Venice, Miss Erskine. Ca’ d’Angeli was built in fourteen thirty-five, during the reign of the great Doge, Francesco Foscari, who was a cousin of the man who built this house, Simeone d’Angeli.’

Laura explained apologetically, ‘I’m afraid I know almost nothing about Venetian history.’

‘No, of course, how should you? It means nothing to anyone but a Venetian.’

‘And your own family?’ Laura asked. ‘Are they Venetian too?’

The question fell into a silence, cold as marble, frosty as winter. ‘No, we are Milanese,’ the Contessa answered at last, and walked quickly towards the open front door to close it.

Laura gave Sebastian a look of enquiry, raising her brows. He shook his head, but she saw cold amusement in his eyes. Maybe he would explain later.

As they passed through the ground floor, the Contessa leading the way, Laura asked, ‘Why is this floor completely empty?’ then hoped she had not touched on another delicate subject. Maybe the family couldn’t afford to furnish the whole house.

But the Contessa answered casually, and without resentment this time, ‘So that when the tide floods in over the door-sill, as it does with every really high tide, nothing will be ruined. If you look at the wall you’ll see tide-marks from years back. Here, in Venice, we’re used to flooding. We clean the marble once the water level falls again but you never quite get rid of the stain. The mixture of salt and grime sinks in – it is very destructive to this marble. But that’s why most houses in Venice have an empty ground floor. We all live on the upper storeys of our homes.’

The stairs were steep and Laura clutched at the banisters, afraid of slipping on the marble. At the top they emerged into a wide, dark room running from the front of the house to the back, hung with tapestries over marble walls. The floor was marble too; the ceiling decorated with cartouches containing paintings, each framed in gilded plaster. Laura stared up at plump ladies floating on pink clouds, looking sensually inviting, surrounded with more cherubs like those on the palazzo’s façade, but painted this time, each carrying a cornucopia from which flowers and fruit cascaded into the laps of the smiling women.

‘Do you remember the ceilings, Sebastian? Or have you forgotten everything about Ca’ d’Angeli?’ The Contessa’s dark eyes watched him intently.

‘I remember very little. I was so young when we left.’

‘So you were.’ The Contessa walked on. ‘This is the main floor of the house, the bedrooms are above, but the salon is down here.’

The long, dark room was sparsely furnished: here and there gilded chairs with bow legs had been arranged against the walls between elegant bureaux and several tables on which stood delicate little objects, of ivory, silver or glass. A high window at each end gave some light but the hall was still shadowy and the air had a mustiness that told you the windows were never opened, even at the height of the summer.

From an open door on the left came the sound of Mozart, clear, precise drops of music. They walked towards it into a large, high-ceilinged salon where two comfortable yellow silk brocade sofas faced each other in the middle of the room, placed on faded but clearly old and probably valuable Turkish carpets; nearby stood a table piled with leatherbound books, and around the room smaller tables supported lamps with Venetian glass shades in deep, dramatic colours, rich burgundy or dark blue, leaded like Tiffany glass to form the shapes of flowers and leaves. Next to them were silver-framed photographs, a gold clock and delicate porcelain figures, which looked like Meissen.

The panelled walls were hung with paintings and tapestries and a massive white marble fireplace, carved with figures, men’s faces, animals, birds, flowers, reached almost to the ceiling. Laura felt suddenly out of place, a clumsy creature in this exquisite world.

As they entered, the man playing the piano looked across the room at them, his fingers stilling on the keys. Laura felt a bewildered recognition as if she had met him before, but knew that it must be merely the Italian colouring, the black hair, olive skin, dark eyes. He had an aquiline nose, a long jawline, high cheekbones and a mouth with a firm upper lip but a full lower one, suggesting passion and sensuality.

His mother bustled towards him, gesturing with her plump little hands. ‘Nico, look who’s here! While I was ringing his hotel he was on his way to see us.’

The pianist rose. He was taller than Sebastian, more than six foot, slim-hipped, narrow-waisted, yet with broad shoulders and a deep, muscled chest, the figure of an athlete. It seemed strange that he was wearing jeans, thought Laura. He should be in the dress of some other century, another culture. He did not have a modern face. Her eyes wandered from him to the shabby, ancient tapestries on the wall behind him, filled with men in doublet and hose, riding big horses, with dogs milling around them, confronting a stag at bay, or in a timeless Italianate landscape of cypress and olive trees with red-brick houses and churches in the distance. The faces were all Italianate – any of them could have been the living man at the piano – but there was a far more striking resemblance in a portrait hanging on another wall. of a man, full-length, in sombre red satin. It could have been a painting of Niccolo d’Angeli, and had to be one of his ancestors: the family face was unmistakable, that curved, predatory nose, the same sensual mouth, smouldering dark eyes and angular jaw.