Deep and Silent Waters

A moment later, Laura and Melanie were sucked into the enormous swirling crowds moving around the great square among the flocks of pigeons and stalls selling souvenirs. Laura did not know which way to look – there was too much to see.

‘Napoleon said St Mark’s Square was the drawing room of Europe,’ Melarie read out, her guidebook held in front of her as she walked.

‘Who?’

‘Napoleon.’

‘Who was he?’

Melanie did a double-take, realised she was being teased and snapped, ‘Oh, very funny!’

Laura grinned at her. ‘Well, stop reading me this stuff. I’m going to look at the basilica. Coming?’

‘I’ve seen it, and the Doge’s palace, when I was here on honeymoon.’

‘How many years ago was that?’

‘Never you mind!’

‘And if you were on honeymoon I don’t suppose you took too much notice of anything you saw, knowing you.’

Melanie gave a delighted, sensual smile. ‘It was a great honeymoon – we had terrific sex in between eating three marvellous meals every day. That was pretty much all we did – fuck and eat. It was when we got back home that the rot set in. Turned out that was all he was good for – sex and food. But I’m not here to do any sightseeing – I want to shop until I drop this afternoon. I’ll see you back here in half an hour, okay?’

Laura joined the throng of tourists slowly filtering into the Basilica San Marco and walked slowly around, staring up at the mosaic of Christ in Glory decorating the central dome. The whole enormous building was darkly mysterious, the ceiling and floors gilded, covered in elaborate mosaics.

Staring into the face of Christ in a Byzantine icon, Laura was shocked to find herself thinking of Sebastian – but; then, didn’t most things remind her of him? She found herself thinking of him at the strangest times in the strangest places.

Yet this was different. There was a distinct resemblance to him in Christ’s dark eyes, the bone structure of jaw and cheeks, the angle of the head, the curling dark hair – and it was not simply a physical likeness. The longer she gazed, the more she realised that there was something in the soul behind those dark eyes that spoke to her of Sebastian, a remoteness, a spirituality, another dimension that was god-like, and yet a gentleness and tenderness that was warmly human. It bewildered her that, at one and the same time, she could admit the possibility that Sebastian might have killed his wife and yet still see him in the body and soul of Christ.

To a believer that would be pure blasphemy, she thought. If she spoke her thoughts aloud people would think she was crazy, and they wouldn’t be far wrong. There was, after all, madness in love; every poet said so. She knew so little about Sebastian – she couldn’t even be sure that it had not been him who had sent her that scary little note.

Oh, stop it! she told herself. Stop thinking about him. Down that road lay true madness; total unreality. She wrenched herself away from the image of Christ and hurried on behind an American tour group, listening in to their guide’s comments. It made everything she saw more interesting to know exactly what she was looking at, and the Italian-American guide spoke fluently, an expert, obviously, on everything Venetian. Laura became so interested that she paid the necessary sum to view the greatest treasure of San Marco, the Pala d’Oro, a heavily jewelled tenth-century altarpiece.

Half an hour later, Melanie found her still in the basilica so absorbed that she was half dazed with beauty. Grabbing her arm, Melanie hissed, ‘What are you doing? I caught sight of you back there but they wouldn’t let me join you unless I paid the entrance fee for this part of the cathedral, and I could see that if I yelled to you they’d throw me out. The guy on duty had that look on his face, a sort of just-you-try-it-buster expression, so you owe me, Laura. I’ll put that fee on your next bill, and you’d better not query it!’

‘Sorry, Mel, but you should have waited until I came out.’

‘I have been, for ages, sitting in the square drinking a frullato di arancia.’ She paused, watching Laura, who sighed.

‘Okay, I’ll buy it – what’s that?’

Melanie grinned. ‘Delicious, I can tell you! A mixture of chilled milk and orange juice. You must try it – I’ve never tasted anything like it! Come on! Haven’t you seen enough of this gloomy old place?’

‘You could stay in here for days and not see enough.’

‘Not me, I couldn’t. I’m not a great one for churches.’ But Melanie stared incredulously at the magnificent Pala d’Oro. ‘Is that real gold, do you think?’

‘Absolutely, it’s made up of two hundred and fifty panels of gold foil and precious stones.’

‘You’re kidding! Are they real? Do you think those are emeralds or just green glass?’

‘Emeralds, and the red ones are real rubies.’

Melanie frowned suspiciously. ‘How do you know that? I thought you didn’t believe in reading guidebooks.’

‘I listened in on a tour group.’

‘I might have known you’d cheated.’ Melanie held up one hand and considered her plump fingers, on which several rings gleamed. ‘Imagine one of those big rubies in a ring! A heavy gold setting, of course – it would look ridiculous in anything else.’