The Road from Midnight Page 8
“Don’t turn on me. Don’t blame me. I can’t do anything, there is nothing to do. We just have to wait,” he mumbled.
“Lawrence, leave me. Just get out. I need people around me now who can support and help me find my daughter. You are and always have been a useless, spineless apology for a man. I need to handle this on my own now, and I have no use for you.”
I couldn’t believe I had finally said it. After all those years of putting up with his ego and his self-centred attitude, I had released myself. Suddenly I saw in him what I should have seen years ago. He was a weak, incapable human being.
“Fine then. I’ve done the best I can while you’ve been avoiding facing up to this. At least one of us has taken some action and put themselves out there in the hope that someone, somewhere will see that video of her and bring her home to us. That’s not weak; that’s taking action,” he yelled.
“What video?” I asked cautiously.
“The one I took on the train when she was in bed. It’s so cute,” he volunteered, hoping he would win an award for sensitivity.
“You released that? It is our last recording of our precious daughter. How could you share that with the media and the world?” I screamed the room down.
“THEY NEEDED A PICTURE OF HER!” He said slowly as if I was a moron.
“So give them another one, you’ve got a hundred tapes with you. You absolute fucking insensitive idiot. You have no idea how to be a normal person anymore, everything you do, and now even the most precious memories of our daughter, must be played out in public. I hate you, I hate the person you are, I hate our life together. Fuck off.” I screeched, not caring who heard me or how loud and vicious I was being.
And so he left. I had no idea where, nor did I care. It took him five minutes to get his stuff together and he was gone. I presumed he was heading off to grieve the only way he knew how to. In front of the cameras.
Daisy returned, took one look at my face and dragged me out for a slow, consoling walk “to get the positive energy flowing.” We walked along Zaterre, looking across to Giudecca, the former Jewish quarter. We were surrounded by Venetian couples old and young, strolling and talking in their staccato passionate Italian. I was no longer part of a couple again and that felt good. I needed to shed my life, trim it down to the bare minimum to cope.
As we sat on a bench and watched the water lapping against the buildings a family of ducks floated past. Mother duck in front, the seven ducklings in the middle and father duck bringing up the rear.
“Look Daisy, that’s how you look after your children in nature. Why couldn’t Lawrence and I do that for Charlotte?” I sobbed.
“In nature,” replied Daisy, “father ducks aren’t celebrities.”
After I had been in Venice for two weeks Daisy stumbled into the hotel room unusually flustered.
“Do you know someone called Marco Wilson?” she sputtered as she rushed around the room tweaking crystals and opening windows.
“Of course I do, Daisy, he was my first boyfriend, and I told you about him. He was my first great love until his controlling mother got in the way and sent him to study in Italy.” I said leafing through the international papers hoping for a few paragraphs about a lost girl.
“Oh him. But you never said he was drop dead gorgeous,” she giggled nervously. “Or that he was living in Venice. Or that he was working just around the corner restoring a church!” by which time she was shrieking.
“What are you going on about? Calm down. He’s where? He’s what?”
Now she had my attention.
“He’s downstairs in the front lobby is where he is, and he wants to know if he can see you, that’s what,” she announced triumphantly before locking herself in the bathroom.
“Oh right. Well I’ll just go down and see him, I guess,” I said trying to sound calm and un-moved by the fact that the first and possibly only love of my life had somehow miraculously turned up on my doorstep in the middle of my worst nightmare.
Marco Wilson was the son of an Italian mother, who landed in New Zealand as a refugee from the Second World War, and a Kiwi father. I had met him at a school social at the age of 16 when the local boys’ school came to the girls’ school for the night. I was in the throes of the op shop era and was wearing a skirt I had made out of men’s silk ties and was immediately attracted to this good looking, olive-skinned boy who was wearing an old yellow waistcoat with glass buttons and pair of baggy old men’s suit pants. He wore wire-rimmed glasses which he had found in an antique shop, his hair was a mass of black curls and he had the most delicious lips I had ever seen. He also had sparkly blue eyes and a grin which made him look like a cheeky little boy. Which he was back then. Cheeky, but fiercely intelligent and extraordinarily kind and generous.
He was a year ahead of me and was already showing signs of the brilliant academic career as a restoration architect which would lead him to his mother’s homeland of Italy. He was now in high demand for his ability to deal with passionate art historians and architects who he had to work with while restoring an old church or palazzo.
I once read a story in one of the papers about a local boy made good a few years ago and was impressed to see that he was regarded by some as a pedant but he just liked getting it right. If that meant hunting all over the world for a piece of timber of the right age and condition to replace a floorboard, then he would. And if a piece of marble needed replacing he would make sure he would find the exact same marble, from the exact same region the original piece had come from. Even if it meant re-opening a long forgotten mine in Sicily.
We went out together for two years during which time we discovered the music of Talking Heads, the pleasure of getting extremely drunk on ginger wine and stoned on marijuana and how to have sex at every available moment without being caught by our parents. We were both virgins and there was something very special for me about sharing that first discovery with Marco, and I would never forget him. Eventually Marco’s very traditional mother, Luisa, developed the opinion that I was getting in the way of her son’s studies (true) and she would make it a mission to get rid of me (which she did).
Seemingly overnight he moved out of our shared flat, I was excluded from all Wilson family events, barely acknowledged when I turned up to the house, and while Luisa couldn’t exactly tell Marco what to do, he was a mummy’s boy and didn’t put up much of a fight.
The last time I had seen Marco was in a Ponsonby Rd restaurant where I was drunk, he was having an awkward first date with a woman and I decided to announce to the restaurant’s clientele that he was the man who had claimed my virginity. He took it very well, but I wasn’t at all surprised that I never heard from him again, despite giving him my phone number and strict instructions to call. And now there he was. Slouched on a satin-covered couch wearing a pair of jeans, a pullover which I instinctively knew would be cashmere, and gazing with studied indifference at the piece of modern sculpture placed two feet away from him. He was still that cheeky boy with the curly black hair I had fallen in love with at the school social, just a little more worn.
“Marco, I had no idea you were in Venice. Italy yes, but Venice … this is such a surprise,” I stuttered, hoping to sound in control but confused at the same time
“Jane, how are you? I’m so sorry about what is going on,” he said as he got up from the couch and threw his arms around me.
“Fine … no not really … well … coping,” I said mumbling into his shoulder before pulling away to observe the tiny lines of ageing which had appeared around his blue eyes.
“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get in touch, but I thought I should give you some space,” he said apologetically. “Coffee?”
As Marco led me through the slender alleyway and corridors of Venice I realised he had an air of familiarity about him. He seemed to belong to Venice blending into the stone walls as the locals do. We had no sooner arrived in the Bar ai Miracoli, not far from my hotel, than I realised that Marco was right at home
in Venice, despite not being a local. He spoke Venetian fluently to the staff in the café as he ordered a double espresso for him and a hot chocolate for me. I had fallen in love with the thick hot chocolate with the consistency of a Rotorua mud pool and needed at least three a day. Some days the sweet velvety chocolate was the only sustenance I had.
“Wow, that’s quite weird hearing you speak Italian,” I ventured, suddenly feeling so far away from my homeland.
“I always did, my mother insisted we learn it as children but I guess it never came up when we were together,” he smiled.
“No, as I remember it the only subject we were remotely interested in was getting out of it,” I said.
“True, we had fun didn’t we? But how are you coping, I’m so sorry about your daughter, it must be hell,” he said sipping his espresso and looking at me cautiously as if he expected me to collapse at any moment.
“Thank you. I’m doing okay I guess. I think I may be in a bit of denial. Every day I wake up and hope that this will be the day she turns up. I guess I’m just taking it day by day.”
“Will you be leaving Venice soon to go home?”
“No, that’s the problem. I just can’t leave here while I think there’s a chance she’ll turn up. It’s only been two weeks and I couldn’t bear being on the other side of the world and so far away, if they find her. I want to be ready and waiting. I’m thinking I’ll resign from my job at home and I’ve got enough savings so I guess I can rent out my house and live here until they find her.”
“From what my mother tells me you were quite something in the magazine world over there. It must be hard to give up such a successful career,” asked Marco.
“Not at all. I am quite satisfied doing nothing for the first time in my life. Part of it is dealing with the shock I guess, but I also think part of it is Venice. I find this place so calming. No cars, no noise except the chiming of old church bells and the light is so filtered and so unlike New Zealand.”
“You say that now, Jane, but it is March. When the tourists arrive you will be screaming with annoyance. We can barely move for Americans blocking our way and some days we feel like we are hired extras on an American holiday movie. I hate the way they treat us. But, you do get used to it and besides I spend all of my time inside the beauty and serenity of the church.”
“What a wonderful way to spend your days,” I mused staring out of the window at the soft mist which had gathered on the canal to my left.
I had already fallen in love with Venice even though I had only glimpsed it from my hotel window and on the daily walks Daisy had coaxed me into taking around the neighbourhood. It was like living in a fairytale where all the buildings are pastel pink, yellow and rust with terracotta tiled roofs, green shutters, ornate arches and a village square or campo around every corner. The silence and the winter mist seduced me into a calmness I had never known. The only sounds you heard were the cathedral bells which rang softly on the hour and half hour, all through the night. I didn’t care if I never saw another office block, roaring bus or busy stressed out city people. I was content being a lost princess in her island of tranquillity.
“Is your husband staying with you?” asked Marco, stirring me out of my chocolate-induced reverie.
“No, my husband won’t be my husband much longer. This whole nightmare has ended our marriage.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, it wasn’t a great marriage to start with, so it’s really just sped up what probably would have happened anyway. The shock of it all has knocked away a few of the brick walls I had carefully built around my relationship with Lawrence.”
“Well, I’m just glad I found you,” said Marco attempting to lighten the mood a little. “I can be your guide, your helper, your support, if you’ll let me.”
“But you must be busy. I read that you are much in demand over here for your restoration work. Surely you don’t have the time to adopt a soon to be divorcee pining for her lost child?”
“Of course I do, Jane. You’re my friend, it’s the least I can do.”
“You may live to regret it, but it’s really nice to see you. I suddenly feel a lot safer.”
From that day on, Marco seemed to be by my side constantly. He worked on the huge renovation of the St Trovaso church in Dorsoduro and he encouraged me to spend my days with him soaking in the peace and tranquillity and spending hours gazing at the amazing art which lived in it. By Venice standards it wasn’t the most impressive church there but its simplicity suited me. It was closed to the public, but Marco arranged for me to have special access so I visited every day and lit a votive candle for a saint holding a baby. The next day I would light a candle for the saint, who looked like a nice woman. I had no idea who the saints were or what they represented, but I just wanted to acknowledge anything to do with children. Maybe one of them would help my Charlotte find her way home. I would kneel down in front of them and pray, in my own way. I was actually talking to Charlotte, like some audio diary giving her the details of my life and sending her my love. I know it was silly, but it made me feel better and if indeed it was true you can send energy out into the ether and somehow, somewhere someone you love will pick it up, then I was willing to give it a try, even if it meant hitching a ride on the energy of the Catholic Church.
Once I caught Marco looking at me as I was doing my candle thing and a look of confusion came over his face. He knew I was not a Catholic, nor had I been given any religious upbringing. It must have looked very odd to see this woman every day lighting candles, kneeling and praying like an old hand.
“Come with me,” he said later that morning taking me by the arm.
“Where are we going?” I asked
“To a place I think your candles will feel at home.”
We walked swiftly through the alleyways and across canals and came to the Basilica dei Frari. Marco waved his resident ID at the woman behind the ticket booth and we passed through in front of the group of tourists queuing to get in.
“This is amazing,” I swooned as we walked into the massive church and were immediately confronted by Titian’s “Assumption of the Virgin” above the altar.
“That is just one of many Titians you will discover,” said Marco. “But I didn’t bring you here for him, come over here.”
He led me to a statue of the Madonna which had the usual votive candles on offer for people to light. But placed around her feet were photos of children. Some with their parents, some on their own in a school photo.
“This is where they pray for their lost children. I think Charlotte would feel more at home with this Madonna, don’t you?” whispered Marco as I dropped to my knees and burst into tears.
“You can bring a photo of Charlotte and put her up here with the others,” he said.
He placed some coins in the box in front of the votive candles and took one for himself and one for me.
“Come on, let’s do the candle thing.”
As we lit our candles together and placed them with all the other brightly shining votives lit by mourning parents I looked at his cheeky blue eyes and saw a man who had to be one of the kindest people I had ever known, next to Daisy.
“Thank you, Marco.”
“You can come here every day now. I will have a word and get you a pass so that you don’t have to queue with the tourists.”
And so I did. My day started at the Frari and was always better for it.
Soon I was visiting more churches and finding more Madonnas as well as Titians and an artist I discovered all on my own, Tintoretto. In Venice there’s a church on every corner, rather like the pubs on every corner in Britain. Both serve the same purpose, providing a place for people to unload. Slowly I fell in love with the imagery, the icons and the soothing silence only an old church can provide and has been supplying for hundreds of years.
“You’re turning into quite the little Catholic,” Marco joked. “Only my mother spends as much time on her knees in church as you do.”
“If you want to take it further let me know, my connections with the Catholic Church are very good.”
And that Sunday I asked him to take me to church and we just kept going. Marco chose the St Nicholai church, where few tourists visited. I couldn’t understand a word, and couldn’t take communion but I felt right sitting there with all the old women and men muttering in prayer and singing hymns. I’m not sure Marco enjoyed it much. He had long ago become a lapsed Catholic but I appreciated him doing it for me.
Marco also moved me into his immaculate and beautifully designed apartment on the fourth floor of an old palazzo he had helped restore, a week after we met for coffee. The Hotel Bauer had lost their enthusiasm for the famous Kiwi’s ex-wife and I felt I needed to find somewhere more normal, somewhere I could lounge around, maybe cook a little, without being waited on by staff. I also badly needed to release Daisy from her obligation to look after me. She had managed to get leave so that she could stay by my side for the past three weeks, but I could tell she was itching to get back to her old life and an expose she had been working on about menopause and the dangers of hormone replacement therapy.
“No, Jane, I’m not leaving you. I’ve decided I will be here, by your side as long as you need me,” she announced when I told her of Marco’s kind offer. The two of them had become good friends, but she wasn’t ready to leave me in his sole charge just yet.
“Daisy, you are the most wonderful woman and I could never have coped without you, so thank you. But I’m not so selfish that I can’t see you have your own life and the longer you are here with me, the more your life suffers. I’m really good now, and I have Marco to keep an eye on me, so go. Please go home.”
“Well, only because he’s so lovely. But be careful, Jane. People who have been through the kind of upheaval you have shouldn’t get into new relationships too quickly.”