Lucy Gordon - Not Just a Convenient Marriage

‘But is that all you have? You’re not married?’

‘No.’

‘And there’s no—forgive me, I don’t mean to pry, but surely there’s a man at home in England, waiting for you to have the time to marry him?’

‘No,’ she said wryly, thinking briefly of Frank before consigning him to nothing.

‘No emotional life at all?’ Damiano mused in a tone that gave nothing away.

‘I’ve had moments, but they didn’t amount to anything,’ she said, trying to sound casual.

‘The men didn’t meet your high standards?’

‘Or I didn’t meet theirs. That’s just as likely.’

‘So now all the hopes of your life are concentrated on the job?’

‘Signore—’

‘Wait. Enough of that. You told my son that you didn’t like formality. Your friends call you Sally. My friends call me Damiano.’

‘Damiano,’ she mused. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before.’

‘My enemies would tell you it suits me. It comes from the Latin word Damianus, which means to conquer and subdue. It can even mean to kill.’

‘Your enemies? Do you have many?’

‘A respectable number.’

‘Respectable?’

‘I’m a businessman. If you don’t annoy a few people along the way you’re not doing it properly.’

‘So you’ve annoyed enough people to feel proud. You face each other, you conquer and subdue them, and they go off saying, “I’ll make Damiano sorry. Damn him!”’

He grinned. ‘I see you know how it’s done.’

‘Do they ever actually manage to make you sorry?’

‘Would I admit it if they did?’

‘I’m learning all the time. I must remember what you’ve taught me. It could be useful in my own business life.’

‘Here’s to you.’

He raised his glass. She raised hers and they clinked.

From below came the sound of singing. Damiano opened the door to the balcony and ushered her out. Now they could see a gondola gliding along the narrow canal below them. A young man and woman sat holding each other, lost in the delight of their love, their surroundings, and the gondolier singing behind them while propelling the boat.

As the song ended he looked up, saw them and called out, ‘The world belongs to lovers.’

‘Yes,’ cried the loving couple. ‘Yes, yes.’

They waved upwards, saluting the two on the balcony.

‘Oh, dear,’ Sally said. ‘They think—’

‘It happens all the time in this city, especially in winter when lovers come here for the magical peace and quiet. Please don’t be offended.’

‘I’m not offended,’ she said quickly.

There could be no offence, she thought, in being thought the lover of this handsome man. Luckily she was armoured, or she might have been in danger.

‘But why did the gondolier say it in English, not Italian?’ she asked.

‘His passengers must be English. It’s intriguing how many tourists come from your country. They seem so cool and restrained on the outside, but Venice brings out another side of them—one they usually prefer to hide, or even didn’t know they had.’

As if to prove him right the couple in the gondola were sharing a passionate kiss as they drifted away. Further ahead the little canal broadened out into the Grand Canal, from which came the noise of music and cries of delight. As they watched a vaporetto went past, crowded with excited passengers, some of them singing, some cheering.

‘It’s almost as though Venice has two different personalities,’ she said. ‘So quiet and gentle at one end of this little stretch of water, so exuberant at the other end.’

‘You’re right. But it’s not just two different personalities. A dozen, perhaps a hundred.’ He shepherded her back into the room, adding teasingly, ‘Like the English, really.’

‘You obviously think you know a lot about the English.’

He showed her back to her chair, and sat beside her. Suddenly he was no longer joking.

‘I know I like them,’ he said quietly. ‘My first wife came from your country, and I see her in Pietro. It’s a side of him that I encourage.’

‘Is that why he speaks my language?’

‘Yes, I’ve raised him to be bilingual.’

‘He must be very bright to speak it so well while he’s so young. He’s a lovely child.’

‘Yes, he is. There’s something I want to say to you. Thank you for making him so happy. It means a lot to me to see him laughing and playing as he’s done today.’

‘Doesn’t he do so often?’

‘Sometimes he seems merry, but it never lasts very long. He’s haunted by the feeling that two mothers abandoned him. As I mentioned earlier, his real mother died before he could know her. His stepmother simply left him.’

‘Poor little soul,’ Sally murmured. ‘Does she never contact him at all?’

‘Never. She said that he would be better off if she was completely out of his life. But it was just for her own convenience, not for Pietro’s sake. She never loved him. He has only me.’

‘And he’s everything to you, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. Both for his own sake and because—’ His voice died.

‘Because of his mother?’ she urged gently.

He nodded.

‘Because of Gina,’ he said quietly. ‘We had such a little time together. Pietro was born a month prematurely. It killed Gina and the baby himself nearly didn’t survive. In her last hours Gina was wild with terror, fearing for him. She had no thought for her own danger, only his. I held her in my arms, begging her not to leave me, but I knew it was useless. She was being snatched away by a power beyond her control, and only her baby mattered. So I swore to her that I would care for him and protect him all the rest of my life. Nothing would matter but his happiness.’

Sally had a strange feeling that the world had changed. Even the universe. This city, which was like nowhere else, might be the answer, but she sensed something more. The man sitting close by, talking in a soft voice, had been known to her for only a few hours. Yet he was confiding in her in a way that said she was not a stranger, but someone to whom he felt close, because that was what he wanted to feel.

She tried to tell herself to be sensible, but common sense had gone into hiding.

‘Did your promise comfort her?’ she asked.

‘I thought so. She whispered, “God bless you,” so perhaps it did for a brief moment. Then—she tried to say something else. But she choked and couldn’t speak. In her last few moments she was desperate to tell me something, but she died before she could say the words. Now I’ll wonder all my days what she wanted to say that was so important.’

‘But surely, in your heart you know what it was,’ Sally said. ‘She wanted to say that she loved you. It couldn’t be anything else but that.’

He raised his head and she saw in his eyes a smile that made her heart turn over. There was a warmth in it that felt as though he was reaching out and touching her, enveloping her in some feeling she’d never known before: a feeling that she wanted to know for ever.

‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘that you must be the kindest person in the world.’

‘No,’ she said, suddenly self-conscious at the strength of her own feelings.

‘Don’t tell me that you’re not kind. I wouldn’t believe it.’

‘You don’t really know me.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do. I knew you as soon as we met in the Piazza San Marco.’

The air was singing about her ears and she was at a loss for an answer. Part of her had the same feeling, that she knew him as though they had been acquainted for ever. But another part said exactly the opposite: that here was a man of mystery and contradictions; that she might know him all her life, yet never understand the first thing about him.