The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [50]
As she watched, her attention was caught by a sharply dressed woman crossing the square with purpose, her stiletto heels clicking on the stone.
No tourist she: clearly a local.
She wore a navy suit which screamed designer tailoring, with a nipped-in waist and a skirt with a length just the right side of trashiness. Her hair, razor cut to skim her shoulders, flashed blue-black in the sunlight. She wore the inevitable sunglasses, which only gave greater emphasis to her glossy red lips. Her sexy confidence allowed her to acknowledge but at the same time ignore the vocal admiration of a handful of masons working on the bridge. She was clearly accustomed to such tributes.
A woman like that would tell Semi and Chiara to go to hell.
She watched the woman with admiration until she disappeared from sight, and seconds later heard the now familiar rasp of her own doorbell. Leonora ran down her spiral steps, heart thumping. She would not admit that each time the doorbell rang she hoped for Alessandro.
But it was not Alessandro. It was the woman from the square. She held out her hand.
`Signorina Manin? I'm Vittoria Minotto.' Such was the force of her personality that Leonora reached out to shake her hand, and moved aside to give passage to the apartment. She clearly looked as confused as she felt, for in explanation the woman said, `From Il Gazzettino.' She flashed a press card in the manner of a member of the FBI.
Leonora attempted to pull herself together and offered a chair, but the journalist was off, stalking around the house, peering at the furnishings, picking up objects and putting them down again. With a practised gesture she pushed her shades into her raven hair and peered at the view as if making mental notes. Her one word `hello' at once praised the decor and condemned it. `This will do for you,' it seemed to say, `but it is not in my taste' At close proximity her confidence and sexuality were almost tangible. Her style and poise, her sharpness of dress, made Leonora feel blowsy and badly put together. Her dress and the twisted locks of her loose hair, with which she had been pleased as she looked in the mirror that morning, now seemed messy and amateur.
I'm behaving like a sixth former with a crush. If she's having this effect on me, what must she do to a man?
With an effort that she was afraid was visible to her guest, Leonora pulled herself together, trying to regain her composure, and with it, the ascendancy. `Can I offer you a drink? Coffee?'
Vittoria turned and favoured Leonora with a smile of immense charm and startling whiteness. `Please'
The journalist sat, this time unbidden, at the kitchen table and snapped open her briefcase with the sound of a cocked gun. She took out an innocuous notebook and pen, and something else - small, silver and threatening, it squatted on the table. A tape recorder. Vittoria took out a third item, a pack of cigarettes, shook one out and lit it. Both the brand and the way she lit the thing reminded Leonora sharply of Alessandro, with a brief stab of pain. Vittoria made a waving gesture, and the smoke wreathed around her blood-red nails. `You don't mind?'
Leonora was unsure whether the journalist was referring to the tape recorder or the cigarette. She minded both, but shook her head.
Click. Vittoria's thumbnail depressed the button and the tiny spools began to cycle. Leonora brought the coffee from the stove and sat opposite the journalist, feeling the air of contest. The recorder whirred like the timer of a chess match.
`Can you tell me a bit about yourself?'
`What do you want to know?'
`Perhaps a little background for our readers?'
`Starting in England? Or here? I'm sorry ... I'm not used to this. Perhaps ... could you ... I think I'd find it easier if you asked me direct questions.'
A sip of coffee. `Fine. What made you come to Venice?'
`Well, I was born here, even though I was brought up in England. My father was Venetian. And I trained as an artist, was always interested in glassblowing. My mother told me the story of Corradino, when she gave me this heart