The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [86]
Li0ited? Someone is there? Alessandro?
Her heart beat hard and painfully as she fitted her key in the lock - but it was not he but his cousin. Marta was seated at the table, Il Gazzettino spread in front of her. She looked up and smiled as Leonora entered, pink-cheeked with cold and expectation.
`Fa freddo, vero?'
Leonora nodded, shedding gloves and scarves. `Freezing:
Rent day. I had forgotten. Thank God I got the rest of my month's wages from Adelino. Christ knows what will happen next month though. I couldn't bear to lose this place too.
As she crossed the kitchen to get the money from inside her Moroccan tagine dish (a hiding place which would be immediately obvious to even the most amateur burglar) she heard Marta tactfully fold the offending paper away. She paid over her month in advance and offered Marta a glass of wine. Her landlady seemed to hesitate.
`I'm not sure ... I ... actually, yes, please.'
Leonora opened a bottle of Valpolicella and ran the tap for herself. As the water rushed over her hand, running to bone-chilling coldness, she considered her friend from the corner of her eye. The cousin of the man she loved. They really shared nothing in the physiognomy of the face - there were no resemblances to catch at her heart. And yet today she divined something of him in Marta -The familiar hesitation, distance, discomfort. She filled her glass with water and brought the two drinks to the table.
What is she hiding?
Leonora sat and the silence persisted. Then, as if making up her mind, Marta spoke at last. `Is Alessandro coming here tonight?'
Leonora looked up from her glass, surprise registering. Throughout her pregnancy, she had not seen as much of him as she would have liked, but they had had enough shared time to foster the notion that they were a couple. When they were together he was the model boyfriend and expectant father - talking to the growing bump, imagining the future child and helping her make the inevitable and exciting changes to the flat. But the notion of cohabitation had become a bone of contention - for some reason he studiously avoided the issue. The flat evolved slowly to accommodate the baby, but in all the plans he never mentioned making a space for himself. Major festivals were spent together, and Alessandro had suggested that he come tonight and that they go to the Carnevale together. So Leonora answered his cousin, `He's coming here after work.'
Marta nodded. She hesitated, took a deep breath, and twitched the paper towards her again. `I didn't realize that he still saw Vittoria. I just saw them in the Do Mori on my way here.'
Leonora registered her tone before she realized what Marta was saying. She had heard that studied nonchalance once before in her life. She realized when and where and was suddenly as cold as she had been outside.
Jane. In Hampstead. The friend who told me about Stephen.
In her cold horror she grasped at the name Marta had spoken. `Vittoria?'
Marta sighed. `Vittoria Minotto. She and Sandro used to live together, then she got promoted away from Venice. But now she's back. But you know that of course.You ... met her.'
Yes; she took away my livelihood. And now Sandro too?
Marta looked bewildered. `You mean he didn't tell you?'
'No.Yes. I mean - he told me about a journalist he had been seeing, but I never thought ... I never put the two together'
Stupid, stupid.
Marta frowned. `But surely, after the article?'
Leonora shook her head. `He was away when it all happened. Doing his detective's course. I'm not sure how much he knows about it.' Her head was spinning. That woman, that sexy, vicious female, had been his? And with her he had consented to live, when she, the mother of his child, was to cope alone? Involuntarily she put a hand on her bump in what had become an accustomed gesture.
Marta took it for distress. `Are you going to be alright?'
Leonora forced a smile. She