She laughed when Maya hugged her again and said emotionally, ‘Oh, Natalia, I am so glad that you are willing to do this for us.’
As she returned Maya’s grateful hug, Natalia acknowledged that she had been hoping to have a bit of time for herself, because there was one place in particular that she really wanted to go.
The late afternoon autumn mist stealing from the canals and swirling round the squares and streets created an atmosphere within the city that for her, whilst concealing it in the material sense, revealed it very sharply in an emotional sense. With the mist came a sombreness and a melancholy that she felt somehow truly reflected the deep hidden heart of the city, stripping from it the carnival mask it wore so easily for those it did not want to know its secrets. Natalia, though, had been coming here for many years, drawn back to it time after time, and there was no hesitation in her long-legged stride as she made her way to the vaporetto stop from which the water taxi would take her to the small glass-making factory she had discovered years ago on her first visit here. She had been awed and entranced then by the beauty of the perfume bottles she had watched being blown, and on each return trip she had revisited it, choosing for herself a bottle that reflected in its unique colours something of her mood of that visit. What would catch her eye on this visit? she wondered. It was part of the game not to anticipate what she would choose, but simply to let it happen.
As she crossed the square she had seen earlier she realised that she was following in the footsteps of the man she had watched from the water taxi. Now what had brought him into her thoughts? Not some ridiculous idea that she might see him again? After the dismissive look he had given her? When she was almost on the eve of getting married? Fantasizing about tall, handsome men glimpsed in the street hadn’t been a folly she had indulged in even when she was a teenager. Why was she doing it now?
That was Venice for you, Natalia told herself ruefully. It played tricks on the imagination and the eye, and in more ways than one.
‘Signorina, it is you. Ah, you grow more lovely with every visit.’
Old Mario, the head of the family, gave her a gummy smile as he welcomed her.
‘And you grow more silver-tongued, Mario.’ She laughed, already looking past him towards the inner sanctum where they kept their special one-off creations, like a small child anticipating Christmas, and salivating almost at the prospect of being allowed to choose just what she wanted.
Mario was turning away from her and she made to follow him, but his son stopped her.
‘Please, we have something special for you this time. My father has made it himself. He said that he had this thought of you and that he felt he must do this thing…’
Natalia tried not to look as disappointed as she was feeling. She was strong-minded and independent enough to want to choose her own perfume bottle, but sensitively she didn’t want to offend the old man.
He had disappeared into the back room and it seemed an age before he returned, carrying a battered cardboard box from which she could see tissue paper sticking out.
‘Here,’ he told her, proffering her the box.
Forcing a wide smile, Natalia took it, carefully unwrapping the tissue paper until she had revealed the small perfume bottle that lay within it. At first all she could see was every colour of the rainbow spliced with silver and gold and every nuance of beautiful colour and shade the human eye could imagine. It defeated her ability to rationalise what colour it actually was.
‘Hold it in your hand,’ the old man urged her.
A little hesitantly Natalia removed the bottle, and held it.
‘Now look,’ the shop owner commanded.
Natalia gasped as she stared at the bottle. It seemed to shimmer and glow as though it were still molten and not solid; as though it had a life force of its own that pulsated within it and, absurdly, she felt afraid to touch it, in case she harmed it.
‘What…what is it?’ she asked in an awed whisper.
‘It is diamond glass, a very special and old recipe—we don’t use it any more because it is not easily possible to come by the ingredients, and they have to be ground down and heated in such a way that makes it dangerous to the creator and the creation. Legend has it that only the Doge was allowed to own glassware made from this recipe, which was stolen from one of the great Caliphs of the East,’ the younger boy explained wryly to her.
‘It’s so beautiful…’
‘It is unique—possibly the last of its kind ever to be made and my father has made it for you. It is said that when the pure of heart hold the bottle it glows as it did just then for you, but when those who are motivated by darkness and evil touch the glass it grows dull and cold so that its colour vanishes.’ He laughed. ‘As yet we have not been able to confirm whether or not that is true, although my father swears that it is.’
The older man said something huskily in Venetian, which his son translated for Natalia even though she was able to do so herself.
‘My father says that whenever you touch this bottle you will be reminded of the purity of your heart and the true beauty that comes from within. May it lift your spirits and warm your heart throughout your life.’
Tears filled Natalia’s eyes. Increasingly she was beginning to worry that she might need raw warmth from outside her marriage to sustain her through it, and yet again she questioned whether she had made the right decision.
It was later than she had planned when Natalia finally left the factory and as she glanced at her watch she recognised that she was only just going to make it back to the spa hotel in time to join Maya and Howard for the pre-dinner drink they had offered her.
However, the minute she stepped into their private suite she realised that they had more to worry about than her being late for drinks. Maya was seated on one of the large room’s three plain cream leather sofas, her right hand heavily bandaged and her arm in a sling.
‘She slipped and dropped a glass bowl and then cut her hand on it,’ Howard explained.
‘And now we are in the most dreadful fix.’ Maya sighed miserably. ‘We had a phone call earlier, before I fell, from an unexpected client who is in between flights and who wanted to book in for the night. He plays polo and has an old injury that occasionally flares up. He requested the massage you showed me, Natalia, you know the one? The deep muscle massage you devised for sports injuries?’
Natalia nodded her head. The massage in question was one of her spa’s specialities.
‘When he was here last month I recommended it to him,’ Maya continued, ‘and he said it was most beneficial. Apparently these days he spends more time behind a desk than he does on the polo field and so this old injury occasionally flares up. Naturally I took the booking, and now he is expecting his massage in half an hour’s time. He has taken our best suite, so he is not someone we would want to offend. Now I can’t do the massage, and Gina, the only other masseuse we have who could do it, is on holiday. I can’t tell you how cross with myself I am for doing something so stupid as dropping that wretched bowl.’
Natalia sympathised with her. She could tell that Maya was like her in that she set herself very exacting standards and she knew just how she would be feeling in her shoes. ‘Couldn’t I do the massage for you?’ she offered impulsively.
‘Would you?’ Immediately Maya was all relieved and grateful smiles. ‘We were hoping you might offer,’ she admitted honestly, adding, only half jokingly, ‘Natalia, are you sure you would not like a partnership with us? Only you would be the most wonderful asset to the business.’
Don’t tempt me, was Natalia’s immediate private reaction as she smiled and shook her head. The explanation she had given the other couple for her decision to sell the spa had been her wish to focus on developing her skills as a perfumier. Another lie, but a