Seeking Crystal (5 page)

‘Can’t!’ I whipped my hand away and clamped it over my mouth, eyes brimming with angry tears. I knew better. I couldn’t do those mind tricks others found so easy. I was a complete failure as a Savant and there was no point even going on thinking of myself as one.

‘Just take deep breaths. It’ll pass.’ Xav’s tone was anything but mocking. He was no longer touching me, but his voice was soothing, helping me breathe through the crisis.

We sat in silence for a few minutes until I had pulled myself back together.

‘I’m OK.’ I blinked back the tears, my insides still shaking. ‘Now do you believe me?’

‘I never thought you were lying. I just … Look, Crystal, you know my gift?’

I nodded.

‘It helps me see things. I sensed something was wrong in there but I can’t tell more unless I look deeper.’ He gestured to my head.

That got me fumbling for the door release. ‘’S OK, Xav. I haven’t got time for that now.’

He sprang out of his side and was holding the door open for me before I’d even untangled my handbag from the seatbelt. ‘I don’t mean to upset you but you need to do something about it. See a doctor back home, one who knows Savants, if you don’t want me to touch you.’ He was a bit angry but I couldn’t help the fact that I just didn’t want anyone messing with me.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that. See doctor. Thanks.’ I extended the handle of my suitcase and started trundling it across the tarmac.

‘Goodbye, Crystal.’

I glanced back; he was leaning against his car watching me with the strangest look on his face. Xav, serious—no, that just did not seem right. I was really scared now.

‘Bye. Thanks for the lift.’

‘No problem. Take care.’

I ran for the terminal, wishing my suitcase didn’t make such a racket as it bounced along behind me. I’m not sure why I felt so panicked. I think I was fleeing from the fear that he had found out that I was not even one of them. I had always believed I was some aberration, an offshoot from a true Savant. Was the truth written in my brain somehow?

As I queued to drop my bag, he sent me a text.

Hey, Lion, Let me know how it goes with the doctor. Androcles

That was the second time he’d mentioned that character. I quickly googled the name and read the legend of the Roman slave who removes the thorn from the foot of a wounded lion. I now knew what my reply should be.

Grrr.

Rio d’Incurabili, Dorsoduro, Venice

I let myself in to the courtyard through the canalside gate and dumped my shopping bags on the little mosaic garden table.

‘Hey, gorgeous.’ I knelt down to give Nonna’s old cat, Barozzi, a scratch under the chin. This lazy marmalade general of the feline world had taken the plinth under the tabletop as his command post, the spot from where he hissed challenges to Signora Carriera’s beagle and gazed disdainfully at the birds who had long since rumbled to the fact that he was too bone-idle to chase them. I could hear Rocco barking inside the downstairs apartment. The signora had sent me home early (by which she meant when it was still daylight) to walk him for her. I got out my keys. ‘Ten second warning, Barozzi: Rocco is about to be unleashed.’

Barozzi closed his eyes. He was right not to be impressed: Rocco’s idea of being a fierce dog was to let out a barrage of hysterical barking. Any hint of opposition from the cat and he fled to my skirts. Dogs are small in Venice due to lack of living space but the cats grow large as it is a paradise of many mice and no cars: the natural order reversed.

Opening the heavy locks of our neighbour’s front door, I let the beagle free to do a preliminary sniff round the garden while I mounted the external staircase to our second floor flat. Venice gets newer the higher you go: Signora Carriera’s apartment was late medieval, heavy timber beams and gloomy rooms. Ours had been added later and was only a few hundred years old, the ceilings high with plenty of light. As I put the groceries on the kitchen counter I could look out across the little courtyard with its strings of washing, tiny patio, and masses of potted plants to the high wall and then to the Canale della Guidecca, the broad stretch of water that separated Venice proper from its satellite islands. The sun was sinking over the cranes and roofs of the Guidecca suburb opposite, nearly horizontal shafts staining the pale walls of the kitchen apricot and reminding me that I didn’t have long if I wanted to walk Rocco in the light.

Changing into a pair of black running shorts and white T, I shuffled off my smart work shoes and swapped them for trainers. Xav’s warning about seeing a doctor a few weeks ago had made me more conscious about my fitness and I had taken up running. Much to my own surprise, I was even enjoying it. It had given me the excuse not to see any medical person. Without Diamond to bully me into going, I would never enter a clinic on my own. As the running proved, I felt fine, so that meant I was fine. And I was fortunate I lived on one of the few stretches of Venetian streets where it was possible to jog in a straight line. The broad pavement called the Zattere that went along the edge of the Canale made a decent track and was not too crowded with tourists.

I bunched my hair in a scrunchie and then did a few preliminary stretches, trying to ignore the emptiness of the flat. I had never lived alone until I returned from Denver. I had always had other girls or teachers around me at school, and then I had shared with Diamond. I kept feeling as if I was only playing at being grown-up and running my own life, but then I caught myself paying the phone bill and stocking the fridge, all things that seemed the preserve of adults. I had slipped over to join their number while inside I still felt like a teenager. I couldn’t even go into a decent snit when fed up with my boss, as there was no one to flinch when I slammed a door or swore a blue streak. I’d taken to talking to the animals. At least I didn’t expect them to reply. I might be heading for eccentric but I wasn’t insane.

‘C’mon, Rocco. Let’s go!’ I bounded down the steps, heart lightened by seeing the beagle’s uncomplicated enthusiasm, his toffee-coloured ears flapping and his white muzzle perky. We ran anticlockwise round the tip of the Dorsoduro, heading for the landmark of the bell tower in the Piazza San Marco. It rose above the roofs like a square rocket on a very fancy launch pad. Think of the centre of Venice as a bit like the Yin and Yang sign. The famous square of San Marco and the Doge’s Pink Palace are in the fat bit of the black Yang side; where I live is right on the pointy end of the white in. The curve in the middle is the Grand Canal dividing the two. There are three evenly spaced bridges linking the sides, including the celebrated Rialto in the middle. If you know your way (and it is a given that strangers will get lost in our maze of streets even with a map), then you can walk between most of the famous places in about twenty minutes or jump on a vaporetto, or waterbus, and be there in ten.

It didn’t take me long to reach the end of the Zattere. I sat on the steps of the church of Santa Maria della Salute and gave Rocco a cuddle. Across from me, the top of San Marco’s campanile was gilded by the sunset. The tourists up there must be getting one great show as evening fell across the lagoon. I wondered if anyone had their binoculars fixed on me. I waved—just in case.

Perhaps I should rethink that whole ‘I’m not going mad’ thing?

Even living here, it is hard to see Venice with fresh eyes. It has been described so many times by writers, artists, and filmmakers that it is like a beautiful handcrafted yacht afloat on the Adriatic lagoon, which’s become covered in a suffocating accretion of barnacles. Occasionally you need to hoist it out of the water and scrape it back to the bare planks or it will keel over with the weight. Perhaps I projected on it my own unstable grasp on the world because to me the fundamental truth of the place—my bare planks—was that Venice was experienced as a city on the brink of destruction, probably not seeing out the century when sea levels rise with global warming—a last-chance-to-see civilization. With that destiny on the not so far horizon, life here was all the sweeter: sunny squares, whistling parrots in upper storey windows, narrow winding streets, secret corners; groups of workers, artists, students who bind the city together like links in a chain; tides of tourists ebbing and flowing each day. It is an inconvenient place to live—expensive and isolated—so we all have chosen to be here for some particular reason. Mine was family ties, happy memories of Nonna, but also a wish to live in a unique place, somewhere that could feed my imagination. Diamond felt so too, not that we ever put our feelings into words for each other. We just both loved it—not an emotion I had for any other city I had lived in.

A private speedboat drew up at the Salute mooring, white wake turning pink in the sunset. I watched as a little lady dressed all in black was helped ashore by her burly pilot in a smart navy-blue uniform. I recognized her, of course; anyone who had lived in Venice a few years knew her. Contessa Nicoletta owned one of the little islands near the Lido, the long, thin barrier between Venice and the Adriatic. The lagoon was speckled with such enclaves, some former isolation hospitals, others monastic communities. The one the lady lived on was not far from here, close to Elton John’s house and the exclusive hotel where all the stars stayed for the film festival in September. It was said to be a little jewel, perfectly positioned to come across to the city but giving her total privacy in her grand house. Only very ancient Italian families or rock stars owned such real estate. You could just glimpse the roof and surrounding trees from the Salute steps; it remained a delicious mystery and had become in my mind as alluring as the walled garden had been to Mary Lennox in
The Secret Garden
. The old lady knew me too—or at least she was friendly with Diamond and so may have registered my existence—because Contessa Nicoletta was also a Savant.

Leaning heavily on her pilot’s arm, the old lady tottered towards the church with the others attending mass. Rocco started barking, drawing her attention my way. I got up (you did not sit when Italian nobility deigned to greet you).

First the contessa patted Rocco, and then she turned to me. ‘Crystal Brook, yes? How are you, dear?’ she asked me in Italian. The pilot paused to allow her to talk to me, his mirror sunglasses obscuring his expression. I imagined he had to be a patient person to put up with the contessa’s frequent stops. She had so many acquaintances in this city. He had cultivated a perfectly blank face for such moments.

‘I’m well, thank you. I’ve started work for Signora Carriera.’

‘Ah, yes, I heard she had got a big order for that film company. How exciting for you both!’

So far the excitement had been very muted by the sheer amount of work involved in making the costumes. I’d not seen so much as a flicker of Hollywood stardust. ‘And how are you, Contessa Nicoletta?’

‘
Sempre in gamba
.’ A funny phrase, which translates roughly as ‘still on my pins’. Her hawklike features wrinkled in a smile, her faded blue eyes twinkling. She had features that reminded me of an old Maria Callas, the opera diva: strong nose, still dark eyebrows, bearing of a queen even if a little stooped. ‘And what news of your lovely sister? I thought she would be back from America by now.’

‘No, she stayed on. Did you hear what happened? She found her soulfinder.’

‘Oh heavens!’ The contessa clapped her hands together, swaying dangerously. I was glad the pilot still had a firm hand on her arm. ‘Oh, oh, I am so delighted for her. Who is the lucky man?’

‘His name is Trace Benedict—one of a family of Savants who live in Colorado. Apparently they’re quite well known in law enforcement circles. Have you heard of them?’

The old lady’s expression froze for a second as her faulty memory searched for the entry in her brain. Then her face cleared. ‘Ah yes, I’ve heard of them. How … interesting. I’m not sure they are good enough for Diamond—I’m not sure anyone is.’

‘I know what you mean, but I think he’s an excellent match for her.’

The bells started ringing for mass. The contessa squeezed the pilot’s arm to signal she was ready to enter the church. ‘Do send her my best, Crystal. I’ll see you, I expect, when I call for my costumes for the Carnival.’ Her parties for the pre-Lent celebration were famous and attracted high society figures from all over the world. ‘That is if Signora Carriera can fit me in this year.’

I smiled and reassured her. No one would be so stupid as to snub her custom, even when a film crew was in the city. Directors came and went; Contessa Nicoletta was for ever.