‘Ah.’ He placed the watch back on the velvet tray, fiddled with the end of his pen.
Natalie made to pick up her bag.
Eraldo cleared his throat. ‘If you have no particular plans tonight, Natalie, perhaps you might allow me to introduce you to a rather charmingbacaro. They serve the finestcicchettiin Venice, at least in my opinion. And the wine, too, is very good.’
Natalie felt Cate’s eyes boring into her. ‘Yes, thank you, that would be lovely.’
‘I look forward to it. I hope it will make up just a little for missing the opera.’
‘I’m sure it will.’
‘Thank you, Eraldo. I do look forward to receiving your ideas.’ Cate hitched her bag on her shoulder and stood up.
Natalie followed her down the spiral staircase, keeping her eyes firmly on Cate’s back as they made their way out through Pietro’s shop.
Natalie waited until they’d crossed the mini bridge to the perfumery. ‘That wasn’t very subtle.’
‘No, the blue was a bit bright, but a pearl grey would be perfect.’
‘I wasn’t referring to that watch and you know it.’
‘Don’t get cross with me.’ Cate pulled a comically sad face Natalie recognised from long ago.
‘I suppose I should be thanking you.’
‘No problem.’ Cate flipped her hair over one shoulder. ‘That’s what friends are for.’
‘Hmm,’ Natalie said. ‘I expect you’ll want to get back to the palazzo now, have a chance to relax before your husband arrives.’
Cate gasped. ‘I was so caught up with planning his present, I quite forgot to check his plane did take off on time.’
‘Hold on a moment, Cate.’ Natalie could feel her phone vibrating. ‘It’s Lucia calling… Hi, Lucia, what is it? Slow down!’
Natalie could hardly believe what Lucia was saying. She took a deep breath. She had to channel that inner Mandy Miller; she couldn’t let herself panic. ‘No, no, don’t worry, we’ll work around it somehow. We’ll pick up again tomorrow.Ciao, ciao!’
‘What is it? You look so worried.’
‘It’s Phil. I hate to break this to you, Cate, but he won’t be arriving in Venice tonight.’
Cate grabbed her phone from her bag. ‘I’ve got a missed call. I can’t believe it! How could he do this to me?’ She sounded so angry, a woman peering in the perfumery’s window picked up her little boy and gave him a comforting cuddle.
‘What do you mean?’ Natalie couldn’t believe Cate was losing her cool like this. ‘Phil can’t help it, it’s?—’
‘Work, I suppose he says,’ Cate cut in. ‘Oh, I am a fool; maybe Lucywasright.’
‘Who’s Lucy? You’re not making any sense.’
‘The wife of Phil’s best friend. She tried to warn me but I wouldn’t believe her. But now he’s left me here alone, humiliated me like this.’ She yanked at her hair.
‘Cate!’ Natalie gently held her wrists. ‘I don’t know what you think is going on but Phil couldn’t board the plane. Nobody could. There won’t be any planes leaving London tonight nor from Paris, Frankfurt or Rome. It’s environmental protestors, hundreds of them all over Europe; they’ve chained themselves to the control towers and glued themselves to the runways.’
Cate clapped her hands to her face. ‘Oh, I’m so relieved!’ She laughed. ‘To think for a moment I believed that gossipy Lucy! Oh, it was awful; she told me she thought Phil was having an affair. I knew he wasn’t the type but when he didn’t get on the flight out with me, acting all weird and when you said he wasn’t on the plane… oh, I just couldn’t bear it if she’d turned out to be right.’
‘I’m so glad it’s nothing like that.’ Not just for Cate’s sake: Floella would go spare if she thought one of her perfect couples was on the verge of divorce.
‘Is Phil not getting here going to make things really difficult?’ Cate asked.
‘A little but we’ll do tomorrow’s filming on the Rialto Bridge as planned even though there aren’t two of you. Then I guess we’ll keep the afternoon free, get Lucia to sweet-talk the crew into doing a few extra hours on the days after Phil arrives. Everything will work out.’
