strange things, happened.
I felt it before I saw it, I tell you, it was eerie beyond belief. In one second flat the temperature plummeted; where I had just been feeling the morning sun warming my shoulders, an icy blast brought me out in goose bumps. I looked out to the Grand Canal, only seconds ago a riot of colour; now, nothing. There was nothing. A mist, a great grey wet suffocating mist had rolled in from I-don’t-know-where and sucked up every hue on the Venetian palette. It was spectacular. Even the voices of the marketeers seemed suddenly muffled. I looked around, mildly spooked, but nobody else was taking the slightest bit of notice so I stopped lingering over the zucchini blossoms and started to move towards the fish stalls, closer still to the water and its consuming white-grey blanket.
Unlike my local Citarella, however, at the Rialto markets the fish were gutted on site so the cobbles beneath my feet ran thick with a raw gizzard stew that no self-respecting suede would be seen dead in. Unfortunately I missed this detail until a particularly loud squelch drew not only my attention but also the attention of everyone in the immediate vicinity. I had stepped on some kind of discarded seafood cyst, by the looks of things, which had exploded underneath my shoe and sprayed the feet of those around me with a foul-smelling bile that was enough to make you bring up your morning cappuccino. Now, much as I liked a market, I liked shoes, especially my ones, so I was pretty unimpressed — as were those around me. Everyone was inspecting their footwear, shaking a leg, stomping a heel, throwing me dirty looks, which in the muted mistiness was all a bit Cirque du Soleil for my liking. Anyway I myself had borne the brunt of the disaster. Balancing myself with one outstretched arm against an ancient market pillar at the canal’s edge, I bent my knee and gingerly lifted one foot up in front of me to inspect the damage. My shoe was dripping with goop. It was gross.
At that moment, as quickly as it had dropped, the mist lifted. Instantly I felt the heat on my chest. I lifted my head and there in the water, right in my line of vision, standing up, his oar keeping him steady, was my gondolier. He was looking straight at me as if he’dknown I would be there and when he caught my eye he just smiled.
The spirit of Jackie Collins claimed my loins once again.
My foot squelched back on the ground, red and yellow ooze coating the pretty pink suede. My arms hung limply at my side but at least this time my mouth was shut and I bit my bottom lip to ensure it stayed that way. I hadn’t really noticed last time but I saw now he was not wearing traditional gondolier garb, no white sailor top, no be-ribboned straw hat, but rather a black T-shirt that gripped his body, black trousers that rode low on his hips. He had dark hair cut short, spiky on top, and he was taller even than I had thought with big broad shoulders. His face was ridiculously handsome, not too square, not too long, just the right shade of nutty brown. He was in his mid-20s I guessed and as near perfect a specimen as a girl could ever hope to clap eyes on.
He was also sliding away from me, his body still turned in my direction but his gondola about to disappear into the shadows of the bridge’s arches. I felt the sort of sorrow you wake up with when you’ve had to leave an exceptionally good dream. Then the air between us emptied itself of sound.
‘I’m not going to let you go,’ I heard him say in perfect English. It seemed so loud, so close, so real, that I had no doubt in my mind he had actually said it. He turned, slipped into the blackness of the Rialto’s shadows and was gone.
I blew out a lungful of air. I felt dizzy: I was sure I had been holding my breath since the mist rose. The sky was back to being dazzling blue; I felt the heat of the morning sun on my face. The fish gut on my shoe was already beginning to dry and crackle.
What had just happened? The
I felt it before I saw it, I tell you, it was eerie beyond belief. In one second flat the temperature plummeted; where I had just been feeling the morning sun warming my shoulders, an icy blast brought me out in goose bumps. I looked out to the Grand Canal, only seconds ago a riot of colour; now, nothing. There was nothing. A mist, a great grey wet suffocating mist had rolled in from I-don’t-know-where and sucked up every hue on the Venetian palette. It was spectacular. Even the voices of the marketeers seemed suddenly muffled. I looked around, mildly spooked, but nobody else was taking the slightest bit of notice so I stopped lingering over the zucchini blossoms and started to move towards the fish stalls, closer still to the water and its consuming white-grey blanket.
Unlike my local Citarella, however, at the Rialto markets the fish were gutted on site so the cobbles beneath my feet ran thick with a raw gizzard stew that no self-respecting suede would be seen dead in. Unfortunately I missed this detail until a particularly loud squelch drew not only my attention but also the attention of everyone in the immediate vicinity. I had stepped on some kind of discarded seafood cyst, by the looks of things, which had exploded underneath my shoe and sprayed the feet of those around me with a foul-smelling bile that was enough to make you bring up your morning cappuccino. Now, much as I liked a market, I liked shoes, especially my ones, so I was pretty unimpressed — as were those around me. Everyone was inspecting their footwear, shaking a leg, stomping a heel, throwing me dirty looks, which in the muted mistiness was all a bit Cirque du Soleil for my liking. Anyway I myself had borne the brunt of the disaster. Balancing myself with one outstretched arm against an ancient market pillar at the canal’s edge, I bent my knee and gingerly lifted one foot up in front of me to inspect the damage. My shoe was dripping with goop. It was gross.
At that moment, as quickly as it had dropped, the mist lifted. Instantly I felt the heat on my chest. I lifted my head and there in the water, right in my line of vision, standing up, his oar keeping him steady, was my gondolier. He was looking straight at me as if he’dknown I would be there and when he caught my eye he just smiled.
The spirit of Jackie Collins claimed my loins once again.
My foot squelched back on the ground, red and yellow ooze coating the pretty pink suede. My arms hung limply at my side but at least this time my mouth was shut and I bit my bottom lip to ensure it stayed that way. I hadn’t really noticed last time but I saw now he was not wearing traditional gondolier garb, no white sailor top, no be-ribboned straw hat, but rather a black T-shirt that gripped his body, black trousers that rode low on his hips. He had dark hair cut short, spiky on top, and he was taller even than I had thought with big broad shoulders. His face was ridiculously handsome, not too square, not too long, just the right shade of nutty brown. He was in his mid-20s I guessed and as near perfect a specimen as a girl could ever hope to clap eyes on.
He was also sliding away from me, his body still turned in my direction but his gondola about to disappear into the shadows of the bridge’s arches. I felt the sort of sorrow you wake up with when you’ve had to leave an exceptionally good dream. Then the air between us emptied itself of sound.
‘I’m not going to let you go,’ I heard him say in perfect English. It seemed so loud, so close, so real, that I had no doubt in my mind he had actually said it. He turned, slipped into the blackness of the Rialto’s shadows and was gone.
I blew out a lungful of air. I felt dizzy: I was sure I had been holding my breath since the mist rose. The sky was back to being dazzling blue; I felt the heat of the morning sun on my face. The fish gut on my shoe was already beginning to dry and crackle.
What had just happened? The
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