The galleries set around the stairwell swiftly fill with noise and people. Everyone seems to know Giovanna and she’s soon surrounded by an excitable clique, exchanging observations in rapid-fire Italian. Fluttering her fingers in a vague, see-you-in-a-minute gesture, Eve drifts away. Taking a third glass of champagne, she winds purposefully through the crowd, smile in place, as if she’s just caught sight of an acquaintance. She’s always felt like an outsider at parties, torn between the desire to be swept along on a tide of conversation and laughter, and to be left alone. The essential thing, she’s found, is to keep moving. To stand still, even for a moment, is to present a vulnerable profile. To announce yourself a target for every cruising shark.
Adopting a connoisseurial attitude, she examines the art on the panelled walls. Allegorical scenes from Greek mythology hang next to vast contemporary paintings of skulls; eighteenth-century Venetian aristocrats cast a jaundiced eye over explicit life-size photographs of a couple having sex. Eve supposes she should know the names of the artists in question, but isn’t quite interested enough to find out. What strikes her forcibly is the sheer, bludgeoning force of the wealth on display. These art objects are not here because they are beautiful, or even thought-provoking, but because they cost millions of euros. They’re currency, pure and simple.
Moving on, she finds herself in front of a gilded porcelain sculpture, again life-size, of the late Michael Jackson fondling a monkey. One push, Eve muses. One good, strong shove. She imagines the crash, the gasps, the shocked silence.
‘La condizione umana,’says a voice beside her.
She glances at him. Registers dark hair and aquiline features. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘You’re English. You don’t look English.’
‘Really? In what way?’
‘Your clothes, your hair, your sprezzatura.’
‘My what?’
‘Your . . . attitude.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Turning to face him she meets amused brown eyes. Notes the broken nose and the sensual, deeply incised mouth. ‘You, on the other hand, could be nothing but Italian.’
He grins. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. My name is Claudio.’
‘And I’m Eve. You were saying?’
‘I was saying that this sculpture represents the human condition.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Of course seriously. Look at it. What do you see?’
‘A pop singer and a monkey. A giant version of the china ornaments my grandmother used to buy.’
‘OK, Eve, now I believe you’re English. You want to know what I see?’
‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
‘Dio mio. You look at me with those beautiful eyes and you bust my balls.’
‘The same pretty eyes. The same sad smile . . .’
‘I apologise,’ he says. ‘I’ve offended you.’
‘No, not at all.’ She touches his shirt sleeve, feels his arm warm beneath. ‘Truly. I just . . . thought of someone.’
‘Someone special?’
‘In a sense, yes. But go on. Tell me what you see.’
‘Well, I see a man so lonely, so detached from his fellow humans, that his only companion is this monkey, Bubbles. And eventually, even Bubbles moves on. He can’t live in this fantasy.’
‘I see.’ Eve lifts her champagne flute to her mouth but it’s empty. She realises that she is quite drunk, and that this doesn’t matter. Perhaps it’s even a good thing.
‘This sculpture is Michael Jackson’s dream. A golden forever. But it takes us back to the reality of his life, which is grotesque and sad.’
They stand there for a moment in silence.
‘Perhaps your grandmother was right, with her china ornaments. Perhaps she understood that the things we really long for, we cannot buy.’
A wave of melancholy sweeps over Eve, she teeters dizzily on her heels, and a single tear runs down her nose. ‘Now you’ve made me cry,’ she says. ‘Really, you’re impossible.’
‘And your glass is empty.’
‘It should probably stay that way.’
‘As you wish. Come and see the view from the balcony.’ He takes her hand, which makes Eve’s heart lurch, and leads her through the gallery to a marble-floored expanse hung with baroque mirrors. A projection screen is mounted on one wall, showing, on repeat, a video prequel to the Umberto Zeni installation, in which Shane Rafique and Jasmin Vane-Partington are shown running from a bank vault, laden with stolen jewellery, leaping into the white Alfa Romeo, and roaring away.
Like Giovanna, Claudio seems to know everyone, so their progress is stately, with much waving and greeting and air-kissing. An animated group is gathered round Umberto Zeni, who is explaining, in English this time, that dying in an automobile crash is the contemporary equivalent of Catholic martyrdom. As if to illustrate his point, a waiter is offering round a tray of petits fours shaped like sacramental objects. There are frosted pink sacred hearts, spun-sugar crowns of thorns, candied angelica crucifixion nails. Most exquisite of all are the tiny marzipan hands with red jelly stigmata.
‘Divine, no?’ says Umberto.
‘Totally,’ says Eve, biting off a mouthful of marzipan fingers.
Finally they reach the balcony, which is grand and spacious, and fronted by a carved balustrade, against which several guests are already leaning, smoking. Normally Eve hates cigarette smoke but at this moment, with the night darkening the Grand Canal and Claudio’s arm around her shoulder – how did that get there? – she couldn’t care less.
‘I’m married,’ she says.
‘I would be very surprised if you weren’t. Look upwards.’
She turns, and leans back against the balustrade. Above them, weathered by age and affixed to the building’s facade, is a crest carved from stone.
‘The coat of arms of the Forlani family. Six stars on a shield, surmounted by a doge’s crown. The palace dates from 1770.’
‘That’s amazing. Do the family still live here?’
‘Yes,’ he says, turning back to face the canal. ‘We do.’
She stares at him. ‘You? You . . . own this?’
‘My father does.’
She shakes her head. ‘That must be . . . extraordinary.’
Half turning to her, he runs a finger down her cheek. ‘It is what it is.’
She looks back at him. The sculpted features, their perfection at once marred and confirmed
