interesting that you say that, because a lot of Venetian architecture has Eastern influences. Merchants travelled to the Byzantine Empire and traded with the Moors and they came back and combined those shapes with the European gothic architecture to create a unique style.’
She pointed to another building. ‘And what about those ones? They’re beautiful. At first it just looks like intricate shapes, but then you can see that the fussier patterns are actually made up of intersecting circles.’
He turned to look at her and didn’t say anything for a few moments. ‘You have a good eye for shapes.’
She shrugged and then bent down to help Sofia shake another crab off her line into the bucket. ‘Thank you. I like to draw sometimes. I suppose it’s just something I’ve picked up.’
Max took the line from his niece for a moment and worked out a few tangles before giving it back to her. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing when I’ve seen you scribbling away in that notebook of yours?’
She nodded. She hadn’t realised he’d noticed. ‘It’s just a hobby. Nothing impressive, really.’
‘You haven’t thought of making a career out of it?’ He gave her a dry smile. ‘Seeing as you’ve tried everything else?’
‘Ha, ha. Very funny. Go for the easy target, why not?’ Everyone else did.
‘Seriously, if you love it so much, why don’t you do something with it?’
She tipped her head to one side. ‘You mean, like you did?’
‘I suppose so.’
She looked down at the water below them, at the way the light bounced off the surface, moving constantly. ‘I don’t think I’d be able to do what you do. It’s very structured and disciplined. When I draw, I just go with the flow. I see something that interests me and I capture it. I’m not sure you can make a career out of that.’
‘You have plenty of discipline,’ he said. ‘Look at the way you are with Sofia. And sometimes you need that creative spark to liven all that structure up.’ He let out a long sigh and stared at the buildings across the water.
‘More fish! More fish!’ Sofia shouted, jumping up and down so hard she almost toppled into the canal. Ruby kept a firm hand on her as she shook the most recent catch into the bucket to join his friends. Sofia did it so vigorously that Ruby was sure the poor thing must have a concussion.
When Sofia was happily dangling the line in the canal again, Ruby looked at Max. ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘Was it something I said?’
He sighed again and crouched down to look at where Sofia was pointing at some silvery fish swimming near the surface of the water. ‘No. It’s something I said.’
She waited for him to stand again.
‘It’s a commission for the Institute of Fine Art,’ he told her. ‘I’ve worked for months on a preliminary design that I’m really proud of, but the board say they’re not sure about it.’
Ruby shook her head. She couldn’t believe that. The designs she’d glimpsed were amazing. They were totally Max, of course. No frills. No fuss. Nothing ostentatious. But there was an elegance to the simplicity. A pared-back beauty. ‘Why on earth not?’
He shrugged. ‘I think the actual phrase they used is that they want more “wow factor”.’
A screech from around knee level interrupted their conversation. Ruby hadn’t noticed it while she’d been talking to Max, but the bucket was now almost full and the crabs were scrambling over each other in an attempt to climb out.
Max knelt down next to his niece. ‘It’s time to put them back now,’ he said matter of factly and tipped the bucket over to let a stream of crustaceans, legs flailing, fall back into the salty lagoon water.
‘No!’ The exclamation was loud and impassioned and followed immediately by a stream of hot tears. ‘Want friend! Want friend!’
Ruby grabbed for the bucket and righted it. Only three crabs remained in the bottom.
Sofia stopped shouting and sniffed. ‘Want take fish home.’
Ruby crouched down beside her, put an arm round her shoulders and joined her in looking into the bucket. She might be wrong, but she thought one of the three crabs left might be the little one they’d caught first. ‘We can’t take them back to Grandma’s, sweetie. They belong here in the water. It’s their home. We just picked them out to say hello for a little bit.’
Sofia let out a juddering sigh.
‘Why don’t we put the last ones back one by one and say a nice goodbye to them?’
Sofia frowned. ‘Come back ʼmorrow say hello?’
Ruby smiled. ‘If you want.’
The little girl nodded. Ruby looked inside the bucket and then up at Max. ‘How do we...?’
Quick as anything his hand plunged into the bucket and he pulled out a crab. ‘There’s a trick to it. If you hold them at the back of the shell like this, they can’t reach to pinch you.’
He held the crab up for Sofia to see. She puckered up her lips. ‘Kiss fish?’ she asked.
Ruby’s heart just about melted.
‘Not too close,’ she said softly, imagining what Fina would say if her precious granddaughter came home with pincer holes in her lips. ‘Just blow a kiss.’
Sofia blinked then puffed heartily on the crab, who was so shocked it stopped waving its legs around angrily and went still. A deep rumble started in Max’s chest then worked its way up out of his mouth in the most infectious of chuckles. Ruby looked up at him, eyes laughing.
‘That’s a first,’ he said, smiling, and then he gently plopped the crab back into the canal.
They followed the same routine with the next crab, too, but when they came to the last one, Ruby asked, ‘Can I pick it up?’
Max nodded. He put the bucket down on the cobbles and took hold of Sofia while Ruby took off her watch and stuffed it in her jeans pocket. She inhaled, then dipped her hand into the cold water and aimed her forefinger and thumb for the parts of the shell the way she’d seen Max do it. It wriggled away a couple of times, but then she gripped more firmly and lifted the crab out of the water.
‘I did it!’ she exclaimed. ‘For a moment there I didn’t think I was— Ow!’
A searing pain shot through her finger, making her eyes water. She blinked the moisture away, slightly breathless, to find an angry little crab attached to her hand. She was sure it was scowling at her.
‘Ow, ow, ow...’ she yelped and started shaking her hand backwards and forwards. Anything to make it let go!
Eventually the force of the swinging must have got the crab, either that or it lost its grip on her wet hands, because it shot off, landed on the paving stones a couple of feet away then scuttled to the edge and flung itself into the canal.
‘Ow,’
