Read the book: «The Affair»
THE AFFAIR
GILL PAUL
Copyright
Published by Avon,
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Copyright © Gill Paul 2013
Cover [photograph © Getty Images; Arcangel Images.
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Gill Paul asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9781847563262
Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007494118
Version: 2019-03-01
To Anne Nicholson, my lovely aunt,
who always encouraged me to write
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Enjoyed this book? Read on for the start of Gill Paul’s new novel, Another Woman’s Husband.
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
Foreword
Ischia, June 1962
The sun hadn’t yet risen but a glow was reflected in the eastern sky and the steely Mediterranean was beginning to lighten. An elderly fisherman sat on a wooden bench, struggling to knot frayed ends of a broken net. He liked the stillness of the hour before dawn. The air was uncannily quiet: no breeze, no birdsong, no hum of insects, just the regular shushing of waves.
Over a fence to his left, like a mirage, there were dozens of wooden boats from ancient times moored along a newly built jetty, to be used in a Hollywood movie. Banks of oars protruded from the sides of the vessels, and the sterns and prows curled ornately inwards. He’d heard they were to be destroyed in a mock sea battle and he shook his head at the extravagance. So much craftsmanship, all to be smashed to pieces – the world had gone mad.
He heard a murmur of voices before he saw two dark figures creeping down to the shore. There was a woman’s laugh. They wouldn’t see him where he sat with his back to a rock but he watched as she stuck a toe into the water and shrieked at the cold. Her companion said something indistinguishable; there was no doubt it was a man. They were drinking from a bottle, and when it was drained the man threw it in the water. The fisherman let slip a tutting sound and the man turned in his direction as though he had heard.
Suddenly he grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her onto the sand. It won’t be comfortable there, the fisherman thought, with small griping stones and the odd piece of sea glass. Sometimes stinging shellfish burrow under the surface; that would give her a start. Every second the air was lightening and now he could see that the man was lying on top of her. They’re not married, the fisherman guessed. Who would choose to fornicate on a jagged shore instead of the comfort of the marriage bed? The thought briefly made him sigh for the memory of his wife, who’d passed four years ago, and for the vast comfort of her body.
Now the man was humping against the woman beneath him. Did he know there was a witness? Did that excite him? The fisherman took no pleasure in watching – there was no stirring in his loins – but all the same he didn’t look away. When they finished, she stood to brush the stones from her back, and he could tell from the tone of her voice that she was laughingly complaining of small injuries. The man kissed her, and they spoke in lowered voices, but soon after he turned and walked back up the hill.
Instead of following, the woman began to stroll along the front, gazing out at the pink horizon, her shoes dangling from her hand. She crossed into the area where the fisherman’s boat was hauled up on shore, and stood there for some time just watching.
Once the tip of the sun’s brilliant-white dome had slid over the horizon and you could already feel the beginning of the day’s heat, she spun around and began to walk up the shore path directly towards the fisherman. As she got close, he saw that she was a beauty, and a familiar one.
She was startled when she noticed him, but said ‘Buongiorno’ in an American accent. She watched him, as if trying to gauge how much he had seen, and as she passed she gave him a wink.
He nodded briefly. She should put her shoes on, he thought. There were fish-hooks on the ground, easy to miss but hard to remove from the flesh. But he didn’t know how to say that in English, so instead he carried on mending his net.
Some time later, the sun glinted on an object lying in the sand where the couple had been. The fisherman walked down to investigate and saw it was a piece of jewellery made of brilliant stones. He picked it up, surprised by the weight. He’d never seen diamonds before but had no doubt that’s what they were. He considered for a minute, then slipped the object in the pocket of his oilskin trousers before going back to his net.
Chapter One
London, July 1961
‘I have a telephone call from Los Angeles. In America. Just connecting you.’
‘I think there’s some mistake …’ Diana protested – she didn’t know anyone who lived in America – but her voice was lost in a succession of clicks and buzzes as the operator pushed plugs into a switchboard.
‘I’m putting you through to Mr Wanger,’ said a cheery American voice, and Diana raised her eyebrows in surprise. He was the producer of a film about Cleopatra they had been making at Pinewood Studios the previous winter but the plug had been pulled after its star, Elizabeth Taylor, suffered a bout of near-fatal pneumonia.
Walter came on the line, his voice sounding as though he was in a cave somewhere far off. She could hear her own voice echo disconcertingly, and kept pausing for the sound to subside.
‘We need you in Rome,’ Walter said. ‘We start rolling at the end of September but come as soon as you can.’
‘You need me? Whatever for?’ She had spent one day at Pinewood giving him advice on their gaudy sets, and since she had basically told him they needed to start from scratch if they were aiming at historical accuracy, she’d never expected to hear from him again.
‘You’ve got a PhD in Cleopatra from Oxford University, you’re the British Museum’s top expert, there’s no one else who could bring such authority to the production. Frankly, without you it will only be half the movie it could be. You must come, Diana.’
‘How long would you need me for?’
‘Certainly no longer than six months,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a little less.’
She gasped. She’d been thinking it might be a week at most, but Walter explained that he wanted her on hand throughout the shooting. He was offering a salary that was almost double what she currently earned – even more than her husband Trevor earned as a university lecturer – and generous expenses as well. The studio would find her a room in a pensione and she’d be ferried around by a studio driver. Walter kept talking, mentioning all the perks she would enjoy, and the fact that there would even be a credit for her in the final movie. Diana hardly got a word in edgeways.
The possibility that she might turn down his offer didn’t seem to enter his mind and Diana didn’t voice her reservations because it all sounded so glamorous. She had never been to Rome; in fact, she had only been overseas once before on a student research trip to Egypt. If she were there while the film was being shot, she would surely get to watch the stars at work, which would be exciting. And she was flattered by Walter Wanger’s faith in her.
But looking round their little sitting room after the long-distance call ended, Diana thought again. How could she leave Trevor? She’d miss him terribly and he’d be lost without her. He was incapable of cooking a nutritious evening meal. Without her around he would probably live on toasted crumpets and cold baked beans straight from the can. He couldn’t heat a tin of soup without burning it and he had shrunk all his clothes the one and only time he tried to operate the twin-tub washing machine. She was his wife. It was her duty to look after him.
Fortunately he’d never been one of those men who thought women should give up work on marriage. He’d always applauded the fact that she had a career and encouraged her to take her job seriously; so maybe he would agree to her taking up this opportunity. Six months wasn’t so long in the great scheme of things.
Trevor got home late after a meeting of the Victorian Society, and Diana brought him a cup of tea and a plate of cold meat sandwiches for supper before telling him about the offer.
‘You’ve got to be joking!’ was his first reaction. ‘How presumptuous of him to ask a married woman to leave her husband for months on end!’
‘I know it seems a lot, darling, but there are expenses to cover trips back to London, and you could come over to Rome. We could probably spend every weekend together, either here or there. And we’d be able to save lots of money to help us get a bigger place for when …’ Her voice trailed off.
They’d been trying for a baby ever since she finished her PhD but with no success to date. ‘Maybe we’re doing it wrong,’ Trevor had quipped to hide his disappointment when her last period started. ‘We obviously need more practice.’ She’d felt guilty, as if it were her fault she wasn’t falling pregnant. She’d read in a magazine that it was almost always something wrong with the woman.
‘Neither of us is getting any younger,’ Trevor reminded her now. ‘I don’t want to be too old and arthritic to teach my son to ride a bicycle. And your eggs might go rotten if they’re left too long.’
‘I don’t think six months will make much difference,’ she argued, but she knew it concerned him because he was eighteen years older than her and already well into his forties.
‘Your head will be turned. Walter Wanker will ask you to advise on his next film and the one after that and before you know it you’ll be swanning all over the world without ever needing to use your brain. Did you know he made Invasion of the Bodysnatchers? I’m beginning to feel that’s what has happened to you. Aliens have come and replaced you with a substitute Diana who is a completely different person from the woman I married.’ He smiled and rubbed her knee, trying to turn it into a joke, but she could tell he was upset.
‘I’m still me,’ she said, reaching out to hold his hand. ‘I’m still your wife. I suppose I’ve just been feeling that I want a bit of excitement before I settle down to motherhood. I’ll be tied to the home for twenty years or more once I’m bringing up our brood, and advising on the film would be a little adventure I could have first: something exciting to tell our children and grandchildren about one day.’
A hurt look clouded his eyes. ‘So our life isn’t exciting? What about all those thrilling departmental sherry evenings?’
She smiled at the sarcasm. ‘I like our life, really I do. I even like the sherry evenings – but sometimes I feel trapped.’ He took a sharp intake of breath so she continued quickly. ‘It’s as if my life is all mapped out for me and I have to stick precisely to the plan. I’d love it if you were transferred to Rome for six months – or anywhere foreign – and I could jet out to visit you at weekends. I’d love to travel more and explore foreign cities.’
‘We can do all that some day, but you know that right now I have to build my reputation by publishing another book – if I can ever find the time. It would set me back months if I had to start doing laundry and housework on top of my course work because you were off gallivanting on a film set.’
‘Bring your laundry to Rome at weekends and I’ll do it for you there,’ she quipped thoughtlessly.
‘Now you’re being silly,’ he snapped, and there was a hint of anger in his tone, which he quickly disguised. ‘Can you imagine me arriving in the Eternal City every weekend with a suitcase full of sweaty socks? If they decided to search my case at customs, they’d pass out from the fumes.’
‘Perhaps I could use some of my salary to hire you a charlady.’
‘Oh, it’s your salary now, is it? I pay the rent on the flat here with my salary, and you get to make charitable offers with yours. Is that it?’
‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ she whispered, annoyed with herself. Perhaps she shouldn’t rub it in that she would be earning more than him. This was the closest they’d come to arguing for a long time and she knew she was handling it badly.
‘Besides, I thought you wanted to apply for a junior lecturer’s post as soon as something suitable comes up. What would the selection panel think of a six-month sabbatical spent on a Hollywood movie? It doesn’t make you seem a very serious person.’
Diana was silent for a moment. She knew she would always have regrets if she backed down and didn’t grab this opportunity. ‘The truth is that I’m not as serious as you, Trevor. I’m bored with academia. I want a new challenge out there in the wider world instead of the dusty little part of it we’re used to.’
Trevor was staring down at his lap. ‘Can’t you find a new challenge in London? I’d be miserable without you, darling.’ When she didn’t reply, he stood up. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a full day tomorrow in boring old academia so I’d best go to bed now.’ He kissed her quickly on the cheek as if to say ‘no hard feelings’. ‘You won’t be long, will you?’
‘I fancy another cup of tea. Warm the bed for me.’
In the kitchen, Diana sat at the red Formica kitchen table holding a piece of paper with Walter Wanger’s phone numbers on it, scrutinising them as if the answer was hidden there in secret code. What was she playing at? She yearned to see Rome – but then she and Trevor could always go there on holiday. She was curious to see what life was like on a film set, but maybe Walter would let her go for a shorter period, perhaps just up to Christmas. Would Trevor accept that? She felt a pang, and knew that once she got involved in the film she wouldn’t want to leave halfway through.
Was she being intolerably selfish? Yes, she knew she was. She was the wife, the homemaker, and it wouldn’t be fair to leave Trevor in the lurch for so long. Her career should be secondary to looking after his needs. It’s just that she’d thought she and Trevor were somehow more modern and progressive than other couples. That’s one of the things she liked about their relationship.
Her head was swirling with thoughts and she couldn’t make them quiet down. She knew she should go through to the bedroom, climb into bed beside him and whisper, ‘Of course I won’t go. I’m sorry for suggesting it.’ He’d turn to kiss her and all would be well. That’s what she must do, she decided, but she didn’t stand up. There was a hard little nugget in her heart, a selfish nugget perhaps, but a stubborn one.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight and then one o’clock and still Diana sat there, her head in her hands. Was there any argument she could use to persuade Trevor to let her go? The money would be useful, but every other reason sounded trivial. Women like her simply didn’t do things like this. But she desperately wanted to. The more she thought about it, the more she knew she couldn’t bear to let this opportunity slip through her fingers. She had to persuade him. Somehow she must.
At three a.m., she went through to the bedroom and crawled into bed. Trevor was in the depths of sleep and barely moving. She could feel the warmth emanating from his body but she felt bereft at the seemingly unbridgeable distance between them.
Chapter Two
Rome, July 1961
‘Un espresso, per favore,’ Scott Morgan called to a waiter, then sat down and folded his long legs under a pavement table. The air in the Piazza Navona was thick with petrol fumes and the sun was already fierce, exacerbating the pounding in his temples. He pressed his fingers into his eye sockets.
‘Hai avuto una bella sbornia sta’notte, eh?’ the waiter joked as he brought the coffee, then mimed glugging back a drink and staggering drunkenly. Some tourists at the next table sniggered.
‘Grazie Giovanni, non prendermi in giro!’ He managed a feeble grin.
The waiter was absolutely right, of course. He’d been out drinking with the foreign press pack the night before and, swept along by the camaraderie of shared anecdotes and enjoying the feeling of being a ‘real journalist’, he’d allowed himself to down several more whisky shots than was prudent. The others had egged him on, eager to see the youngest of their number pass out or throw up his supper all over the roof terrace of the Eden Hotel.
Scott sensed a certain jealousy from these raddled old hacks, who had worked their way up from junior copy-taking roles on local rags to reach the height of their careers as Italian correspondents for national papers back home. It was a posting they felt they had earned after long years of covering rodeos and manning the obituaries page, so it would hardly be surprising if they resented the fact that Scott had walked straight into the role from college, with only a Harvard degree in international relations and several pieces in the Harvard Crimson to recommend him. Granted, he wasn’t working for The New York Times or the Washington Post. His paper, the Midwest Daily, was a respectable middle-market title, popular with farmers in the Bible Belt, but it was still a prestigious place to start his career. He didn’t tell the others that the job had been offered after a phone call from his father, who owned a substantial stake in the business.
Scott had arrived in Rome in May and the first thing he did was buy himself a Vespa, a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses and some black cotton turtlenecks. He wanted to be like the ultra-cool character played by Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita, seducing beautiful women all over town and fêted by the famous for the exposure he could get them, while at the same time filing serious, important stories that would win the admiration of his peers. So far the reality hadn’t quite lived up to the image. In fact, he’d failed to get a single story in print since his arrival two months earlier, something the hacks hadn’t hesitated to tease him about the previous evening.
‘Had all your stories spiked, then? We should call you “Spike”. What do you reckon, boys?’
They’d all joined in. ‘Pass the ashtray, Spike.’ ‘Fancy another shot, Spike?’
When he read his compatriots’ stories, about the strange allegiances between Italian political parties or impenetrable agriculture statistics from the south of the country, he had to suppress a yawn. Maybe that’s what he should be doing, but he couldn’t write stories like that because he didn’t have the contacts. He’d expected to find a well-staffed office full of people who would set up interviews for him. All he’d have to do would be turn up, ask some insightful questions, and scribble off his piece. Instead, his only colleague was a middle-aged Italian woman who answered the phone and typed his correspondence. His predecessor, a journalist called Bradley Wyndham, had left without passing on any contact numbers or advice and it was entirely up to Scott to make his own way.
‘Did any of you guys know Bradley Wyndham?’ he asked the hacks, and they all said they’d met him but didn’t know him well.
‘Believe it or not, he was teetotal,’ someone commented, incredulous. ‘A journalist who doesn’t drink is like a shark that doesn’t swim. He wrote some decent stories but he wasn’t one of us.’
‘Maybe he had a health problem,’ Scott suggested. ‘Or maybe he was religious.’ No one seemed to have any personal information about Bradley Wyndham or know why he had left Rome so abruptly.
One of the hacks, a man named Joe, started quoting his ‘best friend’ Truman Capote: ‘Truman said “I don’t care what anyone says about me, so long as it isn’t true.” Isn’t that hilarious? When you’re with Truman, you get the urge to take out your notebook and write down what he says because he comes out with the most amazing things from thin air.’
‘Yeah, but then he repeats them to anyone who’ll listen for the next ten years,’ another hack drawled. ‘He’s never minded quoting himself.’
Scott was sceptical about Joe’s friendship with Truman Capote. Surely the fêted New York writer would mix in more rarefied circles?
Sitting in the café the morning after their drinking session, Scott mused that maybe Rome wasn’t the right posting for him. There simply wasn’t anything he could write about. He wished he had been sent to Berlin, where a wall was being constructed to separate the Russian and American halves of the city and people were making daring last-minute dashes across before it was too late. Or the USSR, where Khrushchev was boasting of Soviet nuclear weaponry and the fact they’d taken the lead in the space race. Or Israel, where Adolf Eichmann was on trial for war crimes. Though at least he wasn’t in Vietnam, where the CIA-backed Southern Vietnamese were being pushed back by the Viet Cong. That all sounded a bit hairy. He didn’t fancy the danger and discomfort of a conflict zone.
At ten-thirty, the door of the building opposite opened and a stunning young Italian girl emerged, as she did every day at that time. It was the reason why Scott frequented that particular café, several streets away from his office. The girl had wave after wave of glossy-black hair and the prettiest face he’d ever seen: heart-shaped, with high cheekbones and melting chocolate eyes. She wore old-fashioned summer dresses in pale sherbet colours, tied with a sash round the waist and reaching modestly to well below her knees. Sometimes when the sun was behind her Scott could see the outline of her hips and legs through the fabric. Since he’d first set eyes on her, he’d been hopelessly smitten. His heart actually skipped a beat when she stepped out of her house each morning.
She was carrying a basket, and he knew that she was on her way to the market for provisions but that she would stop in a church to say mass. He’d followed her a few times and the routine was always the same.
She crossed the road and as she passed in front of the café, Scott called ‘Buongiorno, signorina bella!’
She nodded in his direction and gave a quick, nervous smile, without stopping.
He’d been greeting her most mornings for over a month now and was pleased that at least she now acknowledged him, although she hadn’t yet returned the greeting. What were the chances that one day she might agree to go on a date? He fantasised about sitting across a candlelit table, wooing her in his best Italian, and then managing to kiss her in a dark side street as he walked her home. That was as far as the fantasy would stretch. You’d never get a girl like that into bed without marrying her and he wasn’t prepared to go that far. But Scott liked a challenge and there was no doubt this girl presented a challenge.
He decided to make it his mission to get a date with her before the end of the summer. He was single. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring or any jewellery apart from a gold crucifix on a chain round her neck. What harm could it do? And if it came off, he’d have to get a photograph of the two of them to show his buddies back home; otherwise they’d never believe he could attract such a stunner.
Chapter Three
Diana arrived in Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport on the 25th of September and collected her suitcase from a pile in the arrivals hall. She’d been told that someone would be there to meet her and that they’d be holding a card with her name on it, but she couldn’t see any such person. It was a scorching day and she wished she hadn’t worn her winter coat, but there hadn’t been room for it in her suitcase. She took it off and folded it over her arm. Several taxi drivers approached, competing for her attention, but she waved them away. Her driver was probably stuck in traffic and running late.
As she waited, the arguments of the past few weeks echoed around her head. Trevor was right: she must be a very self-centred person. She knew she was being a bad wife. She knew she was letting him down. Their discussions had got increasingly bitter as each became entrenched in their positions. She couldn’t contemplate turning down the opportunity to work on the film but Trevor had taken it personally, as if it meant she didn’t love him enough. She tried every argument but he simply reiterated that he couldn’t manage without her, that he’d miss her too much.
They had barely spoken since she booked her flight. He was so hurt he couldn’t even look at her, and she was terrified that she might have damaged her marriage irrevocably. Surely Trevor wouldn’t divorce her? They didn’t know any divorcees among their social set, or even at the university. What would she do if he decided to take that extraordinary step? She’d given up a secure, ordered life for the complete unknown, and it seemed emblematic of the chaos she could expect that no one had arrived to meet her at the airport. She stood amongst the taxi drivers in the bustling entrance hall wondering if she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.
After hanging around for half an hour, she changed some money at an exchange bureau. They told her she needed gettoni for the payphone so she purchased some and used them to call Walter Wanger’s office, trying several times before she worked out which bits of the code had to be included when you dialled. The phone rang out but no one answered. Stilling her anxiety, she decided to take a taxi to Cinecittà film studios. What else could she do, since she didn’t know the address of her pensione? She picked an older-looking driver, one who seemed less pushy than the others, and let him heft her suitcase into the trunk. Thank goodness she spoke passable Italian, learned on an extracurricular course she’d taken at university. She had always picked up languages easily while Trevor, despite his superior intellect, had no facility for them.
During the half-hour drive she wondered what could have gone wrong. Were they not expecting her that day? Had they changed their minds about hiring her? The driver pulled up outside the entrance to a single-storey peach-coloured building with the Cinecittà sign over the gate. Diana paid the driver and stood sweltering in the heat as an overweight guard in a dark suit telephoned Walter Wanger’s office, then tried another number in the production block. Diana’s stomach was in knots. What if this was all a huge mistake and they weren’t expecting her at all? Had she jeopardised her marriage over a misunderstanding?
A pony-tailed girl in white Capri pants came running across the grass towards them. ‘Diana?’ she called. ‘You must have thought we’d forgotten all about you. It’s the first day of shooting and everybody was on set to watch, including the driver we had asked to pick you up. I swear, you can never rely on Italians.’ She was American.
‘It’s fine,’ Diana said. ‘I’m here now.’
‘Let’s take your suitcase up to the production office and make everything official. You need to sign your contract and then I’ll show you around. My name’s Candy,’ she added as an afterthought.
Diana followed her across a large grassy lawn. Dozens of people sprawled there, smoking cigarettes, catching the sun, reading magazines, chatting and laughing, and they glanced at Diana and her unwieldy suitcase with a flicker of curiosity before looking away again. The girls were all dressed in Capri pants or above-the-knee skirts with little blouses, and she suddenly felt old-fashioned in her longer, fifties-style skirt and jacket and her beige leather gloves. No one else was wearing gloves. Their legs were bare and bronzed while she wore American tan tights and she thought with envy how much cooler they must feel.
Candy led her to a group of buildings. ‘These are the production offices,’ she said. ‘You can leave your suitcase here.’
She shook hands with several people sitting behind desks and signed her name as indicated. She was informed that she would receive her salary of 50,000 lire (about 28 British pounds), less local taxes, each Friday evening at the end of the working day, and that her permit to work in Italy would be arranged by the studio staff, although she would have to register with the police in the next few days.
As they left, she paused on the steps to watch as a man in a Roman toga came towards them, then did a double take when she realised it was Rex Harrison. She and Trevor had seen him in My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, playing Professor Higgins, the man who teaches a Cockney flower girl to ‘speak proper’. It had been a brilliant production and received a standing ovation, the audience clapping until their hands were numb. Rex Harrison passed without glancing in her direction, but she felt a bubble of excitement all the same.
‘Have you met Walter?’ Candy asked. Diana agreed that she had, during her one day at Pinewood. ‘I’ll take you over to say hi to Joe Mankiewicz, if we can catch a second of his time.’
‘What does he do?’ Diana asked, and Candy stared in amazement.
‘He’s the director. Didn’t you know that?’
‘I thought it was Rouben Mamoulian. I’m sure I read that somewhere.’
‘Yeah, it was, but he got fired ages ago. The cast has all changed since we came to Italy. But we’ve still got Liz – for better or worse.’
‘What do you mean?’
Candy rolled her eyes comically. ‘You’ll find out.’
Someone popped a head round the door. ‘Candy, there’s a problem with the elephants. They’re being really aggressive and no one can get near them. Will you go and talk to the elephant guy, see what his explanation is?’
‘Sure,’ Candy agreed. ‘Why don’t you come with me, Diana? I’ll get a chance to show you around. You can leave your coat and jacket. It’s sweltering out there.’ She glanced down at Diana’s prim skirt and tights and seemed about to say something else but thought better of it.
They strolled up a shady avenue. Everywhere there were neatly mown grass verges and boulevards lined with stately rows of Roman pine trees and oleander bushes. Lots of people waved and called hello to Candy as she passed, and she called back but didn’t make any move to introduce Diana.
‘The commissary – that’s canteen to you Brits – is down there and the bar’s over that way.’ She pointed to a separate block but walked straight past it. Diana was parched and could have used a cool drink but didn’t want to cause any bother. ‘I’ve reserved a room for you in the Pensione Splendid near Piazza Repubblica so it will only take you about twenty minutes to get here in the morning. A studio driver will pick you up around eight.’ She chatted on about practicalities and Diana tried to remember everything while simultaneously getting her bearings in the vast studio complex, which seemed to stretch for miles in every direction.
They could hear and smell the elephants well before reaching the enclosure. Roaring, with trunks raised, and stamping their feet, they were terrifying the horses in the nearby stables. Diana couldn’t count them all as some were inside a sandstone outbuilding, but four were pacing around outside. Candy approached a man who seemed to be in charge and had a conversation with him in Italian. He spread his arms and shrugged, telling her that it wasn’t his fault they were restless; that’s just how they were.
Diana looked at the poor creatures, each restrained with a heavy chain around one ankle. Their eyes seemed astonishingly human and knowing. The closest regarded her as one fellow creature to the other, requesting sympathy for its plight. Then she looked at its ears, which were small and drooping. She remembered her school biology teacher explaining that African elephants have large ears that fan back over their necks in the shape of Africa, while Indian ones have smaller ears that droop to a point, like a map of India.
She asked the trainer, ‘Questi sono elefanti indiani?’
‘Sì, certamente,’ he replied then spun off into a chain of complaints about his contract and the conditions under which he had to work.
‘Is that a problem?’ Candy asked Diana.
‘It’s just that Cleopatra would, of course, have had African elephants. Her kingdom was in Africa. Hardly any viewers will spot the difference, I’m sure.’
‘Fantastic!’ Candy exclaimed. ‘You may just have given us a way to get out of our contract with this guy and his over-aggressive animals. Walter will be thrilled.’
‘Oh, good. Should we go and find him?’ Diana felt she would like to see a friendly face. Perhaps he would be able to explain what was expected of her.
‘You can never find Walter when you’re looking for him – only when you’re not,’ Candy said. ‘We’ll head back, and maybe stop for a drink? You look hot.’
Diana nodded gratefully. She had pale English skin that didn’t take the sun well and she could feel her cheeks tingling after half an hour in the Roman sunshine. She asked the barman for some water, which came in a green glass bottle with a pretty label saying San Pellegrino. Why bother with bottled water, she wondered, when Rome was reputed to have the best tap water in the world, brought straight from mountain springs by their famous Roman aqueducts? It seemed crazy.
Candy had business in a back part of the studio and Diana tagged along, feeling completely lost. How would she ever find her way around this virtual metropolis? She was hot and tired and felt very grateful when at last Candy offered to call a driver to take Diana to her pensione.
She found she was on the second floor of an old building, in a large bright room with its own tiny balcony and a view towards the Baths of Diocletian. The room contained a double bed, a wardrobe, and a wash-basin, and it all looked neat and clean. On a side table there was a Cinzano ashtray with the familiar red, white and blue lettering. There was a shared bathroom down the hall and the first thing she did was undress and soak in some lukewarm water to wash away the grime of travel. She dressed in a cool cotton sundress, rubbed Pond’s cold cream on her cheeks and went to ask the padrona if she might use her telephone.
‘Sorry, it’s out of order,’ the woman told her. ‘The nearest public phone is in the bar across the street but you will need some gettoni. You can buy them at the tabaccaio over towards Termini station.’ She gestured vaguely.
Diana kicked herself for not buying more gettoni at the airport earlier. She knew the station was several streets away. She’d wanted to ring Trevor to let him know she’d arrived safely. Ideally she would have liked to tell him about seeing Rex Harrison, and about the Indian elephants, and all her other impressions of the set, but she knew she couldn’t expect him to share her excitement. They were barely speaking to each other.
She felt a sharp pang of missing him. They normally told each other everything, in a long stream of conversation that they updated as soon as possible after spending any time apart. It was hard to move from that intimacy to a life that was unshared, unwitnessed.
She hung up her clothes then sat on the bed looking out across the rooftops of the Eternal City as the sun gradually set, picking out individual windows to blaze fiery bright for a few minutes each, and casting a golden glow on domes and turrets. The smell of cooking wafted up from the kitchen of a trattoria next door and she decided she would eat there then come back for an early night. She’d call Trevor the following day. He hadn’t even said goodbye properly so he had no right to expect her to ring on her first evening.
Chapter Four
‘Hey, Scott, how’s it going?’ his editor’s voice boomed down the phone. ‘I’ve got a commission for you: fifteen hundred words on the Italian Communist Party. How does it differ from the style of Communism in the Soviet Bloc? What are its aims, and how much influence does it have in Italy? Think you can handle that?’
‘Sure! When do you need it?’
‘Is a week enough time? Or are you too busy chasing Italian chicks?’ The editor saw Scott as an international playboy type and Scott didn’t like to disillusion him by admitting he hadn’t had so much as a kiss since he arrived in Europe.
‘A week it is,’ he replied. At last he could demonstrate what he was capable of. Those booze-sodden hacks in the Eden Hotel bar would have to take him more seriously once he’d had an intelligent opinion piece published.
He needed some direct quotes from Roman politicians so his secretary told him about a translator called Angelo who could set up the interviews and assist when his very basic Italian would not suffice. It would be his foot in the door of Italian politics, and it was just a shame that the first politicians he would meet were Communists. Scott knew very strongly how he felt about that. In fact he had begun to write the piece before meeting them.
Some trade unionists here in Rome condemned the brutal Soviet repression of the Hungarian uprising, but the party leadership kept quiet because they know where their bread is buttered, he wrote. Moscow holds the purse strings on which their power base rests and even if they use more moderate language than Señor Fidel Castro, they still believe that the working classes should unite to overturn capitalism. Some 4 percent of Italian workers are members of the Communist Party but you can bet that these are not the forward-thinking textile workers who are making Milan such a modern center of clothing manufacture, and not the directors in charge of protecting the famous antiquities of Rome, Venice and Florence, because Communism would abandon those to dust. It is the politically ignorant peasant who believes all those fine words about sharing wealth, little realising that under Communism there would be no wealth, along with no freedom of speech or action.
He interviewed the politicians but used their quotes in such a way as to make them sound naïve at best and self-serving at worst:
Corruption is a way of life in Italy, he opined, and no one is exempt, but those of the far left with their moral posturing about the good of the many are by far the greatest hypocrites. Look how quickly Señor Castro rushed to abandon democratic elections in Cuba earlier this year. Given half a chance, Italian Communists would do so even faster.
It was what his readers in the Midwest, smarting from American defeat in the Bay of Pigs just four months earlier, wanted to hear, and it happened to be what Scott believed. He and his classmates at Harvard had been aghast when the CIA-trained band of counter-revolutionaries were defeated by Castro’s forces, with their Soviet-designed tank destroyers and fighter-bombers. Now it seemed Americans must resign themselves to Reds on the doorstep, just 90 miles across the water from the Florida Keys, unless John F. Kennedy had some other plan up his sleeve. Surely he must.
Scott’s editor ran the piece across a double page, with photos of Italian workers in the fields alongside a textile loom in Milan, and Scott was thrilled when he got his copy by special courier. His byline was directly beneath the headline: ‘by Scott Morgan, our Rome correspondent’.
A day later, though, he received a phone call from Angelo, the translator. ‘I hope you never want to interview any Italian politicians again,’ he said, ‘because, to use an English phrase, you have burned all your boats.’
‘Nobody will read it here in Rome, will they?’ Scott asked. The thought simply hadn’t occurred to him.
‘Of course they will. They gave the interviews and their press advisors will have obtained copies to see how they were portrayed in your article. You can be sure they will not be pleased with your patronising attitude and lack of any attempt to understand the issues.’
‘You’re kidding. Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘My mistake. I gave you credit for a little intelligence.’
That evening, Scott went to the Eden Hotel to see what his compatriots thought, and he was greeted with much hooting and clapping on the back. ‘Aw heck, you didn’t want to be a political journalist anyway, did you, Spike?’
‘You’ve all read it?’
‘How could we miss your print debut, especially when it refers to Communist Party members as politically ignorant peasants?’
Joe bought him a large whisky and Scott downed it quickly.
‘Shall I tell you my secret?’ Joe slurred, his evening’s drinking obviously well advanced. ‘I read the Italian press and adapt stories from that. My editor never knows any better. Grab a dictionary and spend the morning going through Corriere della Sera and La Stampa and you’ll do just fine here.’
The next morning, Scott decided to do just that, but the only stories of international interest were about Elizabeth Taylor and her entourage arriving in Rome to make a Cleopatra film at Cinecittà. There were descriptions of her seven-bedroom villa on Via Appia Antica, her children, her dogs, her recent near-death illness, and a rehash of the scandal when she ‘stole’ her current husband Eddie Fisher from her rival Debbie Reynolds. Scott was scornful of this kind of gutter-press journalism and determined not to lower himself. His heroes were Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, serious men who wrote in an innovative style that read like fiction but contained hard facts. Neither of them would sink so low as to comment on Elizabeth Taylor’s dogs. He felt gloomy.
The clock read twenty past ten and he realised he just had time to catch his beautiful Italian girl leaving her house. She had begun smiling at him when he greeted her and once she had even returned his ‘Buongiorno’ so he felt it was important to keep up the momentum.
He jumped on the Vespa and scooted through the traffic, arriving in Piazza Navona with minutes to spare. He popped into a tobacconist’s to buy some Camels and through the window he saw her emerge from her house and cross the street. Throwing the money over the counter, he was able to step out of the shop straight into her path.
‘Ah, buongiorno, signorina bellissima,’ he grinned. ‘We meet finalmente!’
She blushed and looked down modestly. He was directly in front of her so she couldn’t walk on and there was a moment’s hesitation while she tried to decide what to do.
‘That’s a pretty dress,’ he said in Italian.
‘Grazie, signore,’ she said, then side-stepped neatly and continued down the road.
Scott stood and watched and when she reached the corner she turned back to see if he was still there.
‘Thank you!’ he whispered, and clenched his fists in delight.
Chapter Five
Next morning, Diana was picked up by a studio car just after eight and driven out to Cinecittà. The gate swung open and she felt very important as she showed her pass to the guard on duty and he waved her through with a ‘Buongiorno, Signora Bailey’.
When she opened the door of the production office, the first thing she noticed was a very attractive Italian man sitting on a desk, chatting to the girls in the office. He appraised Diana’s figure, eyes sweeping up and down her body, then winked.
‘Is she the one who’s been causing all the problems? She looks so innocent.’ He was teasing, his English fluent but heavily accented.
Annoyingly, Diana felt her cheeks flush scarlet and a blonde woman who looked as though she might be in her thirties took pity on her. She came over with an outstretched hand. ‘I’m Hilary Armitage, and you must be Diana? This rogue here is Ernesto Balboni. He helps to procure things we need for the film.’
‘You have been complaining about the elephants, I hear,’ Ernesto challenged. ‘What did the poor creatures ever do to you?’
Diana didn’t know how to take him, so she answered seriously. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause trouble but Cleopatra wouldn’t have had Indian elephants …’
‘Clever you for actually knowing the difference,’ Hilary interrupted. Her accent was English girls’ boarding school, but she didn’t seem toffee-nosed.
‘They wanted elephants, I got them elephants,’ Ernesto continued. ‘It was a lot of trouble for me, and now you say, “I don’t like these elephants.” OK, I will fix it, but only if Diana will have lunch with me today.’
‘I-I’m not sure. I may be busy.’ Diana wasn’t sure if he was simply being flirtatious or if it was part of her job to lunch with him.
‘Leave the girl alone, Ernesto. She’s just arrived and already you are trying to seduce her.’
He jumped down from the desk and Diana saw that he wasn’t tall – only slightly taller than her – but he had a very good figure, with muscular arms under his open-necked, short-sleeved shirt. He reached out to shake Diana’s hand and gripped it in warm fingers that held on much longer than they should have. ‘We will have to see a lot of each other so I can choose props that are historically correct. If you can’t manage lunch, maybe we should have dinner tonight?’
Fearing a misunderstanding, Diana held out her left hand to show her wedding ring. ‘I’m married,’ she said.
‘Of course you are. You are far too beautiful to be single. I’ll see you later. Buongiorno, bella.’
He glanced back and grinned at her on his way out the door. Did that mean he thought she had accepted the dinner invitation or not? She had no idea, but hoped that since they hadn’t made a firm arrangement it didn’t count.
Hilary rolled her eyes before showing Diana her desk and giving her a simple map of the studios to help her find her way around. She explained how to use the telephones and said to help herself if she wanted to phone home; she showed her where the stationery was kept, and the kettle and their office supply of English tea. She was friendly and efficient, but several times she glanced at her watch so Diana could tell she was impatient to get on.
‘Do you have any idea what I am supposed to be doing today?’ Diana asked. ‘I haven’t seen Mr Wanger yet to ask about my responsibilities.’
Hilary seemed surprised. ‘I assumed he would have explained that to you. He won’t be in till later because there was a PR disaster yesterday. A party of Congress wives turned up for a tour of the set hoping to meet Elizabeth Taylor but no one had told her and she doesn’t like surprises so she wouldn’t play ball. Walter will be tied up all day smoothing that one over. But they’re filming a Temple of Isis scene on sound stage 5 so why not go down there and maybe you’ll have a chance to introduce yourself to Joe.’
‘The director?’
Hilary nodded. ‘You’ll find sound stage 5 on your map. Lunch is served in the commissary from twelve till three, and you can get snacks at the bar all day long.’
‘Great, thanks.’
The office was empty so Diana made herself a cup of tea, then unclipped her right earring and lifted the phone to ask the operator to connect her with Trevor’s office at City University. There was a lot of clicking and buzzing and a long period of silence before she heard the familiar voice of his secretary on the line.
‘Hello, it’s Diana calling from Rome. I don’t suppose Trevor’s around?’
The reply was so muffled she could hardly hear it, but it seemed he was in a meeting.
‘Will you tell him I rang and that I’ve arrived safely? I’ll try again soon.’
She was relieved not to have to deal with him being curt on the phone. At least he knew she was safe now. She finished her tea, picked up a notepad and pen plus her studio map, and headed out towards sound stage 5.
She walked around the lawn, then turned down a wide avenue with a row of pine trees planted along a central reservation. The sound stages looked like aeroplane hangars. When she got to number 5, she pushed open a heavy, padded door and was confronted by a huge dark cavern full of people. A beam of light illuminated an area where a scene was being prepared. There was a camera mounted on a small crane and behind it stood a portly middle-aged man in a crumpled Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap, who was studying the scene with a dyspeptic expression. She wondered what his role was because, despite his scruffy appearance, others seemed to be taking orders from him.
It was hotter than outside, like working in an oven. A huge sign in both English and Italian read ‘No Smoking’ and there was a picture of a cigarette with an emphatic slash through it. Underneath it there was a bucket of sand and a sign saying ‘Use in case of fire’ but she noticed that it was being used as an ashtray and had dozens of cigarette butts in it.
‘Are they filming?’ she asked someone, and straight away fingers came up to lips and there was a chorus of shushing. Someone called ‘Silenzio!’
‘Upstairs,’ her nearest neighbour whispered, pointing to a staircase, so Diana crept off the set and up the stairs, not sure where she was heading. A handwritten sign on the landing at the top said ‘Makeup, Dressing room 23’. There was a long corridor of closed doors, each carefully numbered. The only one open was number 23 and a bright light emanated from within. She glanced inside to see a pretty blonde girl doing her own makeup at a dressing-table mirror surrounded by dazzling lightbulbs. Some Italian women were sitting around chatting.
‘Hello. Are you an actress?’ Diana asked the blonde girl.
She gave a broad smile and answered in an English accent with a hint of Birmingham in it. ‘No, I do the makeup along with these ladies. I’m just fixing myself up while we wait.’
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Elizabeth Taylor’s not here yet so they can’t start filming. She’s always late.’
‘So they’re not actually filming downstairs?’ Diana was relieved. ‘I thought I’d spoiled a shot because I asked a question and everyone told me to shut up.’
‘They might have been doing fill-in shots. They’re shooting live sound on this picture so they need dead quiet when the cameras are rolling. You’re supposed to check whether the red light is on above the door before you go in. Don’t worry, though – you’d know all about it if you’d spoiled a take!’
‘Where is your accent from?’ Diana asked, trying to place it.
‘Leamington Spa. Near Warwick.’
‘You’re kidding! I was born in Leamington Spa and lived there till I was twelve!’ Diana grinned, delighted to meet someone from home. It made her realise how lonely she’d been feeling.
The girl’s name was Helen, she told Diana. They chatted about which part of town they came from and the schools they had attended. Diana asked how she came to be working on the film, and Helen said she had just graduated from a makeup course when she got the job at Pinewood and her school principal had negotiated a clause in her contract that meant they had to take her with them when the production moved to Rome. Most of the other makeup artists were Italian.
‘It’s a great place to work. I’ve met all the stars,’ she said excitedly. ‘Yesterday I was called down to assist Elizabeth Taylor’s makeup artist, and Elizabeth actually asked my name. Wasn’t that nice of her?’
‘What was she like?’
‘Oh my God, those eyes! I never believed it in the magazines when they said she has purple eyes but she really does: a kind of deep violet shade. It’s almost like you can’t breathe when you look directly at her. I asked her to sign my autograph book. Look!’
She showed Diana a book bound in pink fabric and opened it to a page with the signature ‘Elizabeth T’ followed by an ‘X’.
‘Lucky you,’ Diana said. ‘Who else’s have you got?’
‘Just crew really. I don’t like to ask actors as it doesn’t look professional. After all I’m here to do a job! Anyway, Rex Harrison is too scary to ask!’
Helen talked rapidly, full of awe at the surroundings she found herself in. She was probably in her early twenties, only a couple of years younger than Diana, but she had a childlike quality that was beguiling, and she was the first truly friendly person Diana had met there.
‘There’s no one about,’ Helen pointed out. ‘Shall we go and have a Coke? The bar’s not far.’
Diana agreed. She knew she should be trying to find someone who could tell her what her job entailed, but perhaps it would be useful to hear a bit more about the personalities on the set. Helen told the Italian women she’d be back in half an hour and they nodded and carried on talking amongst themselves.
The bar had some tables on a broad outdoor terrace and Helen sat down at one of them, Diana beside her. They attracted appreciative glances from some Italian workmen on a coffee break. They’re interested in Helen, Diana thought. Not me.
‘I don’t like coming here on my own,’ Helen lowered her voice. ‘It makes me self-conscious when they stare like that.’
They ordered two Cokes, and Diana explained how she came to be working on the film.
‘Gosh, you’re an intellectual. That’s so groovy! Don’t worry about not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing. I don’t think anyone does. We’re all just muddling through, but we’re getting paid to live in an amazing city and work with lots of famous people. It can’t be bad, can it? Hey, a crowd of us are going out for a pizza tonight. Do you want to come?’
Diana agreed straight away. She would rather do that than go for dinner with Ernesto, which had all the potential to be compromising.
‘Amazing! Give me the address of your pensione and I’ll pick you up in a taxi about eight o’clock.’ Suddenly she nudged Diana and nodded towards a man walking down the avenue holding a small dog.
‘Who’s that?’ Diana whispered.
‘Eddie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor’s husband. The one she stole from Debbie Reynolds. He’s handsome, isn’t he?’
He was indeed, Diana thought, except for rather pitted skin where he must have suffered from acne in his teens. He was quite short as well. All the men seemed short. ‘Is he working on the film?’ she asked.
‘He’s got some job title or other but basically he runs around fetching drinks for Elizabeth and clearing up after the dogs.’ Helen rolled her eyes.
Diana watched as he turned the corner and wondered what it must feel like to be married to the woman everyone said was the most beautiful in the world. You’d need to be quite a confident person. She’d heard Eddie Fisher was a singer but wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard any of his songs.
Helen began to sing: ‘Cindy, oh Cindy …’ She had a sweet voice. ‘You must remember that one? It was quite a hit a couple of years ago.’
Diana shook her head. She wasn’t up to date with popular music: Trevor liked classical so that tended to be what they listened to. She felt so out of touch. She was only twenty-five but she might as well be forty because her life had become so middle-aged.
After they finished their drinks, they walked back to sound stage 5 and Helen scurried upstairs to the makeup room, while Diana walked back into the hangar-like set. The door was open and the red light was off. Round a corner she could see a huge cauldron made out of papier-mâché and surrounded by goblets and bronze statuettes of jackal-headed Anubis figures. She smiled, recognising the image they had used for reference, one that was now largely believed by historians to be a third-century fake. She took out her pad and began to scribble notes.
A young assistant was measuring the distance between the altar and the lens of the camera, which she saw was mounted on tracks. Some young women appeared in ancient Egyptian costume and she guessed they must be handmaidens. The costumes weren’t too bad, actually – someone had done their homework – but the hair and makeup were totally Hollywood.
There was a call of ‘Quiet on the set’ and people began to move towards the exit.
‘Are you supposed to be here?’ an American woman with a clipboard asked Diana.
‘I’m a researcher. I don’t know,’ Diana said.
‘Technical crew and actors only,’ she ordered, pointing to the door, so Diana obeyed.
She wandered around for a while then decided to go for an early lunch and made her way to the commissary, following the little map Hilary had given her. It was already busy in there but she slipped into an unoccupied table in a corner. The waiter brought her a menu.
There was pasta to start – fettuccine al ragù or agnolotti in brodo – and the main courses were chicken cacciatore (the day’s special) or blanquette de veau with peas, buttered baby carrots and creamed potatoes. The sweet was simple – a choice of ice cream or fresh fruit salad. It looked lovely, but much more than she normally ate at lunchtime.
‘Do you have any sandwiches?’ she asked the waiter when he came to take her order.
He took the menu from her without smiling. ‘The bar serves sandwiches. We are a restaurant.’
She thanked him, got up and made her way out into the sunshine again. The bar where she had shared a Coke with Candy earlier was now packed with a lively, chattering crowd. Diana chose a couple of egg and tomato sandwiches, which she took to a shelf at one side.
A crowd of men came in, all of them handsome and bronzed like the ones in Lucky Strike adverts. They found chairs and dragged them together round a table and Diana noticed how muscular they were, like athletes. One of them took a chair from right beside her but didn’t even glance her way, and no one spoke to her.
As soon as she had finished eating, she left the bar, planning to have a long walk round the studio and get her bearings. She peered into carpentry workshops, plasterers’ studios full of statues, prop stores and vast warehouses with rail upon rail of costumes. Towards the rear of Cinecittà she could see rolling fields and she headed in that direction, thinking she could work her way back.
Suddenly, she noticed two men standing very close together in the shadows behind an abandoned set. They hadn’t seen Diana and she gasped as she realised they were kissing. Shocked and embarrassed, she ducked out of sight and tiptoed away, only stopping for breath when she was sure they couldn’t see her. Of course, she had assumed there would be homosexual men involved in the making of a film because she’d heard they tended to be creative types, but she hadn’t expected them to be so open about it. It was illegal for them to have sexual relations in England and she assumed the law would be the same in a fiercely Catholic country like Italy. She was in a different world now and would have to get used to a lot of things she hadn’t seen before. This was what she had wanted after all – a new experience.
The outdoor sets were constructed on the studio’s back lot, and as soon as she got close she saw the replica of the Forum, which was if anything bigger than the one she had criticised in Pinewood. Walter hadn’t listened to her at all. She took out her notebook and made copious notes on all the parts of buildings and frontages she could see, stepping over piles of building materials. She’d noticed a typewriter back in the production office and, when she finished, she decided to go and type up her notes.
She walked back around the other side of the lot. As she approached the offices, a small dog suddenly darted out of a building and across the lawn. A door opened just ten yards away and a figure in a bathrobe and a hairnet peered out. It was unmistakably Elizabeth Taylor.
‘Here, baby,’ she called in a husky but surprisingly high, childlike voice.
Diana was mesmerised. Miss Taylor was the most famous woman in the world at that time, after her near-death experience earlier in the year. She was more famous than Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford and Ava Gardner all put together – and there she was in a bathrobe and hairnet.
She glanced at Diana briefly, then retreated back into the building. Consulting her map, Diana saw that it was labelled ‘Star’s dressing-room suite’.
Seconds later the door opened again, and Eddie Fisher hurried out holding a dog’s lead and whistling for the dog. Diana pointed to show him the direction it had disappeared in, and he grinned and called ‘Thanks, honey!’
At school Diana had been an outsider, the bookish one with only a few equally serious friends, but now, for the first time in her life, she felt as if she was part of a charmed inner circle.
Chapter Six
At ten past eight that evening, a taxi beeped its horn in the street outside Diana’s pensione and she rushed down the stairs. Helen was waving out of the back window. There was an Italian man sitting in the front and at first Diana assumed he was a friend of the driver’s, but he turned round and spoke to Helen in English, telling her that he was going to Trastevere and they could drop him off at the next corner.
‘Who’s that?’ Diana asked, after he’d got out and said goodnight.
‘Just Luigi,’ Helen said, without any further explanation. Diana assumed he worked on the film.
‘We’re going to Via Veneto, where all the stars hang out. Have you heard of it?’ Helen asked. ‘You must have seen it in La Dolce Vita?’
Diana had to admit she hadn’t seen the film, which had come out the previous year, but she knew that the star, Anita Ekberg, famously danced in the Trevi Fountain. All the papers had shown her picture, buxom and blonde, with her strapless dress looking imminently likely to fall off.
‘Here we are,’ Helen announced, as the taxi pulled in to the kerb near the foot of an avenue curving up a hill. It was lined with bars and restaurants with outdoor tables, all of them thronged with customers.
Diana noticed a group of young men standing beside motor scooters, holding cameras and chatting amongst themselves. Suddenly someone shouted from further up the hill, and they all set off, running on foot like a pack of dogs.
‘They’re press photographers,’ Helen explained. ‘It probably means they’ve spotted someone famous up there – maybe it’s Elizabeth and Eddie. Come on, we’re meeting the others at a pizza place round the corner.’
Diana didn’t have time to ask who the ‘others’ were before they swept into a noisy restaurant full of Italian families. Coloured lights were strung along the walls and a glow emanated from a big oven in the centre. Helen greeted a crowd of nine girls sitting at a circular table and introduced Diana to each one in turn.
‘What do you do?’ one of them asked, and they turned away without interest when they heard she was a researcher. Most of them were American actresses who had minor, non-speaking roles as maidservants to Cleopatra, and the talk was of the more famous actors and actresses: what they had said and done that day and, in particular, whether Elizabeth Taylor was likely to come out that evening.
Diana tried to engage the girl next to her in conversation, but could sense she wasn’t interested. Perhaps it was because Diana’s clothes looked so old-fashioned in comparison to theirs. They all wore evening clothes in Jackie Kennedy styles: colourful shift dresses that stopped at the knee, or white trousers with kaftan-style tops and bold jewellery. Diana had worn a favourite dress of red shiny material with little white dots that was belted round the waist and had a wide full skirt, but it looked completely wrong at that table. The skirt was far too long. None of the others were wearing white evening gloves. She didn’t fit in.
The girls ordered pizzas. Diana had never tried one before so she ordered a Napoletana, same as Helen. A huge carafe of wine was brought and glasses poured for each of them. Diana took a sip and found it rather harsh. The pizza was divine, though, with chewy cheese melting down into a tomato sauce and something salty she couldn’t identify. Helen went to the ladies’ room and when she came back she fell into her seat, giggling inanely. Diana guessed she had downed her wine rather too fast and wondered whether she should urge her not to drink any more. She felt protective towards this girl from her hometown – but she had only known her a few hours so it wasn’t her place to say anything. In fact, all the girls were giggling as they moved on to the second carafe of wine while Diana had barely touched her first glass.
The topic of discussion was which aspects of a star’s life it was legitimate for photographers to take pictures of. The girls reckoned that they were only doing their job if they shot the actors as they walked into a party or nightclub all dressed up to the nines but that the paparazzi who hid in the trees round Elizabeth Taylor’s villa and photographed her children in the swimming pool were going too far. Diana hadn’t heard the term ‘paparazzi’ before but realised it referred to the press pack she had seen outside.
‘One of them offered me a hundred thousand lire for a shot of Elizabeth on the set,’ a girl told them, and a couple of others concurred.
‘Yeah, me too. But we’d get fired if we were found out so it’s not worth it.’
When they’d finished eating, someone suggested they went to a piano bar and Diana tagged along, although she was beginning to feel tired. There were taxis cruising the street and she planned to pop into the bar for a few moments, to see what it was like, before coming out to hail one. They crowded into a small, dark hideaway with no name on the door, and just inside she spotted Ernesto standing at the bar. He kissed her on both cheeks and seemed genuinely delighted to see her.
‘Diana, you must join me for a drink. I insist.’
‘I was about to leave,’ she began, but he didn’t pay any attention, calling out to a waiter ‘Due Belline.’
‘What’s a Bellini?’ she asked.
‘Trust me. You’ll like it,’ he said, and she did. It was sweet, fruity and fizzy and it didn’t taste alcoholic, although she suspected it probably was. The other girls had found a table, where they had been joined by some Italian boys, and she wondered whether she should sit with them.
‘How did you become a Cleopatra expert?’ Ernesto asked, and she explained about the subjects she had taken at Oxford and her fascination for the Egyptian queen who was an astute politician and military tactician. He seemed genuinely interested in her PhD research and asked questions about how Cleopatra held on to the throne for almost forty years. Diana enjoyed telling him her own theories about the clever ways Cleopatra won the support of the Egyptian people.
‘Don’t you think being involved with a Hollywood movie will undermine your credibility?’ Ernesto asked.
‘That’s what my husband thinks,’ Diana confessed. ‘He didn’t want me to come.’
‘Of course he didn’t. I am amazed that he allowed you! An Italian husband would have stopped you.’
Diana raised an eyebrow. ‘In Britain in the 1960s, we women don’t need our husband’s permission to take a career opportunity.’
Ernesto shrugged. ‘In Italy you would. But tell me, how was your first day on the set?’
Diana explained that she had no idea what to do. No one had explained what her responsibilities were and she hadn’t met the director or caught up with the producer.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ernesto patted her hand. ‘Tomorrow morning, I will take you to the script meeting and you can meet everyone there. It’s at ten o’clock.’
‘You seem very well-connected. How did you get involved with the film?’
Ernesto explained that Cinecittà studios recommended him because he had worked on dozens of films there. He was good at finding locations, sourcing unusual items or materials that were needed, and striking deals with local businesses for supplies.
‘I am a businessman, and I know a lot of people. That’s all you require to do my job.’
‘Your English is excellent. That must help.’
‘I make deals with lots of English people and I need to be sure they are not cheating me,’ he grinned. ‘Many have tried.’
‘What other films have you worked on?’
‘Dozens! You know the opening shot of La Dolce Vita when a helicopter carries a plaster Christ over the rooftops? Who do you think hired the helicopter and oversaw the making of the statue?’
‘I’m sorry, I haven’t seen it.’
‘But you must! I will take you some time. There must be a cinema somewhere that is still showing it and we will go together.’
Diana began to search her mind for an excuse, but he pre-empted her, holding up his hand.
‘Don’t worry. I know you are married. I am not a Casanova type. You and I are going to be good friends, that’s all.’
She smiled. ‘Excellent. I need some friends out here. I’m going back to my pensione now as I’m getting rather tired, but I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘How are you getting home? Let me give you a lift.’ He stood up and pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket.
‘I was going to get a taxi. Don’t worry. It’s not far. I’m only in Piazza Repubblica.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you take a taxi alone at night. Nice girls would never travel unaccompanied.’
‘Oh my gosh!’ Diana exclaimed. ‘Well, in that case …’
She said her goodbyes to Helen and the other girls, then followed Ernesto out to the street. She’d been expecting a car and was taken aback when he climbed onto a Vespa motor scooter and gestured for her to get on behind. What option did she have, though?
‘I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been on one of these.’
‘You just climb on and put your arms round my waist. It’s easy.’
She gathered up her full skirts and straddled the scooter, wondering how on earth other girls managed in those tight short dresses. She placed her hands loosely on the sides of Ernesto’s jacket, but when the scooter started to move, she gripped more firmly. Her skirt billowed out on one side and she tucked it under her thighs. The breeze blew her hair back off her face and she closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation. When she opened them, they were going past a beautiful church.
She was in Rome, in 1961, riding home on the back of a Vespa. The life she had been waiting to lead felt as though it had finally begun.
Chapter Seven
Ernesto came to the production office to collect Diana at five to ten the following morning to take her to the script meeting.
‘Are you absolutely sure I’m supposed to come along?’ she asked.
‘Of course. You must be there. You can actually make a difference at this stage.’
The director’s office was in a building opposite the main gate. A dozen people were sitting smoking and drinking coffee, among them Walter Wanger, who leapt to his feet and rushed over to embrace Diana.
‘Sweetheart, you made it! It’s terrific to see you. Let me introduce you to everybody.’ He went round the room, pointing out John De Cuir, the set designer; Hilary Armitage, the woman she already knew from the production office; Leon Shamroy, the director of photography, whom she recognised as the man in the Hawaiian shirt she had seen on set; as well as some production managers, continuity girls, and various others. Diana desperately tried to remember their names. The door opened and in walked a man with an open, friendly face that seemed familiar. He was smoking a pipe.
‘Joe, meet Diana, our new historical advisor,’ Walter called. ‘I asked her along today to see how she can be of use to you.’ This was a lie, of course; Walter hadn’t asked her at all. ‘Diana, this is Joe Mankiewicz.’
She shook hands with the director and realised she had read an interview with him in the Sunday Times; she recalled him from the photograph. He’d struck both her and Trevor as being very bright and articulate.
‘Welcome on board,’ Joe said, then sat on the edge of his desk and held out a sheaf of typewritten pages to a girl called Rosemary Matthews, who began to distribute them. ‘Give Diana a copy as well,’ he instructed.
She liked the smell of his pipe tobacco, which was like new-mown hay compared to the stale harshness of cigarette smoke. Everyone smoked here, male and female – she had yet to meet anyone who didn’t.
‘Joe rewrites the script every night,’ Walter explained. ‘We weren’t happy with the last draft. As soon as you get your copy in the morning you should read it through and tell Hilary if you can see any major problems. You’ll have to be quick, though, because we start rehearsing right after this meeting and we start shooting about noon.’
‘On the script you’ve just written?’
Joe nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s crazy but I’ve known crazier things to happen on movies. You’ll get used to it.’
They began to discuss a scene they wanted to shoot the following week down on the Anzio coast, in which Cleopatra is encamped facing Ptolemy’s troops and trying to work out how to reach Caesar to ask for his help. Joe asked Diana about the way the troops would have been positioned and she was relieved that she knew the answer and could draw a sketch for him on the back of one of the sheets of script.
He nodded, pleased. ‘OK, we can use the natural curve of the bay for that bit and have the cameras here.’ He pointed to a spot on the paper and all heads bent to look.
‘Any dialogue?’
‘I’ll keep it short,’ Joe said.
Ernesto leaned over and told her in a whisper that they avoided dialogue on exterior shots as much as possible because they would have to dub it later, which could be hit-and-miss.
‘Does anyone know if Miss Taylor is coming in today?’ someone asked.
‘Nobody called to say she isn’t,’ Walter told them.
‘Have you checked the calendar? Is it a red-letter day?’ another voice called, and there were snorts round the room, which Diana didn’t understand. She’d have to ask someone later.
They ran through the parts of the script they’d been given and Diana attempted to skim read but it was hard to comment without knowing the context. No one had any criticisms. They just talked about camera angles. It seemed more of a technical meeting than anything else.
Joe got up to leave, but turned for a word with Diana on the way out. ‘Will you leave a message at the production office to say where you’re going to be every night? In case I need to call you about something while I’m writing.’
Diana agreed that she would do, and glowed with importance. The director was going to consult her while he was writing the script! She would be on call, like a doctor.
Brimming with pride, she made her way over to Walter to ask about her other responsibilities. How did he see her role?
‘I want you to have a look at all John’s wonderful sets and discuss with him if there are any little details that could make them just a tiny bit more authentic.’
John De Cuir scowled, making it obvious he didn’t want any interference.
‘Introduce yourself in the props and costume departments and see if they want any advice,’ Walter continued. ‘Talk to people in makeup and hair. You’re the lynchpin, communicating with people across the set and raising the intellectual level of the movie.’
‘I’ve already written some notes on the outdoor sets I saw yesterday,’ she volunteered. She’d brought them with her in her handbag and started to open it.
‘Wonderful!’ Walter clasped his hands behind his back. ‘Give them to Hilary and she’ll make sure the right people see them. It’s great that you’ve got off to a flying start. Is your pensione comfortable?’
‘Charming, thank you.’
‘Good, good. Well, I better get going, but I’m really glad you are with us.’
Ernesto appeared by her side again. ‘They have some stills here from the scene that was shot of Miss Taylor at the altar of Isis. Do you want to have a look?’
Diana went over to a table by the window where the photographer had laid them out. They showed Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra in front of the cauldron that Diana had seen in sound stage 5. Her appearance was completely wrong; Trevor would snort with derision if he could see it. She was wearing a low-cut evening gown, whereas Cleopatra would have worn a long high-necked tunic with coiled ropes of pearls round her neck. In that era, pearls would have been the most desirable jewel, their equivalent to diamonds, and it was known that Cleopatra was especially partial to them. Her hairstyle was wrong as well, with a fringed bob style, as was the heavy black eye makeup that curved outwards at the corners. Ancient Egyptians had used black kohl on their eyelids to protect their eyes from the sun’s rays, but it wouldn’t have been stylised like that.
‘It’s all wrong,’ she whispered to Ernesto.
He grinned. ‘You’re welcome to tell Irene Sharaff your views but take a suit of armour! She has a reputation for not welcoming criticism.’
‘Everyone keeps telling me to give my honest opinion and then they proceed to disregard it. I’ve no idea why I’m here. What am I to do for the next six months?’
He rubbed her arm sympathetically. ‘You could relax and let me show you around Rome. Or you could talk to the key people with some tact and see if you can persuade them to make minor changes to their designs. Personally, I recommend you do both.’
Before leaving the meeting, she took her notes from the previous day over to Hilary. ‘Walter said to give these to you.’
Hilary glanced at them and seemed puzzled. ‘Did he? OK. Thanks.’ She tucked them under her arm.
Ernesto hurried off and Diana returned to the office to read the script properly, but it was invented dialogue without any facts she could correct. When she finished, she decided to walk out to the back lot, where she’d been the day before, and work her way along an avenue that was marked on the map as having several workshops. The first ones she came to contained huge pieces of scenery, most of them in white marble with gold leaf decoration. There were some enormous unguent jars that looked fine from a distance but close up she could see they were papier-mâché and liable to topple over if the wind blew. She saw gold-painted cat-goddess statues but from the wrong period so she took out her notebook and made a note. There was no one around to discuss them with.
In the next workshop, a couple of Italian men were making Roman standards and she stopped to watch. They’d got the eagle’s feet curling over the SPQR lettering, and they’d inserted full stops between the initials, which was incorrect. She drew a quick sketch in her book to show them the authentic style and held it towards them.
‘It should be like this,’ she said in Italian. ‘The eagle’s feet here, and SPQR down there.’ She pointed with the tip of her pen.
‘Chi diavolo sei?’ one of them responded – ‘Who the hell are you?’ – in a manner that definitely wasn’t friendly.
‘I’m the historical advisor. From the British Museum, in London. I’ve just arrived.’
It was only then she noticed that they had already completed around fifty of the standards, which were all propped up to dry, each with the incorrect design.
‘Why don’t you fuck off back to London?’ one of the men said in accented English. He dipped his brush into a pot of gold paint and carried on with his work.
She held up her hands defensively and backed out of the workshop.
The free sample has ended.
