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: 2018-06-05

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.

Chapter Eight

When Diana got back to the production office, it was empty. She decided she ought to try to reach Trevor again so she called the operator and gave the number. While she was waiting for the call to be put through, Hilary came in and nodded as she sat down at her desk. Diana considered hanging up and trying again later but at that moment she heard the ringing sound and Trevor’s secretary answered the phone.

‘You’re in luck. I’ll just put you through,’ she said.

‘Hello, it’s me. How are you?’ Diana asked once Trevor was on the line.

‘Surviving,’ he said, and there was a long pause in which neither spoke.

‘Have you thought about whether you could come out here one weekend soon? The weather’s fantastic and it would be nice to go round the sites with you.’

‘I’m too busy,’ came the reply. ‘I’ve been asked to tutor several more students who enrolled at the last minute and I’m up to my ears in assessments.’

Diana sighed. ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be able to come back to London because it seems we have to work on Saturdays. I do wish you would come out, Trevor.’

‘It’s a long way and a lot of money just to spend a Sunday with you.’

She knew she was asking a lot, but she desperately wanted to see him and make things alright between them. ‘If you could come on Friday night and stay till Sunday night, or even first thing Monday morning, it would be worth the trip.’

‘I wouldn’t like to cramp your style. My colleagues are warning me that you’ll run off to Hollywood with a movie star and the first I’ll hear of it will be a headline in the Daily Mail.’

She knew he meant it as a joke, but it came across as an accusation. Diana’s eyes filled with tears. ‘That’s silly. I would never leave you.’ She kept her voice low, acutely conscious of Hilary’s presence.

He spoke sadly: ‘Well, that’s what I always thought – and yet it appears you have.’

A tear spilled over and trickled down her cheek. She smeared it with the back of her hand. ‘I’m working, Trevor. I miss you terribly but this was something I had to do. I wish you would try to understand.’

‘I am trying to understand. It’s difficult to get over the fact that you attached no weight to my feelings on the matter. Honestly, Diana, you can’t have it all ways. I wish you hadn’t gone. I’m too busy to visit you. Just let me know when you are coming back. Now, I have some students arriving for a tutorial so I will have to hang up on you.’ He paused then added: ‘Take care of yourself, darling. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, Trevor,’ she said, but he had already replaced the receiver and she could no longer hold back the tears. She covered her face with her hands.

Hilary hurried over to put a hand on her shoulder and placed a packet of tissues on the desk. ‘You poor thing. I couldn’t help overhearing. Was that your husband?’

Diana nodded.

‘He didn’t want you to come out here? I imagine there aren’t many men who would want their wives in a place like this unless they were around to supervise. Don’t cry, dear. He’ll come round. How long have you been married?’

Diana blew her nose. ‘Two years.’

‘Were you a couple for long before that?’

‘Yes, ages. He was my tutor at Oxford and we fell in love, but we kept it secret for a while because the university authorities wouldn’t have approved. It was only after I graduated and started work on my PhD that we told people.’

Hilary perched on the desk, her hand on Diana’s shoulder. ‘Is he very serious and academic? I imagine he must be older than you.’

‘He’s eighteen years older, and he’s fiercely clever, of course, but he’s funny as well. He can always make me laugh.’ She paused. ‘Well, usually.’

‘Tell me his bad points,’ Hilary asked. ‘Does he try to control you?’

‘No, not really. I suppose we’ve never disagreed about anything before. Not anything major. His worst fault is that he is very slovenly to live with. He puts down cups of tea wherever he happens to be at the time and I spend my life clearing up his dirty socks and tattered old history magazines.’ She smiled fondly. He was always losing things because of his untidiness and she would find them in the most ridiculous places. His chequebook once turned up in a windowbox outside the sitting-room window after he’d been watering the plants. ‘Are you married?’ she asked Hilary, glancing down to see that her ring finger was bare.

‘I couldn’t be under any man’s thumb,’ she said. ‘I like my freedom too much so I doubt I’ll ever marry. I feel lucky to have been born in an era when women can earn a good salary doing an interesting job and they don’t need a man to look after them. Throughout history, women have never enjoyed as much freedom as now, have they?’

‘Actually, they were pretty free in Egypt in Cleopatra’s day,’ Diana told her. ‘Women could own properties and businesses. They were educated to as high a standard as men and could choose their own husbands. But if you cross the water to Rome in the same era, the women were the chattels of their fathers and husbands.’

‘Maybe that’s why you were attracted to Cleopatra?’ Hilary suggested. ‘Because you’re an independent sort? Anyway, that husband of yours will have to buck up his ideas. It’s hard on the phone, especially when the line can be so crackly. Why not write him a letter explaining why you had to take this opportunity and asking him to please try to understand? Tell him you love him but this is something you need to do. If he loves you, he’ll come round in the end.’

Diana nodded. ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll do that.’

‘Don’t make the mistake of putting it in an Italian post box, though – they hardly ever empty them. We’ve got a courier service that goes daily to London and you can stick a letter in there. Ask Candy about it.’

Diana handed back the pack of tissues. ‘Thank you for your advice. It sounds very wise.’

She sat down at the typewriter and focused on typing up her notes for the day, then decided to go back to the sound stages and see what was being shot. On the way there, she noticed Helen on the grass swigging a bottle of Coke.

‘Are you having a break?’ she asked, sitting down.

‘They’re not filming today,’ Helen told her. ‘Elizabeth Taylor has her monthly and it’s written into her contract that she doesn’t have to work for the first three days of it.’

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ Diana exclaimed.

‘They keep a calendar where they mark the days so they can try to predict the next one.’

Diana remembered someone at the script meeting asking if it was a red-letter day and guessed that’s what they had been referring to. ‘What if all the women on set did that?’ she asked. ‘I’d love three days off when I have my monthlies.’

Helen nodded agreement. ‘Me too! The idea is that she has to look perfect on camera and she doesn’t believe she looks good enough at that time of the month. What does she think makeup is for? Between ourselves, it’s a running joke that her periods don’t follow a calendar month but seem to coincide with the morning after she’s been out partying.’

‘That’s so unprofessional! I’m amazed she gets away with it.’ Diana remembered that Helen herself had been the worse for wear the previous evening. ‘It was fun last night. Thank you so much for inviting me. I hope you are feeling alright today?’

‘Yeah!’ Helen grinned. ‘I had a great time. We met a bunch of Italian men and were dancing with them. Don’t you just love the way they’re so flirtatious? They’re much more fun than British men.’

Diana thought of Ernesto and agreed. She was getting used to the way his eyes lingered on her figure and he touched her arm and chatted in an intimate fashion, as though they had known each other for ages. It was innocent flirtation and she rather enjoyed it.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ she asked Helen.

‘No, but I’d love to find one. There are so many handsome men working here, I don’t know where to start. I wish I spoke better Italian because they are the cutest, but there’s an American cameraman I like, and one of the lighting guys.’ She sighed. ‘If only they’d hurry up and ask me out.’

‘I’m sure it won’t take long,’ Diana assured her. ‘You’re lovely and they won’t be able to resist you.’

When she left Cinecittà that evening to go back to her pensione, there was a lone photographer hanging around at the gates.

‘Liz Taylor è lì oggi?’ he called through the open window of her studio car – ‘Is Liz Taylor there today?’

Diana told him she wasn’t.

‘E domani?’

‘Non lo so.’

On the drive into town, she thought what a boring job these men had, waiting around for the few moments in the day when Elizabeth Taylor was driven out of the studio gates, or walked from her car to a restaurant to eat dinner. What was it Helen had called them? Paparazzi. Strange word. It was similar to papatacci, a term Italians used to mean a small mosquito. Perhaps that’s where it came from. They buzzed around on their motor scooters trying to catch the rich and famous in the glare of the flashbulb, like a sting. It didn’t seem a particularly rewarding way of earning a living, but good luck to them.

Chapter Nine

The next time Scott contrived to bump into the beautiful Italian girl, he asked her name.

‘Gina,’ she said quickly, then blushed and tried to hurry past.

Scott turned to walk alongside her, as if he were going in the same direction and it was the most natural thing in the world. She bowed her head, trying to stop anyone seeing her talking to this American boy. Instead of hitting on her directly, he chatted in a friendly fashion. He told her that he had only been in Rome for three months and didn’t know many people so he spent most evenings at home alone. He mentioned that he was a recent college graduate and that he had been a champion athlete. High jump was his best; he could high jump over five feet. Did she want him to demonstrate by jumping over a parked Vespa?

‘No, no,’ she giggled. ‘non è necessario.’

He asked if she liked music, and when she said ‘Sì, certamente,’ he sang a short burst of an Elvis song that had just been released back home – ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’. He could tell she was interested in him because she was laughing, despite her nervousness. Scott liked girls and had long ago realised that if you could make them laugh, you were halfway there. He’d watched other friends hitting on them too obviously and being brushed off or crushed by bitchy put-downs, and that’s when he decided that a slightly clownish approach would work best, by putting girls at their ease.

He wasn’t bad-looking, in his own opinion. One ex-girlfriend had told him that he looked like a younger, handsomer version of John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, that girl later dumped him for one of his best friends from the athletics team, but at least he still had the compliment to cherish. He’d been hurt at the time, but hadn’t been in love with her so it was more to do with pride than heartbreak.

‘Every day I see you go to the church and then the market,’ he told Gina in Italian, and he guessed he must have used an awkward sentence structure or got a word wrong because she giggled. ‘What do you do in the afternoon and at night?’

‘I cook for my family,’ she replied. ‘Lunch and dinner. I help my sister with her babies.’ She began to describe how cute the babies were and how one of them had recently said his first word.

‘You’re going to make a very good mother some day,’ Scott told her and she clutched her face in embarrassment. He noted that she seemed more relaxed with him now that they were a few streets away from her home. Was it time to make his move?

‘I’m glad we got a chance to talk at last. I’ve been watching you for ages now, every morning at the same time. You’re so beautiful I can’t help looking at you.’

She bowed her head and kept walking.

‘Can I take you out one evening? We could have dinner, or coffee, or go for a walk in the Villa Borghese gardens?’

‘No, it’s not possible.’ Her tone sounded regretful so Scott persevered.

‘If you like, I could come and meet your family so they can see I only have respect for you.’ He touched her arm lightly and gazed at her with pleading eyes. ‘Per favore?’

‘I’m sorry, but it would never work. My father is an important businessman around here and he will never accept his daughter dating a foreigner. Never.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Don Ghianciamina. You have heard of him?’ She watched his face, but he just shrugged. No, he hadn’t. ‘Well, if you ask around, you will find out that he is a very traditional father. I really can’t talk to you any more.’

She began to walk off and Scott caught hold of her arm. ‘Please don’t go.’

Suddenly she screamed and pushed Scott away. ‘Go now! Run! It’s my brother.’

He turned to see a young Italian man charging up the street towards them. Scott decided to stand his ground and try to talk to him. If the worst came to the worst, he was taller and reckoned he could take him.

The man grabbed Gina by the elbow, shouting at her in Italian so rapid that Scott couldn’t make it out. He opened his mouth to say ‘Leave her alone’ and too late he saw a left hook curving towards his nose. The force of the blow caught him off balance and he fell to the pavement. As he tried to get up, a boot struck him in the ribs, then he was kicked from the other side and that’s when he realised there was more than one attacker. Fists and boots came at him from all directions in a relentless rhythm. There must be at least three of them and they were taking turns. He curled into a ball to protect his head and tried to crawl back towards a doorway behind him but still the blows rained down.

Christ, they’re going to kill me, Scott thought.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see passersby scurrying past and called out ‘Aiuto!’ but no one stopped. Cars were driving by. It was mid-morning and no one was prepared to intervene. His attackers didn’t say anything but didn’t appear to be planning to stop the barrage any time soon. Somehow Scott managed to haul himself through the doorway and tried to push the door shut, and at last, with one final kick, the men disappeared.

Scott closed the door and lay still for a while, cataloguing his injuries. Everywhere hurt: his face, his ribs, his stomach, his kidneys. He threw up, mostly bile, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He’d heard the clichés about protective Italian men but this was out of all proportion. He could have died.

He raised his head and saw he was in some kind of courtyard with a little fountain in the middle. He called out for help again, but there was no response and no one in sight. Surely one of the passersby would have called the police at least? He listened for sirens but there was no sound except the tinkling of the fountain and the hum of the traffic outside. He needed to get to a hospital but his knees gave way beneath him when he tried to stand up.

Cautiously, he opened the door a crack and peered out to make sure the men had definitely gone. He crawled on all fours to the roadside then leant on a car to pull himself to an upright position. Further up the hill there was a taxi with its light on. He waited until it was almost alongside then stepped out into the road so it was forced to stop. He staggered round, wrenched open the nearest door and fell in.

‘All’ospedale,’ he told the driver. ‘Presto.’

Chapter Ten

Diana decided to make the acquaintance of Irene Sharaff, who was designing the costumes for Elizabeth Taylor, but, following Candy’s advice, she first made an appointment through Miss Sharaff’s secretary. By all accounts, she wasn’t a woman you wanted to rub up the wrong way.

Once in the costume department, she was directed to a cavernous room full of vibrant colour. Gowns in jewel shades were pinned around white-faced tailors’ dummies and swathes of glittering fabric covered tables and chairs. Irene Sharaff was instantly recognisable from magazine pictures, her strong features and odd hooked nose emphasised by the fact that her dark hair was scraped back in a tight bun.

‘So you’re a historical advisor?’ She gave a little snort. ‘How are you finding everything, my dear?’

Diana decided to be honest. ‘No one seems particularly keen to have my advice. Still, I promised Walter that I would offer it all the same.’

‘And you’re here today to give me your advice?’ In a sharp glance Irene took in the flared yellow skirt and white blouse Diana was wearing.

‘I wouldn’t presume, Miss Sharaff. I’m a huge fan of yours. I loved West Side Story. The girls’ dresses were wonderful. And I loved Guys and Dolls, and Meet Me in St Louis … You bring so much panache to all your productions.’ She’d memorised this speech beforehand, so nervous was she about meeting the great woman.

‘Someone obviously told you to butter me up. Good job!’ She smiled. ‘Now I already know what you’re going to say about Cleopatra’s costumes. In the first century BC they wouldn’t have been low-cut and they wouldn’t have been caught in at the waist; they would have been a straight tunic style, maybe with a belt. Is that what you were going to tell me?’

‘I was sure you would know that already,’ Diana said hurriedly. ‘I just wanted to ask about the decisions you’ve made.’

‘It’s obvious. The reason why they wanted me on this movie is because I know how to dress Elizabeth Taylor, and that’s no laughing matter. Those renowned mammaries have to be on display; if it’s not actually written into her contract it might as well be, because the last film she made without thrusting them at the audience was Lassie Come Home.’

Diana grinned, feeling more at ease.

‘I have to choose styles that don’t show off the fact that Miss Taylor is, to be blunt, chubby. And I have to be able to adjust the costumes from day to day because her weight goes up and down like a yo-yo. I swear she can gain an inch on her hips overnight! A straight tunic would never work for her, especially when she is standing beside all these skinny handmaidens. She’d look like a sack of flour.’

Diana could see what she meant. ‘You’ve done well in researching the colours. Just fifty years earlier they wouldn’t have had all those dyes, but you’ve captured the blues, greens and terracotta shades they used in Alexandria in 40 BC.’

‘Do you know what Walter’s instructions to me were? Make sure Elizabeth stands out in front of all that fancy scenery so it’s her the audience are looking at whenever she’s on screen. She’s costing a million bucks and he wants his money’s worth.’ She snorted. ‘You’ll be pretty lucky if you manage to convince him to change anything for the sake of historical accuracy. He won’t sanction any change that costs one cent more than the alternative.’

‘So I’m beginning to realise.’

Irene stood up and led Diana round the room, showing her some costumes that were to be used later in the shoot. They got more and more ornate, with one made out of gold-plated chain-mail that would never have been used in the first century BC, but Diana didn’t point that out.

‘Feel it,’ Irene instructed, placing it across Diana’s arms, and she gasped at the weight. It had to be at least twenty pounds. How would Elizabeth walk around in it?

‘She’ll be sitting down in that scene,’ Irene explained with a grin.

They talked about the iconography on the headdresses and Diana sketched a starburst symbol that might have appeared. They discussed the costumes worn by other characters, which were being made by different departments, and Diana showed Irene a picture of the jewelled sandals Cleopatra would have worn.

She laughed. ‘Elizabeth would never wear flat shoes. She’s got chubby feet, and she needs a good three-inch heel or Caesar would tower over her. It’s not ancient Alexandria; it’s Hollywood on the Tiber, honey.’

Before Diana left, Irene looked at her outfit again. ‘Can I make a suggestion? You’ve got slim hips but no one would know it in that skirt. Let me see your legs.’

Embarrassed, Diana hesitated before lifting the hem of her skirt to knee level.

‘I thought so. You boyish-figured English girls all have great legs. You need to get yourself some knee-length skirts and dresses that fit you on the hips. Pick pastel shades for your skin tone. You’d look great in Capri pants as well. If you don’t mind me being honest, you look a bit gauche in that swing skirt, like some backing singer in a rockabilly band.’ She smiled. ‘No offence.’

‘None taken,’ Diana replied, although she was taken aback by the directness.

As she walked back towards her office, she decided she would take the hint. It came from one of the world’s top costume designers, after all! She realised she had no idea where the women’s clothing shops were in Rome – she hadn’t seen anything but bars and trattorie on the drive to and from the studio – but Helen would know.

She made her way to the sound stages and followed the handwritten sign to the dressing room that was being used for makeup that day. Helen was flicking through a copy of a women’s magazine called Honey.

‘Thank goodness you came by,’ she exclaimed, throwing down the magazine. ‘I’m bored to tears. There’s nothing to do and it’s not warm enough to sunbathe.’

‘No actors to make up?’

‘I did a few handmaidens and centurions this morning and now I’m not needed.’

‘You are by me,’ Diana told her, before asking if she knew any decent, affordable clothes shops in Rome where she could update her wardrobe.

Straight away, Helen suggested La Rinascente on Via del Corso. ‘I’ve only been here a few weeks and I’ve bought tons of things there. Why don’t we go this afternoon? We could slip off at five and they stay open till seven-thirty. I’ll give you a second opinion. I love shopping with my girlfriends.’

Diana readily agreed because she wasn’t a confident shopper, and when they arrived at the store she was glad she had taken Helen along because the choice was overwhelming. Faced with such endless racks of clothes stretching into the distance around the store’s elegant columns and balconies, she would have given up and headed home.

Helen ferreted out some lovely garments and brought them to the plush changing rooms, where all Diana had to do was slip into them. She knew there was plenty of money in the bank account from a travelling allowance she’d been paid in advance by the film company, so she splashed out on four shift dresses in the style Irene Sharaff had recommended, one lilac evening gown, a pair of white Capri pants, some kaftan tops and a lightweight coat, because she could tell her heavy woollen one wasn’t going to get much use in Rome.

Helen tried on a pretty black and white sweater with a geometric pattern but put it back on the rack.

‘Why don’t you get it?’ Diana asked. ‘It suits you.’

‘I’m broke until payday. Going out every night is costing me an arm and a leg.’

‘Let me treat you,’ Diana said. ‘I insist. It’s a gift to thank you for being so helpful today. I’d have walked out without finding anything if you hadn’t been here.’

Helen protested but Diana simply picked up the sweater and added it to her pile on the cashier’s desk. As she wrote a travellers’ cheque to cover the bill, she felt a twinge of guilt about Trevor. Of course, this wasn’t just her money – it was his as well. He was paying all the bills at home. She would write to him that evening, as Hilary suggested.

Back at the Pensione Splendid, she sat on the bed and poured out her feelings on paper. She told Trevor first and foremost how much she missed talking to him. She hadn’t yet been to see the Forum or the Colosseum because he was the one person she would want to see them with. She told him she knew it was shallow and frivolous to work on a Hollywood movie but that it was an education of a different sort – an education in human nature. She described Joe Mankiewicz and the way he was writing the script for each scene the night before they shot it. She wrote about Irene Sharaff and the criteria she used to design Elizabeth Taylor’s costumes, such as displaying the ‘renowned mammaries’. She told him about the Indian elephants and the fact that the circus owner who supplied them was now suing Twentieth Century Fox for ‘insulting his elephants’. The letter spilled over many pages. It made her feel close to him to be able to express everything that was on her mind and she prayed that he would read it and try to understand.

At the end, she begged him to write back soon, using the studio’s courier service, or to telephone her at the office, and if she wasn’t there someone would take a message and she would call back. And then she couldn’t think of anything more to say so she signed off with all her love and lots of Xs underneath. There was a pain in her chest, in exactly the same place as her heart.

Chapter Eleven

Scott spent two days in a morphine fug, while doctors and nurses came and went, occasionally stopping to perform some unpleasant procedure. His nose had been broken and there were strips of plaster across it and great wads of cotton wool stuffed inside so that he could only breathe through his mouth. His ribs were strapped up and his left wrist was also broken and in plaster. He vaguely recalled one of the men stamping on it. He had a catheter and he knew there was blood in his urine from all the kidney punches and kicks he’d taken, but the doctor assured him the ‘trauma’ would heal in time.

As well as bruising and swelling, there were many contusions on his face and body, and a nurse said they must have used a pugno di ferro. He’d never heard the term, but from her mime he realised she meant a knuckleduster. What kind of person carried one of those around on a normal weekday morning? That suggestion shook him, but when he examined a cut above his forehead, he could see the indentations of metal knuckles, so it must be true.

Two carabinieri came and he told his story slowly and carefully, remembering every detail of his conversation with the girl and giving a precise description of her brother. He hadn’t seen the other two attackers clearly but thought they had been wearing leather jackets. But when he mentioned the name Ghianciamina, and the fact that they lived in Piazza Navona, the carabinieri glanced at each other.

‘I think you must have misheard, sir. There is a family of that name but they are a very prominent family of good character.’

‘I can show you the exact house where they live,’ Scott insisted. ‘Take me there and I’ll identify the man who did this.’

One of the policemen produced a loose-leaf folder. ‘There’s no need, sir. We’ve brought pictures of all the violent criminals in the city and you can go through and point to the men who hurt you without getting out of your bed.’

Scott began to flick through. They were rough-looking, dark-skinned young men, aged between fifteen and twenty-five, all of them scowling out of police mugshots. ‘My attacker was dressed smarter and his skin was paler than these men,’ he said, but continued to work through the folder until he reached the end. ‘Nope, none of them. Can we go to Piazza Navona now?’

‘The doctors say you can’t be moved. Don’t worry, because we are asking shopkeepers and bartenders in the street and we hope there will be witnesses. You’re sure your wallet was not taken? Often, there is robbery involved.’

‘My wallet is here,’ Scott said, pointing to the cabinet by his bed. ‘I wasn’t being robbed. It was because I was talking to the girl, Gina.’ He was frustrated that he had given them a name and an address and was not being taken seriously. ‘For crying out loud, don’t you guys want to catch him? What’s the problem? Are you going to wait till he does this to somebody else?’

‘At least you are alive,’ one of them said quietly. ‘Your bones will heal.’

Scott stared at him, too surprised to respond.

The nurses had asked if he wanted a family member to be contacted but he decided it would cause too big a furore to call his mother and father in the States. They’d fly over and make a huge fuss and want to stay on for weeks while he recuperated. Scott knew this because he had been beaten up once before. A local gang attacked him on the way home from school and he’d fought back, which meant he’d come off worse than his friend who’d run away after the first punch was thrown. His mother had reacted with hysteria and insisted on collecting Scott from school in the automobile for the rest of the semester, not letting him go out with friends in the evenings either. Getting beaten up was just one of those things that happened to guys from time to time – hopefully not too often.

Still, he shuddered every time he thought of the knuckleduster, and the fact that it had been three against one. They had wanted to inflict serious harm and hadn’t cared whether he lived or died, and that was chilling.

One young nurse, Rosalia, seemed especially concerned that he didn’t have any visitors and began to linger by his bed to chat with him while she was on duty. She was a little plump around the hips but had sexy dimples in her cheeks so he began to flirt.

‘Rosalia, do you think I will ever get a girl again? I’ll look horrible with all my scars and a crooked nose. Will I have to check myself into a monastery?’

‘You’ll do fine,’ she replied. ‘It’s personality that counts.’

‘OK then, I’m doomed,’ he said. ‘I’ve never had a personality. I always relied on my gorgeous face to get the girls.’

‘Maybe you will be a nicer person now,’ she suggested. ‘You’ll have to be very sweet to girls, buy them presents and be a gentleman.’

‘I’m going to be real lonely when I get out of here. I’ll be stuck in my little apartment recuperating all on my own. I’ll miss our talks. I don’t suppose …’

It didn’t take much to persuade her to have dinner with him after he was discharged. It would be handy to have a nurse around, he thought, just in case he needed more painkillers. Surely she’d be able to get spares from the hospital dispensary? Meanwhile, flirting with her helped to pass the time.

His secretary came to visit, bringing some paperwork he had to sign. He explained about his frustration that the police wouldn’t act over the attack but when he mentioned the name Ghianciamina, she was visibly startled.

‘Scott, you must listen to me. They are Mafia, from Sicily, and you must not try to press charges against them because the police will not be able to protect you. Come back to work, forget what happened and stay well away from them. Otherwise, you will have to leave Rome.’

‘You’re joking! So they get away with it? No way.’

‘Yes, that is exactly what I mean.’

‘What kind of a country is this?’

Scott knew they had Mafia back home in New York and Chicago because occasionally the details of some internecine war hit the headlines, but the American police did their best to lock away the worst offenders. Here in Italy they seemed happy to let them roam the streets. It was outrageous.

He lay back against his pillows. No way could he let them off the hook. Somehow, he had to get revenge, but he’d have to think of a way of achieving it that didn’t compromise his own safety. He decided he’d sleep on it.

Chapter Twelve

On the 14th of October, Walter Wanger dropped by the production office to invite Diana to a party hosted by Kirk Douglas to celebrate the anniversary of the release of Spartacus. ‘He said to bring our top people. Elizabeth is coming, of course. See you later, my dear.’

Diana felt shy about going, but Helen offered to come round to her pensione to do her hair and makeup so she would look her best. She sat in a chair by the window as Helen smoothed a creamy base all over her skin and chattered nonstop about the stars who might be there.

‘You know Roddy McDowall, who plays Octavian?’ she giggled. ‘I had an embarrassing encounter with him when we first arrived in Rome. There was a welcome party and I got a bit tipsy. They tried to find a studio car to take me home but the only one available was already booked to take Roddy back to his villa. Anyway, he offered to drop me off and in my drunken state I got the impression that he must like me so just before we reached my place, I leant over and tried to kiss him.’ She cringed at the memory.

‘What did he do?’ Diana mouthed in sympathy.

‘He was very sweet. He put his hands on my shoulders, like this …’ she demonstrated. ‘And he said with a twinkle, “I should tell you that I dance on the other side of the ballroom, darling.” Of course, I didn’t know what it meant exactly but the next day someone told me that he is here with his boyfriend John Valva. He got him a part in the film, as a centurion.’

‘Has he said anything to you since? Do you ever have to do his makeup?’

‘I haven’t, no, thank God. But next day I bumped into him in the corridor and he gave me a huge wink.’ Helen laughed. ‘That’s how I know he’s a nice person. He’s virtually Elizabeth Taylor’s closest friend in the world. And to think I nearly kissed him!’

‘What a shame he’s not interested in girls. Otherwise I’m sure he would have pounced on you!’

‘Everyone here is already taken.’ Helen began ticking them off. ‘You know about Elizabeth Taylor, of course: on her fourth marriage and she’s not even thirty! Rex Harrison is here with Rachel Roberts, the actress. Do you know her?’ Diana shook her head. ‘You’d recognise her if you saw her. She’s an alcoholic, they say. Anyway, they’re engaged and getting married soon, even though it’s only two years since Kay Kendall died. She was supposed to be the love of his life, everyone said at the time, but I suppose he must have got over her. Richard Burton is here with his wife Sybil; they’ve been married for twelve years. You know about Walter Wanger, don’t you?’ Diana shook her head. ‘He’s married to Joan Bennett, the actress, but he found out she had a lover and shot him in the privates. He went to jail for a while, but not long. They haven’t divorced but I haven’t seen her here in Rome. I can’t imagine all is well in that marriage.’

‘Good grief!’ Diana tried to assimilate this information with the very suave elderly gentleman she had met. ‘How about Joe Mankiewicz? Is he married?’

‘Not at the moment. He’s too old for me, though. Hey, when is your husband coming out? I’d love to meet him. Is he very dishy?’

Diana laughed. ‘He’s not at all what you would call “dishy”. He’s a very nice man, though …’ She hesitated, wondering whether to confide about her marriage problems but decided against it. Helen was too loose-tongued and she didn’t want everyone knowing her business. ‘He’s very busy at work but I hope he’ll be able to come out before long.’

Diana hardly recognised herself in the mirror after Helen had finished. There was mauve eyeshadow smeared on her eyelids and up towards her brows, in a tone that complimented her new lilac dress, and somehow it brought out the greeny-hazel of her eyes. Her shoulder-length brown hair was stacked high on her head and fixed in position with masses of sticky lacquer. She worried that it might act like flypaper, but Helen assured her that never happened. They caught a taxi together to the Grand Hotel on Via del Corso, then Helen continued on to a pizzeria where she was meeting some American actresses from the set, the same crowd Diana had met before.

‘Break a leg,’ she called as Diana climbed out of the taxi onto a red carpet leading up to the hotel entrance.

Photographers snapped some shots of her, in a reflex action, and the flashes were startling, but then they stopped and looked at each other in puzzlement as if to ask ‘Who is she?’ No doubt they would destroy those shots in the darkroom when they realised she wasn’t famous.

She was ushered into an ostentatious ballroom with gold cornice-work, pillared arcades, stained-glass skylights and inset murals of painted cherubs on the ceiling. A band were tuning their instruments on a stage at one end and groups of expensively dressed men and women were standing round the edges of the room, but there was no one she recognised. A tower of glasses was balanced at the end of a table and, as she watched, a waiter popped the cork of a bottle of champagne and poured deftly into the top glass, so that it overflowed down the sides and into the glasses below. She’d never seen anything quite so extravagant.

‘Some champagne, madame?’ a waiter asked her in English, and she accepted with pleasure. She’d had Babycham at her wedding but had never tasted the real thing before. The first sip was a little bitter for her palate, but it was very smooth on the tongue, like stroking suede.

Clutching her glass, she began to wander self-consciously round the room hoping to spot someone – anyone – she recognised from the film set. Roddy McDowall was sitting with a group of friends but they didn’t glance up as she passed. She wondered which one was his lover. Surely Hilary should be there? And when would Walter arrive? She took a seat behind a pillar from where she could watch the proceedings without sticking out like a sore thumb.

Suddenly Ernesto appeared by her side. ‘Ah, Diana, you look amazing!’ He kissed her on both cheeks and gave her shoulders a brief squeeze. ‘That dress is beautiful on you. And the hair.’ He held out his hands in appreciation. ‘Bellissima!’

She hoped he would sit with her so she was no longer quite so obviously the lone friendless female. ‘I’m glad to see you. I wish I’d known you’d been invited.’

‘I’m not,’ he whispered. ‘I’m gate-crashing. That’s the phrase you use in English, isn’t it?’ He grinned at her shocked expression. ‘I said I was a guest of Walter Wanger and they let me in.’

‘You’ve got a nerve!’ she smiled.

He sat down beside her and began pointing out the celebrities: ‘That’s Tony Curtis. Did you see him dressed as a woman in Some Like it Hot? And that’s Jean Simmons. She’s English. Have you met her?’

Diana shook her head, amused that Ernesto would think she might know an actress simply because they were both English. He recognised everyone, knew everything about them, and was very entertaining company.

The room filled out and Hilary came over to say hello although she didn’t stop for long before rushing to join a group with Joe Mankiewicz at its centre. Walter was there but surrounded by dignitaries all evening so Diana couldn’t get close enough to thank him for the invitation. The dancing began and Ernesto urged her to get up with him.

‘I can’t dance. I don’t know what to do,’ she protested.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll do everything,’ he insisted. ‘You just follow.’ He wouldn’t take no for an answer, pulling her by the arm to the dance floor then guiding her with a hand on the small of her back. ‘Just relax,’ he whispered, and she found that if she stopped trying to keep up, his legs and the hand on her back guided her around the floor. She almost felt elegant. No one was watching them so there was no need to be self-conscious.

Just after ten o’clock, a flurry of whispers passed around the room and a wave of heads turned to the door. Women adjusted their hair while men straightened their jackets and ties as Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher walked in. She was wearing a clinging silvery-white gown trimmed with long white ostrich feathers and very high heels that made her walk in tiny hobbling steps. Even at a distance, Diana could see that she emanated a kind of effortless star quality. It was hard to quantify or describe but she instantly became the centre of the room, like a sun around which all the planets revolved. She accepted a glass of champagne from a waiter then sat down at the head of a large table. Instantly the most famous party guests rushed over to pay court – Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons, Walter Wanger, Rex Harrison and Rachel Roberts – all keen to be seen in her presence. Eddie beamed benignly and chatted to those on the edges of the throng.

Ernesto excused himself for a moment, so Diana sat on her own watching the spectacle. She couldn’t help wondering what Trevor would make of all the fuss. This woman might be beautiful but so were lots of other women, and truth be told she wasn’t a particularly good actress. No one reported her as being especially clever. She was simply famous for her marriages, famous for the fact that her third husband died in a plane crash and she stole her fourth from Debbie Reynolds, America’s sweetheart. Yes, it was her love life Elizabeth Taylor was famous for rather than her acting talent. What a strange career.

Suddenly she noticed Ernesto hiding behind a pillar at the back of the room and speaking into a walkie-talkie. It seemed odd that he would have one, so when he rejoined her, she asked what he had been doing.

‘I was making some security arrangements for when they leave,’ he said.

She thought it was bizarre that he was involved in security for an event to which he hadn’t been invited but didn’t get a chance to question him further as just then the band struck up a rumba and Joe Mankiewicz led Elizabeth Taylor to the dance floor. She tottered like a skittle on her stiletto heels and when she wiggled those well-fleshed hips, the tight white dress threatened to split at the seams. Now, wouldn’t that be a story! All eyes were upon her but Elizabeth’s eyes were fixed on Joe, and Diana had to admit that she was extremely sexy. What man could resist her magnetism? It must feel like being sucked into a vortex.

The dance brought them close to Diana’s table for a moment and her attention was caught by a varicose vein on Elizabeth’s ankle, like a fat little worm resting on her skin. It was reassuring to see she wasn’t perfect, that she was real flesh and blood.

Diana heard a scream before she saw a flash of light, then there was a thump as one of the Italian musicians dropped his cello and leapt off the stage. He ran towards Elizabeth and began to pat her legs and bottom, while Joe stood to one side looking bemused. There was a faint smell of smoke now. Elizabeth turned to peer over her shoulder at her own backside and let out a whoop of laughter.

‘I’m on fire,’ she said. ‘Damned ostrich feathers. Someone must have dropped a cigarette.’

‘Scusi, signora,’ the musician bowed, having extinguished the flames. She held out her hand to him and he touched those famous fingers to his lips.

‘My hero,’ she said warmly. ‘Thank you for saving me.’

No one else had reacted in time to deal with the emergency. Few people seemed to realise what had happened, as the musician leapt back onto the stage and began to play again. The rest of the band had continued without him.

‘It seems you Italians never miss a chance to touch a girl’s bottom,’ Diana whispered to Ernesto, and he beamed proudly.

‘Who knows? Perhaps he even arranged the fire himself.’

Elizabeth reached down to brush the charred edges of her ostrich feathers, as Joe solicitously took her elbow and guided her back to her table. Eddie hadn’t seen the incident and he leapt to his feet in alarm when someone told him about it but Elizabeth appeared to think it was all a huge joke. They could hear her raucous laughter from the other side of the room.

At least I’ve got a story to tell Helen tomorrow, Diana thought. She’ll love hearing about this.

Soon afterwards, Elizabeth and Eddie decided to leave, and they were followed by a crowd of hangers-on, still warming themselves around the glow of her fame. Diana wondered if Elizabeth liked being fawned over in that way. She didn’t seem to mind.

As soon as they had gone, the party began to thin out. Even though the band was still playing and the champagne was still flowing, the consensus seemed to be that the evening was over and there was no point in staying any longer.

Chapter Thirteen

When Scott told the American hacks who drank in the Eden Hotel bar that he’d been beaten up by Don Ghianciamina’s son after flirting with his daughter, they almost fell off their barstools.

Joe gave a long low whistle. ‘Jesus, you had a narrow escape. Look at your nose, pal. What a mess!’

There was a knuckle-shaped groove across the bridge of Scott’s nose and the tip now veered off to the left. What was worse was that his left nostril kept dripping, meaning that he had to sniff or wipe it on a handkerchief every minute or so. The doctors had said that might improve over time – or it might not. They didn’t seem sure. That’s what bothered him most. He’d been dating Rosalia, the nurse, since getting out of hospital but he couldn’t kiss her properly because of his dripping nostril. He suffered from thick, poisonous headaches as well, and was popping painkillers several times a day.

‘What do you know about Ghianciamina?’ Scott asked. ‘What’s he involved in?’

‘Drugs. Probably heroin, because that’s where the money is. But I’m sure he’s also involved in money laundering, prostitution, all the usual stuff. He’s a big cheese.’

‘Why don’t the police do something about it? I told them exactly who beat me up, and gave them a full description and his address but they refused to go to the house and question him. It’s incredible!’

‘I’ll bet they did. They probably have families. Seriously, you’re lucky to be walking around and I would keep your head down. Stay away from Italian girls, Spike. You won’t get anywhere without putting a ring on their finger.’

‘Is that so?’ Scott couldn’t resist boasting about the nurse, with whom he’d had sex three times. She was sweet but not really his type. In fact, she seemed rather keen and he wasn’t sure how he was going to extricate himself. As she left his apartment a couple of mornings previously, she had clung to him and asked plaintively when she would see him again. He said he had a lot of work on and would telephone when he had a moment, and she seemed upset. Warning bells were sounding. But the hacks were suitably impressed.

‘Bring her to meet us. Maybe she’s got a friend. I’ve always had a thing about nurses.’

‘He wouldn’t bring her here,’ Joe said. ‘He’s scared she’d run off with me.’

They all hooted. Joe was an ugly big guy with buck teeth and one blind eye that stared off to the side. All the men in that crowd were at least twenty years older than Scott, with middle-aged paunches, thinning hair and bulbous red noses that signposted their love affair with booze.

‘Where is the drugs scene in town?’ Scott asked. ‘Where would I go to buy stuff if I was that kind of guy? Which I’m not, of course.’

‘The Via Margutta, and the area around there. That’s where the arty types hang out. I hear there are bars where you can buy marijuana or LSD over the counter if the bartender knows you.’

‘They have LSD parties where everybody’s tripping. I don’t know where you get heroin, though. You probably need to know the right people but I’m pretty sure it’s not hard.’ Joe peered at Scott. ‘You haven’t got any stupid ideas about writing some kind of story, have you, Spike?’

‘Course not,’ Scott lied. That was exactly what he had been thinking. He hadn’t yet figured out how but he knew he wanted to get revenge on his attackers and the best way would be to write an article exposing their crimes. It would have to include information so damning that the police would have no option but to arrest them. It would take a lot of research – but didn’t someone once say that revenge was a dish best served cold?

‘I filed my first Liz Taylor story today,’ Joe told them. ‘Her feather boa caught fire at a party last night and one of the guests had to throw her to the ground and roll on top of her to put out the flames – or so he said. Nice excuse.’

‘Was she hurt?’ someone asked.

‘Naw, just shaken up.’

‘Where were they?’ Scott asked. ‘Has anyone interviewed the guy who put out the fire?’

‘It was in the Grand Hotel but I have no idea who he was. Who cares? People just want to read about Liz. Any excuse to put a picture of her on the front cover and my editor’s happy.’

Scott pondered this. His own editor had phoned before he left the office to ask when he might start filing stories again, but it was hard to get anything substantial to write about since no politicians or their aides would talk to him. He abhorred the idea of writing about people simply because they were famous, but maybe he could compose a quirky little story about flammable fashions. He’d have to move quickly though, before it became old news.

He made his excuses and scooted back through the streets to his office. That day’s Italian newspapers had been thrown out but the wastebin hadn’t yet been emptied by the cleaner. He pulled them out and located some stop-press items that mentioned the incident with the dress, then composed a snappy little piece about the vagaries of designers who don’t consider that their creations are going to be in close proximity to cigarettes. It was almost midnight in Rome but only four in the afternoon back home, leaving plenty of time to get a piece in the next day’s paper. He picked up the phone and rang to dictate his story to a copy-taker.

Job done, he drove down to the Via Margutta for a look around. Rock ‘n’ roll music was blaring from some windows above a large art gallery. He saw an entrance round the side and when he walked up the steps, no one gave him a second glance, even though his sandy hair clearly signalled he wasn’t Italian. Some guests were swaying to the music in a world of their own. Others sat dazed and saucer-eyed, staring into space. Yet more chatted with high animation and screeched with laughter. Scott hadn’t ever tried drugs and didn’t know anyone who had, but he’d read enough on the subject, especially in Norman Mailer’s articles, to realise this was the kind of behaviour you might expect. He was pretty sure he’d be able to get some of these people to talk, and the best thing was they’d be unlikely to remember the conversations next morning.

That’s what he would do. He would start investigating the Ghianciaminas, slowly and carefully building up a dossier of information until he was ready to publish. After it was in print, he’d have to leave the city and seek a posting elsewhere, probably with another paper. In the meantime, if he could keep his editor happy with a few stories about Elizabeth Taylor, that was all to the good.

‘Vorresti LSD?’ a tall, slender girl offered.

‘Sure, why not?’ he replied, thinking he might as well get to know what it was like. She gave him a sugar cube and told him to let it dissolve on his tongue. After just a moment’s hesitation, he popped it in his mouth. He hadn’t expected to notice much difference but half an hour later he realised he felt immensely content with the world. Everyone at the party seemed extraordinarily good-looking and the music was the best he’d ever heard. He wandered round without talking to anyone, simply soaking in the vibe.

So this is it! he thought in a moment of self-awareness. It’s good stuff. Well, I’ll be damned.

Chapter Fourteen

In October, the temperature in Rome dropped by ten degrees and cold blustery rain set in. Instead of lounging on the grass inside Cinecittà’s main entrance, people sprinted from one building to another with coats held over their heads to protect their ancient Egyptian makeup and hairstyles. Huge puddles formed in the uneven pathways and girls shrieked as they stepped on loose paving stones, causing muddy water to splash up their bare legs.

Diana was invited to watch what Hilary called the ‘dailies’ – footage that had already been shot – in a screening room. She wasn’t sure why they wanted her there but Walter explained that if there were any dreadful mistakes they could fix them in editing.

‘In the worst-case scenario we can reshoot scenes but I’m hoping that won’t be necessary. On most films you can watch dailies at the end of the day they were shot – hence the name – but we have to courier the film stock back to LA for processing. We pack up the cans every night and send them off then it’s a week before the so-called “dailies” get back to us, by which time the sets have been taken down. So if something hasn’t worked out, it’s a complete pain in the proverbial.’ He smiled as he spoke, and Diana wondered if anything on set ever rattled his composure. She’d only ever seen him in good humour but he obviously had a dark side if Helen was right about him shooting his wife’s lover.

They took their seats, the lights were switched off and the projector cast a big white circle onto the screen, then diminishing numbers flashed up … 3, 2, 1. She saw the clapperboard slowly closing and a big cross appeared, before an image of Elizabeth Taylor and Rex Harrison. The sound had been synched on but there was no background music or sound effects so their voices seemed curiously flat. They watched one short sequence in which Cleopatra argued with Caesar, then the clapperboard came up again and they were in an entirely different and non-sequential scene.

Diana found it hard to follow the short snatches of action but she was impressed by Rex Harrison’s acting. He was easily plausible as Caesar, a man struggling to hold together the vast Roman empire but facing insurmountable problems due to the geographical distances and implacable enemies. Elizabeth Taylor, on the other hand, was simply playing Elizabeth Taylor. With her curious Anglo-American accent and modern looks, she bore no resemblance to the first century BC queen Diana had studied. Her extraordinary beauty and sexually charged acting were pure Hollywood.

The film was going to be a love story, not a historical documentary. Would cinemagoers have been interested in watching the true Cleopatra story of the woman who married her brother, ordered the deaths of her rivals, defeated foes in battle and bribed the Egyptian people to win their loyalty? To Diana’s way of thinking, the fact that, far from being beautiful, she had been hook-nosed, strong-jawed and stick-thin yet extremely quick-witted, made for a more entertaining story. But as it was, she could see that this was going to be a sentimental movie designed to showcase its star. There was nothing she could do to change that.

When the projector was switched off and the lights came on, they sat discussing what they’d seen, and Joe Mankiewicz suggested a couple of fill-in shots. The cameraman agreed and someone wrote it down. No one asked Diana’s opinion.

‘Great work, everybody,’ Walter beamed, and the group dispersed. Sheltering under a studio umbrella, Diana hurried back to the production office, wondering whether there was any point in her attending the dailies. They would never reshoot anything based on her opinion; that much was clear.

‘I’ve just been booking a trip for you,’ Hilary told her as she walked in and threw her wet brolly into a rack. ‘Joe wants you to check the sets they’re building in Ischia. I thought I’d ask Ernesto to go with you because he knows the people there. You OK to leave tomorrow?’

‘Yes, that would be fine.’ She sat down at her desk, racking her brains as she tried to remember where Ischia might be. ‘How long will I be away?’

‘Depends what you find, but no more than a week I’d say. Just long enough to tell the set builders what they’re doing wrong.’

Diana glanced over towards Hilary’s desk. It would feel odd to leave Rome without letting Trevor know where she was going. ‘Did the courier arrive from London?’

Hilary pursed her lips sympathetically. ‘Nothing for you. Hasn’t he replied yet?’

Diana shook her head.

‘Call him. Go on, I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.’ She got up and gave Diana a quick pat on the shoulder. ‘Stick to your guns but tell him you miss him. And good luck!’

Diana looked at the clock. Trevor was probably sitting at his desk over lunch. She placed the call through the operator and, almost as soon as it rang, she heard her husband’s voice on the end of the line. His secretary must have gone out.

‘Hello, it’s me. How are you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I wrote to you. Did you get the letter?’

‘Yes, I got it.’

‘Why haven’t you replied?’ Diana asked.

‘I don’t know what you want me to say. Of course I miss you, but this wasn’t my decision.’ His tone chilled her. Suddenly she felt cross with him for being so unsupportive but she knew that nothing would be resolved if she lost her temper.

‘I’m going to Ischia tomorrow to check the outdoor sets. They’re building boats for the sea battle of Actium.’

‘No doubt that will be educational,’ he commented drily, then added ‘I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to get excited about it from back here in rainy London.’

There was a long pause, then they both began to speak at once – him to say he had a tutorial to prepare and her pleading ‘Don’t shut me out, Trevor. Please come over to Rome, or at least write to me.’

‘Diana, it’s only a few weeks till Christmas. We can talk then. I don’t see any point in coming out beforehand to sit on my thumbs while you prance around with the stars.’

He was immovable. She had no choice but to agree that they would talk on her return. When she came off the phone, she sat for several minutes with her head in her hands. She knew him well enough to sense that, behind the curt tone, he was depressed and lonely. It had been selfish of her to leave him. She couldn’t blame him for his attitude but wished that he would at least support her now she was there. She was having the time of her life, and didn’t for one moment regret the decision she’d made.

Chapter Fifteen

Scott’s editor was pleased with the ostrich feather story but next time, he said, he wanted a picture of Elizabeth Taylor in the dress, and preferably while it was on fire.

‘Rome is crawling with photographers. Surely that’s not too hard to organise?’

Scott went to visit Jacopo Jacopozzi, the amiable chief of Associated Press in Rome. The walls of his office were covered in pictures of popes and presidents, movie stars and politicians.

‘You want it, we got it,’ Jacopozzi told him. ‘I’ve got people covering Elizabeth Taylor from the moment she steps onto her verandah for breakfast until her car takes her home from a restaurant at night. I can get shots from inside the film set, or whichever nightclub she happens to be in. Just say the word.’

‘Did you get the ostrich feather dress?’ Scott asked.

‘Sure,’ he shrugged. He flicked through some files on the desk in front of him and pulled out one that showed Elizabeth Taylor leaving the Grand Hotel in a white dress, with Eddie Fisher by her side. ‘Tazio Secchiaroli himself got this one. You’ve heard of him? He’s our best man. He’s getting more famous than the stars themselves, but he’s not cheap.’

‘How much to use that photo, for example?’

They discussed the rights needed, the print run, the size at which it would be used, and when Jacopozzi was finally pinned down to a price, Scott whistled in astonishment.

‘That much? I’ve got a budget less than a tenth of that.’ He named his figure.

‘It can’t be done, my friend. My photographers are bleeding me dry and I have a family to feed.’ The expensive clothes and swanky office belied his penury.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Scott tried to negotiate an affordable price but it was obvious they weren’t going to agree. Jacopozzi had plenty of business and no need to compromise, so they shook hands and Scott retreated to think of another plan.

That evening he sat outside a café on the Via Veneto watching the paparazzi at work. There was a lookout at either end of the street checking inside approaching cars and calling up or down the hill to alert colleagues to celebrities. Scooters were parked in the road, ready for a quick take-off. Scott watched as Richard Burton and his wife Sybil emerged from one car and walked into the Café de Paris.

‘Who are you planning to fuck on Cleopatra, Richard?’ one of the photographers yelled at him in English.

Another darted in front of them and a flashbulb exploded right in their faces.

Burton looked tight-lipped but didn’t rise to the bait. It made a photo much more valuable if the subject was yelling or shaking their fist and he knew better than to give them that prize.

Scott noticed that one photographer was standing apart from the crowd on a set of steps further up the street. He took several shots of the Burtons and Scott guessed they would work well from that angle. Draining his beer, he left some money on the café table and approached the man.

‘I’m Scott Morgan of Midwest Daily in the States. And you?’

‘Gianni Fortelesa.’

‘I’m looking for a photographer. Would you be interested in coming to the office tomorrow to show me some of your work?’

He realised straight away that he’d chosen well because Gianni’s face lit up. It was a competitive world out there on the street and he seemed keen and hungry. What’s more, he spoke good English.

‘I can’t pay Associated Press prices, but I can give you a retainer and a fee per picture. Bring the shots of the Burtons you took tonight and I’m sure I can use one of them.’

Next day the deal was struck and Scott wrote a quick story about Richard Burton to accompany Gianni’s best photo. He wrote that Burton had only got the role after Stephen Boyd dropped out and neither Marlon Brando or Peter O’Toole were available. The producers had to buy him out of the Broadway show Camelot, where he was playing King Arthur to Julie Andrews’ Guinevere. He was a renowned womaniser who was said to have had affairs with Claire Bloom, Lana Turner, Angie Dickinson and Jean Simmons (while she had been married to his friend Stewart Granger). Sybil, his wife of twelve years, normally turned a blind eye.

‘In fact,’ Scott finished, ‘rumour has it that the only one of his leading ladies he hasn’t had an affair with was Julie Andrews – because he was already shacked up with an exotic dancer called Pat Tunder.’

Cheap it certainly was, but Scott found this kind of journalism couldn’t be simpler to write, and Gianni promised to give him tip-offs about any stories from the film set doing the rounds in Rome. It would buy him time to pursue his own story – the one he was determined to write about the Ghianciaminas, the family who appeared to be above the law.

Chapter Sixteen

Ernesto proved an entertaining companion on the trip to Ischia, pointing out landmarks they passed on the train to Naples and then on the hydrofoil across the bay. It was evening when they arrived, but early next morning they drove to the boatyard where the battleships were being constructed and Diana leapt out of the car in her eagerness to have a look. Brilliant sunshine lit the bay, where rocky cliffs descended to coarse bronze sand. Working fishermen plied their trade just along from the set on which a fleet of ancient craft had been constructed. Some were converted fishing boats that would sail on the water, while others were one-sided, to be held in place for camera.

‘Buongiorno, che piacere vederla,’ one of the boatbuilders said – ‘nice to see you’ – and they all came over to shake her hand. She soon realised these were proud, perfectionist craftsmen who were keen to hear her views on their work, and when she suggested a slight change in the decorative carvings at the prows, they assured her it would be done. They demonstrated how the barrage of stones and blazing javelins would be fired during the sea battle, showed her the spikes that would protrude from the front of the ships and mimed the way they would ram each other.

Next she went to see Cleopatra’s barge, the Antonia, which would be filmed arriving at Tarsus, where she went to meet Mark Antony. The interior scenes would be shot in the studio at Cinecittà but there was a spectacular outdoor scene planned as the barge pulled up in Tarsus with Cleopatra watching from beneath a gold canopy. The basic hull of the ship was ready, and its huge size and curved shape were accurately reproduced. Diana drew a sketch of the rigging, and told them that the sails should be purple, and they nodded, because they already knew. It was an exciting day, when she felt useful and appreciated.

At dinner that evening, Ernesto ordered a bottle of wine and as she finished her first glass, Diana realised she was more relaxed than she had been for a while – certainly since arriving in Italy. The rift with Trevor was on her mind, and towards the bottom of her second glass she found herself telling Ernesto about it. She felt disloyal but he proved a good listener.

‘Do your family like Trevor?’ he asked.

‘I don’t really have a family,’ she told him. ‘My mother died of cancer when I was three, so I only remember her through photos. Then my dad died of a heart attack when I was nineteen.’ There was an unexpected catch in her throat as she said the words. ‘I’ve got an aunt and uncle in Scotland, and a couple of young cousins, but I don’t see much of them. Trevor’s my family now.’

‘What age were you when you met Trevor?’

‘Nineteen. He was one of my college tutors when my dad died. He was really supportive, then gradually we fell in love.’

‘He is older than you?’

‘Yes, eighteen years …’ She could see how it must look to him: as if Trevor had become a father substitute. She’d wondered about that herself sometimes. Certainly, she’d felt very scared and isolated when she was orphaned, and Trevor made her feel safe and connected to the world again. That might have been part of the attraction but it wasn’t by any means the whole story. They’d become good friends as well as lovers. They discussed everything. That’s why the current lack of communication felt so horrible, as though a part of her had been amputated.

Ernesto put a comforting hand on her knee. ‘I’m sorry you’re lonely,’ he said, his eyes full of kindness.

She moved her knee so he had to shift his hand. ‘What about you? You haven’t mentioned your family. I presume you are married?’

‘No,’ he shook his head sadly. ‘But I have a huge family, with so many cousins that I can never remember all their names.’

‘I’m surprised!’ she said. ‘Surely most Italian men are married by your age? I don’t mean …’ In her wine-befuddled head, she realised that sounded rude.

‘I’m not yet thirty,’ he told her. ‘But I am very cautious with women. There was a girl I was in love with for many years. We were at school together, we became girlfriend and boyfriend in our twenties and I always thought we would be married, until I found she had been betraying me.’

‘Oh no! How did you find out?’

‘One day she told me she was marrying someone else, a man who is much wealthier than me. They even invited me to the wedding but I didn’t go. My heart was broken in pieces.’ He held his hands over the spot.

‘Was that recently?’

‘Four years ago, but since then … I don’t know. I am a cynic. I think I need to work hard and make lots of money and then I can choose the woman I want and she will say yes.’

‘We’re not all motivated by money,’ Diana protested. ‘You’ve just had bad luck.’

‘I think I am too soft when I give my heart. I should have realised what was going on with my girlfriend but every time she cancelled a date I forgave her. I never suspected a thing. I don’t think I will ever fall in love like that again.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ Diana smiled. ‘We humans always heal eventually.’ But then she thought of Cleopatra, the queen who gambled everything she possessed, and Mark Antony, the man who lost the sea battle of Actium and eventually his life because of his liaison with her. There had been no healing there.

They talked of affairs on the set and Diana asked, ‘Did you hear some of the extras have complained to Hilary about men groping them?’

Ernesto twinkled. ‘What do they expect when they are wearing next to nothing? We Italian men are very red-blooded.’

‘I’m insulted!’ Diana exclaimed in mock protest. ‘I’ve been in Rome for two months and I haven’t so much as had my bottom pinched. Maybe I am too old for those lotharios. They prefer the lithe young actresses.’ She meant it as a joke, but it reflected her feeling that she was less attractive, less hip than the other girls on the film.

Later that evening, as they walked up to their rooms, Ernesto grabbed her bottom in both hands and squeezed hard. She jumped in surprise and turned to rebuke him, but he gave her a broad wink. ‘Does that make you feel better?’ he asked.

Over the next few days the colour flooded her cheeks every time she thought of it.

Chapter Seventeen

When Diana arrived at the production office on her first day back from Ischia, she could hear an altercation inside. She opened the door to see the actor Richard Burton shouting at Candy. She recognised him straight away as she and Trevor had seen him in the film Look Back in Anger but he was much shorter than she’d imagined and his skin was as cratered as a piece of pumice stone. The eyes were piercing and the voice was magnificent but on the whole she didn’t think him very attractive.

‘Can I help?’ she asked Candy, wondering if she needed moral support.

‘No, it’s OK. Hilary’s on her way.’ She looked like a cornered animal.

Richard Burton glanced at Diana briefly then returned to the attack. ‘If it were the first time or even the second, I’d think it was just one of those bouts of inefficiency that every film set is prone to, but a fourth cock-up is rather too much, don’t you think? Was your silly blonde head too preoccupied with the Italian lads in carpentry?’

‘I was just doing what I was told, Mr Burton.’

Diana decided she didn’t like him. No matter what Candy had done, it was arrogant of him to speak to her in that way.

Hilary burst in, bringing an instant air of calm, and Diana stepped outside the office to let them resolve the dispute in peace. A woman with a pretty, young-looking face and backcombed silver-grey hair was standing smoking by the window.

‘I don’t suppose there’s anywhere to get a cup of tea round here, is there?’ she asked in a strong Welsh accent. ‘I’m fed up with this Italian coffee. It’s like swallowing bloody tar. I’m not sure how long I’ll be stuck here while my other half does his nut in there.’

Diana realised this must be Sybil Burton. ‘We keep a stock of tea in the office,’ she said. ‘Typhoo suit you?’

‘Bless you, love. Milk and two, please.’

As Diana made the tea she wondered at the physical differences between the Burtons. Sybil’s prematurely greyed hair made her look older than him, although her skin was smooth and wrinkle-free while his face looked decidedly lived-in. What must it be like to live with a man who had a temper like that? Diana also knew that he was notorious for having affairs. Was Sybil a doormat?

‘You’ve saved my life,’ she said gratefully when Diana took the tea out. ‘It’s so early we didn’t have time for any breakfast. Rich was told he had to be in makeup at nine but when we turned up there wasn’t a soul here. I think we even wakened the guard at the gate.’

‘I wonder how that happened?’ Diana was puzzled.

‘Seems they don’t need him today after all. No harm done, though. We might go and look around the Colosseum and the Forum. Have you been yet?’

‘I haven’t had time,’ Diana admitted. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

‘Course I’ve seen the one they’ve got here. It’s more than twice the size of the real thing, I heard. That’s bloody Hollywood for you.’ Frowning slightly, she glanced through the window of the production office. ‘They like everything larger than life.’ She dropped her cigarette and ground it under a stiletto heel. ‘So what’s your role on the film?’

Diana explained and Sybil’s eyes widened. ‘You must meet Rich. He’s been doing a lot of background reading and I’m sure he’d love to have a chat with you. Maybe not today, though.’ She glanced inside again. ‘What’s your name, love?’ Diana told her. ‘I’ll mention you. Don’t worry. He’s not as fierce as he looks!’ She grinned in a way that seemed genuinely friendly and Diana warmed to her.

After they left, Diana entered the office to find Candy dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief while Hilary comforted her. ‘It was a simple misunderstanding. He’s got no right to be so rude to you.’ She raised her eyebrows at Diana. ‘Don’t upset yourself now.’

Half an hour later as they walked to the script meeting together, Hilary confided in Diana that the mistaken call had been entirely Candy’s fault and that she really wasn’t on top of the job. This was just one in a string of mishaps. Diana remembered that it was Candy who’d been supposed to arrange the car to pick her up from the airport – the car that never materialised.

‘Will she be sacked?’

‘No, but I’ll ask everyone in the office to try and watch her back from now on. Anyway, how was Ischia?’

‘Wonderful!’ Diana enthused. ‘They’re doing a great job down there. I’ll type up my notes later.’

‘And Ernesto behaved himself?’

‘Of course! He was the perfect gentleman.’ She caught a knowing look in Hilary’s eyes. ‘Honestly!’

She had lunch with Helen, who had been missing her, and relayed all the details of her encounter with the Burtons.

‘Did you know about their daughter?’ Helen asked. ‘They don’t know what’s wrong with her yet but she’s three years old and she can’t speak or walk; she just rocks back and forwards. I read an article about it.’

‘That’s awful! Poor Sybil. I wonder how she copes?’

‘They’ve got an older girl who’s fine, but it must be a worry.’

Diana considered Sybil with fresh respect. She must be a resilient woman to cope with that and put up with her husband’s philandering as well.

Helen seemed depressed so she asked what was wrong.

‘I really want a boyfriend and nothing ever works out. I was chatting to Antonio from the set department all yesterday evening but when I asked him if we could go out some time he said no, that I wasn’t his type.’ She sniffed. ‘It was so hurtful. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

Diana put a hand on her shoulder. ‘He sounds like a cruel piece of work. It’s as well you found out sooner rather than later that he’s not the one for you.’ She considered suggesting that Helen let the man make the move next time – men liked to be the hunters, all the magazines said so – but decided not to be so personal. What did she know anyway?

‘My sister Claire’s got a lovely boyfriend. Did I tell you that she works for Vogue magazine in London? She’s glamorous and clever and her boyfriend is a stockbroker so they’ll probably be rich and have a big house and lots of children. My mum and dad are really proud of her.’

‘I’ll bet they’re even prouder of you,’ Diana told her, ‘and I bet Claire’s jealous. You’re working on the movie of the century with some of the world’s most famous stars. After this, you’ll be able to hand-pick the jobs you want anywhere in the world. You’ll never look back.’

‘You seem very cheerful,’ Helen said, looking at her curiously. ‘At least one of us is.’

‘I think we’re lucky to be here and we should make the most of it. Why don’t you and I go out tonight, Helen? I’ll treat you to dinner somewhere nice.’

‘OK,’ Helen agreed, with a brave attempt at a smile. ‘I’d like that.’

After they finished eating, she asked the waitress for a glass of milk. ‘Want to see something cute?’ she asked.

Diana followed her out of the bar and over towards the far wall of the studio where, under a large bush, there was a heaving mass of grey and white furry bodies. A cat lay full length, her eyes closed to slits, as half a dozen wriggling, mewling kittens scrambled over her and fought to attach themselves to her nipples.

‘They’re only a week old.’ Helen poured the milk into an old saucer lying by the wall and slid it towards the mother, who immediately began to lap at it with a delicate pink tongue. She bent to pick up a kitten and it was dwarfed by her hands.

‘They’re lovely,’ Diana said.

‘Aren’t they? I pop out here to watch them playing whenever I can find a moment.’

She was mesmerised by them, like a child, and Diana was glad she had found something to lift her low mood. It occurred to her that feral cats might well have fleas but she didn’t want to spoil Helen’s fun. With her face lit up and her blue eyes sparkling, she had a fresh, natural beauty to rival that of any movie star – even Liz Taylor herself.

Chapter Eighteen

Scott took Gianni out for lunch at Chechino’s, an old-fashioned restaurant that had been recommended by the foreign press hacks. ‘Order the coda alla vaccinara,’ they urged him, and there it was on the menu. He asked Gianni what it was and for once he was stumped for the English word, but began to wave his arm behind his lower back, repeating ‘La coda, la coda’. Eventually Scott worked out that it was oxtail and gave it a wide berth. He ordered a bottle of Chianti, though, and when they finished it he got another.

Gianni’s language skills were superior to Scott’s and so they conversed almost solely in English. The man was in his mid-twenties and had a wife and two children – one of two years old and the other a baby, he said, rocking his arms to demonstrate.

‘Doesn’t your wife mind you going out every night?’ Scott asked.

Gianni rubbed his fingers and thumb together. ‘We need the money.’

Talk turned to the Cleopatra film being made at Cinecittà and Gianni told him that two months into shooting it was already the most expensive film ever made. Elizabeth Taylor’s million-dollar fee was one cause, but tales of excess spending kept filtering out of Cinecittà. Almost the entire cast and crew were on full pay for the duration even though only a fraction of them were being used at any given time, so most were sitting around with nothing to do. They’d spent quarter of a million dollars on a special kind of mineral water for the bar, but there was a sign there telling them not to be wasteful with plastic cups – as if that would make all the difference.

‘Have you been inside?’ Scott asked.

‘Yes, there is a side entrance. I got thrown out but not before I’d had a look around. Unfortunately the security guard took the film from my camera.’ He rolled his eyes. It was a hazard of his trade.

‘Any stories about the stars making unreasonable demands?’ That’s the kind of thing that would make a printable story.

‘Of course!’ Gianni told him. ‘I hear they flew in some chilli for Signora Taylor from her favourite restaurant in Hollywood.’

‘Which restaurant was it?’

Gianni screwed up his eyes trying to remember. ‘They have Oscar parties there sometimes and it is famous for its chilli.’

‘Chasen’s?’ Scott guessed.

‘That’s the one. So they spend with one hand, but with the other they try to save money. Just yesterday Rex Harrison was told he no longer had a personal driver but had to share one with other actors. I hear he was so angry that he said he was going to … fare sciopero. How do you say? To stop work. Everyone clapped and cheered and he got his driver back.’

‘That’s great, Gianni. Cool. I’ll do a story on that. Could you get me a picture of Rex Harrison in his car, with his chauffeur?’

‘No problem,’ he shrugged. Scott noticed that he had polished off some pasta and a meat dish and was mopping up the sauce with a piece of bread, as if he were still hungry.

‘Want anything else?’ Scott asked. ‘Dessert? Company’s paying.’

Gianni began to peruse the menu, reading the main course section. He looked as though he wanted to ask something but was embarrassed. ‘Could I have another secondo?’ he asked, blushing.

‘Of course you can.’

Gianni ordered another helping of the hefty meat dish he’d had for his main course, while Scott drained his glass of wine. The dish arrived and Gianni dipped his fork into it but didn’t start eating. After a while Scott got up to go to the gents’ and when he came back the meat dish had disappeared.

‘All finished?’ he asked, surprised. ‘Should I get the check?’

‘Molte grazie,’ Gianni said, looking somehow bashful.

Scott paid and still couldn’t put his finger on what the man might be embarrassed about until they walked out of the restaurant and each headed towards their own scooter. It was the careful way Gianni placed his camera bag in a back compartment of the scooter that gave the game away. Scott guessed he had asked them to put that meat dish in a carton and he was taking it home for his family. They must be really hard up. He resolved to get him as much work as he could in future, to try and help out.

The day after Midwest Daily ran the Rex Harrison story Scott took a call from someone very grumpy at the Twentieth Century Fox press office.

‘Who the hell are you? Some college kid straight out of diapers? Did nobody tell you that we’re happy to help the press so long as you don’t fuck with us? Well, now you’ve fucked with us and I’m going to make sure you don’t get any press releases from the film set, no interviews, no invitations to special screenings, no nothing. Not on this or any other Twentieth Century Fox movie ever. You happy now, college kid?’

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