‘Penny for them?’ said Tish. ‘You look like you’re miles away.’
‘Oh, not really,’ lied Dorian, forcing a smile. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to talk about home. ‘I’m a little stressed, I guess.’
‘Sabrina?’
Tish looked over to where Sabrina was standing. Viorel was playing with Abel, holding him by the feet and twirling him around while he squealed with laughter. You could see Sabrina’s pout from here.
‘Partly,’ admitted Dorian. ‘She’s been difficult today. But she’s not my only problem. It bothers me that people know where we are now. The location’s already been compromised. How long before other information gets out?’
Tish knew a little of Dorian’s strategy, to keep the details of
Wuthering Heights
a secret in order to tempt investors once filming was complete. She wasn’t sure she fully understood the logic, but presumably Dorian knew his own business and he seemed to feel that secrecy was vital. So much so that last week he’d arbitrarily got rid of all the TVs in the cast and crew’s quarters and banned newspapers from the set, figuring that the more cut off they were from the outside world, the less chance of damaging leaks. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the same powers of censorship when it came to Sabrina’s bad press.
‘The actual work is good. What we’ve shot so far,’ he told Tish. ‘I was looking at the rushes last night.’
‘There you go, then,’ said Tish encouragingly, wondering whether she should step in and tell Viorel to go easy on the twirling. Abel was still giggling but he’d turned a worrying shade of green. ‘That’s all that matters, isn’t it?’
‘I wish,’ said Dorian. ‘Sometimes I feel like King Cnut, trying to hold back the tide. Only Sabrina’s not so much a tide as a tsunami. I’ve never known an actress who can generate so much bad publicity out of thin air. Hopefully, things will get better once we get to Romania. If she plays me up there, I can lock her in the dungeon.’ He grinned.
In his jeans pocket, his cellphone rang.
‘That’s weird. I thought I turned it off.’ Pulling out the offending object, his heart gave a little jump. The screen flashed:
Chrissie LA Cell.
Despite all the rows, Dorian had missed Chrissie this past month, and regretted the distance that had grown up between them. He knew that her current trip to LA had been intended at least in part to punish him for leaving her, playing on all his insecurities about her fidelity, not to mention her spending. So the fact that she was calling him, unsolicited, was an unexpected surprise. A thaw in the permafrost at last.
‘Honey! What’s goin’ on?’
Tish watched the way Dorian’s eyes lit up when he took the call. Then she watched the light die, replaced by abject panic.
‘What pictures?’ He spluttered. ‘I have no idea …
Sabrina
?’ His eyes widened. ‘That’s ridiculous! Trust me, honey, that is so far from the truth it’s hilarious … No, I didn’t mean it like that … no, Chrissie, I don’t think it’s funny. I am not bullshitting you! We’re totally isolated here, I haven’t seen anything.’
He held the phone away from his ear. Though no one could make out the words, Chrissie Rasmirez’s hysteria could be heard at forty paces.
Deborah Raynham whispered to the head cameraman, ‘Sounds like trouble in paradise.’
‘Poor Dorian,’ said the cameraman. ‘Surrounded by angry women everywhere he turns.’
Sabrina, who could smell a drama like a shark smelled blood, hurried over.
‘Who’s he talking to?’ she asked Tish imperiously.
‘His wife,’ said Tish curtly. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘At that volume I’d say it was everyone’s business,’ sneered Sabrina. ‘Oh dear oh dear. Has our saintly director been caught playing away? Who’s the unlucky girl?’
‘You are, apparently,’ said Chuck MacNamee.
‘What?’ The sneer died on Sabrina’s lips.
‘Sounds like someone’s run pictures of you and Dorian getting cosy. Who’s been a naughty girl, then?’
Tish’s eyebrows shot up.
Dorian and Sabrina? Surely not.
‘Don’t be preposterous,’ Sabrina snapped at Chuck. ‘I wouldn’t sleep with Dorian Rasmirez if he were the last man left on earth.’
‘Perhaps you’d better tell that to his wife?’ said Chuck, glancing over at Dorian. He’d stepped a few feet away from the set in the hope of some privacy, but his body language was clearly that of the condemned man pleading for his life.
‘Come out here, honey,’ he begged Chrissie. ‘Please. Come see for yourself. There’s nothing going on. Less than nothing. I know when those shots must have been taken. Some local idiot was giving Sabrina a hard time and I was saving her ass, as usual. Come on Christina. She can’t compare to you.’
Hearing these last words, and knowing that Chuck and the others had heard them too, Sabrina felt a jolt of annoyance. She’d seen pictures of Dorian’s wife. The woman was positively ancient.
‘I wonder if she’ll come out,’ said Chuck.
‘Who?’ Viorel had finally joined the throng, handing Abel back to his mother.
‘Frau Rasmirez,’ said Deborah Raynham. ‘She’s on the warpath, apparently. She seems to be under the impression that Dorian’s been having his wicked way with Sabrina.’
The crew giggled. Even Tish couldn’t resist a smile.
‘Come on. That’s ridiculous,’ said Vio.
‘
Thank
you,’ said Sabrina with feeling. At least someone was prepared to stick up for her.
‘What’s a “wicked way”?’ asked Abel. ‘Can I have one?’
‘All right, young man,’ said Tish briskly, sensing that the conversation might be about to turn distinctly X-rated. ‘Let’s get you back to the house.’
‘If Chrissie Rasmirez does fly over, we’re all gonna need hard hats,’ Chuck MacNamee warned, once Tish had gone. ‘That lady generates on-set tension faster than a wasp in the undershorts.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ mused Sabrina. ‘Maybe if Dorian gets some action he’ll be less of an uptight asshole to work with. What do you think, darling?’ She snaked an arm around Viorel’s waist. ‘Do you think a good fuck might ease the tension around here?’
Vio felt a rush of blood to his groin. Sabrina would have been delighted if she knew how hard he was finding it, keeping to his vow of self-denial. Every day he wanted her more.
‘After we wrap,’ he said hoarsely, rubbing a hand against the small of her back.
‘Uh-uh.’ Sabrina shook her head, walking away in the direction of the wardrobe trailer. Dorian was still glued to the phone. Clearly, they weren’t going to do another take this evening. ‘If you leave it till the wrap party, I’ll turn you down.’
Vio laughed arrogantly. ‘No, you won’t.’
Sabrina quickened her pace, skipping away from him down the hill. ‘Watch me!’ she called back over her shoulder.
Later that night, Tish carried a sleeping Abel back to his bedroom. He’d wet the bed four times in the last two weeks, a regression that Tish could think of no explanation for. She’d started lifting him for a pee at ten o’clock until he got over it.
In a way, she was glad. She loved the feeling of his warm, sleep-heavy body in her arms, and the way he clung to her instinctively as she tucked him back into his bed. At Loxley, he slept in the same bed she’d used as a small child, a tiny continuity that somehow seemed poignant and meaningful to Tish.
So much has changed since then
, she thought, a little sadly. Soon, filming would be over. Dorian and the others would leave, first for Romania and then for Los Angeles and their ‘real’ lives. Tish would finish the repairs, install new tenants, and take Abel back to
their
real life, to Curcubeu and the children, to her apartment and disapproving Lydia, to Michel and Fleur …
‘Mummy?’ Abel’s voice brought her back to the present. He opened his eyes sleepily as Tish laid him back in his bed.
‘It’s late, darling,’ she whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘Mummy, next term it’s gonna be football and Viorel says I’m so excellent about football I could definitely
definitely
be on the team.’
‘Shhh, Abi,’ said Tish. ‘Next term we’ll be back home.’
A cloud of anxiety passed across Abel’s sweet, five-year-old face. ‘But Viorel said.’
‘I’m sure you’re very good at football,’ said Tish soothingly. ‘When we get back home you can play with Vasile and Radu and the other boys. Show them how great you are. Now go to sleep.’
‘But …’
‘Good footballers need their sleep.’
After a bit more negotiation, she settled him down and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind her. It was time to have a little chat with Viorel.
She found him in the library, whisky in hand, flipping through her father’s collection of Romantic poetry.
‘Can I have a word?’
Viorel snapped shut the leather-bound copy of Wordsworth’s
Intimations of Immortality.
‘Of course.’ Tish was wearing a faded pair of Snoopy pyjamas and a man’s dressing gown riddled with holes. She had her hair tied up in a bun and, as she came closer, she smelled strongly of toothpaste and talcum powder. ‘You look like you’re ready for bed. What brings you down here so late?’
‘It’s Abel,’ said Tish. ‘He’s wet the bed again. I think he’s starting to feel anxious about the future.’
‘He is,’ said Vio seriously, leaning back against the corner of Henry’s desk. ‘I meant to talk to you about it actually.’
‘The important thing is not to confuse him,’ said Tish. ‘I know you meant well, but you really mustn’t put ideas into his head about staying at Loxley. Once you lot all leave, Abel and I will be going home.’
Viorel frowned. ‘Isn’t this home?’
‘Romania is where our life is,’ said Tish. ‘My work. Abi’s cultural heritage.’
Vio stiffened. His own mother used to bang on about his ‘cultural heritage’ all the time. Martha Hudson never tired of reminding him how lucky he was to have been adopted, and how important it was that he become a doctor and return to Romania one day, to ‘give back’. He hated it.
‘Don’t you think you’re being a little selfish?’
Now it was Tish’s turn to stiffen. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I mean, you’ve adopted the kid. You’ve brought him here to England, shown him how the other half live, put him in a village school where he’s happy as a clam. And now you want to uproot him again, take him back to that hellhole of a country, just because you like playing Florence Nightingale? I don’t think you’re seeing this from Abel’s perspective.’
Tish struggled to control her anger. ‘With respect, Viorel, I think I know my own son a little better than you do.’
‘Then you know he wants to stay at Loxley,’ said Vio stubbornly. ‘More than anything.’
‘He’s five,’ said Tish, as authoritatively as possible for someone wearing a pair of Snoopy pyjamas. ‘He also wants to live in an underwater kingdom and eat chocolate buttons for every meal. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.’
‘Now you’re just being facetious,’ snapped Vio. The whisky was fuelling his temper. That, and his own memories of growing up with a mother who put her charitable work before the interests of her own son. He tried to remind himself that Tish wasn’t Martha Hudson. And that Abel wasn’t him. But the thought of the little boy being torn away from all he held dear made Viorel’s blood boil.
‘I’m his mother,’ said Tish. ‘I know what’s best for him.’
‘What’s best for you, you mean,’ muttered Viorel.
Tish had no idea where this sudden hostility was coming from. Certainly, she’d done nothing to deserve it. There was a meanness to Viorel tonight, a self-righteous arrogance that she had never seen before.
Thank God, I never fell for him
, she thought with a shiver.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ she said frostily. ‘But I’m not here to debate. Abel is my son, and I am
telling
you not to upset him any further with this nonsense. Understood?’
‘Fine.’ Turning away from her, Viorel poured himself another whisky and reopened his book. He felt angry, but also helpless on Abel’s behalf. What right did Tish have to let her own Mother Teresa fantasy blight the boy’s life? It was a powerlessness that Viorel Hudson hadn’t felt since boarding school. It frightened him.
Walking back upstairs to bed, Tish also felt shaken by their encounter.
How dare Viorel question my parenting! What the hell does he know about it, or about our life in Romania? Judgemental wanker.
She tried to focus on her anger. But a small, questioning voice in her head made it difficult.
Am I being selfish? Am I putting myself before Abel?
She hoped not.
Wuthering Heights
had been Loxley Hall’s saviour. Tish was glad she’d come back and let them make the film. But the sooner they left and life got back to normal, the better. For all of them.
Outside the Regent Beverly Wilshire, a legion of paparazzi lay in wait for the glamorous attendees of tonight’s Starlight Ball, like a shoal of piranhas scenting blood.
In the back of Linda Greaves’s chauffeur-driven Bentley Continental, Chrissie Rasmirez positively throbbed with excitement. It was a long time, years, since she’d been the object of so much media attention. Of course, she was used to having her picture taken. As the wife of a Hollywood winner, she’d been snapped on Dorian’s arm at countless awards ceremonies and exclusive industry parties. But always as an appendage, a plus one.
Tonight
, she told herself,
I’m the star. It’s me they’ve come to see, not Dorian.
The fact that they were here because of Dorian’s alleged infidelity did slightly take the edge off her triumph. But only slightly. For one thing, after speaking to her husband today and hearing the utter desperation in his voice, Chrissie was certain that Dorian hadn’t, in fact, cheated. He wasn’t going to leave her, for Sabrina Leon or anybody else. For another thing, if there was one role that Chrissie knew how to play to perfection, it was the role of the victim, the wronged wife stoically standing by her man.
Make that wronged, drop-dead gorgeous wife.
Her backless Dolce & Gabbana number looked even hotter on her tonight than it had in the store. Or perhaps it was Chrissie herself who was hotter, flushed with pleasure at so much unsuspected attention?