Obsession (60 page)

She watched for some time, feeling such an inflated sense of pride that it was all she could do to keep the mawkish adoration from her eyes. She wandered a little closer in order to eavesdrop on what he was saying and listened as he explained how he wanted the camera to track against the flow of stampeding feet as a point of view shot.

‘It’s a cutaway,’ he added, ‘but keep it going ’cos I’ll probably use it more than once,’ as he was speaking he
was
moving closer to Corrie, then turning to her, to her amazement he put an arm around her and kissed her right in front of everyone.

‘How you doing?’ he murmured, his breath sweeping her face in a white mist.

‘Fine. You?’

‘Great.’

‘Love the hat.’

‘Love you.’ Then, almost on the instant, she was forgotten as he strode back towards the camera half-listening to the assistant director while shouting for the sound man.

Corrie found herself a convenient spot where she hoped she wouldn’t be in the way, but after only a few minutes was being bombarded by people eager to introduce themselves.

‘That’s what comes of being the director’s girl,’ a voice behind her said as a junior make-up artist rushed back to the set.

Corrie turned round and almost did a double take when she found herself looking straight at Paige Spencer. Or was it Paige Spencer?

The woman smiled at Corrie’s evident confusion. ‘I’m Paige’s stand-in,’ she explained. ‘Paige asked me to come over to invite you to her trailer for a coffee. It’s right over there,’ she added pointing towards a spot which wasn’t even visible.

Corrie would have dearly loved to refuse, but not seeing how she could, she gathered up her bag and followed the stand-in into the next field.

‘Hi,’ Paige said, holding out her hand. She was standing on the steps of her trailer managing to look, Corrie thought, dauntingly majestic. ‘I’m Paige Spencer,’ she said, ‘and you, I guess, are the Corrie Browne everyone’s talking about.’

Corrie smiled as she shook Paige’s hand, not at all sure she was enjoying being confronted by one of Cristos’s past
affairs
, particularly one so devastatingly beautiful. ‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ she said.

‘Come right on in,’ Paige said, moving back inside the door.

Once Corrie was seated, and had politely accepted the offer of coffee, Paige came straight to the point.

‘I got something here for you,’ she said, digging into her pocket. ‘It’s the address of a doctor I saw in Harley Street. Go see him the minute you get back to London. I was in the clear, thank God. I sure hope you are too, honey.’

‘Pardon?’ Corrie said, almost choking on her coffee.

Paige rolled her eyes. ‘Just what I thought. The son-of-a-bitch didn’t tell you either?’

‘Tell me what?’

Shaking her head and putting her own coffee down, Paige sat back to fold her arms over the tattered dress she was wearing. ‘Hang onto your hat, honey,’ she said, ‘’cos this one’s a real bumpy one.’ She hesitated a moment, peering at Corrie through narrowed eyes, as though in some way assessing her, then shrugging she said, ‘Well, there’s no other way of saying it than straight. Bennati’s got gonorrhoea.’

Corrie’s cup clanged into the saucer. ‘He’s what?’ she gasped.

‘Sssh! You might not care who knows, but I sure as hell do. Why else do you think I broke it off with him?’

Corrie was almost smiling now. ‘There must be some mistake,’ she said, leaning forward to put her coffee down. ‘I mean …’

‘Look, kid,’ Paige interrupted, ‘I understand you don’t want to believe it, hell do you think I did? And I sure am sorry to be the one to break it to you, but we girls’ve got to stick together. And I’m telling you the bastard’s got gonorrhoea – he’s spreading it about all over the fucking set.’

To Corrie it was so inconceivable that no matter how
sincere
Paige sounded, she simply couldn’t bring herself to believe it. But then Paige said the words that sealed it.

‘You were waiting for him to call all last week, am I right?’

Corrie tensed.

‘Yeah, I thought so. Bud Winters’ secretary was here till yesterday – she flew back last night. When did Bennati call you?’

‘Last night,’ Corrie said dully.

‘Are you getting my drift? I tried to tip Sheila off before she went back to the States, but I missed her. You gotta face it, honey, the man’s rampant and he’s putting it about all over. That’s how he got it in the first place.’

The second assistant banged on the door then shouting ‘First team up!’

‘That’s me,’ Paige said, getting to her feet. ‘You stay finish your coffee – there’s a telephone there if you wanna call the doc and get yourself an appointment. Me, I’m suing the bastard once this movie is through,’ and she left.

For the rest of the morning Corrie watched in a dull stupor as the action took place in front of her. Carpenters, props men, costume designers, electricians, so many people came over to chat with her, all intrigued to meet the woman Cristos Bennati had invited onto the set, but though Corrie somehow managed to make polite conversation, she was hardly registering what anyone was saying. All she could hear were Paige’s words, echoing through her ears.

At lunchtime Cristos came to find her, and putting an arm round her shoulders told her they were going to eat lunch in his trailer. ‘I’d kind of prefer it to be just the two of us,’ he said, walking her across the field, ‘but a couple of the actors want to talk about this afternoon’s scenes. And brace yourself, the unit publicist is dropping by too.’

‘Why brace myself?’ Corrie mumbled.

‘Because you should never trust a unit publicist to keep
his
mouth shut, even if you tell him his job depends on it. We’ll be all over the Sunday press by tomorrow.’

‘I see,’ Corrie said.

Over lunch Corrie said little and ate even less. She still wasn’t sure that she really believed Paige, but if it was true, if he had spent the week with Winters’ secretary … If he did have gonorrhoea and knowing it had made love to her … No, it was unthinkable!

Suddenly she was aware that Cristos was calling a halt to lunch and sending everyone out of the trailer.

‘OK,’ he said, closing the door and turning back to Corrie, ‘let’s have it.’

‘Have what?’

‘Whatever it is that’s eating you?’

Seeing no alternative Corrie handed him the note Paige had given her. ‘It’s the telephone number of a Harley Street doctor,’ she explained. ‘Paige gave it to me to go and get myself checked out.’

‘Checked out for what?’ he asked, and looked, Corrie thought, convincingly baffled.

‘Gonorrhoea.’

His eyes came up to Corrie’s and Corrie faltered as she saw his confusion turning to anger. ‘Are you telling me Paige is telling you I’ve got gonorrhoea?’ he said, too quietly.

Corrie nodded. ‘She had herself checked out she told me, and she hasn’t got it, but …’

‘Well of course she hasn’t got it!’ he yelled. ‘At least not from me she hasn’t. Can’t you see what she’s doing? She’s just trying …’ He stopped suddenly, and Corrie watched him as he frowned pensively down at the note.

His relationship with Paige had disintegrated pretty rapidly when he was fighting the urge to call Corrie, he was thinking, and the only person who knew that Paige was an obstacle …

Slapping the note down on the table he turned and stormed towards the door. ‘JEANNIE!’ he roared.

Jeannie was perched not far away on a tree stump, idly chatting with the make-up assistants, but on hearing Cristos yelling her name that way, she leapt to her feet, mumbling, ‘Holy shit, he’s found out!’ And turning about face she ran in the opposite direction, never more thankful for fog in her life.

Not until Cristos was safely soaring through the mist on a crane much later in the afternoon did Jeannie venture near the set again. She found Corrie sitting on the steps of the props van, but not wanting to hang around too long she asked Corrie if she felt like going for a walk.

‘It’s all right,’ Corrie laughed, as the two of them left the set behind and started to wander through the winter debris of the woods, ‘you don’t have to explain to me, I know the truth of it now, but I can’t give you any comfort as far as Cristos is concerned, I’m afraid. He was furious, in fact he hasn’t quite forgiven me for believing it.’

‘Oh shit!’ Jeannie groaned, ‘I’d better start writing my epitaph now, ’cos I just know he’s not going to forgive this one in a hurry. But he’s got to understand why I did it.’

‘I think he does, he just wishes you might have done it another way,’ Corrie chuckled, and linking Jeannie’s arm as they slithered about in the slime of dead leaves and mud on the pathway, she added, ‘In a way, I suppose I should thank you.’

‘I sure wish he’d see it that way,’ Jeannie groaned.

They walked in silence for a while then, an archway of stark, brittle branches towering above them, though barely visible through the billowing breath of fog. Melting frost was falling from the trees like rain and nothing but their squelching footsteps interrupted the stillness.

Eventually they reached a stile at the edge of the woods, and after Jeannie had climbed it Corrie stopped to sit on top, saying, ‘Jeannie, do you know anything about Cristos’s
– for
want of another word – friendship with Luke Fitzpatrick? I’m sorry to ask, and I don’t want you to be disloyal, but I just don’t want to bring it up with him myself.’

‘Why?’ Jeannie asked.

Corrie shrugged. ‘I suppose because everything’s so wonderful between Cristos and me right now that I don’t want anything to spoil it. And somehow I get the feeling that to ask him about Luke Fitzpatrick would. Or perhaps I should say to ask him about Luke and what Luke knows about Angelique Warne … You see, I know Cristos doesn’t want to talk about it, and we’ve more or less made a pact not to ask about each other’s past, but I just feel that this is something I ought to know about.’

Sighing and shaking her head Jeannie turned to rest her back against the stile and looked out over the sepia winter landscape that stretched into the valley of mist beyond them. ‘I don’t know what Luke knows,’ she said, ‘but whatever it is I don’t figure it’s the truth. You know, I used to like the guy, but I got to feeling that there’s something a tad strange about him. There’s got to be for two guys like you and Cristos to get so bugged about him. Anyway, I’m not the one to tell you about Angelique, Cristos is. I will tell you this, though, you got nothing to be afraid of, ’cos in all the years I’ve known him I’ve never seen Cristos this smitten. Last night I heard him tell you he loves you, and he means it, Corrie, but this pact of yours is crazy. Don’t start out by holding back on him, and don’t let him hold back on you, or you ain’t going any place together. And that would be kinda sad ’cos I reckon you’re both what each other wants.’

‘There’s going to be plenty of problems though,’ Corrie said prosaically. ‘Like distance, age …’

‘What are you talking about?’ Jeannie laughed. ‘Sure he’s older than you, by what, twelve, fourteen years? So what? It’s nothing. OK, distance might be a problem, but when two guys love each other they find a way. Did he
ever
tell you about his folks and what they went through to be together?’

Corrie nodded. ‘Have you met them?’

‘Sure. They’re just terrific. Pop runs a deli and Mom drives the old guy crazy. They love each other like you’d die to still be in love at their age. Cristos is devoted to them. You know his mother wants him to win the Palme d’Or? Oscars ain’t good enough for Mrs Bennati. She wants the French one. And Cristos aims to give it to her. It was her encouraged him to go into movies in the first place. Pop Bennati wanted him to take over the deli. ’Course the old guy’s prouder of him now than he’ll ever admit. Tells him he doesn’t bring home that Palme d’Or for his mother he’ll leave everything to the daughter.’

‘I didn’t know Cristos had a sister,’ Corrie said.

‘Francine. She’s a few years younger than him, round thirty-seven I guess. Got herself a great job with one of the banks in New York. Married, no kids. He can’t have them, I think Cristos told me once. They’re a close family, the Bennatis. Pop wants grandsons.’

‘Hang on, hang on, you’re going too fast,’ Corrie cried, holding up her hands. ‘Tell me some of his bad points.’

‘You mean you haven’t seen enough of them already? Like how temperamental he is? He’s a shithead like the rest of us, OK, he’s got a bit more talent …’ Jeannie was laughing, but as she turned to Corrie, Corrie saw her eyes start to widen. ‘Shit! Here he comes, which means the unit have got to have broken. Don’t let on we’ve been talking about him, and don’t leave me alone with him after that Paige Spencer thing or you’ll be coming to my funeral next week.’

Corrie swung her legs back over the stile to watch Cristos approach, holding his eyes and feeling the same intimate smile curve across her own lips.

‘You two getting to know each other?’ he said, as he reached them. ‘Don’t believe anything she tells you,’ and
pulling
Corrie down into his arms he kissed her. ‘You OK?’ he whispered. ‘Not bored?’

‘Not bored,’ she smiled, keeping her face tilted up to his as she circled his waist with her arms.

‘Ahem!’

‘You still here, Jeannie?’ he said, his eyes still on Corrie’s.

Jeannie shrugged. ‘Guess I’ll take a hike,’ she said, but as she started down over the hill she turned back when Cristos called out her name.

‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten,’ he told her.

‘No suh, massa,’ she answered, making Corrie laugh.

‘How’s it going out there?’ she asked, as he turned back to her.

He grimaced and looked up to what they could see of the leaden sky. ‘Fog’s clearing, but we’re losing light, can’t shoot any more today. I’ve got to see dailies later, but there’s still a couple of hours for you and me before. Anything in particular you want to do?’

Corrie grinned. ‘Well since you ask …’ she said with a wry smile.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Right here?’

Corrie laughed. ‘Bit cold.’ Then standing on tip-toe to reach his mouth, she whispered, ‘I’d like to try something different this time.’