The Affair (7 page)

‘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.

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.