The Affair Read online

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to pay you back yet. I’m still sorting out my debts.’

  ‘Just forget about it,’ Diana told her. ‘Consider it a gift.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Helen beamed. ‘That will help a lot. Have a good time tonight.’

  She felt guilty that she couldn’t invite Helen to the party. Eddie had said they could each bring a partner, so she was taking Ernesto but she knew Helen would have loved to attend and hoped she wasn’t hurt not to be invited.

  They took a taxi to the Hostaria del Orso, a fourteenth-century building between the Piazza Navona and the Tiber. The party was being held in an enclosed loggia, the so-called Borgia Room, beyond which you could see stone columns with Corinthian capitals. She told Ernesto that Corinthian was the most ornate type of order, with fluted acanthus leaves and scroll decorations, and he gazed at her in admiration.

  ‘I love it that you know these things.’

  ‘You’re not spying tonight, are you?’ she asked. ‘I’m not going to be left alone while you rush off to report on proceedings to your journalist friend or to call Paolo?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He sounded hurt, but she could tell from a flicker of the eyes that’s exactly what he had been planning. She was learning to read him. Now he would have to think of a convincing excuse if he wanted to slip away and she would do her best to detain him.

  They were offered glasses of Dom Pérignon champagne and led to a table on the far side of the room. Everyone chatted, listened to the music drifting through from the nightclub where they would dance later, and waited for Elizabeth and Eddie to arrive. She was late, of course, but she looked stunning in a white fur jacket over an ice-blue satin dress, her hair piled high in an elaborate style. She sat beside Rex Harrison and Rachel Roberts, with Joe and Walter opposite. There was no sign of the Burtons. Eddie clapped his hands and asked for silence while he presented his birthday gifts.

  First, there was an antique mirror set with emeralds, and Elizabeth exclaimed with pleasure when she unwrapped it.

  ‘I just love presents, but this is rather big,’ she announced theatrically. ‘Don’t you have anything smaller, dear?’

  Eddie grinned and produced a jewellery box from his top pocket. He opened it, presented it to his wife, and she gasped and put it on her finger. It was a huge diamond ring that caught the light of the Murano glass chandeliers, producing beams that shot around the room.

  ‘She’s acting,’ Diana whispered to Ernesto. ‘What a peculiar scene. It looks as though they rehearsed it. Why didn’t he give her such a special present in private?’

  ‘You know a lot of things, my treasure,’ Ernesto took her hand, ‘but you don’t yet understand the ways of the rich and famous. This is all about making a statement. Eddie is trying to tell the world that he’s back in his place as the husband of the most famous woman in the world.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why does he need the world to know? Isn’t it enough that they have each other without such embarrassing public pronouncements?’

  ‘Ah, but the point is that it is not actually true. He knows it, she knows it and most people here know it. You are the rare exception. I love your naïvety.’

  Diana was slow to catch his meaning. ‘Are you implying it’s not true?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s back with Richard again. I saw them myself. She had a shawl over her head as she hurried into his trailer this afternoon and minutes later the entire vehicle was rocking on its wheels. They’re addicted. They can’t give up now.’

  ‘Oh no, poor Eddie.’ Diana glanced over to where he was toasting his wife with raised glass. And poor Trevor, she thought to herself. Poor old Trevor.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was Diana’s birthday just a couple of weeks after Elizabeth Taylor’s but she planned to keep it as quiet as possible. Twenty-six wasn’t an age to celebrate. She felt ancient compared to all the gorgeous young actresses and makeup artists and assistants working at Cinecittà. Ernesto wasn’t about to let it pass without marking the day, though, and when she awoke in the morning she found he had slipped out to buy some flowers – yellow roses surrounded by white baby’s breath – and one of the chocolate-filled cornetti she especially liked.

  ‘This is just the start. I will bring your real present later, when we have dinner,’ he promised, as she kissed him in thanks.

  Her second surprise of the day came with the arrival of the courier from London. There was a large brown envelope addressed to her and she recognised Trevor’s handwriting. What on earth could it be? She sat down at her desk to open it and pulled out a book – Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian author who had written a scandalous novel called Lolita seven years earlier. Diana and Trevor had both admired it as a fine piece of writing and talked scornfully of reviewers who didn’t seem to understand the concept of the unreliable narrator and thought that Nabokov was advocating sexual relations with a minor. She was keen to read this next book, which had just been published.

  There was something else in the envelope: a jewellery box. She opened it with trepidation, and was touched beyond measure when she recognised a charm bracelet that had belonged to her mother, one of those ones on which you hang mementoes from places you visit. There was a tiny shield with the national badge of Switzerland, a pixie from Cornwall, a Pictish symbol from the island of Skye, and so forth. The catch had broken long ago and Diana stored it as a keepsake only, but when she looked she saw that Trevor had had it mended, good as new.

  ‘I thought you might like to have this,’ he wrote in a little flowered card, ‘and perhaps you can add a Roman charm. Happy birthday to my wonderful wife.’

  Apart from the gloves he bought her at Christmas, she couldn’t remember the last time Trevor had chosen a present for her himself, apart from books – they often bought each other books. Repairing her mother’s bracelet was extremely thoughtful. She fastened it on her wrist and Hilary came over to admire it.

  ‘Is it your birthday?’ she asked, spotting the card. ‘Goodness, you should have said. I’d have got you something. Why don’t we all go for a drink later?’

  ‘I think Ernesto has plans.’ Diana frowned, realising she’d either have to remove the charm bracelet or explain it to him.

  Eddie Fisher appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Guess what? It’s Diana’s birthday!’ Hilary called.

  ‘Congratulations!’ he smiled, and came over to give her a hug. ‘Eighteen again, are you? Wish I could stay to help you celebrate but I came in to say goodbye because I’m off to New York on business.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Diana said, meaning it. ‘Will you be gone for long?’

  He shrugged. ‘You just have to see how these things go.’ There was an odd look on his face. Perhaps he meant that he would have to see how his marriage went, rather than his business meetings.

  His arm was still draped around Diana’s shoulders as the door opened and Ernesto walked in carrying a pink and white birthday cake. He glowered at them.

  ‘Oh, look!’ Hilary cried. ‘Lovely Ernesto has brought cake. Don’t you have any candles for it? In England we light candles on our birthday cakes.’

  Diana stepped away from Eddie. ‘It’s perfect as it is. What a glorious idea. Shall we all have a slice?’

  ‘I have a plane to catch,’ Eddie said, sounding melancholy. ‘But many happy returns, Diana.’

  Diana didn’t have time to think about him further as Candy made tea and Hilary cut the cake. After they’d eaten, Ernesto asked if he could have a word with her in private, so she stepped outside onto the lawn with him.

  As soon as they were out of earshot, he demanded: ‘What were you doing sucking up to Eddie like that?’

  She was astonished. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! He hugged me because Hilary told him it was my birthday. You’re not jealous, are you?’

  Ernesto seemed somewhat mollified. ‘Well, he is a single man now. For all I know he might have been trying to seduce you.’
<
br />   ‘Wait a moment. What do you mean he’s single?’

  ‘Richard turned up drunk at their villa last night and insisted that Elizabeth choose between them – and she chose Richard. That’s why Eddie is skulking off to New York.’

  ‘How do you know all this? You have spies inside her villa, do you?’ She narrowed her eyes in distaste.

  Ernesto shook his head. ‘She was having a dinner party at the time and the scene was witnessed by many guests. Everyone is talking about it on the set today, not just me.’

  ‘Oh poor Eddie. That’s horrible.’ Her heart went out to him. It was bad enough being rejected without being publicly humiliated.

  Suddenly Ernesto’s eyes were on her wrist. ‘Where did you get that bracelet? Was it from him?’

  ‘Eddie? Of course not! Silly boy!’ She touched his cheek. ‘It used to be my mother’s. I don’t wear it very often.’ She turned away so he couldn’t see her cheeks flush with the almost-lie. ‘I must go to sound stage 7 now. Joe wanted me to have a look at the sunken bath.’

  It was interesting to learn that Ernesto had a jealous streak. She rather liked it because it proved how much he cared about her but she would have to be careful not to give him any reason to be jealous. She dreaded to think how he would respond to the news that Trevor was coming out at Easter. He was going to be terribly hurt. She would have to choose the moment to tell him with great care.

  At dinner that evening, Ernesto presented her with another birthday present – a silver cross on a chain. It was pretty but she was puzzled that he would buy her a traditionally Catholic item.

  ‘I thought you could wear it when I introduce you to my family,’ he said. ‘When my mother sees it, she will assume you are Catholic and the meeting will go much better.’

  Diana’s pulse quickened. ‘You want me to meet your family?’

  ‘Of course I do. You’re my girl.’ He reached over the table to squeeze her hand. ‘Sadly, my mother is unwell just now, with something we call fuoco di San Antonio, but when she is better …’

  It wasn’t a term she had come across but Diana questioned him about the symptoms of the illness and realised it must be shingles. ‘I’ll look forward to meeting her whenever she’s ready.’

  She felt very moved that he was taking steps to make their relationship official. He genuinely seemed to want to make it work. With a jolt she realised that if he asked to marry her she would have to convert to Catholicism. Did they accept divorcees? She wasn’t sure.

  When they made love that night, there was a special intensity about it and Diana felt as though she had fallen just a little bit further in love with him. But while he slept she lay awake racked with guilt about Trevor, who had made such an effort to choose thoughtful gifts for her. It felt wicked to be betraying him. He’d done nothing to deserve this.

  She tried to picture what she would have done if she had been in Elizabeth Taylor’s position. What if she had been having a dinner party in the home she shared with Trevor, with all their friends there, when Ernesto burst in, insisting that she should choose between them? She simply couldn’t picture the two of them in the same room, but she knew she wouldn’t have humiliated Trevor publicly. It was as well that they lived in different countries, hundreds of miles apart, but she went cold with panic when she thought about Easter. She couldn’t tell Trevor not to come, and she still hadn’t told Ernesto about it, although the visit was only a month away. She was being a coward, and it was tearing her apart.

  At least Elizabeth had made a choice and taken action. Perhaps she was just braver than Diana. She must have nerves of steel. But then why had she taken an overdose back in February when Richard broke off the affair? Maybe she had set her heart on the prize and was determined to get it. Diana shook herself. How could the likes of her attempt to get inside the mind of such an extraordinary star? They had nothing in common except dull marriages and exciting lovers but she felt a kinship with Elizabeth as they coped with their men in their own individual ways.

  Just ten days later, Diana got an insight into Elizabeth’s state of mind that made her think about the woman quite differently. Every day there were minor dramas at Cinecittà but the drama became a crisis on the 26th of March when a paparazzo managed to sneak a long-lens photograph of Elizabeth and Richard kissing outside her dressing room, wearing bathrobes over their costumes. It was the first proof positive of the affair for the outside world and the picture instantly went global. The furore was such that next morning Diana’s studio car couldn’t get through the entrance gates for all the paparazzi outside and the driver had to take her round to slip in via the commissary.

  Copies of Gente, the Italian newspaper that had splashed the fuzzy picture on its front cover, were all over the set, surreptitiously folded into jacket pockets or handbags so as to avoid causing offence to the protagonists. In the bar at lunchtime, word buzzed from table to table that Richard had released a statement to the press accepting what everyone knew to be the truth about his affair – but he added that he would never leave his wife Sybil. How would Elizabeth react?

  By one of those extraordinary coincidences that often seemed to happen at Cinecittà, that very afternoon Elizabeth was to film a scene of jealous rage. Cleopatra hears the news that Mark Antony, her lover, has married Octavian’s sister back in Rome. The marriage is obviously one of political expedience but still Cleopatra flies into a frenzy. In the script, she is called upon to slash Antony’s possessions to ribbons with a sword. Diana had read the pages that morning and couldn’t believe how clearly the film mirrored real life at that precise moment.

  Now that her face was known, she occasionally managed to step in to the sound stages and watch the filming and she decided to try that afternoon. She felt almost protective of Elizabeth, although that was ridiculous. The woman didn’t even know her name.

  The centrepiece of the set was a large bed circled by gold gauze curtains. Diana stood in the shadows by a back wall and kept very still as Elizabeth emerged and Joe went over for a word with her.

  ‘Quiet on set. Going for a take,’ called the assistant director, then there was the familiar sequence: ‘Roll sound’, ‘Rolling’, ‘Roll camera’, ‘Speed’. The clapperboard operator called ‘Slate 57, Take 1’ and slapped the wooden boards together. ‘And action,’ Joe called.

  Elizabeth began to slash at Antony’s clothes with a Roman sword, a deranged expression on her face. ‘Cut!’ Joe called, then asked for another take. When that scene was in the bag, Elizabeth had to sweep the ornaments from a dressing table, and this took several takes, with continuity girls hard pressed to replace them in exactly the same positions between times. In the last scene, Elizabeth leapt onto the bed and began to stab it with the sword so that the stuffing spilled out. She went utterly berserk, sobbing and stabbing the mattress and pillows over and over again. Joe failed to call ‘Cut’. Everyone was mesmerised.

  Finally, someone said ‘She’s hurt herself’ and Diana realised there was blood on the sheets. Joe rushed onto the set to put an arm round Elizabeth as she wept uncontrollably, then led her quickly out towards her dressing room. There was silence until the door closed behind them, then a script girl remarked, ‘I hope we don’t need to retake any of that.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ a voice next to Diana asked. It was only then she realised that she was crying herself.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Scott called round at Helen’s pensione the evening after her vitamin shot and found her looking cheerful and full of beans.

  ‘It’s wonderful. I wish I’d known about this doctor months ago. Thank you so much, Scott.’ She threw her arms around his neck.

  ‘Wanna come out for dinner? My bike is round the corner.’

  ‘I’m not hungry but we could have a drink if you like.’

  Scott looked at her skinny arms. ‘You need to eat, sweetheart. You’re all skin and bone.’

  ‘I know. None of my clothes fit any more. I’m sure my appetite will come back soon.’ She
laughed. ‘Tell you what. Could we get an ice cream? I love ice cream.’

  ‘Sure can. I know a place not far from here.’ He’d noticed it because it reminded him of an American soda fountain with high stools on which you sat at a counter. There were no other customers. They chose stools with a view into the street and perused the menu.

  ‘Could I have one of those?’ Helen pointed to a picture on the wall of an ice cream sundae with three different scoops of ice cream – vanilla, strawberry and chocolate – and some pink syrup and sprinkles on top. ‘It looks divine.’

  Scott laughed and ordered her one, requesting just a coffee for himself.

  ‘What’s your job?’ she asked. ‘Did you tell me and I’ve forgotten? I’m famous for that.’

  Scott decided not to mention that he was a journalist. The press had a bad name at Cinecittá and he didn’t want her jumping to the conclusion he was only befriending her to get information about Taylor and Burton. ‘I’m a writer. A struggling writer.’

  ‘How romantic!’ Helen licked a spoonful of ice cream. ‘Do you write love stories?’

  ‘Not exactly. I write crime stories and sometimes there’s love involved. Gangsters and their girlfriends. Say, I was wondering if you and Luigi were ever an item?’

  Helen shuddered and shook her head, but she wouldn’t meet his eye. ‘He’s disgusting,’ she exclaimed with feeling. ‘I really hate him.’ The question seemed to have upset her and he regretted asking it because she stopped eating and simply toyed with her ice cream as it melted into puddles in the dish.

  ‘I hope he’ll leave you alone now, but tell me if you have any trouble and I’ll deal with him. OK?’

  She nodded, but a dampener had been put on her mood. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ she asked, and Scott found himself telling her about Rosalia, who still called the office from time to time.

  ‘I don’t understand why she doesn’t have more pride,’ he complained.