Deep and Silent Waters (20 page)

Leo Serrati knew many of the top medical men in the country and soon had the truth. ‘Poor man, suffers agonies from dysentery. Picked it up in Africa when he went there in July.’

‘One of the other nurses told me she’d heard he’s having an affair with some whore who’s given him syphilis.’ Nursing had changed Anna Serrati: she had seen and heard things that made her view life without rose-coloured spectacles.

Leo bristled. ‘Will you stop talking like that? Ears, remember, ears!’

Anna looked at her daughter, apparently absorbed in nibbling her rough brown bread and a tiny piece of cheese, made from their own goats’ milk. ‘She isn’t listening – and if she was, she wouldn’t know what I was saying.’

‘And I don’t want her to! It’s a lie, anyway! These pains he gets are all in the abdomen, some internal problem … Cancer, maybe?’

‘This war is responsible for many terrible things.’ Anna looked sad, and Vittoria, watching her, remembered the Englishman, whose face was beginning to fade in her memory now. That was how Mamma had looked as she walked with him in the garden that day. Where was he now? Fighting the Italian army somewhere? Maybe it had been his shell that exploded near Carlo in the desert. She had never loved her half-brother, had never even liked him much. Carlo could be cruel, teased and pinched her, pulled her hair. But she had hated Frederick Canfield from the first moment she saw him, because she loved her mother.

Venice, 1997

At eight years old Vittoria hadn’t quite understand what was going on or how she felt. Years later when she read Canfield’s book
The Lily
she realised how much she had sensed without knowing it, and she hated him far more, recognising how much of the book was based on her own family and the way they lived, the society they had inhabited, self-indulgent, thoughtless, amoral to Canfield’s eyes; a world that had vanished for ever, about which she, herself, felt wistfully nostalgic.

It had amazed her to discover that Nico loved the book, admired the style, the smooth, flowing prose, the descriptions of an Italy still as it had been for centuries.

A country of glorious, golden sunlight, where men lived so close to nature they were almost one, full of laughter, warmth, generosity, winding medieval streets, a land of lakes and mountains, of great art, gardens, church bells, remote villages, street cafés where small bands played and sang old folk-songs under the stars while you ate pasta and drank rough red wine. Nico had read the early part of the book, where Canfield first found Italy and fell in love with it, and excitedly told his mother she must read it. Vittoria enjoyed that part, too, until she began to recognise incidents, descriptions, characters that stripped the veils, one by one, from events in her own past that she had either forgotten or misunderstood.

She had never told Nico – he must not see his grandparents, his family, his country, through those alien eyes – so she could not explain now why she did not want a film of that book made in their own house.

She told him instead, ‘My father always said he was a spy, Nico, and Papa was right. Canfield was a British agent. He lived among us, pretending to be our friend, and all the time he was betraying us. His whole book is a betrayal.’

‘I thought it was a brilliant book, Mamma. It isn’t hostile to Italy. What on earth makes you think it is?’

‘I suppose he never … Nico, did Sebastian say he ever met Canfield? You mentioned that he had been planning this film for years. Canfield only died four years ago.
Did
they meet?’ Her eyes were dilated, black saucers of shock. ‘What did Canfield tell him that isn’t in the book?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘That’s why he wants to make the film here! It makes sense now. Why didn’t I see it? He’s another Canfield, pretending to be friendly while all the time he’s scheming to destroy us! But I won’t let it happen! He isn’t conjuring up those ghosts in my house. If he tries, I’ll kill him.’

Her son was horrified by the venom in her voice. She hated Sebastian, hated him in a way that Nico found deeply disturbing. There was something unbalanced in her face, her voice. What on earth was behind all this?

Laura flew home from Venice in a flat, depressed mood. She had not won an award and she had not been able to talk to Sebastian at the ceremony, had seen him only from a distance because their tables had been miles apart. She’d had a couple of glimpses of him in evening dress, among his film crew, but with Valerie Hyde always between them, leaning forward with one elbow on the table, a bare shoulder turned, as if deliberately to block Laura’s view of him.

Laura had drowned her sorrows in wine. She had drunk far too much, at first to calm her nerves, then to comfort herself because she hadn’t got the award. It was odd: she’d convinced herself that she was cool, it didn’t matter whether she won or lost – yet when she heard the announcement, and knew that one of the others had won, her stomach had dropped away through the floor. Shit, shit, she thought, I really wanted the damned thing, and was ashamed by the strength of her own feelings. Was it her English upbringing that made it so hard to admit she wanted anything that much? That kept telling her it was shameful and embarrassing to care whether she won or lost? That Kipling poem kept coming into her mind … ‘Treat those two imposters just the same …’ Win or lose, succeed or fail, you were supposed to laugh merrily. Well, she couldn’t. Oh, in front of Melanie and everyone else in the world she pretended she didn’t care, but she knew she did.

After all that wine, she had slept heavily last night, and in the morning when she packed she could not find Jancy. The doll had been on her bed before she went down to the award ceremony last night – she had kissed her for good luck before she left her room.

Laura had searched her room, and the bathroom, had rung for the floor housekeeper and questioned the maid who had turned her bed down last night, but both women had denied any knowledge of the doll. Miserably, Laura had had to leave for the airport without finding Jancy, and Melanie had not been sympathetic.

‘It’s only a doll, for heaven’s sake! You can buy another one back in London – and much prettier than that one was too. Look, tell you what, I’ll buy you one myself. How’s that?’

‘Jancy wasn’t just a doll.’

‘No, of course, she was magic – she could nod her head. I’d forgotten. Grow up!’

Afraid she might burst into tears, Laura dropped the subject. Thank God none of the
paparazzi
had recognised her as she and Melanie walked through the airport. She’d put on dark glasses, not to disguise herself from fans, this time, but to hide her red eyes, the bruise-like shadows under them. She had looked into the mirror before she left the hotel, groaning. She looked like shit. Looked the way she felt: dull, let-down, empty, close to tears.

What on earth could have happened to Jancy? Someone must have stolen her. But why would anyone want a shabby, much-handled doll? Jancy wasn’t an antique – twenty years isn’t old for a doll – and she hadn’t been made by a famous company, nor had she been expensive when she was new.

Laura felt too sick to eat. She refused the food the stewardess brought, just took the orange juice, which at least was drinkable, and black coffee, which she hoped might wake her up.

She would probably never see Jancy again … unless … could Sebastian have taken her, as a tease? He must have seen Jancy the other night, when he left her room before she woke up, and he had known all about her doll anyway. Jancy always came to work with her. If Sebastian had taken her, she could be sure of seeing Jancy again …

Maybe he would use the doll as an excuse to visit her flat in London to give her back. He’d said he would send her that script – but had he been serious about offering her this part? Yesterday Melanie had talked excitedly about the offers they might get if she won the award. Her value would go up instantly and directors would start clamouring for her – but would anybody want her now that she had lost? Would Sebastian? Once she started on that gloomy, downward path she couldn’t stop.

‘You’re very quiet. What’s bugging you?’ Melanie asked, drinking free Italian wine as if it was water. She turned to yell at the stewardess, ‘Hey, can I have another little bottle of this stuff? It isn’t bad.’

Already several rows away, with her clinking, rickety cart, the woman smiled tightly and came back with one. Melanie always made sure she got her money’s worth on a flight, just as she had filled her suitcase with every freebie from her own and Laura’s bathrooms, the shampoos, shower gels, body lotion, plastic shower caps and tiny bottles of mouthwash. It was a wonder she had had space to pack all the presents she had bought, and the food and clothes. Her case must be as heavy as lead.

‘I was thinking, Mel. As I didn’t get that award, maybe Sebastian won’t want me for his film.’

Melanie had that cynical look she wore when she was talking business. ‘If he ever gets the money together we’ll hear from him, and if we don’t, well, there are other directors. You are going to be a big star, I’m certain of that, with or without Sebastian Ferrese.’

Taking a long swig at the red wine in her plastic glass, Melanie’s eyes gleamed with wicked amusement. ‘And he didn’t win, either, did he? The great Sebastian Ferrese got beaten by an old guy for what is probably going to be his last film. I bet that hurt.’

‘Everyone knows it was a sympathy vote, the poor man’s dying of cancer, after all, and he’s made some great films in the past. I’ve seen all of them and he was a genius. I don’t suppose Sebastian will grudge him a last triumph.’

Mel showed her teeth in a sardonic grin. ‘Sweetie, nobody likes losing, even to an old man dying of cancer.’

‘But Sebastian’s half his age, he has plenty of time to win awards, and I’m sure he will. He’s a great director, too. I learnt a hell of a lot from him.’

‘I bet you did,’ Melanie muttered, hailing the stewardess again to ask for a brandy.

Laura flushed angrily, but didn’t snap back, tried to be calm and reasonable. ‘You said yourself it would be good for my career to work with him on this film. I’m going to read
The Lily
again.’

‘You’re only taking the part if he comes up with a serious offer. However good the script is, he has to pay our price this time. You’re no beginner now so he isn’t getting you for peanuts.’

Laura didn’t argue but her face set obstinately. If Sebastian offered her that part she was going to take it, whatever Melanie said, in spite of her reservations about him, about the threats in the notes pushed under her door.

All of that weighed nothing in the scales against the heart-stopping prospect of working with Sebastian. He got the best out of everyone on a film – even if you didn’t get paid at all it would be worth doing, just for the sake of what you learnt about your craft.

A little voice in her head added, ‘You mean you can’t wait to sleep with him again!’

Her lips clamped together. No. She knew now that she was as weak as water where he was concerned but she wouldn’t let him seduce her again. He wouldn’t get the chance to catch her alone, for one thing: she would be careful and, staying at Ca’ d’Angeli, he couldn’t force his way into her room – he wouldn’t dare risk a scene under that roof. But then her mind filled with confused and sensual images, his hands, his mouth, his knees nudging her thighs apart … her body as he’d forced her down on the carpet, throbbing with desire for him, burning inside, needing the rhythmic massage of his hard flesh to soothe that terrible yearning.

Even if he did get in touch, send the script, make a deal with Mel, how long would it be before they began filming? She knew how interminable these negotiations could be. It might be months, years, before they shot a scene. So much could go wrong – and probably would, with her luck.

The script might have to be rewritten, Sebastian might have to wait to get the right people. There were sound stages to book, sets to design, props to collect, other locations to choose – she was sure the hero of the book had travelled around Italy during the 1920s and 1930s, had been in Rome at one time, Milan at another, always on the move from job to job. And even if all that could be worked out, the money might be a problem. Backers were notorious for changing their minds, pulling out of a film, sometimes for other projects they thought less risky, sometimes because they didn’t like the director’s intentions.

The stewardess took away their trays and Melanie yawned. Suddenly she pointed over the shoulder of a man sitting in front of them. She strained forward to a newspaper he held open. He became aware of this and looked round, irritated.

‘If you want it, take it!’ He thrust it into Melanie’s hands and opened another the stewards had given him when they had boarded the plane.

‘Thanks,’ Melanie said, unruffled by his tone, and spread the paper on her lap. Laura glanced at it curiously, then gasped as she recognised the photograph at the top of the page – of herself and Sebastian in the hotel lobby the day she and Melanie had arrived in Venice.

‘What do they say?’

‘The usual innuendo,’ Mel muttered, closing the paper. ‘Don’t bother to read it. It will only upset you.’

‘About Clea?’ What else? That was all that interested them, wasn’t it? Rumours of sex, violence, drugs, murder – what else did they have to fill their newspapers? They knew what the public wanted.

‘Ssh,’ Melanie hissed, keeping her voice low so that none of the other passengers could hear her. ‘Of course. Don’t worry, it’s only the same old stories. They just about stay within the law of libel. The only new one is about you and Sebastian meeting up in Venice. It’s given them a chance to speculate about whether or not you’re going to make a film together, and if you do, will the affair be on again?’

‘We hadn’t seen each other for years!’

‘What do they care? It makes good copy, sells papers.’

Laura turned her head away. Clea had been dead for three years but the press kept writing about how she had died, rehashing old gossip. Why couldn’t they let her rest in peace?

Hypocrite! You don’t want peace for Clea, she thought bleakly, you want it for yourself. And you want Clea’s husband for yourself, too.