One-man Woman

by Jessica Ayre

  It hadn't been easy, but finding the flat had helped. And by the time her stepfather, Harry, had searched her out again, she had grown sufficient skin to face him. Though she still didn't invite anyone home, terrified that Harry might burst in during one of his drunken bouts and shame her irremediably. Apart from work, it had become a solitary life.

  Jennie shuddered as she looked at him now over the small pine table which served as her dining space. No, it hadn't been easy. But the actual sight of him folding a large slice of bread hungrily into his mouth made her realise that of late she found him more pathetic than frightening. Though the habit of fear, mingled with a deep irrational shame, seemed to have become part of her, part of that buried secret self. Yet if she forced herself to think about it coherently, it was really Max and her stepfather who should feel the shame. It was at least in part they who had acted badly.

  Yes, suddenly it all seemed a little clearer to her. Max's total rejection of her, his resounding and bullying comments about her frigidity, had taken on a crushing force when compounded with her stepfather's drunken railing, the shame and fear he aroused in her. But was she frigid as Max had said?

  She thought of the new sensations Derek's touch had stirred in her and her pulse beat faster. Or had she simply accepted Max's definition, generalised from one particular instance, and kept all men at bay because they might unearth this same quality of revulsion—and her unpresentable stepfather to boot?

  Jennie shrugged inwardly. Finding the answer could well mean losing everything she had so carefully built up. She couldn't face a rejection as shattering as Max's had been again. She noticed her hand trembling as she poured the strong tea and willed herself back into the moment.

  'What about a sweet, Mrs Owen?'

  'Oh yes, dear. Why don't I fetch that large box of chocolates your young man so kindly gave me?'

  Jennie refused, rising to unwrap her own box. As she passed the chocolates round, she glanced at the canvas in the bay window and Derek's eyes, those eyes full of mocking and desire which she had sketched only yesterday, met hers.

  Yes, she would have to be very carefully on her guard to protect herself against that one, or everything she had built up would crumble.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The following morning the make-up room was packed with people. They were shooting the larger family sequences this week and since the film saw the family through three generations, there were not only minor characters to worry about, but Daniela and her film husband, Arno, to see to as well. Jennie and the two other make-up girls had their hands full.

  Caught up in the bustle of activity, Jennie had little time to think. It was midweek before she became aware that her nagging sense of unfulfilled expectation was due to the fact that Derek hadn't turned up on the set. It was Daniela who brought it to her attention.

  She was studying her middle-aged mask in the mirror— that of a statuesque, rather formidable matron who had saved her husband Alfonso from the fate of the bandit-hero, Salvatore Giuliano. Like Giuliano, Alfonso had been used by the Mafia to mobilise popular resistance against the Fascists. But when the Mafia had changed its tactics after the war and turned against him, she had rescued him from certain death. A strong, clever woman, in short, this character whom Daniela played.

  'But I'm not getting this middle period right, Jennie. If only Derek were here to put me through my paces again! It was ridiculous of him to go ahead to set things up in Sicily. They could have sent anyone, that young assistant Sraffa, for example, in his place.'

  Jennie shrugged, adding a little darker colour to Daniela's cheek. 'I guess he must have wanted to go.'

  'Oh yes, Superman. He thinks he can do everything. Doesn't trust anyone to manage in his place. But he should be here with me,' Daniela moaned, 'I really can't do without him.'

  'There, you're ready,' Jennie said matter-of-factly.

  Daniela looked at her shrewdly. 'You really don't approve of my carrying on, do you? Disgrazia, you're saying to yourself. A spoiled childish woman. I'm right, no?'

  Jennie flushed. 'I know it's a difficult part.'

  'Difficult! It's impossible. And that director, Matthew, he's, how do you say, useless. Kind, yes, but he understands nothing. I have a good mind to refuse to work without Derek on the set. I shall go and tell him so now.'

  Jennie looked at her aghast as she marched towards the door. The others in the room stared in equal disbelief. Daniela had not bothered to keep her voice low.

  She reached the door, opened it aggressively, hesitated, took a step out, turned round, looked at her audience and then raised her arms in a dramatic 'what's the use' gesture. She came back to sit in her chair.

  'No, I shall be a good girl. I know we're working to a tight schedule and money is short. And you would all hate me, e vero?'

  Jennie smiled, 'If you can match that last performance, Daniela, there should be no problems.'

  Daniela burst into a raucous laugh. 'You are beginning to know me, my secretive little English girl! I shall have to watch you. But that was a much better warm-up than the rehearsal.'

  Jennie followed Daniela into the main studio and took her place at the side of the set. Daniela, she noticed, paused to have a word with the assistant director, Piero Sraffa. Her gestures were those of a determined matron who held all the keys to power in her tightly-knit family world. When the cameras began to roll, she performed superbly, better than she had done for days. Even her silences were filled with a resilient strength. There were almost no retakes, and at the end of the afternoon, Matthew Tarn congratulated her warmly.

  'Yes, but now I am going to ask you a favour,' Jennie overheard Daniela say to him. 'I would like to have a few hours to go shopping tomorrow, before our travels. Could you shoot the scenes which don't include me?' And,' Daniela fixed him with her luminous eyes, 'I would like to take Jennie with me,' she winked at Jennie as Matthew groaned. 'I will not take no for an answer.'

  Matthew succumbed. 'All right, but I want you both back here by two, punctually. We'll probably have to work late to catch up.'

  Daniela gave him her most gracious smile and turned to Jennie with a gleeful expression. 'If I hadn't been good today, we would have wasted far more time,' she whispered, 'and a little shopping spree is what I need most in the world. You too must need some things for this imminent journey of ours. It will be warm in Sicily and you cannot only ever wear jeans.'

  Not altogether at ease about the way in which Daniela had coerced Matthew, Jennie was however pleased. She had wanted to buy some clothes for the trip and hadn't yet managed to find the time. Daniela's offer was something of a godsend.

  Next morning promptly at nine Jennie arrived at the Kensington flat the studio had rented for Daniela. On the first floor of a beautifully-kept eighteenth-century terrace, it was elegantly painted in the faintest shade of pastel grey which blended with plush carpets of deep blue. The furniture in the spacious front room was comfortably contemporary—a large cream-coloured velvet sofa, matching easy chairs, gently unobtrusive lighting in a variety of geometric shapes, and a scattering of low coffee tables. Apart from a finely textured silk hanging, and a large pine-framed mirror, the walls were bare. French windows framed by two giant hanging ferns gracefully looked out on to a row of impeccable gardens.

  'It is pleasant here, no?' Daniela poured Jennie a mugful of strong aromatic coffee.

  'Lovely.'

  'A little bit impersonal, like a page out of, how do you call that magazine, Homes and Gardens? But pleasant. Come, I will show you the rest.'

  The rest consisted of a wonderfully appointed pine-panelled kitchen, a small study with an old rolltop desk and winged chair, and a large French-windowed bedroom with a satin-draped bed. It was this room which had most of Daniela in it, Jennie noted. She had strewn photographs over the dressing table, tacked more up on a body-length mirror, decked jewellery and trinkets on the night-tables, spread her shawls over the back of a magnificent cane chair.

  Daniela poised
her china coffee mug amidst the makeup on the dressing table and motioned to Jennie, 'Come, I want to show you something.' She pointed to a photograph of a boy of about five with large luminous eyes in a handsomely serious face. 'My son.'

  'Son!' Jennie didn't have time to veil her astonishment.

  Daniela chuckled, 'Si, my son, il mio bellissimo Giancarlo. I miss him terribly. No, don't look at me like that. I know I am a bad mother, so much away.' She sighed. 'But he is well taken care of by his grandmama and his father. And now it is school time, so he cannot come to see me. Perhaps when we are in Sicily, he will come down for a weekend.'

  Jennie's curiosity about Daniela's family arrangements was aroused, but she didn't have the audacity to question her further. As her eyes skimmed the photographs, she, saw a tall man of traditionally Italian good looks—strong jaw, dark eyes, Roman nose—standing next to a small boy who might have been a younger version of Daniela's son. And then a familiar face startled her, sea-blue eyes etched into bronzed brow and jutting cheekbones, and she caught her breath.

  Daniela followed the course of her gaze. 'It is a fine photo of Derek, no? I took it myself.'

  Jennie thought she detected a look of nostalgia on her face. 'Yes,' she paused and made her voice disinterested. 'Have you known each other for long?'

  'Long enough,' Daniela said meaningfully.

  Jennie swallowed and changed the subject. 'And this woman here?'

  'Oh, that is my mamma. She used to be an actress. It is from her I learned my laugh which seems always to make you jump from your skin. She used to tell me when she took me to the theatre, "Now you must laugh, fortissimo, from the stomach, so the actors feel there is an appreciative audience. Then they will act even better." '

  Jennie smiled, 'I shall remember that.'

  'Come, we had better go now, if we are to have enough time to shop properly.' Daniela threw a rough silk jacket over her shoulders. Its lavender tone exactly matched her trousers and blended delicately with the deeper mauve of her shirt. The contrast with her rich auburn curls was striking.

  'You look wonderful,' Jennie said to her.

  'Except when you make me up, my little one,' Daniela chuckled. 'But then I work on myself, not like you. This,' she pointed to her body like a piece of merchandise, 'is at least half my career, not the most important half, I keep trying to tell them, but half, nonetheless.' She shrugged. 'And when I go shopping I feel I have to look good before I start or else everything I try is wrong. But today, Jennie, I shall concentrate on you. I cannot bear all this natural beauty going to waste.'

  Jennie flushed. 'But I don't like clothes, not much anyway, and—well, I haven't much money.'

  Daniela's look was like a pat on the back. 'Don't worry, my Jennie, you don't need much to look well. And don't be afraid. I wouldn't turn you into a clotheshorse. Simplicity, that is what you need.'

  The two women walked the short distance to Harrods where Daniela had insisted they go.

  'We will concentrate on you first, Jennie. I think you are probably less well prepared for Sicily than I am,' she smiled wryly.

  'What I want above all is a pair of white trousers, some shorts and a bikini. Oh yes, and some sandals.' Jennie felt she couldn't let herself be railroaded into buying more than she needed or could afford.

  'Yes, that is sensible.'

  As soon as they began looking round, Jennie noticed that Daniela had an eye for price as well as style. 'You are surprised, eh?' she smiled at Jennie. 'We Italians are practical people, and in any case, for a long time I did not have so much money as now.'

  Jennie pulled out a pair of white jeans from a rackful and Daniela simultaneously handed her a pair of more fashionable linen trousers.

  'Try these on as well, and this,' she passed Jennie a creamy white muslin pirate smock with billowing sleeves and a large square collar that finished in a punging V. 'And come out and parade before me. There's nothing I like better.'

  Jennie obeyed dutifully, and instantly fell in love with the loose-fitting smock which went wonderfully well with both pairs of trousers.

  Daniela approved, 'Bellissima! Now a little present from me to dress the whole thing up.' She flung a voluminous maroon-red scarf, embossed with thin silver threads, over Jennie's shoulders and tied it, Jennie wasn't quite sure how, over her right arm. 'Perfect! You look like the amoretta of some glorious old Sicilian bandit hero.'

  Jennie glanced at her reflection in the long mirror. The deep red of the scarf loosely covering the folds of white made the ivory of her skin glow with a suffused warmth and brought out the darkness of her hair. She smiled at her image.

  'Yes, you see, you like it. It is better than jeans.'

  Daniela, Jennie noted, seemed to take a childlike pleasure out of dressing her. Now her nimble hands untied the scarf and wound it round Jennie's waist. 'E presto, with a wave of the magic wand, the bandit's amoretta becomes a slender Vogue model!'

  Jennie chuckled, 'You're a better saleswoman than I've ever encountered! I shall have the lot.'

  'Oh, but we're not finished, my Jennie. I must, I absolutely must see your legs. Do you realise in all these weeks you have never worn a dress?'

  Jennie demurred, thinking of the slimness of her bank balance. But Daniela insisted, 'How can I look my best if all the women on this film refuse to compete?' she shook her head tragically. 'If you plead poverty, I shall simply have to make you a present.'

  Jennie stiffened.

  'No? Well then, you shall have to do it for me, as a favour. Besides, I have found just the things,' Daniela smiled gleefully, and led Jennie towards a rack which seemed to be made out of frothy lace. She pulled out a delicate cotton lace skirt with an intricately scalloped hem and a matching lace top finely frilled at neck and shoulders.

  Jennie gasped. The garments were beautiful, but far more than she could afford. Daniela pooh-poohed her doubts. 'How many times a year do you go to Sicily? Your bank manager will be kind on the overdraft. You simply wear the clothes to charm him with. E tutto va bene.'

  Jennie tried on the skirt and top, looked at herself in disbelief and concluded that Daniela was right. Why not splurge for once? For the first time, she corrected herself. She had worked hard enough for it. She walked out of the fitting room, her head held high.

  'Bella!' Daniela exclaimed as she examined Jennie with a practised eye. 'Now I shall have to work a little harder.'

  Jennie smiled, looking at the older woman's elegance. Daniela had nothing to fear from her. Yet she was pleased with her transformed self. She had never worn clothes like this before and would certainly never have dared to buy them on her own.

  'But now it's your turn, Daniela. You haven't bought anything yet.'

  'Yes, but first I will buy a present for Giancarlo and then I must look around privately. I am a little bit fussy, you know. So you go and buy those shorts you wanted and I shall come and parade before you when I am ready.'

  Jennie left her things at the cash desk and wandered around the counters and racks. Yes, she did like Daniela. She was kind and generous. Yet there was something about her that made Jennie suspicious, a kind of worldliness; almost—she grimaced as the word came to her—a core of ruthlessness. A chill ran through her as she suddenly remembered Derek's photograph gazing out at her from Daniela's mirror. Of course, that was it. It was her relationship to Derek, her proprietorial air towards him, which had brought the thought to mind. Daniela, she imagined, would fight to the bitter end to keep her man, with a total disregard for scruples of any kind. And—the insight suddenly crystallised from nowhere— what Daniela was doing now was manipulating Jennie, winning her over to make sure that she became more important to her than any fleeting attraction to Derek.

  Jennie shuddered and blotted out all the intrigue the twosome suggested. She chided herself as she looked through a range of cotton shorts, picking out a white pair in her size. She was acting like some narrow-minded little puritan.

  She made herself concentrate on a pile of tee-
shirts in a variety of colours. Burrowing through them, she selected a white one with thin shoulder straps, and an apple green with short sleeves. Then she found a simple white bikini and went to try on the lot. On her way to the dressing room, she spotted a rack of inexpensive sundresses, and with a devil-may-care grin to her conscience, she pulled out two, a purple crimped full-skirted Indian cotton with a halter top, and a simple white with straight lines and ribboned shoulder straps. As she tried on the clothes, she felt helpless to reject anything. Her pleasure mixed with guilt at her own extravagance, she walked back, bulky bundle in hand, towards where she had left Daniela. She spied her examining herself carefully from all sides in a three-corner mirror. 'I think I have decided. It is perhaps not for Sicily, but for Rome, it will be perfect.' She pirouetted for Jennie, showing off an outfit made up of a loosely cut cream crepe-de-chine cardigan with a matching camisole and a full black skirt trimmed with broderie anglaise.

  'It's lovely,' said Jennie, thinking how odd it was that this low-key classical outfit brought out Daniela's dramatic beauty all the more.

  'And there is this,' Daniela showed her a pair of white linen trousers and a voile shirt with large floppy ruffles, 'but I will not try it on for you, since we must now hurry if we are to get some shoes and some lunch.'

  The two women paid for the clothes and then took the lift to the shoe department. Jennie hastily selected a pair of white espadrilles which tied round the ankle and, at Daniela's urging, a pair of high-heeled black ankle-strapped sandals. 'To show off those legs we never see,' Daniela chuckled sardonically. 'If we're not careful we shall lose you to some ardent Mafioso chief. But before that we must eat. The food in Sicily, as I remember it, is dreadful, so I shall treat you to some proper Italian food now. Don't laugh at me, my Jennie, we Romans are particular about what we put into our stomachs.'