But beating Dorian commercially was no longer enough for Harry. Even if he succeeded in bankrupting Rasmirez, it might not be enough to break the bastard. I have to get to him some other way. Hit him where it’ll really hurt, hit him so hard he won’t be able to get back up.
Harry’s mind turned back to Dorian’s wife. He remembered the night at the Starlight Ball a few months ago, when Chrissie Rasmirez had reciprocated in a little mild flirtation. Of course, she’d had reason enough to be mad at her husband that night. Would she be as receptive if Harry tried to seduce her now? Physically she was past her prime, of course, and her body was a little too overmuscled for Harry’s taste. But Chrissie Rasmirez was still an attractive woman. How delicious it would be if Harry were to nuke Dorian’s fairytale marriage the way Dorian had destroyed his! That was certainly one possibility, but of course much depended on the lady’s willingness, her appetite for betrayal.
What are Rasmirez’s other weaknesses?
Harry suspected that Dorian was one of the rare breed of film-makers who actually meant it when they told reporters they were ‘all about the work’. Fame meant little to Rasmirez, and money was only important because it enabled him to make more movies, and to keep up that ridiculous Disney castle he had in some East European butthole country no one had heard of. Rumour had it that Wuthering Heights was his best work yet. Viorel Hudson’s performance was said to be strong, and the infamous Sabrina Leon’s stellar. Harry had even heard whispers that Dorian might be gunning for an Oscar.
Now this was interesting. Dorian Rasmirez had been nominated three times in the Best Director category, but had never won. Independent movies rarely took home the big gongs these days (there were only six that mattered: Best Picture, Director, Actress, Actor and the two Supportings). Without a big studio to finance your Oscar campaign, you stood next to no chance. Could Dorian woo a big studio backer, even this late in the day? Had that been his plan all along?
Harry had already begun his own, slow-burn campaign for Celeste with the Academy months ahead of schedule. Was Rasmirez hoping to challenge him? Harry hoped so. If he could sink Dorian’s movie in theatres and beat him to an Oscar, that truly would be revenge worthy of the name. Just thinking about it brought a smile to his face.
‘Listen, doc, I gotta go. Speaking of work, you know. The back lot beckons.’
Dr Brewer thought about reminding Harry that the session had another ten minutes to run; that his unwillingness to commit to the full hour was almost certainly a reflection of his inner unwillingness to examine fundamental difficulties in his personality; but he wisely thought better of it. The last psychotherapist to irritate Harry Greene, his predecessor Dr Liana Craven, had been the victim of a whispering campaign so toxic and relentless, her practice had been decimated and she’d ultimately been forced to relocate to Texas. Dr Brewer had never warmed to Texas.
‘Of course,’ he said cheerily. ‘Stay well. See you next week.’
Outside, in the blazing sunshine of Burton Way, Harry Greene immediately felt his spirits lifting. Goddamn shrinks. They always made you feel like a bag of crap. He only went because in Hollywood, not having an analyst was like admitting you had a problem. Like not having a driver, or a mistress, or a Thai masseuse who gave you all the extras without being asked. For a man in his position, it was unthinkable.
His dark blue Bentley gleamed outside the doctor’s office, with Manuel, his uniformed driver, ready and waiting to take him back to Universal, but Harry Greene felt like a walk. Crossing the street past a line of lithe-limbed teenage girls outside Pinkberry, he headed south toward Wilshire Boulevard. It was Wednesday lunchtime, which meant that Angelica, his ex-wife, would almost certainly be getting her pedicure done in the top-floor salon at Neiman Marcus. Now on her third husband since her divorce from Harry, Angie had become something of a friend in recent years, one of the few women Harry knew for a fact wanted nothing from him. I’ll surprise her. Take her to lunch. Maybe buy her something sparkly from Neil Lane to tick off that attorney husband of hers.
He turned on his cellphone to check his messages (that was another irritating thing about therapists; they always wanted him to switch his phone off, which inevitably made him doubly tense). It rang immediately.
‘Greene,’ Harry answered, not breaking stride. A few seconds later a broad smile spread across his face. Now that he controlled every aspect of his life with military precision, it wasn’t often he was surprised, still less pleasantly surprised. But this call had done it.
‘Well hello, my dear,’ he purred. ‘Believe it or not, I was just thinking about you.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tish stood in the hallway at Loxley, not sure whether to believe her eyes.
Is that a grand piano? Good God. Is it a Steinway? Preceded by a good two thousand pounds’ worth of Moyses Stevens flower arrangements, an enormous rug that took three men to carry it and looked suspiciously Persian and antique, and a hideous modern painting of two orange-clad Buddhist monks staring at each other, the piano was the latest (but apparently not last) in a procession of luxury goods being carried single file into Loxley’s drawing room. It was like watching a line of leafcutter ants.
When the first Harrods van had pulled up outside twenty minutes ago, Tish had thought little of it. Another of Mummy’s extravagances. Probably some turn-the-clock-back face cream made of baby seal’s bottom you can only get in London; or a few cases of overpriced Smythson’s stationery with ‘Vivianna Crewe, Loxley Hall’ embossed in gold leaf on the top. Vivianna was only ever ‘Crewe’ when it suited her, and at the moment it suited her down to the tips of her Bottega Veneta stilettos.
Tish’s mother had flown in two days ago to ‘comfort Jago’, who’d taken to his bed with a bout of melodramatic grief when Sabrina Leon suddenly broke off their engagement. He was still refusing to get up, despite the fact that he knew full well that Tish and Abi were leaving for Romania at the end of the week and that Loxley’s bills were once again piling up.
It was only after the second van arrived, then the third, and the ants began their relentless march through the house weighed down with extortionate loot, that the severity of Vivi’s latest spending spree began to hit home.
‘Mummy!’ Tish called hoarsely, following the workers in hopes of finding the queen. And sure enough, once she got into the drawing room, there was Vivianna, directing her minions to position their various treasures around the room, alternately pointing imperiously and clapping her hands with glee like an overexcited little girl. Catherine the Great meets Shirley Temple, thought Tish. She doesn’t change. In a simple lemon-yellow sundress teamed with sky-high black Bottega heels and matching black sunglasses, Vivi looked as ravishing as ever. Her glossy black hair was piled, Sophia Loren style, on top of her head, and her slender, French-manicured hands gesticulated in that wild, Italian way of hers, as if somehow disconnected from the rest of her body. Not for the first time, Tish thought: I’m nothing like you. Genetically, we’re as disconnected as a pair of total strangers.
‘Ah, Letitia cara, there you are.’ Vivi smiled. ‘What do you think, darling? Would your brother prefer the piano in the corner of the room – more traditional – or per’aps beneath the window? It is more romantic, no? Looking out across the deer park.’
Tish shook her head despairingly. ‘It’ll have to go back, Mother. It’ll all have to go back.’
‘Back?’ asked Vivi innocently. ‘Against the wall, you mean?’
‘I mean “back”,’ snapped Tish. ‘Back to London. Before you lose the receipts.’
Vivianna pouted. ‘I can’t possibly do that, darling. It’s for your brother. He needs something to lift his spirits, something to focus on other than that ’orrible, fickle woman. This house feels like a morgue, no wonder ’e’s so depressed. It must be decades since Henry redecorated.’
‘It’s decades since he could afford to,’ said Tish defensively. ‘How much did all this crap cost, anyway?’
Vivi looked moment
arily sheepish. ‘Who can put a price on your brother’s happiness?’
Marching over to the piano, Tish picked up a dangling white paper label and read the number printed on it in bold black ink. ‘Harrods, apparently,’ she said bluntly. ‘This is over a hundred thousand pounds, Mummy!’
‘It’s an investment.’
‘In what? Penury? Jago doesn’t even play the piano. And look at all these flowers! It’s like Elton John’s funeral in here.’
Vivianna’s exquisite brown eyes welled up with tears, shining like two pieces of amber in a stream. ‘Don’t even joke about funerals,’ she whispered sombrely. ‘I don’t think you realize how close to this poor JJ is. You have no idea of the pain of a broken heart, Letitia. You’re too cold and English, just like your father.’
It took every last ounce of Tish’s self-restraint not to slap her mother round her perfect, high-cheekboned face. How dare she criticize Henry! Not to mention preach about broken hearts, she who had shattered her poor husband’s heart into a million tiny fragments, not to mention the damage she’d done to her children.
‘I’m not cold,’ said Tish through gritted teeth. ‘I’m practical. Somebody has to be. At the rate you and Jago are spending, Loxley’ll be bankrupt again before Christmas. If you had any idea of the work I’ve put into turning this place around, clearing our debts, starting the repairs …’
‘You see?’ said Vivi triumphantly. ‘You were spending money on improving the house. And that’s all I’m doing, darling. I’m just trying to do it with a little colour, a little life. Would you really begrudge your poor brother that?’
It was pointless talking to her mother in this mood. If she hurried, Tish could probably collar one of the Harrods drivers outside and get hold of Vivianna’s order number, so she could arrange to have the goods returned next week. By then, with any luck, the novelty of playing Jago’s Florence Nightingale would have worn off and Vivi would have returned to Rome, where she could waft around looking glamorous and spend some poor besotted Italian count’s money rather than her children’s inheritance. Mrs D would have to oversee the pick-up, of course. Tish would be in Oradea by then, back in her normal rhythm: work at Curcubeu and the hospital, school runs with Abel, coming home to the morose, disapproving Lydia. No, I really must give Lydia the boot. The thought of returning to her old battleaxe of a nanny was almost as depressing as saying goodbye to Loxley.
Tish ran out into the driveway but it was too late. The Harrods vans had gone.
From an upstairs window, she could hear Jago moaning, like an actor in a bad B-movie practising his death throes. She didn’t for a moment buy his heartbroken schtick. Sabrina had been an infatuation, a status symbol. Nothing more. At worst, Jago’s ego had been bruised, although admittedly in his case that was probably akin to a vital organ. Not in a million years could Tish ever have seen her brother and Sabrina Leon making old bones together.
Viorel and Sabrina, on the other hand, made a far more plausible match. There had been a chemistry between them from the beginning; they were like two sides of the same rare, beautiful coin. It was only a matter of time before this happened, Tish thought. But, try as she might to talk herself out of it, the truth was that the thought of Vio and Sabrina together made her feel depressed.
I’ve lost perspective, she told herself firmly. That’s all it is. The drama of this summer and the film shoot had distracted her, consumed her when she ought to have been thinking about her own life, her own future. Viorel would go back to his world of premières and red carpets, and Tish would go back to her world of hospital wards and frozen pipes, and all would be right with the world.
Just at that moment, Abel came hurtling out of the house and coiled his arms around Tish’s legs. He’d grown noticeably taller over the summer, Tish realized, and his face had matured too. It was less rounded, less generically babyish. He was more of a boy now. Suddenly Tish could picture him at eight and twelve and seventeen. She felt a wave of love engulf her.
‘Hello, sweetheart. What have you been up to?’
‘Nothing,’ he shrugged. ‘It’s boring without Viorel. Has he called?’
‘No, sweetie,’ Tish said gently. ‘He will though, I’m sure, once we get home to Oradea.’
It was strange that Vio hadn’t telephoned since leaving England. Tish tried not to mind. Perhaps he’d decided it would be best all round if Abel forgot about him and they all moved on with their lives?
Perhaps he was right.
‘Come on,’ she said, her voice heavy with forced heartiness. ‘Come and help me finish packing. You can jump on the suitcase while I try to zip it.’
Back at the Schloss, the entire set was abuzz with excitement about Viorel and Sabrina’s new red-hot love affair.
It was tough to keep anything on the down low on location at the best of times, but when it was a romance between a movie’s two stars, and when neither of them could keep their eyes off each other, never mind their hands, it was a lost cause.
Dorian wasn’t sure how to react to the blossoming relationship. He was delighted Sabrina had called time on her fauxmance with Jago Crewe. He’d become very fond of Sabrina over the past few months, but Dorian also knew her faults and weaknesses intimately, and he was by no means sure that Viorel was the ‘steady ship’ Sabrina needed. On the surface, she and Vio Hudson might appear to be similar creatures: both preposterously beautiful, talented and vain, both ferociously ambitious. But Sabrina’s ambition, like her arrogance, was powered by a deep-seated insecurity. Her confidence was an act. Viorel’s wasn’t. Hudson wanted adulation, but Sabrina needed it. Big difference.
Whatever misgivings he had about the wisdom of the romance, however, evaporated when he watched the chemistry between them on set. Sabrina and Viorel barely needed directing any more. All Dorian had to do was switch the camera on and leave them to it. Which was a good thing, given the huge amounts of mental energy he was expending on Chrissie.
Ever since he’d forgotten to show up for their romantic kitchen supper, Dorian’s marriage had begun unravelling at a frightening pace, like a dropped reel of cotton bouncing uncontrollably down a mountainside. What worried him most was that it wasn’t the usual fireworks. Dorian was used to Chrissie’s tantrums, to her throwing things and acting out, either by reckless spending or by hurtling headlong into another disastrous affair. He hated the drama. The affairs, in particular, hurt him deeply. But it was an enemy that he understood and that he knew how to fight. This new Chrissie – sad, silent, uncommunicative – was an unknown entity, a shadowy figure in the woods. She wouldn’t talk to him, wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t engage in any way. When Saskia was with them, Chrissie would talk only to her daughter, referring to Dorian in the third person as ‘Daddy’.
In the past, their marital arguments had given Dorian the stomach-churning adrenaline rush of charging into battle. This was more like guerrilla warfare: the slow, sickening fear of walking along an empty road, wondering when a home-made bomb might blow you to pieces. As a tactic it was highly effective, leaving Dorian in a permanent state of nervous exhaustion. He tried everything to snap Chrissie out of it – cajoling, pleading, bribing, ignoring; but it was as if she were in a trance, as calm and unmoving as a stone. In the end, he returned to putting in long days on set, simply because he didn’t know what else to do with himself.
One baking hot Friday afternoon, two weeks exactly since Sabrina and Viorel had become an item, Dorian surprised the crew by opting to re-shoot a couple of the outdoor Heathcliff and Cathy scenes they’d done at Loxley Hall. If the camera got in close enough, the Derwent and the Bistrita could easily be made to look like the same river, and the late summer Transylvanian light was so perfect, it seemed a shame not to attempt some re-shoots now that Sabrina and Vio had both raised their game.
Viorel for one was delighted to be out of doors for a change. The atmosphere inside the Schloss was so close and tense, it was a relief to look up and see sky. It was still incredibly hot, though, in the h
igh nineties. Slipping off his boots and socks between takes, Vio dipped his feet luxuriantly in the cool river water, lying back on the bank and closing his eyes while he wriggled his toes in pleasure.
‘Want some company?’ A shadow fell over his face. Viorel opened his eyes and looked up at Sabrina. With the sun behind her, her features were dark and indistinct, but he could hear the smile in her voice.
‘Sure.’
He tried not to feel annoyed. They were together 24 / 7 now, working on set all day and making love all night. He’d been enjoying a few, precious minutes to himself when she’d come over and found him.
‘The scene works much better out here, don’t you think? I feel like we were sleepwalking through those lines back in England.’
‘Mmm.’ Vio was still trying to focus on how incredible the cold water felt between his toes. ‘I guess.’
Sabrina straddled him, blocking his sun. ‘You were amazing, my darling, as always.’ She bent low to kiss him, her tongue darting between his lips, passionate and hungry. ‘You totally nailed it.’
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