by Susan Lewis
– 23 –
ON FRIDAY EVENING Annalise flew to Scotland with Phillip. Corrie saw them off, assuring them both that she would be all right and promising to call if she wasn’t. By now she had managed to calm herself down sufficiently to actually smile at the way she had allowed herself to be carried along by Paula’s panic. Not that Paula wasn’t making perfect sense – that was, if anything made sense any more – it was just to Corrie’s mind there didn’t seem much point in getting worked up about Luke when he had taken it upon himself to vanish. She had no idea where he was, and had to confess to being more than a little intrigued, but he’d told Bob that he would be gone for at least two weeks, which for now was all that mattered. At least so far as Luke Fitzpatrick was concerned – for what was bothering Corrie much more as she returned to her studio from the airport, was the fact that she and Cristos had still not contacted each other.
She’d been back in her studio for no more than fifteen minutes when she threw down the book she was reading and started to reach for the phone. This was nonsense! It couldn’t go on and if it had to be her who swallowed her pride then she’d damned well do it. Her hand was just about to touch the receiver when suddenly the telephone rang.
Swearing under her breath at having her moment of courage interrupted, Corrie was tempted to let it go on ringing. In the end she picked it up.
‘Hello?’ she snapped.
‘What the hell are you doing there?’ Cristos shouted.
‘What do you think I’m doing here,’ Corrie retorted, matching his tone perfectly while feeling herself start to grin. ‘I live here.’
‘Don’t be obtuse. You’re supposed to be here with me.’
‘Who says?’
‘I say. Now get your Goddammed ass on a train and get down here now.’
‘You’re taking rather a lot for granted,’ she said, glad he couldn’t see her right now because her smile was so wide it hurt. ‘I mean you haven’t even bothered to call me this week, but now it suits you you expect me to come running.’
‘I didn’t notice you rushing to the horn either,’ he barked.
‘I wasn’t the one who sneaked off without saying goodbye.’
‘Trying not to wake you.’
‘You could have left a note.’
‘Well pardon me, ma’am. Now are you getting on that train or do I have to come get you?’
‘I’ll get on the train, but you’d better not shout at me like that when I get there or I’ll just turn right around and come back again.’
‘The hell you will. Now get packing.’
‘Cristos,’ she said, as he was about to ring off.
‘Yes?’
‘Weren’t you the tiniest bit worried when I didn’t call?’
‘I’ve been out of my mind all week.’
‘Oh! A bare-faced lie, Bennati!’
‘Ask your friend Paula,’ he said, and the line went dead.
‘All right, all right, I admit it, I did call him,’ Paula confessed, ‘and yes I did tell him you were having a childish fit of pride. Well someone had to, you were making such a bloody idiot of yourself.’
‘I’ll forgive you if you can tell me why he didn’t ring me – I mean without your help!’
‘He didn’t ring because, apart from being who he is – which makes him a very busy man – he came all the way up to London last week, whisked you out of the edit suite then spent an entire night satiating your insatiable sexual hunger and telling you how much he loved you, which you refused to say in return. He’s done all the running, and you’ve done nothing but lap it up. He’s got his pride too, you know! And if you ask me …’
‘Not so fast,’ Corrie interrupted. ‘He told you all that?’
‘Well, not in so many words. But that was the gist of it. Anyway he’s called you now, so stop wasting time and get down there to Wiltshire.’
A little over two hours later Corrie stepped down from the train at Chippenham station into a fog so thick she could barely see further than six feet in front of her. Automatically she pulled her scarf up around her mouth and tugged down her felt hat to keep out the biting cold. It had to be at least five degrees colder than London here, and there hadn’t been any of this fog in town either. It was like arriving in another country, she was thinking to herself, as she edged along the platform towards the dim light that looked like it might be an exit. She’d called Cristos, or more precisely Jeannie, to tell them what time train she was coming in on, but there didn’t appear to be any sign of anyone.
Then she grinned as she heard someone calling her name from somewhere inside the grey mass. It wasn’t Cristos’s voice, but it was American. ‘Corrie! Corrie Browne, are you there?’
‘Over here,’ she called, and by using their voices she and the mystery man eventually found each other.
‘Hi,’ Corrie said, having to hold onto her hat for fear of losing it she had to look so far up at him.
‘Hi,’ he said, taking her bag, ‘I’m Richard, Jeannie’s husband. Cristos couldn’t come, he had to meet with Bud Winters, the exec. producer who’s been chewing everyone’s ass off all week. Keep ’em in the Black Tower’s what I say. They don’t do no good out in the field. Anyway, let’s see if we can find the way back to the hotel.’
‘Or at least out of the station,’ Corrie laughed.
A few minutes later they were in the Mini Jeannie had rented for herself and had grudgingly loaned Richard since she was certain he’d do it some damage.
‘She’s sending me crazy,’ Richard told Corrie, as they inched along the road towards a hazy set of traffic lights. ‘Anyone’d think this was a baby not a frigging car – pardon my French, as you English would say.’
Corrie was laughing, mainly because Richard looked so funny sat like that with the steering wheel between his knees. ‘Has the weather been like this for long?’ she asked.
‘All week. Cristos is going about the place having orgasms over it …’
‘You mean he’s pleased!’ Corrie interrupted. ‘I’d have thought it would make shooting almost impossible.’
‘He likes it! Says it’s just what he wanted. As far as I’m concerned it’s a fucking nightmare. You try lighting a fog – more to the point, you try finding a fucking electrician in a fog!’ He grinned. ‘But we’re getting there. And Bud Winters is only giving himself an ulcer ’cos that’s what he’s paid for. He loves what he’s seen.’
‘So tell me all about the scenes you’ve shot this week,’ Corrie said.
As Richard told her, peppering his dialogue with plenty of colourful descriptions, Corrie snuggled deeper into her coat to listen. It wasn’t until half and hour had gone by that Richard said, ‘… So that’s about where we’re up to. And just in case you’re interested, we’re lost.’
Laughing, Corrie opened up the map she found on the back seat, discovered they were now not too far distant from Bath, and finally managed to navigate them back onto the right road. Over an hour after her train had arrived they finally pulled up outside the Castle Combe Manor House Hotel.
Corrie was already out of the car and trying not to laugh at the way Richard was attempting to untangle himself when Cristos suddenly materialized from the fog.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded, glaring down at Richard. ‘I was just about to start out looking for you.’
‘Give me a break man!’ Richard barked, from where he was half-lying half-sitting on the ground. ‘She’s here now, isn’t she? And in case you didn’t notice it’s foggy out there.’
‘Good evening, Cristos,’ Corrie said pleasantly. She could only just make out his face, and knew that he was still scowling. Then heaving Richard to his feet, Cristos walked around the car, snatched up Corrie’s bag and virtually frog-marched her into the hotel.
Several of the crew were grouped around the burning log fire in the front hall, and looked up as Cristos and Corrie came in. Ignoring them Cristos propelled her right on past them, up the stairs, along a quaint oak-bea
med corridor and into his room.
‘Through there,’ he barked, pointing along a narrow hallway.
Corrie walked on ahead, casting a quick glance to her right as they passed a wide arch which led into a luxurious marble bathroom. Just beyond it was a heavy mahogany door, which, when she opened it, Corrie found led into the most wonderful bedroom suite, with a king size brass bed, a steeply sloping ceiling cluttered with oak beams, all kinds of antique furniture and a huge stone arch leading into the fireplace where a small fire was flickering away.
‘Right,’ Cristos said, kicking the door closed and spinning her round to face him. ‘Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again, do you hear me? I’m not playing games with you, Corrie. I love you, I told you that, and now I’m telling you again. But I sure as hell am not going to tolerate that ridiculous pride of yours coming between us.’
‘What about your pride?’ Corrie retorted hotly. ‘You could have called me.’
‘I needed to hear that phone ring, to hear your voice at the other end and know that you had put yourself out enough to find the number and call. You won’t tell me you love me, so is that too much to ask?’
‘No. But you just quit shouting at me, or I’ll leave.’
‘I’ll do more than shout at you if you take so much as one step towards that door. And stop trying to sound American. You’re English. I love you because you’re English. I love you because you drive me fucking nuts being English. And what are you laughing at?’
Corrie nodded for him to look behind him.
He turned round to discover Jeannie standing the other side of the bed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he roared.
‘Richard took the key to our room and so’s not to bother anyone I was just sitting at your fireplace reading my book,’ she shrugged, seemingly unruffled.
‘Then get the hell out.’
Obediently she saluted. ‘I’s a-going, massa.’
She winked at Corrie as she passed, then just before she closed the door she whispered to Cristos, ‘That’s one hell of a seduction technique you got there, boss,’ and as her eyes suddenly widened with alarm she pulled the door quickly together.
‘Don’t laugh, it only encourages her,’ Cristos said turning back to Corrie and grinning despite himself.
‘Would you like to kiss me?’
‘No.’
‘Well that’s too bad, because I want to kiss you.’ And sliding her arms around his neck she brought his mouth down to hers. He didn’t resist, he simply pulled her closer, and not too long after that he was lifting her up onto the bed, which was so high that she insisted it was the only dignified route up she could think of.
Corrie was woken the following morning by a peculiar sounding bell coming from somewhere inside the room. Cristos, she noticed as she pulled herself out from under the blankets, had already gone, and looking around the room trying to work out where the tinny little ring was coming from she vaguely remembered him bending over the bed to kiss her at some unearthly hour of the morning. Smiling to herself she slid off the mattress, spotting as she went the boxed wooden steps beside the bed, and covering herself with Cristos’s robe trotted off down the hallway to answer what she now realized was the doorbell.
It was a waiter with a breakfast tray – and a note!
Pointing him to the coffee table in front of the sofa Corrie opened the note to discover that it was a map directing her to the Parsonage Woods location with a scribbled message from Jeannie saying she could join them any time she liked.
Just after ten, clutching the map in her hand and profoundly glad that she had thought to bring her own location gear, Corrie wandered out of the hotel grounds along the cobbled street and into the antiquated village of Castle Combe. The fog was still down so she couldn’t see too clearly, but the Market Cross was marked clearly on her map and she guessed that it must be the roofed monument at the centre of the road between the Castle Hotel and White Hart Inn that she was now standing in front of. Dimly she could make out the road that curved down to her right between the quaint little cottages – there wasn’t a soul in sight and everything was so still in the eerie silence of dead winter that she could almost feel herself being transported back those many hundreds of years to when the village had first come into existence.
Following the directions on her map she turned in the opposite direction to start up over the hill in search of the Dower House. She was busily bemoaning the fact that she should have come to such an awesomely lovely place at a time when she could hardly see it, when the Dower House was upon her, and crossing the street she began to climb up the narrow muddied footpath into the woods.
She had travelled about fifty yards when a voice called out. ‘Hi there! You looking for the set?’
Corrie peered through the mist, and just able to make out a human shape some way ahead called back that she was.
‘Keep right on up,’ the voice told her, ‘but mind how you go, I’ve spent the best part of the morning on my butt, going up and down that path.’
Corrie could hear the muffled voices even before she reached the small clearing in the woods where Roger, a third assistant was waiting. Down in a dip behind him the location caterers had set up hot coffee and soup amongst the brittle, bare trees and what looked like half the unit were there crammed together, taking advantage of it.
Roger was about to offer Corrie something when a voice crackled over his walkie-talkie saying, ‘Quiet over at the coffee, going for a take.’
‘Quiet everyone!’ Roger bawled.
The response was instantaneous, and Corrie waited for what seemed an eternity as the mist wafted around her, and the cold stung at her feet, before the same voice came back over the radio saying ‘We’ve cut.’
‘Where are they actually shooting?’ she asked Roger.
‘Right up there,’ he said pointing into the fog. ‘They’re in a field next to the wood. You Corrie Browne, by the way?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jeannie told me to expect you. You want to go on up now, or you want some coffee?’
‘I’ll go up now if that’s all right,’ she said.
When they reached the field and walked blithely through all the notices saying ‘No Entry’ Corrie saw what must have amounted to two hundred or more men milling about and stomping their feet in the frost-frozen grass. Every one of them was in nineteenth-century military uniform. The spectacle was so dramatic, as the scarlet clad soldiers emerged from the white puffs of mist as though being conjured from bygone days, that Corrie was transfixed. She made an abrupt return to reality though, when a stream of assistants started to ferry in coffee and soup; then being guided through the milieu by a voice at the other end of Roger’s walkie-talkie, she and Roger eventually came to where the camera was being mounted on tracks. Cristos was standing nearby with Richard and several others, and an instant grin sprang to Corrie’s lips when she saw that besides the moon boots, predictable jeans and ski-anorak, he was wearing a dear-stalker hat with the flaps down over his ears. At that moment he was laughing, and looked so handsome and so ridiculous that Corrie felt an overwhelming urge to hug him. Roger made to call out to him, but Corrie put a hand on his arm saying, ‘No, don’t interrupt. I’ll just wait here.’
She watched for some time, feeling such an inflated sense of pride that it was all she could do to keep the mawkish adoration from her eyes. She wandered a little closer in order to eavesdrop on what he was saying and listened as he explained how he wanted the camera to track against the flow of stampeding feet as a point of view shot.
‘It’s a cutaway,’ he added, ‘but keep it going ’cos I’ll probably use it more than once,’ as he was speaking he was moving closer to Corrie, then turning to her, to her amazement he put an arm around her and kissed her right in front of everyone.
‘How you doing?’ he murmured, his breath sweeping her face in a white mist.
‘Fine. You?’
‘Great.’
‘Love the hat.’
Corrie found herself a convenient spot where she hoped she wouldn’t be in the way, but after only a few minutes was being bombarded by people eager to introduce themselves.
‘That’s what comes of being the director’s girl,’ a voice behind her said as a junior make-up artist rushed back to the set.
Corrie turned round and almost did a double take when she found herself looking straight at Paige Spencer. Or was it Paige Spencer?
The woman smiled at Corrie’s evident confusion. ‘I’m Paige’s stand-in,’ she explained. ‘Paige asked me to come over to invite you to her trailer for a coffee. It’s right over there,’ she added pointing towards a spot which wasn’t even visible.
Corrie would have dearly loved to refuse, but not seeing how she could, she gathered up her bag and followed the stand-in into the next field.
‘Hi,’ Paige said, holding out her hand. She was standing on the steps of her trailer managing to look, Corrie thought, dauntingly majestic. ‘I’m Paige Spencer,’ she said, ‘and you, I guess, are the Corrie Browne everyone’s talking about.’
Corrie smiled as she shook Paige’s hand, not at all sure she was enjoying being confronted by one of Cristos’s past affairs, particularly one so devastatingly beautiful. ‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ she said.
‘Come right on in,’ Paige said, moving back inside the door.
Once Corrie was seated, and had politely accepted the offer of coffee, Paige came straight to the point.
‘I got something here for you,’ she said, digging into her pocket. ‘It’s the address of a doctor I saw in Harley Street. Go see him the minute you get back to London. I was in the clear, thank God. I sure hope you are too, honey.’
‘Pardon?’ Corrie said, almost choking on her coffee.
Paige rolled her eyes. ‘Just what I thought. The son-of-a-bitch didn’t tell you either?’
‘Tell me what?’
Shaking her head and putting her own coffee down, Paige sat back to fold her arms over the tattered dress she was wearing. ‘Hang onto your hat, honey,’ she said, ‘’cos this one’s a real bumpy one.’ She hesitated a moment, peering at Corrie through narrowed eyes, as though in some way assessing her, then shrugging she said, ‘Well, there’s no other way of saying it than straight. Bennati’s got gonorrhoea.’