by Susan Lewis
Corrie’s cup clanged into the saucer. ‘He’s what?’ she gasped.
‘Sssh! You might not care who knows, but I sure as hell do. Why else do you think I broke it off with him?’
Corrie was almost smiling now. ‘There must be some mistake,’ she said, leaning forward to put her coffee down. ‘I mean …’
‘Look, kid,’ Paige interrupted, ‘I understand you don’t want to believe it, hell do you think I did? And I sure am sorry to be the one to break it to you, but we girls’ve got to stick together. And I’m telling you the bastard’s got gonorrhoea – he’s spreading it about all over the fucking set.’
To Corrie it was so inconceivable that no matter how sincere Paige sounded, she simply couldn’t bring herself to believe it. But then Paige said the words that sealed it.
‘You were waiting for him to call all last week, am I right?’
Corrie tensed.
‘Yeah, I thought so. Bud Winters’ secretary was here till yesterday – she flew back last night. When did Bennati call you?’
‘Last night,’ Corrie said dully.
‘Are you getting my drift? I tried to tip Sheila off before she went back to the States, but I missed her. You gotta face it, honey, the man’s rampant and he’s putting it about all over. That’s how he got it in the first place.’
The second assistant banged on the door then shouting ‘First team up!’
‘That’s me,’ Paige said, getting to her feet. ‘You stay finish your coffee – there’s a telephone there if you wanna call the doc and get yourself an appointment. Me, I’m suing the bastard once this movie is through,’ and she left.
For the rest of the morning Corrie watched in a dull stupor as the action took place in front of her. Carpenters, props men, costume designers, electricians, so many people came over to chat with her, all intrigued to meet the woman Cristos Bennati had invited onto the set, but though Corrie somehow managed to make polite conversation, she was hardly registering what anyone was saying. All she could hear were Paige’s words, echoing through her ears.
At lunchtime Cristos came to find her, and putting an arm round her shoulders told her they were going to eat lunch in his trailer. ‘I’d kind of prefer it to be just the two of us,’ he said, walking her across the field, ‘but a couple of the actors want to talk about this afternoon’s scenes. And brace yourself, the unit publicist is dropping by too.’
‘Why brace myself?’ Corrie mumbled.
‘Because you should never trust a unit publicist to keep his mouth shut, even if you tell him his job depends on it. We’ll be all over the Sunday press by tomorrow.’
‘I see,’ Corrie said.
Over lunch Corrie said little and ate even less. She still wasn’t sure that she really believed Paige, but if it was true, if he had spent the week with Winters’ secretary … If he did have gonorrhoea and knowing it had made love to her … No, it was unthinkable!
Suddenly she was aware that Cristos was calling a halt to lunch and sending everyone out of the trailer.
‘OK,’ he said, closing the door and turning back to Corrie, ‘let’s have it.’
‘Have what?’
‘Whatever it is that’s eating you?’
Seeing no alternative Corrie handed him the note Paige had given her. ‘It’s the telephone number of a Harley Street doctor,’ she explained. ‘Paige gave it to me to go and get myself checked out.’
‘Checked out for what?’ he asked, and looked, Corrie thought, convincingly baffled.
‘Gonorrhoea.’
His eyes came up to Corrie’s and Corrie faltered as she saw his confusion turning to anger. ‘Are you telling me Paige is telling you I’ve got gonorrhoea?’ he said, too quietly.
Corrie nodded. ‘She had herself checked out she told me, and she hasn’t got it, but …’
‘Well of course she hasn’t got it!’ he yelled. ‘At least not from me she hasn’t. Can’t you see what she’s doing? She’s just trying …’ He stopped suddenly, and Corrie watched him as he frowned pensively down at the note.
His relationship with Paige had disintegrated pretty rapidly when he was fighting the urge to call Corrie, he was thinking, and the only person who knew that Paige was an obstacle …
Slapping the note down on the table he turned and stormed towards the door. ‘JEANNIE!’ he roared.
Jeannie was perched not far away on a tree stump, idly chatting with the make-up assistants, but on hearing Cristos yelling her name that way, she leapt to her feet, mumbling, ‘Holy shit, he’s found out!’ And turning about face she ran in the opposite direction, never more thankful for fog in her life.
Not until Cristos was safely soaring through the mist on a crane much later in the afternoon did Jeannie venture near the set again. She found Corrie sitting on the steps of the props van, but not wanting to hang around too long she asked Corrie if she felt like going for a walk.
‘It’s all right,’ Corrie laughed, as the two of them left the set behind and started to wander through the winter debris of the woods, ‘you don’t have to explain to me, I know the truth of it now, but I can’t give you any comfort as far as Cristos is concerned, I’m afraid. He was furious, in fact he hasn’t quite forgiven me for believing it.’
‘Oh shit!’ Jeannie groaned, ‘I’d better start writing my epitaph now, ’cos I just know he’s not going to forgive this one in a hurry. But he’s got to understand why I did it.’
‘I think he does, he just wishes you might have done it another way,’ Corrie chuckled, and linking Jeannie’s arm as they slithered about in the slime of dead leaves and mud on the pathway, she added, ‘In a way, I suppose I should thank you.’
‘I sure wish he’d see it that way,’ Jeannie groaned.
They walked in silence for a while then, an archway of stark, brittle branches towering above them, though barely visible through the billowing breath of fog. Melting frost was falling from the trees like rain and nothing but their squelching footsteps interrupted the stillness.
Eventually they reached a stile at the edge of the woods, and after Jeannie had climbed it Corrie stopped to sit on top, saying, ‘Jeannie, do you know anything about Cristos’s – for want of another word – friendship with Luke Fitzpatrick? I’m sorry to ask, and I don’t want you to be disloyal, but I just don’t want to bring it up with him myself.’
‘Why?’ Jeannie asked.
Corrie shrugged. ‘I suppose because everything’s so wonderful between Cristos and me right now that I don’t want anything to spoil it. And somehow I get the feeling that to ask him about Luke Fitzpatrick would. Or perhaps I should say to ask him about Luke and what Luke knows about Angelique Warne … You see, I know Cristos doesn’t want to talk about it, and we’ve more or less made a pact not to ask about each other’s past, but I just feel that this is something I ought to know about.’
Sighing and shaking her head Jeannie turned to rest her back against the stile and looked out over the sepia winter landscape that stretched into the valley of mist beyond them. ‘I don’t know what Luke knows,’ she said, ‘but whatever it is I don’t figure it’s the truth. You know, I used to like the guy, but I got to feeling that there’s something a tad strange about him. There’s got to be for two guys like you and Cristos to get so bugged about him. Anyway, I’m not the one to tell you about Angelique, Cristos is. I will tell you this, though, you got nothing to be afraid of, ’cos in all the years I’ve known him I’ve never seen Cristos this smitten. Last night I heard him tell you he loves you, and he means it, Corrie, but this pact of yours is crazy. Don’t start out by holding back on him, and don’t let him hold back on you, or you ain’t going any place together. And that would be kinda sad ’cos I reckon you’re both what each other wants.’
‘There’s going to be plenty of problems though,’ Corrie said prosaically. ‘Like distance, age …’
‘What are you talking about?’ Jeannie laughed. ‘Sure he’s older than you, by what, twelve, fourteen years? So what? It’s nothi
ng. OK, distance might be a problem, but when two guys love each other they find a way. Did he ever tell you about his folks and what they went through to be together?’
Corrie nodded. ‘Have you met them?’
‘Sure. They’re just terrific. Pop runs a deli and Mom drives the old guy crazy. They love each other like you’d die to still be in love at their age. Cristos is devoted to them. You know his mother wants him to win the Palme d’Or? Oscars ain’t good enough for Mrs Bennati. She wants the French one. And Cristos aims to give it to her. It was her encouraged him to go into movies in the first place. Pop Bennati wanted him to take over the deli. ’Course the old guy’s prouder of him now than he’ll ever admit. Tells him he doesn’t bring home that Palme d’Or for his mother he’ll leave everything to the daughter.’
‘I didn’t know Cristos had a sister,’ Corrie said.
‘Francine. She’s a few years younger than him, round thirty-seven I guess. Got herself a great job with one of the banks in New York. Married, no kids. He can’t have them, I think Cristos told me once. They’re a close family, the Bennatis. Pop wants grandsons.’
‘Hang on, hang on, you’re going too fast,’ Corrie cried, holding up her hands. ‘Tell me some of his bad points.’
‘You mean you haven’t seen enough of them already? Like how temperamental he is? He’s a shithead like the rest of us, OK, he’s got a bit more talent …’ Jeannie was laughing, but as she turned to Corrie, Corrie saw her eyes start to widen. ‘Shit! Here he comes, which means the unit have got to have broken. Don’t let on we’ve been talking about him, and don’t leave me alone with him after that Paige Spencer thing or you’ll be coming to my funeral next week.’
Corrie swung her legs back over the stile to watch Cristos approach, holding his eyes and feeling the same intimate smile curve across her own lips.
‘You two getting to know each other?’ he said, as he reached them. ‘Don’t believe anything she tells you,’ and pulling Corrie down into his arms he kissed her. ‘You OK?’ he whispered. ‘Not bored?’
‘Not bored,’ she smiled, keeping her face tilted up to his as she circled his waist with her arms.
‘Ahem!’
‘You still here, Jeannie?’ he said, his eyes still on Corrie’s.
Jeannie shrugged. ‘Guess I’ll take a hike,’ she said, but as she started down over the hill she turned back when Cristos called out her name.
‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten,’ he told her.
‘No suh, massa,’ she answered, making Corrie laugh.
‘How’s it going out there?’ she asked, as he turned back to her.
He grimaced and looked up to what they could see of the leaden sky. ‘Fog’s clearing, but we’re losing light, can’t shoot any more today. I’ve got to see dailies later, but there’s still a couple of hours for you and me before. Anything in particular you want to do?’
Corrie grinned. ‘Well since you ask …’ she said with a wry smile.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Right here?’
Corrie laughed. ‘Bit cold.’ Then standing on tip-toe to reach his mouth, she whispered, ‘I’d like to try something different this time.’
‘Oh yeah? Like what?’ he smiled.
‘Like take me back to your room and find out.’
Less than an hour later, with the door firmly locked and the telephone off the hook, Corrie was standing naked against the edge of the massive bed with Cristos’s arms draped loosely round her as she told him what she wanted.
He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. ‘Shit, Corrie,’ he groaned, ‘I don’t know whether it’s that English accent of yours when you say it or ’cos I know you’ve never done it before, but you’re blowing my mind, you know that, don’t you?’
‘I was hoping you were going to do that to me,’ she smiled, then heaving herself up onto the bed she relaxed back on her elbows to watch him undress.
She waited until he was on the bed beside her, then sliding her arms around him said, ‘I’m ready for you now. I don’t want to wait.’
He nodded, and gently turning her over, knelt between her legs and lifting her up onto her knees, he pulled her face round to his and kissing her he entered her from behind.
This way he had access to every part of her body, she knew it and he knew it and it was what they both wanted. What neither of them had planned on was coming so quickly.
‘God, I love you,’ he murmured, as he pulled her into his arms when it was over.
Corrie lifted her face to brush her lips against his cheek, then settling herself back on his shoulder she listened to the still rapid beat of his heart, as she stealed herself to ask the question already burning on her lips. It was as he hooked a leg over hers drawing her closer that she finally said, very tentatively, ‘Do you love me enough to tell me about Angelique Warne?’
Instead of the instant withdrawal she had expected she felt his arms tighten around her. ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked.
Taking heart from his response, Corrie lifted her face to look at him, saying, ‘I suppose I’d like to know what really happened between you two … If any of those things written in the paper at the time she died were true …’
Settling his head more comfortably on the pillow he took a deep breath and after giving her a quick glance he stared up at the ceiling, saying, ‘What did Fitzpatrick tell you?’
With a half smile that he’d already guessed that much, Corrie said, ‘He told me that you weren’t over her. That you were just using me. He said something about you being involved in how she died …’
A grim smile crossed Cristos’s lips. ‘That’s what I thought. Did he tell you outright I killed her?’
‘No.’
Cristos seemed surprised. ‘Well that was sure as hell what he tried to pin on me. The truth is, though, I was involved in the way she died, but not in the way Fitzpatrick wants you to believe.’
Corrie listened quietly then to all he told her about the love and then the pain and confusion he had known with Angelique. She reached for his hands when he told her about the baby he would never know for sure was his – she could see that this, more than anything else, would haunt him for a long time to come.
‘That’s why,’ he finished, ‘I didn’t want to get involved again. I saw how love could destroy a relationship, how wanting more from it than I could offer destroyed Angelique. And I didn’t ever want to trust a woman again so’s she could do that to me. It sounds kind of selfish, I know, when she’s dead, but that’s the way it is. Was,’ he corrected, looking down at her. ‘But I got to tell you this now, Corrie, when I say I love you I mean it, but I’m not making you any promises. I just don’t know where we’re heading from here …’
He stopped when Corrie put her fingers over his lips. ‘Don’t let’s talk about that now,’ she said. ‘We’ll worry about it when we have to.’
With all her heart Corrie wished she could have meant those words, but she didn’t. She wanted, so very much, to hear him say that they did have a future, because only then would she risk letting him know how much she loved him.
– 24 –
WITH THE PRESS having got wind of her affair with Cristos, Corrie started to discover what it was like to be famous. Not only did she keep seeing her own face looking back at her whenever she opened a newspaper, but every time she left the office or her studio there were at least three photographers waiting for her and journalists, notebooks in hand, asking her so many questions that she could barely distinguish one from another. Her phone was ringing off the hook inviting her to do interviews for magazines, newspapers, even TV, on both sides of the Atlantic and the amounts of money being offered were staggering – even tempting. But Corrie consistently refused, not only because Cristos so valued his private life, but because she really didn’t think that what they had together was anyone else’s business.
However the paparazzi were determined that it was everyone’s business, and Corrie didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry w
hen Paula called her at the office one morning to tell her that somehow the press had discovered where Corrie came from and had been at Amberside taking pictures of the cottage.
‘I gave them a short interview,’ Paula confessed. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but they were so insistent, and I found myself saying things before I even knew what I was saying.’
‘Like what?’ Corrie cried.
‘Like what a fantastic person you are and how lucky Bennati is to have met you.’
‘Ugh!’ Corrie laughed. ‘I don’t suppose anyone will think you’re biased, by any chance? Anyway, thanks for letting me know, but I have to go now there’s a call holding for me,’ and pushing the appropriate buttons she picked up line six. ‘Corrie Browne here.’
‘Ah, Miss Browne, I’m calling from People magazine in New York. I was hoping, since I’m going to be in the UK next week, that you’d consider doing …’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Corrie interrupted. ‘But thank you for asking,’ and before the journalist could argue further, or dangle the carrot of untold wealth, she rang off.
Alan Fox was watching her across the desk, and throwing him a quick smile as she tossed her hair back from her face, Corrie said, ‘Haven’t Vogue been in touch yet, offering me the front cover?’
Laughing, Fox remarked, ‘You’re handling it pretty well, you know.’
Corrie grinned. ‘Well, one gets used to these things, you know,’ she said breezily.
‘Seriously though,’ Fox said, ‘do you mind all the attention?’
Corrie shrugged. ‘What, you mean like photographs of me getting into a cab, walking out of a door, closing a window, coming out of Waitrose. Did you see the one this morning of me on the bus? Who the hell can be interested in all that stuff?’ she laughed. ‘But to answer your question, no I don’t mind it at the moment, but the novelty is going to wear off pretty soon.’