‘Was he?’ She tried to smile. ‘You mustn’t take too much notice of Mr Rakoczi’s scowls, Rogan. He has a volatile mid-European temperament.’
‘Is that what it is?’ He grinned. ‘I thought it was just sheer, bloody rudeness.’
‘That’s it for today,’ Harris said, strolling towards them. ‘I’d take advantage of it and get down to the beach if I were you. It looks like we’ll be here till midnight doing the Henry and Warwick scenes.’
Rogan crushed his empty paper cup and tossed it away. ‘Come on, Queen Margaret, let’s escape before Torquemada changes his mind.’
She looked around her helplessly as Rogan seized hold of her hand and began to pull her in his wake off the set. She didn’t want to leave. Other people’s scenes were as important to her as her own. Away from the set she felt edgy and ill at ease, as if she were not in her rightful place.
‘Come on,’ Rogan repeated impatiently. ‘We have time to enjoy ourselves for once. Let’s leave while the going’s good.’
Reluctantly she followed him. Vidal would not want her on the set when her presence was not required. No doubt he had specifically instructed Harris to make sure both she and Rogan left Worldwide the instant they were no longer needed.
The thought filled her with desolation. She remembered how, in the early days, he had talked to her long and enthusiastically about his plans for The Warrior Queen. How she had felt part of those plans. As if the movie was a shared venture. Now she was no more than a puppet to be moved around at will.
Rogan kissed her enthusiastically and hurried off to his trailer to shower and change.
Despondently she wandered down the pathway to her dressing-room. No doubt Kariana now listened to all Vidal’s plans. She probably saw the day’s rushes with him and helped him select the takes that he wanted. Her fingers clenched. Only hours ago she had determined to shut him out of her thoughts completely and now here she was, imagining him with his wife, torturing himself unnecessarily.
‘Could I have a drink, Ellie?’ she asked as she entered the privacy of her bungalow.
Ellie put down the heavy satin court dress she had been switching.
‘Of course. Would you like a coke or a bottle of mineral water?’
‘Neither,’ Valentina said wearily, unhooking her bodice with its heavy weight of fake jewels. ‘White wine. There’s a bottle of Moselle ’21 at the back of the icebox.’
She shed the burden of her medieval robes and slipped a towelling robe on. ‘The scene went well, Ellie, we did it in one take.’
‘That’s tremendous!’ Ellie’s eyes glowed. Any triumph of Valentina’s was a triumph of hers also. ‘Mr Rakoczi must have been very pleased.’
Valentina gave a wry smile. ‘If he was, he didn’t go overboard in showing it.’
Ellie handed her a glass of chilled wine, disturbed anew by the sadness that lurked at the back of Valentina’s smoke-grey eyes. It was never completely absent. Even when she was laughing the sorrow remained. Somehow, somewhere, she had been hurt deeply, and not even her present heady status as Worldwide’s potential number one star had succeeded in eradicating that pain.
As Valentina was finishing her glass of wine, there came a loud rap on the door.
‘That will be Mr Tennant,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘Tell him I’m in the shower, Ellie. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.
She disappeared into her bedroom with its en suite bathroom and Rogan was obliged to wait impatiently, helping himself to the Moselle ’ 21 and wondering where was the best location for her seduction.
They could go down to the beach and he could borrow Sutton’s beach house. They could stay the night there. Or he could dine her at Ciro’s and take her back for drinks to his own sprawling mansion.
Excitement built up in him till he could hardly bear it. Damn it all. He didn’t want to bother with the beach or with Ciro’s. He wanted to take her straight back to her Beverly Hills bungalow and fuck until he was exhausted. He grinned to himself complacently. Which wouldn’t be for hours. He wasn’t known as Worldwide’s sexual athlete for nothing.
His sex throbbed and he poured himself another glass of wine. Never in his life had he wanted a woman so intensely. He felt light-headed with anticipation. No wonder even Rakoczi was jealous.
Valentina emerged in a simple white silk dress and low-heeled shoes.
He eyes her appraisingly. ‘You look a million dollars.’
Ellie continued with her sewing. So that was how it was. She had never noticed that her young employer was as devastated by Mr Tennant as the rest of the female population. Still, it wasn’t surprising. She snapped off her thread and began to sew on a button. When Miss Parsons caught a whiff of the new romance there would be reams more about Valentina in the fan magazines and gossip columns. She sighed with satisfaction. Her cuttings box was nearly full already. Soon she would have to start another one.
Rogan rolled away from her and stared at her in astonishment. Initially he had been pleased that she had been reluctant to follow Harris’s suggestion and go down to the beach. Instead, they had driven straight to Mulholland Drive and he had been euphoric.
She had adamantly refused any of his exotic cocktails but had drunk a healthy amount of champagne. In showing her his opulently furnished house, he had left the bedroom till last. It was a room he had no intention of leaving in a hurry.
‘I’m not sure I like the African masks,’ she said, a smile of amusement playing about her lips as she observed that the ceiling was mirrored, as was the wall behind the bed. Rogan obviously took his label of ‘great screen lover’seriously.
‘They came from African Enchantment,’ he said, steering her towards the centre of the room and the vast, silk-sheeted bed. ‘They’re extremely rare.’ His arm slid around her and his lips kissed the nape of her neck softly. ‘Like you, Valentina.’
She waited for desire to shoot through her as it did when Vidal touched her. As it did when Vidal merely looked at her. She felt only an agreeable warmth, the comfort of touching and being touched.
‘You nearly drove me mad in the love scenes today,’ Rogan said, his voice thickening as he turned her round, his hands sliding slowly up and down her back, caressing her hips as he pressed her hard against the length of his body. ‘You’re a tease, Valentina. I can’t eat or sleep for thinking of you.’ His mouth claimed hers, hot and demanding, and then he pressed her backwards and fell with her on to the bed.
It was a fully thirty seconds before he realized that his action had been unwelcome.
‘What’s the matter?’ he panted, his leg straddling her, pinioning her beneath him. ‘There’s no one here. We won’t be disturbed.’
His hand had slipped into her dress and cupped her breast. She arched her back, trying to free herself of his weight. ‘I don’t care if we are disturbed! I didn’t come here to go to bed with you!’
It was then that he had rolled away from her and stared down at her in incredulity. ‘But of course you did. Hell! Why else do you think we came here?’
His fingertip brushed her nipple and he smiled, his confidence returning. ‘We have all evening. All night. And if Rakoczi is shooting the Henry and Warwick scenes probably all next week as well.’
His mouth silenced her protests, his leg pressing hard between hers.
With all the strength she had, she pushed hard at his shoulders, twisting her head to free her mouth from his. ‘Stop it, Rogan! If it’s my fault you misunderstood, I’m sorry! Now please let me go!’
‘Is that how you like it?’ His hand was sliding up the nakedness of her leg, pushing the white silk upwards. ‘Do you like to struggle? To fight?’
She grasped hold of his sleek fair hair with her hands and tugged hard, ignoring his yell of pain.
‘No,’ she gasped, wriggling free of him. ‘I don’t like it at all! I don’t even know what you mean by it! I’ve never been to bed with anybody in my life!’
‘Jesus God!’ Rogan held his head in his hands. ‘Y
ou nearly scalped me!’
She sat up and pushed her skirt down over her exposed thighs. ‘You deserved it,’ she said grimly, swinging her legs off the bed.
He raised his throbbing head. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re a virgin?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Yes.’ Her anger was disappearing. Rogan’s perplexity was comic.
‘But this is Hollywood. There aren’t any virgins in Hollywood.’
‘There are now.’
Rogan staggered from the bed, still holding his head, and made his way to the nearest bottle of bourbon.
‘Hell,’ he said again. ‘I thought the only virgins were those Cecil B de Mille offered up as sacrifices in his biblical epics!’
‘I’m sorry.’ She joined him at the lavishly stocked bar in the corner of the bedroom. ‘Do you mind if I join you? I’m not used to fighting for my virtue.’
He swallowed three fingers of Bourbon and poured some more. ‘No hard feelings?’ he asked questioningly.
She smiled. ‘No.’
He was silent for a little while, and then he said in dazed disbelief, ‘Valentina, will you marry me?’
Chapter Eleven
Vidal was not concentrating and he knew it. The scenes between Henry and Warwick were going badly. He ran his fingers exasperatedly through his hair and watched with growing despair as Sutton failed yet again to depict the inate saintliness that was Henry’s downfall.
Reluctantly he called an end to work for the day. Both cast and crew breathed sighs of relief and scurried away as soon as they could. Don Symons lingered behind.
‘I hear Mrs Rakoczi is back home.’
Vidal tensed imperceptibly.
‘Yes, Don. She arrived home today.’
‘Did she enjoy her trip, Mr Rakoczi?’
Don’s question was well meaning. Vidal managed a brief smile. ‘Yes, thank you, Don. She did.’
Don turned and looked at the set. ‘I guess we try again tomorrow?’
‘Hopefully with a little more success,’ Vidal said dryly.
Don grinned. ‘It can’t always be magic like it was this morning.’
Vidal’s eyes were bleak. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It can’t. Goodnight, Don.’
Vidal stepped into his waiting Rolls. Don had a pretty, vivacious wife and three small daughters. No doubt there would be shrieks of welcome when he returned home. Wearily, he poured himself a drink. Envy was an unpleasant emotion and not one that he often yielded to.
The Rolls swept round the first curve of a steeply climbing canyon and he sank back against the leather upholstery, gazing blindly at the scrub covered hills. There would be no children waiting to greet him when he arrived home. The relationship he and Kariana had so fleetingly enjoyed in the early days of their marriage could no longer be recaptured. His love for her had become that of a protective guardian; it could never be sexual again. And he could not leave her. Without him as a shield the press would soon discover the reason for her rare public appearances. The word ‘strange’would deteriorate into the word ‘neurotic’and then the hideous word ‘insanity’would begin to be whispered at parties. Kariana’s sweetness and gentleness would be no protection against the gossip-mongers. They would ignore the shy, soft-spoken Kariana Rakoczi and concentrate only on the stranger that she became whenever she was sick.
The Rolls took a hairpin bend at high speed and Vidal’s mouth tightened. The Dansarts wouldn’t wait until the snide remarks reached the point of publication. Long before then they would recall Kariana to the bosom of her family – and quietly and expensively institutionalize her. She had begged him never to leave her, and, knowing the consequences if he did so, he had promised that he never would.
Until now the promise had caused him no agony. His work had consumed him. He had closed the door on human contact and passion and believed that it was closed for good. And then a convent dressed waif had wandered onto his studio set. Desire and longing had surged through him and in one devastating moment he had known that he would never have peace of mind again.
He tried to remember what he had felt when he had first met Kariana. It had been at a party given by friends to welcome him to America. He had thought her exquisite. Everything about her was delicate. The pure line of her jaw; the graceful movements of her hands when she spoke; the dove-grey and the lavender chiffon dresses that she favoured. His friends had told him that he was a fool. The Dansarts were American aristocracy. They were as obsessed with the pedigree of their name as any family in the Almanach de Gotha. If he wanted to marry Kariana then he would have to elope with her, there was no way the Dansarts would welcome an Hungarian with only his talent to recommend him into the family. Yet the Dansarts had.
The reason had come soon enough. Kariana’s behaviour had already caused deep concern. There had been scenes in the privacy of the Dansart home: a minor breakdown that the family doctor had diagnosed as hysteria; unexplained bouts of temper that had left her strangely withdrawn, as if her mind and spirit had become disembodied.
At eighteen she had become engaged to the son of family friends but the engagement had been embarrassingly short lived. Then she had met him and Vidal could well imagine the relief that the Dansarts must have felt. From now on, if Kariana showed signs of instability, it could be safely assumed to be caused by her unsuitable marriage and bizarre life-style in the movie capital.
They had honeymooned in Europe. Hand in hand they had visited the Cathedral at Reims; the Roman arena at Aries; the Sistine Chapel in Rome. He had been, briefly and sublimely, a happy man.
It was on the evening before they left Paris for Boulogne and that boat home that disaster had struck. He had no idea what started it off, and he never would have in all the subsequent nightmares they endured. One minute she was herself, beautiful and soft-spoken, the next a barely recognizable stranger shouting foul-mouthed obscenities at him.
He had stumbled from the room, unable to believe what he was seeing and hearing. When he had returned she had gone and had not reappeared for three days. When she did so she was dishevelled and vacant-eyed and her body and clothes had reeked of stale sex. He never knew where she had been or who with and fear had been his constant companion ever since.
It could happen anywhere at anytime and the ultimate horror was that Kariana had no recall of what had occurred. In London he had left her at Harrods to shop while he had luncheon with Alex Korda, a fellow Hungarian. They had eaten with zest, drunk with relish and argued exuberantly. He had returned to their hotel in high spirits and found Kariana in bed with a cab driver. Her bewilderment at his rage had been pathetic. She had come home early from her shopping trip because she had a headache. She had gone to bed to sleep it off. His accusations were horrible and untrue. She had wept copiously and taken to going to bed early and sleeping late.
On the journey home he had spent hour after hour staring sightlessly into the surging trough of bilious green waves wishing that he was dead. Her promiscuity, had it been open and defiant, he could have coped with. He would have beaten her, satiated her with his own lovemaking, locked her in the bedroom if necessary. What he couldn’t cope with was the fearsome knowledge that there were hours and days in her life that were lost to her, days that she steadfastly refused to discuss or to contemplate.
Her fastidiousness, in the periods which he had begun to think of as normality, increased. Her sumptuous lingerie was worn only once and destroyed. She wore a fresh pair of gloves daily and dropped them in the trash can when she removed them.
In New York she had tried hard to please him. Detesting cold, she had accompanied him willingly on his long walks through the snow-filled streets. His tension and fear had begun to ebb. They had thrown snowballs at each other in Central Park; visited art galleries; sat through every movie in town. They had laughed together; talked together; made love together. And then the whole precarious sense of normality and well-being was shattered at a stroke. This time it wasn’t a cab driver who willingly took thirty minutes out of his w
orking day. It was one of the waiters at the hotel.
His fury had been white-hot. He had known that if he touched her he would kill her. He had hurled himself out of the room, out of the hotel, and walked through the night. At dawn he had found himself freezing and exhausted on a disused pier on the East River. Oil slicks had coagulated on the inky-black surface and as he watched the debris bobbing against the side of the wharf he was filled with a savage desire to throw himself into the icy depths and end it all. He had not done so. Instead he had visited Kariana’s family.
The Dansarts had received him with frigid civility. When he had tried to talk to them about Kariana’s lapses of memory the atmosphere had turned hostile. They refused adamantly to allow him to speak to their family doctor and they left him in no doubt as to what their solution to the problem would be if Kariana returned home. It would be to ensure that Kariana did not bring disgrace on the family name. And the only sure way would be by institutionalizing her.
Sick and angry at their attitude, Vidal had returned home and had continued to shield and protect his wife unaided.
It was not a thankless task. For the most part Kariana was sweet-tempered and charmingly shy. He grew to be grateful for her shyness. It meant that she had no desire for a hectic social life and potential disasters could be avoided. Her cataclysmic mood swings took place at home where he was the only witness.
He began to feel more like a doctor than a director. He watched her constantly, desperately trying to discover what it was that triggered off each attack. For a few hopeful weeks he believed that it was alcohol. Kariana didn’t share his partiality for vodka and her drinking was limited to wine with her meals. To please him she drank mineral water instead for a month.
Just as he was beginning to think that he had at last found a way of staving off future attacks Kariana slid into a week long fit of depression. It ended in a wild flood of tears and screaming, foul-mouthed abuse.
Despairingly he had sought professional help. At a New York dinner party he had met Doctor Albert Grossman, an eminent psychiatrist with a clinic in Berne. He had asked to speak to him privately and the next day, at the St Regis, he spoke frankly about Kariana’s behaviour. The relief had been total. Not until then had he realized what a burden he had been carrying.
Silver Shadows, Golden Dreams Page 14