He backed away, picked up a camera and took some Polaroid shots from different places in the room.
After a minute or two, Laura began to feel the heat of the fire burning her right side. ‘Can I move soon? I’m too close to the fire.’
‘Okay. I’ve got enough of these.’ He inspected the photos, and Laura walked away from the fire and climbed up on to the bed to sit, her hands clasped around her smooth, bare knees, the tiny tunic showing most of her long legs, reflecting on how alike he and Sebastian were. Was it just that they were both Italian – or something more?
The idea had been on her mind ever since she had first seen Niccolo, but she didn’t dare bring it up – how could you phrase such a question?
He walked over to her, dropped the handful of Polaroids on the bed. ‘What do you think?’
She picked up the pictures and looked at them. The gauze tunic in firelight concealed nothing. She might as well have been naked. Nico sat on the bed beside her, staring over her shoulder.
‘You are so lovely. What a body! I can’t wait to make it.’
She looked sideways through her lashes. ‘I hope you’re talking about your statue. You won’t make me, Nico. Get it into your head that I’m not here as a plaything for you.’
He ran a hand up her sleek, bare leg, fingering the muscles in her calf, her thigh. ‘You go to a gym regularly? I can tell – you’ve got such good muscle tone.’ He slid his hand down her spine, like a violinist practising his fingering. ‘Your bones are terrific. I love them.’
She laughed. ‘Will you stop that? I’m not a doll.’ Then she flinched.
‘What is it? Are you ill?’
‘Oh, nothing … A ghost walked over my grave.’
‘Oh, this house is full of ghosts. Any house as old as this would be, and my family were pretty violent over the centuries. Murders, suicides, natural deaths – every room has had a death in it, and this room more than any other.’
She shuddered and slid off the bed, saying, ‘Shall we shoot the rest of your pictures now, then?’
‘So professional,’ he mocked, but with warmth in his eyes. ‘Okay, let’s go. This time I want you to hold this.’ He turned and picked up a sword, which had been leaning against the wall. ‘Be careful, only hold it by the pommel. The edge is sharp.’
She was reluctant, but warily let him put it into her hand. Her wrist gave way under the weight as she tried to lift it. ‘It’s very heavy.’
‘Lean on it, make it part of your pose, okay?’
‘Like this?’
‘Beautiful! The Donatello statue is androgynous, faintly perverse. Can you get something of that in your expression?
‘I’ll try,’ she said, amused. ‘You don’t ask much, do you?’ She felt weird, modelling again, but she fell into it without difficulty and hardly noticed half an hour go by, unaware when Nico switched cameras and went on shooting more film of her, in the transparent gauzy tunic, the boots, the flower-decked hat, leaning on the heavy sword.
They both jumped at a tap on the door.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ Sebastian exploded into the room towards them, face rigid, skin an angry red.
Nico said coolly, ‘What does it look like? She’s posing for photos I can work with while she’s acting – I told you I wanted her to model for me.’
‘You didn’t tell me it would be porno stuff!’
Nico’s eyes were contemptuous. ‘Look at her again, you moron! She’s dressed as the Donatello David. Surely even you recognise that?’
‘She looks pretty undressed to me!’ Sebastian’s eyes raked over her body in the flimsy tunic, which showed everything from her breasts to the curly red-gold hair above that cleft between her thighs.
‘The hat’s cute, though,’ Laura tossed at him, so furious she wanted to hit him but hiding it under a bright, phoney smile. ‘And the boots are very sexy.’ She put one foot up, posing. ‘Don’t you think so?’
Without looking at Nico, Sebastian said, through tight lips, ‘Get out of here before I smash that camera. She’s under contract to me and I need to talk to her. When I need her, she can’t work for anyone else.’
‘This isn’t work, it’s fun,’ Laura said, offering the sword back to Nico.
His eyes smiled. ‘You’re wonderful.’
‘Get out, will you?’ Sebastian grated.
Ignoring him, Nico told Laura, ‘I’ll take the sword, but keep the rest of the costume up here for the moment. Let me know next time you have a few free hours to work with me.’
He began to dismantle his equipment without hurry; Sebastian watched, eyes smouldering, and opened the door for him when he left, carrying his tripod over his shoulder, cameras strung around him.
Laura walked towards the bathroom, intending to change out of the costume, but Sebastian caught her arm. ‘What was really going on in here before I arrived?’
‘I was posing. He was taking pictures.’ She looked down at the curled fingers around her arm. ‘Will you let go of me? And don’t grab me like that again. I’m not some piece of meat and I’m not your property. If I want to pose for Nico, I will.’
‘He wants you! Are you blind? If you let him into your bedroom he’ll be in your bed next.’ His mouth twisted into a sneer. ‘Or is that what you want? Do you fancy him, too? And I thought you were different!’
She hated the way he was looking at her. It made her feel dirty. Pulling free she tried to run to the bathroom, but he caught her again before she had got to the door, his hands on her waist.
Her hat fell off and she struggled helplessly, but he lifted her into the air and carried her to the bed where she sprawled, heart beating so fast that she was gasping for breath. Sebastian got on to the bed and knelt over her, taking her face between his two hands and gazing down at her.
‘Don’t sleep with him, Laura, don’t. I’d have to kill you,’ he muttered. Then he began to kiss her hungrily, and her body responded as it always did to him, melting, trembling, turning to wax under his caressing hands. He could do anything with her and to her, and she would never stop him; the pleasure of his touch was too intense, she needed it with an ache she had never felt for anyone else.
Her eyes closed, her arms went round his back, she lifted her legs to enfold him, groaning with pleasure as he stroked her breasts, her thighs, his fingers sliding inward, finding the soft, moist, hot centre of her body and making her gasp with desire.
Sebastian lifted his mouth and looked at her with half-closed, gleaming eyes. ‘I’ve been waiting months for you – it’s been torture.’
She was desperate to have him inside her, she couldn’t pretend. ‘Sebastian …’ She groaned, clutching him, arching against him.
‘Laura … God, Laura, you’re unbelievable,’ he said, tearing off his clothes with hands that shook visibly.
‘I ought to take off these boots!’ Laura said, laughing wildly.
He gave her a look that made her insides turn to water. ‘I love them. They’re the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. With that beautiful body naked and those boots, you have no idea what you’re doing to me …’
Her head tilted back and she stared up through the lacy canopy above the bed, then froze in shock. Eyes were staring back at her from the painted ceiling. Not the painted eyes she had noticed earlier, these eyes moved, flickered. She saw light reflecting back from the glassy black pupil.
Someone was up there, behind the ceiling, watching them.
Chapter Nine
A scream tore from her throat. Sebastian started violently. ‘What the hell— What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Eyes,’ she whispered. ‘Eyes – in the ceiling – watching – Somebody’s up there, watching us!’
He shot a glance upward. ‘Where? What are you talking about?’
‘Her eyes – Juno’s eyes – she’s watching us. Well, not her, of course, but somebody. There’s somebody behind the ceiling, I saw the eyes move.’
He was staring at her now as if he thought she was m
ad. ‘Well, they’re not moving now. All I can see is painted eyes. For God’s sake, Laura!’
She pushed him away and rolled off the bed, looked up at the ceiling. He was right. The eyes were painted, flat, lightless.
Naked, Sebastian got off the bed and reached for her. ‘Have you taken anything? Smoked a joint?’
‘No!’ she screamed, pushed him away and ran into the bathroom, bolting the door behind her. In the mirror her face was bleached white. ‘What was the matter with her? Sebastian had asked. Laura wished she knew. All that was certain was that she had seen those painted eyes move, had seen light glinting off their shiny surface, but they weren’t shiny now, they were the same dull, flat painted surface as the rest of the ceiling.
She had imagined it.
No! she thought, remembering the way the pupils had flickered. She hadn’t imagined anything. This house was full of secret passages and hiding places. Nico had told her of a back staircase from the boat-house up to this room. He had laughed, saying he often used it to come and go without his mother seeing him. Couldn’t there also be a false ceiling though which people could watch what was happening in this room? Secret panels and two-way mirrors were commonplace in brothels. Someone had been watching her and Sebastian making love. Who could it have been?
Nico? No, it was totally out of character. You’d have to be sick to do that, and Nico wasn’t sick, he wasn’t a voyeur.
How do you know? she asked herself, uncertainly. She buried her face in her hands. She didn’t want to think about it any more.
Hurriedly she pulled off the David costume and took a quick shower, then dressed in the clothes she had been wearing when she arrived and went back into the bedroom. Sebastian was standing at the window, fully dressed too, in jeans and an olive sweater with leather patches at the elbow. The sagging, cloudy sky was heavy with snow.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. ‘I heard your shower running. They’re more efficient than I’d expected. Feeling better?’
She was still too choked to speak.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You must be very hyper. Starting a new film is always an ordeal, but you have to calm down, Laura, or you won’t be fit to work. Look, we’re all going out into Venice to have a drink in St Mark’s Square, and then a meal together. Come along with us. You know most of the crowd and talking to them will help you relax.’
Her voice sounded rusty, like old bellows. ‘When are you going?’
‘Now, right away. I rang Valerie on the walkie-talkie, and told her to gather everyone together for a two-hour break. We’ve been working since first light and we need a rest.’
‘I want to unpack and settle in first. You go ahead and I’ll see you all down there.’
His brows jerked together. ‘You can’t walk around the city on your own!’
She snapped back hotly, ‘I’ll wrap up warmly. A hood and thick coat will be some sort of disguise and I’ll be careful.’
‘Don’t be so damn stupid! Do you want to get mobbed? Anything could happen to you.’
‘Look, I need some time alone. And I walked around Venice when I was here at the film festival,’ she said, with a touch of desperation. ‘I’ll be fine. Please, you go on, I’ll see you in the square – Florian’s?’
He said grimly, ‘Well, it’s your life.’
The words hadn’t been idle. Something in his face told her he was warning her. But about what?
He picked up a leather bag which he had had in his hand earlier and flung on to a chair. Unzipping it, he pulled out a script, dropped it on the rumpled bed. ‘Here, I brought you the latest draft. I’ve tagged the scenes we’ll be shooting here over the next week.’
‘Have there been many changes?’
‘No, just tinkering, sharpening up. You won’t have any new lines to learn for this location, so just check your cues. I’ll mostly be doing background shots and crowd scenes with you in the foreground. But have a read through it, and let me know if you think it’s an improvement.’
Sebastian stood, silently staring at her, a thin dark man with flashing eyes. She waited for him to say something but he just turned and slammed out of the room. Wincing at the crash of the heavy door, Laura almost called him back, but in the end decided not to. She really needed these precious moments alone.
She picked up the script, to the front of which was clipped the pink pages of the shooting schedule starting with day one. Sebastian planned to shoot four pages every day while they were here, she noted. He was optimistic. She flicked through it. Under the title was typed the fact that this was the 15th draft. She wasn’t surprised. Sebastian was a perfectionist.
The first page was almost entirely scene-setting, just four lines of dialogue between herself and someone called the Old Chestnut-seller. The following pages also revealed scanty dialogue. No problems there. She could learn the lines as she went along.
She dropped the script and began to unpack, putting her clothes away in musty-smelling closets and chests of drawers. She had brought a few lavender bags with her and laid these among her undies before she closed the drawers. It didn’t take long. She was now an experienced packer and unpacker: she had her own routine, every move worked out to save time.
When she had finished, she put on a thick, padded green anorak with a black hood, slipped black sunglasses on her nose, put on gloves and knee-length black leather boots and studied herself in the mirror. Nobody would recognise her, surely. The paparazzi had been at the airport, snatching pictures, but they hadn’t bothered to pursue her to Ca’ d’Angeli, and they wouldn’t hang around to catch sight of her in this weather. She was wearing something entirely different, her fiery hair was out of sight under the hood, every strand combed back from her face so it wouldn’t show.
As she left the private apartments she walked past the Contessa, who was talking to several of her servants.
‘Buon giorno, Contessa,’ Laura said politely, and got a faintly surprised, but perfectly friendly, smile.
‘You are going out?’ the Contessa asked, and Laura nodded.
‘It will snow,’ she warned.
‘I’ll be okay.’
Laura walked out into the long gallery, picked her way through the film equipment strewn everywhere, higgledy-piggledy, like the abandoned baggage of a retreating army. There was even a corpse or two: younger crew members stretched out on rugs to snatch an hour’s rest while Sebastian was elsewhere. They didn’t even look at her – they were too tired to take an interest in anything that happened around them.
‘Laura!’ It was Nico’s voice. He took in her outdoor clothes. ‘You aren’t going out, are you? It could blow a blizzard any minute, from the look of the sky.’
‘I have to. I’m meeting some of the crew in St Mark’s Square for a drink, and a few prelims.’
He was baffled by the word. ‘What?’
‘Preliminary shots. Sebastian needs to decide which angles to choose, which views to get in, what he’ll want on the final shot. Apparently we’re shooting a lot of stuff out in the streets, to get the carnival atmosphere. How do I get to St Mark’s? Walk?’
‘You can, but I’ll happily take you along the canal. My boat’s outside. Come on.’
Watching the flicker of his dark eyes, she remembered that moment in the bedroom when she had seen eyes staring down at her and Sebastian. Once again, sickness rose in her throat.
‘No, that’s okay, I think I’d rather walk,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I want to explore this part of Venice before the snow starts again. I may not get another chance for a few days.’ She turned before he could argue and walked quickly towards the stairs, but he ran after her.
‘Go the back way, then – I’ll show you the short-cut. It will take you to St Mark’s Square by the quickest route.’
Nico took her down some narrow, winding stairs to the dark kitchen quarters and out through a corridor into the formal garden, which she had not seen before. He walked her along the maze of gravelled paths, through the snow-decorated top
iary, which had a surreal look, as if it came out of a painting. When they reached a gate in a high wall he unlocked it with an ornate brass key he took from his pocket. It creaked as he pushed it open. ‘You turn to the right, walk to the far end, turn left, over the bridge, straight on along the back canal, the next right turn, and then take a left-hand fork into an alley. You’ll see the piazza at the end of it.’ His face crinkled in a grin. ‘Do you think you’ll remember that, or shall I come with you?’
She smiled back, liking him more every time they met. ‘Don’t forget I’m an actress. I have a good memory. Repeat it, slowly.’
She closed her eyes and listened intently, then opened them and repeated what he had said, word for word.
Surprised, he nodded. ‘Bene. You do have a good memory, don’t you? If you get lost, though, no problem. You’ll find a black arrow painted on corners, pointing either to San Marco or the Accademia. And if you still get lost, most Venetians speak English.’
She thanked him and hurried off, avoiding the eyes of anyone she passed, keeping her hood pulled forward. On one side of the bridge she had to cross she saw a little group of art students in pink body-stockings. They were busy painting each other in gaudy swirls of colour, zigzags of red, yellow and black. One of them, a boy with short black hair cut razor-style and greased to make it stand up in spikes, shouted at her.
‘Sorry, I don’t speak Italian,’ she said.
‘American?’
She let him think so, knowing it was probably a mistake to talk to anyone, but finding the ordinary human contact reassuring.
‘Aren’t you cold, wearing just a body-stocking?’ she asked.
‘No, is fun. The carnivale is fun. You here for carnivale? Got a costume? I can hire for you.’
She shook her head. She knew Sebastian had hired one for her and for everyone else in the cast and crew.
‘You want I paint your face?’ the student asked. ‘Only forty thousand lira.’
‘You’re kidding! Forty thousand …’ Her brain wasn’t working fast enough.
‘Thirty dollars American.’
Deep and Silent Waters Page 21