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Chapter Three

Diana arrived in Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport on the 25th of September and collected her suitcase from a pile in the arrivals hall. She’d been told that someone would be there to meet her and that they’d be holding a card with her name on it, but she couldn’t see any such person. It was a scorching day and she wished she hadn’t worn her winter coat, but there hadn’t been room for it in her suitcase. She took it off and folded it over her arm. Several taxi drivers approached, competing for her attention, but she waved them away. Her driver was probably stuck in traffic and running late.

As she waited, the arguments of the past few weeks echoed around her head. Trevor was right: she must be a very ­self-centred person. She knew she was being a bad wife. She knew she was letting him down. Their discussions had got increasingly bitter as each became entrenched in their positions. She couldn’t contemplate turning down the opportunity to work on the film but Trevor had taken it personally, as if it meant she didn’t love him enough. She tried every argument but he simply reiterated that he couldn’t manage without her, that he’d miss her too much.

They had barely spoken since she booked her flight. He was so hurt he couldn’t even look at her, and she was terrified that she might have damaged her marriage irrevocably. Surely Trevor wouldn’t divorce her? They didn’t know any divorcees among their social set, or even at the university. What would she do if he decided to take that extraordinary step? She’d given up a secure, ordered life for the complete unknown, and it seemed emblematic of the chaos she could expect that no one had arrived to meet her at the airport. She stood amongst the taxi drivers in the bustling entrance hall wondering if she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.

After hanging around for half an hour, she changed some money at an exchange bureau. They told her she needed gettoni for the payphone so she purchased some and used them to call Walter Wanger’s office, trying several times before she worked out which bits of the code had to be included when you dialled. The phone rang out but no one answered. Stilling her anxiety, she decided to take a taxi to Cinecittà film studios. What else could she do, since she didn’t know the address of her pensione? She picked an older-looking driver, one who seemed less pushy than the others, and let him heft her suitcase into the trunk. Thank goodness she spoke passable Italian, learned on an extracurricular course she’d taken at university. She had always picked up languages easily while Trevor, despite his superior intellect, had no facility for them.

During the half-hour drive she wondered what could have gone wrong. Were they not expecting her that day? Had they changed their minds about hiring her? The driver pulled up outside the entrance to a single-storey peach-coloured building with the Cinecittà sign over the gate. Diana paid the driver and stood sweltering in the heat as an overweight guard in a dark suit telephoned Walter Wanger’s office, then tried another number in the production block. Diana’s stomach was in knots. What if this was all a huge mistake and they weren’t expecting her at all? Had she jeopardised her marriage over a misunderstanding?

A pony-tailed girl in white Capri pants came running across the grass towards them. ‘Diana?’ she called. ‘You must have thought we’d forgotten all about you. It’s the first day of shooting and everybody was on set to watch, including the driver we had asked to pick you up. I swear, you can never rely on Italians.’ She was American.

‘It’s fine,’ Diana said. ‘I’m here now.’

‘Let’s take your suitcase up to the production office and make everything official. You need to sign your contract and then I’ll show you around. My name’s Candy,’ she added as an afterthought.

Diana followed her across a large grassy lawn. Dozens of people sprawled there, smoking cigarettes, catching the sun, reading magazines, chatting and laughing, and they glanced at Diana and her unwieldy suitcase with a flicker of curiosity before looking away again. The girls were all dressed in Capri pants or above-the-knee skirts with little blouses, and she suddenly felt old-fashioned in her longer, fifties-style skirt and jacket and her beige leather gloves. No one else was wearing gloves. Their legs were bare and bronzed while she wore American tan tights and she thought with envy how much cooler they must feel.

Candy led her to a group of buildings. ‘These are the production offices,’ she said. ‘You can leave your suitcase here.’

She shook hands with several people sitting behind desks and signed her name as indicated. She was informed that she would receive her salary of 50,000 lire (about 28 British pounds), less local taxes, each Friday evening at the end of the working day, and that her permit to work in Italy would be arranged by the studio staff, although she would have to register with the police in the next few days.

As they left, she paused on the steps to watch as a man in a Roman toga came towards them, then did a double take when she realised it was Rex Harrison. She and Trevor had seen him in My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, playing Professor Higgins, the man who teaches a Cockney flower girl to ‘speak proper’. It had been a brilliant production and received a standing ovation, the audience clapping until their hands were numb. Rex Harrison passed without glancing in her direction, but she felt a bubble of excitement all the same.

‘Have you met Walter?’ Candy asked. Diana agreed that she had, during her one day at Pinewood. ‘I’ll take you over to say hi to Joe Mankiewicz, if we can catch a second of his time.’

‘What does he do?’ Diana asked, and Candy stared in amazement.

‘He’s the director. Didn’t you know that?’

‘I thought it was Rouben Mamoulian. I’m sure I read that somewhere.’

‘Yeah, it was, but he got fired ages ago. The cast has all changed since we came to Italy. But we’ve still got Liz – for better or worse.’

‘What do you mean?’

Candy rolled her eyes comically. ‘You’ll find out.’

Someone popped a head round the door. ‘Candy, there’s a problem with the elephants. They’re being really aggressive and no one can get near them. Will you go and talk to the elephant guy, see what his explanation is?’

‘Sure,’ Candy agreed. ‘Why don’t you come with me, Diana? I’ll get a chance to show you around. You can leave your coat and jacket. It’s sweltering out there.’ She glanced down at Diana’s prim skirt and tights and seemed about to say something else but thought better of it.

They strolled up a shady avenue. Everywhere there were neatly mown grass verges and boulevards lined with stately rows of Roman pine trees and oleander bushes. Lots of people waved and called hello to Candy as she passed, and she called back but didn’t make any move to introduce Diana.

‘The commissary – that’s canteen to you Brits – is down there and the bar’s over that way.’ She pointed to a separate block but walked straight past it. Diana was parched and could have used a cool drink but didn’t want to cause any bother. ‘I’ve reserved a room for you in the Pensione Splendid near Piazza Repubblica so it will only take you about twenty minutes to get here in the morning. A studio driver will pick you up around eight.’ She chatted on about practicalities and Diana tried to remember everything while simultaneously getting her bearings in the vast studio complex, which seemed to stretch for miles in every direction.

They could hear and smell the elephants well before reaching the enclosure. Roaring, with trunks raised, and stamping their feet, they were terrifying the horses in the nearby stables. Diana couldn’t count them all as some were inside a sandstone outbuilding, but four were pacing around outside. Candy approached a man who seemed to be in charge and had a conversation with him in Italian. He spread his arms and shrugged, telling her that it wasn’t his fault they were restless; that’s just how they were.

Diana looked at the poor creatures, each restrained with a heavy chain around one ankle. Their eyes seemed astonishingly human and knowing. The closest regarded her as one fellow creature to the other, requesting sympathy for its plight. Then she looked at its ears, which were small and drooping. She remembered her school biology teacher explaining that African elephants have large ears that fan back over their necks in the shape of Africa, while Indian ones have smaller ears that droop to a point, like a map of India.

She asked the trainer, ‘Questi sono elefanti indiani?’

‘Sì, certamente,’ he replied then spun off into a chain of complaints about his contract and the conditions under which he had to work.

‘Is that a problem?’ Candy asked Diana.

‘It’s just that Cleopatra would, of course, have had African elephants. Her kingdom was in Africa. Hardly any viewers will spot the difference, I’m sure.’

‘Fantastic!’ Candy exclaimed. ‘You may just have given us a way to get out of our contract with this guy and his over-aggressive animals. Walter will be thrilled.’

‘Oh, good. Should we go and find him?’ Diana felt she would like to see a friendly face. Perhaps he would be able to explain what was expected of her.

‘You can never find Walter when you’re looking for him – only when you’re not,’ Candy said. ‘We’ll head back, and maybe stop for a drink? You look hot.’

Diana nodded gratefully. She had pale English skin that didn’t take the sun well and she could feel her cheeks tingling after half an hour in the Roman sunshine. She asked the barman for some water, which came in a green glass bottle with a pretty label saying San Pellegrino. Why bother with bottled water, she wondered, when Rome was reputed to have the best tap water in the world, brought straight from mountain springs by their famous Roman aqueducts? It seemed crazy.

Candy had business in a back part of the studio and Diana tagged along, feeling completely lost. How would she ever find her way around this virtual metropolis? She was hot and tired and felt very grateful when at last Candy offered to call a driver to take Diana to her pensione.

She found she was on the second floor of an old building, in a large bright room with its own tiny balcony and a view towards the Baths of Diocletian. The room contained a double bed, a wardrobe, and a wash-basin, and it all looked neat and clean. On a side table there was a Cinzano ashtray with the familiar red, white and blue lettering. There was a shared bathroom down the hall and the first thing she did was undress and soak in some lukewarm water to wash away the grime of travel. She dressed in a cool cotton sundress, rubbed Pond’s cold cream on her cheeks and went to ask the padrona if she might use her telephone.

‘Sorry, it’s out of order,’ the woman told her. ‘The nearest public phone is in the bar across the street but you will need some gettoni. You can buy them at the tabaccaio over towards Termini station.’ She gestured vaguely.

Diana kicked herself for not buying more gettoni at the airport earlier. She knew the station was several streets away. She’d wanted to ring Trevor to let him know she’d arrived safely. Ideally she would have liked to tell him about seeing Rex Harrison, and about the Indian elephants, and all her other impressions of the set, but she knew she couldn’t expect him to share her excitement. They were barely speaking to each other.

She felt a sharp pang of missing him. They normally told each other everything, in a long stream of conversation that they updated as soon as possible after spending any time apart. It was hard to move from that intimacy to a life that was unshared, unwitnessed.

She hung up her clothes then sat on the bed looking out across the rooftops of the Eternal City as the sun gradually set, picking out individual windows to blaze fiery bright for a few minutes each, and casting a golden glow on domes and turrets. The smell of cooking wafted up from the kitchen of a trattoria next door and she decided she would eat there then come back for an early night. She’d call Trevor the following day. He hadn’t even said goodbye properly so he had no right to expect her to ring on her first evening.

Chapter Four

‘Hey, Scott, how’s it going?’ his editor’s voice boomed down the phone. ‘I’ve got a commission for you: fifteen hundred words on the Italian Communist Party. How does it differ from the style of Communism in the Soviet Bloc? What are its aims, and how much influence does it have in Italy? Think you can handle that?’

‘Sure! When do you need it?’

‘Is a week enough time? Or are you too busy chasing Italian chicks?’ The editor saw Scott as an international playboy type and Scott didn’t like to disillusion him by admitting he hadn’t had so much as a kiss since he arrived in Europe.

‘A week it is,’ he replied. At last he could demonstrate what he was capable of. Those booze-sodden hacks in the Eden Hotel bar would have to take him more seriously once he’d had an intelligent opinion piece published.

He needed some direct quotes from Roman politicians so his secretary told him about a translator called Angelo who could set up the interviews and assist when his very basic Italian would not suffice. It would be his foot in the door of Italian politics, and it was just a shame that the first politicians he would meet were Communists. Scott knew very strongly how he felt about that. In fact he had begun to write the piece before meeting them.

Some trade unionists here in Rome condemned the brutal Soviet repression of the Hungarian uprising, but the party leadership kept quiet because they know where their bread is buttered, he wrote. Moscow holds the purse strings on which their power base rests and even if they use more moderate language than Señor Fidel Castro, they still believe that the working classes should unite to overturn capitalism. Some 4 percent of Italian workers are members of the Communist Party but you can bet that these are not the forward-thinking textile workers who are making Milan such a modern center of clothing manufacture, and not the directors in charge of protecting the famous antiquities of Rome, Venice and Florence, because Communism would abandon those to dust. It is the politically ignorant peasant who believes all those fine words about sharing wealth, little realising that under Communism there would be no wealth, along with no freedom of speech or action.

He interviewed the politicians but used their quotes in such a way as to make them sound naïve at best and self-serving at worst:

Corruption is a way of life in Italy, he opined, and no one is exempt, but those of the far left with their moral posturing about the good of the many are by far the greatest hypocrites. Look how quickly Señor Castro rushed to abandon democratic elections in Cuba earlier this year. Given half a chance, Italian Communists would do so even faster.

It was what his readers in the Midwest, smarting from American defeat in the Bay of Pigs just four months earlier, wanted to hear, and it happened to be what Scott believed. He and his classmates at Harvard had been aghast when the CIA-trained band of counter-revolutionaries were defeated by Castro’s forces, with their Soviet-designed tank destroyers and fighter-bombers. Now it seemed Americans must resign themselves to Reds on the doorstep, just 90 miles across the water from the Florida Keys, unless John F. Kennedy had some other plan up his sleeve. Surely he must.

Scott’s editor ran the piece across a double page, with photos of Italian workers in the fields alongside a textile loom in Milan, and Scott was thrilled when he got his copy by special courier. His byline was directly beneath the headline: ‘by Scott Morgan, our Rome correspondent’.

A day later, though, he received a phone call from Angelo, the translator. ‘I hope you never want to interview any Italian politicians again,’ he said, ‘because, to use an English phrase, you have burned all your boats.’

‘Nobody will read it here in Rome, will they?’ Scott asked. The thought simply hadn’t occurred to him.

‘Of course they will. They gave the interviews and their press advisors will have obtained copies to see how they were portrayed in your article. You can be sure they will not be pleased with your patronising attitude and lack of any attempt to understand the issues.’

‘You’re kidding. Why didn’t you warn me?’

‘My mistake. I gave you credit for a little intelligence.’

That evening, Scott went to the Eden Hotel to see what his compatriots thought, and he was greeted with much hooting and clapping on the back. ‘Aw heck, you didn’t want to be a political journalist anyway, did you, Spike?’

‘You’ve all read it?’

‘How could we miss your print debut, especially when it refers to Communist Party members as politically ignorant peasants?’

Joe bought him a large whisky and Scott downed it quickly.

‘Shall I tell you my secret?’ Joe slurred, his evening’s drinking obviously well advanced. ‘I read the Italian press and adapt stories from that. My editor never knows any better. Grab a dictionary and spend the morning going through Corriere della Sera and La Stampa and you’ll do just fine here.’

The next morning, Scott decided to do just that, but the only stories of international interest were about Elizabeth Taylor and her entourage arriving in Rome to make a Cleopatra film at Cinecittà. There were descriptions of her seven-bedroom villa on Via Appia Antica, her children, her dogs, her recent near-death illness, and a rehash of the scandal when she ‘stole’ her current husband Eddie Fisher from her rival Debbie Reynolds. Scott was scornful of this kind of gutter-press journalism and determined not to lower himself. His heroes were Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, serious men who wrote in an innovative style that read like fiction but contained hard facts. Neither of them would sink so low as to comment on Elizabeth Taylor’s dogs. He felt gloomy.

The clock read twenty past ten and he realised he just had time to catch his beautiful Italian girl leaving her house. She had begun smiling at him when he greeted her and once she had even returned his ‘Buongiorno’ so he felt it was important to keep up the momentum.

He jumped on the Vespa and scooted through the traffic, arriving in Piazza Navona with minutes to spare. He popped into a tobacconist’s to buy some Camels and through the window he saw her emerge from her house and cross the street. Throwing the money over the counter, he was able to step out of the shop straight into her path.

‘Ah, buongiorno, signorina bellissima,’ he grinned. ‘We meet finalmente!’

She blushed and looked down modestly. He was directly in front of her so she couldn’t walk on and there was a moment’s hesitation while she tried to decide what to do.

‘That’s a pretty dress,’ he said in Italian.

‘Grazie, signore,’ she said, then side-stepped neatly and continued down the road.

Scott stood and watched and when she reached the corner she turned back to see if he was still there.

‘Thank you!’ he whispered, and clenched his fists in delight.

Chapter Five

Next morning, Diana was picked up by a studio car just after eight and driven out to Cinecittà. The gate swung open and she felt very important as she showed her pass to the guard on duty and he waved her through with a ‘Buongiorno, Signora Bailey’.

When she opened the door of the production office, the first thing she noticed was a very attractive Italian man sitting on a desk, chatting to the girls in the office. He appraised Diana’s figure, eyes sweeping up and down her body, then winked.

‘Is she the one who’s been causing all the problems? She looks so innocent.’ He was teasing, his English fluent but heavily accented.

Annoyingly, Diana felt her cheeks flush scarlet and a blonde woman who looked as though she might be in her thirties took pity on her. She came over with an outstretched hand. ‘I’m Hilary Armitage, and you must be Diana? This rogue here is Ernesto Balboni. He helps to procure things we need for the film.’

‘You have been complaining about the elephants, I hear,’ Ernesto challenged. ‘What did the poor creatures ever do to you?’

Diana didn’t know how to take him, so she answered seriously. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause trouble but Cleopatra wouldn’t have had Indian elephants …’

‘Clever you for actually knowing the difference,’ Hilary interrupted. Her accent was English girls’ boarding school, but she didn’t seem toffee-nosed.

‘They wanted elephants, I got them elephants,’ Ernesto continued. ‘It was a lot of trouble for me, and now you say, “I don’t like these elephants.” OK, I will fix it, but only if Diana will have lunch with me today.’

‘I-I’m not sure. I may be busy.’ Diana wasn’t sure if he was simply being flirtatious or if it was part of her job to lunch with him.

‘Leave the girl alone, Ernesto. She’s just arrived and already you are trying to seduce her.’

He jumped down from the desk and Diana saw that he wasn’t tall – only slightly taller than her – but he had a very good figure, with muscular arms under his open-necked, short-sleeved shirt. He reached out to shake Diana’s hand and gripped it in warm fingers that held on much longer than they should have. ‘We will have to see a lot of each other so I can choose props that are historically correct. If you can’t manage lunch, maybe we should have dinner tonight?’

Fearing a misunderstanding, Diana held out her left hand to show her wedding ring. ‘I’m married,’ she said.

‘Of course you are. You are far too beautiful to be single. I’ll see you later. Buongiorno, bella.’

He glanced back and grinned at her on his way out the door. Did that mean he thought she had accepted the dinner invitation or not? She had no idea, but hoped that since they hadn’t made a firm arrangement it didn’t count.

Hilary rolled her eyes before showing Diana her desk and giving her a simple map of the studios to help her find her way around. She explained how to use the telephones and said to help herself if she wanted to phone home; she showed her where the stationery was kept, and the kettle and their office supply of English tea. She was friendly and efficient, but several times she glanced at her watch so Diana could tell she was impatient to get on.

‘Do you have any idea what I am supposed to be doing today?’ Diana asked. ‘I haven’t seen Mr Wanger yet to ask about my responsibilities.’

Hilary seemed surprised. ‘I assumed he would have explained that to you. He won’t be in till later because there was a PR disaster yesterday. A party of Congress wives turned up for a tour of the set hoping to meet Elizabeth Taylor but no one had told her and she doesn’t like surprises so she wouldn’t play ball. Walter will be tied up all day smoothing that one over. But they’re filming a Temple of Isis scene on sound stage 5 so why not go down there and maybe you’ll have a chance to introduce yourself to Joe.’

‘The director?’

Hilary nodded. ‘You’ll find sound stage 5 on your map. Lunch is served in the commissary from twelve till three, and you can get snacks at the bar all day long.’

‘Great, thanks.’

The office was empty so Diana made herself a cup of tea, then unclipped her right earring and lifted the phone to ask the operator to connect her with Trevor’s office at City University. There was a lot of clicking and buzzing and a long period of silence before she heard the familiar voice of his secretary on the line.

‘Hello, it’s Diana calling from Rome. I don’t suppose Trevor’s around?’

The reply was so muffled she could hardly hear it, but it seemed he was in a meeting.

‘Will you tell him I rang and that I’ve arrived safely? I’ll try again soon.’

She was relieved not to have to deal with him being curt on the phone. At least he knew she was safe now. She finished her tea, picked up a notepad and pen plus her studio map, and headed out towards sound stage 5.

She walked around the lawn, then turned down a wide avenue with a row of pine trees planted along a central reservation. The sound stages looked like aeroplane hangars. When she got to number 5, she pushed open a heavy, padded door and was confronted by a huge dark cavern full of people. A beam of light illuminated an area where a scene was being prepared. There was a camera mounted on a small crane and behind it stood a portly middle-aged man in a crumpled Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap, who was studying the scene with a dyspeptic expression. She wondered what his role was because, despite his scruffy appearance, others seemed to be taking orders from him.

It was hotter than outside, like working in an oven. A huge sign in both English and Italian read ‘No Smoking’ and there was a picture of a cigarette with an emphatic slash through it. Underneath it there was a bucket of sand and a sign saying ‘Use in case of fire’ but she noticed that it was being used as an ashtray and had dozens of cigarette butts in it.

‘Are they filming?’ she asked someone, and straight away fingers came up to lips and there was a chorus of shushing. Someone called ‘Silenzio!’

‘Upstairs,’ her nearest neighbour whispered, pointing to a staircase, so Diana crept off the set and up the stairs, not sure where she was heading. A handwritten sign on the landing at the top said ‘Makeup, Dressing room 23’. There was a long corridor of closed doors, each carefully numbered. The only one open was number 23 and a bright light emanated from within. She glanced inside to see a pretty blonde girl doing her own makeup at a dressing-table mirror surrounded by dazzling lightbulbs. Some Italian women were sitting around chatting.

‘Hello. Are you an actress?’ Diana asked the blonde girl.

She gave a broad smile and answered in an English accent with a hint of Birmingham in it. ‘No, I do the makeup along with these ladies. I’m just fixing myself up while we wait.’

‘What are you waiting for?’

‘Elizabeth Taylor’s not here yet so they can’t start filming. She’s always late.’

‘So they’re not actually filming downstairs?’ Diana was relieved. ‘I thought I’d spoiled a shot because I asked a question and everyone told me to shut up.’

‘They might have been doing fill-in shots. They’re shooting live sound on this picture so they need dead quiet when the cameras are rolling. You’re supposed to check whether the red light is on above the door before you go in. Don’t worry, though – you’d know all about it if you’d spoiled a take!’

‘Where is your accent from?’ Diana asked, trying to place it.

‘Leamington Spa. Near Warwick.’

‘You’re kidding! I was born in Leamington Spa and lived there till I was twelve!’ Diana grinned, delighted to meet someone from home. It made her realise how lonely she’d been feeling.

The girl’s name was Helen, she told Diana. They chatted about which part of town they came from and the schools they had attended. Diana asked how she came to be working on the film, and Helen said she had just graduated from a makeup course when she got the job at Pinewood and her school principal had negotiated a clause in her contract that meant they had to take her with them when the production moved to Rome. Most of the other makeup artists were Italian.

‘It’s a great place to work. I’ve met all the stars,’ she said excitedly. ‘Yesterday I was called down to assist Elizabeth Taylor’s makeup artist, and Elizabeth actually asked my name. Wasn’t that nice of her?’

‘What was she like?’

‘Oh my God, those eyes! I never believed it in the magazines when they said she has purple eyes but she really does: a kind of deep violet shade. It’s almost like you can’t breathe when you look directly at her. I asked her to sign my autograph book. Look!’

She showed Diana a book bound in pink fabric and opened it to a page with the signature ‘Elizabeth T’ followed by an ‘X’.

‘Lucky you,’ Diana said. ‘Who else’s have you got?’

‘Just crew really. I don’t like to ask actors as it doesn’t look professional. After all I’m here to do a job! Anyway, Rex Harrison is too scary to ask!’

Helen talked rapidly, full of awe at the surroundings she found herself in. She was probably in her early twenties, only a couple of years younger than Diana, but she had a childlike quality that was beguiling, and she was the first truly friendly person Diana had met there.

‘There’s no one about,’ Helen pointed out. ‘Shall we go and have a Coke? The bar’s not far.’

Diana agreed. She knew she should be trying to find someone who could tell her what her job entailed, but perhaps it would be useful to hear a bit more about the personalities on the set. Helen told the Italian women she’d be back in half an hour and they nodded and carried on talking amongst themselves.

The bar had some tables on a broad outdoor terrace and Helen sat down at one of them, Diana beside her. They attracted appreciative glances from some Italian workmen on a coffee break. They’re interested in Helen, Diana thought. Not me.

‘I don’t like coming here on my own,’ Helen lowered her voice. ‘It makes me self-conscious when they stare like that.’

They ordered two Cokes, and Diana explained how she came to be working on the film.

‘Gosh, you’re an intellectual. That’s so groovy! Don’t worry about not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing. I don’t think anyone does. We’re all just muddling through, but we’re getting paid to live in an amazing city and work with lots of famous people. It can’t be bad, can it? Hey, a crowd of us are going out for a pizza tonight. Do you want to come?’