Beautiful People

by Wendy Holden

  "Still, it'll all be worth it," Emma said encouragingly. "You'll be really famous when this film comes out."

  "I'm not doing it to become famous," Darcy frowned. "Who'd want to be famous? I mean, I thought I did for about five minutes, but I can see now that it's a nightmare. Look at Belle. Who'd want to be like that…oh, sorry. Shouldn't be nasty about her. You work for her after all."

  But why, it now occurred to Darcy to wonder. Emma did not seem a particularly Belle-like person. You could tell from the set of her jaw, her intelligent eyes, her kind and sympathetic smile, that she had strength and character. Pretty, too, with her thick, glossy hair, shining eyes, rosy cheeks. She looked extremely clean, glowingly well-scrubbed. There was something about her, Darcy felt, that was both comforting and utterly trustworthy. How Belle had landed herself a gem like this, had persuaded this obviously good person to come and work for her, seemed hard to explain.

  "I suppose," Emma said, "that you must love acting."

  "Acting!" Darcy chucked. "There's not a lot of art to Galaxia, I can tell you. Well, there may be in the special effects, the fight sequences, and the rest of it. But the acting's just a case of standing around in silly costumes saying, 'Welcome, my trusted counsellor,' and things like that." She sighed. "But even if that wasn't the case, if you really had to act well in it, then I really don't know whether I'd enjoy it anymore." She looked sadly at Emma. "I mean, I bet you always wanted to be a nanny, didn't you?"

  Emma nodded. "I always knew I wanted to work with children."

  "Sometimes," Darcy said after a silence, "I wonder if I ever really knew. My parents were actors, you see. Are actors. Quite famous ones. The theatre was sort of the family business. I was expected to go into it, and I did."

  "It sounds very glamorous," Emma remarked.

  "Not really. Either my parents were away acting, or they were at home obsessing over their causes. Family meals were always shared with hundreds of people—an entire Indian village once. My mother was a dreadful cook. I think that's why I so love food myself," Darcy was saying, a dreamy, wondering note in her voice. "Perhaps it represents everything I never had at home. Mummy could only make spaghetti bolognese. And often she didn't even bother doing that. It'd be fish and chips all round from the local chippy. The Indian village really loved that," Darcy added, a grin momentarily illuminating her face.

  Emma smiled. She sensed she was not required to comment.

  "But look where liking food's got me!" Darcy grimaced. "I'm too fat to save the galaxy at the moment." She began running on the spot. "And frankly, if it wasn't for the sex, I don't think I'd bother trying."

  "Sex!" Emma was startled into an exclamation.

  "There's someone on the film set," Darcy revealed. "He's called Christian. Christian Harlow."

  Christian Harlow. Emma knew the name. She could even see the face; it was a staple of celebrity magazines. "I've seen him," she said. "He's very handsome."

  "Gorgeous," Darcy corrected.

  Orlando, in all his unkempt, golden beauty flashed before Emma. She could almost feel his face close to hers. That, in her book, was gorgeous.

  "Yeah, Christian's gorgeous," Darcy was saying in besotted tones. "But I can't see him unless I get on set."

  Which meant running, of course. She cringed at the thought of the torture to come. Much more fun to stay here and chat with Belle's nanny.

  "But what about you?" Darcy gave Emma a broad smile. "Any romantic attachments?"

  Emma shook her head. But the picture, never far away, rushed back: a tall, blond boy with green eyes and a deep, nervous voice that made her stomach turn over. A lingering, passionate kiss.

  "Ah!" Darcy saw the shadow cross Emma's face. "There is someone." Her voice was teasing.

  Emma heaved Morning up into her arms and hugged him. "There's this one. I'm in love with Morning."

  "Don't change the subject," giggled Darcy. "I've told you about mine. So tell me about yours."

  "He isn't mine…" Emma insisted.

  "Who isn't yours?"

  Emma sighed. There was no way out. "Well, there is this boy…"

  "Such excitement!" George greeted Orlando as he shuffled into the kitchen. It was just before lunch; she was uncorking some wine—to pour down the ever-ready throat of Hugh, Orlando guessed—and her habitually anxious eyes were shining. "Ivo and Jago have made a marvellous new friend in the village."

  Georgie was still struggling with the cork.

  "I'll do it." Orlando took the bottle from his mother.

  "Terribly grand, a wonderful contact." He realised she was still talking about whatever unfortunate it was that had fallen into the twins' clutches.

  Orlando concentrated on liberating the Pinot Grigio. He was not interested in Ivo and Jago's contacts. He was not, come to that, interested in anything anymore. He no longer cared, even, that his A level results were surely about to arrive at any moment. He'd met Emma again, and straightaway he'd run away from her. Had been given another chance and ruined it. Or, rather, that fearsome hag from the model agency had ruined it for him.

  "Yes," gushed Georgie as she shook some crackers on a rustic plate. "She's called Titty de Belvedere."

  "What a stupid name," Orlando remarked.

  "Her father's titled!" Georgie exclaimed, as if this explained or excused it. Orlando looked up to see his mother's eyes glowing nuclear with excitement. "According to the twins, Titty's very attractive. Hot, they said." Georgie giggled, savouring this piece of contemporary slang that, as always with his mother, Orlando recognised, was a bit less contemporary than she believed it to be. "They're out somewhere with her now," Georgie added.

  Orlando shrugged and returned to his room. Here he would sip cold beer and stare at the ceiling, or otherwise stare at Italian television. None of this got him any closer to seeing Emma again, although it did have the advantage of keeping him out of the way of Laura.

  He never dared venture by the pool these days because it was shielded from the house by some large lavender clumps and anything could happen there. Even the garage, where he had discovered a battered, orange-neon foam football he sometimes liked to kick around, was haunted by the possibility of Laura suddenly apprehending him.

  Of course, he could not speak to his mother about it. And what hopes he had harboured about talking to his father were now fading, as Richard seemed so distant. Orlando had no idea, could not imagine, what had happened during the trip to Florence. But something evidently had. Richard had set off on the trip as a man of few words and had returned as a man of no words at all.

  As it happened, Richard would have told Georgie, Orlando, Laura, and anyone else who insisted on knowing the whats and whys of his visit to the Internet café. But to do so inevitably brought up the question of what Hugh was doing there too. And even though Freebie Faugh was the holiday guest from hell, it struck Richard as unhostlike in the extreme to expose the adultery of someone staying under his roof. As with Mrs. Greatorex, he was left feeling that his principles were being exploited.

  He also had to bear constant innuendo. Since the Internet café incident, Hugh, having evidently decided Richard was a sexual adventurer like himself, never passed up an opportunity to act lewdly. Hugh Faugh, Richard thought, would be more accurately called Hugh Phwoarrr.

  Last night he had pranced around with a large salami stuck down his trousers during pre-dinner drinks. This had not only been criminally unfunny, but a criminal waste of a good sausage.

  The idea that he was colluding with such a reptile was sickening, and yet it was not his own activities Richard wished to conceal.

  The fact that his father was obviously, if for reasons he could not quite guess, having almost as bad a time as himself with the Faughs was comfort of a sort, Orlando supposed. Another reason to be cheerful was that his loathing of the twins seemed to have penetrated even the ten-foot-thick social hide of Georgie, who had finally stopped suggesting brightly every morning that "you boys probably want to do something together."
But otherwise, all was black, black, black.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Darcy strained and panted up the hill into Rocolo. She was struggling for breath. The boiling sun pressed heavily down on her like a giant, invisible hand. She clutched the bottle of water hard, as if this would somehow transfer intravenously the liquid she had not stopped to drink. She had felt that if she stopped she would never start again.

  Her heart was thudding in her chest, and she felt as if she were about to die. The Hero of Zero had waxed lyrical about the ketosis stage of exercising, the sought-after nirvana when the body stops burning fat and starts burning muscle. Perhaps this was what was happening now. The emptiness in her stomach had spread. Even her arms felt empty; the very tips of her fingers felt hollow.

  As she heaved up the hill, snatched smells of savoury lunches hit her on the nose and in the stomach with the force of a punch. The merest hint of garlic or tomato brought a surge of saliva into her mouth and the sight of bread—especially the thick-crusted country bread that seemed a speciality of the area—made her want to weep. Running past Marco's brought the most delicious smells of all wafting into her nostrils, which was usually why she tried to get past it as swiftly as possible. Today, however, her lungs bursting with effort, her whole body wilting beneath the sun, she felt herself slow down as she approached it.

  Marco sat outside the restaurant, enjoying a mid-morning snack. He had forgotten to have breakfast, as he often did if particularly excited about something. He was very excited this morning. His mind was full of fish. A magnificent consignment of trout had just been delivered, with eyes so fresh and bright they looked, for all they were dead, more vital and alive than many of the people who would eventually eat them. The rainbow glimmer of the scales had sent Marco into raptures. Such beauty. Such nobility.

  A case of magnificent lobsters had also arrived, also absolutely perfect. The question was how to serve them the absolute best way. Grilled, probably. Yes, grilled, so their sweet, fresh meat could be savoured with as little adulteration as possible. Apart from, of course, a spot of butter and a touch of lemon.

  He shook his shaggy hair, which felt hot. It was indeed a hot day, hotter even than usual; the sky above was brilliantly blue and had no clouds whatsoever. It would get even hotter this afternoon.

  It was, Marco knew, time he returned to the kitchen. But before he did that, he'd just sit out here a second longer, under this deep blue sky, enjoying the sunshine. He lit another cigarette, took another bite of bread and tomato, and waved his hand at a passing mother and child. "Ciao, Marco!" they chirped in unison. He smiled happily.

  His heart gave a sudden, violent leap. It was her. Darcy. Struggling up the road towards him. She did not look happy at all; her big, dark eyes glaring, that rosebud mouth of hers in a flat, cross line. It was obvious she was hating every minute of her run. She was almost bent double with the effort. It could not, Marco thought, rising hurriedly, be good for her to run in this heat.

  "Hey! Hello!" he called to her. "Come and have a rest. You look as if you need one." He waved his big hands at the table he sat at.

  Darcy paused at the entrance to his courtyard. "I can't," she gasped, hands on hips, bent double as she drew great lungfuls of hot, garlic-and-herb-scented air.

  She was shaking, he saw. "You really have to sit down," he said, concerned. "Have some water…some coffee…"

  Darcy felt her every nerve end agree with him. At that moment, nothing else on earth seemed more attractive than a rest in that pretty courtyard. Apart from Christian, that was. He had not been in touch for a whole day now. She was beginning to feel panicky. "I can't," Darcy growled.

  She caught sight of the table behind him and what was on it. A great hunk of crusty bread, a jar of green oil, some tomatoes as plump, red, and audacious as Carmen's smile…

  She swallowed. Her stomach erupted in a thunderclap of hunger. Marco heard it and scented victory.

  Seconds later, she was sitting down in the shade with, in her hand, a hunk of the freshest, chewiest bread she had ever eaten, with a fresh, sweet tomato pushed into it, slicked with green olive oil and ground over with salt and pepper.

  "The simplest sandwich in the world," Marco grinned. "The tomatoes came in this morning. They are perfect. From the south of Italy and full of flavour. You have never had a tomato like this one before."

  Darcy nodded, her mouth full. Nothing had ever tasted so delicious. The tomatoey, oily bread rocketed her back to the land of taste after what seemed years of deprivation in the steamed-broccoli wilderness. The flavours exploded in her mouth with an eye-watering intensity. She felt as if she were coming back to life. Her legs and arms had stopped shaking; the dizziness had faded; her heart had stopped rattling and resumed its usual smooth beat.

  Marco had stretched back in his chair again and was looking at the sky. The call of the trout and lobster, which had been so loud, was now fainter. Daria could take care of them. She was good with fish.

  "You know what I think?" he said softly. "That the very best things in life are the simplest. Take that tomato. Could there be anything more perfect and luxurious? It tastes of itself, of having ripened in the sun slowly and lazily over the weeks and months. You know?"

  Her jaws crashing over the crust, Darcy could only nod.

  "True luxury's nothing to do with spending, you see. It's not about showing the world you've got the flashest car or whatever…"

  Christian's car flashed into Darcy's mind. Was this a criticism? She shot a sharp, defensive look at Marco, but he was still staring into space, musing.

  "Real luxury's about"—Marco inhaled dreamily—"salad leaves with the dew still on them, a day like today, a walk in the woods, the singing birds, the light on the new leaves, the smell of the earth. You know?"

  Darcy nodded. The bread and tomato was finished. She had eaten every mouthful.

  "Well, you're a really great eater," Marco said appreciatively. "A true gastronome."

  "You mean a great, guzzling pig," Darcy wailed, thinking of the weighing scales.

  He rushed to reassure her. "No. It was obvious you appreciated every mouthful. You've got a great palate."

  Darcy giggled. She'd been admired for many things. But this was the first time her palate had got a mention.

  She settled back in her chair and closed her eyes. "I expect you always wanted to be a chef," she remarked enviously. Someone else, like Emma, who had a vocation.

  Marco looked at her. "Not at all," he said unexpectedly.

  Darcy, eyes closed, listened carefully as he explained that, while he had always eaten it with relish, the ingenuity and tradition of the cooking of his region, of his family, had for years just passed him by. He had not noticed or been interested in how his mother and grandmother could coax rich flavour and sumptuousness out of a few scrag ends, how the fact that nothing was wasted became a culinary art form in itself. The risotto that had not been eaten at dinner was formed into small balls in the palm, stuffed with ragu and fried as a snack which, eaten after school, tasted even more delicious than the original dish.

  All this, however, Marco had taken for granted. His main interest in life, after football, had been natural history. He loved nothing more than to pack up a satchel with a lump of cheese and some rough-crusted, homemade bread and set off into the rough, hot, stony, herb-scented summer hills with his binoculars and magnifying glass to spy on the insects and birdlife.

  And then, as a boy of eight, he had gone to Paris on a trip with his mother and aunt. And after that, his attitude to food was never the same. And all because of a biscuit.

  "A biscuit!" Darcy smiled, almost asleep now.

  "Yes, a biscuit!"

  And because of his mother too, Marco explained. She had been ill for some time and had been sent to visit a special doctor in Paris. Woven in with the experience of visiting the beautiful city had been the suspicion—for the facts of her cancer had not then been explained to Marco—that something was terribly wrong.
/>   "Cancer," Darcy groaned. Her eyes shut harder, remembering Anna, her beloved grandmother.

  "Yes. Cancer." His voice was softer now. "I knew something was wrong in Paris, but I didn't know what it was then."

  Nor did he know later, he told her, during that terrible time when they had returned and his mother was ill upstairs at home, when doctors with concerned faces and hushed footsteps padded softly up and down to see her. And afterwards, when she went to the hospital and never came back, those few happy days in the domed, gilded, triumphal-arched and wide-boulevarded city would seem to Marco almost a dream.

  "Oh, Marco!" Darcy whispered through the lump in her throat. With her eyes closed, she could see it all so clearly; the intense, curlyhaired little boy, his dark eyes wide and puzzled, understanding nothing but the one central fact, the one thing that mattered, that his mother wasn't there anymore.