One-man Woman

by Jessica Ayre

  A small boy with Daniela's large eyes, but in a shade of velvety brown, came up to Derek and shyly took hold of his hand. Derek put his large arm protectively round his shoulder and bent to whisper something in his ear. A wide smile broke out over the boy's solemn face. Daniela laughed and, maternal pride overcoming mistrust, she motioned to Jennie. '

  'Come and meet my Giancarlo. Isn't he glorious?' She gave the lad a joyful hug, tickling him as he tried to squirm out of her arms. Then, in Italian, she introduced him to Jennie. The boy looked at her with his wide serious eyes and shook her hand politely. But it was all too clear that his interest was in Derek and he turned away from the women as soon as he could to tug at the man's arm.

  Derek grinned, ruffling the boy's thick hair, and then lifted him up over his shoulder with an exaggerated groan of effort. He nodded distractedly at Jennie, said a quick, 'See you tomorrow,' and turned towards the lift, chatting away to the lad who burst into giggles.

  'Giancarlo adores him,' said Daniela, shaking her head, but obviously delighted; and giving Jennie a meaningful look, she followed after Derek.

  Well, that's that, Jennie said to herself. I've, been roundly dismissed. A hard ball of indignation formed inside her. By the time she had reached her room, it had exploded into helpless rage. She flung her bag aside vehemently, tore off her trousers and sprawled on the bed. 'Private Property'—Daniela had clearly constructed a wall around Derek and put up her signpost. And except for random little excursions, fleeting escapades, not to mention making use of her when necessary, Derek seemed quite happy within the walls. Jennie pounded her pillow with her fists as humiliation welled up in her, finally finding its vent in tears. But why should you care? the nagging little familiar voice inside her asked, just treat him as dismissively as he treats you. Enjoy the moments, even the sensual ones. But keep yourself to yourself.

  I can't, Jennie wailed in reply. A thought she had been afraid to face suddenly crystallised in her mind. I think I'm falling in love with him.

  It was an emotion unlike any she had experienced before, even with Max. It was like what she had read about in books and contemptuously termed fantasy. And as she realised its obsessive power, the fact that she was not altogether her own person any more, she flung her pillow across the room and buried her hot face in her arms.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next morning it was an early rise and Jennie could feel the hotel bristling with activity. By seven o'clock, she was the only one left in the large dining room, the others having all disappeared, presumably to the location site. She sipped her black coffee with mounting impatience, wondering whether Derek would really be back at the given time with the promised materials. After half an hour of dawdling, she grew too restless to sit any longer. Perhaps she had dreamt up the whole scheme as a way of bringing Derek closer to her. No one else on the team seemed to know anything about it and they had cast her odd looks, or so it seemed to her, when she had lingered behind.

  Stop that, Jennie! she scolded herself. You've been asked to do a job of work, that's certain. Now just think about that. She determined on a swim to pass the time. Slipping quickly into her bikini, she went down to the beach and plunged in, not bothering to look around her. She swam to the rock she had perched on with Derek, and then with a sudden lunge veered away from it. No point deliberately stirring up memories of his touch; it was bad enough waiting for him to appear. She floated aimlessly on her back, watching the pale clarity of the morning sky, and then with a crisp backstroke made her way to the deserted beach. She dried herself briskly and throwing the towel over her shoulders, walked back up the path to the hotel.

  Half way there, she saw Derek's lithe form moving towards her, and sighed with unconscious relief. She hadn't dreamt the whole thing up.

  'Thought I might find you here tempting the fates again,' he said as he came up to her. He shook his head in mock desperation.

  Jennie felt herself flush. She had all but forgotten her recent struggle with the youths. She shrugged the matter away and asked pointedly, 'Did you manage to get the materials?'

  Derek smiled his warm smile. Funny, Jennie thought to herself, how he can look so dangerously arrogant one minute, and then the next be so likeable.

  'You're raring to get started, aren't you? Well, let's go. Everything's in the car.'

  She hurried up to her room to change and met him at the front of the hotel minutes later. He seemed to be startled by her appearance.

  'I didn't expect you down so quickly.'

  Jennie found herself laughing. 'We don't all take as long as Daniela,' the words slipped out before she had a chance to censor them.

  He threw her an oddly troubled glance and then muttered under his breath, 'Touché!'

  They drove swiftly, smoothly, through sun-filled groves and stopped by the cluster of houses, their windows shuttered to the sun. Derek carried the materials towards the small storehouse. 'I'm going to have to leave you here and run. They're expecting me on location. But I'll try to get back later in the day to see how you're getting on.'

  Jennie nodded.

  'I'll ask our hostess to see to some lunch for you.' He set the materials together with the book of Etruscan reproductions down for her in a corner of the room. 'Work well,' he said, and then, hesitating as he walked towards the door, he brushed her hair with his lips. 'And thanks.'

  Jennie shivered, made a conscious effort to push her emotions to one side, and focussed her attention on the Etruscan image. She sized it up carefully now and set to work, stopping only for a brief moment for a bite of lunch. By mid-afternoon, the figures were all but done and her legs and arms were aching from the sheer continuous effort. She put down her brush and went out for a breath of air. At the end of the narrow tree-lined path, she all but collided with Derek.

  'Finished?' He looked amazed.

  'Not quite,' Jennie laughed. 'Just stretching my legs. But come and have a look for yourself.'

  He followed her into the dimmer light of the store room and after a second exclaimed in delight. 'Jennie, you're wonderful! You've done it!' He caught her up in his strong arms and lifted her off the floor, twirling her round and round in sheer exuberance. When he put her down, she looked up at him breathlessly, accidentally catching his gaze. Suddenly his arms were round her with a different intensity and his lips covered hers in a long kiss. Then gently he drew away. 'Thank you, Jennie,' he whispered.

  She found herself wondering whether he was referring to her work or to the slow pleasure of their kiss.

  'I'm going to have to go again now—unfortunately,' he grimaced. 'I'd much rather watch you. But I'll send a car round to pick you up. When do you think you'll be through?'

  Jennie shrugged and turned away from him, suddenly irritated. 'In a couple of hours, I guess.'

  'Good.' She felt his hand on her shoulder and he was gone, calling a, 'See you later!'

  Jennie returned to her painting, but her concentration was now broken. Images of Derek flitted through her mind and she was unable to chase them away. They all focussed on a single point of expectation: she would see him again that evening.

  But she didn't. When she returned to the hotel, he was nowhere in sight. Nor did he appear in the bar during the course of the evening. And the following day it was back to the bustle of work of another kind, with little time left for any thought: a six o'clock call, a rushed breakfast, and then off in vans and buses to the mountain town of Cacomo which Derek and Matthew had chosen as home base for their peasant family. Jennie clutched the large make-up bag to her as the bus made its way to the interior of the island, veering round sharp bends in the steep road. Orchards gave way to fields carpeted in a profusion of wild flowers. It was hard in this springtime of the year to believe what Piero had said to her about Sicily's major problem: infertile land combined with a highly fertile population. But if she shut her eyes she could imagine the thick beds of flowers shrivelling away under the blazing sun and leaving scorched dry earth. The film script she knew t
alked of families on the starvation line, heads of households who earned their keep by gathering snails or herbs as the season demanded; entire villages without doctors or schools; peasants paying rent to distant landowners, a rent enforced by gangs of armed men who laid the basis for the Mafia.

  She shrugged as she thought of the misery all this natural beauty veiled. The bus chugged slowly across a narrow bridge beneath which a deep ravine gaped, rivulets pouring down its side. A few more minutes and a bend in the road displayed a steep mountain town, perched in grey-white solitude atop an elephantine slope. The bus pulled up behind the vans and they piled out. Jennie felt a stiff dust-filled breeze whip her hair across her face as she followed the crew up a street which was in reality a dirt path. It led between a row of grey stone houses which seemed to grow higgledy-piggledy out of the earth. Lines of washing flapped in the wind with a strange whipping sound. Dark-eyed urchins came out of the houses to watch them pass and behind the shutters Jennie sensed the fixed staring eyes of women clothed in heavy black. An occasional ragged chicken clucked at them nervously and strayed across their path. To the sides of the houses, goats tied to posts gazed at them with calm unblinking eyes. The air echoed with the crowing of roosters, quite uninterested in the time of day.

  Jennie and Kathy were ushered into a house which was to serve as their work quarters. A cool dark room clear of anything but a table and some straightbacked chairs standing stiffly by the walls had evidently been prepared for them. An olive carved crucifix and a brightly painted Madonna served as the only ornaments. Jennie and Kathy placed their bags on the stone floor and turned to shake hands with a plump woman in a loose print dress who seemed to be the mistress of the house. She was trailed by three small ragamuffins who escaped from behind their mother's skirts to tug at Kathy and Jennie. Jennie reached into her bag and brought out some sweets which she handed to the children after the mother had nodded approval. Smiles beamed the children's faces and they protested as their mother scuttled them out of the room. They refused to go further than the doorway, gaping at the strangers' every movement with bright eyes.

  A stern male voice intervened to order them away. Jennie tried to gesture that the children's presence wouldn't disturb them. The owner of the voice came in to greet them and explain that the children were better off out of doors. Much to Jennie and Kathy's surprise, he spoke in accented but distinct American English. He was an old man whose taut brown skin was etched with wrinkles. When they expressed relief that he spoke English, he explained that in his youth he had lived in the United States. Jennie and Kathy smiled at each other.

  'A little eerie how all this duplicates our script exactly,' Jennie whispered to Kathy when he had left the room.

  'Derek obviously did his homework,' said Kathy, just as their host returned with two cups of bitterly strong coffee. They thanked him and Jennie set to work arranging her supplies on the table. She had only just finished when she made out Daniela and Arno's voices outside the house. They came in, effusively greeting everyone, chucking the children under the chin. Behind them a crew member arrived carrying wardrobe cases.

  Jennie set to work as soon as Kathy had finished dressing Daniela. There would be a lot of people to make up today and although she knew the work was being shared with some Italian crew members, it was still a hefty load.

  'The shooting script calls for a young hag today, Jennie,' Daniela grimaced, 'so leave me as natural as you dare!'

  Jennie tried a smile. Daniela was obviously in good spirits today. Yet Jennie couldn't prevent her own resentment from rising in her. She pulled Daniela's electric hair back more roughly than usual into a tight bun and then stopped her childish flare of temper and concentrated on her task. She made the actress up only minimally, toning her features down into an austere sensuality.

  Daniela looked at herself in the small mirror Jennie had taken out of her case. 'Yes, that will do perfectly,' she said, obviously pleased at the result. 'I wonder how Giancarlo will like me. We brought him along for today's shooting. And my mother. You must meet her later, Jennie. Derek,' she added pointedly, 'is very fond of her.'

  Daniela left, to be replaced by Arno and then a string of others. By ten o'clock when Jennie had finished her first round, she felt thoroughly drained. She walked out, startled by the glare of the bright sunlight after the shade of the house, and made for the crowd she saw a little distance away. All the women and children of the village seemed to be gathered round, the older ones knitting or sewing and pretending a stern lack of curiosity; the younger ones openly excited by the unusual events. In the distance on a rugged slope of hill, Jennie made out a group of men gathered as if for a public meeting, Arno in their midst waving his arms and declaiming. Jennie laughed. They made an odd spectacle, surrounded as they were by the numerous technicians. Artifice looked strangely more real here than reality. Much of the village, Jennie realised, must be serving as extras. She looked round slowly. Little would have to be changed. There were no television aerials to take down, few cars to remove to ensure period flavour. Still caught in a distant moment of time, the village was a perfect location choice.

  She wandered around a little aimlessly until she came upon Daniela rehearsing a scene with three small children, being put through their paces by Piero. They were gathering dandelions in a field, Daniela presumably instructing them as to the choicest. An older woman, but still very much in her prime, was standing next to Giancarlo and watching. From time to time she shouted instructions in a throaty voice to Daniela, who laughed.

  When she saw Jennie, she stopped and called out, 'Meet my mother. She thinks she's replacing Matthew as director. It's true she knows more about dandelions, let alone about acting.'

  The older woman turned and shook Jennie's hand. 'Bellissima!' she exclaimed. 'You are the make-up lady Daniela has mentioned to me.' Her English was deliberately slow, but perfect, as if her tongue were remembering inflections. Jennie returned her smile and nodded. She immediately sensed she liked the older woman with her bold, open face, a casual but elegant print dress loosely clothing her girth.

  'My daughter,' the older woman said conspiratorially, 'will be a good actress one of these days, perhaps when she stops being so, how do you say it in English, so sexy. But I think this is perhaps her best film. That Derek Hunter is an intelligent scriptwriter. There are not too many around these days.'

  Giancarlo tugged at her arm as he heard the name Derek.

  'The little one is impatient. Derek has promised to show him how one of the bandit's guns works. Perhaps you could show him what you carry around in your case, it will keep him occupied.'

  Jennie opened her make-up case and in gestures asked Giancarlo if he would like to have some of the colours applied to his face. His grandmother amplified and the little boy's face broke into a wide grin. He shouted something excitedly to his grandmother.

  'He would like you to turn him into a bandit.'

  'Why not?' said Jennie, and set herself to transforming the little boy into a melodramatic silent film version of a villain.

  When she showed him his reflection in her small pocket mirror, he shouted with glee. Jennie found herself giggling at the sight and promising to return later, to wash off moustache and heavy eyebrows, she wandered towards the slope where the public meeting was being filmed. They might need her there. She covered the short distance to the site, being careful to keep well out of camera range, and found a perch on a grassy knoll nearby. As she looked around, she caught sight of Derek standing tall on the edges of the crowd. She had managed to keep him out of her mind since yesterday, but now as she saw him standing tall in snug jeans, his face intent in concentration, her heart lurched. She forced her eyes away on to the vista in front of her, and after a few minutes stood up again to wander around restlessly. She must keep her mind off Derek. There was no question of even attempting to replace Daniela in his affections. Daniela, who was so beautiful, so successful. And with that wonderful mother, Jennie thought suddenly. An image of her
stepfather sprang to her mind from nowhere, engulfing her in shame. Yes, far better to keep herself away from Derek—if she could manage it—before she allowed herself to grow irrevocably involved. It would minimise the pain of finding herself slighted by him.

  She bumped into Kathy on one of the small paths leading back to the village. 'Come and see the man who plays Daniela's grandson,' she said excitedly. 'He's exquisitely handsome.'

  Jennie followed Kathy up the path to one of the village houses in front of which Daniela and a young man were rehearsing one of the most important moments in the script. Jennie remembered it well from a preliminary reading. The grandson, a youth of about twenty, was a member of a terrorist group akin to the Red Brigade. He had moved from Sicily to some northern town, and in trouble, he had now come home. The scene showed him trying to explain, first to his grandmother and then to his grandfather, that in fact his ideas, even his actions, were a direct outgrowth of theirs. What he was fighting against and for was no different from what they had fought for.

  Jennie looked at the youth's brooding eyes, the intensity of his features and gestures as he spoke to his grandmother; the restlessness of his movements as he paced in front of the house.

  'Perfect casting,' she whispered to Kathy. 'He's ideal for the part.'

  'And so dishy. One look from him and I'm a lost woman,' Kathy groaned theatrically. 'And I'm responsible for dressing him!'

  They watched the scene intently and though it was being spoken in Italian, Jennie felt she understood every word. The actor's voice, she knew, would be dubbed in and synchronised later, like most of this location work.

  She was so wrapped up in watching that it was only after the scene was over that she noticed Derek standing a little away from them. He went up to greet the actor and Daniela, and spoke rapidly to them in Italian. The young actor let out an abrupt laugh and clapped his hands together as if Derek had just given him some droll insight. Jennie watched for a moment longer and then withdrew to the cool of her room. Despite the resolutions she had made to herself earlier, she was piqued at Derek's total obliviousness to her presence. Better not to be near him, she determined again, as she sipped the cold drink her host proffered.