by Alison Bond
Ruby’s heart, which had been twisting like a sapling in the wind, sang out. He was here alone. The Catholic was getting divorced, the marriage must have been an utter disaster. He was practically single. She struggled to control her voice. It would not do to let him see how this news affected her emotions; she needed to stay calm. So even though she had a thousand other questions on her lips she adopted a breezy tone. ‘I thought you said you’d never live in Los Angeles?’
There was a moment of surprise on his face that he quickly suppressed. Ruby felt a sharp thrill of triumph. He had expected more reaction. ‘It would just be for a while. I intend to make a film.’
‘Good for you.’ She hoped she’d laced her voice with the right amount of condescending syrup. Enough to unsettle him but not enough to enrage him. ‘But don’t pin your hopes on this house,’ she said. Where’s the estate agent?’
‘Inside,’ said Dante. ‘I wanted a moment alone with this view.’
‘Beautiful, isn’t it? It’ll be mine,’ she said.
He was staring at her curiously. He was seeing the results of her marriage to Andrew. Everything about her glowed from a combination of expensive beauty treatments and Hollywood power, albeit spousal privilege. The change in her went far deeper than the exquisite lines of her raven hair, styled every two weeks by a French wizard, or the custom-blended shade of smoky grey that made her eyes look like snowflakes on the sea. She had a resilient edge that said, don’t waste my time. She was more confident, and it didn’t matter that she had to fake her poise to hide her nerves; she could reach within herself to find some strength and that was good enough, it was more than she’d been able to do the last time they’d seen each other. A lonely marriage had made her stronger.
She returned his stare full on and waited for him to speak first. She spelt his name backwards in her head to calm her mind and stop her from blurting out any of the thoughts that were swimming there.
‘Good to see you, Ruby.’
‘You too.’
‘Don’t be too sure about this house,’ he said. ‘I love it.’
I love you too, A rush of sexual desire hit Ruby right between the thighs. As she walked away from him she concentrated on counting her footsteps so that she wouldn’t look back. It was all about power.
‘Ruby?’
She turned slowly, adopting a look of casual nonchalance. What more could there be to say?
‘It was meant to happen, this, today. Here. I was meant to find you.’
Ruby laughed, a carefree waterfall of a laugh that mocked his utter sincerity. ‘It’s a coincidence,’ she said. ‘Don’t read too much into it.’
She threw a final ‘See you around’ over her shoulder as she walked inside. It was torture but she knew that this was the only way.
The house had a ramshackle charm that she thought Andrew would hate. Ruby walked from room to room in a dream, hardly listening to the eager estate agent who was somewhat overcome by showing the house to such a famous film star’s wife. From the top window Ruby looked down on to the beach, searching for a last glimpse of Dante, but he was gone. No matter, Ruby knew she would see him again.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said, interrupting the agent’s boring explanation of the ageing heating system.
She made an inflated offer, to be sure to best any others on the table, though she wasn’t sure she needed to bother; she could tell that the agent was almost giddy with the prospect of selling a property to big Hollywood names. Ruby would pay for it out of her own money even if it took every last penny she had. Andrew wouldn’t even need to know that she had this bolthole by the sea. This was her place, her sanctuary. The idea of having something that she did not have to share with him excited her. Not for the first time she thought about divorce. Then she remembered the look on Dante’s face and was glad she had a wedding band as armour against the effect he had on her.
She stepped out on to the terrace where he had stood and tried to trace the pattern of his feet with hers. Was it too much to hope that one day they might live here together? Seeing him again was all the proof she needed that he was the man she was supposed to share her life with. She loved him. All she needed to do was find the patience to let him come to her, to let him dominate. The connection between them was so intense that she could still feel his energy enveloping her. She could never let this house go to anyone else. It was everything to her. It had brought Dante back into her life. Ruby believed in destiny. She often looked to the world to provide her with signs and preferred to base her feelings on instinct, not reason. It was comforting to believe in a predestined path and so blame life’s disappointments on fate and not circumstance. And when something good happened, Ruby did not congratulate herself but felt favoured by the powers that be. The world had sent Dante into her orbit once more and their two courses had collided.
The next couple of weeks were agonizing. She wouldn’t allow herself to start thinking of finding him. He must find her or it would come to nothing. Dante liked to be in control. He was the hunter. Andrew, when he was around, was of no more distraction than a fly. She was even able to enjoy making love to him by closing her eyes and thinking of Dante.
The day she woke up and felt that she would crack, maybe contact Sean and try to discover where Dante was staying, was the day he made contact.
Max invited Ruby to lunch.
‘It’s the lead part,’ he said. ‘The script’s interesting, risky… but there’s something you should know.’
‘It’s Dante’s film,’ she said.
‘But how did you…?’ Max was flabbergasted. He’d been thinking that he was going to have to do a whole song-and-dance routine to get her to consider it. Hadn’t Dante Valentine once broken her heart? It was just the kind of film he’d been looking for. Something powerful and edgy with a serious director. For ‘serious’ read ‘European’; he hated to admit it but they were the most interesting guys to hit town for years, directors whose inspiration was not entrenched in Americana. Polanski, Vadim, Coppola: these men knew how to tell a story. Dante Valentine’s call had come at just the right time. If they started quickly Ruby could do his film back-to-back with the new comedy and have a year in the spotlight in fabulously diverse roles.
Ruby smiled enigmatically. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘You can kill him on the deal. I’m the only one he wants.’
*
Andrew hated the idea. Mainly because in a number of scenes Ruby had to show a lot of skin.
‘People will find out you used to date him,’ he whined. ‘How is that gonna make me look?’
‘It’s not about you,’ she said, forgetting that in the world of Andrew Steele it was always about him.
‘I forbid you,’ he said. ‘You’re my wife and I forbid you.’
She laughed in his face.
Ruby left Max with instructions to oversee the purchase of the beach house. She didn’t tell Andrew.
By the time she got on a plane to go and star in Dante Valentine’s English language debut, Andrew and Ruby were no longer on speaking terms.
15
After the success of his debut film in Italy Dante could have asked for any actress in the world, yet he had asked for Ruby. He wanted her. And if he had to play out some crazy power pantomime in order to humiliate her before he took her back into his arms, well then, she would let him. It was the way it was meant to be.
The job was difficult from the moment she stepped off the plane. It was a small airport in the middle of nowhere, though it claimed to be upstate New York. The nearest thing of note was the Appalachian Trail, and the town it served was only big enough to sustain two flights a week, three when the local college breaks began and students fled like freed prisoners to the delights of the city.
There was no one at the airport to meet her. Confused, and after so long with Andrew’s army of assistants at her side, Ruby was unsure how she should proceed. Her ignorance made her feel vulnerable. Ruby wasn’t stupid and she didn’t like the uncertainty that o
verwhelmed her when she felt as though she was.
She called Max in Los Angeles but it was too early for him to be in the office and she didn’t know his home number. She would have to ask him for it the next time they spoke. Eventually she caught a cab into town and asked to be taken to the best hotel there was. After a light breakfast in her room she called Max again, reached him this time, and asked for his assistance. By lunch a car had been sent to take her to where she was supposed to be, a much shabbier hotel on the outskirts of town with trucks roaring by and the strong smell of rubber drifting over from a nearby factory. By dinnertime she still hadn’t seen Dante.
Something must have happened, she thought. Have they recast my part without telling me? Have they postponed the shoot and forgotten to let me know? She was so excited about this script and about working with Dante that if it was suddenly taken away from her she didn’t know if she could cope. Could the world really be that unkind? She would have to return home to Andrew and to Max who would each have their own version of the I-told-you-so speech.
It was thirty-six mystifying hours later that Dante finally put in an appearance. Hassled and erratic, he raced in as she was eating her second dinner alone.
‘They told me you checked yourself into the Washington Hotel?’
‘What was I supposed to do? There was nobody there.’
‘Let me tell you one thing, try and get this into your head. This is not a luxury hotel kind of film. This isn’t some beach party with cameras; this is drama, passion and pain. If you don’t think you can handle it, you should say so now. It’s not going to be easy.’
All the crew hated her, he said, and the rest of the cast. To them she was a studio starlet and nothing more, a piece of fluff twenty years too late for her time. He’d shouldered all their criticism of his choice, he said, because he thought Ruby could do better. In time maybe they’d be proved right and Ruby would, as they predicted, turn this precious film into a dog, but he was willing to take that chance. It was up to her, he said, to prove that she was a good actress, not just a pretty face.
He was actually being kind of mean. His tone was cruel. Was it awful that it sent a shiver of excitement down her spine?
The film was set in a cabin deep in the woods. The story started simply enough: Ruby played a woman on a weekend break with her husband and his two male friends. What happened later, the psychological torture of the woman, her escape into the woods and her subsequent descent into madness, was a powerful interpretation of rape. The dialogue was visceral; the actors she would work with were highly respected. It was the sort of opportunity Ruby had been waiting for and nothing like the work she had done in the past.
‘If you can’t cut it, you’re out,’ Dante said. ‘I won’t find it hard to fire you.’
She had been supremely confident, but he was making her feel as though she might fail. ‘You won’t have to,’ she said.
‘A car will collect you tomorrow and take you to set. Be ready.’
Ruby slept poorly that night, concerned that he might have turned dead against her, but when the car arrived she was ready.
Nobody had ever talked to her like that before. From her parents, to Max, to Andrew, Ruby had always been spoilt. It was unsettling but it wasn’t impossible… she could handle it. Dante obviously needed to work through whatever grudge he had against her. Besides, she used to like it when he was rough with her.
When her car reached the remote location Ruby noticed immediately that she was the only woman. There wasn’t a single female makeup artist, or caterer, or anything. Just dozens of men. The atmosphere was coarse without the softening touch of a female presence. Crude language flew over her head, raucous laughter at a joke she did not hear, a makeshift shooting alley set up in the backyard with a rusty rifle and live ammo, voices shouting when there was no need to shout. Nobody paid her any attention. Dante was right. They did hate her.
‘You made it then,’ he said, checking the silver watch on his wrist. ‘No time to introduce you to the guys, we’ve got to start right now or we’ll miss the morning light. Scene forty-eight. Get into costume. Let’s go.’
She didn’t seem to have a dressing room; there was a tent with a rack of costumes and she had to find it herself. A pair of jeans, that was all. Scene forty-eight required her to be topless. She met her co-stars with her tits on display.
The scene was short – her character was seen half-naked by a friend of her husband’s – but Dante laboured over it. She stood around between takes, her arms folded across her nudity. Nobody offered her a blanket. This wasn’t Mexico. The men chatted among themselves and Ruby felt snubbed.
After they had finished she was desperate for a pee. She looked in vain for a proper dressing room or trailer but there was only one large Winnebago to service the entire cast and crew.
‘Where do I go to the bathroom?’ she asked.
The assistant director pointed. ‘In there, with everyone else. Do you think you can handle that, honey?’ he sneered.
She didn’t have to take this. If people wanted to be rude to her that was up to them, if they had decided that they didn’t like her then she couldn’t stop them, but she didn’t have to react like a victim.
‘So this is what they call low budget? I’ve always wondered.’ She cast her eyes around, taking in the dilapidated trailer and the whooping round of high-fives over at the slapdash rifle range. She finished by looking the AD up and down with her most withering glance. ‘Classy.’
She swept past him into the tiny bathroom and locked the door behind her. She took her time, spending almost an hour making sure that her eyebrows were identically shaped and free from rogue hairs, smoothing down her hair, massaging her face, trying out facial exercises she’d read that Liz Taylor swore by, and when she ran out of things to do, she just stared at herself in the mirror. A few people knocked but she ignored them. She would share. But she didn’t have to be considerate.
The following day there was a bathroom just for Ruby.
Making Disturbance was the most harrowing experience of Ruby’s life. Invariably each degrading day of shooting ended for her in quiet despair. She would sit in some half-hidden corner of the tiny set, powerless against the tides of sobs that washed her face clean. She felt as if her spirit was being wrenched from safe moorings and cast out to a violent sea. For an hour or more she would shiver there and, on Dante’s instruction, nobody would comfort her. She didn’t know if she was good enough.
She grew to resent Dante, adding hatred to the myriad of emotions that he inspired in her. As a director he was worthless, giving her little or no help with her character. As a man he was worse. He obviously harboured a deep resentment towards women and his misogyny was wearing her down. But something always stopped her. There was no denying that Disturbance would be a frighteningly powerful film, and in spite of herself she respected his total refusal to compromise his vision. At night, after the tears had dried, she found the resilience to face each new day.
Was this his way of punishing her for leaving him? Did he expect to break her? She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. In a perverse way she was excited by the challenge. Ruby’s upbringing had held no place for emotional excess and for the first time she discovered a seemingly limitless potential for feeling, as long as she was faking it. She explored the darkest parts of her psyche to identify with her character and relished it. The despair she found and nurtured could only be matched in its intensity by the passion she had once felt for Dante. And so the two things became inextricably linked. Coupled with the recreational drugs that floated around the set like bowls of candy, the whole experience was genuinely mind-expanding. She might even have enjoyed it if she had had someone to share it with.
At last acting felt like real hard work. Everything else ceased to matter: her home, her husband, even her relationship with Dante. There was no time in her schedule and no space in her head to think about the future. She could no longer see Dante in a romantic light; he became the ene
my, someone to wage war against each day. But her fight did not displace her desire. She wanted him still, but in a different way. She grew obsessed with trying to please him. She seized upon any words he threw her way on set as if she was a hungry dog and once, when he almost praised her, she felt so happy and swollen with pride that it was hard to concentrate on her bleak character at all.
No matter how awful he was to her, or how much pain he put her through, she trusted him and would do anything for him. She thought she understood him more every day.
Dante’s total perfectionism meant that filming inevitably started to fall behind. The film was weeks over schedule. The financiers were firing off memos every day demanding instant solutions, threatening to withdraw what little support Dante and the film had left.
After a particularly gruelling day Ruby returned to her hotel to find two urgent messages: one from her agent and one from her husband. She called Max first.
‘You sound awful,’ he said.
‘I’m fine.’ Her throat was on fire from an afternoon shooting a scene the sound guys liked to refer to as ‘when the bitch screams’ and her head was stuffy following the customary session of sobs to release the tension.
‘We have an issue,’ said Max. We’re starting to come up on the prep dates for Viva Romance 2.’
‘Tell me that’s not what they’re calling it,’ she said.
‘Until they come up with something better,’ said Max. ‘How’s it going out there? The end in sight?’
‘I can’t see it. What’s the problem? Can’t the studio just delay?’
‘It doesn’t work like that. If they bump Romance they’d have to bump everything that came after it. They’d sooner shelve it.’
‘So let them shelve it.’
‘It’s not that simple. Ruby, you signed a contract.’
