by Victoria Fox
I can’t say it. I can’t think it.
Shoving my phone back in my bag, I head to the library, so focused on the distraction it will give me that I almost trip up the steps to the entrance.
It’s open late, quiet, studious, deliciously private. As I settle into a booth with a stack of archives, I turn my phone to vibrate, and read Bill’s message again:
Spill, then – who is she? What’s she like? Xxx
Today’s encounter with Signora has set me on edge. Horrible, I start to write back, horrible and rude and weird. Why did I come here? Why did I let you convince me? But I delete the draft. I don’t want to admit the truth to Bill – that the woman I spoke to is hard and cold, cruel and dismissive, but that for some insane reason I’m drawn to her, fascinated by her, and I feel connected to her in a way I can’t express. I need to know who she is. I need to know why she’s cut herself off.
Just like me.
I’ve become protective of my quarantine. Connecting to the outside world makes me panic that I’m about to learn drastic news. It’ll be Bill, or one of my sisters, or my dad, or some random on Facebook I haven’t spoken to in years, emailing me about the exposure at home. I can see it now; rehearsed the way it might unfold so many times. Lucy, what the hell? Is it true? Or perhaps, simply: It’s started.
As ever, temptation lingers to check the websites, Google his name, his wife’s name, see if anything new has cropped up, but I have to trust that Bill would tell me first. She doesn’t reference it, doesn’t even mention it, and I know she’s being kind. She’s trying to help me forget. How could I forget? I can’t. I decide to click the phone off altogether, instructing myself instead to the task at hand. In this, at least, I can distance myself from my plight. However challenging I’ve found the Barbarossa so far, it’s at least proved a change of scene – and however obstructive its owner, she’s given me a diversion. Something happened at that house. I sense it in the walls, the shadows and the dark. From Adalina’s secrecy and Salvatore’s madness. From the voice behind the door; from the noises in the attic, the cold and the quiet…
Something happened.
I begin by looking up the castillo on the library’s bank of computers. A quick search reveals nothing of its possessor, but the local records surrender more. It’s all in Italian so I run a quick translate – the rendition isn’t perfect, but it’s enough, and soon the story is forming. I scan the text, tracing reports back to the earliest point I can find: 1980, when she moved here from America. Her arrival had caused a stir.
Tuscany welcomes home its son, renowned doctor Giovanni ‘Gio’ Moretti, and his wife, Hollywood actress Vivien Lockhart, to the Castillo Barbarossa in Fiesole. The pair married last month in a romantic ceremony in Los Angeles and now return to Italy, according to their spokesperson, ‘to begin family life in a more peaceful setting’. Moretti will be engaged in a top-secret research project, for which he was privately selected, while Lockhart is said to be taking a break from her movie career…
So that was she. Of course it was. Vivien. Seeing the name in front of me, it seems obvious. Her fame was before my time, a bright brief spark in the seventies, but I’m sure Mum had her films on video when I was growing up, and in my mind’s eye I catch a flash of what she used to look like. Even the sound of her voice, lilting, seductive, embroidered with heavenly promise. It doesn’t match the voice I heard today. That voice was coarse with suffering. As if a demon had got inside her…
Moretti’s younger sister, about whom little is known, accompanies the couple; the trio are said to be close, and are ‘looking forward to facing a new start together’. Signor Giacomo Dinapoli, the siblings’ uncle, owned the fifteenth-century Castillo Barbarossa for many years before his death…
I read on, but the relevance to Vivien thins out and it becomes more about the house. I flip to the next article relating to her name, then the next and the next. I’m spoiled for information about the Barbarossa but there is little about its inhabitants. Was Giovanni Moretti the man whose portrait I saw on the staircase? I recall his unusual eyes, the insistence in his glare, and how quickly Adalina steered me on. And who was the sister? Why was she with them? There are items about parties thrown at the mansion, lavish, colourful affairs, a masked ball at Halloween, an annual occasion for which the Barbarossa is, or was, famous, but I’m unable to scratch beneath the surface and uncover what I’m hungry for. What am I hungry for – a scandal to put my own in the shade? Some act that Vivien committed, or was committed to her, that makes mine seem incidental, or not so bad? I try another search, marvel at her glamorous black and white headshots, magazine covers, Vivien laughing at parties where the vintage glitterati sip from teardrops of champagne and smoke Cuban cigars; screen grabs from her movies where she resembles a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Katharine Hepburn, and there is something familiar about her, a face I feel I met in another life, long-lost now. I Wikipedia her, but the material on her personal life is scarce. She was born in South Carolina, a religious upbringing then the move to LA, the swift soar to fame, leading to her marriage to Giovanni and the relocation to Europe.
After that, nothing… the trail ends.
Only, it doesn’t. I know it doesn’t.
Abandoning the web, there is one more thing I unearth in the district papers. It’s an account dated from November 1989.
… Furthermore to our report on last year’s tragedy at the Castillo Barbarossa, La Gazzetta can reveal that one-time actress Vivien Lockhart is now living alone at the mansion, having been abandoned by her husband. Signora Lockhart has not been seen in weeks and has become confined. One wonders what effect, both mental and physical, she suffered after the events that took place last winter. We send her our well wishes for recovery – as well as for her reconciliation with Signor Moretti.
I check back in the documents for La Gazzetta’s write-up from the previous year – but I find nothing. No other files under Vivien Lockhart.
I’ve reached a dead end.
‘Mi scusi, signora, ma stiamo chiudendo.’
The librarian distracts me from my thoughts. I look at the time. It’s gone ten. How have I spent three hours looking at this stuff, and not even noticed?
‘Grazie,’ I reply, gathering my things.
The library is deserted, the wooden booths empty. At the front desk, a woman is checking books back in, and smiles at me as I pass. I’m heading down the stairs to the street when I hear footsteps behind me, matching mine perfectly. I slow. So do the footsteps. I start again, quickening my pace. Whoever is behind me follows suit.
My pulse speeds up.
I’m relieved to reach the normality of the real world, but don’t stop until I am safely across the road and swept up in the crowd. A carnival is unfolding, the beat of a deep drum surging the revellers forward through the streets, flags held aloft, faces painted, and I duck into a doorway to catch myself. Only then do I look behind.
I’m in time to see a man watching me. My eyes go straight to him, though he is surrounded, as if I always knew I’d find him there. Perhaps it is because he is standing totally still, like a rock in furiously churning water. His face is obscured, I cannot make him out, but I would put him at a little older than me; he’s broad, dark, and staring right back. Immediately, I know who he is. I’ve always known.
They found me. It was only a matter of time before they did.
I turn and rush through the bleeding, blinding streets, weaving flames and hollering voices, desperate now to get back to the Barbarossa, frightened of what lies behind me but frightened, too, of what waits for me there.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vivien, Los Angeles, 1978
Vivien Lockhart rolled over in the warm glow of Californian sunshine, and stretched inside satin sheets. Outside, the green ocean sighed, waves lapping against a golden shore. What day was it? Ah, yes, an important one. Tonight, she would accept her first Leading Lady Award at the annual Actors Alliance. Everyone knew it was in the bag – her recent t
urn in the mega-hit Angels at War was unrivalled: she was a tour de force, a masterclass, a vision to behold, and the only way was up. Vivien was the brightest star in Hollywood. She had it all, everything she had fantasised about and more. Every studio wanted to work with her, every designer wanted to dress her, every rising starlet wanted to be her. Oh, and every man wanted to bed her.
‘Hey, baby…’
The model-slash-actor she’d brought back last night reached for her: bronzed arms, a mane of jet hair like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. She couldn’t remember his name. No doubt this was, for him, the start of some grand love affair.
‘Screw, is that the time?’ Vivien swung out of bed and headed for the shower; she had brunch with her agent at ten. ‘I gotta get ready. Dandy’ll kill me if I’m late.’
‘You don’t want breakfast?’ The model-slash-actor was disappointed.
‘No.’ She smiled sweetly at him. ‘By the time I’m done, I want you out.’
*
She bagged the award, of course. It had never belonged to anyone else. As Vivien went to collect her gong and deliver her speech, she reflected on the glittering crowds gazing up at her from the ranks. Envy on the women’s faces; lust on the men’s. Vivien’s crown was untoppleable: her beauty and talent were second to none.
‘Don’t you think you oughtta slow down a little?’ Dandy asked as they took a car to the after party off Broadway. Vivien unscrewed the cap off a Chambord miniature – her third. But that wasn’t counting the brandy.
She drained it. ‘Say what?’
‘You’ll be drunk.’
‘Haven’t I earned it?’
‘The night’s not over yet. You’re still on the clock.’
‘And I’m still fine.’
Dandy knew better than to press the issue. As Vivien applied lipstick, she decided that if it was a choice between the warm burn of alcohol in her throat and any approval Dandy could offer, she would choose the alcohol every time. For many years, she’d been dead against it – her father had been enough to put her off. But these days, it was all that would do. It kept her moving and stopped her thinking; it sped the days and nights along like a leaf in a rushing stream, never pausing or getting caught.
That was her motto: Keep going, keep striving. Looking back never did anyone any favours. Learn your lessons and wear them like armour.
Their car pulled up outside the warehouse venue. Owned by Warhol, inside it was a tropical, decadent paradise of exquisite creatures. Vivien was regaled on entering, the Halston jersey dress she had changed into after the ceremony admired and revered, her shimmering trophy marvelled at as if she held the sun in her hands.
‘Congratulations, Vivien,’ ‘Darling, well done,’ ‘Oh, you look ravishing!’
Compliments fell about her like rain. Dandy steered her through as best he could but everyone wanted to stop and take her hand, tell her how much they adored her and what a stunning performance she had achieved, hoping to delay her long enough that a paparazzo would pass and take their picture together and it would appear in the glossies in the morning. Fame was contagious, or so they hoped. Vivien was the golden lamp: touch her arm and she might just make their wish come true.
Her own wishes, of course, had come bountifully to fruition. Perhaps that was why, amid the clamour of appreciation, Vivien could only see the hollow truth beneath. These people had got her wrong. They imagined her to be the girl Dandy sold to the press – a butter-wouldn’t-melt ingénue who had walked into a Burt Sanderson audition one balmy afternoon and claimed the part she was born to play.
Nobody knew about her sordid beginnings, her violent father or her shameful work-for-tips at Boudoir Lalique. She was determined it would stay that way.
The hours passed in a haze of booze, drugs and dance. Vivien moved across the spotlit floor, disco balls shattering kaleidoscopic light and she was in one man’s arms and then another’s and then another’s, each of them faceless, nameless. She thought about the girls she had known in Claremont and at the Lalique – what did they make of her celebrity? Did they respect her, or pity her? Did they wish for the studs in her bed or did they have husbands of their own, children, families?
Vivien wondered if she herself would ever have a family. The one she’d left behind had injured her so badly that she vowed never to be beholden to one again. Besides, she was too sullied. These men thought they wanted her, and they did for a night, a week, a month – but for always? No. Not once they saw the hidden scars.
She was drifting to the bar when a voice pierced her from behind.
‘Hello, Vivien.’
It was like being stabbed in the back by a thin, sharp blade.
Not you. Please, not you.
‘Jonny Laing,’ she forced herself to answer. ‘What a surprise.’
She should have been more careful. She had checked tonight’s list and he hadn’t been on it, but clearly he’d managed to slide his way in, insidious, horrible, Jonny all over. She’d got sloppy; she had to be smarter. Vivien avoided her adversary at all costs, for the mere sight of him chilled her. Jonny relished the cards he held: even after all this time, he still believed he could have her. He believed that one day she would capitulate and he would get a return on his investment. The higher her star climbed, the more of a payout it would deliver. Tonight, she was stratospheric.
‘It seemed a shame not to congratulate you,’ said Jonny acidly. ‘You’re a hard woman to get hold of these days. To think of the partnership we once had…’
Vivien was desperate to shake him off, scrub herself down and erase any trace of him. Her heart galloped and her lungs strained. Everywhere she turned, her fellow luminaries appeared grotesque, made up like circus clowns, laughing and roaring.
Jonny held the key to her downfall. Imagine if they found out…
‘Leave me alone,’ she forced out. ‘Please. I’ll do anything.’
‘Anything?’ He grinned. ‘You know what I want.’
Vivien shook. Even if she did sleep with him, he would never leave her alone.
‘Never,’ she croaked. ‘Not that.’
‘Then we’re stuck.’
‘I’ve got money. You can have it. I’ll pay back every cent—’
He laughed, horribly. ‘Come on, Vivien, listen to yourself.’
‘I won’t sleep with you, Jonny.’
He licked his lips, slow, tantalising.
‘Come along, sweetheart, you never know – you might even enjoy it.’
‘Go to hell.’
‘Remember I know about you,’ he said. ‘I know everything.’
It took all her will not to spit in his face. She was trapped – as trapped as she’d been back in Claremont, hiding in her bedroom awaiting the sting of her father’s belt.
‘Jump off a cliff, you bastard,’ she said.
Vivien stepped away but he seized her arm, just as he had that day in his office. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, the world spiralling out of control. Twisting from him, she lost her balance and stumbled, fell, was caught—
‘Oops!’ Suddenly Dandy was with them, holding her up. ‘Let’s get out of here, shall we, darling?’ Casual smiles for their observers; it was nothing, a long day and an exciting night; he’d spin it right in the morning. ‘Come along, Viv.’
Grateful, she allowed herself to be led. And she heard Jonny’s parting hiss:
‘I’ll tell the world, Vivien… if you don’t give it to me.’
*
Over the coming weeks, Vivien lay low. She became a recluse in her apartment, too paranoid to go out but at the same time afraid to stay in: afraid of the bell ringing or the phone going, and Jonny reiterating his menace. She ignored calls from Dandy.
How had it come to this? All the glitter and fortune she had longed for, and yet at its heart a whistling void. She felt invisible, a ghost girl, not really here.
She drank to escape the pain. And one Friday night, things came to a head.
She had started with one
gin, the alcohol rushing to her head, making her eyes sting. Next time she looked, the bottle was empty. That was the way of it, great blackouts, time losses she couldn’t account for. Just as she was nodding off on the couch, the telephone rang, startling her. Bleary-eyed, forgetting, she reached for it.
‘Hullo?’
‘Vivien, it’s your aunt, Celia.’
Vivien sat, rubbing her eyes, her blotted brain struggling to kick into gear. She hadn’t heard from Celia since… well, since she’d left. Since the last Sunday service they had both attended in Claremont. The woman’s voice severed her.
‘I’m afraid I have bad news,’ Celia went on. ‘Your mother is dead. The funeral is on Sunday. Your father told me not to bother but I thought you’d want to know.’
The conversation must have continued after that, but Vivien played no conscious part in it. When Celia hung up, she dropped the phone. She drank more. She stared her image down in the mirror and when she could stand it no longer she punched the glass, cracking it like a beautiful mosaic. Alcohol – she needed it. She needed to be numb. But there was none left, the cupboards empty, her secret stash under the bed depleted. Only one thing for it: she grabbed the keys to the Mustang.
It was kamikaze to go driving. Directionless, delirious, drunk, Vivien was the last person who should have got behind a wheel. It was a wonder she hadn’t been killed, the newspapers said afterwards, or that she hadn’t killed anyone else.
Vaguely she was aware of heading downtown. Once she had a drink she could work out what she was going to do. Saying farewell to her mother would mean seeing her father again. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Her father had been right. God only did look after the virtuous. She had always been destined for the gates of hell.
The car spun off the road and, after that, only black.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Italy, Summer 2016
It rains all weekend, a damp, flat, rolling sky bursting with pent-up heat.
