Stolen Beginnings

by Susan Lewis

  ‘No. Everyone’s at lunch, as you can see. In fact, I’m just off to get mine. You’re more than welcome to join me if you like, or there’s a bar over there if you’d prefer a drink.’

  ‘A drink sounds like heaven,’ Deidre sighed. ‘Come on, Maddy, you can show me where it is.’

  Marian found Matthew sitting on the steps of Christina Hancock’s winnebago, eating his lunch with Frank and Grace, who were seated at a picnic table the caterers had set out for them.

  ‘Isn’t this a glorious day?’ Grace said, as Marian perched on the steps beside Matthew.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Marian agreed, glancing up at the clear blue sky. ‘Bit cold to be eating al fresco though, isn’t it? Still, either that or the dining bus, and I suppose you’ve made the wiser choice.’

  ‘That’s just about what I reckoned,’ Frank chuckled. Then peering at Marian from beneath his bushy eyebrows, he asked in a low voice, ‘You doing all right out here, are you? I mean, Matthew’s told us about –’ he glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was in earshot, ‘– you calling Meyer.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ Marian answered, wishing that just for a moment she could forget all about it.

  Sensing the way Marian felt, Grace engaged her husband in lighter conversation, and when Bronwen joined them a few minutes later, Marian turned to Matthew and whispered: ‘Madeleine’s agent has just turned up.’

  ‘Really?’ he said, not hiding his surprise. ‘Then let’s hope she stays for a bit. One more person to keep an eye on Madeleine won’t do us any harm, will it?’

  Hazel had seen Bronwen climbing the steps to her cottage, and called her in when she knocked. ‘Manfredo’s grog,’ she groaned, dragging herself up from the lumpy armchair. ‘Trying to sleep off the hangover. They’re not looking for me on the set are they? Aagh!’ she cried, as she bent over to pick up her handbag. ‘Remind me not to make any sudden movements.’

  Bronwen smiled sympathetically and shook her head as Hazel offered her a cigarette. ‘I want to talk to you about Stephanie,’ she said, coming straight to the point. ‘Or, to be more precise, Marian and Matthew.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Hazel sighed, releasing two jets of smoke from her nostrils. ‘A mystery that, is it not?’

  Bronwen perched on the edge of the dilapidated table in front of the window. ‘Has he ever mentioned anything to you about Marian?’

  Hazel shook her head.

  ‘No, me neither – not that I’d have expected him to, really. Do you think there is something going on between them?’

  ‘It certainly looks like it,’ Hazel answered. ‘But why he should rub it in Stephanie’s face like this is simply beyond me. I mean, it’s monstrous.’ She took another puff of her cigarette. ‘It’s a funny old world, isn’t it?’ she mused. ‘There’s you married, me divorced and Stephanie still single, yet not one of us has the answers to a damned thing.’

  ‘But we do know the reason Stephanie’s never married,’ Bronwen said.

  Hazel nodded. ‘And so does Matthew. You know, if I were Stephanie I’d want to claw the damned kid’s eyes out.’

  Bronwen sighed with exasperation. ‘Oh, I don’t know what to do, Hazel. Ever since she’s known him she’s been in love with him. In the years they were apart there was never another man. He, and their shared career, is all she’s ever wanted. And I thought, this time, that it would work out. He seemed just as crazy about her, if not more so. So what’s going on?’

  The silence was heavy and Hazel waved an arm to clear the air of smoke. ‘Do you think there’s anything either of us can do? Should we talk to Matthew, confront him with it?’

  Bronwen shook her head. ‘It’s Stephanie who has to do that, but she won’t. She’s not really fighting this, and that’s what worries me. You see, if he really is in love with Marian and leaves Stephanie again, I’m not sure she’ll be able to get over it this time. So we can’t let her give up Hazel, we just can’t.’

  ‘What!’ Sergio spun round, his black eyes blazing. ‘She has been to see Tarallo, you say? When?’

  ‘Yesterday. And again this afternoon.’ Deidre had already taken an involuntary step back, and now, as he came towards her, she took another.

  His face was lined with fatigue, but for the moment anger had pumped adrenalin into his system. He smashed his fist against an easel, sending it flying across the room and adding to the chaos of his already disordered studio. ‘She is not to go again, do you hear me? You must stop her. Do anything, but she is not to go near the Tarallo family again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Do not ask questions,’ he seethed. ‘Just do as I say. It is Thursday afternoon now, you have only to stop her until tomorrow night. Is that clear?’

  Deidre’s head jerked into a nod. She was still backing away, out of confusion as much as fear. ‘And then?’ she whispered.

  ‘That need not concern you. The arrangements have been made. You can go back to England.’

  ‘Meaning, I have served my purpose?’

  For several seconds Sergio’s face remained obdurate, then slowly it relaxed and a softer light came into his eyes. ‘You make me sound so callous, cara, and I do not mean to be. You are to be my wife soon, is that not what you wanted?’

  ‘You know it is I just wish it didn’t have to happen like this.’

  Gathering her into his arms, he started to cover her face with kisses. ‘I understand your confusion, my love, but soon it will be over and you and I will marry, here in Florence, and we shall be happy and grow old together.’

  ‘But Madeleine . . .’

  ‘Ssh, cara, Madeleine does not matter, it is only you who matter. Tomorrow is for Madeleine, all the tomorrows. Today is for us.’

  She knew it was useless to pursue it, and as his kisses grew steadily more passionate she melted against him. This may be the last time, she told herself; he may never hold me like this again and oh God, I don’t know if I can bear it.

  Later, when he had left for the bottega, she sat amongst the confusion of his apartment, staring into space. Her hand was resting on the telephone, which rang once or twice, but he had told her not to answer it. She didn’t care who it might be, who he was trying to avoid, that wasn’t in her mind at all. She was thinking only about the call she knew she had to make, because she knew now that no matter how much she loved Sergio, nor how much she longed to be his wife, she couldn’t go through with it – not when she didn’t know what was going to happen to Madeleine. She would lose him anyway, a sixth sense had already told her that, and the glittering excitement in his eyes after they had made love – an excitement almost manic in its intensity had confirmed it. So the fact that she was putting her life at risk by making the call hardly mattered now.

  She stared down at the phone. From the way Sergio had behaved when Madeleine turned up on Sardinia, and again just now, she knew that there was only one person who had the answers to her questions, but would he tell her? With dread thumping through her chest and a leaden despair in her heart, she picked up the phone.

  Five minutes later she fell back in the chair. Her hair was dishevelled and her hands shook, but the call had been made and tomorrow she would go to the Tarallo villa. Her eyes were drowned in tears which trickled slowly down her face, curving into her mouth and dripping from her chin. ‘Forgive me, Sergio,’ she sobbed. ‘Please forgive me. I love you. I love you so much that it is breaking my heart, but I just can’t let you take her away.’

  – 28 –

  ‘But it’s perfect,’ Matthew raged, ‘just look at how sinister the place is like this.’

  ‘It’s not my fault the helicopter pilot refuses to go up,’ Stephanie countered. ‘I can’t make him risk his life in fog, can I?’

  ‘Have you offered to pay him more?’

  ‘Of course I have, but he turned it down, and quite frankly I don’t blame him.’

  ‘And quite frankly, neither do I.’ Along with everyone else who was standing on the hillside in the murky morning fog, they burst out lau
ghing. ‘Well, there’s nothing else for it,’ Matthew went on, rubbing his hands together to try and keep them warm, ‘we’ll have to move the unit up to the swimming pool. I want a high shot, and if that’s the highest I’m going to get today, it’ll just have to do.’

  ‘It’s so good of you to compromise,’ Stephanie returned, then covered her ears as he yelled for Woody, and soon the crew were lugging their heavy equipment up over the treacherously steep path to the swimming pool.

  Marian, huddled into her padded anorak and the woolly hat she’d borrowed from the wardrobe department, was leaning against the wall outside her cottage, watching them, when Madeleine crept up behind her and dug her in the ribs. ‘Boo!’ she cried, and laughed as Marian practically leapt from her skin.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ Marian complained irritably.

  ‘Oh honestly, you’re like a bear with a sore head these days. I suppose you were hoping it was Matthew.’

  ‘No, I know where Matthew is, thank you very much, and keep your voice down. Where’s Paul?’

  Madeleine shrugged. ‘I don’t know, gone off somewhere to write, I expect.’

  ‘Are you seeing you-know-who again later?’

  ‘Yep. We’re going on a tour of Florence today – now won’t that be interesting.’

  ‘Maddy, I don’t expect Enrico much likes sight-seeing either, especially as he’s lived here all his life, but he’s bothering to do it to keep you entertained, so you could at least show some appreciation.’

  ‘All right, don’t bite my head off. I’ll let you into a secret, sight-seeing with Enrico is better than listening to Paul bore on about his book – he’s having problems with it and he keeps going on about them. I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t understand what he’s talking about half the time.’

  ‘I wouldn’t let him hear you say that if I were you.’

  ‘Oh God, no. Look, if you’re not working at the moment why don’t we go over to the kitchens and see if Gabriella’s got any hot soup.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be for the crew, Maddy.’

  ‘Oh God, you really are in a bad mood today, aren’t you?’

  Marian managed a smile. ‘OK, soup it is,’ she said, ‘but we’ll take some up to the crew as well.’ And taking Madeleine’s arms she allowed herself to be led off down the steps, saying, ‘How are you getting down to Camaiore to meet him?’

  ‘Oh, someone will give me a lift, they’re up and down all the time.’

  As the kitchen door swung closed behind them, Paul walked out from the narrow alley that ran between the cottages. At first he was tempted to go after them, to drag Madeleine out and beat her with all the savagery that was quaking in his body, but something inside him was telling him that wasn’t the way, and with a supreme effort he wrenched himself round and stumbled up the steps into the cottage. For several minutes he stood with his back against the door, his breath heaving in his lungs and a blinding rage pounding through his head. Tarallo, the bitch was seeing Tarallo. After everything he had done to stop it, now she was seeing him again. Did they think he was so stupid that he didn’t know who they were talking about? How dare they treat him as though he were an imbecile? His fists were clenched so tightly that as he banged them against the wall, his knuckles split and blood poured down his hands. Then, as he raised his face to the ceiling, his top lip curled back over his teeth and his nostrils flared like a wild animal’s. He had never known such purity in his hatred, such venom in his anger – all he had worked for, all he had sacrificed himself for, and now she was betraying him. She was slipping from his control, she was lying to him, cheating on him, laughing at him, and he felt such loathing, such uncontrollable jealousy that he wanted to kill her.

  Eventually he staggered over to the stairs and dragged himself up to the bedroom. He had to think. He had to sit alone and think. He must forget the fact that even now his people were preparing his house for her, he must forget how he had planned to share his life with her, he must forget everything, and think. Concentrate on her betrayal, on the way she had ridiculed him, on her lies and deceit. He must decide what he was going to do. The anger would pass, he just had to wait and then he would know. Then it would all become clear.

  By two thirty in the afternoon the fog was beginning to clear and the sun’s rays striped the hillside in a fan of defiant light; as a result, filming had come to a standstill. ‘Light won’t match,’ Matthew explained to Marian when she wandered out of the production office to find out what was going on, ‘and no one can find the helicopter pilot.’

  ‘So what are you going to do? Where’s everyone going?’ she asked, watching the camera assistants wheel their equipment down the lane on a trolley.

  ‘We’re going down to the autostrada to pick up some driving shots. The intrepid Hazel has managed to come up with a low-loader.’

  ‘You coming down in my car, guv?’ Woody called out as he zoomed past.

  ‘Be right with you,’ Matthew answered.

  ‘Christina’s costume for Day Twelve is still wet,’ Belinda wailed, coming up behind them.

  ‘Then put her in something else,’ Matthew barked. ‘Speak to Beanie, find out how her continuity is for another day.’

  ‘I’ve got my own continuity notes, thank you,’ Belinda retorted hotly.

  ‘Then use them, and we’ll shoot the scenes we can.’

  Belinda threw him a resentful look and turned back up the steps.

  ‘Matthew! Do we need the car with the sun roof or the one without?’ the man from Action Cars called from down on the plateau.

  ‘Speak to Woody,’ Matthew shouted back, then rolling his eyes he took Marian by the arm and led her into the production office, saying, ‘You’d better pick up whatever you need pretty sharpish, or knowing Woody, he’ll go without us.’

  ‘Not without you, surely.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’

  ‘Well, you go on, I’ll follow later with someone from make-up or costume. In fact, I don’t think I’ll come. Those car shots always take for ever, and it’ll be freezing standing on the side of the road.’

  ‘I can’t say I blame you, but we’re all going down. You don’t really want to stay here on your own, do you?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be all right. Frank’s people are in the bar, and besides, I might try to get some sleep.’

  ‘Keeping you awake at night all this, is it?’

  She nodded.

  His face softened, and as he took a step towards her, her heart started to beat faster. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Where’s Madeleine?’

  ‘With Enrico.’

  ‘Good.’ Then putting his head on one side and looking at her with mild amusement, he said, ‘You don’t think there might be something starting up there, do you?’

  ‘I don’t think so, she’s too besotted with Paul.’

  ‘I notice he’s not writing today. Has he finished the book?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. I thought he was in the woods somewhere, fighting it out to the bitter end.’

  ‘He wasn’t an hour ago because I saw him drive off down the hill in that little Panda they’ve hired.’

  ‘Really? I wonder where he was going.’

  Matthew frowned. ‘He doesn’t know anything about Madeleine seeing Enrico, does he?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ Marian laughed. ‘We’ve been very careful to keep that a secret. We don’t even mention his name.’

  He looked pensive for a moment, then turned his eyes back to hers. ‘It can’t go on like this, you know.’ Her eyebrows flickered, but then she smiled ruefully as she realised he was still talking about Madeleine and Paul.

  ‘You’re right, it can’t,’ she said, throwing him a look as she leaned across her desk to pick up a paperback.

  He caught her hand and turned her back to face him. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he murmured, ‘but you’ve got enough on your mind right now without me adding to it. But we will talk, and soon.’ He win
ced as Woody’s voice blasted from a loud-hailer, calling his name. ‘I think I’m wanted,’ he said, with a grin. ‘I’ll see you later, and no wandering into the forest.’

  ‘At least not in a red hood for the nasty big wolf to get me.’

  Laughing and shaking his head, he turned and walked out of the office, leaving her with a storm of emotions hammering in her chest.

  At the wheel of her hired Fiat Deidre drove slowly, looking out at the rugged countryside and bleakly wondering how much of it belonged to the Tarallos. Probably all of it, she decided, as she passed acre after acre of vineyards and olive groves; they were one of Italy’s wealthiest families.

  When she reached the black iron gates with the Tarallo crest, she got out of the car and pressed the bell. A few seconds later the gates swung open, and it was only as she drove through them that she noticed the camera, almost hidden behind a gargoyle on top of the red brick wall.

  The drive, which was shorter than she’d expected, was covered in autumn leaves, but the gardens on either side were immaculate: stone and marble statues, fountains and waterfalls, topiaried hedges bordering the flowerbeds. There were no flowers now, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine how exquisite it would all look in spring and summer. Deidre parked at the front of the palatial villa, and smiled cordially at the cheery-faced retainer who was waiting for her at the door, and who led her across the sparsely furnished hail towards a door that was already half-open. Deidre’s heels clicked on the marble tiles, and from somewhere very far away in the great mansion came the sound of children playing.

  The first thing she noticed about the room she was shown into were the vast windows that opened onto a terrace, and then the superb paintings that hung on every wall. Smiling to herself, she walked towards one of them – she’d always wondered whose private collection included this particular Titian. She lifted a hand to touch the frame, then seeing the alarm wires, she pulled back.

  ‘Deidre.’

  Starting at the sound of her name, she turned to see a diminutive figure swathed in black lace sitting at one end of an uncomfortable-looking sofa. Sylvestra. It had to be.