‘No…I…’ His eyes were consuming her. She felt as if she was about to faint. His hand reached out to steady her and she swayed against him like a petal in the breeze.
‘Valentina!’ Bob’s voice was raw with urgency.
She stared dazedly in his direction. He was halfway out of the truck and there was murder in his eyes.
She had to move: had to prevent a confrontation between him and the powerful figure at her side.
‘I’m coming, Bob,’ she gasped, tearing herself free and running, stumbling, towards the truck. ‘I’m coming, I’m sorry!’
Her hand closed on the handle of the passenger seat door and Bob hauled her up savagely beside him, slamming the truck into gear and speeding away without even a backward glance in Rakoczi’s direction.
His face was set in a terrifying mask as he slewed the truck round the last of the hangars and made for the studio’s parking lot. He didn’t know what he wanted to do most – throttle Valentina for her stupidity in leaving the anonymity of the truck, or punch the hell out of Rakoczi for reducing her to a quivering wreck. He brought the truck screeching to a halt.
‘Out,’ he ordered tersely, his jaw clenched, a nerve throbbing angrily.
Daisy obeyed, silent sobs rising in her throat as she remembered the dark voice that had called after her as she had broken free of him. He had called after her and against every instinct in her body she had continued to run.
Bob stormed across to a Buick and unlocked the door. ‘Get in and let’s get the hell out of here.’
She half fell into the seat beside him. It seemed to her that her breath would never steady again.
‘I… Who was he?’ she asked at last as they sped between the studio gates and spun round the first of the bends in the long, descending road.
‘Vidal Rakoczi,’ Bob spat the name venomously. ‘Of all the people to tangle with you have to choose the most powerful man on the lot. Christ. No one goes on a Rakoczi set unless they’re part of the team. It’s a wonder he didn’t hurl you over the studio gates.’
The blood surged through his veins in a raging tide. ‘Was he foul-mouthed to you?’ he asked tensely. If Rakoczi had been he would hit him full square on the jaw, job or no job.
Daisy looked at him in astonishment. ‘No… He was… kind.’
‘Kind!’
Daisy thought Bob was going to explode. ‘Rakoczi hasn’t been kind to anyone in his life! He’s reduced the biggest stars of the studio to tears, and he’s the only director I’ve known who defies the studio chiefs with impunity. He’s known as the Hungarian devil and it’s a reputation he lives up to.’
Daisy looked down at her arm where Rakoczi had so fleetingly held it. It felt as if it had been branded.
‘He only asked my name,’ she said, her voice a barely discernible whisper.
Bob looked at her in astonishment. ‘He didn’t tell you to get off the set, or ask how you got on to it?’
‘No.’ She shook her head and the light caught in her hair. ‘He asked me how old I was. That’s all.’
Bob’s blue eyes narrowed. ‘Son of a bitch,’ he said as, with scant regard for other traffic, he turned into Van Ness. There was only one reason Rakoczi would ask such a question. The only surprise was that he should care whether she was under age or not.
Daisy wanted to ask Bob a hundred and one questions about Vidal Rakoczi but knew that to do so would only anger him again. Instead, she asked, ‘Who was the lady dressed in white and gold?’
Bob’s anger was already ebbing away. ‘Romana de Santa: she’s Worldwide’s latest acquisition. The studios are all set to make her into a rival to Gloria Swanson.’
‘She’s very beautiful. Just like a princess in a fairytale.’ Then Daisy remembered the proprietorial way Miss de Santa had called Rakoczi ‘darling’and an icy chill entered her soul.
Bob grinned. Romana de Santa was more like a bitch on heat than a fairytale princess. She had fought, slept and bribed her way to the position she now held.
‘Is Romana a Spanish name?’ she asked reflectively. ‘She didn’t look Spanish.’
Bob turned right on Santa Monica. ‘She isn’t, and she was born Dolly Munff of Calico Springs, Idaho. Does that dispel your fairytale princess illusion?’
Daisy stared at him. ‘Do many people change their names in Hollywood?’
‘Ninety-nine per cent. The studios like a fancy name on the billboards. The public will flock to see Romana de Santa in her latest epic. They wouldn’t be quite so keen to see Dolly Munff.’
Daisy was aware of a sudden stillness in the very centre of her being. Dolly Munff had changed her name to Romana de Santa, just as she had changed her name to Valentina, and Romana de Santa was famous, feted wherever she went. More important still, Romana de Santa was a woman who could call Vidal Rakoczi ‘darling’.
She said tentatively, ‘Valentina isn’t my real name either.’
Bob resisted the urge to laugh. ‘I never for one moment thought it was, sweetheart.’
‘Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?’
‘No. In this town you can be anyone or anything you want to be. If you want to be Valentina, that’s fine by me.’
‘And if I want to be an actress like Romana de Santa?’
‘Then it isn’t,’ Bob said, his mood changing abruptly. ‘For every Romana there are a thousand who don’t make it and who break their hearts in the process.’
She didn’t care about the thousands who didn’t make it. She knew instinctively that she was not one of them.
Seeing the expression on her face, Bob ran a hand through his hair and wondered if he was mad. In the space of a few hours he had become a surrogate father to a girl so hauntingly beautiful that even Rakoczi had noticed her. Now he was taking her home to share his roof but not his bed. No one would believe the truth of the situation. He doubted if he believed it himself. With a screech of tyres he drove down Heliotrope and halted outside a shabbily-painted wooden-framed house.
‘We’re home,’ he said, unhappily aware that his feelings towards her were not paternal, and never would be.
Chapter Three
Bob’s words roused Daisy from her stupor. ‘Home.’ It was a word she had never heard before. Slow pleasure seeped through her as she stood at his side and stared at the simple, wooden-framed house almost drowning beneath its load of flowering ivy and creepers.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said softly.
Bob looked down at her compassionately. If this was beautiful the convent had been bleak indeed.
‘Let’s go in,’ he said gently, picking up her valise and leading the way up a narrow walk between boxwood hedges.
The door creaked on unoiled hinges and Bob winced at the sight of breakfast dishes still unwashed and a film of dust on the coffee table and woodwork.
Daisy was blissfully unaware of any such flaws. She saw only the cosy intimacy of a small room with books and pictures and gaily scattered rugs. All her life she had had a minimum of personal possessions. To her, Bob’s room seemed to be overflowing with riches. In wonderment she walked slowly across to the open door leading to a cubby hole of a kitchen. A pack of beer sat on top of the refrigerator waiting to be stowed away. A spray of eucalyptus bobbed in at the open window.
Bob stood in the centre of the main room as she retraced her steps and paused tentatively before a closed door. She looked across at him and he nodded permission. Tenderness flooded through him. At least the bed had been made, he thought with relief.
She opened the door and stood on the threshold. The bed was old-fashioned with a brass head and a hand-crotcheted coverlet. There was a small dresser, a mirror, a host of glossy autographed photographs, and a pile of discarded clothing topped by a battered tennis racket.
‘It’s all yours,’ Bob said, entering the room and scooping up the dirty linen.
‘Do you mean it?’ She had never slept in a room of her own before.
‘Of course I mean it.’ He swung the valise
on to the bed. ‘Now let’s eat. I’ve some steak and tomatoes and mushrooms. If you want to shower, the bathroom’s through there.’ He nodded in the direction of a glass-fronted door adjoining the kitchen.
She looked up at him, overwhelmed at his kindness.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply.
He smiled. ‘There’s no need for thanks,’ he said, making his way to the kitchen. ‘Just run a duster over the place now and again. That’ll be thanks enough.’
Later, as music from Bob’s record player filled the room and she sat on the floor with her back against the sofa while Bob sipped at a beer, she said dreamily, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy.’
Bob put down his glass carefully. Her head was a mere fraction from his knees and he resisted the urge to move closer; to reach out and touch the silky softness of her hair.
‘That convent of yours must have been a pretty grim place.’
Her eyes clouded. ‘No, not really. Just…lonely.’
‘But there must have been lots of other kids.’
‘Yes, but they weren’t like me. They were orphans.’
‘And you weren’t?’
‘No.’ A lamp cast a soft light in the room. Through an open window came the sound of a distant coyote. ‘My mother left me at the convent when I was a baby. They couldn’t allow me to be adopted in case she came back for me.’
‘Only she didn’t?’
‘No.’
‘Holy shit.’ This time he did reach out and touch her, his hand resting comfortingly on her shoulder. He glanced at his watch and saw it was nearly midnight. ‘Bedtime, sweetheart,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘I have an early start tomorrow.’
His pillow and blanket, folded neatly, lay in readiness at the end of the sofa.
She stood up, suddenly uncertain. ‘What will I do? About a job, I mean?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll soon fix you up with something,’ he said, but as the bedroom door closed behind her, he knew he would not do so in a hurry. He stretched his long frame out on the sofa and passed his hand across his eyes. She trusted him and it was a trust he could not abuse – or let others abuse. His mouth hardened as he remembered Vidal Rakoczi and the way he had caught hold of her. It would not happen again. No matter what pressure the Hungarian brought to bear on him.
Vidal was waiting for him as he arrived the next morning.
‘Who is she?’ he asked, his eyes narrowed, before Bob could even emerge from the Buick’s interior.
Bob didn’t answer until he was standing upright. ‘I don’t know who you mean,’ he said tightly, moving towards the truck.
Rakoczi barred the way. ‘You know damn well who I mean, Kelly,’ he said softly.
Bob felt the anger he had been determined to control lick along his veins. Rakoczi had wasted no time in finding out his identity. No doubt he would waste equally little time in reporting him for bringing Valentina on to the lot.
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know who you mean,’ he repeated through clenched teeth.
Rakoczi had been riding in the hills since dawn. The whip he still carried cracked menacingly against the leather of his knee-high boots. His black eyes glittered. ‘You know damn well who I mean. The girl you brought on to the lot yesterday. I want to know who she is. Where she lives.’
Bob felt his hands slowly clenching. ‘She’s my sister and she went back home to Oregon last night. She has no interest in films or film-making.’
‘You’re lying.’ Rakoczi moved towards him threateningly.
Bob shook his head and stood his ground, his eyes brilliant with rage that matched that of the man before him.
‘No I’m not. You frightened her half to death yesterday. She’s not a city girl. She’s gone back home where she belongs.’
‘She belongs on film!’ Rakoczi snarled, his eyes blazing.
‘No she doesn’t. She belongs with the man she’s going to marry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’
Vidal’s breath hissed between his teeth as he stepped out of the way and Bob swung himself up into the truck’s cab. There had been the certainty of truth in Bob Kelly’s words and Vidal wasn’t a man accustomed to wasting time and energy. He would find out which part of Oregon Kelly came from. If he had to search the whole damned state, he’d find her. And film her.
Bob allowed himself a triumphant smile as the engine throbbed into life and the truck rolled away from the thwarted Hungarian. He didn’t envy the staff or crew of The Black Knights. Rakoczi’s temper, legendary at the best of times, would be doubly explosive today.
When he got back to the house that evening every surface sparkled and shone and a vase overspilling with poppies and yellow daisies graced the centre of the dining table. An inviting aroma drifted from the kitchen.
Bob grinned at her. ‘Have you been enjoying yourself, sweetheart?’
She nodded, her eyes anxious, eager to please. ‘You like chilli, don’t you? And tacos?’
‘I love them,’ Bob said, sitting down, and aware that his days of hamburgers and hot dogs were temporarily at an end.
‘I… I wondered if you’d seen Mr Rakoczi today,’ she said hesitantly.
‘No.’ Bob’s voice was steady as he shovelled chilli into a taco shell. ‘He’s a director. I’m a truck driver. Our paths don’t cross.’
In some subtle way he had withdrawn from her. She knew that to continue would make things worse, but she had to ask. ‘Could I come with you tomorrow? To the studios… Maybe I could get a job there.’
‘No!’ This time there was no mistaking the steeliness of his voice. ‘I’ve told you before, Worldwide is no place for you. It’s corrupt and degenerate and I want you to stay well clear of it.’
She swallowed a mouthful of chilli with difficulty, her appetite gone. ‘I wouldn’t get in anyone’s way, Bob. Not like yesterday. I thought I could work in the offices. Sister Françesca taught me to type and to keep books and…’
‘No!’ Their eyes met and held and he knew that he was right in refusing her request. There was something about her. Some indefinable quality that he didn’t understand but that he knew would not go unnoticed at Worldwide.
She lowered her eyes and blinked back hot tears. There was no compromise in Bob’s voice. He had said ‘no’and he had meant it. But if she didn’t return to the studio, how could she ever see Vidal Rakoczi again? Her shoulders drooped with disappointment and Bob pushed his plate away.
‘Would you like to see a movie this evening?’ he asked, wanting to make amends.
‘Oh, I’d love to.’
He grinned. ‘Leave the dishes then. We’ll do them together later.’
She grinned back at him. He was good and kind and if he didn’t want her to go to the studios then she wouldn’t go, and she would never ask again.
Their first days together merged into a week, then a month and then two, but the novelty of the house never wore thin. She cared for it with pride and when her housework was done spent long happy hours walking in the surrounding hills.
She loved the steep inclines, the narrow, dusty canyons and the lush flowering landscapes. In the evenings they would go to a movie, to the beach, to the local tennis club, where her standard of play was soon equal to Bob’s. The coarse linen dress and thick, dark stockings had long since been burned. She went bare legged now, in sandals and gay summer dresses and if their neighbours misunderstood the relationship between them, Daisy was unaware of it, and Bob uncaring.
On the morning of St Joseph’s day she sat in the sun-filled kitchen eating grapenuts mixed with puffed rice and sugar and knew that she could not let the anniversary pass unnoticed. If she set off early, she would be able to reach Capistrano well before lunchtime. Impulsively, she made sandwiches, stuffed them into her shoulder bag and ran down to the bus station.
The south-bound bus was full of day trippers. As it spilled the tourists and herself out at Capistrano, she knew that she didn’t want to stay amongst them. Instead, she began to wa
lk away from the small town towards the convent. It was strange returning to the place she had left with such eagerness. She paused at the gates, gazing reflectively at the white walls, the garden and the pleasantly shaded cloisters. Then she turned away abruptly, striding through wild grass to the crown of the hill.
Only a few birds were winging their way inland. Squaretailed, with glossy dark throat patches, they swooped in a long elipse and then soared high again, their cry a soft churr in the warm March air. A couple of them landed on the eaves of the convent and she sat down, her legs aching as she withdrew her sandwiches from her shoulder bag.
So much had happened since she had last gazed skywards waiting for their return. A heady feeling of presentiment seized her. Her life had changed once and it would change again. How and why she didn’t know, but it would. Of that she was certain.
‘We’re invited to a party,’ he said to her that evening on her return.
Her eyes sparkled. ‘Who is giving it?’
‘Lilli Rainer. She was a big name in the old days. Her son, Jeff Claybourne, is an electrician at Worldwide.’
On the night of the party she dressed with great care and Bob whistled admiringly as she stepped from the bedroom, her hair a smoke-dark cloud, her skin pale ivory, a devastatingly simple amethyst satin dress clinging to her breasts and hips. In the soft light of the room her lustrous eyes dominated the fragility of her face, and then she smiled and all he saw was the delicious curve of her mouth.
‘You look a million dollars, sweetheart.’
She felt a surge of pleasure. She wanted him to be proud of her. With her arm tucked through his, she stepped outside into the warm night air.
They drove high up into an area she had not visited before. The houses were large and low, set well back from the road amidst carefully tended lawns and trees. At last Bob swung the Buick off the road and motored with headlights blazing up a long, curving drive. There was the sound of laughter and of glasses clinking. The Buick halted and Bob opened the door for her. A sense of excitement, so deep it nearly took her breath away, seized her. With glowing eyes she followed Bob and stepped into the noise and heat of the party.
Silver Shadows, Golden Dreams Page 4
