‘You’ll what?’ Theodore clutched at his desk for support. ‘You’ll give up all this…’ He waved his hand at the publicity photographs of her that lined his office walls, ‘… for a twobit piano player?’
Her eyes flashed dangerously. ‘I shall give up all this to be with my husband. Goodbye, Mr Gambetta.’ She held out her hand to him.
Theodore’s breath was coming in harsh gasps. Never before had he been beaten in a verbal battle. The biggest moneyspinner he had ever put before the cameras was calmly telling him that she was walking out on him. He wondered if he was having a stroke. It certainly felt like it.
Her hand remained outstretched. He didn’t take it. Valentina shrugged, turned on her heel and walked swiftly from the room.
Theodore Gambetta watched her go, his eyes admiring. She had courage and determination. He wished some of his studio executives would show the same kind of guts.
The door closed behind her and he reached for his telephone
and asked his secretary to get his lawyer on the line. He was going
to drag her through every court in the Goddamned land.
‘The studio, please,’ she said to her chauffeur as she walked across to the limousine, the morning breeze lifting her hair gently and filling it with light.
She had promised to ring Paulos as soon as she was through at the studio. They would be able to have lunch together. She would be able to tell him that she was not needed on any of the remaining scenes that still had to be shot on The Heiress Helena, and she would be able to tell him of her interview with Theodore Gambetta. Then they would be able to make plans for the future. She needed to remove the heavy make-up that Wally had applied so painstakingly and change from the dated twenties dress that her part demanded.
Paulos. A warm glow spread through her. They would have a good life together. There was love on his part and deep affection on hers. There was mutual respect. It was far more than most people started off with.
High in the hills the gigantic letters that spelt out H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D-L-A-N-D glared white in the sun. It was a sign that she had lived and flourished beneath and that she was now leaving, perhaps forever. It was a sign that would always mean the heat of kleig lights, the endless wait between takes, the nervous excitement of seeing rushes for the first time. It was a sign that would always mean Vidal.
She turned her head away swiftly. She loved him more than she would ever love anyone else. And loving him, she had to leave him.
The limousine slid through the open gates of Worldwide and halted at the end of the oleander-lined pathway that led to her bungalow.
‘I shan’t be long,’ she said to the chauffeur. ‘Thirty minutes at the most.’
In the distance was the usual hive of activity. People rushing from one sound stage to another. The sound of sets being dismantled and new ones erected. The excitement palpable in the growing heat of the morning. She paused for a second to savour it. Soon it would be lost to her; no longer a part of her life. She gave herself a mental shake and began to walk firmly towards the door of her bungalow. As she did so a dark shadow fell across her and she spun around, the blood draining from her face.
‘I need to speak to you about The Gypsy and the Marquis,’ Vidal said tightly. It was a lie. He needed to do nothing of the kind.
Her throat was so tight, her lips so parched, that she could hardly utter the words.
‘I’ve just been to see Mr Gambetta. I won’t be doing the movie.’
Shock robbed Vidal of his facade of composure. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses? The costumes have been fitted, the sets erected; half the San Fernando Valley has been transformed into a medieval Spanish landscape…’
‘The movie will still be going ahead as planned,’ she said, wishing that she could drag her eyes away from his, that her heart would stop drumming against her chest. ‘But I won’t be playing the part of the gypsy.’
He felt his blood chill. She wasn’t being temperamental. She was hiding something from him. His nerve ends crawled with sudden fear.
‘Why?’ he demanded, a pulse beginning to beat at his jawline.
The oleanders pressed in on them on either side. For as long as she lived, she knew that she would hate their fragrance.
‘I’m leaving Hollywood,’ she said, and despite all her courage there was an underlying tremble in her voice. ‘I’m marrying Paulos Khairetis and going east with him.’
The skin seemed to stretch like parchment over his cheek-bones. His eyes were black pits in which she could read nothing. He was silent for so long that she wondered if he had heard her.
A studio executive strolling past her parked limousine called out a word of greeting and went unanswered. A group of secretaries could be heard approaching, giggling and laughing. Happy and carefree.
‘Nem lehet,’ he said softly, and there was contempt in his eyes. ‘Does Paulos Khairetis know what a shallow heart you possess, liba?’
His body was so near that she could feel its heat, smell its indefinable mixture of cologne and maleness. She stood straight and tall, her head and her abundant aureole of smoke-dark hair held high. ‘My heart is not shallow, Vidal Rakoczi, and never will be!’ Her eyes flashed and then she was walking away from him, the blood pounding in her ears, the tears spilling down her cheeks.
‘You look pale,’ Paulos said as she sat down at his table in the Derby.
She managed a smile. ‘That’s exactly what the make-up man said to me this morning. He said that I needed a rest and I told him that I intended to take one – a very long one.’
Paulos laughed and took her hand. ‘I have a present for you,’ he said, closing her fingers around a small, velvet covered box.
His honey-brown eyes were anxious as she opened the lid. Inside lay a heart-shaped aquamarine ring from Van Cleef and Arpel.
‘Oh Paulos! It’s beautiful!’
Gently he took it from its bed of satin and slipped it on to the fourth finger of her left hand. It fitted perfectly.
‘Now we really are engaged,’ he said, his fine-boned face alight with happiness.
Her hands were enclosed in his. The feeling of peace and calm that she had known would come when she was in his presence, seeped through her. Paulos was her haven. If he wanted to marry her that day she would do so.
‘I told Mr Gambetta that I was getting married and would not be able to fulfil my contract,’ she said as the waiter put a bottle of Mumm’s Extra Dry in an ice bucket at their side.
‘And what did the great Mr Gambetta say when you broke the news?’ Paulos asked, his voice light but his eyes concerned. Gambetta would not lose Valentina without a fight, and the fight could prove an ugly one.
‘Let’s just say he wasn’t very pleased,’ Valentina said, a smile touching the corners of her mouth. She twisted her fingers through his. ‘How soon can we leave Hollywood, Paulos? I did my last scene on The Heiress Helena this morning. They can finish the rest of the re-takes without me.’
‘We need to register our intention to marry. If we do it in Los Angeles there will be a furore. The local registries are haunted by newspaper spies. Louella Parsons will know about it before we’ve even left the building.’
Valentina looked across at the sensitive, classically sculpted face of her fiancé and said gently, ‘Is that the kind of wedding that you want, Paulos? A short ceremony in front of an American judge?’
Paulos’s smile deepened. ‘It will do for now. The sooner we get married, the better, and this is the quickest way. Later…’ He paused, suddenly unsure of himself.
‘Yes?’ Valentina urged.
‘Later, I would like a proper wedding. A Greek Orthodox wedding with all my family present.’
She squeezed his hands tightly. ‘Then that is exactly what you will have, but we’ll have to make that wedding rather quick as well, won’t we? Otherwise I’ll shock all your family by being a very obviously pregnant bride!’
He laughed and then said, ‘I want to go home and introd
uce you to my family as quickly as possible.’
‘Tell me about them,’ she said, trying desperately not to think of Vidal. ‘Where do they live? Have you brothers and sisters?’
‘My family home is in Athens, but since my father died, my mother and my two sisters live mainly in our summer home on Crete.’
‘What are your sisters’names? How old are they?’ she asked with eager interest.
‘Aristea is fifteen and Maria is nineteen.’
Valentina leaned back in her chair, amazed at the prospect of two young sisters-in-law, then a slight frown furrowed her smooth brow. ‘Your mother. Will she be distressed that you have not married a Greek girl?’
Paulos grinned. ‘She will wail and cry and tear her clothes, and say that I will never be happy and that I have disgraced them all.’
Valentina’s eyes widened in horror.
Paulos laughed. ‘Then she will meet you and she will fall in love with you, and she will tell everyone how lucky the Khairetis family is to have such a beautiful American for a daughter.’
Valentina gave a gasp of relief. ‘Will she really like me?’
‘She will love you. You have a family now. When you marry a Greek you gain not only a husband but a mother, sisters, cousins, as well.’
She leaned towards him across the table. ‘Let’s go this afternoon and apply for a licence to marry, Paulos,’ she said urgently. ‘It doesn’t matter about the fuss and publicity. We’ll simply ignore it.’
His eyes gleamed and his hand tightened in hers. ‘We’ll go now,’ he said, rising to his feet, the champagne untouched. ‘We’ll be married just as soon as I can get a judge to perform the ceremony.’
Chapter Eighteen
The wedding was small and quiet and took only minutes to solemnize. Leila acted as her bridesmaid and Sutton and Claire Hyde were the witnesses. She wore a simple cream lace dress that reached to mid-calf, and carried a posy of small, pink rosebuds. From the moment Paulos slipped the wedding ring on her finger, she never had a moment’s doubt as to the wisdom of her action.
They honeymooned in New York, and then sailed on the Queen Mary to Southampton. In the space of a few weeks her whole lifestyle changed. Paulos was the one who lived in the spotlight, appearing in concerts in London, Paris and Rome. Though reporters and photographers lay in wait for days for a glimpse of her, Paulos was adept at fending them off and in making sure that she had a measure of privacy.
‘How would you like to be married again?’ he asked her one morning as they ate breakfast on the balcony of their Rome hotel. ‘In white and in church?’
She giggled. ‘Don’t you think I would look a little … ripe …?’ she asked, regarding her rounded stomach with pleasure.
Paulos grinned, ‘Fruitful, certainly.’ He handed a letter across to her. ‘My mother is expecting us in Crete on the 27th, and she is appalled at our negligible nuptials. She wants a church wedding with priest and incense and candles and a bridal-cake.’
‘But she can’t!’ Valentina protested. ‘She knows the baby is due in five months’time.’
Paulos’eyes sparkled. ‘She doesn’t care about the baby, darling. She’s a Greek mother who has been cheated out of her only son’s wedding ceremony. She would like that remedied. What do you say?’
She began to laugh helplessly. ‘What can I say? Yes, we’ll get married again, but I shall need a tent to disguise the existence of this baby!’
He leaned across the table and kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, darling. Greeks are very practical. They only see what they want to see, and what they will see will be a very beautiful and radiant bride.’
The entire Khairetis family turned out in force when they landed at Heraklion.
Paulos’mother welcomed her with a flood of Greek, engulfing her in an ecstatic hug.
‘She says you are her daughter,’ said Paulos, grinning broadly. ‘That she is overcome at welcoming you into the family.’
Mrs Khairetis beamed, kissing her effusively on both cheeks. Maria and Aristea stepped forward shyly, their reserve fast disappearing as Valentina greeted them warmly.
‘Now we go to Agios Georgios,’ Mrs Khairetis said proudly in stilted English. ‘I show you, my daughter, Crete. In America there is nowhere so beautiful as Crete.’
‘Crete is a land of goddesses and legends,’ Paulos whispered to her as they walked towards the cars. ‘You should feel at home here!’
She did. Immediately. The road ran along the coast, past tiny bays and rust-coloured cliffs. The hinterland was rural. There were small villages with whitewashed houses and tiny gardens massed with flowers. Windmills, their great white sails fluttering like snowy blossoms in the breeze. An occasional shepherd with his flock and a barking dog. Groups of village women clothed from head to foot in heavy black serge.
‘You like?’ Maria asked anxiously, eager that Crete should please her new sister-in-law.
‘Oh yes,’ Valentina said, her eyes shining. ‘I like it very much, Maria.’
Agios Georgios was on the south-west of the island, remote and little visited. The car bumped and swayed over the ruts in the road that had petered into a rough track. The White Mountains of Crete soared on their left, the foothills running down to the shore. Here and there clusters of houses clung to a crescent of fine shingle, goats and sheep scratching a precarious living from the inhospitable hillside. Blue sage brushed the sides of the car; asphodel nodded its golden head, Judastrees littered their clouds of scented flowers, and the smell of verbena and lavender filled the air.
The track turned inland, climbing steadily, winding its way through high banks of maquis. The White Mountains truly were white: great soaring escarpments of silver rock, gashed by ravines, and crowned by scudding drifts of cirrus.
‘Only the eagle and the mountain-goat live up there,’ Maria said shyly as she saw Valentina gazing up in awe at the cruelly high ridges. Bare, grey rock glinted in the sun. ‘It is up there, far away where no man can climb, that Zeus, the father of the gods, was born,’ Maria whispered reverently.
Valentina felt a surge of affection for her new sister-in-law. Maria’s English was far better than Paulos had led her to believe, but despite the polish of an expensive education she still believed as the ancients had done.
Paulos’hand closed over hers and she clasped it tightly. For the first time in her life she was part of a family. It was a heady, intoxicating feeling.
The road began to curve downwards, snaking backwards and forwards across the steep slopes of the mountainside and then suddenly there was a lemon grove and a shining white villa, and the sea creaming up a stretch of golden sand.
‘The Villa Ariadne,’ Paulos said. ‘It is the house from which my mother was married, and from which she wants us to be married. After the wedding she will return to Athens with Maria and Aristea and we will stay on for as long as we choose. The village is over there, to the right.’
Sparkling white walls glittered in the sun and she could see olive trees and fruit trees and a donkey quietly grazing.
‘This was my father’s house,’ Evangelina Khairetis said proudly. ‘He was a man of Crete. Very brave. Very handsome.’
They spilled out of the car and Valentina walked across a terrace massed with jasmine and into cool, mosaic-floored rooms. It was a house she knew she would never willingly leave. A house she wanted to stay in until her baby was born.
An elderly maid, even plumper than Evangelina Khairetis, and dressed in ankle-length black with a starched white apron around her waist, greeted them, bobbing a deferential curtsey as if Valentina were royalty as she presented them with little glasses of almond-tasting liqueur.
Paulos downed his in a gulp, but Valentina saw that Maria and Aristea merely moistened their lips with it, and did the same. A little dish of candied fruit followed, and then wine glasses of sparkling, clear water. The traditional greeting over, Evangelina Khairetis formally led Valentina from room to room, her massive bosom heaving in satisfaction at Valentina’
s undisguised delight.
The walls were plain; the only decoration that of the waving shadows of the pomegranate trees growing beyond the open windows. The beds were covered with exquisitely embroidered and lace-flounced bedspreads. The furniture was delicate and intricately carved.
As they lay in bed that night, the air heavy and fragrant, she pressed Paulos’ hand against her cheek. ‘You’ve made me very happy, Paulos. Happier than I ever thought possible.’
He looked down into the pale ivory of her face. ‘I love you,’ he said simply, and took her in his arms, pressing her gently beneath him. In all the world there was only the silent, secret language of their bodies making love, and the distant surge of the sea as it creamed on the shingled shore.
The entire village turned out for the wedding. Maria and Aristea fulfilled the roles of koumbara, holding the little wedding wreath over their heads as a bearded priest married them. She wore the white lace gown Paulos’mother had worn for her wedding, the waist discreetly altered. The Khairetis family wedding veil floated over her dark hair and she carried Aristea’s prayer book in her hand and a spray of roses that Maria had picked from the wild.
The wedding feast was held beneath the plane trees in the village square. On white tablecloths were dishes of stiffado and dolmades. Bougatsa and paidákia. There were honey cakes and fresh figs, mulberries and pomegranates.
Paulos changed into traditional dress, magnificent in black, knee-length boots and pantaloons, black shirt and cummerbund, and gaily embroidered waistcoat.
Maria and Aristea wore long skirts covered by beautiful, hand-embroidered white aprons and thickly-embroidered peasant blouses. Light veils covered their faces and gold necklaces and bracelets hugged their throats and wrists.
Everyone, from the very young to the very old, danced. Ouzo and wine flowed freely, and even the stove-hatted priest drummed his feet beneath his black robes in time to the music of the lyre.
There were breathless, swinging dances with arms interlocked, sedate circle dances, and dances where only the men participated.
Silver Shadows, Golden Dreams Page 24
