101 Pieces of Me (28 page)

N
o one tried to burgle us. No one came to the apartment offering money for the photographs. David, it appeared, was waiting for a lawyer in America to send him an important package. He knew when he was beaten.

Aidan spent the next few days photographing Castiglioncello, and using the motorcycle to take his camera further afield too. His intention was to set up a photography business. Photography was the art of the future, he told me. I had promised to go with him, wherever he went, but he gave no clue as to where he, and his business, might be.

Barely a year ago, I had felt myself to be on the threshold of life, poised to make my name as a film actress. I had been convinced the world waited to adore me every bit as slavishly as it adored Gladys Cooper or Lilian Hall-Davis. But now, I was not convinced of anything. I was still on the threshold of life – I had turned nineteen a few weeks ago – but what lay before me?

The feeling of fascination with, and revulsion towards, the world of film-making had not disappeared. In fact, it had grown stronger. What I had told David in the ballroom of Giovanni’s villa was the opposite of the truth. I did not want to do what film people did. I had no wish to go to parties at Le Grenier and sniff cocaine and get drunk. I loved the film-making itself, but I did not love the life that went with it. And there seemed no way of avoiding that life. A film star, whatever she might do to prevent it, was of interest to the public and would have to do what the public wanted. She must appear exquisitely dressed at lavish events, conduct romances with other film stars while coyly denying it, and give interviews to women’s magazines in which she gave tips on smoothing the complexion and curling the hair. In private, she must endlessly fight off lascivious men offering her their money and their bodies – and the little screws of white powder in their pockets.

I could not do that.

Opening the doors to the balcony, I stood there in full sunlight, watching flocks of swifts circling in the radiant sky. In the distance I heard a rumble, and shaded my eyes. There, trailing a little cloud of dust, was Aidan on the motorcycle, putt-putting down the hill to the town. A wave of affection swept over me. I knew in my heart that if I were to keep my promise, I would have to trust Aidan the way I had trusted David. To be a gentleman. To resist the desire to take advantage of my youth and inexperience. To love me.

I
went down to meet him in the courtyard. He dismounted, grinning delightedly, and kissed my cheek.

“Got some great shots,” he said, holding up the camera. “The light is absolutely perfect today.”

As he said this, the sound of a motor engine made us both turn towards the street, where a small band of boys was collecting around a brand new yellow Bugatti. “At bloody last!” muttered Aidan. “You go upstairs. I’ll deal with him.”

“Actually, I think I’ll stay here.”

Aidan’s head whipped round, and he gave me one of his stares. “Plucky! You don’t change, do you?”

“Why should I?”

David stepped out of the motor car, shooing the children away and adjusting his hat. He was wearing a cream linen suit, white brogues and spats, and carried a cane. No doubt he wished to blend in with the millionaires on this coast. I considered the outfit ridiculous. When he saw us, he raised his straw panama. “So this is where you’re hiding, is it, you sly pair?”

“We are neither hiding nor sly,” said Aidan matter-of-factly. “And I can only imagine you are visiting us in order to bring Clara a gift.”

David sighed. “Same old Tobias.” His gaze slid over my face; he seemed nervous. “That depends on whether Clara has a gift for me.”

“I have,” I said. The situation felt unreal, like a script. “But you must give me yours first.”

His nervousness increased. He ran his tongue over his lower lip repeatedly as he stood there in the sunshine, his hands resting one on top of the other on his cane. “Why do you not go inside and fetch yours?” he asked me. “Then we can exchange.”

“Clara’s gift is not here,” said Aidan. He was watching David warily. “If you will accompany us down the street to the bank, I will retrieve it.” He took a quick glance at his watch. “They’ll be opening in five minutes.”

His distrust of David undiminished, he wished to make the exchange in a public place.

“Very well,” said David. “Lead the way.”

W
e must have looked an odd trio as we made our way along the tree-lined street. It was after four o’clock, but bright sunlight and dark shadows flickered over a well-dressed man, a girl in a thin cotton dress and a second man, whose unkempt appearance suggested a labourer, or perhaps, in this town, an artist. Though it would be invisible to an onlooker, the girl in the cotton dress held her heart in her mouth and did not dare look at either the scruffily-dressed man or the smart one. This, though no one would guess it, was the crossroads of her nineteen years.

Signor La Manna, the bank manager, led the way to the strongboxes. David and I watched while Aidan opened one and withdrew the white envelope. He nodded towards David, who took a similar envelope, though buff-coloured, from the pocket of his suit jacket.

“Lay it on the table,” instructed Aidan.

David did so, and Aidan went to it, checked the contents, and put it back. Then he laid our envelope beside it. I could hardly breathe. This was the moment when David’s trustworthiness would be tested. If he tried to make his escape with both envelopes, Signor La Manna would be a witness, and the theft would be a matter for the police.

David must have realized this. He picked up the white envelope, checked it just as Aidan had done, and laid it down again. “Signor La Manna,” began Aidan in his most charming voice, “would you be so good as to leave your duties here for a few minutes and accompany me and my party to the beach? We have something we would like you to see.”

The procession downhill to the beach was even stranger than the one to the bank. Four figures now, not speaking to, or even looking at, one another. The few sunbathers must have been surprised to see the youngest of the three men gather driftwood into a small pile and spread upon it branches from the dry-as-tinder plants that grew from crevices in the wall. When he stooped, struck a match and lit the kindling, they must have assumed a newly caught fish was about to be cooked and consumed, although nobody seemed dressed for a beach party. But instead, the man who had made the fire threw what looked like two envelopes, a white one and a buff one, into the flames.

All four members of the little expedition waited solemnly while the envelopes and their contents became ashes. The girl poked the embers with a stick, as if to make sure what was burned had truly disappeared. Then they all turned and made their way back up the beach to the town, leaving nothing to show they had been there but a charred patch among the pebbles.

I
was sitting on the balcony, devouring the contents of a gossip magazine. Six more months of Italian lessons had made me proficient enough to understand it, and even if some of it was not absolutely clear, pictures need no words.

A scandal had erupted in New York. Roughly translated, the story read: “Mrs David Penn, also known as Miss Catherine Melrose, who has been living in New York since she left her husband in 1918 …”

I gasped. 1918 was only two years after their wedding.

“… wishes to divorce Mr Penn, the well-known British film director and producer. However, it has come to the notice of this columnist that Mrs Penn’s attempts to catch her husband
in flagrante
have backfired, and he is now bringing a counter-suit against her divorce suit.”

So it was exactly as Aidan had said. David and his wife, desperate to divorce so that they could marry other people, had agreed to set up David’s “adultery”. Thanks to the double standard, photographs of him in bed with a “lover” would not be irrevocably damaging to his reputation. They would also be able to come to a mutually acceptable arrangement about the division of his wealth, with no hard feelings.

Or at least, so she had thought.

I put down the magazine and turned my face to the sun. So David and his wife were still unhappily married, and stuck in the middle of a court case. He and Marjorie were still at Le Grenier, no doubt bed-hopping and cocaine-sniffing exactly as before, though their next port of call, I was sure, would be Southampton. I did not care what they did when they arrived in America. All I knew was that they were far away, and I was here on our tiny balcony, watching the sea changing from pale to darker blue, then to green as the day wore on. Aidan had insisted I rest, with my feet up on a stool, assuring me that he would bring a lobster home for dinner and cook it himself.

Aidan’s work as a photographer had come to the notice of the cinematographer on Giovanni’s film – the very cinematographer whose outrage at the invasion of his darkroom had hastened Aidan’s departure. His name was Alfredo, and he had influence in the world of Italian filmmaking. Within two months, Aidan had sold almost all his pictures and had taken commissions for portraits from several of the millionaires. Alfredo, meanwhile, with his wife, Giulia, had become such good friends that Aidan and I had asked them to be witnesses at our wedding.

I stretched my limbs and turned back to the magazine. The picture of Catherine Melrose and her Swiss lover was the same one I had seen on the ferry. How long ago that seemed! In those days I had not known a word of Italian. Now I barely spoke anything else, and had easily understood the kindly doctor when he had explained why I had not been bleeding for two months and no longer fitted my waistbands. Our landlady, who like all Italians adored the very idea of babies, insisted we stay in the apartment until we could afford something else, even though her rules stated firmly, “no children or pets”.

Maybe someday I will find work. Once the dreaded public appearances associated with
Innocence
were over, I had no wish to be Clara Hope. My short film career lay in a hundred-and-one pieces around me. Now with my new confidence in Italian, perhaps Signora Carro will take me on as a teacher of English. The thought of the citizenry of Castiglioncello speaking English with a Welsh accent makes me smile.

And I’m still smiling as I sit in the sun, my head against a cushion and my hand on my belly. Yesterday I felt the baby move for the first time. A hundred and two pieces of me?