The Affair (26 page)

Elizabeth leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. ‘Is your lover Italian or American?’

‘Italian and jealous.’ Diana raised her eyebrow. ‘I should have dealt with the situation much sooner but I’ve been burying my head in the sand. You’re much braver than me.’

Elizabeth threw back her head and snorted. ‘Me? Brave? Hell, no. I’d have done the same as you if I could, but the media made that impossible. I love Eddie – I still do – but Richard simply swept me away, like a spring tide. He’s too powerful and overwhelming. He calls me “Ocean”. Isn’t that beautiful?’

‘Yes, it is.’ Diana remembered a report from the early days of filming that Richard called her ‘Miss Tits’ but didn’t mention it.

‘I’m a pushover when he speaks to me in that incredible poet’s voice and looks straight through me with those sharp eyes that never miss a thing. I’m lost, vanquished, I surrender completely.’ The speech was theatrical but Diana could tell she meant every word. She looked misty-eyed and blinked hard, perhaps remembering that there was no time to redo her lavish eye makeup.

There was a knock on the door and a girl popped her head in to tell Elizabeth that they were ready for her on set. Her assistant held out the wig but Elizabeth waved her away again. ‘They’ll wait,’ she said.

Once they were alone, she said, ‘God, Diana, what shall we women do?’ She reached out and squeezed her hand. Hers was much warmer than Diana’s.

Suddenly Diana felt protective. It seemed mad, when the most famous woman in the world had dozens of servants and hangers-on, but maybe that made it all the more difficult to get good advice. ‘I suppose we need to keep our feet on the ground and think sensibly,’ she said. ‘These are decisions that affect other people besides ourselves so we have to be sure it’s not just a feeling that will pass.’ She was thinking of Elizabeth’s situation and the likelihood that her affair would only last as long as the filming, rather than her own circumstances in which at least there were no children involved.

‘Do you believe your feelings about your Italian lover will change?’ It was a challenge, a moment for truth.

‘No,’ Diana whispered. ‘I don’t think they will.’

‘So go with your heart,’ Elizabeth breathed. ‘People heal in time. I’ve never known heartbreak to last more than a year.’

Diana had read in the papers that Eddie Fisher was crying on the shoulder of anyone who would listen in New York and wondered if he would have recovered in a year.

There was yet another knock on the door. ‘Everyone’s waiting, Miss Taylor.’

She sighed and emptied her drink. ‘Will you give your address to my assistant? She’ll get a chauffeur to pick up the books tonight. And please come see me after Easter to tell me how it goes with your husband.’

Diana promised that she would, and while Elizabeth’s wig was being pinned in place she scribbled down her address and said her goodbyes.

She walked straight over to the Forum set, where thousands of extras were standing in their places. The script called for Cleopatra to ride in with her son, Caesarion, atop a thirty-foot-high sphinx. It was taken from a Plutarch version of events, which Diana didn’t believe for a moment. In fact, when Caesar returned to Rome in 47 BC, he had entered the city in tribal procession to a certain amount of cheering and some jeering taunts about the Egyptian queen who had bewitched him. It seemed implausible to Diana that Cleopatra would have laid herself open to the taunts (or worse) of Romans in the same way, and much more likely that she sneaked in and installed herself quietly.

The camera started rolling and the giant sphinx, with Cleopatra and her ‘son’ on top, moved slowly forward, only clearing the Arch of Titus by a few inches on either side. It came to a halt and six gigantic Nubian slaves climbed up to lift the platform on which they sat. Diana gasped inadvertently as they began to descend the steps. If the platform had been rigid, Elizabeth would have tipped forward and fallen to the ground, but in fact it was on a kind of fulcrum that kept it level.

The script called for a take in which the extras chanted her name at this point – ‘Cleopatra, Cleopatra’. Diana stood well back and watched the buzz of activity as the camera was positioned and the signal was given for the crowd to start shouting.

‘Leez,’ they called, ‘Viva Leez.’ It was a wall of sound that rose and fell then got louder again. She heard other cries of ‘
Baci, baci
’ and saw some of the extras blowing kisses. It was a universal affirmation of their support for her with not a hint of booing and Diana wished she could see Elizabeth’s face as it dawned on her that they were emphatically on her side.

Shooting finished but the shouts continued as she was helped down from her perch, the words blurring into one indistinguishable chant.

That’s what fame sounds like
, Diana thought to herself.
That must be what it’s like when you’re the most famous woman in the world.

Diana decided not to tell Ernesto she’d had a personal conversation with Elizabeth. It might invite too many questions about why the star had chosen to confide in her and, besides, she couldn’t risk him repeating it to his journalist contact. It was a shame, because she was girlishly thrilled by the encounter and desperate to discuss it, but she decided there was no one she could tell without betraying a confidence.

Ernesto was subdued over dinner and begged her yet again to tell Trevor on arrival that their marriage was over.

‘I can’t do that,’ Diana told him. ‘I can’t throw away a six-year relationship in five minutes. But you’re the only lover I want. Please give me time to deal with this in my own way.’

He made love to her with great energy that night – almost like an animal scent-marking his territory – and she felt sorry for what she was putting him through. Were their situations reversed, she would be feeling deeply insecure. She had never lied to him about being married and he had always known when he got involved with her that there would be difficult times ahead, but she hated to see him so unhappy.

Diana arranged for a car to collect Trevor from the airport and bring him directly to Cinecittà. She had some work to do for Joe that afternoon, but she also wanted her husband to see the set before the studio closed for Easter. She was sure he would sneer at the oversized mock-up of the Forum and the undersized Temple of Venus but she felt a sense of pride about all that had been achieved there and hoped he would find some merit in it. Ernesto wasn’t working so there was no risk of bumping into him, else she would have arranged things differently. She didn’t entirely trust him not to make a scene.

As it happened, Walter Wanger was in the production office when Trevor arrived, and he turned on his effusive, old-school charm.

‘I’m delighted to meet you at last, sir. Diana’s told us all about you. In fact, she keeps promising to lend me a copy of your biography of Plutarch, which I believe is the definitive account. What a great honour that you have come to visit our humble set.’

Diana had seen Walter directing his charm towards everyone from visiting royalty to Italian government officials to recalcitrant journalists, and it seldom failed to win them over. Trevor was no exception, and he positively glowed as Walter insisted on giving him a personal tour of the outdoor sets. She trailed along beside them, saying little, worried about how thin and pale Trevor looked. He stooped as he walked, but kept up an animated conversation with Walter about movies set in ancient Rome, about which both were equally scathing.

‘
Spartacus
was a beautifully made picture,’ Walter agreed, ‘but the plot is a little incredible. Kubrick is a friend of mine, but he should have checked with a few more experts.’

Diana smiled when she remembered his effusiveness at the
Spartacus
party the previous October. He was saying what he thought Trevor wanted to hear.

In the car back to Pensione Splendid, she and Trevor chatted about progress on
Cleopatra
and the point they had reached in the story. She rolled her eyes as she told him about Cleopatra’s triumphal entry into Rome and the calls of ‘Viva Leez’.

He laughed. ‘What was it you said Irene Sharaff called it? Hollywood on the Tiber?’

Diana was amazed that he remembered. He must have been listening after all during those awkward, one-sided phone calls.

As she showed him into her room, she felt anxious in case the
padrona
appeared and made some comment about her having yet another male caller. Or what if Ernesto had left some sign that would give the game away? But there was nothing out of the ordinary. Trevor just nodded and walked over to look out the window while Diana unpacked his case and hung up the shirts he had brought.

‘So this is your famous view! Very nice.’

They went to the
trattoria
downstairs for dinner and Trevor ate heartily, still in good humour. He had obviously made a decision to be congenial and ask about her life out there. If only he had done that at Christmas, things could have been entirely different.

‘I’ve been keeping up with the Burton–Taylor melodrama,’ he told her. ‘Did you know that
The Times
now reports on it regularly? What’s the world coming to?’

Diana was amazed.
The Times
didn’t usually report tittle-tattle, and even if it did, she wouldn’t have expected Trevor to bother with it. ‘You heard about the Vatican condemnation then?’

‘Outrageous! Why doesn’t the Pope condemn genuinely evil people like Khrushchev or Ho Chi Minh? It trivialises his church that it should be concerned about an actor and actress doing what actors and actresses have done for time immemorial. There are even reports of thespian affairs in Pliny.’

‘Elizabeth is putting a brave face on it but she’s distressed.’ Diana found herself telling Trevor about the conversation they’d had, and finished by saying, ‘She has a lot to lose.’

‘Perhaps,’ Trevor said, ‘but not as much as Richard Burton.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘For a start, if his wife divorces him he will lose his children. It must be very hard for divorced men only to see their children at times dictated by a court – if they are decent men, that is.’

Diana was startled by the use of the word ‘divorce’, a subject that was much on her mind of late.

Trevor continued: ‘But I also believe he will be taken less seriously as an actor if he hitches his wagon to the lure of global stardom in the form of Miss Taylor. Already
The Times
speculates that this affair was calculated to push up his fees for movie acting, and that if he wants a career starring in the latest Hollywood hit films it was a good move. But his friends in English theatre are openly siding with Sybil and claiming they will have nothing to do with him if he leaves her. Even his family in Wales are saying that. So in making a decision he has to balance his credibility as an actor, his friends, family and children against the undeniable attributes of Miss Taylor.’

‘Gosh, I never thought of it like that.’ Diana had formed an opinion of Richard Burton as an arrogant womaniser and hadn’t stopped to consider his point of view.

‘For Elizabeth Taylor to win her prize, she will have to rip him slowly and painfully away from his Welsh roots and everything he believes in. Somehow I can’t see her sitting in the Miners’ Arms in Pontrhydyfen drinking ale and singing “Myfanwy” on a Saturday night.’

Diana laughed at the absurdity of the notion. ‘They probably don’t serve ale in Hollywood.’

‘Probably don’t even have pubs. And they certainly don’t have decent theatre.’

Later, they climbed the stairs to her room companionably arm in arm but Diana made it very clear that sex was not on the cards. She went to the bathroom to change into her nightdress, and when she got into bed she wrapped the covers tightly around her and wriggled as close to the wall as possible, leaving him plenty of space to settle in.

‘Goodnight,’ he whispered, his voice catching in his throat. He didn’t attempt to put his arm round her, as he always did at home.

She whispered, ‘Sleep well.’ In fact, neither slept for a long while, and both could tell that was the case from the other’s breathing, but neither dared to say another word for fear of opening Pandora’s box. Once they started discussing their marital problems, who knew where it would end?

Next morning, when Diana awoke, Trevor was lying beside her perusing a Baedeker
Guide to Rome
, tracing a route on a map with his finger. She’d always liked his hands, which were large and strong, but with long, elegant fingers.

‘It advises that we should hire a guide to show us round the Colosseum and the Forum. What do you think?’

Diana laughed. ‘I think the guide would have to pay
you
. You’d know far more than he did!’

‘I can’t believe you haven’t been yet. How could you spend six months in Rome without having a look?’

She considered this. There were many Sundays when she could have walked around on her own, and she assumed Ernesto would have taken her if she had asked, but in the back of her mind she had always wanted to go with Trevor. He was such a brilliant historian that he would make connections no travel guide would dream of.