– 13 –
Deidre and Sergio forged a path through the steady flow of students, winding their way along the drab corridors of the Accademia. Occasionally Sergio stopped to speak to one of the students, and each time he did so Deidre’s tension increased. She wasn’t sure why she was so agitated, but it was the same feeling she’d had five years ago when the whole thing had first blown up, and just as she had then, she was looking to Sergio to put her mind at rest.
‘Of course I am pleased to see you, cara,’ he said as he pushed open a door and stood back for her to go through. ‘It is only that I am surprised to see you here.’
‘I had to talk to you,’ she answered. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’ She followed him down a narrow, crowded flight of stairs and again they were in a bustling corridor.
‘And what is that?’ he said.
She waited while he indulged in another rapid exchange with a student. ‘It’s about Olivia Hastings,’ she said, when he turned back to her. ‘You remember, the American girl.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Sì, I remember.’ To her surprise, he started to walk on.
‘Somebody’s making a film about her,’ she told him.
‘I know.’
‘You know?’
He stopped, then smiled when he saw her incredulous eyes. ‘Sì. A woman by the name of Bronwen Evans, she called me and we make an arrangement to meet. Soon. She want to ask me what I know about Olivia when she was here in Firenze.’
For a moment Deidre was non-plussed, then, as he started down the corridor again, she slipped her hand into his. ‘You’ve agreed to see her?’
‘But of course. Why should I not?’
Deidre didn’t have an answer to that. ‘I just thought . . .’ she mumbled, ‘after . . . well, when Olivia disappeared the police questioned you for so long. I remember how upset you were by it . . .’ She felt suddenly ridiculous, as if she were creating a drama out of nothing.
He chuckled softly, and still walking, lifted a hand to her hair. ‘You come all this way to tell me about this film when you could have telephoned. But I am glad you are here.’
When they reached the end of the corridor he stopped at an open door. Inside, students were unpacking their overalls and setting out their materials.
‘Sergio,’ she said.
He turned to her, and his eyes seemed to touch her like a caress. ‘Wait for me at the apartment,’ he murmured. ‘I will come soon.’
He went into the classroom then, and as he closed the door Deidre turned away and slowly started to make her way outside. She didn’t know why she was making such a fuss, except that she had never forgotten his anguish when Olivia first disappeared. She had been in Florence with him at the time, but he had sent her back to England when the police started their investigation, saying he didn’t want her involved. She had never questioned his decision, any more than she had ever seriously considered the possibility that he might have had something to do with the disappearance. But every now and again a horrible, sinking doubt would assail her, and then only being with Sergio could assuage her fears.
As she walked out into the brilliant sunshine her unease was already beginning to wane. The police enquiries had been unpleasant for Sergio because he cared for Olivia, as he did all his students – it was no more than that. And then she smiled quietly to herself as she recalled the evening Olivia had appeared at the door of his studio.
‘I’ve come to apologise,’ she had said in her twangy American voice, and Deidre had noticed how, for once, Olivia’s eyes didn’t have that look of crazed depravity that she had always found so particularly chilling in a girl so young.
‘Oh?’ Sergio had been standing just inside the room with his arm about Deidre’s shoulders.
Olivia had shrugged and lifted a hand to sweep her blonde hair from her face. The hand was shaking uncontrollably, and Deidre’s heart had gone out to her in the fruitless and frustrated sympathy one had for drug addicts.
‘I can’t make love with you, Sergio,’ she had declared. ‘I want to, but I can’t. You are a great man, I worship you, and I feel humility and longing when I am near you. But I can’t do it.’
That was all she had said before slipping on her peculiar sunglasses, turning on her heel and tripping lightly back down the stairs. Sergio and Deidre had looked at one another in astonishment, until the street door slammed below and they burst out laughing.
It was not a rare occurrence for students to proclaim their love for Sergio, and Deidre knew she would probably have forgotten all about Olivia had she not disappeared shortly after that night. Some American student had driven her into the mountains late one evening and dropped her at a village called Paesetto di Pittore. He hadn’t gone into the village with her, he claimed, but had driven on to Pisa where he had taken a plane to Amsterdam the following day. Once the police caught up with him they had questioned him for weeks, but had let him go in the end through lack of evidence. Still, five years later, nobody knew what had happened to Olivia.
By the time she let herself into the apartment, which she found in its usual state of disorder, Deidre’s thoughts had turned to Madeleine. For the past month Phillipa Jolley, a dress designer Deidre had been at university with, had had a team working round the clock to get together an exclusive collection for Madeleine. Now it was ready, and the following day Madeleine would be showing it in Paris. Deidre wanted to check that there were no last-minute hitches, so she picked up the phone to call her secretary. Anne reassured her that everything was going according to plan, then went on to tell her about the proofs she had received from a session Madeleine had done the week before for the new cosmetic range. It was probably because she was talking about Madeleine that Deidre didn’t at first find anything odd in the fact that she was staring at a photograph of her, propped up on Sergio’s desk. But by the time she put the phone down, she was curious to know what it was doing there. She recognised the picture, it was one of the shots Dario had taken when Madeleine first came to them. What on earth was it doing here in Sergio’s studio?
‘I ask Dario to send it,’ Sergio laughed, when she asked him later. ‘When you talk about her to me the last time you were here, you were so happy about her and so mystified that I want to see her for myself. Of course, I see her all the time now. She is in the Italian papers too, you know.’
‘And magazines,’ Deidre told him, touched by his interest in her work. ‘Getting Madeleine to the top is proving even easier than I thought.’ She picked up the photograph and smiled. ‘She is very beautiful, don’t you think?’
‘Sì, very beautiful. And, I think you become fond of her, no?’
Deidre nodded. ‘Perhaps.’
‘The child I would not permit you to have?’ he probed gently, and when she looked up into his face he kissed her tenderly on the mouth. ‘Do you hate me for it, cara?’
‘Sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘But you gave me the choice. I could have had children with another man, but I wanted you.’
‘And now you have Madeleine.’ They were both still looking down at the photograph.
‘For a while, yes,’ she answered. ‘But one day Paul will take her away from me.’ She stole a quick glance at his face to see if the mention of Paul had induced a reaction, but he was still smiling at the picture.
‘Tell me why you say that,’ he said.
She smiled and shrugged. ‘I don’t know, really. I suppose it’s just that they seem so devoted to one another. I’m glad of that because it means she’ll be happy when she gives it all up, but I shall miss her.’
‘You think she will give it up?’
‘If he wanted her to, she would.’
‘But I thought she wanted to become famous.’
‘She does, and she already is famous – quite. But she’s not as vain as she used to be, though she is still pretty appalling sometimes. But there’s a vulnerability in her that has rather got to me. She’s so easily exploited – I know I’m the exploiter, but I ease my conscience by telling myself I’m only doing what she wants me to do. And she’s so happy when she’s with Paul that you get the impression that nothing else matters really – to either of them. They’re not always terribly comfortable to be with; they give you the feeling you’re intruding – at least, Paul does.’
‘He must love her very much if he is so possessive.’ Deidre put her head on one side and thought about that for a moment. ‘Yes, I think he does. And possessive is the right word. It’s as if he owns her, controls her even.’
‘It is sometimes like that when two people are very much in love, no?’ His hand moved over hers, and taking the photograph, he turned her to face him. ‘Bacia mi, cara,’ he murmured.
She lifted her mouth, and as he pulled her roughly into his arms she could feel the hardness of his lean body pressing against her. ‘Oh, Sergio,’ she moaned, and he pushed his tongue deep into her mouth.
‘I love you,’ he said later, as they lay On his bed, sweat still glistening on their skin.
‘Do you?’ she asked, twisting herself round to look at him.
He took one of her small breasts in his hand and toyed lazily with the nipple. ‘Yes,’ he whispered, gazing into her eyes.
‘Do you love me enough to want to shut out the rest of the world, the way Paul does with Madeleine?’
‘That is what we do, is it not, my love?’
‘In a way, yes. But you don’t share everything with me.’
‘I give you all I can.’
‘But why won’t you let me see your work?’
His hand fell back to the bed and he turned his face away from her. ‘Why do you ask when you know the answer?’ he said, a note of irritation in his voice. ‘My work at the bottega must remain a secret until it is ready. A secret from all the world – and that must mean you too.’
‘But what about the men and women who work with you? They . . .’
‘Stop!’ He jerked himself from the bed and stared down at her, and she could see he was angry. ‘I will not talk of this any longer. You have me here and now. I tell you I love you, that must be enough.’
‘But what is it you’re trying to hide?’ she pleaded.
‘It is only you who say I hide things.’
‘But you are hiding things. Why does your work have to be so secret, even from me? Don’t you trust me?’
‘It is not a matter of trust, Deidre. It is a matter of protect . . .’ He stopped, suddenly, and she knew instantly that he was going to lie. ‘Protecting you from those who are eager to know about the work. And protecting me from them too,’ he finished.
Deidre sat up, feeling the doubt begin to pound through her brain. ‘But I don’t understand. Why . . .?’
‘I explain this to you before,’ he snapped, as he put on his black towelling robe. ‘No one must go to the bottega, no one must know of it or where is it until I say so.’
‘But can’t you see how much it hurts me to know that you don’t trust . . .’
‘No!’ His voice cut across her and his eyes were blazing with fury. Then he snatched open a drawer in the chest behind him and took out a packet of cigarettes. She watched as he struck a match, then inhaled deeply. His hand was trembling and his dark, unshaven face was alive with agitation. Suddenly she was afraid. Afraid because he had never reacted like this before about the bottega, and afraid because she could feel her darkest suspicions breaking loose in her mind and words of accusation erupting horribly and uncontrollably from her lips.
‘You took her there, didn’t you?’ she blurted out. ‘You took Olivia to the bottega?’
He looked at her, appalled. ‘Why do you say such things? There is nothing to . . .’
‘You took her there, didn’t you?’ she persisted, confused yet unable to stem the mounting tide of foreboding. ‘You took her there when you wouldn’t take me. Why?’
‘Deidre, stop!’
‘For God’s sake, don’t you know how much I love you? Don’t you understand how important it is to me that you should trust me?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I am talking about Olivia. I’m talking about that night . . .’
‘Why do you ask me about her now? She is gone, she is . . .’
‘Gone? Gone where, Sergio?’ And when he only stared at her, she answered for him. ‘You took her to the bottega and she’s never been seen again. Isn’t that the truth?’ Her mind was in torment, and all she wanted was that be should deny it.
‘You don’t know what you are saying. You are crazy.’
‘No, I don’t know what I’m saying, but I can’t forget the night you sat here and wept like a child. It was the night she disappeared. And I can’t forget the way you sent me back to England, but not before you’d made me tell the police you spent the whole night here with me. But you didn’t, Sergio, so where were you?’
‘I told you, I was at the bottega.’
‘And Olivia? Was she there too?’
‘No!’
‘Then where is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ he yelled. ‘Nobody knows.’
She closed her eyes, trying to push away the doubt and make herself believe him. ‘Why did you cry that night?’ she whispered into the piercing silence. She heard him move across the room, and when she looked up he was standing at the window. ‘Why did you cry, Sergio?’
‘I cannot remember. It is a long time ago.’
‘Was it because of Olivia? Because of something that had happened to her?’
He walked back to the chest and ground out his cigarette. He didn’t turn round, but put his hands on either side of the chest and lowered his head. Her heart was pounding with dread. The silence simmered round her and at last she slumped back against the pillows and covered her face with her hands.
It was a long time before he went to her, but when he did he sat down carefully, putting his arms round her and resting her head on his shoulder. ‘You want to know why I cry that night,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘I cry for many things, but they are past now. They are over and you must not torment yourself like this.’
‘But if I knew what they were. If I knew . . .’
‘Ssh, cara, it is not important now.’ He held her closer, and pulling a sheet over her shoulders, he kissed the top of her head.
‘Why do I love you so much, Sergio?’ she whispered.
As he answered she heard the smile in his voice. ‘Today you ask me so many questions I cannot answer.’
‘But there is one that you can. Will you, if I ask it?’
‘Yes.’
She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the answer that every nerve in her body was screaming to reject. ‘Was Olivia ever at the bottega?’ she asked.
There was no tremor in his voice, no faltering of the hand that smoothed her hair, and no hesitation as he calmly but firmly denied it.
She looked up, and when she saw the tenderness in his eyes, the remaining vestiges of her fear were swallowed into a tide of love and relief.
Side by side, with their glorious hair wound into unicorn rods on the tops of their heads, and their make-up glittering silver and gold about their eyes, Shamir and Madeleine glided down the catwalk. Both wore the shimmering, tight-fitting evening dresses from Phillipa Jolley’s collection. All round them flash-bulbs were popping, film was spooling and pencils were scratching over notepads. It was the end of the show, and it had been the designer’s idea that Shamir should join Madeleine for the finale. The contrast she offered to Madeleine’s provocative violet eyes, ivory-gold skin and pearl-white hair was breathtaking in itself, but it was the looks that passed between the two of them, as they strutted and sashayed in time to the music, that were setting everyone alight. Even Deidre, who had flown in early that afternoon after spending the morning making up with Sergio, was transfixed by the mystery that seemed to lie behind that electric communication of eyes.
Watching from his seat in the front row, Paul understood that communication perfectly. He had seen the two of them parading in front of mirrors, had been the sole audience as they rehearsed the precise gestures and movements that would convey various shades of sexual nuance; he had listened to them discussing the power they had; and he knew that it was their utter belief in themselves as untouchable, superior beings that created the air of enigma surrounding them.
Now, as Shamir pirouetted in front of him and threw back her head, his eyes slid over her slender body and he felt a bolt of livid anger jar through him. The night before he had overheard her telling Madeleine that she was insane to put up with his moods. What Shamir thought didn’t matter an iota to him, but he did mind that Madeleine was telling people about the way he behaved. He had said nothing at the time, it was late and she had a big day ahead of her, but now that the show was over he was going to take her to task.
Waiting only until the applause died down, he got up from his seat and pressed a path through the swarming, rhapsodic mass of people to the dressing-room.
When he got there, he saw that Madeleine was surrounded by Shamir, Deidre, Roy, Phillipa, dressers and countless others he didn’t recognise. Phillipa was filling everyone’s glass from a magnum of champagne and flushing with delight as they sang her praises.
‘Paul!’ Madeleine cried when she saw him. ‘Come and get some champers.’
He walked over to the crowd, who parted to let him through, asking him if he wasn’t proud of Madeleine and didn’t he think she’d been superb? But as he took Madeleine’s arm and dragged her through rack after rack of dresses to a distant corner of the room, their voices dried on their lips.
‘What are you doing?’ she grumbled, kicking off her high-heels before she fell over.
‘I want you to get changed and come back to the George V, now!’
‘What? But we’re celebrating. Didn’t you see the way . . .’
‘Now!’ he repeated, through clenched teeth.
‘But I can’t just leave.’
‘I want you back there,’ he hissed, and for the benefit of those who were peering through the rails he pressed his mouth against hers.
When he let her go, Madeleine giggled. ‘Yes, sir,’ she saluted. ‘Give me five minutes.’
He wandered outside to wait in the fresh air, only to be bombarded by photographers and journalists.
‘When’s she coming out?’ one of them cried.
‘What did you think of the show, Paul?’
‘How does it feel to be married to a sex bomb like Madeleine Deacon?’
‘We’re not married,’ Paul snapped.
‘When’s the big day?’
‘Will Phillipa Jolley design the dress?’
Paul threw up his hands – the picture made the front page of a newspaper in Britain the following day with the headline, Will she many me or won’t she?
Inside, Madeleine was slipping hurriedly into her jeans and telling Shamir not to make such a fuss.
‘But he storms in here like some Neanderthal man and orders you out,’ Shamir protested. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t drag you off by the hair. It’s your big day as well as Phillipa’s, you’re supposed to be celebrating.’
‘I’m about to,’ Madeleine grinned. ‘But I’m afraid the rest of you aren’t invited.’
‘Tell him to wait, for Christ’s sake. What is he, some kind of animal that he has to have you straightaway?’
‘That’s right. All animal,’ Madeleine laughed as she picked up her holdall. ‘And I’ll let you into a secret – when Paul wants me the way he does right now, I couldn’t care less if he dragged me out by the pubes.’
‘Will we see you later, at La Tour d’Argent?’ Shamir called after her.
‘I expect so,’ Madeleine called back, ‘but don’t hold your breath.’
As she burst out into the street, she shrieked as a plethora of white flash-bulbs exploded in her face.
‘Come on,’ Paul cried, grabbing her arm. ‘There’s a taxi waiting over here.’
They were pushed and jostled, and Madeleine’s shirt was torn in the rush, but finally they managed to reach the car, which sped off in the direction of the Champs Elysées.
‘You like me to lose?’ the driver enquired eagerly.
‘No point,’ Paul answered, ‘they know where we’re staying.’
The driver’s face fell, but nevertheless he kept his foot jammed on the accelerator and in less than ten minutes they were back at the George V, just in time to avoid the press.
‘Look at my shirt,’ Madeleine complained as they were going up in the lift, ‘the sleeve’s practically off.’
Paul took it in his hand, and to the amazement of the other people in the lift, he gave it a quick tug and completely severed it from the shoulder.
Madeleine’s eyes narrowed, and with a salacious smile she murmured, ‘I dare you to do that with the rest of it.’
Taking a lapel in each hand, Paul ripped open the shirt, exposing her breasts to stupefied eyes. Madeleine smiled at them happily, then as the doors opened to their floor, he dealt her a stinging blow across the face and walked out of the lift.
‘Paul!’ she cried, grabbing her holdall and clutching the front of her shirt as she ran after him. ‘Paul, wait. What is it? What have I done?’
He said nothing until they were inside their suite, when he took the holdall from her, dropped it on the floor and flung her onto the sofa. ‘You talked to Shamir about me?’ he seethed.
She blinked, and shook her head in confusion. ‘Shamir? What’s she got to do with anything?’
‘Everything!’ he yelled. ‘You discussed me with her, and I won’t tolerate it.’
‘You were listening last night, weren’t you? When you were supposed to be asleep in the other room?’
‘Yes, I was listening.’
‘But I only told her . . .’
‘I know what you told her.’
‘But she’s my friend. Friends tell one another things like that.’
‘When are you going to grow up, Madeleine? She’s out with journalists the whole time. If she mentioned to one of them that you’d complained about me being moody and temperamental, it would be all over the papers the next day.’
‘Well, what difference does that make?’
‘All the difference in the world. They’ll start printing stories about the break-up of our relationship and the next thing you know, the pressure will be so intolerable that we’ll be going our separate ways. Is that what you want?’
‘No,’ she said sulkily.
‘Then think about what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to.’
‘You can talk,’ she spat. ‘You just hit me in front of a lift full of people. What if that gets in the papers?’
‘We can deny it. Nobody in that lift knows us, and it’s their word against ours. Whereas anything Shamir says would inevitably have come from you and you alone. You’re always together, you’re known to be friends, and she wouldn’t welsh on you unless it were true.’
‘You’re jealous of Shamir,’ she accused him.
‘Of course I am. It’s hard for me, coming to terms with the fact that you need someone else in your life besides me. So give me a break, will you?’
He turned away, burying his face in his hands, and she got to her feet.
‘I don’t need anyone but you,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I told you that before.’
‘Then stop seeing so much of her,’ he raged.
‘All right. All right, I will. But we’ve got that session for the Fairplay centrefold the day after tomorrow, I’ll have to see her then.’
He turned to look at her, and when he saw her pale, worried frown and the tatters of her shirt hanging from her shoulders, the anger and revenge drained from him, and shaking his head he held out his arms. ‘Oh, my darling,’ he sighed, as she went to him, her hands stuffed stubbornly in her pockets. ‘I’m such a bastard to you.’
‘Yes, you are,’ she agreed.
He kissed her tenderly, then said, ‘Promise me you won’t confide any more of my grim little secrets to Shamir?’
‘I promise.’
‘You know why I’m jealous of her, don’t you? I mean, the real reason?’
She shook her head.
‘Because I don’t want you going to the top with her, I want it to be with me.’
‘Oh, so do I,’ she cried, throwing her arms round him. ‘And we will, I know we will, because. I’ve had an idea about Harry Freemantle.’ She stepped back and looked into his face.
‘Oh?’ he said, weighing her breasts in his hands.
‘Well, I was thinking, he’s pretty good-looking, Harry, isn’t he? I mean, no self-respecting queer would turn him down, would they? So I thought, if I paid one of the boys from Deidre’s agency to do it with him, in our bed, then we could rig up a camera and hey presto, we’ve got him.’
‘Mm, not bad,’ he said, leading her back to the sofa and pulling her onto his lap. ‘But how do we get them into our bed?’
‘That’s the easy bit. I’ll give the boy the keys to our house while we’re away in New York next week, and he can take Harry back there. The difficult bit is introducing him to Harry and getting Harry to fancy him. But you know what male models are like. As long as Harry’s not into a bit of rough, it should be plain sailing.’
‘About New York,’ he said, fingering her nipples and brushing his lips over her neck as she started to purr. ‘I can’t come.’
‘Oh Paul!’
‘I’ve got too much work to do, and you’ll be so busy I’d hardly see you anyway. But while you’re there I could engineer this meeting between the model and Harry, and if need be, go and spend a night in a hotel while they do the business.’ He circled her lips with his tongue. ‘Did I ever tell you what a brilliantly devious mind you’ve got?’ he murmured.
‘Did I ever tell you how much I love you doing that?’ she answered, as he blew gently in her ear.
‘About Shamir,’ he said, as he started to unzip her jeans. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’
‘Are we seeing her later?’
‘Mm.’
‘Then I’ll make an effort to be especially nice to her.’
‘Not as nice as you’re being to me now, though?’
‘Oh no, not that nice.’
Her eyes fluttered open, and as she gazed into his face he saw the stirrings of that now famous look, and knew that if they did make it to dinner that night they would be very, very, late.
Deidre was sitting in a dark corner of the studio with Roy Welland, watching the set-decorators and photographer’s assistants at work. So far there had been no sign of Madeleine and Shamir, though she guessed they were upstairs being dressed and made-up. To say Deidre was shocked when Shamir had called up to say she’d like to do the Fairplay session with Madeleine, would be an understatement. Never, in the three years Shamir had been with Deidre, had she ever shown any inclination for this kind of exposure. Not that she would be revealing anything more than a beautiful face herself, it was just astounding that she should want to appear in a publication of that kind at all. However it was an indication of how close the two girls had become, and it pleased Deidre a lot since Madeleine seemed to have no one in the world besides Paul. Except that there was a cousin somewhere who had tried to make contact through The Sun newspaper a while ago.
‘Oh her,’ Madeleine had sneered when Deidre told her. ‘She’s after Paul, not me. She was always trying to break us up, that’s mainly the reason we left Bristol. If she calls again, tell her to get lost.’
Not wanting to become embroiled in some kind of family feud, Deidre had thrown the phone number away, but she was saddened by Madeleine’s response, and that was why she had been so heartened when the friendship between Madeleine and Shamir seemed to blossom – quite apart from their indisputable success as a professional duo. Madeleine needed a friend, all girls did at that age, regardless of whether or not they were in love, and Deidre felt there had been a marked improvement in Madeleine since she’d known Shamir.
The impact they had made in Paris was still being felt throughout the fashion world, and Deidre guessed that the same would happen in the glamour world once this particular edition of Fairplay hit the stands. It was a shame Madeleine didn’t want so much joint publicity after this, but she had told Deidre that she wanted to share her limelight more with Paul than Shamir, and as Madeleine was paying, Deidre had quite naturally agreed.
A young secretary in a short, tight black skirt handed Deidre a cup of coffee, and as Deidre watched her walk away she frowned at the distant memory of her own miniskirt days. Then hearing Roy chuckle beside her, she threw him a look before asking him what he had lined up for them in New York.
A few minutes later the door opened and Madeleine and Shamir walked into the studio. Behind them were dressers, make-up artistes, a team of editors from Fairplay, and an elderly man with a handle-bar moustache wearing starched Edwardian clothes. Madeleine’s costume was covered by a robe several sizes too big, but Shamir looked positively imperious in her ankle-length black satin skirt, white chiffon blouse and grey satin jacket with panniered hem. Her hair, rolled back from her face, was hidden beneath a glorious feathered hat. Taking the role of the gentleman’s half-caste wife who had returned with him to England after he had been injured in battle ‘somewhere in India’ – so Deidre read from the notes in front of her – Shamir could have stepped right out of 1910. Madeleine’s part was that of the miscreant maid who had been caught trying to steal her mistress’s sapphire and ruby necklace, thus availing her mistress of a long-awaited opportunity to inflict humiliation and punishment on a white woman. That was how the story would begin, told in more detail by one of Fairplay’s sub-editors, and from there the photographs would take over.
Neither Shamir nor Madeleine had noticed Deidre and Roy sitting in the shadows at the back of the room; so, unobserved, Deidre watched as Madeleine talked, giggled, and eyed up the men like a schoolgirl. Then Madeleine spotted Deidre and ran across the studio to throw her arms round her agent. She babbled on with excited chatter about what they would be doing in New York, how she had been practically mobbed in Oxford Street the day before, and the ‘fab pics’ in one of the morning papers that must have been taken weeks ago. Deidre smiled and laughed and urged her to calm down. But she needn’t have worried, because when the photographer came into the studio some ten minutes later and Madeleine was called to the set, her manner immediately reflected Shamir’s, which was one of serene confidence and professionalism.
‘That girl’s really getting to me,’ she sighed to Roy. ‘She’s such an innocent she makes me feel a hundred years old, and I actually like her for it.’
‘Nothing to do with the fact that she’s making you rich?’ he queried.
‘Cynic,’ she bit back.
‘Which reminds me, the fund is running low and we’ve got an expensive few months coming up.’
‘I know,’ Deidre answered. ‘The glossies wanted an arm and a leg to put her on their front covers for August at such short notice – anyway, she should be on all editions now, New York, Rome, Paris and London. Last-minute – or should I say, instant – publicity doesn’t come cheap, as well you know. And I’m not only talking about bribery, I’m talking about the practicalities of turn-around.’
‘Out of interest, are you paying her anything at all? A wage, as it were?’
‘No. All her fees go straight into the fund. But it goes without saying that all the money is spent on her or to benefit her. But do you know, she hasn’t even asked me about money.’
Roy shrugged and reached into his top pocket for his diary. ‘She seems to have so much, she doesn’t need to,’ he said. ‘Want to go over things now, while we’re here?’
‘Why not?’ Deidre took her diary from her bag. ‘Tell me what’s coming up when we get back from New York.’
‘Right. The day you come back there’s a party at Silverstone, following the Grand Prix. I think she should go to that, she can always get over her jet lag the day after, and Dario’s keen to photograph her with the sporting fraternity. We’ve missed Twickenham and the FA Cup Final, but Lords is just around the corner, we’ll get her lined up with the players.’
‘OK,’ Deidre said, writing it in her diary.
‘Now, on the English social calendar there’s Royal Ascot the week after next, then polo at Windsor, then Henley.’
‘All arranged,’ Deidre said. ‘We’ll be going with Charles Anstey-Smythe’s party, so we’ll have all the right passes etcetera. As far as I know Paul’s coming too, though he can’t make New York. By the way, Madeleine tells me things could be looking up for him on the publishing front.’
‘Good. Ask her for a bit more loot and we’ll see what we can do about getting him to the top of the best-sellers.’
‘She’s already offered it.’
‘That’s my girl. They’ll be quite the golden couple if he succeeds.’
‘Now,’ Deidre went on, ‘there’s a royal film première coming up’ – she flicked over a couple of pages – ‘ah, here it is. Can you speak to Dario about the photographers?’
‘No problem.’
‘The BBC are interested in making a documentary about her and her rise to fame. Can we fit that in sometime in August, they want to know?’
Roy pondered that a moment. ‘It’ll be difficult, she’s pretty busy, but we’ll see if we can’t squeeze it in somewhere.’ He made a note of it, then slapped his forehead as he suddenly remembered something. ‘Pirelli. They want Madeleine and Shamir for their next calendar. Just the two of them. South of France, middle of September.’
Deidre chuckled. ‘Just wait until I tell Madeleine, she’ll be cock-a-hoop. Nothing she likes more than taking her clothes off.’
‘No,’ Roy said, drawing out the word and nodding towards the other side of the room where the Fairplay session was by now in full swing; and with their diary meeting more or less complete, he and Deidre sat back to watch.
Madeleine’s hair fell in wisps about her face, and her chambermaid costume was hanging from her shoulders, revealing her left breast. She clung to a bedpost, gazing imploringly up at the man, who was looking to his wife for further instruction. Shamir, sitting at a jewel-laden dressing-table, watched the proceedings with an expression of pure contempt. The photographer and the editorial staff of Fairplay were milling about the set, arranging detail no one would ever notice, and giving instructions to the three models.
As Madeleine’s clothes were taken from her body and draped about the set, so the tension in the studio increased. Her sexuality was so potent that even the women in the room were reacting to it, and whether playing for the camera or not, Madeleine was constantly aware of the effect she was having. Between shots Deidre and Roy watched as she searched out one man at a time, fixing him with half-closed, penetrating eyes and filling the air between them with the kind of promise guaranteed to set his pulses throbbing.
‘Shit, she’s even getting to me,’ Roy muttered, as Madeleine circled her lips with her tongue and gazed into the eyes of an electrician. By now she wore only white frilly drawers and stockings that were at that moment being wrinkled round her knees. A make-up artist was coating her breasts in baby oil, and when she’d finished Madeleine tweaked the nipples so that they stood out as red and firm as the rubies on Shamir’s fingers.
When she was ready, Shamir’s ‘husband’ slipped his hand in under the elastic of the white drawers and Gerry, the photographer, reeled off his shots. Then Fairplay’s editor stepped in and talked quietly with Madeleine. Gerry joined them, and a few minutes later called out for everyone to take ten.
The set-designer and his team stripped the bed, littered it with jewellery from the dressing-table and put up a screen.
The screen was there only to protect Madeleine’s modesty as she removed her final garment. Deidre had to choke back the laughter when someone told her this – Madeleine didn’t know the meaning of the word. Still, she was intrigued; Madeleine was obviously up to something.
When it happened, it took even Deidre’s breath away.
It was almost lunchtime by now, and with only the final sequence to shoot Madeleine was aware that she was losing everyone’s attention. She wasn’t unduly worried, because within seconds of Gerry giving the word there wouldn’t be one person in the room whose eyes weren’t concentrated just where she wanted them to be.
As someone yelled for quiet, Madeleine removed the frilly drawers and handed them to a dresser. The make-up girl applied a few finishing touches, then nodded to Gerry. Gerry gave the answering signal and Madeleine stepped out from behind the screen.
There was an audible gasp. Roy’s lips parted in what sounded like a whimper and even Deidre shifted in her chair. Madeleine’s expression was one of mortal shame; her hands hung loosely at her sides and her breasts jutted proudly toward the camera. But just as she had known it would be, every eye in the room was focused on the join of her legs. There, she was as smooth and exposed as the day she was born.
When she was sure of everyone’s full attention, Madeleine turned to Gerry. His face gave nothing away, but his hand shook slightly as he guided her to the bed and led her down amongst the jewellery. After the first shots had been taken, his assistants moved the camera to the foot of the bed, the lighting was reset and Madeleine parted her legs for Gerry to drape a ruby and sapphire necklace between them.
‘That’s a wrap!’ someone shouted ten minutes later. Two secretaries came in with bottles of wine and glasses on a tray, and the editor of Fairplay poured. Madeleine was surrounded by men, throwing back her head and revelling in their admiration and lust. She made no attempt to cover herself, and every now and again turned to catch her reflection in the mirror.
Deidre was caught up with more people from Fairplay but kept an eye on Madeleine, mildly shocked that, now her impact had been made, she didn’t get dressed. Then she noticed several glances being directed towards the door, and when, ten minutes later, Paul walked in, Deidre understood.
The room was still in semi-darkness, with only one or two studio lights left on. Paul remained at the door, hands in pockets, watching with amusement as Madeleine paraded about the set, not yet having seen him. When she did see him, Deidre felt her skin burn. The sheer concupiscence that leapt between them was like nothing she had ever witnessed before. Everyone in the room felt it; voices thinned into silence and the hush that engulfed them started to simmer with expectancy.
Madeleine handed her glass to Shamir, then reaching up, she pulled the clip from her hair and let it tumble round her shoulders. All the while she was looking at Paul, and he at her.
At last she started to walk towards him, and Deidre’s breath locked inside her as Madeleine’s incomparable body moved from the shadows into dusty blue-grey shafts of sunlight. The orange glow of a studio lamp lit her from behind, and in that strange pattern of light she looked almost ethereal. No one moved, not a sound was heard above the gentle pad of her bare feet. Her breasts careened gently with her movements, her skin shimmered, and all Deidre could think was, If only Sergio could see her now.
As she drew closer Paul’s hands moved from his pockets, his lips parted, and as Madeleine came to a stop in front of him he took her in his arms. His mouth covered hers, and as Deidre saw their tongues entwine she felt a tidal wave of pure eroticism spread through her loins. Like everyone else she was transfixed, and watched shamelessly as Paul’s long fingers splayed across Madeleine’s back, then started to move slowly down to her buttocks. Then he stopped. Madeleine laughed, and the immobilising air in the room evaporated.
There was a sudden surge of activity and Paul and Madeleine were swallowed into the crowd. Occasionally Deidre caught a glimpse of them whispering to one another and laughing as though there was no one else present. Paul’s arm was round her shoulders, and every now and again he put his glass to her mouth for her to sip his wine. Deidre wondered if anyone else felt the sense of intrusion she was feeling, but if they did they weren’t showing it.
Gradually the party started to break up, and while Paul remained in the studio talking to Roy and the editor of Fairplay, Deidre, Madeleine and Shamir went upstairs to the dressing-rooms. Madeleine was in a hurry now, and didn’t want to keep Paul waiting, so Deidre had time only to remind her not to be late for their flight the day after tomorrow – and then to be surprised when Madeleine enquired about the movements of one of the male models over the next week or so. It was the second time Madeleine had asked, so as they walked down the stairs together Deidre casually enquired why.
‘Oh, it’s just that a friend of Paul’s has got his eye on him,’ Madeleine answered. ‘I said I’d try and fix them up. But anyway, he’s definitely in London next week?’
‘He is,’ Deidre confirmed.
‘Then I’ll give Paul his number, see if he can get the two of them together while I’m away.’
‘I never had you down as a cupid for gays, Madeleine,’ Deidre laughed. ‘Now don’t forget, the flight’s at . . .’
‘Eleven o’clock in the morning. I have to be there at nine thirty. The flight number’s . . .’
‘All right, all right,’ Deidre interrupted. ‘Just make sure you’re there.’
‘I will be,’ Madeleine assured her, then handing her holdall to Paul, who was waiting at the door, she gave Deidre a quick peck on either cheek and followed him into the car park.
As they drove off in Paul’s Range Rover, on their way home to change before going on to Glyndebourne, Deidre stood in the car park with Roy and waved. She felt inexplicably sad, and wanted more than anything to speak to Sergio. Seeing Paul and Madeleine together, and so much in love, had heightened her need for him. Then she smiled, and waiting until they were out of sight, opened her handbag and dropped Madeleine’s cheque inside.
Paul was sitting in his study at the back of the mews house, looking at the framed photograph of Madeleine that hung on the wall opposite his desk. Her face was now being heralded as ‘The Look’ of the year, and everywhere he went he saw her; on billboards, in magazines, on TV and in newspapers. The cosmetics campaign, now entering its third week, was already an unprecedented success. Phillipa Jolley’s dress collection was being copied by every high street chain, and the photographs Dario’s team had taken in Paris hung in every other shop window from Land’s End to John O’Groats. And now there was to be a perfume named after her, she’d informed him the night before, but she’d know more about that when she got back to England.
She would be away for several more days yet, and though she called every night with news of the ‘influential people’ she was meeting, the ‘fabuloso restaurants and nightclubs’ she was being taken to and all the shopping she’d done for him, he was missing her badly. He loved to hear her voice and imagine she was there in the room with him, struggling with her grammar and insisting that he put her right. He loved, too, the way she described the places she’d been to as ‘fab’ or ‘brilliant’ or ‘supremo’, and most of all he loved the way she ended each call by saying ‘Miss you with all my body, love you with all my heart.’ Such simple words, yet they touched him in a way no poetic eloquence ever could.
The longer he stared at Madeleine’s picture, the more he found himself becoming perturbed – and then angry. It had a power over him that he was finding impossible to resist. It was as though he had taken the Russian doll to pieces, and while putting it back together, had somehow locked himself deep inside one of the layers. He could no longer look at Madeleine objectively because he was trapped inside her, and though he had no desire to escape, he knew he must – before he filled the empty shells so full of love that his longing to write became stifled by it.
Before she left she’d given him the telephone number of a male models and each time she called she asked if he’d arranged things yet. He hadn’t, though the camera was there, he had installed it the day before; the will to do it was strong in him, too, stimulated by her and her ambition for them both; and the numbers were sitting on his desk, waiting to be dialled. But he just couldn’t bring himself to pick up the phone.
Morality played no part in his reluctance. What delayed him was that he suspected there might be something supremely, excitingly exploitable in what he was about to do – and if only he weren’t so in love with Madeleine, he might be able to see what it was.