The Affair (18 page)

But then Trevor would wonder where she had learned them. He would know.

Is there a way to have an affair without anyone finding out about it?
These were dangerous thoughts, but once in her head they took root and she found it hard to think about anything else.

She and Ernesto slipped into a routine of having dinner together every night and always they sat in the car and kissed passionately afterwards. At work, they tried to behave as before but Diana’s cheeks burned and her legs turned to jelly when he walked into the production office. If they were on their own, he would pin her to the chair for a clandestine kiss. Hilary almost caught them once and Diana wasn’t sure if she had seen anything but assumed not when she didn’t comment.

Meanwhile, the shooting of the film was progressing, but in every corner of Cinecittà there was gossip about Elizabeth Taylor. Over Christmas, she and Eddie Fisher had finalised their adoption of a one-year-old German girl, an orphan they named Maria. She’d been unable to come to Rome with them, though, because she had problems with her hip that would require many operations by specialist surgeons. At the same time, renowned Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons had published a front-page story claiming that Elizabeth and Eddie were about to get divorced, hinting she’d heard it from ‘Italian sources’.

‘It’s ridiculous!’ Helen exclaimed. ‘Why would they adopt a child if they were getting divorced? I don’t believe it for a second. Liz is passionate about her children. She never goes anywhere without them.’

Diana agreed. ‘We know for a fact that journalists make things up. Truth means nothing to them. Think of all the stories that have appeared about the filming here that we know are completely wrong.’

Eddie came into the office later to check some details of the week’s schedule and seemed his usual happy-go-lucky self.

‘Was Santa good to you?’ he asked Diana, then admired the crocodile-skin jacket she held up.

‘How about you?’ Diana asked.

He grinned. ‘A Rolls-Royce. Good old Santa!’ He kissed his fingertips. ‘You girls have a great day now!’

A Rome newspaper printed a story that purported to come from Elizabeth Taylor’s housekeeper, saying that she treated Eddie like a servant. That certainly seemed plausible, Diana thought. What Elizabeth wanted, Elizabeth got. If she fancied a few shots of vodka poured into her Coke to drink while her makeup was applied, Helen or one of the other makeup girls would rush to the bar to fetch some. If she wanted shooting to stop early because she had a party to get ready for, Joe Mankiewicz would do as she wished. And you would often hear a shrill cry – ‘Eddie, where are my shoes?’ ‘Get my robe!’ – as you passed her dressing room. She’d been brought up surrounded by people who indulged her every whim but that didn’t make her a bad person. She simply couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t famous. This was all she knew.

At least, that’s how Diana thought until the 22nd of January, just over two weeks after her return to Rome. It was the first day that Elizabeth was due to film a scene with Richard Burton. Diana had read the script that morning and knew it called for them to meet in Caesar’s villa, a meeting at which they were both attracted to each other although she remained Caesar’s mistress. It was a pivotal scene in the film. Of course, it was completely historically inaccurate. Caesar would never have invited the Egyptian queen to such a critical meeting with his young general and various senators – if indeed it ever took place. Diana mentioned this at the script meeting but Joe Mankiewicz shrugged and drawled, ‘Artistic licence, honey.’

The filming had gone well, everyone said, despite the fact that Richard appeared hungover and Elizabeth seemed tipsy. Word was they had ‘chemistry’, which was good for the movie.
I suppose that’s what I’ve got with Ernesto
, Diana thought.
Chemistry.
She’d never had it with Trevor. Not like this, anyway.

After they wrapped on sound stage 11, Diana went looking for Joe Mankiewicz because she had some information he’d requested about the port city of Tarsus. He wasn’t in his office so she traced his route towards the sound stages, wondering if he might have stopped to chat with someone along the way. And that’s when she saw Elizabeth and Richard standing very close to each other in the gap between a trailer and an office block, not far from her dressing room. They were still in costume. His arms were pressed against the wall on either side of her, so she couldn’t escape. Her head was tilted back as she gazed up at him.

Diana leapt back instantly. She didn’t want to be seen witnessing the encounter. Her heart beating, she retraced her steps to take another route, but seconds later she looked over her shoulder and saw Elizabeth hurrying into her dressing-room suite.

If they wanted to talk, why do so in such an out-of-the-way spot? There was no question in Diana’s mind that they were flirting but maybe it was just the heat of the moment. She wondered if pretending attraction in front of the cameras made actors feel it, just for that fleeting moment. She hoped that was all it was, for Eddie’s sake. He was so nice, she’d hate for him to be hurt.

That evening, she couldn’t resist mentioning what she had seen to Ernesto, and he tapped his nose. ‘Didn’t I tell you this would happen? I knew it months ago, not from anything they did or said but from the way Eddie acted around her. The man is a patsy.’

‘In that case, they’ll have to be extremely careful,’ Diana said. ‘If I saw them, goodness knows who else might have.’

‘They won’t be able to hide. You can’t hide anything on a film set,’ Ernesto told her.

‘I hope we can hide our friendship.’ She felt suddenly anxious. ‘I don’t want everyone gossiping about me. That would be horrible.’

He kissed her neck, making her shiver with lust. ‘You are beautiful, Diana, but I am glad to say that you are not the world’s most notorious
femme fatale
. Our friendship is private and I understand why we must keep it that way. It’s against my nature because I want to boast to everyone: “Look at this beautiful woman who lets me kiss her! What did I ever do to deserve such joy?”’

He covered every inch of her face with kisses and she rested her head back on the car seat feeling as though she would melt with desire. When she was with him, it all felt so right. But afterwards, as she lay in bed reliving every caress, she thought of Trevor and felt like an absolute heel.

Scott went to the Testaccio bar at the time suggested by the man who called himself Enzo and found him already sitting in a dark corner with a cup of coffee in front of him.

‘Money first,’ he insisted as Scott sat down. Scott handed over an envelope with the requisite number of
lire
enclosed. Enzo glanced at it quickly then tucked it inside his jacket pocket.

‘
Allora
, what did you want to know?’

‘I was told that the drugs in Rome are driven up from the south. Is that right? And if it is, why don’t the police try to stop them?’

Enzo gave a wry smile. ‘You think they are sitting on the passenger seat with a big notice on top? No, of course not. They are in suitcases with false bottoms, in secret panels in the car doors, inside tennis balls or medicine bottles. I know someone who transports heroin inside a statue of the Virgin Mary, which I think is sacrilegious, but what can you do?’

Scott had to ask him to repeat some unfamiliar phrases until his ear became attuned to the thick accent, with stresses on different vowels. He came from Naples, Enzo told him, making an effort to slow down and speak more clearly.

‘What happens after they get to Rome? Where do you take them?’

Enzo glanced over his shoulder. ‘I’m not saying I do anything myself,’ he cautioned, ‘but I’ve heard there is a garage in the Via Spagna where cars are taken in for servicing. When they are picked up the next day, or two days later, they are empty.
Capisce?
’

Scott was suspicious. ‘Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you taking a risk by meeting me?’

‘Not as much as you are, my friend,’ Enzo said, spreading his hands. ‘You don’t know me, you don’t know where I live. I could be telling you a pack of lies – but as it happens, I’m not. I want this trade to end. I want out but they won’t let me stop. Once you are involved, you can never leave.’

‘They? Who do you mean by “they”?’

‘Now that I can’t tell you.’

Scott pulled out his photograph of Gina Ghianciamina’s brother, the man who had attacked him. It was blurred but the figure was recognisable. ‘Do you know him?’

Enzo nodded straight away. ‘Of course I do. Everyone does.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Alessandro Ghianciamina.’

Scott narrowed his eyes. Alessandro, was it? ‘Is he involved in the drugs trade?’

‘This is common knowledge,’ Enzo told him. ‘Everyone knows he is.’

‘Why don’t the police do something?’

Enzo rubbed his fingertips together. ‘The police, the judges, the politicians: everyone turns a blind eye to protect that family. No one will take them on.’

‘Can you think of any way I can prove it conclusively, so the police would have to take action?’

Enzo laughed out loud, shaking his head in amusement.

‘You are so young, my friend, but you will not last long in Rome if you keep asking such questions. You are lucky you chose me. I am cheating you because I am taking your money in return for telling you things that you could hear for free on any street corner. None of this is a secret. But if you go around asking people you meet at parties for evidence against the Ghianciaminas, you will be a cadaver before the summer comes.’ He pushed his chair back. ‘I think there is nothing more I can tell you.’

Scott stood to shake his hand. ‘It’s OK. You told me I’m on the right track, and that’s a good start. Can I get in touch again if I need to?’

‘Certainly not. You were stupid to trust me. You mustn’t do this again because next time you will pick the wrong person and they’ll go straight to the Ghianciaminas.’

Scott shrugged. ‘I guess if you were going to double-cross me you wouldn’t have come alone today. Maybe I’m wrong.’

All the same, as he drove back to the office, he kept glancing over his shoulder. Every time a bike revved its engine or a child shrieked, he jumped. Once in the office, he noted down all he could remember about the conversation, trying to capture Enzo’s exact words. He would describe the meeting as if in fiction, using the new techniques that Norman Mailer had perfected. He’d describe the bar, the man with a false name, and all the dramatic pauses and glancing over shoulders as they talked. Already he had begun to write it in his head, although of course he still needed much more information.

The telephone rang and he picked it up.

‘Scott?’ It was his editor. ‘How come you’re the only fucking journalist in Rome who hasn’t filed a story on Taylor and Burton?’

‘I’m on the case, boss,’ he said straight away. The rumours of their affair were all over that morning’s Italian press.

Scott zoomed down to Via Veneto to find Gianni. ‘What can you tell me?’ he asked. ‘Is there anything nobody else has printed?’

Gianni chuckled. ‘I have a friend who has a friend who works in the men’s makeup trailer at Cinecittà. He says that when Richard Burton came in to be made up this morning he announced with a triumphant clench of his fist’ – Gianni demonstrated – ‘that last night he “nailed” Elizabeth Taylor.’

‘Did he say where they did the dirty deed?’ Scott asked.

Gianni snorted with laughter. ‘In the back seat of Burton’s Cadillac.’

Scott returned to the office and filed the story.

The crunch came towards the end of January. Diana phoned Trevor during the afternoon and found him in a foul mood about some imagined slight by the colleague he seemed so jealous of. On the phone he sounded petulant, like a sibling vying for his parents’ favour. As she hung up, she allowed herself to think,
Sometimes I don’t even like him any more.
She used to admire his great wide-ranging intellect but when it came to women – when it came to her – he was blind, deaf and dumb. How could he not realise that his behaviour was driving her away?