A shadow fell across Chrissie’s sun-lounger. ‘Can I help you, ma’am? Is there anything you need?’ The exquisite specimen who’d waited on her earlier was back, biceps bulging through his dark blue linen shirt, perfectly straight teeth gleaming, blinding white against the mocha tan of his skin. Chrissie put him in his late twenties, and a classic ‘strug’. (Strug was short for ‘struggling actor’ and was the term used to describe all the film-star handsome staff in LA’s upscale hotels.)
‘I’d love another drink, please.’ She uncrossed then recrossed her legs in as inviting a manner as possible, sucking in her nonexistent stomach.
‘Of course,’ he smiled. ‘And is that all?’
Chrissie looked him up and down, like a farmer considering a fattened calf for slaughter. ‘For now.’
It was almost a month since Dorian had left for England, and longer than that since he and Chrissie had had sex. She had been so angry with him the last time he’d deigned to come home, she’d refused to share his bed. Under normal circumstances, she’d have distracted herself while he was away with one of the boys who worked in the grounds, or even a kid from the village. But ever since he’d caught her with Alexandru, Dorian had become crafty. She knew he had staff watching her, spying on her. Between the beady, resentful eyes of the servants following her everywhere, and Saskia’s ceaseless demands for attention – despite three full-time nannies, the little girl constantly moaned for her mommy – Chrissie had begun to feel more like a prisoner than ever. Linda’s phone call was like someone throwing a rope ladder into her tower. Chrissie had grabbed the chance to escape with both hands.
Needless to say, Dorian had bitched about it.
‘The Starlight Ball? Isn’t that, like, ten thousand bucks a ticket?’
‘Fifteen,’ Chrissie deadpanned. ‘So what? It’s for a good cause.’
Not as good a cause as our bank balance, thought Dorian. He also doubted very much whether Chrissie knew what cause the ball was raising money for. But he let it go.
‘If you want to get away, why don’t you come here? I miss you, honey.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Chrissie laughed bitterly. ‘That must be why you’ve made so many trips home.’
‘Come on,’ sighed Dorian. ‘We’ve been through this. I’m working.’
‘Exactly. Why would I want to fly to some shitty, rainy film set in the middle of nowhere so you can ignore me for a week while you focus on your all-important work?’
Dorian was silent. She had a point.
‘I don’t like Linda Greaves,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s a gold-digger.’
‘It’s LA,’ shrugged Chrissie. ‘If they threw out all the gold-diggers it’d be a ghost town. Anyway, you don’t have to like her. I like her. And I need a break.’
Tonight’s ball was at six, at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. Chrissie had bought her dress yesterday, at one of the boutiques on Robertson, a backless, knock-’em-dead D&G number in gunmetal grey sequins, to match her new six-inch Jonathan Kelsey stilettos. In an hour, she’d have one of the hotel’s drivers whisk her up to Ole Henriksen on Sunset to get her nails and eyebrows done, then it was back to Melrose for hair at Ken Paves and finally back to her suite to have Betty help her into the dress and do her make-up. When they lived in Holmby Hills, Chrissie had had beauty treatments daily. In Romania, a week could go by without her so much as washing her hair. What was the point, with no one there to see it?
In the new, acid-green Madison beach bag by her side, Chrissie’s cellphone started to ring. Lost in a particularly enjoyable sexual fantasy involving the strug waiter, a camera and a bottle of baby oil, she answered bad-temperedly.
‘This is Chrissie.’
‘Oh my God, honey. How are you? Are you okaaaay?’ Linda still tended towards the melodramatic in her phone manner, a hangover from her soap-star days.
‘I’m fine,’ said Chrissie, admiring the strug’s ass in his tight white shorts as he bent low to deliver a drink to another guest. ‘Grabbing some lunch before the spa at Sunset Plaza. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Oh my Gaaaaad!’ said Linda again. ‘You haven’t heard, have you?’
‘Heard what?’ asked Chrissie, still only half listening. Linda could open a sentence with that kind of drama and end it with a remark about the weather.
‘Dorian. And that tramp Sabrina Leon. It’s all over E!, honey.’
Chrissie’s blood ran cold. She watched as the downy hairs on her forearm stood on end one by one, like tiny, frightened dominoes. ‘What is all over E!, exactly?’
She’d given Dorian a hard time about Sabrina last time he came home, but that was only because she was mad at him for leaving her again, and for enjoying his life while she couldn’t. Never for a moment did she actually believe he would cheat on her, with Sabrina Leon or any other woman. Dorian was so fucking faithful and devoted, he could make a puppy look disloyal.
‘Pictures, honey!’ panted Linda, who was now clearly enjoying herself. ‘Pictures of the two of them togeeeeether. They ran them in some British newspaper. Oh my God. Like, what are you gonna do? I’ve already had reporters calling my house. It’s crazy!’
‘Why would they be calling your house?’ asked Chrissie, realizing immediately after the question had passed her lips that there could only be one reason: Linda had tipped off the media that Chrissie would be coming by later, and that they’d be going to the ball together. Publicity-hungry bitch. But Linda wasn’t important now. She had to get to a TV.
‘Are you still coming tonight?’ The note of panic in Linda’s voice was unmistakable. Without Chrissie, she wouldn’t be the centre of attention in front of the whole of Beverly Hills society. And she’d look like an ass to all the TV stations she’d already spoken to.
‘Probably,’ said Chrissie. ‘Yes. I need to talk to Dorian.’ She hung up.
‘Here you go, ma’am. One fresh vodka lime soda. And was there anyth—’
‘No,’ Chrissie barked, downing the drink in one long gulp till the soda bubbles stung the back of her eyes. Suddenly the waiter’s bland, regular features and Ken-doll body had lost all their appeal. If Dorian really had cheated on her, if it were true, she would have nothing to live for. Not because she loved him. But because he loved her. Her famous husband’s devotion was the last remaining prop holding up the withered remains of her self-esteem. Without it, she’d be nothing: another scorned Hollywood ex-wife, replaced by a younger, more beautiful model. She’d be like Linda, only poorer. No one would invite her anywhere. All their friends would stick by Dorian and the new bimbo – that was simply the way it was. The only men who’d want to sleep with her would be strugs and plastic surgeons. No! She couldn’t bear it.
She forced herself to calm down, gathering up her things and hurrying inside. There was a TV in her room that played E! 24/7.
It’s not true. It can’t be true, she told herself. Not Dorian.
‘Cut!’ Dorian shook his head, disappointed. ‘Come on, Sabrina. Heathcliff’s betrayed you. You’re angry with him, you’re furious.’
‘I know,’ said Sabrina, smiling playfully up at Viorel. ‘This is me being angry. What do you want me to do? Hit him?’
‘I want you to quit smirking and play the goddamn scene,’ snapped Dorian. ‘And you can stop encouraging her,’ he added tersely to Viorel.
It was two weeks since his run-in with Sabrina at The Carpenter’s Arms, and since then her on-set behaviour had deteriorated sharply. She could still deliver a pitch-perfect Cathy when she chose to. The more he saw of Sabrina’s acting, the less Dorian doubted her innate ability. But she seemed more interested in flirting with Vio Hudson, or deliberately attempting to get under his skin, than in showing Dorian what she was capable of. The attention-seeking was both blatant and wearing.
The girl needs a father, Dorian found himself thinking, over and over again. Someone to draw her a line in the sand.
Before that idiot had come along that night outside the pub and provoked an argument, Dorian had fe
lt as if he were finally getting closer to Sabrina. At her core she was still a frightened little girl, hungry for love and acceptance. Though she professed to loathe him, it hadn’t escaped his notice how quickly she became jealous whenever his attention was diverted elsewhere – helping Lizzie Bayer with a scene, for instance, or chatting with Tish Crewe once the cameras stopped rolling. Tish, in particular, seemed to bug Sabrina, perhaps because she was the one other female with whom Viorel Hudson spent significant time.
To Dorian’s relief, the early signs of flirtation he’d noticed between Tish and Vio seemed to have melted away, and the two had formed a genuine friendship. After filming, Vio would often spend hours playing computer games with Tish’s little boy, Abel. Tish had learned that as long as she steered clear of contentious subjects, like Romania, which she loved and Viorel loathed, and Sabrina Leon, about whom their opinions were reversed, Viorel could be great company: warm, funny and intelligent. It pleased Dorian to watch the two of them together, bringing out the best in each other. Around Hudson, Tish was less serious, less old-before-her-time. And around Tish, now that the sexual tension was gone, Viorel seemed to grow up and step out of the shadow of his own ego. The truth was, Viorel had never had a real friend before, someone who wanted nothing from him, who enjoyed his company purely for its own sake. He loved it.
But Sabrina hated it. She never missed an opportunity to put Tish down, making fun of her accent, which Sabrina could mimic perfectly, and rolling her eyes affectedly whenever she passed by the set.
‘Take four,’ Dorian shouted into the wind. ‘Places.’
Viorel started back up the bank, to the spot where he entered the scene, but Sabrina grabbed his hand, pulling him back and talking at him animatedly, ignoring Dorian’s instruction. In a boned, lavender crinoline that showed off her spectacular breasts like two scoops of vanilla ice cream on a plate, and emphasized the tininess of her waist, she looked even more ravishingly beautiful than usual, flicking her hair back and laughing coquettishly at her dashing co-star. She’s mesmerizing, thought Dorian.
Last night, worried by the tight, club-of-two atmosphere developing between her and Viorel on set, Dorian had asked Vio outright whether they were lovers. He had denied it vociferously.
‘Absolutely not. We’re friends, but I would never cross that line. Not while we’re working, anyway.’
Something about his tone had made Dorian believe him. But watching the pair of them flirting outrageously now, he felt his doubts creeping back.
‘Sabrina!’ he said, irritated. She’s deliberately defying me. Knowing that she wanted him to lose his temper, Dorian struggled not to, but it was hard. He was growing mightily tired of Sabrina’s time-wasting games, and so were the rest of the crew. Chuck MacNamee had already complained to Dorian about her diva-ish antics and outright rudeness to his staff. The sun would set in an hour or so, and everyone wanted to call it a day. Scenes with Rhys and Lizzie were a dream by comparison. Dorian would have to take Sabrina aside again later, a thought that depressed him more than he cared to admit. It’s as if she gets off on conflict, on making me the bad guy.
‘Hello.’ Tish appeared at the top of the rise, with a large thermos flask in one hand and little Abel clasping the other. ‘We bought you all some soup. Mrs Drummond’s famous mulligatawny. You haven’t lived till you’ve tried it.’
Abel squealed with excitement like a puppy when he saw Viorel, rushing straight across the set into his arms like an affection-seeking missile. Vio lifted him onto his shoulders and walked back down the hill towards Tish.
‘For me?’ He nodded towards the thermos.
‘For all of you,’ said Tish, her cheeks reddening.
In plain white shorts and a striped Boden T-shirt, her make-up-free face flushed from the walk, she looked sweetly adorable, the proverbial breath of fresh air.
Sabrina flounced over, all breasts and fury, looking neither sweet nor adorable, but breathtakingly sexy. ‘Some of us are trying to work here, you know,’ she snapped at Tish.
Chuck MacNamee and his lighting crew laughed out loud.
‘Really? And which ones of us might that be, I wonder?’ Chuck’s stage whisper was audible to the whole set. To Sabrina’s intense irritation, the laughter spread.
‘OK. Take a break guys,’ said Dorian. ‘Five minutes.’
Sabrina stormed off in a huff, followed by Viorel, with a thoroughly overexcited Abel bouncing up and down on his shoulders. Dorian and Tish were left alone.
‘Any trouble today?’ he asked her. ‘At the gates?’
Since the piece in The Sun, Loxley’s location was no longer a secret, much to Dorian’s dismay. Protesters had started congregating outside the gates, waving placards demanding for Sabrina to be sent home and jeering at any traffic that went in or out. They were a pretty tame bunch all in all. Other than one incident with an egg thrown at Dorian’s car, there’d been no violence, and Sabrina herself had wisely not ventured out of the grounds. Though she resented Dorian’s stipulation that she not leave Loxley unaccompanied, especially as Viorel and the others were out every night at The Carpenter’s Arms, lapping up the attention of the adoring locals, even she could see that in the current climate it was probably in her best interests to lie low.
Tish shook her head. ‘All quiet. I took some soup out there too, but they must all be at home, polishing their pickets.’
Sitting down on the bank, Dorian took a sip of the proffered soup. It was delicious, warm but not too spicy, the onion, curry and ginger melding miraculously in his mouth the way that only fresh, home-made ingredients ever seemed to. He thought disloyally how much better it was than his wife’s efforts, then found himself missing Chrissie with an unexpected pang.
‘Penny for them?’ said Tish. ‘You look like you’re miles away.’
‘Oh, not really,’ lied Dorian, forcing a smile. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to talk about home. ‘I’m a little stressed, I guess.’
‘Sabrina?’
Tish looked over to where Sabrina was standing. Viorel was playing with Abel, holding him by the feet and twirling him around while he squealed with laughter. You could see Sabrina’s pout from here.
‘Partly,’ admitted Dorian. ‘She’s been difficult today. But she’s not my only problem. It bothers me that people know where we are now. The location’s already been compromised. How long before other information gets out?’
Tish knew a little of Dorian’s strategy, to keep the details of Wuthering Heights a secret in order to tempt investors once filming was complete. She wasn’t sure she fully understood the logic, but presumably Dorian knew his own business and he seemed to feel that secrecy was vital. So much so that last week he’d arbitrarily got rid of all the TVs in the cast and crew’s quarters and banned newspapers from the set, figuring that the more cut off they were from the outside world, the less chance of damaging leaks. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the same powers of censorship when it came to Sabrina’s bad press.
‘The actual work is good. What we’ve shot so far,’ he told Tish. ‘I was looking at the rushes last night.’
‘There you go, then,’ said Tish encouragingly, wondering whether she should step in and tell Viorel to go easy on the twirling. Abel was still giggling but he’d turned a worrying shade of green. ‘That’s all that matters, isn’t it?’
‘I wish,’ said Dorian. ‘Sometimes I feel like King Cnut, trying to hold back the tide. Only Sabrina’s not so much a tide as a tsunami. I’ve never known an actress who can generate so much bad publicity out of thin air. Hopefully, things will get better once we get to Romania. If she plays me up there, I can lock her in the dungeon.’ He grinned.
In his jeans pocket, his cellphone rang.
‘That’s weird. I thought I turned it off.’ Pulling out the offending object, his heart gave a little jump. The screen flashed: Chrissie LA Cell.
Despite all the rows, Dorian had missed Chrissie this past month, and regretted the distance that had grown up b
etween them. He knew that her current trip to LA had been intended at least in part to punish him for leaving her, playing on all his insecurities about her fidelity, not to mention her spending. So the fact that she was calling him, unsolicited, was an unexpected surprise. A thaw in the permafrost at last.
‘Honey! What’s goin’ on?’
Tish watched the way Dorian’s eyes lit up when he took the call. Then she watched the light die, replaced by abject panic.
‘What pictures?’ He spluttered. ‘I have no idea … Sabrina?’ His eyes widened. ‘That’s ridiculous! Trust me, honey, that is so far from the truth it’s hilarious … No, I didn’t mean it like that … no, Chrissie, I don’t think it’s funny. I am not bullshitting you! We’re totally isolated here, I haven’t seen anything.’
He held the phone away from his ear. Though no one could make out the words, Chrissie Rasmirez’s hysteria could be heard at forty paces.
Deborah Raynham whispered to the head cameraman, ‘Sounds like trouble in paradise.’
‘Poor Dorian,’ said the cameraman. ‘Surrounded by angry women everywhere he turns.’
Sabrina, who could smell a drama like a shark smelled blood, hurried over.
‘Who’s he talking to?’ she asked Tish imperiously.
‘His wife,’ said Tish curtly. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘At that volume I’d say it was everyone’s business,’ sneered Sabrina. ‘Oh dear oh dear. Has our saintly director been caught playing away? Who’s the unlucky girl?’
‘You are, apparently,’ said Chuck MacNamee.