Deep and Silent Waters (27 page)

‘Don’t sleep with him, Laura, don’t. I’d have to kill you,’ he muttered. Then he began to kiss her hungrily, and her body responded as it always did to him, melting, trembling, turning to wax under his caressing hands. He could do anything with her and to her, and she would never stop him; the pleasure of his touch was too intense, she needed it with an ache she had never felt for anyone else.

Her eyes closed, her arms went round his back, she lifted her legs to enfold him, groaning with pleasure as he stroked her breasts, her thighs, his fingers sliding inward, finding the soft, moist, hot centre of her body and making her gasp with desire.

Sebastian lifted his mouth and looked at her with half-closed, gleaming eyes. ‘I’ve been waiting months for you – it’s been torture.’

She was desperate to have him inside her, she couldn’t pretend. ‘Sebastian …’ She groaned, clutching him, arching against him.

‘Laura … God, Laura, you’re unbelievable,’ he said, tearing off his clothes with hands that shook visibly.

‘I ought to take off these boots!’ Laura said, laughing wildly.

He gave her a look that made her insides turn to water. ‘I love them. They’re the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. With that beautiful body naked and those boots, you have no idea what you’re doing to me …’

Her head tilted back and she stared up through the lacy canopy above the bed, then froze in shock. Eyes were staring back at her from the painted ceiling. Not the painted eyes she had noticed earlier, these eyes moved, flickered. She saw light reflecting back from the glassy black pupil.

Someone was up there, behind the ceiling, watching them.

A scream tore from her throat. Sebastian started violently. ‘What the hell— What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘Eyes,’ she whispered. ‘Eyes – in the ceiling – watching – Somebody’s up there, watching us!’

He shot a glance upward. ‘Where? What are you talking about?’

‘Her eyes – Juno’s eyes – she’s watching us. Well, not her, of course, but somebody. There’s somebody behind the ceiling, I saw the eyes move.’

He was staring at her now as if he thought she was mad. ‘Well, they’re not moving now. All I can see is painted eyes. For God’s sake, Laura!’

She pushed him away and rolled off the bed, looked up at the ceiling. He was right. The eyes were painted, flat, lightless.

Naked, Sebastian got off the bed and reached for her. ‘Have you taken anything? Smoked a joint?’

‘No!’ she screamed, pushed him away and ran into the bathroom, bolting the door behind her. In the mirror her face was bleached white. ‘What was the matter with her? Sebastian had asked. Laura wished she knew. All that was certain was that she had seen those painted eyes move, had seen light glinting off their shiny surface, but they weren’t shiny now, they were the same dull, flat painted surface as the rest of the ceiling.

She had imagined it.

No! she thought, remembering the way the pupils had flickered. She hadn’t imagined anything. This house was full of secret passages and hiding places. Nico had told her of a back staircase from the boat-house up to this room. He had laughed, saying he often used it to come and go without his mother seeing him. Couldn’t there also be a false ceiling though which people could watch what was happening in this room? Secret panels and two-way mirrors were commonplace in brothels. Someone had been watching her and Sebastian making love. Who could it have been?

Nico? No, it was totally out of character. You’d have to be sick to do that, and Nico wasn’t sick, he wasn’t a voyeur.

How do you know? she asked herself, uncertainly. She buried her face in her hands. She didn’t want to think about it any more.

Hurriedly she pulled off the
David
costume and took a quick shower, then dressed in the clothes she had been wearing when she arrived and went back into the bedroom. Sebastian was standing at the window, fully dressed too, in jeans and an olive sweater with leather patches at the elbow. The sagging, cloudy sky was heavy with snow.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. ‘I heard your shower running. They’re more efficient than I’d expected. Feeling better?’

She was still too choked to speak.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You must be very hyper. Starting a new film is always an ordeal, but you have to calm down, Laura, or you won’t be fit to work. Look, we’re all going out into Venice to have a drink in St Mark’s Square, and then a meal together. Come along with us. You know most of the crowd and talking to them will help you relax.’

Her voice sounded rusty, like old bellows. ‘When are you going?’

‘Now, right away. I rang Valerie on the walkie-talkie, and told her to gather everyone together for a two-hour break. We’ve been working since first light and we need a rest.’

‘I want to unpack and settle in first. You go ahead and I’ll see you all down there.’

His brows jerked together. ‘You can’t walk around the city on your own!’

She snapped back hotly, ‘I’ll wrap up warmly. A hood and thick coat will be some sort of disguise and I’ll be careful.’

‘Don’t be so damn stupid! Do you want to get mobbed? Anything could happen to you.’

‘Look, I need some time alone. And I walked around Venice when I was here at the film festival,’ she said, with a touch of desperation. ‘I’ll be fine. Please, you go on, I’ll see you in the square – Florian’s?’

He said grimly, ‘Well, it’s your life.’

The words hadn’t been idle. Something in his face told her he was warning her. But about what?

He picked up a leather bag which he had had in his hand earlier and flung on to a chair. Unzipping it, he pulled out a script, dropped it on the rumpled bed. ‘Here, I brought you the latest draft. I’ve tagged the scenes we’ll be shooting here over the next week.’

‘Have there been many changes?’

‘No, just tinkering, sharpening up. You won’t have any new lines to learn for this location, so just check your cues. I’ll mostly be doing background shots and crowd scenes with you in the foreground. But have a read through it, and let me know if you think it’s an improvement.’

Sebastian stood, silently staring at her, a thin dark man with flashing eyes. She waited for him to say something but he just turned and slammed out of the room. Wincing at the crash of the heavy door, Laura almost called him back, but in the end decided not to. She really needed these precious moments alone.

She picked up the script, to the front of which was clipped the pink pages of the shooting schedule starting with day one. Sebastian planned to shoot four pages every day while they were here, she noted. He was optimistic. She flicked through it. Under the title was typed the fact that this was the 15th draft. She wasn’t surprised. Sebastian was a perfectionist.

The first page was almost entirely scene-setting, just four lines of dialogue between herself and someone called the Old Chestnut-seller. The following pages also revealed scanty dialogue. No problems there. She could learn the lines as she went along.

She dropped the script and began to unpack, putting her clothes away in musty-smelling closets and chests of drawers. She had brought a few lavender bags with her and laid these among her undies before she closed the drawers. It didn’t take long. She was now an experienced packer and unpacker: she had her own routine, every move worked out to save time.

When she had finished, she put on a thick, padded green anorak with a black hood, slipped black sunglasses on her nose, put on gloves and knee-length black leather boots and studied herself in the mirror. Nobody would recognise her, surely. The
paparazzi
had been at the airport, snatching pictures, but they hadn’t bothered to pursue her to Ca’ d’Angeli, and they wouldn’t hang around to catch sight of her in this weather. She was wearing something entirely different, her fiery hair was out of sight under the hood, every strand combed back from her face so it wouldn’t show.

As she left the private apartments she walked past the Contessa, who was talking to several of her servants.

‘
Buon giorno
, Contessa,’ Laura said politely, and got a faintly surprised, but perfectly friendly, smile.

‘You are going out?’ the Contessa asked, and Laura nodded.

‘It will snow,’ she warned.

‘I’ll be okay.’

Laura walked out into the long gallery, picked her way through the film equipment strewn everywhere, higgledy-piggledy, like the abandoned baggage of a retreating army. There was even a corpse or two: younger crew members stretched out on rugs to snatch an hour’s rest while Sebastian was elsewhere. They didn’t even look at her – they were too tired to take an interest in anything that happened around them.

‘Laura!’ It was Nico’s voice. He took in her outdoor clothes. ‘You aren’t going out, are you? It could blow a blizzard any minute, from the look of the sky.’

‘I have to. I’m meeting some of the crew in St Mark’s Square for a drink, and a few prelims.’

He was baffled by the word. ‘What?’

‘Preliminary shots. Sebastian needs to decide which angles to choose, which views to get in, what he’ll want on the final shot. Apparently we’re shooting a lot of stuff out in the streets, to get the carnival atmosphere. How do I get to St Mark’s? Walk?’

‘You can, but I’ll happily take you along the canal. My boat’s outside. Come on.’

Watching the flicker of his dark eyes, she remembered that moment in the bedroom when she had seen eyes staring down at her and Sebastian. Once again, sickness rose in her throat.

‘No, that’s okay, I think I’d rather walk,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I want to explore this part of Venice before the snow starts again. I may not get another chance for a few days.’ She turned before he could argue and walked quickly towards the stairs, but he ran after her.

‘Go the back way, then – I’ll show you the short-cut. It will take you to St Mark’s Square by the quickest route.’

Nico took her down some narrow, winding stairs to the dark kitchen quarters and out through a corridor into the formal garden, which she had not seen before. He walked her along the maze of gravelled paths, through the snow-decorated topiary, which had a surreal look, as if it came out of a painting. When they reached a gate in a high wall he unlocked it with an ornate brass key he took from his pocket. It creaked as he pushed it open. ‘You turn to the right, walk to the far end, turn left, over the bridge, straight on along the back canal, the next right turn, and then take a left-hand fork into an alley. You’ll see the piazza at the end of it.’ His face crinkled in a grin. ‘Do you think you’ll remember that, or shall I come with you?’

She smiled back, liking him more every time they met. ‘Don’t forget I’m an actress. I have a good memory. Repeat it, slowly.’

She closed her eyes and listened intently, then opened them and repeated what he had said, word for word.

Surprised, he nodded. ‘
Bene
. You do have a good memory, don’t you? If you get lost, though, no problem. You’ll find a black arrow painted on corners, pointing either to San Marco or the Accademia. And if you still get lost, most Venetians speak English.’

She thanked him and hurried off, avoiding the eyes of anyone she passed, keeping her hood pulled forward. On one side of the bridge she had to cross she saw a little group of art students in pink body-stockings. They were busy painting each other in gaudy swirls of colour, zigzags of red, yellow and black. One of them, a boy with short black hair cut razor-style and greased to make it stand up in spikes, shouted at her.

‘Sorry, I don’t speak Italian,’ she said.

‘American?’

She let him think so, knowing it was probably a mistake to talk to anyone, but finding the ordinary human contact reassuring.

‘Aren’t you cold, wearing just a body-stocking?’ she asked.

‘No, is fun. The
carnivale
is fun. You here for
carnivale
? Got a costume? I can hire for you.’

She shook her head. She knew Sebastian had hired one for her and for everyone else in the cast and crew.

‘You want I paint your face?’ the student asked. ‘Only forty thousand lira.’

‘You’re kidding! Forty thousand …’ Her brain wasn’t working fast enough.

‘Thirty dollars American.’

She had brought out a pile of lire with her, having locked her credit cards, cheque book and cash in a cupboard in her room at Ca’ d’Angeli. She was sure she had enough.

‘Okay,’ she said, and his olive-skinned face split open in a wide grin.

‘Half money now, half when I finish?’

She slid a hand inside her anorak and pulled out some cash, counted it into his hand and hoped he wouldn’t just run off with it, but he put it away carefully into a bum-bag and gestured at a stool.

‘Please. Sit.’

She sat on the low wooden stool, feeling the chill wind at her back, blowing off the Grand Canal straight from the lagoon. Any second now it would snow – and heavily.

The art student sat down on another stool, and indicated his palette of colours. ‘Please, choose. What you like?’

She ran her eyes over the range, chose a delicate mauve, a very pale green, silver and black.

‘Is good,’ said the boy, and a second later took her dark glasses off her nose.

His other hand came up to push back her hood but she grabbed it and held on firmly. ‘No, leave my hood!’

That surprised him but he didn’t argue: there weren’t many customers around in this weather. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said. ‘Now close your eyes, please. I start with them.’

She did so obediently and felt the soft hairs of his brush begin to glide over her skin. Laura sighed, enveloped in the strange calm that always descended on her when she was in makeup.

It was so soothing to have someone touching you, soundlessly, gently, making no demands on you. She always felt at those times that she sank deep inside herself, leaving her mind free to wander. Today she thought about her parents, to whom she had talked before she left for Venice. They had told her that in Northumberland the weather was far worse than it was here, snow making the narrow, winding roads along the Wall impassable, imprisoning the family for days at a time. Yet she wished she was there: she loved the silences, or the sharp wail of the wind through bare thorn trees, the blue, blue sky on really cold days, the frosted white of the fields.