style="font-size:15px;"> ‘I was sure you would know that already,’ Diana said hurriedly. ‘I just wanted to ask about the decisions you’ve made.’
‘It’s obvious. The reason why they wanted me on this movie is because I know how to dress Elizabeth Taylor, and that’s no laughing matter. Those renowned mammaries have to be on display; if it’s not actually written into her contract it might as well be, because the last film she made without thrusting them at the audience was Lassie Come Home.’
Diana grinned, feeling more at ease.
‘I have to choose styles that don’t show off the fact that Miss Taylor is, to be blunt, chubby. And I have to be able to adjust the costumes from day to day because her weight goes up and down like a yo-yo. I swear she can gain an inch on her hips overnight! A straight tunic would never work for her, especially when she is standing beside all these skinny handmaidens. She’d look like a sack of flour.’
Diana could see what she meant. ‘You’ve done well in researching the colours. Just fifty years earlier they wouldn’t have had all those dyes, but you’ve captured the blues, greens and terracotta shades they used in Alexandria in 40 BC.’
‘Do you know what Walter’s instructions to me were? Make sure Elizabeth stands out in front of all that fancy scenery so it’s her the audience are looking at whenever she’s on screen. She’s costing a million bucks and he wants his money’s worth.’ She snorted. ‘You’ll be pretty lucky if you manage to convince him to change anything for the sake of historical accuracy. He won’t sanction any change that costs one cent more than the alternative.’
‘So I’m beginning to realise.’
Irene stood up and led Diana round the room, showing her some costumes that were to be used later in the shoot. They got more and more ornate, with one made out of gold-plated chain-mail that would never have been used in the first century BC, but Diana didn’t point that out.
‘Feel it,’ Irene instructed, placing it across Diana’s arms, and she gasped at the weight. It had to be at least twenty pounds. How would Elizabeth walk around in it?
‘She’ll be sitting down in that scene,’ Irene explained with a grin.
They talked about the iconography on the headdresses and Diana sketched a starburst symbol that might have appeared. They discussed the costumes worn by other characters, which were being made by different departments, and Diana showed Irene a picture of the jewelled sandals Cleopatra would have worn.
She laughed. ‘Elizabeth would never wear flat shoes. She’s got chubby feet, and she needs a good three-inch heel or Caesar would tower over her. It’s not ancient Alexandria; it’s Hollywood on the Tiber, honey.’
Before Diana left, Irene looked at her outfit again. ‘Can I make a suggestion? You’ve got slim hips but no one would know it in that skirt. Let me see your legs.’
Embarrassed, Diana hesitated before lifting the hem of her skirt to knee level.
‘I thought so. You boyish-figured English girls all have great legs. You need to get yourself some knee-length skirts and dresses that fit you on the hips. Pick pastel shades for your skin tone. You’d look great in Capri pants as well. If you don’t mind me being honest, you look a bit gauche in that swing skirt, like some backing singer in a rockabilly band.’ She smiled. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Diana replied, although she was taken aback by the directness.
As she walked back towards her office, she decided she would take the hint. It came from one of the world’s top costume designers, after all! She realised she had no idea where the women’s clothing shops were in Rome – she hadn’t seen anything but bars and trattorie on the drive to and from the studio – but Helen would know.
She made her way to the sound stages and followed the handwritten sign to the dressing room that was being used for makeup that day. Helen was flicking through a copy of a women’s magazine called Honey.
‘Thank goodness you came by,’ she exclaimed, throwing down the magazine. ‘I’m bored to tears. There’s nothing to do and it’s not warm enough to sunbathe.’
‘No actors to make up?’
‘I did a few handmaidens and centurions this morning and now I’m not needed.’
‘You are by me,’ Diana told her, before asking if she knew any decent, affordable clothes shops in Rome where she could update her wardrobe.
Straight away, Helen suggested La Rinascente on Via del Corso. ‘I’ve only been here a few weeks and I’ve bought tons of things there. Why don’t we go this afternoon? We could slip off at five and they stay open till seven-thirty. I’ll give you a second opinion. I love shopping with my girlfriends.’
Diana readily agreed because she wasn’t a confident shopper, and when they arrived at the store she was glad she had taken Helen along because the choice was overwhelming. Faced with such endless racks of clothes stretching into the distance around the store’s elegant columns and balconies, she would have given up and headed home.
Helen ferreted out some lovely garments and brought them to the plush changing rooms, where all Diana had to do was slip into them. She knew there was plenty of money in the bank account from a travelling allowance she’d been paid in advance by the film company, so she splashed out on four shift dresses in the style Irene Sharaff had recommended, one lilac evening gown, a pair of white Capri pants, some kaftan tops and a lightweight coat, because she could tell her heavy woollen one wasn’t going to get much use in Rome.
Helen tried on a pretty black and white sweater with a geometric pattern but put it back on the rack.
‘Why don’t you get it?’ Diana asked. ‘It suits you.’
‘I’m broke until payday. Going out every night is costing me an arm and a leg.’
‘Let me treat you,’ Diana said. ‘I insist. It’s a gift to thank you for being so helpful today. I’d have walked out without finding anything if you hadn’t been here.’
Helen protested but Diana simply picked up the sweater and added it to her pile on the cashier’s desk. As she wrote a travellers’ cheque to cover the bill, she felt a twinge of guilt about Trevor. Of course, this wasn’t just her money – it was his as well. He was paying all the bills at home. She would write to him that evening, as Hilary suggested.
Back at the Pensione Splendid, she sat on the bed and poured out her feelings on paper. She told Trevor first and foremost how much she missed talking to him. She hadn’t yet been to see the Forum or the Colosseum because he was the one person she would want to see them with. She told him she knew it was shallow and frivolous to work on a Hollywood movie but that it was an education of a different sort – an education in human nature. She described Joe Mankiewicz and the way he was writing the script for each scene the night before they shot it. She wrote about Irene Sharaff and the criteria she used to design Elizabeth Taylor’s costumes, such as displaying the ‘renowned mammaries’. She told him about the Indian elephants and the fact that the circus owner who supplied them was now suing Twentieth Century Fox for ‘insulting his elephants’. The letter spilled over many pages. It made her feel close to him to be able to express everything that was on her mind and she prayed that he would read it and try to understand.
At the end, she begged him to write
