it’s not hard.’ Joe peered at Scott. ‘You haven’t got any stupid ideas about writing some kind of story, have you, Spike?’
‘Course not,’ Scott lied. That was exactly what he had been thinking. He hadn’t yet figured out how but he knew he wanted to get revenge on his attackers and the best way would be to write an article exposing their crimes. It would have to include information so damning that the police would have no option but to arrest them. It would take a lot of research – but didn’t someone once say that revenge was a dish best served cold?
‘I filed my first Liz Taylor story today,’ Joe told them. ‘Her feather boa caught fire at a party last night and one of the guests had to throw her to the ground and roll on top of her to put out the flames – or so he said. Nice excuse.’
‘Was she hurt?’ someone asked.
‘Naw, just shaken up.’
‘Where were they?’ Scott asked. ‘Has anyone interviewed the guy who put out the fire?’
‘It was in the Grand Hotel but I have no idea who he was. Who cares? People just want to read about Liz. Any excuse to put a picture of her on the front cover and my editor’s happy.’
Scott pondered this. His own editor had phoned before he left the office to ask when he might start filing stories again, but it was hard to get anything substantial to write about since no politicians or their aides would talk to him. He abhorred the idea of writing about people simply because they were famous, but maybe he could compose a quirky little story about flammable fashions. He’d have to move quickly though, before it became old news.
He made his excuses and scooted back through the streets to his office. That day’s Italian newspapers had been thrown out but the wastebin hadn’t yet been emptied by the cleaner. He pulled them out and located some stop-press items that mentioned the incident with the dress, then composed a snappy little piece about the vagaries of designers who don’t consider that their creations are going to be in close proximity to cigarettes. It was almost midnight in Rome but only four in the afternoon back home, leaving plenty of time to get a piece in the next day’s paper. He picked up the phone and rang to dictate his story to a copy-taker.
Job done, he drove down to the Via Margutta for a look around. Rock ‘n’ roll music was blaring from some windows above a large art gallery. He saw an entrance round the side and when he walked up the steps, no one gave him a second glance, even though his sandy hair clearly signalled he wasn’t Italian. Some guests were swaying to the music in a world of their own. Others sat dazed and saucer-eyed, staring into space. Yet more chatted with high animation and screeched with laughter. Scott hadn’t ever tried drugs and didn’t know anyone who had, but he’d read enough on the subject, especially in Norman Mailer’s articles, to realise this was the kind of behaviour you might expect. He was pretty sure he’d be able to get some of these people to talk, and the best thing was they’d be unlikely to remember the conversations next morning.
That’s what he would do. He would start investigating the Ghianciaminas, slowly and carefully building up a dossier of information until he was ready to publish. After it was in print, he’d have to leave the city and seek a posting elsewhere, probably with another paper. In the meantime, if he could keep his editor happy with a few stories about Elizabeth Taylor, that was all to the good.
‘Vorresti LSD?’ a tall, slender girl offered.
‘Sure, why not?’ he replied, thinking he might as well get to know what it was like. She gave him a sugar cube and told him to let it dissolve on his tongue. After just a moment’s hesitation, he popped it in his mouth. He hadn’t expected to notice much difference but half an hour later he realised he felt immensely content with the world. Everyone at the party seemed extraordinarily good-looking and the music was the best he’d ever heard. He wandered round without talking to anyone, simply soaking in the vibe.
So this is it! he thought in a moment of self-awareness. It’s good stuff. Well, I’ll be damned.
In October, the temperature in Rome dropped by ten degrees and cold blustery rain set in. Instead of lounging on the grass inside Cinecittà’s main entrance, people sprinted from one building to another with coats held over their heads to protect their ancient Egyptian makeup and hairstyles. Huge puddles formed in the uneven pathways and girls shrieked as they stepped on loose paving stones, causing muddy water to splash up their bare legs.
Diana was invited to watch what Hilary called the ‘dailies’ – footage that had already been shot – in a screening room. She wasn’t sure why they wanted her there but Walter explained that if there were any dreadful mistakes they could fix them in editing.
‘In the worst-case scenario we can reshoot scenes but I’m hoping that won’t be necessary. On most films you can watch dailies at the end of the day they were shot – hence the name – but we have to courier the film stock back to LA for processing. We pack up the cans every night and send them off then it’s a week before the so-called “dailies” get back to us, by which time the sets have been taken down. So if something hasn’t worked out, it’s a complete pain in the proverbial.’ He smiled as he spoke, and Diana wondered if anything on set ever rattled his composure. She’d only ever seen him in good humour but he obviously had a dark side if Helen was right about him shooting his wife’s lover.
They took their seats, the lights were switched off and the projector cast a big white circle onto the screen, then diminishing numbers flashed up … 3, 2, 1. She saw the clapperboard slowly closing and a big cross appeared, before an image of Elizabeth Taylor and Rex Harrison. The sound had been synched on but there was no background music or sound effects so their voices seemed curiously flat. They watched one short sequence in which Cleopatra argued with Caesar, then the clapperboard came up again and they were in an entirely different and non-sequential scene.
Diana found it hard to follow the short snatches of action but she was impressed by Rex Harrison’s acting. He was easily plausible as Caesar, a man struggling to hold together the vast Roman empire but facing insurmountable problems due to the geographical distances and implacable enemies. Elizabeth Taylor, on the other hand, was simply playing Elizabeth Taylor. With her curious Anglo-American accent and modern looks, she bore no resemblance to the first century BC queen Diana had studied. Her extraordinary beauty and sexually charged acting were pure Hollywood.
The film was going to be a love story, not a historical documentary. Would cinemagoers have been interested in watching the true Cleopatra story of the woman who married her brother, ordered the deaths of her rivals, defeated foes in battle and bribed the Egyptian people to win their loyalty? To Diana’s way of thinking, the fact that, far from being beautiful, she had been hook-nosed, strong-jawed and stick-thin yet extremely quick-witted, made for a more entertaining story. But as it was, she could see that this was going to be a sentimental movie designed to showcase its star. There was nothing she could do to change that.
When the projector was switched off and the lights came on, they sat discussing what they’d seen, and Joe Mankiewicz suggested a couple of fill-in shots. The cameraman agreed and someone wrote it down. No one asked Diana’s opinion.
‘Great work, everybody,’ Walter beamed, and the group dispersed. Sheltering under a studio umbrella, Diana hurried back to the production office, wondering whether there was any point in her attending the dailies. They would never reshoot
