over her arm. Several taxi drivers approached, competing for her attention, but she waved them away. Her driver was probably stuck in traffic and running late.
As she waited, the arguments of the past few weeks echoed around her head. Trevor was right: she must be a very self-centred person. She knew she was being a bad wife. She knew she was letting him down. Their discussions had got increasingly bitter as each became entrenched in their positions. She couldn’t contemplate turning down the opportunity to work on the film but Trevor had taken it personally, as if it meant she didn’t love him enough. She tried every argument but he simply reiterated that he couldn’t manage without her, that he’d miss her too much.
They had barely spoken since she booked her flight. He was so hurt he couldn’t even look at her, and she was terrified that she might have damaged her marriage irrevocably. Surely Trevor wouldn’t divorce her? They didn’t know any divorcees among their social set, or even at the university. What would she do if he decided to take that extraordinary step? She’d given up a secure, ordered life for the complete unknown, and it seemed emblematic of the chaos she could expect that no one had arrived to meet her at the airport. She stood amongst the taxi drivers in the bustling entrance hall wondering if she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.
After hanging around for half an hour, she changed some money at an exchange bureau. They told her she needed gettoni for the payphone so she purchased some and used them to call Walter Wanger’s office, trying several times before she worked out which bits of the code had to be included when you dialled. The phone rang out but no one answered. Stilling her anxiety, she decided to take a taxi to Cinecittà film studios. What else could she do, since she didn’t know the address of her pensione? She picked an older-looking driver, one who seemed less pushy than the others, and let him heft her suitcase into the trunk. Thank goodness she spoke passable Italian, learned on an extracurricular course she’d taken at university. She had always picked up languages easily while Trevor, despite his superior intellect, had no facility for them.
During the half-hour drive she wondered what could have gone wrong. Were they not expecting her that day? Had they changed their minds about hiring her? The driver pulled up outside the entrance to a single-storey peach-coloured building with the Cinecittà sign over the gate. Diana paid the driver and stood sweltering in the heat as an overweight guard in a dark suit telephoned Walter Wanger’s office, then tried another number in the production block. Diana’s stomach was in knots. What if this was all a huge mistake and they weren’t expecting her at all? Had she jeopardised her marriage over a misunderstanding?
A pony-tailed girl in white Capri pants came running across the grass towards them. ‘Diana?’ she called. ‘You must have thought we’d forgotten all about you. It’s the first day of shooting and everybody was on set to watch, including the driver we had asked to pick you up. I swear, you can never rely on Italians.’ She was American.
‘It’s fine,’ Diana said. ‘I’m here now.’
‘Let’s take your suitcase up to the production office and make everything official. You need to sign your contract and then I’ll show you around. My name’s Candy,’ she added as an afterthought.
Diana followed her across a large grassy lawn. Dozens of people sprawled there, smoking cigarettes, catching the sun, reading magazines, chatting and laughing, and they glanced at Diana and her unwieldy suitcase with a flicker of curiosity before looking away again. The girls were all dressed in Capri pants or above-the-knee skirts with little blouses, and she suddenly felt old-fashioned in her longer, fifties-style skirt and jacket and her beige leather gloves. No one else was wearing gloves. Their legs were bare and bronzed while she wore American tan tights and she thought with envy how much cooler they must feel.
Candy led her to a group of buildings. ‘These are the production offices,’ she said. ‘You can leave your suitcase here.’
She shook hands with several people sitting behind desks and signed her name as indicated. She was informed that she would receive her salary of 50,000 lire (about 28 British pounds), less local taxes, each Friday evening at the end of the working day, and that her permit to work in Italy would be arranged by the studio staff, although she would have to register with the police in the next few days.
As they left, she paused on the steps to watch as a man in a Roman toga came towards them, then did a double take when she realised it was Rex Harrison. She and Trevor had seen him in My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, playing Professor Higgins, the man who teaches a Cockney flower girl to ‘speak proper’. It had been a brilliant production and received a standing ovation, the audience clapping until their hands were numb. Rex Harrison passed without glancing in her direction, but she felt a bubble of excitement all the same.
‘Have you met Walter?’ Candy asked. Diana agreed that she had, during her one day at Pinewood. ‘I’ll take you over to say hi to Joe Mankiewicz, if we can catch a second of his time.’
‘What does he do?’ Diana asked, and Candy stared in amazement.
‘He’s the director. Didn’t you know that?’
‘I thought it was Rouben Mamoulian. I’m sure I read that somewhere.’
‘Yeah, it was, but he got fired ages ago. The cast has all changed since we came to Italy. But we’ve still got Liz – for better or worse.’
‘What do you mean?’
Candy rolled her eyes comically. ‘You’ll find out.’
Someone popped a head round the door. ‘Candy, there’s a problem with the elephants. They’re being really aggressive and no one can get near them. Will you go and talk to the elephant guy, see what his explanation is?’
‘Sure,’ Candy agreed. ‘Why don’t you come with me, Diana? I’ll get a chance to show you around. You can leave your coat and jacket. It’s sweltering out there.’ She glanced down at Diana’s prim skirt and tights and seemed about to say something else but thought better of it.
They strolled up a shady avenue. Everywhere there were neatly mown grass verges and boulevards lined with stately rows of Roman pine trees and oleander bushes. Lots of people waved and called hello to Candy as she passed, and she called back but didn’t make any move to introduce Diana.
‘The commissary – that’s canteen to you Brits – is down there and the bar’s over that way.’ She pointed to a separate block but walked straight past it. Diana was parched and could have used a cool drink but didn’t want to cause any bother. ‘I’ve reserved a room for you in the Pensione Splendid near Piazza Repubblica so it will only take you about twenty minutes to get here in the morning. A studio driver will pick you up around eight.’ She chatted on about practicalities and Diana tried to remember everything while simultaneously getting her bearings in the vast studio complex, which seemed to stretch for miles in every direction.
They could hear and smell the elephants well before reaching the enclosure. Roaring, with trunks raised, and stamping their feet, they were terrifying the horses in the nearby stables. Diana couldn’t count them all as some were inside a sandstone outbuilding, but four were pacing around outside. Candy approached a man who seemed to be in charge and had a conversation with him in Italian. He spread his arms and shrugged, telling her that it wasn’t his fault they were restless; that’s just how they were.
Diana looked at the poor creatures, each restrained with a heavy chain around one ankle. Their eyes seemed astonishingly human and knowing. The closest regarded her as one fellow creature to the other, requesting sympathy for its plight. Then she looked at its ears, which were small and drooping. She remembered
