To calebrate the making of Bel Ami Saul Weinand threw a party
on ooard the Queen Mary, lying in permanent dock in Long Beach Harbor.
No one could tell why he chose a ship, and a British one at that, to
announce the maliing of a film to take place on terra firma and in
Paris. Some said it was because one of the stars was British.
The real fact was that he'd got a beneficial deal from the Queen's
proprietors for the evaning hire, though he. still spent the best part
of a quarter of a million dollars. To some extent this was justified
by the advance publicity, though no one could dare to predict anything
like a Jawa succe88. But there were TV cameras everywhere, the trade
magazines ran axcallent columns on it, and it gave the press a chance
to meet the new international star Jamie Somerson.
Saul walked round looking like David 0. Selznick half a century
before, kissing the ladies on both cheeks, grabbing male hands, being
photographed with Jamie, and only when he caught Dominic's eye did he
feal what he was, a man in a helluva big debt. For if this ane went
down he'd never make another picture while his name was Wainand, and
they both knew it.
Pauline drove Angela and Dominic down in the Buick. They were in
light mood, like a family on the spree. Angela chattered about her
white-tie-and-tails idol of the Thirties, Jack Buchanan, whose ashes
had been scattered from the Queen Mary and who'd made over fifty
transatlantic arossings to appear in Broadway shows or' films.
She Bang them his hit, 'And her mother came to tea'. in a surprisingly
sweet well-trained voice.
""All Jack's leading ladies fell in love with him."
"Looks like you got there too late," Dominic said.


"He probably wasn't my type," she replied with a mischievous
glance. "He wasn't a hustler or killer."
"Come, come Angala," he said with a laugh, "you would always
have turned him into onel"
Pauline drove them towards Pier J. on the harbour and they saw
the huge ship before them, brilliant with lights in the dusk as if
about to slip anchor for another voyage to Bouthampton.
The party started off with caviar and champagne in the Queen
Mary Playhouse watching a revue imported from the Mayfair Music Hall
in Santa Monica. The men were in tuxedos, the women in every stage
of undress.
Angela wore the aquamarine gown from her commercial, with some
paarls Dominic slipped round her neok just before leaving the apart-
ment. She looked a dream. Pauline had an off-the-shoulders dress
out very low in front and transparent, revealing a remarkable body
no one expectad.
The title of the film had been changed to Ambition and the word
was evarywhera, on hats that were handed out (straw boaters for the
men and cloche hats for the women), on vast tricolour ribbons slung
across the ceiling, and all round the proscenium arch in the theatre.
One ribbon, broader than the others, Peatured the names of the
starsJamie Somerson and Angela Bourne.
"You can't blame me for that," Dominio said, looking up. "You
did it yoursalf."
TV cameras and hand-held lighta followed her here and there, she
was asked far comments on the coming film and made a few trite remarks
which Saul's publicity department had advised har on baforehand. It
was all a bit sickening.
The other producers, Greg Merrytown and Barry Kurtz, were there,
keaping as close to Dominic as they could so as not to be seen to be
part of the renegade Ambition production. For that matter, Saul kept
close to him too.
6he was astonished at Dominic's degree of magnetism for these men,
the sheer composure that drew tham to him. Yet he was perhaps the
youngest of them, and not the wealthiest. Kurt was said to be at
least twice as rich, Saul had an equal pull with the banks. But
their eyes ware full of questions. What did he really think of Saul's
going it alone? Would Ambition make it at the box office? Above all


what did he think of Saul's whisking his own girlfriend into the
Ambition production from under his nose?
And the 'killer' played on their anxiety with a little glitter
of amusement in his eyes, or so it seemed to Angela. Sometimes she
felt he must at the least have committed murder to have such a hold
on poeple. He reduced these men to children before her eyes.
When Dominic had heard about her signing up with Saul he'd
shrugged it off with, "She's learning fast huh?"
She hadn't dared to tell him herself. She'd got Everard to
do it.
All Dominic said to her on the subject was, "Let's have a look
at the contract." Then he'd sat down with her in the lounge and gone
over it clause by. clause, picking out the weaknesses.
Even when she told him that Pennace was directing he showed no
aign of irritation.
Mostly he seemed to feel pride that she'd handled the matter
without help. He was especially impressed by her having negotiated
the veto-clause on the director. He got Everard to go over the
scene at Saul Weinand's house again and again, and had a little laugh
at Saul's expense.
But what was happening to the Ballet Russe series? Why was he
80 silent about it? He announced his intention of approaching Jamie
for the male lead but didn't actually do it.
Every time she tried to bring the subject up something happened
to distract him. It was very worrying. Pauline was no help. When
Angela asked her why he was 80 reticent about his projects all she said
was, "Well, that makes two of you doesn't it?"
But the Ballet Russe series waen't the real worry. It was the
fact that she was scared of her man. That implacable look in his
eye just took her speech away. Even 'Caterina' failed to help her
here.
The astonishing thing was that he did his best to dispel her
fears.
"I want you to lose the idea that you can ever work against me, 11
he told her on the morning of the Queen Mary party. "Any good you
do for yourself is for my good tool"
She felt a tremor of apprehension just the same, even while he
said these words. What lay behind his still manner? It was 80
difficult to see into his heartl
And the fear in her provoked a determination to fight it and be
independent. Here Catarina did help. She egged her on. She
made her feal at the Queen Mary party, for instance, that she deserved


all the attention that was being lavished on her. Dominic took
her round among the guests. She met stars old and new, stars at the
topiof the market and stars at the bottom.
After the revue Jamie told her that the Bel Ami script had been
revamped to turn her role, Clotilde, into the female lead, with
Madeleine now playing second fiddle.
"What does Sonya feel about that?" she asked him.
"Oh I think she kn ows Dominic pretty well."
"Dominic? What's he got to do with it?"
"Obvious," Jamie said. "She'd be playing Madeleine in the series
if he hadn't pulled it all down."
"Also," he said roughly, being a little drunk, "he and Sonya had
it off once, s0 I guess she knows that side of him too."
To her surprise she felt no jealousy at the thought of Dominic
and Sonya having been lovers. In fact she watched Sonya at the other
end of the bar talking to Barry Kurtz and thought what good taste
Dominic had.
The one person she didn't speak to all evaning was Max Pennance.
He was keeping well away from the Dominic faction, which meant keeping
away from his own producer, Saul Weinand, too. Sonya could have
kicked him.
Angela saw Dominic in a huddle with Saul and on the excuse of
picking up a drink walked over to their table. To her bewilderment
they were renegotiating her contract.
Dominic insisted on having her participation percentage raised,
and on insarting a new clause giving her a handsoms lot-cut fee in
the case of the film not being made or, having been made, not baing
distributed. A sale to telavision could not be considered 'dis-
tribution'.
"That's a must," he told Saul gravely, fixing him with a gaze
that prompted Saul to look round for help from Kurtz and Merrytown
who were at the other end of the hall.
The new clauses were typed out that evening on the Queen Mary,
and signed over champagne in the captain's quarters. Jamie and
Jill Rapinsky, who were at the bar together, wondered what was going
on, but were never told. Everard Hope, usually the informant on
these things, didn't know either.
The party also served the function of getting the shooting off
to a vigorous and optimistic start two days later at the Burbank
studios.


She really clicked with Jamie at rehearsals. They really
'gave' to each other. Max seemed pleased.
Shooting also coincided with some of the finest weather of the
year-a high blue sky and cool breazes. The evenings were heavenly.
Everybody felt it was an OK sign from providence.
It was sad, said Nick, Madeleine's bearded husband in the film,
that the Guy de Maupassant book had been mangled and Sonya Steele
sarewed, but at least everyone was in work..
A slight shadow was cast on the first day's shooting when Gaul
was held for observation at the Hollywood Hills clinic. He'd gone
there for his bi-monthly check-up. Aecently he'd been complaining
of an axtre-systolic heart flutter.
He felt giddy and depressed but a few days on a ganglion-block
drug set the blood pressure to rights. He was told to take it easy.
He sorely wanted to visit the studios--but Pennance was happy
he didn't.
"He's a pain in the arse on the set," he said.
Things were going well. The first rushes had created more
confidence among the distributors (who had a large stake in the film)
than anything that had happened for, say, six months. People who'd
said that 'another costume film' couldn't do much business were
beginning to wonder if this wasn't another Gone with the Wind, with
a prestige performance from Angela that would pull them in for
generations. Jamie of course was the commercial pull. It was what
they'd said about Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. There was the
right hum of excitement round the set.
As Jamie's last film continued to draw capacity audiences the
world over everyone on the set, especially Pennance, began to realise
he was worth his weight in gold. With this in mind two doctors
instead of the one required by insurance policies were brought in
to watch him.
A hand-held light, living up to its nickname of handbasher,
fell within inches of Jamie's hand one afternoon when he was sitting
by a table on the set being lit. Nobody knew what it was doing
thereor why the sparks responsible had been carrying the thing
around on a live lead. Anyway, Jamie was told to stay in his
dresing room in future while the set was being lit. This' meant
getting him a stand-in just like in Hollywood in the old days.


All the fuss made about this suited Angela down to the
ground. She kept a deliberately low profile, learning her lines
qr uietly and keeping in touch with Dominic from her dressing-room
phone. She seemed to have become the least of Pennance's problems.
She got to know Sonya Steele quite well, though it was uphill
work in the first days. She urged Jamie to help her here. Partly
she felt responsible for Sonya's having lost the lead but mostly
she was disguatad by the way Pennance was treating her on the set.
He did his best to make an embarrassing sit tuation worse. He
wouldn't let her interpret Madeleine in a new way consonant with
the mangled script, which she wanted to. Her idea was to play down
Madeleine's dominance over her dying husband, over ministers, over
the young and pannileas Georges du Roy, and substitute a fascinating
kind of meakness which got its way by the sheer use of intelligence.
Sonya was one of those urdemonstrative actresses who as they work on
their parts get bigger and bigger without anyone noticing it until
the film is finished. Eut it seemed that Pennance wasn't having that.
Also she we'sn't the type to burst into tears when a scene went
wrong from her point of view. Angela wished she would.
"For God's sake," sh e said to her one day, "why don't you blow
your top? Scarmi the shi t out of him!"
This made Sianya her friend. Sometimas in breaks they worked
together on Maduleine's Ecenes, finding paints where she could insert
Penhance
an interpretatiin han wou). d be too busy to notice. The fact was that
he was frightenud that i1 Madeleine shone he could be accused of
defying Saul's ruling thut Clotilde was the star. At home with
Sonyt he never oven talkud about the film.
"Do you still love him?" Angela ventured to iask her.
"Love himl" Sonya 8i nid. "I haven't loved a man since Dominic
Latouchal"
Angela was stunned and Sonya, no doubt axpecting the reaction,
ever: if she didn't calculate it, smiled. "Oh, I'm not in love with
Dominic. I think he's a son of a bitch. I just mean what I say,
I hiven't loved a man since I loved him. And boy I certainly did
lova him!"
Angela took her to the Au Petit Café on Vine Street when they
finished work, to get her to talk more.
"Is Dominic going to ruin my life?" she asked her as a lead-in,
trying to make it sound like a joke.


"I think. you night ruin him," Sonya said. "You're doing OK
80 far."
"Well you're getting your own way. I mever got my way with
Dominic even on the eau de cologne I sprayed my own body with!
Jewellery, Glothes, the books I read, the quality of the coffee I
drank, the question of the pill, the coil or the diaphragm-he
decided the whule damn lotl And it was great for a time. Then
I realidéd he was choosing everything for somebody elsel Perhaps
it was ybul Anyway whoever it was hadn't happened to him yet and
certainly wasi't me. For instance," she said before Angela could
say anytning, "the pearls you were wearing on the Queen Mary went on
me firstl"
Angala couldn't stop herself going pale.
"They looked terrible on me, " Sonya went ono "In fact I
thought he juste didn't have the right touch with a woman. But I
suppase I has wrong. I mean, take that dress you were wearing
on the Queeh hary-that was,real nicel"
"But he dn't give me that! It was from the commercial I did
with Jamieit
"I knik," Sonya said. Then ahe laughed: "I'm sorry kid!
You really uidn't know he had that dress specially designed for
you? The producers of that commercial are like his twin brothers!
In faot ne knew two deys tefure avert Jill Aapinsky that you were
going to yet the jobl"
"He got ne tne lob as wall?"
"No hut he got; you the dressi Thu, sade him pay for it of
course. And not EVET: Jonuthe satine Knew, so don't blame anybody
on the séti for not talling vou. I unly heard through a guy called
Hal Bernersy who'a a San Diegg banking liar, one of Saul's investors
on Ambition."
wyell," Sungela said ir & daze, "at least he didn't try the
dress on you firstl"
"On for Dominic anyting ne does is self-justifying, he's always
been that way!"
"I heard he usad to yo to a lot of shrinks at one time-is that
"Sure it's truel But partly it was a kind of hobby. He
wanted to find out about himself, he knew he was going some place
but he didn't know axactly where yet. And he was making a heap of
gold as some kind of intrepreneur, you never knew quite what he was


up to. That was before he moved into films. He used to come
on the set with me and that was how he learned about films and met
everybody. Of course the more gold he made the more the boys tried
to pull him into production. He got the usual cranks and phonies
and he fell for some surrealist crap and lost fifty thousand bucks
on a film nobody everi troubled to distribute. That taught him a
lot and he started treating films as a business. That way he was
sincare at least. I mean he just looked ridiculous with all those
art peoplel It was difficult for a human dagger to look dreamy!
Anyway the investments paid off, once he'd learned who' and what to
be ruthless with."
Angela fought the indignation rising in herto speak out
for Domnic, defend him.! "And did he stop going to the shrinks?"
she meus herself say.
"Un Lhat only happaned when he met Pauline. She was just
about the biggest thing that evar happened to him-"
"Did they hava an affaire
"Are you kidding? Pauline goey in for gawky student types of
forty ur: rifty. You'd be amazed if you Baw them, which is why you
never dol She keeps them under lock and key in lonely downtown
pads and uoasn't eve give trem her phone number."
"Anyway, why was shu the biggest thing that happened in his
"weil ut ter she vame elong everything changed. The girls
stopped. He used to have so many girls calling him up you weren't
even jealous, they sort of annuiled each other. And he developed
this fantastic wili. iti3 close friends like me just couldn't
believe it. He'u aiways made a lot of money but now he started
making millions. And that was all Pauline's work. She got him
into this reincarnational thing. Hey, that sounds quite interest-
ing, don't you think so? Have you got yourself into it too?"
"In a small way." She wanted to press on with the investigation:
"Did he always scare people?"
"Uh that's his eyes mostly."
"But did he always have that way of looking at people?"
"You mean like ne's seeing right through you?"
"That's a load of crap. His reactions are slow, that's all.
I know a lot of guys who have that immutable stare, you get it smoking


dope, that is if you smoke hard enough and shoot up a little horse
as well and sniff a pinch of coke from time to timel And our
Dominic certainly did all of those thingsl"
Back at the apartment that evening Angela was tender and
affectionatewith him, as if to soothe the invisible wounds inflicted.
He looked tired and this added to her sense of compassion, and a touch
of guilt too, that by asking leading questions she'd got Sonya to
spill more than was good for her to know.
Had Sonya been helped by Jamie in this-were they jointly
trying to open her eyes about Dominic?
She told Dominic all the other news of the day, how Pennance
was treating 6onya.
"You can never tell whon arectors are being tough for a purpose, D8
he said. "Sonya's always given him a lot of trouble, it's her way
of working. She nevers throws hysterics, she just grinds away at
the part until you want to throw a pail of pig-swill over her and say
oh for Christ's sake get out of here and have a good timel Did you
know I had a scene going with Sonya once?"
She nearly jumped out of her chair. "Yes I heard something like
that at the studio."
"That's what I like about your profession, you're all such
sticklers for the truthl" He drew her into his arms and whispered,
"What else did you hear about me?"
"That you had my dress designed for me on the commarcial, that
you tried those pearls on Sonya first, that you took a lot of dope
at one time and had shrinks all over the west coast, and Pauline was
the best thing that ever happened to you."
"It's truel It's all truel" he said. "Except for the pearls.
I took them back when I saw they didn't suit her. They're still in
drawer somewhere. And the ones I gave you I bought on the day
of the Queen Mary party. Wanna 6ee the receipt?"
"Oh Dom, Dom!" She hugged and kissed him.
Later he wandered into the kitchen and said, "Now how the hell
did they find out about that dress? There must be some weak security
somewherel"
"Sonya said a San Diego bank told her."
"Hal Berners, the son of a bitchl He overheard my phone calll
Can you beat that? I'd call him up right now and tear a strip off
him if he hana't put his bank at my disposal for the Ballet Russe
series!"


Then he said, "Look after Sonya. She's a great kid even if
she can't tell the difference between one string of pearls and
another."
tlemx
Was this his way of saying he didn't/Sonya for gossiping about
him-or Angela for having listened?
Shooting on Ambition was guing S0 well that her London agent
Barbara Gleeson called to congratuiate her.
"I'm hearing great things from Everard all the time," " she said.
"By the way, Angela, do you intend to vaturn to London ever?"
The question took her by surprise. It wasn't one she wanted
to hear at the moment: answering would cast a time-limit on her
present happiness.
But something made ner give Barbara a non-conmital reply.
"Well," she said, "this film's yut to be finished first, and
then there's the Ballet Husse series, though I haven't signed a
contract yat."
"The reason I ask is that there'a yoing to be a Shaw revival
and they're kean on having you for tne remale lead."
"What's the play?"
And before the word was out of Sarnars's nouth she knew what
it was going to be-Eyamalioni And it was the part she'd always
dreamed aboui--Elizai
"Reviving Pygmalion sounds crazy to me," Barbara said, "but
everybody's keeri and they' 're starting in Brighton and coming into
town at the Apollo or Piccadilly. It's going to be a star cast.
Rehearsals start in about two months."
It was the biggest theatre offer she'd ever had. She went
to the lounge and poured herself a thoughtful drink.
Oominic was going through his business mail. "An n y trouble?"
"Just my agent calling from London."
"Everything OK?"
"Yes. She heard how well the film was yoing."
It was one more thing she couldn't bring herself to tell him.
The list was growing. She went and hugged him until he began to
look at her curiously.
The attractions of playing Eliza were all the great ter because,
inside her, Caterina seemed to be saying yes to it- -she identified
with the brash yet vulnerable flower girl who learned to be a lady.
And Angela knew she was born to play it.
She had a hard time suppressing her excitement.


Saul came down to the studios looking purply in the face and
considerably thinner. He walked with a stick, which he said was
for safety more than need.
"I'm glad you're'with us Angela," he said cosily. "Max tells
are
You and Jamie make a fine team!"
me your scenes
great.
She'd seen the rushes of their scenes and couldn't deny they
were good.
But the nerve-wracking work was yet to come. She knew that i
aspecially Pennance, was atraid of her love-scenes with
everyone,
Jamie because of what had happened ori the commercial, and that for
this reason they'a been put at the bettom of the shooting list, to
be done in the last days.
formal scene, it might be
Evary now and then, during quite
with Madeleine and har husband in the same room, Max would say to
Jamie "Could you just take Angela's hana there, very quickly?" or
"Suppose you steal a kiss just as you're passing through the door
after all you're that sort of guy aren't you?"
She knew this was to get her usud to Jamie's touch in case the
'allergy' recurred. She couldn't say she minded the hand-squeszing
or the add kiss but still sne had to steel herself for them, being
as much atraid of a racurrence as evaryone else was.
observed the
recoil in her but told himself that it
Max
siight
than the 'ailergy' itself, and he seemed
was fear of a relapse more
to be right.
The desiyners of the film had sade every effort to create a
uel épuque Dackyround. A French adviser hung about the
convincing
set at all times cheunlig gesturee and munnarisas-how to pour
drink 11, Kisb hands; bow, caii a waiter, hail a cab, sit on
wine,
a chaise lGnguee
of New
and had been to Europe once
Jamie was a native
Jersay
out Paris because his girlfriend was in
as a student, missing
at Sonya saiu, the first actor that sprang
Frankfurt.
wasn't,
mind when you hearu the nani Guy de Maupasaunt. But he
your
to parts which compensated for the
had an instinctive approach
at least by the time it came to cut and edit. Angela
callowness,
lines in
enjoyed watching him develop his part as they exchanged
He had nardly any brain on his shoulders but
her dréssing room.
Duroy had combined
this helped him. He quickly saw that Georges
all his thoughts and deds-ruthleosness
two qualities nearly
One had never gone without the other.
and elegance.


He looked up frum' his script one day when Sonya was sitting
with them and said, "You know who I'm basing my interpretation on
don't you?"
"No," Angela saiu.
"Your boyfriund."
She was furicus. "Listen I'm in love with that mant Duroy
was a bastard, ne'd have done anything to advance himself, how can you
talk about Oominic in the same way?"
"Oh I'm not trying to nit Dominic. I'm just saying what
everybody'd say, Only I say it to your face."
"I think. you're just jeslous," Sonya said.
He laughiaulooylahly. "Yo. can say that again!"
Thie was I caiverwat.on ahe uidn't report to Dominic. Also, she
felt she souldnit dounter. what, Jamie had said. Oominic's'will was
implscable.
One dey whei she waa waiting to be called un the set there was a
knock on her drésaing--room douh, Ohe turned and there to her astonish-
ment was Uaminic. He junt out nis heed rond the door and said,
"Hullo", tnen was yie agatn. :
"Dominicl" + She rushed to che door and opened it. She went
outsiide and looked everyuher 6s
"Have you seen Dominac7* she asked the assistant director.
"Dominic?" he said, blinking.
"Don't you know him?" She rushed away, jumping over cables
and knocking into light stands.
She found Max Pennance in conference with the cameraman.
"Dominic knocked on my door, then completely disappsared!"
"Who? Dominic Latouche?"
"Did you 8ee Dominic?" he asked the cameralian.
"Listen," Max said, "there'a, grips looks very much like him.
Guy with dark features, same sort of nose. Are you sure it was
Dominic?"
"Well of course I'm surel"
She rang the apartment. No ore was at home. So she rang
Pauline.
"Do you know where Dominic is?"


"He's right here."
"But he was here at the studio not five minutes ago!"
"You must be seeing things. I'll pass you over."
Angela told him what: had happened and he said, "Maybe it was
somebody impersonating me. They do that kind of thing down therel"
She let it pase off as a joke-with Max Pennance too, but it
scared her. kspecially whan the grips said to be like Dominic turned
out to look nothing AKG hin at all-and in any case he hadn't knocked
on her door +
Between takeds all that day, she wandered round the stage looking
for anosi in" Comipisnlike individual but saw no one.
from she wc.ment that man knocked un her door she felt slightly
faint, lt yra's a Right saiise of fever comparable to a pre-flu
fealing.
Eut the darja shocting went Ok. Jamie, noticing the difference
in her, persuadin her to take a finger of whispky after the last scene
of the day. She fourid herself, thinking how unknown forces were
perhep #. beginning to aut 013 her. Was 1t all this FM activity?
It mece ner shivar, reach "or the shawl she took to all dressing
rooma 4'
gihe slept vith Dominic that night, not in her room, so as to
be aure that no' 'shost' of him would appear.
She delighced to toucn him. They were awake half the night,
talk: ng and meking love. She felt that by staying close to him
thosa unkown forces would p8 exorcised.
"Something's not quite right wi th the old lady, huh?" he
whiepered just: before they went to sleep.
"Oh it's probably the love suenes worrying me.
"They'1l be OK. Tryst daddy."
The next norning wner: she walked into the studio at around eight
o'cl ock everybody was standing about as if work had been suspended.
The Ligncs on the sut had been killed. The cameras were stacked
dumbly by the wall. Har haart sank, it looked like a strike, a
financial collapse, something awful.
JIll Hapinsky was there and came up to her quietly-"Saul
Weinand's dead, 11 she whispered. "Heart attack in the night."
They were all to attend the funerul the following Thursday.
Max called a meeting and said he didn't know what the future held
for the film. "Saul may have appointed an executor, I just don't
know yet."
There were some suggestions that she should approach Dominic


to seek his production advice. They came in a veiled form from
Nick, the actor playing Madeleine's husband, and from some of the
crew. She took no notice.
The following day. was the same, with everyone standing about.
Then at ten o'clock Hal Berners arrived and talked to Pennance. He
said the film was now in the hands of a small committee of men Saul
would have approved. of and work was to go on as if he was still alive.
In fact the distributors were pressing for work not only to be
resumed but intensified. Two days of expensive studio time had
already been lost.
They were aiso regretting the money lavished on the Queen Mary
party. This was the reason for their hard line on the shooting
schedule and the alaborate sets. They wanted to save. Max looked
vorried and said the sons of bitches would ruin the film just to get
:t on the market quick, since at this moment they would probably
break even with anything that nad Jamie Somerson's name an it.
Dominic had spent the pravious evening at Saul's house with
Greg Merrytoin and Berners. lt had been difficult/to find a next
07 kin but in the end a brother in Pittsburg had been contacted and
wis now on his way to LA. Witn hi8 permission Dominic embarked on
the funeral errangements.
The next day at the studio wagone of rush and panic. Everyone
was in everyone else's way. The steady concentration of the early
Nork had been replacen with irritation and touchiness.
In a peculiar stumpede which nobody could explain properly
a lighting tower on the set started shaking and the 'brute' mounted
at its head crashed tp the ground anu narrowly missed killing the
chief photographer.
Angela heard tha explosion in ner' dressing room and dared not
go out. It was Sonya who came to tell her the news. The set
had. caught fire and was six toot deep in extinguishar foam.
"All this is great for the nerves," Sonya said, collapsing
into a chair. "Are you sure you don't have whisky hidden somewhere?"
"I wished I smokad or somethinga Max 18 getting impossible at
home. Our phone's going all nignt. They're changing plans every
started interfering with the title last night.
five minutes. They
And they wanted to know who the hell you were- -Max told them to
in touch with Dominic about that, which seemed to settle their
get
minds."


Jamie started putting his foot down. He refused: to let idiot-
boards be erected all over the set with his or Angela's lines on
them just because the new schedule didn't allow them time to learn
their parts. Word got to the money-men that he was getting bolshie,
and they decided to cool the thing off: Pennance could return to
the original shooting schedule. And the threatened cut-backs in
the costumes budget wouldn't take place (especially as nearly all
the costumes had been made).
But fresh trouble started when the entire production team
elected to attend Saul's funeral and thus throw away another day of
studio time.' And once again the money-men withdrew.
! The Queen Mary fling was the real source of their irritation.
It was seen as a total financial calamity which originally they had
thought Saul's private donation, and which wasn't worth a quarter of
ite weight in advance publicity. It was now blamed on Hal Berners,
who'd been gulled by Saul's David 0- Selznick manner into believing
that the film was going to be a blockbuster whereas, said the distrib-
utors, it was just another damn costume picture, and French at thatl
Everybody was sore, the original enthusiasm was waning,
even Max Pennance wanted to get the film done and out of the way.
He was once more feeling, vulnerable-- his chief patron had after all
died and it looked as 42was again at Dominic Latouche's mercies.
Altogether, in 'a matter of two or three days, a great enterprise
everyone had been talking about became a subject to avoid.
Jill Hapinsky was already calling Angela to get Dominic moving
on the Ballet Russe series. But he was still very quiet about
that. He was no longer waving a contract under Angela's nose.
He hadn't called, Evararde And sumething in his eyes told her not
to raiee the subject.
He worked so hard at the funerul arrangements, and at trying
to find out if Saul had lefta will that wher: the day of the funeral
came he looked ter years older. Angela rushed home from the studio
to be with him. In the days that followed she fussed round him
whenever she was free. One morning when Pauline had a heavy FM
olass she got time off from the studio ahd drove him round LA
chasinig up attorneys about the Saul Weinand estate.
Saul had indeed lett a wiil, He died quite a rich man, Dominic
said. Angela asked hini who the benefidiaries of the will were and
he smiled. 1
"Me," he said. - "I'm the sole beneficiary. I can't believe it.'
She stared at. him; "You?"


He and Saul had never been close. True, he'd introduced
Saul to film investment but Saul had had many other stringa to his
bow-a bigiatake in Chicago real estate, for one thing. And he
never seened reaiiy interested in films especially when his wife-to-be
walked out on hini.
"Sne left him fiat in the middle of the night. No warning.
Nothing wrong batween them. He just woke up and found she wasn't
there. Nobody knew where she disappeared to. He put it around
that she'd been Kidnapped or some crazy thing but everybody knew the
kind of girl she was when he wasn't looking. I felt sorry for Saul,
I was real Fund uf him and maybe he could feel that."
The brother from Pittsburg was naturally sore about the will,
though Ooninic puirited out, "You haven't seen your brother for close
on thirty yaars so it'u small wonder he didn't remember you."
Whan news of the will got about there was laughter, shock and
quits a bit ofcynical talk about Latouche having 'worked' it again.
Arid now of course he was virtually the producer of Ambition without
wanting to be.
But he declined to step forward and stop the distributors, in
helpless collusion'with Hal Berners, from making a mess of the
production. He aidn't visit the set. He didn't call Pennance.
And he flunig a dangerous glance at anyone who tried to bring the
subject up in his presence.
lahen
Peuple had crowded round nim at the funeral. But it hadn't/great
intelligence to 8ee that he was there to mourn a friend and nothing else.
The day before the funeral Angela bought herself a black outfit.
She looked mournful about it. He kept glancing at her and saying
quietly, "Why are yuu worried about death? Why should it make you
Bad?" And, "Saul was ready to go into another identity that's all.
The Queen Mary party was his farewell fling. He didn't give a damn
about films but he still wanted to be the old-style Hollywood producer,
he even started coining some of Golawyn's famous jokes. He knew
the money he spent on that party would rievar come back, it was a
kind of joke, the only daring thing he did in his life."
Word got around that Dominic was insisting on the banks fulfilling
their obligations to the Saul weinand estate by going through with
Ambition. That wab the story. So his stock suddenly went up.
People's nerves were frayed. Angela looked as tired as Dominic.
She felt that death had stalked into their apartment, that Saul had
virtually taken over their lives. Dominic always seemed to be in
attorneys' offices, taking calls from various parts of the States


from Saul's former business associates, overseering the estate's
investment programmes, calling money in here and buying stock there.
"By the end of the day," he told her, "I might break even on all
this but I'll have to be in luck. The two-timer!" He laughed.
"Fancy swinging that one an mel" +
In fact he was half 8 million richer for the Weinand Estate.
He put the money into a naw compeny called Weinand Productions which,
since Angela's heart was in the, theatre, would finance theatre.
The question about that, Sorye said, was had he ever seen a play?
Nobody balieved the company was more than a tax-loss outfit.
The result of all thi 8 was. that Angela became the centre of
almost religious attention nt the studio. Max treated her like a
queen and a stand-in WSE Asoked for her too. After all, her man
had saved the film or if this was too optimistic he was in a position
to do so. Also aaul Weinand had shown, by leaving his estate to
Dominic, that going it aione' on Ambition had made no difference to
his beliet in Dominic'sirightness about everything.
Which helped tha Latouche legend without helping the film, since
people now started saying that Dominic would never have abandoned
Bel Ami if he hadn't sien failure written all over it.
Even Pennance started feeling that Dominic's nose might be the
most sensitive aryan' in LA. He hovered round Angela's dressing
room, wanting to ask her lots of questions but not daring to, or
being too proud to.
The time came for the shooting of the first love scene.
In the book Clotilde ie virtually undressed by Georges Duroy and
Pennance wanted to keep it that way. For a moment Angela's breasts
would be bare. She wasn't particularly squeamish about this, for
herself, but she feared Dominic's reaction at sharing a view of her
intimate regions with millions of others the world over. It didn't
seem right when she belonged to. one man so deeply. At least he
should have a say in it and she hadn't even consulted him.
Sometimes when he touched her breasts she felt they were
Caterina's and 'had remained unchanged in form through many lives,
and, strangest thought of all, they had always been caressed by
the 'same' man.


She sat and bit her lip for an hour while the set was being
lit, sweating despite the air conditioning inside the bodice,
corsets, strings and layers of silk which were later to be dismantled
by Jamie's ardent fingers. She walked out there trembling like a
leaf as if it was a first night in'the theatre.
Max seemed to know her problem and approached the scene casually,
as if it was something to be thrown away. For the umpteenth time
Jamie rehearsed his way through the strings and hooks with hands
trembling with desire. Max told him, once he had revealed her
breasts, to 'spring back' and admire her from a yard or so's distance.
This was going atrictly by the book but it also avoided the chance of
another allergic fit by Angela.
She saw that Jamie's hands actually were trembling and wondered
if it was nervousness, love for her or bad acting. The cameras
startad rolling, Penmnance's voice callad "Action!" with deliberate
conposure and she and Jamie began their embrace. He went through
the drill perfectly. Her eyes were closed and she could feel his
fingers working on her clothes, peeling them off, while she showcered
kisses over his face.
She felt no bad reaction. The strings began to loosen,
the bodice was sudden.ly free and all at, once the upper part of her
dress fell'and revéaled her naked above the waist. Trumphantly
Pennance shouted "Cut!" and et anca, with one of the nicest smiles
he had ever givén her,Janie pulled the dress up again and closed her
breasts from view.
They waited for Pennace's verdict. He was gazing at her
thoughtfully from his chair, considering another take, but instead
said, "OK, put that in the can, we can always come back to it if
the rushes aren*t riyht."
Jamie fallowed her to her dressing room and the costume came
off whils he "Bat there chattering. She found she wasn't in the
least enbarrussed) to be down to her bra and panties in front of
him--a sign that the awful alleryy really had passed. Dominic-
'daddy'- --had been right.
"I'm not committing myself to another film until I know what's
happening oni this Venetian series," Jamie told her. "Do you know
anything about' that? I. mean, is there a schedule yet?"
The dresser had just finished with her and she was putting on
her dressing gown preparatory to tak ing her nake-up off.


"What Venetian series?" she asked him.
"The one you wouldn't sign up forl"
"That's the Ballet Russe series. What's it got to do with
Venice?"
"He wants to shoot it in Venice. He =
"Hei WI is3 ne?" she asked impatiently.
"Dominic! Who else? He doesn't tell you a damn thing does
he? Everybody on this set knows he's got a team of writers preparing
a Venice script!"
"But why Venice?"
"That's where Diaghilev used to take his best dancers-Karsavina,
Ni jinsky, Pavlova. And he died there. And lots of things happened
there .by way of new ideus for the next seasons- -for instance Nijinsky
mapperi out the Frat steps of L'Après Midi d'un Faune in the Piazza,
did you know tnat?"
Ghe l-ugheda "Uid you read the script?"
"J remt! a breskdown."
Creaming her tace she let this information slip into her mind
non-cômmitally. ons attached no great significance to it at the
time.
When she got hont-she was to muet Dominic at the Century
Plaza hotal- she locked at herself in the mirror and saw that a
rash had app: ted nn her neck in the Same place as before, on the
day of the comdarcial.
She tried to powder it out but this only seemed to inflame it.
There seemed nothing to do except wear a high col lar or scarf.
When Dominic St her she mentioned it and he said, "I'll kiss
it better." As he i eaned towards ner and kissed the place it felt
ae,if a red-ot flame had gone throumn her nuck. She jumped.
"What the hell's the matter?"
"It huris like mad!"
calleu on Pauline who according to Dominic
Aftur a orink they
in medical motters. She looked at the rash and
was very sansible
"I dun't think it's pliysical. what scenes did you do today?"
said,
Angela tolo Sal and she went on, "It's the old allergy. Isn't
that obvious?"
"Yes but whet dr 1 do tin cat it?"
"Well 1 could aggest 8 whole lot ot things but I doubt if
you'd listen to me," # Pauline sald.


"Couldn't you explain that a bit better?" Dominic asked her,
softening the irritation.
"If you won't go deep in the FM regressions, if you insist on
hovering about at the edge and holding everything in of course
you'll get. urgent uistress signals every time another man touches
youl"
"Just tell me what to do thenl"
"I really al sick and tired of you-both of youl" Pauline
suddenly said with tears in her eyes.
"Oh come on kid," Dominic said, putting his arm round her,
"has your Ph.C with the eczema and halitosis left you?"
She laughed despite her tears- -"You're dead right!"
"Well just you come along with us. We'll grab some chili
doga at Pink's, then finc a disco. How about that?"
vicest
They had che of the
evenings ever. After a few drinks
Pauline kept lopking at Angela's rash. She put on big dark glasses
like Jill Hapinsky's and made a burlesque doctor's act out of it.
Thevi ended up at the Palomino listening to country music and got
bac < much too lite from Ingela's point of view --she had a very early
call, for even more intinate scenes.
When she awoke next morring the first thing she did was look in
the' mirror. The rash WES still there ail ndi appeared to have turned
darker. Seeing it, she made a sudden rather malicious decision
not to do any mors FM if she couiti nelp 1t, as she was now convinced
that it wae the cause of har recent nervous upsets.
The make-up girl maue a fact when she saw the ràsh but was
con/ident that it could te painteu oul. The doctor looked at it
and said it was buceuse of something she'd eaten, perhaps the chili
dogs. He got on her nelves SU nuch she.nearly threw him out of the
dressing room. When ha suggested a few simple allergy tests she
said smartly, "I've had evory tliergy test there is and this rash
always comes just befora I tities: risate."
"Well I wisi you'd said that betore," he said in a kindly way.
"Are you expecting laenstruation now?"
"Yes I cum," 3he salu flatly, being in the middle of the month.
The lia got rid of him.
Today Pennance wanted only one camera and the minimum of crew,
a sure sign of something realiy 'heavy'. Janie and Angela were to
be naked, whispering intimate little nothings to each other,
chuckling and giggling. The idea was to show Georges sexually
happieriwith Clotilde than with any other woman of his life, including


the two wonit he married.
Pennance bad told Jamie he didn't want any "boob-biting' but
on the other hanu ha did want -to print whatever came out, meaning
they should ashave like two lovers in bed.
She felt icny but not scared. She'd proved the previous day
that she Could do d love-scene and that was what counted.
But when ne: budy was being made up it was found that the rash
had spread dur: 16 er chest, narrowly avoiding her breasts, mostly
along, one 3ade, almo: t to the thighs. She couldn't believe what she
Bawe It WeSh't as nark as the rash on her neck.
Fno naak.d-dp dupartment assembled round her. "What the hell
can wi o wiudtt?"
"Whatavar you to dor't call that bloody doctor," she said
betwean hetenth. "He'll hold us up for a month."
"But" "yhu'ré sxck and this might be contagious!"
"Ther: call the director!"
Pennande*s face was a picture of helpless panic when he saw
what hasi happanedo There were miniscule sweelings under the skin,
hundrada ortthei likis' Liny incipient sub-cebaceous cists. It was
going to be extrunely difficult to hide it from the cameras though
not impossible.. The real question was whether the crew would wear
working with ar' act tress who ought clearly to be in hospital care and
might, as the makeup people said, be contagious.
The daywas saved by one' of the dressers telling Pennance that
the rash happened whenever. Angela was about to menstruate. A great
sigh of relier went up and Angela congratulated herself on her invent-
ivaness. i '
The rish hurt avery time anyone so much as put a hand near her.
The slightest heat produced an intolerable raw ache.
"OK," Pennance said, "I think. the best thing to do is occupy
the doctor's attention elsewhere while we try and camouflage this."
Since everybody on the set was talking about the rash this was
difficult. "I8ut the doctor seemed to get the message anyway and
slipped offto check'that Jamie's hand was OK after the handbasher
accident qui te three weeks before.
When' Pernance spoke to him later he said, "I'm pretty sure it's
nerves. She connecte it with menstruation but in fact it's the
tension caused by the menstruation. I think a shrink could handle.


most of the uiseases in this profession, don't you?"
"Why don't you tell her that?" Pennance said.
"Better tell her boyfriend, he knows every shrink in town and
he could foot the Liii."
The make-up uepartment had a more difficult time than it had
Rer
anticipated. when the lightest foam-cream touched she started with
pain. How was she going to bear lying in bed naked with the heat
of Jamie's budy or nersi Finally they brought in an elecrtic fan
and this Berved to haep her skin cool while the cream went on.
Somebody pointed out that the*creuni was hardly medicinal and would
if anything ilritate the skin. fur ther, but he was hushed.
The creajwas the base for a skin-coloured powder which-
agein hopefuliy- wouldn't ruil urf Uli Janie and stripe him like a
clcwne,
While the tirle wor,ed or hai she did various concentration
exercises. - she said pisces or the text over to herself, aloud.
She exercised herithroat, At. Cn6 puint ane seid, "Do you mind if
I scream" It'realiy would do INER k lut of good. You'd better warn
everybody."
The girls thought this a"yreat juhe but not surprising coming
from an actress. The asaisiant difetor was told to warn everyone
tha't if they heard a ghastiy, acredtit it was only Angela exercising
her throat.* 1
She did'scredr-and it was ghattly. Involuntarily one of the
girls approached her and, bending to look in her eyes, said in a scared
voice,"Are you OK'honey?"
"Or course I'a UKI" But she wasn't. The scream had been real
to a point she haun't been able to forests. It had emerged from her
throat as'if't from another place--arioti.er time. It was her Own
scream, yet another woman's. It wasn't a scream of pain but one of
grief-an uriquenchabla, tireiese grief. She witnessed it with as
much surprise ds the girls diu, though she said nothing.
Pennance deahed in with a look of alarm.
"Jesus Christ," he said, "I thought it was for reall"
Jamie was there too. He wasn't convinced by her light reply
and gave her a quick concerned look.
There was the question of how, once the make-up was on, she


would walk tr the set. She couldn't bear a dressing gown on her,
and she could hardly leave the dressing room in a pair of panties.
They devised a sort of screen of bath towels round her, held in place
by the girls. Together they all walked out, an oddly Manchurian-
looking group, taking, short steps. The set had been screened off,
and most of the crew had dispersed. Jamie was to be called at the
last minute.
Next to Jamie's hot skin as the big problem was how she could
bear the touch of the bedclothes. The miniscule.. swe. Hlings had become
bigger, and this was giving anxiety because besides increasing the
sensitivity it spoiled the make-up.
When Pennence saw her lower herself on to the bed with her face
screwed up'with DEin he said, "Listen baby are you sure we shouldn't
shoot this tomorrow?"
"Oh I couldn't go through all that again," she said. "Let's
get it over with."
Reluctantly he sent for Jamie.
"You just have to be verv careful kid,' " he told nim. "It i
looks real bad.' =
Jamie handed over his dressing gown and stepped into the bed
gingerly. Inch by inch, very slowly, ha took up the sheet and
edged himself under it while.she weited rether tensed. It was
proving hot under tha lights and apart from the fact that this was
making the powder form sweaty, blotches it irrituted the rash further.
"Listen Im going to call action and then we want to get the
damn thing over with quick OK?" Pennance said.
Jamie leaned up on his albow, waiting to embrace her as the
cameras started rolling.
Pennance's voice came again, "Action."
Jamie seemed to have worked out long before what he would do
in order to save her distresa; He beyar kissing her on, the face as
he lowered himself towards her, She almost cried out at the first
contact. She writhed under him es the flaning sensation increased,
her eyes tight c Josed. And quite suddanly, when they bboth thought
there was a lot more to do, Pannance said "Cut".
Jamie was off her and in his dressing gown in a moment.
"That was great Jamie,' # Pennance said.
The make-up girla crowded round again with the towelling.
Everyone was expecting the actors to be called a second and maybe a
a third time for more takes but Pennance seemed to feel he could risk


printing this as he'd successfully done the previous day on a one-
take, the rushes of which had proved OK.
"As a matter of fact," he said to his cameraman when Angela and-
Jamie were out of Surshot, "my nerves couldn't take any more."
The rushes of thit. une turned out badly, a mess of uncoordinated
movements with the sweat visibly pouring out of them both.
Pennance called S rehearsal for the two of them that night in
his apartmant, deciding that improvisation for this scene was out
of the question and evary iove had to be planned and rehearsed.
They finished at past three in the morning.
She was happy Juminic was aiready alseep when she got back.
But what she saw in the bathroom mirror almost made her call out to
him in terror. The rash had turned a deep purple, the tiny bumps
had increased to the size of nickel pieces and it now seemed impossible
that the cleverset makoup could hide what looked like boiling skin.
It had even begure tu invade her breasts. She saw the horror in her
own eyes-and this doubled the horror of the thing itself because
the eyes told ner there was no hope. She stood there trambling.
Sleep was out of the question. Shs sut down on a bath stool and was
too stunned eveni to cry.
She'd become an unattractive woman: The possibility of this
ever happening nad simply never occurrad to her in her life. So
all she felt wes shock, dunb ana buwlidered shock. And with it
came an acute sense of self-disgust. She seemed to exude this
boiling thing like a vapour.
She couldn't possibly face Duminic. With luck he'd still be
asleep when she leftiin the morning.
She stared at herself aguin. The rash now seemed to have a
life all its own. It held her prisoner. She felt it couldn't
be dispersed any more-by refusing to do love scenes, by never
touching Janie again. Thers was something irrevocable about it,
a verdict that once passed couldn't be retracted.
Passing Ouminicsroom un the way to bed she stopped, in a sudden
wistfully sad mood, and listened for his breathing--as if this was
all she would ever have of him again. And the closer she stood to
the door the more agonising the rash became. It flared into seething
action and became so intense that she had to step away.
She went to her bedroom and locked the door. She lay in
darkness wide-awake until the alarm went at half-past six.


She was SG exhausted by this useless vigil that she had
no anergy left to feel apprehension at the studio. She dozed
while the girls made 'her up again. And her skin had become a mite
used to the affliction.
This time nmde came and watched her being prepared.
The skin waa considerably darker than before, the sub-cebaceous
swellings higher'and broader.
Though tha Heke-up was this time less painful it was also less
effective. The undulations of the skin showed through and nothing,
it seumed, could Riter the angry discolouration.
When the girls nad gone Jamie said quietly, "Do you mind if I
try something?"
He leaned Forward and simply laid his hand on one of her knees
anil left it there for a few seconds. She began to feel unusual
heut there, then irritation. She wanted to recoil.
"You see?" he said. "It's the same as before-allergy to
mel"
And already, pale as yet, there were the first traces of a rash
whers his hand had been, and tiny pustular extrusions.
"It isn't you parsonally!" she said.
"Oh I realise that."
"Anyway keep quiet about it, if they think the thing's permanent
I'm finished in films!"
As a matter of fact, far from Jamie being the only man to cause
the rash, she had learned that morning in the early hours that Dominic
caused it most of allo Yet she slept with him, touched himl Was
it something that emanated from him at a distance? Or was it,
worst of all, something he was causing, from a distance, more ar
less at will? She was horrified less by the idea than the fact
that she had thought it.
When they were on the set the cameraman told Pennance, "There's
going to 'be a difference in her face."
"What do you mean?"
"Well the features have changed, dammit! Wanna look?"
Punnance lifted himself into the camera-seat and looked at the
frame.
As he cane down he asked, "What's happened Angela?" Then
without waiting for a reply he muttered to his assistant, "See what
make-up can do."
"And we'll have to kill some of the top lighting, " he added.


When her face had been done she was recalled to the set for
it to be relits There was no possibility of her stand-in doing
this since her facs alone was the problem. Because of. the heat
from the lighie her body-paint began to run. By the time they
were ready to shoui tno sheets of the bed were covered with paint
and had to b6 retwiie Angela's trembling had become most noticeable.
Her eyes were hugu wnd sloodshot, her cheeks swollen.
She askec for A miryur but Pennance was against this. "Let's
get the thing done, P ;im a aiu. He didn't want her to see just how
bad it wase Ad tei thess huping that the odd, twisted mask which had
assumed control r her faaturas WaS only temporary, perhaps the
result ot a ta: ghts
Whun theruen isi were seuri that night they were fine. Her face
WaS largely tidicleers by Janiela shoulders, and her breasts, as yet
uninvadedi, atood thily for the rest of her. Obviously Pennance was
going to yethore bob-biting 42 he called it than he'd bargained
for. As Angale was only toc mappy that the scane was in the can,
without giving " thought totré udity, he felt definitely pleased.
alwoys
His caution in the matter was due to fear of Dominic, who had/made
it scariiy cleer waithose he worked with that he wasn't in the porn-
game, hardor soft.
"Whret.Far"Se."a sake's wrdny witH you?" Dominic shouted the
momant she got'in the door that evaning:
She rushed'to hii, crying:
"What have you cone to your face?"
"It's hotrible-l"
"You're guing to bedl Cone anli
He all but dragged hur to the bedroona He wanted to look
at the rash, having Suan a glinpse of it on her shoulder, but she
resisted himo' He let go of her clothes and said quietly, "I'll
just wait for'you to undress then, OK?"
She obeyed him silently, took her clothes off in front of him
until she was nakad. His mouth fell open.
"You've got a first-class burn there for Christ sakel You
should be in hospital!"
He dashed to tha phone by her bed and she heard him calling
somebody called Packard.
"I don't' give damn where he is, I don't care if he's operating,
you get him over here in two minutes' flat or I'll come and throw
you out of the fuckin' windowl" He slammed the phone back.


She had her head buried in the pillows.
"What in the name of hell is it?" he went on asking, pacing
up and down the room. "It's like some kind of tropical disease
for Christ sakel And why didn't the studio call me? What about
that ass-hols Pennance? Couldn't he have given me a call? Or
Jamie Somerson, the guy who's supposed to be in love with you? I
mean, what the helll You could die in this condition!"
"I an dead, I feel dead," she moaned.
"Well," he said, pulling her on to her back again, "I've got
news for you--you're staying alivel"
A call came and he grabbed the phone.
"Hi Heg, get your ass over here quick, it looks like something
contagiousl"
He slammed the phone back before there was a chance for the
other man to reply.
Instead of A doctor arriving five minutes later there were two
male nurses. An ambulance was weiting downstairs.
"Or Packard's at the clinic waiting to admit her."
They got her downstairs. on a stretcher and in less than ten
minutes sha waa being wheeled, still crying, to the isolation wing
of the Hollywood Hills clinic.
Dominic met Packard after his first rapid examination.
"It"looks to me iike a'streight skin infection," the doctor
said. "She tells me they've been shooting some semi-nude scenes
and you'd be surprised what these powerful lamps can cause dermatol-
ogically."
"You've contradicted yourself already Reg," Dominic said.
"Either it's'a skin infection or it was caused by the lights,
which is it?"
"Listen keep out of my hair will you? This lady's full of
toxins Dom- so it could be the lights stirring up the toxins, it
could be a whole tiunch of things. T'11 neert her here at least three
days. I'll give her a restful night and we'll quieten the skin
down. I'll let you know sumething more definite tomorrow night
OK?" Before he turned to go he added, "Oh I talked to thestudio
doctor and she told him it always happened when she gets the curse."
"That's what I said. Needless to say, she hasn't got the curse.
But I expect you know all about that," and he was away before Dominic


could say anythinge
In any case Dominic was too angry to talk. He drove straight
to Cantury Boulevard where Pennance had his apartment. Sonya
opened the docr'a
"Hullo honey," heisaid, passing straight ine "I've come to kill
your man. la he around?"
"He's looking at rushes. What about a drink?"
They sat in the lounge together and Dominic told her the story.
She gazad at iim levally the whole time.
The tips of his fingers twitched ever so slightly, and his
blinking came.unusually fast.
She said whun ha'd finished, "You're really angry huh? Now I
don't want you pulling any heavy vibes on Max, OK? He probably
did just what Angela asked him to do--and what I'd have asked him to
do in the sune circumstances- -get on wit th the workl"
"With a rash that looks like a major burn- -are you serious?"
"Listan, Angela's in a nervous state, I've been working with the
kid BQ I know, I mean she had hysterics on that commercial didn't she?
So this could be hysteric s too."
"Sonya, ifithat's hysterics 80 is every damn disease under the
aun including'choleral Anyway," he added on his way tp the door,
"tell Max he'll be lucky to have her back on the set in a week."
"Oh boy thât'll give Hal Berners a good night's restl"
"Hal should 'worryl I'm administering the Weinand estatel"
"Great," Sonya said. "Then you can make me a promise-see that
Ambition gets shot and shown."
"Ambition isn't one of my productions," Dominic growled without
even looking at her, and a moment later he was in the lift.
A long sleep revived Angela and she woke to the gentle sound
of the matron drawing the curtains and saying, "Good morning Miss
Bourne."
It was a white, high-ceilinged roont she'd hardly noticed the
evening before in her state of fright. The windows gave on to a
small park full of trees. She noticed that thé matron wore a small
mask round her mouth.
glaze
"You're in isolation for a couple of days, Miss Bourne, so we'd
like you to keep as quiet as possible."


"Does the studio know?"
"You don't have to worry about a thing. Mr Latouche is in
touch with your agant. l the time. He asked me to tell you that."
The rash had besn painted the previous evening and the bumps had
gone down. It no icriges irritated. Since the antiseptic paint was
brown she coulan't BEE if the colour had diminished too.
They cane anui -ack, ibwgrams of blood from. her arm. Her
blood preasurs: rsi Mesareid, then temperature, heart-beat. Then
the pillowe wars pripped bat; ind her and coffee with delicious frashly
baked briocnes apptsn roite The wrsa told her that Miss Pauline
had
Stromnein, stropps a
sit
ia Mai pinutes before.
Alass tosta ware,ogrien out. Heg Packard visited her in the
afternoon. Ha wae Ais aryleeirytened, very dark and full of good
chaur ane sixsreme, w.b.velss hanos one of which met Angela's in a
fesreome grip.
"Weil you eten OF. part Frot ths plague. Now just how did you
merage to pick lis hu Siscirouels hary in LA?"
He lut rut a isugh a, kigrak Fila frane.
is.it juing to Jive marks?"
Bafora ha'weitt he said in t different tones "Known Dominic long?"
"No, not varyr Way?"
"I, thought auyts L. was/thim 4he geve you the plaguel"
nd he Btrodo ut 5i thes rpom; Teaving her to wonder if it was
oiant ae a joka er nots
Shie' 'lay sthere Forisavoral srinutes anjoying the silence and
absence of painer Gha was. grateful too for the solitude but a worry
she douldn't identsty tigsedint here It took her an hour or more
to remenber that'her face hed changed. She became desperately anxious
to see if it hadk ratumed toinermal. Remambering the enlarged eyes
and bulging cheeks she got up quickly and dizzily, hardly able to
keep her balance, anit want to the loc-
The face shes'sdw NEE hardly recognisable s her own. The
mouth was drawn dowr, in di. sxpression quite unchiracteristic her.
She stood
still feeling no hope that this raw mask, shorn of
charn arid attraction, would ever leave her.
Every ruature nowi was like E ham-fisted imitation of her earlier
face-inthe eyas now ao largeas to be offensive, their sparkle a
glaring unsympathetir ight; the lips that. had beer so subtle and
expressive befors noN passi vely thin with a trace of calculation
foreign to her nature. The: long neck had a_pathetically irrelevant


look now as 1f confused to be supporting such a discordant
assembly.
What had she done to chase Caterina away? She couldn't feel
her inside any more, Was it because she'd acted in those love
scenes? Surely it couldn't be thatl She was an actress after
all and Catarina had bean 80 behind her in the negotiationa for
the film, and at the Queen Mary party, and in the first scenes
shot for the filme which everyone said were brilliant.
It was almost a8 1f both Caterina and Dominic (the previous-
life Dominicl) were angry with har. Was that why Pauline wanted
her to do more FA seasions--to unravel the fearful knot tied so
lopg ago?
Or was Dominic himdelf causing it all, even without knowing
it? She remembered hnow, stending outside his room in the dead of
thn night, her rash hact suddenly become worse. Did he in his heart
hate her for heving struck out. independently? Or was it the
previous-lifé Cominin working, inside hin to haunt and distress her,
becuuse of some unforgiven thing when Caterina was alive?
She slumped back into bed, unable to think it out, and slept
the morning away
The allargy tests proved positive, there was no apparent
physiological explanation Por the epidermic eruption or the pain.
By agreement with Dominin- and without consulting
Angela-
tha doctor kept her under mile sedation for several days more, to
reit the nervous aystam; which waa clearly the cause of the trouble.
Max. Pennance wes phoning-Dominic every day for an idea as to
when she'd be back, and he didn't always get a polite reply. Even
when polite Dominic omittad te address him by name or say good bye
when he hung up.
There was a longoj atance call from Angela's mother to Dominic.
har
Everard had asked Barbara Gleeson to keepyinformed about the invalid.
This was Dominic's idea. When they spoke together he was much
intrigued by her voice: Pauline was watching him when he took the
call. He wasn't experiencing pleasure, just curiosity, and perhaps
a touch of suspicion.
He told Angela's mother quietly and courteously that she was
fine, still under mild sedation to rest her nerves, but she'd be back
at work in at most a'week.
He also asked Barbara Gleeson to contact Angela's ex-boyfriend


Louis, which produced another long-distance call. Dominic's
reaction here waa quite different. He seemed delighted by the
ardent, boyish vaice at the other end and said, "Angela's been
telling me lots about you Louis, I'm glad you called. She's fine,
she just has to rest." Now tell me what you're working on."
Which Louis did-as if he'd known Dominic a lifetime.
Luckily for Louis, who was getting an Equity minimum salary,
nobody knew he was phoning from the stage manager's office, otherwise
it would have cost him a large part of the week's money.
Angela heard about all this when she was allowed to take calls
(fom 'next of kin' only, in this case. Dominic and
She
Pauline).
would 80 have appreciated his thoughtful care in ordinary circumstances
bit all she could think of was that having lost her own Peatures, her
atitraction and inner grace,she'd lost him as well.
For how could a man's love survive the shock of not recognising
his woman in almost any physical particular? The body wasn't
evarything of course but it was the outer aign and symbol of what
you were insidel And she must have changed insidel And therefore
his love was going to change too.
Also a certain nauseous horror of her Own body had invaded her.
It was a sort of biological disbelief that anyone could wish to touch
her or be closo to her. It was like the faint self-abhorrence
sometimes Pelt in manstruation nagnified a thousand times to a fever
of physical self-rejecticn.
Dominic told her ori theipnche that her mother's voice had
sounded faniliar, as if theyli ides connected in a past life.
aut FM WaS ai noumed und, sad sueject for her now. After all,
its first-fruit Caterica had' disappaered. And she told herself
that if her relution with Soninic had been an 'ordinary' one she
would have' finishad the Falmby now and been anjoying a healthy
affair with his 01 the ielad.
Paulina haa warnud hin: labout this some days before. "She can
blane FM for just about sverything. And a reaction's quite usual."
Sha yazed'at'him for aome time, rather thoughtful: "How. do
you like the idea of Angela being naked on screen?"
"I thought you' cidn't. It could explain an awful lot
couldn't' Itiu.


"Just what I was thinking."
His fixed gaze showed her that whatever he was thinking he
intended to keep to himself.
Work on Anbitionchad continued. Scenes which didn't involve
Angela were shot. And Pennance thought it would be safe, now that
Saul was daac and Dominic apparently indifferent ot even hostile to
the film,to go hyck, a little on the idea of building Clotilde up into
the star.
He took twn somnes avay fi Ulli Angela and replaced them with new
ones for Sony'e.n He ulso sdited a lot of Angela's brilliant moments
out of the filans explaining to the proxy-producers that it would save
tine and noncy anr naybe save the film if Angela proved unfit to work
again.
But time was lost lust the same because one night, after working
late on the stript, Pernance lett his apartment for a stroll and was
set on by thrue houclumis, They robted him of the fifty bucks in
hi : pocketand beat him up. *
He was left noening but conscious on the sidewalk. A police
patrol car happened to pass and escurted him to hospital where they
did an X-réy. Ther B "was no concussion but he was advised to take it
easy for at least thrae days.
As if to defiaté whnat dim enthusieam the film still inspired
Jamie called the day after to: say le couldn't agree on the alterations
Mex was making on the script, especially as these had been done without
Angela's knowludge or approvai, and uritil those scenes ware reinstated
he wouldn't be coning to the studio.
Ths producers decided to. put their fuot down and. told Max to go
ahead with the revised script. They dlso issued Jamie's agent with
a suspension warning. Jamie stayed at home just the same. That
way another three deys were lost. Then the producers climbed down-
aftar Pennace had pointed out that he could edit Clotilde out of the
film anyway, while still shooting her scenes.
Angela wanted her wide-brimmed summer hat. When she was out
of isolation and in another room she called Pauline and asked her
to look for it in her: wardrobe.
Dominic was amused. "Are they giving a garden party down


there?" he ackau.
"Listen," Paulins said, "would you let me handle' her discharge
from that clinic?"
"Why surel"
"I don't warth you néar the' place when she comes out OK?"
Everard wae allowed (by Dominic) to call Angela once. He
told her shuoting woulu start or her last scenes just as soon as
she cane out, they'd be fifteen or more days behind schedule but
har
that was a8 much due to 'other delays' (he didn't tell, A about Jamie's,
three-day striks or the reasons for it) as to her indisposal.
Also he'd a13cubbea the Ballet Russe contract with Dominic and
she'd have it sigiting for ner when she got home.
"It's a pluig KE said' (Evarard trying to sound like a hospi tal
matron was a rsai. pain, she thought).
"OK," she"repiiea, "we'll have a talk about what's really going
on wnen 1'n ouine
"Janié and the rest of the company are just dying. to 88e you
Angela-Max hab been taaring his hair out at losing the most
beautiful woman" since Cleopatra."
"Clebpatra"whan't beautiful Everard."
Actually Max was sick of the film, sick of Sonya's nightly
complaints about how her part. .had Deer 'lynched', and above all he
was sick of hystarical British acti esses. Nor could he enjoy Sonya's
gratitude at Madelaine being reinstated as the. film's star because
he was scarad she"wuuld blabber about it,so he shot the new scenes
under cover of 'in casé Angela can't work with us any more.' Even
Jamie swallowed this one.
Pauline knew perfectly wiii wiy Ayela neeued the wide-brimmed
nat when sha Baw nar facé on'the norning she picked her up.
Angeia was standing 1 eady by har bed, her overnight bag already
packea. Her hnoudwas lowereu wiffidaitly. Pauline didn't let
herseir luuk astonisned. io coil the truth she had recognised
her unly with erfort. unly Cina sody still looked like Angela.
"Paulina L want: to go btraignt to my room when I get back,
I don't want to 886 aybody, evan Dominicl"
"UK, OK, just take it Busy."
Pauline had hireu a drivar 50 that she could sit in the back
with Angeia, wno locked out of the
window without pleasure,,
her face nidden in the shaduw from the hat. She gripped Pauline's
hand. That was a great confort. She remembered Reg Packard's
voice assuring her she was cured-his inept,assumption that she was


an admiring audience. What a phonay scenario that was. She'd
become biting, intolerant in her sttitudes.
A shiver went through her at the thought that Dominic might
be at the door. She didn't want to see the love disappear from
his eyes the moment he saw her face. No, she couldn't bear thatl
But also she felt B new terror towards him. The second night
at the clinic she'd 'seon' idw. again. He had appeared briefly at
her door, gazing at her for & moment and then leaving again without
a word, just as he'd done that morning at the studic. She'd lain
awake with her heart nasting fast, Only when dawn came through did
she begin sleeping, dwsoit te thet Bedation.
She made abaurd moudrieg among the nurses-had Mr Latouche
visited the alinic in the night? was there a way of getting to her
room without pasting the night-nurse or reception downstairs?
Matron was called and said softly, "I think you're under strain, we'll
incréase the dosage."
And then she realised, with distressing clarity, that she hadn't
had the light on whan she'o 'seen' him. So 'he' was unreal.
Then the nature of 'his'visits changed. He would appear at the
window or stand "close to the bed, without warning. And he would
enunciate things with his lips which were the opposite of what
actually amerged from his mouth. He would appear to be saying sweet
things while horrible insults could be heard, in his voice, so loud
that she was efraid the nurses would hear and come hurrying along
to witness her shame.
It didn't occur to her to doubt that since she'd proved his
first visit to be unreal these other ones were also. She knew
it was him at her side, she could hear the swish of his trousers
as he passed. And on each visit he did characteristic little
things-like smiling suddenly and ceasing to smile as suddenly-
and these weren't at all dreamlike, in fact they reassured her,
sach time, that this was an actual physical presence.
6he would tuin to speak to him, open her mouth to do So-
but then the mouth would begin uttering harsh words which it wasn't
enunciating and she would recoil in horror, and only then would she
realise that this was another ghostly visit.
Even so, while belatedly aware that it must be an illusion, she
was still afraid of his voice reaching the nurses' ears, though the
words themselves were incomprehensible to her.


Sometimes "he would stop her on the way to the bathroom and
she would screame Luckily the nurses never heard her, otherwise
they might have recomended her for psychiatric attention. But
then it occurred to her that perhaps she didn't actually utter those
screams and that they were of the same ghostly but convincing quality
as Dominic's inmuits.
Or he would b6 leaning against the wall of the corridor as she
passed, gazing at; her with lowered eyes. Or she could see him behind
nurse who appearad unaware of his presence. Her first thought,
even in the dead of the night, even in the darkness, was always that
he mustn't 6B0 har face in its presant condition, so she felt a
momentary paniibmann.tss must hide, at all costs hide! She was sure
the nursea Baw hur Budden recoil in bed-her panic-stricken rush
back to the bathroon when, leaving it, she saw him a few feet away.
But pertaps thast actions too were unsubstantial- --as invisible
as har: screamé were inaudiblel
When they reiched the apartmeni Pauiine told her to stay in the
car whilu she slippec into the entrance hall for a moment.
6he called'Domiric from the desh; "You'd better not see her
right away," shes told him. "Let me take her to her room and try
and get her Surted out'a bit first."
She esborradiAngel.t frum the car, lding her firmly because
she was trembling with luch violance. Angela's main concern seemed
to be.to kuep heriboad dowrt t0 that 13 Uis would sue her. At first
she refused to gétinto the lift.
"Why canteinstay at your place Pauline?"
"Come on,ha ian't therel".
At the spartment door Pauline all out pusned her inside.
Dominic had eithe: sliopad out or was hlainy in the lounge.
But befura Angale aven had itime to take her hat off he was
there in the doorway, drassed irian V-nacked sweater arid jeans.
She gazad at him-in astonishment. Huw hau she managed to believe
for a moment that the pther Dominis wab roul.
He was smiling, and the love zidn't desart his eyes.
Taking ner shoulders he whisper red, "Had a tough time huh?"
She nodded; har head forward. The hat was half off her head
and he threw it ôn to a chair wi th E curious final gesture.
He kissed her on the neck, the cheeks, finally the lips. With
each kiss she glanc'ed sideways at him in disbelief. She was almost
inclined to push him away in case he should taint himself. But


she couldn't let him go, partly out of fear that the other one
would appear.
She clung to him, her face lowered.
He was gazing at her breasts and hips. "Your body hasn't
suffered any."
Pauline pookad a light meal and they ate together in the kitchen.
He brought out 9, bottle of champage but she hardly touched her glass.
She was mostly eilent. She kept her chair close to his and took
his hand frequently.
She was due to start work again early the following morning,
at least thati wes Pannance'a wish. But Dominic didn't like the idea.
take
"Are you' sure you shouldn't a week on the island first?" he
ask ad her,
"No I want to: get it done and finished."
"Up to you!"
He more or'less put her to. bed, she was so tired. She
clung
to him aven as'she fell ssleups
"I'd better not leave her tonight," he told Pauline. "Want
to Eleep here in case of complications?"
"You' "take iny room." a
In fact Angele didn't wake all night. At seven he nudged her
awake gentlyn He'd forgotter to draw the curtains and there was
a plendidly golden autumnal sun outside.
"Time for work, P he said in her ear. "Greb a shower and I'll
get: your coffee ready."
Her pallor made her eyus stand out even more strangely.
She stood in front of the bathroom mirror and called him.
"How can I go to wurk like this?"
"You better had just the Same, I called Pennance a minute
ago. Anyway I think you're right, we want that film cut and out
of the way." -
He sat by her at the dressing table advising her on make-up.
He chose a dress for her, the skin-tight black one.
He tried to make har look as familiarly herself as possible,
so as to relax people's attention when they saw her, keep them off
the face.
"And talk a lot, keep your face moving. Pennance is so stupid
he wouldn't' notice a thing anyway."
"What's happened to me Dominic?"


"You've been sick OK?"
He drove her th the studio.
"Call me Jf you need me. : I'll be at Pauline's."
Far from rot noticing that she'd changed Pennance saw it at
once and said aloude "Oh my Godl"
They worked frur three hours on the make-up and lighting to get
her looking sumething like the Clotilde already shot. She sat there
impassively. Jande uame to see her and hid his astonishment badly.
She felt he ve asking himself. how on earth he'd ever managed to fall
in love with her, This wasn't quite correct. He was simply looking
for the parsor waldiFallen in love with but couldn't find her. Not
only was her Fage changed to a.quite stupifying extent, she seemed
to him destitute ot personality and magnetism.
That nornthg she thought sha caught a glimpse of Dominic
hurrying alongo the far end of the stage, where only dim working
lights were hanging.
Not that she could say if it was an actual physical presence
or not-that ié, whethér she'd mistaken a real person for Dominic
or simply 'seur." something,like in the dark.
She hurriad back to her dressing room and asked Sonya to stay
with her,
"We heard it was some kind of skin allergy," Sonya said.
"From the lights maybe."
"Well-can you beat that?" Sonya said cynically.
There was"a second bed-scene to be shot. She was again naked
above. the waist, and once more the crew was confined to a cameraman
and a grips.
This time she and Jamie were to talk lying in each other's arms.
There was thus'much more occasion than before to see her face in
close-up.
"She's just a different woman!" the cameraman hissed to Pennance.
"Let's shoot the thing and I'll do something in the cutting
room. "
"What? With her in full camera, and the back of his shoulders?
How do you edit that?"
"I'm only trying to look on the bright side,' u4 Pennance said.
"You sure arel"


The scene was shot more for Angela'e mental well-being than
anything. There were eleven takes and euch time their positions
were changed, to their mutualirritation. Two of the last takes
had Jamie's face in close-up ana Anguia in profile slightly out of
frame. When Pennance saw the rustes later he chose one of these
and Angela's scene became virtually Janie's.
But the following day she was to be in a state of undress on
a chaise longue, with Jamie laaning over her. And this time she
had all the dialogue. Jemic vaa ti De little more than a listening
head.
Here Pennanca trackad the Cambia round the chaise longue so that
a sustained alosumup of 'or was avoidad, and whenever she came in
frame he concantrutsd on huz, shoulders and half-nude breasts. He
intended to cut avail suitdts 30 that little of her was seen, while
post-synching her voice over.
On the other hand it: ruined what Angela had to say, by divert-
ing attention to har fleah, sc again she was the sufferer profession-
ally.
But like Jamie uhe was unaware of all this. She simply felt
relief that the alleryy hadn't made a reappearance. Her skin was
clear, with a lively bloom froin her days on the island, and every
time the camera zooned in to photograph her neck or bosom she
felt gratified.
She noticed that' Janie didn't touch her with pleasure any more.
This added to her sense of aversion towards her own body.
Just as they finiahed the chaise longue scene, on the fifth
and last take, she nad'ths yiduy inpression that it wasn't Jamie
moving away frum her,'reaching for a dressing gown, but Dominic.
She was certain for an instunt that ahe saw Dominic's gold wrist-
band on Jamie's ari.
Shu managed by closing har eyes to force away the ghostly
inage-so' close aria rual to hor. When she opened them again
and lookad at Jemie*s wrist she 3aw that he had neither gold band
nor wrist watch--naturally, as it was a costume film.
There was an atmosphere of gloom in the studio. The last
sceries ware ahot without the usual raillery and fun and Angela
didn't get any of those trifling but important compliments that
come to an actress when the work is rolling.


123 par
Not a murmur had been heard tivson the new producers. They
ware, apparently, just waiting for the rasult, hoping to salvage
film they could maybe. sell to telavi.sion.
This news came to Angela through Sonya.
"Jamie's about the "only one who doesn't know that Ambition
isn't being scheduled fur feature-Pilm release any longer, " Sonya
told her.
It was the decision of the distributors, who naturally had
the whiphand in the mattar of how the film was going to be marketed.
All Hal Berners and tne banks sould do was sit back and watch.
Dominic waa beiny consultad ali the time, Sonya went on.
Didn't she know thet? But all he did was agree with whatever they
said, aven when they concradicted themselves inside the same phonecall.
Hal Berners had beer har informant.
"In other worde," she said, "your man doesn't give a fuck about
the film. It's been à waste of time."
"Oh, :8 Angela auid, "we goti paid."
Sonya was staggered at her indifferênce but put it down to sick-
ness.
In fact Angela hardly listened. She had worries far graver
than the fate of Ambition. She glanced repeatedly at her dressing
room door to aee ir 'he' would knock. Only when she was with the
real Dominic--physically ulose to him, touching him--did the
anguish leave her. i; And aven then she felt a growing fear that the
'other one' would find some way of invading the real Dominic, taking
him over, removing her - iast source of sanity.
She refused to dire out in the evenings. An Al Bowly evening
at F. Scott's failéd to drawher. Her only concern in public was
to hide her Pace. She hardly apoke at meals. At the studio she
ordered coffee and Gandwiches in ner dressing room, never went to
the cantaon. Her snouidere were getting the rounded look of some-
one bitterly discouraged. She didn't prank with Dominic any more.
She hated to hear the apartment-door bell in case it was
someone who might' set eyes on her. Even Pauline's daily visits
were a trial for her because her eyes sometimes delled on her thought-
fully.
She didn't mind Dominic gazing at her, since he was her last
security and hope.
He told her, "I didn't fail in love with what you looked like,
I fell in love with you."


But it didn't console her. Nothing from outside did. It
seemed only the inner nightmare counted for her now. The food she
ate had no taste. It was the same to her whether she was drinking
water or champagne.
The question of her birthday, October 4th, came up. Dominic's
original idea had been to take her to San Diego for a week, getting
back around October 10th, hopefully for the first rehearsals on the
Ballet Ausse series.
One day, sitting with her after dinner, he said, "Is it OK about
taking you to San Diego for your birthday?"
"Oh Dominic I couldn't posgibly move from here-lat me get over
this crisis firstl"
"What abo't a little celebration here then?"
"I don't want anything. Just youl I'm not budging from my
roon 1 I don't want presents-I don't want to know about myself!"
He went on arranging a little party in the apartment just the
sami 3n He even called Sonya and asked her to organise a few guests
fron Ambition.
Storias were flying round the studio about her mental state.
Of course the crew had noticed her trembling, the involuntary glances
of rear. And you just didn't get the old response from her. They
couldn't believe their eyes. Jokes went round too- -about Dominic
and 'his deadly touche' etc.
"Ambition's another name for bad news," said the head of photo-
graphy.
Dominic wasn't the killer for nothing, they said. He'd killed
Saul, the film and now it was her turn. Didn't she look as if she'd
been getting the kiss of death? But they didn't feel much sympathy
for her.
As Sonya put it, "She was fooled. So was I but, Jesus, not to
the paint of getting myselt destroyed!"
The most terrible thing happening to Angela was the fact that
the 'other one' had imperceptibly and subtly become more important
than the real one, stronger, and impervious to resistance.
The film was edit ted and ready for the previews. There was to
be a party to celebrate- --but Hal Berners visited LA and suddenly


Max Pennance wad EUu busy on other projects to make a party possible
any more. With Jetie too away in New York, also on a new project,
there didn't 6607: much sense in it.
There were absur'd delays in showing the produtcion team the
finished producis Zt NES put around that the laboratory had
further work SC de on it, which no one believed.
Then the fti Came out. The scenes involving Angela,
shot after she'd lers the clinic, were,despite Pennance's sincere
efforts,a maasa Tnay just wouldn't jell with the rest of the film.
It didn't man'thrd the Fii was a write-off. It did mean it
wouldn't maks the Pariure-film ircuits. On television you didn't
aea
a tagnlgture se the question of jelling wasn't 8o import-
jsuch,
ant.
Damints recaivad the newswithout apparent feeling. The Saul
Weinand eobaks wwuid Mavo to foot a large bill. Everyone, especially
Greg Marrykown, Wis waying that in films you should follow Latouche's
nose, not your-bwni, and "Ambition should nevar have been made.
Bacause ar'having hed to'cut round Angela's post-clinic scenes
her part wasinow if anyching srallar than Sonya's, therefore it was
impossible "to coupla her nane'with Jamie'si as the co-star. The
problem was soivac, cunmarcially, by making it a 'Jamie Somerson
film" in which he and e sione shone, Ir other words Pennance
had agresn wich-the wistributurs that Nven Angela's earlier brilliant
scenes chu thd 6 curtailed. xt loft.n fcotage problem but this was
solved by incurporating nore upithe Number Two crew's location shots
in Paris t1 lart hati brighsily been intended.
All this THWS, rseching her ovar LA's bush telegraph, was only
a further. debidening biow for Angale, amond many. But she expected
it and aven ina way sandoned it, Wht le the 'other' Dominic hovered,
while her, Febe, belungad virtually th mnothar and lesser creature,
nothing in: tarifs souls dr erguld G well.
Alac Bhe bane CS tir sunclsaton tHat the 'othert Oominic had
caused the changue in hei *aCE and the terrible rash in order to
blot har out- atsitar. dstress, bucause 'ne' was unforgivingly jealous
of her profussional activit.s5.
October a 4th cas and she was horrified to see the lounge set
out for a party: Most of the Ambition company came -out of deference
to Dominic,' partiy out' or pity for her. She was brought into the
room in a new' ldosa-fi Sting pink dress which didn't really suit her,
shape- or colour-wise. She entered rather like an invalid and


could hardly manage a smile for anyone. Jamie was still in New
York. Everard and Jill Rapinsky sent presents round, with polite
'out of town tonight' notes. This they'd previously arranged with
Dominic, who wasn't anxious that they should see Angela in her
present uncastable state.
Pauline had arranged a magnificent buffet-cut meats, jellies,
all kinds of bread, with massive bowls of salad. In the corner by
the French books thare was a special table for the cake. 'Happy
Birthday Angela' was written across it in the same pink as Angela's
dress. Chapagne was popped and there were polite remarks.
Dominic tpak up a glass of champage and, raising it, started
the, birthday Eang. Gradually evaryone joined in, holing their
glayses up while Angela Etood still in the centre of the room.
He las looking at her, sniling, not three feet from her, and she
was norrified to hear ame rging from his mouth, contradicting the
mov unents of hia lips
Happy deathday to you,
Happy deathday to you,
Happy deathday dear Angele,
Happy deat thday to youl
Nobody lcoked uneasy, they all had smiles on their faces,
though most of them wern a bit frigid. Tney didn't seem. to
undarstand the horror of what they wera saying yet this terrible
word 'deathuay' was comir g out all the time as if they thought it
waa the swestast kind of anniversary joke. How hateful they all
hes
were, turning against lik. a this; with him ledding the song!
However could they have - levised. such a thing, planned it and
mutually approved of it? Surely thare was a limit to the horror
hun an beings could impust: on someune utterly defencelessl
The abaurd thought occurred to her, in her panic, that even
if this wasn't true, eveni if that word were her own awful error,
they should atill bel aware of the horror she felt- -she should still
not tolerate itl
She screamed at them, "No! Nol I don't want that song!"
There was Buch an instantaneous, shattered silence that the
sung seemed never to have happened. She ran out of the room.
In her bedroom she began crying but in a dry coughing way
without tears, like someone after gross shock. As Dominic took
hold of her she sort of collapsed on to him.
"What was that song?" she asked him.


"The song?" He didn't understand.
"What were you singing?"
"Why, Happy Birthday to You!"
"Happy birthday... " She clung to him, forcing the 'other'
out of her mind, knowing she'd been deceived again. She was quiver-
ing all over. Someone enterprising in the lounge turned the canned
music ona
Pauline helped her calm down. She made her take a brandy.
"I'll go look atter the gussta," Diminic said. "I mean get
rid of 'em."
Back in the Jounge he sat saying nothing, fixing the floor with
his stare. Any attempt to enquire about Angela was rebutted with
a, quick glance.
He only apoka once F to Sonya.
"I know what you're thinking," he said.
Hal Bernare and a San Francisco bank were sitting close to her.
"I said that kid was a star," he went on, "and I said I was'
going to show it to the world. I didn't say Saul Weinand or that
asahole Max Pennance was going to show it to the world."
Max Pennance was hardly. two yards behind him.
I The statement seemed to. put the final kiss of death on Ambition.
Pt least that was how Greg Merrytown took it-and how it turned out.
Some said that Dominic paid a large sum of money (from the Saul
Weinand sstate or nbt it waan't known) to see that the film was
never distributed.
Tha Ambition team, minus the two stars, did see a final cut
but that was the only time anyone saw it, and Max Pennance believed
that the cans had been destroyed.
The birthday party dispersed quickly, with the champagne and -
duck paté and salmon untouched.
Sitting with her in her room Pauline persuaded Angela at last
to go on with. the FM sessions. Angela had told her about the 'other'
Dominic, hardly daring to speak, and this had provided Pauline with
her chance.
"Oon't you see," she said, "you can never get rid of these
forces from the past until you find out who they arel Dominic
triad hard enough so why don't you?"
"But 1s it from the past?" Angeda asked wide-eyed.


"From your previous life-I'm certain of itl"
"Could it be Jominic, as he was before?"
"It could be. Why don't you find out?"
Pauline said to Jominic afterwards, "It was the softest FM sell
of my life." Sut she kept quiet about what Angela had told her.
In fact ahe'o. neaded all her self-control not to show Angela
the anxiety she felt about them both, Even she now believed that
FM had unearthed forces perhaps too powerful for human beings to
handle. She blamed Doninic for this-going too fast, too soon.
Paulins auddenly put her hand on Angela's brow, still sweating
slightly from, the sarlier ordeal, and said, "Gee I feel aorry for
yoy. You know sometimes I'm very thankful I haven't met my affinity."
The FM sessions were to take place every day, Dominic's in the
moi ning, Arigala's in the afternoon, in a joint effort to solve the
mystary. They were to be 'make or break sessions', Pauline decided.
But they they failed to produce reults. Angela wondered
aecretly if this was because she was still determined not to reveal
Caterina. "Even though Caterina had deserted her, she hoped for her
return one daye: And when Caterina aid return she wanted no one in
the world to know abuut her. She reasoned that Dominic had his
strength, Patline hers, 80 ahe too inust be allowed her secret fount
of powere
Aguin arid again, during the sestions, Pauline asked her who the
'other* Dominic wist but wigela'couldn't tell her, even in the deepest
hypnotic atate. "All she knew was that he sometimes 'got inside'
Dominic and somstimes. 'got outside'. It was very confusing.
Sometines, still under hypnosis, she gave way to anxiety that the
'other' wouldiine Jay assume total control of the real Dominic.
Fauline used chie anxiety to probe deeper.
"How ca we prevent that happening?" she asked. "Is there
something you did in the previous life, perhaps against the past-
life Dominic, that we ahould know about?"
But: since this concerned Caterina there was no response:
Angela's mouth wàs tight shut.
One aftarnoon Arigela almost shouted into the body-mike, "Why
doss he want to kill me?"
"Dominicl":
But again Pauline's efforts to follow it through failed. She


couldn't deterwine whether Angela was refarring to Dominic in his
prasent life or, A the former one.
Hia FM sesaions, on the other hand, were fruitful. He
'remembered' her, Caterina, with increasing vividness. Angela
listened with supc autonishment to the tape afterwards as he described
the Venetian girl. Jt was exactly herl It was her own Caterina-
to the lifel
"Is thiz likm the person you remember being?" Pauline asked her.
The elangated ayes, the fine hands, the gypsy look, the girlish
love of funi, the oreshness-it was ail therel
But with a miserable sense of betrayal she told Pauline, "I
don't know."
Pauline Ww perfently aware that she wasn't cooperating,
and constantly vomplained to Dominic about it.
"She must have 33s reason, " he said.
Meanwhile 164 sadcions went deeper and deeper. He kept seeing
the figures 3TNA 10, a8 pertaining to his previous life.
"I don't owif thesa are three men, three years, three units
of a measurenant, They keeping flashing in front of me. The
same with 10."
Also the Eples of Siie feet began to feel raw, tender, painful.
"I catiee walk; they're so sore. Maybe I've been walking long
distances, oflir nourtains. Maybe I escaped from some place. But
all the tins I feai Catérina'a punishing me, it comes from her and
yet it doeantha I' just can't get it straight."
Another tdme there were 'three dark men'.
"I'm not saying they're physically dark. They're dark forces.
Hey it was them who really screwed me, they killed me, yesl
I think: Caterina tried to save me but also she was behind them,
it's horrible, a And they're still connected with herl"
"Do you mean' they've reincarnated here?"
"Here 'or somewhere. They're not dark forces any more.
They're sort of mild and protective, for Angela. But they'll become
active again, and even dark, in order to separate me from Caterine-
as they did before."
"You mean-from Angela?"
In the next few days Angela became so frightened she couldn't
sleep any more- -even in his arms. She 'saw' him in the darkness


though he was lying next to her, hot, breathing. 'He' would stand
by the latticed wardrobe doors wetching them both. Sometimes 'he'
would whisper insults- --soft unough not to wake the real Dominic.
Only if she woke him would "he disappear. But during the
day this was ineffective. 'hef would appear behind Dominic, wearing
the very same clothes.
She decided not to talk about these new appearances. Pauline
and Dominic were already corvincad that the FM sessions were doing
good, whereas she knew they had increased the momentum of 'his'
viaite (and accordingly she felt a sort of gleeful triumph over FM).
Sedation was once more advised (by the miracle healer Reg Packard)
and she accepted it readily.. She now began to see the 'other' through
a nightmarish haze, at one remove from herself, which was better than
at first remove.
But sedation didn't protect her against what was to come. Her
worst fear was now realised. As Dominic lay sleeping in the middle
of the night, breathing deeply, 30 close to her that she could feel
his breath on her cheek, she opened her eyes and to her horror his
eyes opened as well but underneath his eyelids, and they were the
eyes of the 'other' one. And then in the most gruesome way lips
behind,or pérhape inaide Dominic's own lips began to smile at her
and utter insults very softly that were, as always before, incom-
prhansible while being strangely familiar.
fot
She closed her eyes tight but this made no difference, h Her
own eyes, with which shie saw 'him', were still open-behind her cun
eyelidal-dust as 'his' were behind those of the real Dominic!
Thus she would never be frse of him, never be able to hide from
him again!
She madé a helpless cry that hardly had strength to emerge
from her throat but Dominic heard it, or rather sensed it, and woke.
She saw him stir but tha eyes behind his eyes remained there gazing
at her as he blinked awake, the 'other' lips continued talking
softly, vilely behind Dominic'sl And nothing changed when the
real Dominic said, "Anything wrong honey?", when the real Dominic
raised himself on his elbow to look at her more closely, when he
kissed her on the shoulder, when he kissed her on the mouth, when
he began hugging her--the 'other one came closer and closer, 'he'
kissed her shoulder and her lips, 'he' hugged her,'he' was rubbing his
nose consolingly on her face, oh 'he' was so much, 80 horribly there
and so unknown to the real Dominic that she
knew she could never


get away, never ascape him' even by escaping from this place, for
the two Dominics that horribly imitated each other,so close to
her, so cruel the one and so consoling the other, so venomously
unforgiving the ones E0 tender the other, suffocated her, stopped
her breathing, haidiher down, pushed her further and further into
the bed!
She screamed Egain and again. He jumped up and put the lights
on, shouting "Angsla What's wrong for Christ sake? Tell me
what's wrongt*
But every time shs looked at him the 'other' returned. She
hid her eyes bdtine Wws) still there!
"Take thie, trhe this for Christ sakel" he shouted, holding
tablets anit d glase towar'ds her.
After thet aht slapty. almost at once. She lay stricken,
aplayed out "TIke sombone who'd been beaten unconscious.
During ths dey there were moments of respite. The real
Dominic was so sanalys healthily there, sitting by the bed, and
she would- gaze at him tenderly.
But the niynts brought back the same horror, tharaless i
shocking
because Doninic made sure to be awake most of the time. The
sédation was increased, but this time a nurse came to inject her
ahd she slumped asleep-'at orice. She lay in a state of semi-coma
for several days.
Her thoughts remained uncannily clear, however, in the rare
wakeful momentb. Sleeping or half-sleaping she devised a plan
that matured in wakefulness. It was a plan that could only be
realised at ari opportune time, and meanwhile must't be talked about.
It was as it ahu knew tnat. the opportunity wou id present itself
very soon. It did.
One morning--Dominic heut élipped down to the garage for something-
it was perhaps the first tinne they'd been physically separate for
ten days--Sonya phoneda
"Are you OK?" 6onya asked.
Angela's voice trambled in reply and she couldn't hold back
her tears.
"You've got to get: outl" Sonya told her. "That man's notorious!"
Why this chance phonecall should have been her opportunity
Angela didn't know, but it was. The remark came to her again and
again in the dead of the night when she would wake, or half wake,
before being tugged into sleep again by the evening injection.


Dominic had cut down his business activities to a minimum and
apart from a half-hour chat each morning with Greg Merrytown, now
epocenfaling dJ
his, A voice in San Diego and San Francisco, he applied himself wholly
to Angela's racovery,
Gradually the sedation was reduced, and it seemed that the
nightmares had abated. In fact, something else was happening.
It wasn't that Angela cared about Dominic's being 'notorious',
even if it was true, But she did now believe that the only way to
rid herself of the 'other' one was tolg get back her health and sanity
in her own familiar surroundings, The conclusion was, clear and
Pominic
unalterable, that she must leave hge, and as quickly as possible.
It was tris decision that. made the nightmare abate, and 'his'
vislts become less frequent. The more she brooded on her plan to
lea 18 the more shé saw the real Dominic, the less the'other.
And the mure she. . regretted her decision and decided to stay
with Dominic because he was her man and the only man she ever wanted
the 'other's visits returned to their former Frequency and intensity.
She witnessed thia quite coolly under the decreasing sedation.
And she reeled betweer the twos stetes of mind-wanting to stay and
wanting to leave, and quickly ueserting the one state for the other
out of terror in one mse and desperate love for Dominic in the other.
At two o'clock one morning the ahone rang. Dominic was sleep-
ing soundly, utterly axhausted.
It: was Barbars Gleeson, in Lonuons What had Angela decided
àbout the Pygmalian production? The producers quite definitely
wanted her. Casting had stasted and a rhearsals would begin in about
ten dayso
"I'll let yoi know in a Few hours," Angela told her and put the
phone down quickly in sase He should waken
In the morning ché told him she felt she was getting better.
In fact, she said, she wes strong encugh to bear a whole day alone
without him, so it he had busiriess in Sian Diego... But in any case
she'd appreciate 6 day slone, quat to test her strength. Even
Pauline mustn't nells What about a dey next week?
He agread, after giving her à strange look.
The day"wes Arranged for the Following Tuesday. He would leave
early for Sari Diegn'and be back, in time for dinner.
"I feel so much better," " she told him on the Friday, "I think
To P.134


I'll take the car out, just drive round. =
She drove to the airport and got herself a ticket to London.
She didn't want to do it through an agency in town in case they knew
Dominiou Her next call was toa theatrical costumier's she'd been
takar to on the day or the commercial, not far from Warner Brother's
Burbank studios. She tried several wigs, finally chose a long
blonde ane.
With the wide-brimmed hat crammed over her wig, and large
dark; glasaos on, she packed quickly. The plane was due to leave
just before noon but she'd started getting ready as soon as Dominic
had leftithe apartment. The 'other one' made no appearance. She
felt almost freel
She took only a few things-an autumn coat, a few dresses it
was easy to pack. Every few moments she wanted to cry at the
thought of running away but it wasn't the real Dominic she was
leaving, she- knew thatl
Ghetrembled as she ran into the underground garage to get the
Bentley, in case he or Pauline suddenly appeared. She knew she
wouldn't heve the strength to resist ei ther of them if they insisted
on her steyinige Bhe would have stayed happily-miserably--she
didn't know-any morel But no one stopped her.
As she drove the sweat prickled through her crude make-upe all Itie
wiy
Sne cidn't sarè how grotesque she looked. There were traffic jamsh
If she lostithe plane and had to wait for another Dominic wou'ld
surely sense Something and come chasing after herl
For the twentieth time, waiting in the traffic. she put her
hand out and checked that she had her air ticket, passport and wallet.
She looked round at the other cars, suspicious that he was'
following her. Surely he had sensed something? He always didl
How she yearned to see himagaini She couldn't, believe what
she was doing.
She got to the airport when they were boarding. She felt a
tap un her armi and jumped with alarm but it was only the passport
official pointing out that she'd left her passport on his desk.
She was too late to check her luggage in and would have to
take it to the embarkation point herself. She rushed along.


Thankfully she only had a light suit tcase and two small bags.
The airport was atrociously hot. She saw her fellow-passengers
turn down a corridor towards the embarkation point, ahead of her.
But she was convinced she'd missed the piane or had got the flight-
time wrong or had misconstrued the umber of the aircraft. Or
that Dominic and Pauline would be there at the embarkation point
waiting for her.
But it was right plane. wher ahb reached the barrier the
small crowd of passengers bound for London was pressing forward
in a leisurely way.
Once through the barrier, naving checked her luggage in, she
begen running quite unnucessarily.
Even on board she didn't teel sate. Sne took a seat by the
window 80 that she couid 88e the airport buildings. She scanned
the other passengers as they walked scrot S the tarnac.
Her hande were quivering. She kept ner wide-brimmed hat on,
har head lowered.
A hostesa's voice Game over tre intercom welcoming passengers
aboard. Gradually the uncoming pasbengers ceased. There was the
click of' safaty belts being attached. The hostesses came round,
leisurely, aniling.
6he naord the doora being Sid hone. The engines started their
thunderous sureann bhe wanted to widi round the carft to 8ee if he
or Pauline ware on board but the 'attach sarety telts' sign was on.
The plane arew forward smoothiy. In a few momenet it was in
the air.


Barbara Gleeson had a rambling office with loud wooden floors
in Covent Garden. Three secretaries were always slipping in and out
with invoices, contracts, manuscripts or messages that had come through
on the wrong phone. She herselfiwas plump, spectacled, with an easy,
relaxed nature which made it easy for her clients to believe that she
was going to keep them in work for the rest of their lives.
Her list of actors and actresses, and a few directors, was small
and select. Her throaty laugh was known to most of the managers, an
encouraging sound. Her appearance at provincial theatres was a
reabunably safe sign that a show would conne into Town or that its unknown
male or female lead was going to make top billing in the West End.
Something positive she efiter brought with her or symbol ised in
some way. She was greatly liked, treated virtually as a casting director
by the television companies. And in the film business she was said to
have (as Max Pennance had once remarked to Angela) 'the best stable
in England.'
It was rubbish, since agents shared available talent fairly
equally--but the important thing was that it was said.
She took Angela Bourne on because there was a lucky star hovering
over har head. Perhaps it was just the way she held herself, her
rather challenging glance--or was it the fact that she fell stright
into work after leaving drama school and was never out of it for more
than a few days?
Angela had 'actress due to go places' written all over her even as
a girl. Almost you didn't have to see her perform. In fact this
was how it happened with Barbara. She met Angela in the bar of the
Yvonne Arnaud theatre and took her on on the spot, something she'd never
done in her life.


Above all there was no one quite like Angela. Usually an agent
could bundle his 'flesh' into types-'I have three of her, six or seven
of him'. But when Angela went for an interview she always left a
distinct impression behind her, even if she didn't get the part.
For three years Barbara nursed, her name with care, the Angela Bourne
file very much up front among the - specials'. But not even she, with
twenty years of experience in the business, could have predicted the
kind of break Angela got when she was offered the Bel Ami series, with
a first-class ticket to the States and, suite full of roses waiting for
her at the Beverley Hills hotel.
It was the sort of thing that happened in dreams and actors' autobio-
graphies but not in real life. It happened rarely enough to her specials'
who had major film-credits behind them. But it was somehow typical of
Angela that it should happen to her.
Even after the firat-class ticket had arrived Everard Hope, with
whom Barbara had collaborated for eight years or more, had remained
cynical about the outcome.
"It's OK looking at clips but then when you've got 'em in front of
the cameras for the real thing you often find a piece of salt cod on your
hands."
Then he met Angela at Los Angeles airport and changed his tune.
Every time he called Barbara after that he had fresh news about 'that
unbelievable kid you sent over'.
They'd had a nervous laugh about how Angela threw a cup of coffee
over her director and how, whichever way you liked to look at it, she'd
bought the Bel Ami series to a standstill because the producers didn't
like the director any more.
"Even Jill Hapinsky's starting to treat her like a person, = Everard
said.
Angela was so clearly meant for the top that she made it in one
jump. But there was a worrying feature here---the fact that she was
having an affair with a producer who might. well become, according to
Everard, tomorrow's Hollywood mogul. It was unwise for an actress to
try and win a foothold on the business side- -at the top, anyway.
Greta Garbo had done it and got herself badly mauled in the process.
Still, with a girl like Angela you never knew. Apparently this
mini-mogul Latouche was having her for every meal and yelling for more
(Everard again). She might do a sort of Callas thing and mix tragedy


with tycoons but it was a tightrope-act and nothing to save you if you
slipped.
When Everard called one day to say Angela had 'done a bunk -
Barbara's first thought had been that the big fall had come already.
And unlike Garbo Angela would never get back on that rope because she
: hadn't made her name yet. Like a lot orkids she'd let a taste of power
go to her head and she'd whizzed herself out of play by the age of
twenty-six--all in, what, three months?
Everard didn't know what she'd done a bunk for, and Barbara thought
it wise not to talk about Pygmalion just yet in case he should think she'd
inveidled the girl away. She also hoped that Angela had been given leave
to play Pygmalion by her mogul-lover, secretly, without even Everard know-
ing.
The hope vanished when she saw Angela walk through the door in a
wide-brimmed summer hat, almost falling over the secretary who'd announced
her. She was hardly recognisable. It was the face you get when an
affair-has collapsed, taking the furniture with it.
Barbara never lost time in coming to the point. They kissed and
she held Angela affectionately by the shoulders for a moment,
at t
gazing
her.
"You've been quite ill, haven't you?" she said.
Angela nodded, her lips puckering up, and Barbara turned abruptly
away, lowering her hands, in case the "actrese-"waterworks' as she called
them were turned on. She'd forgotten that Argela was quite. a toughie.
"And what about the film you made?" she asked as they sat down.
"Was that OK?"
As Everard himself didn't know the final news about Ambition it was
a good question. All he'd told her was that Saul Weinand's death had
put a spanner in the works.
"I'd rather talk about the future, 0 Angela said flatly. "God knows
what's going to become of that film, I mean I looked compôetely different
for all my really important scenes.
"Is Jill Rapinsky lining up anything new for you?"
"Not that I know of."
Barbara had a copy of Pygmalion for her with a note from Peter Langford -
the director saying he was delighted she was going to play Eliza and recail-
ing the work they'd once done together on another Shaw play, Heartbreak
House, up at York.


Ker
In castingn for Eliza Langford had of course taken into account her
recent break in films. There had been picture-stories about Ambition
in The Stage and the evening papers--those first telltale sniffings of
the Fleet Street hounds which denoted future celebrity.
Angela had played Ellie Dunne in Heartbreak House and had astonished
him by doing well in a role no one in his right mind would have cast her
for. At that time she was a resident actress there, and the only one
available. She was one of those actresses who drive themselves hard,
are a' little selfish with the other actors in the sense of not caring a
fig about their problems, but give you results that are always a little
more than you expected (or even wanted), and a little different too.
He had privately registered Angela in his nind as an. 'un-put-downable'.
But when he'd approached Barbara about her playing in Pygmalion
he hadn't thought for a moment that Angela actually would leave Hollywood
to act in an over-performed Shaw classic for a fraction of what she was
earning there. He did it as a sort of 'you never know your luck' game. -
And simultaneously he contacted several other actresses.
To his aston ishment Barbara rang him ten days later to say that
Angala was already in England and what about a contract?
Her acceptance unnerved him. If he was to produce)5 Pygmalion that
fitted the commercial West End--that is, not too forthright, not too
dynamic, and with plenty of stage business to distract the audience from
the long speeches-Angela might prove to be, with her now notorious un-
predictability, a decided pull in the direction of one of those brilliant
productions the critics love to pan.
Angela wasn't really notorious- -she was hardly known. But a little
legend had grown up round her, first among her friends in the business, which
had spread with the newspaper publicity-she was the mistress of a
Hollywood tycoon, she'd become impossible to work with, she let out horrif-
ying scredms on the set, Hollywood directors were already terrified of
her, she alwas wore black and had danced on night-club tables etc,
The Pygmalion cast were as nervous as Langford. Ian Berresfield
who was playing Professor Higgins said that in fifteen years of theat tre
he'd learned a trick or two about how to slap down E tiresome leading
lady, and if Angela Bourne thought that..
Barbara enjoyed all this. She liked her actresses to create fear.
Coffee came and Angela felt more relaxed. She gazed at the familiar
framed theatre notices on Barbara's walls, and the daguerrotype photos. of
Beerbohm Tree and Gerald du Maurier. She enjoyed hearing the bustle
of the street outside. It was dusk, thoughtstill afternoon, and lights
were going up in the shops and offices. She hoped by concentrating on
these things to bring her mind back to what it had been before she went


to A-hopefully, to retrieve her sparkle and good looks.
But it wasn't outward sparkle she needed only. There was something
missing inside. Ever since she'd arrived at London airport-she'd listened
for the stirrings of new life in her but heard nothing. She'd talked to
her mother and Louis from her hotel, expecting to feel the old thrilling
attachment, but it didn't happen. Perhaps it would when they Saw each otherl
Her mother had been very quiet over the phone and said simply, "This
is all very sudden isn't it?"
Angela had told her about Pygmalion but it hadn't seemed to convince
her as the reason for such a precipitate flight from Hollywood.
During her absence Louis had spent quite a few weekends with her
mother and they'd become good friends. So a lot of theatre yossip about
her had reached home.
She'd booked herself into a Kensighton hotel instead of the suite at
the Hilton everyone was no doubt expecting her to take. She did it in the
hope that modest surroundings would spark off her old personality.
Sensual pleasure was now a thing almost unknown to her. She hardly
ate-she was rarely nungry. It was the same with life generally-the
appetite had gone.
Not even Pygmalion interested her, though she wouldn't have confessed
that under torture. She needed to sleep, sleep! She felt heavy, slow,
older far than her mother, who had answered her phonecall like an excited
schoolgirl.
Barbara pulled open a drawer and laid a contract on the desk.
Angela thought without interest that it was the Pygmalion contract-
the usual Witney clauses that she knew by heart.
"This came over by the Universal Studios bag," Barbara said,
It was the contract for the Ballet Russe, series.
Angela stared at it, touched it: "Was there a note with it?"
"No. Everard called me last night and said it's on the way and
would you please sign this time."
"But how can I sign if I'm entering a long season in Pygmalion?"
"A lot can happen between now and the first night--you can't afford
to risk losing a series! Better lose the play!"
"Have you read the contract?"
"Yes and so has Everard, obviously, and we both advise you to sign
or elsel"
"I'll take it away and look at it."
"Angela,' 09 Barbara said, leaning forwad in the heavy noiseless way
she had when an actor had to be brought abruptly to heel, "you must fave


seen that contract a hundred times, you've been refusing to sign it for
a month or more, now take this pen and sign the damned thing or you and I
are going to part company, do you hear me?"
She signed without giving the thing another glance. It was nice
to. be forced. It gave her-almost- - 8 twinge of pleasure she hadn't felt
for an age. And this was because she knew it was Dominic forcing her,
not Barbara. She could feel him behind her. The air stood still for a
moment. A wave of reassurance came from him-he was suddenly close to
herl She could have hugged Barbara for being theconveyor of that silent
message. He seemed to say that he was still looking after her, still
watching over her, and that he'd taken her sudden departure with his
customary coolness.
And she felt him now without the dreaded 'other' one. So far,
here in London, she hadn't woken terrified in themiddle of the night.
No ghostly Dominics had passed her in the street. It was surely worth
the journey and the separation to be free of thatl
What Barbara didn't tell her was that Everard had asked her to keep
him informed about everything that happened to the girl-where she lived,
her apparent state of mind, her friends.
"What's it all in aid of?" Barbara had asked.
"I think the mini-mogul still wants her for breakfast, # Everard said.
Barbara had gathered a few impressions about Latouche over the previous
weeks- -that he was jealous, that he watched Angela like a hawk, even that
he'd put a spell on her.
She had wanted to ask Angela a few motherly questions about the affair.
You were sometimes as an agent expècted to. But this one was difficult.
And she decided, as she usually did in difficult situations, to leave well
alone. Her approach in work was much the same. She spent a lot. of time
speculating on action that might usefully betaken, projects that could be
developed in conversation with managers, casting agents, directors. But at
the end of the day she opted for prime minister Walpole's axoim two centuries
back-'let sleeping dogs lie'.
It was Barbara's American connection that saved her. She had as close
had
a contact on Broadwag shejin Everard Hope, and with these two links much
business could be done which invoived little initiative on her part and no
risks.
Her attitude to hericlients was that she was there to swell a tide
already going in their favour. That waswhy she'd taken Angela on- a
heavy tide was already flowing.


But when Angela had left a phone-message for her two days ago saying
she was back in London Barbara's first thought had been that the tide hau
ceased to flow in her favour and that this was why she'd taken Eliza in
Pygmalion-a real musty project if ever there was one, though, since Ian
Berresfield was one of her clients, and Peter Langford the director was
unhappy with his present agent and night easily come over to her, she
wouldn't have told this to a soul.
There was good money behind Pygmalion-a group of investors who
obviously wanted to lose it-so there was no sense in Barbara pointing
out that you just couldn't revive a play out of which two films and El
stupendously successful musical had been squeezed! She had passed on
Peter Langfords offer to Angela without imagining for a moment that the
girl would be so dumb as to accept the role, or fail to see that the project
stank.
Also she'd smelled disaster in Ambition and seen that Angela would
ba the one they'd blame tor it.
She was ready to put Angela's file among about fifty others which might
be described as the sleeping dogs (and bitches) of the agency list. But
Everard had started phoning. The Ballet Russe contract with its conmit-
ment to a top star salary had arrived in the overnight bag from Universal
Studios, and it was clear that Angela was the type who could burn her
bridges and have them rebuilt for her in a matter of hours. The girl
was a living marvell
That was why Barbara insisted on her signing the Ballet Russe contract
then and there. Without it Angela would have been no more a marvel than
any other unknown actress in a doomed West End production.
She walked away from Barbare's office with the contract in her
bag, the copy of Pygnalion and the letter from Peter Langford,but they
had no meaning for her. She wandered round forlornly, took a coffee
in Monmouth Street at a place with tall wooden partitions where she'd
always gone before but it: brought back. no warmth by assoçiation, and 1
the coffee was drunk before she'd really tasted it.
Back at the hotel she lay in the darkness staring at the ceiling,
on which the lights from nearby Cromwell Hoad shed a blueish, sterile
reflection.
That day, walking about, she'd sometimes felt like mocking the
people round her. They were all so vital, so sparkling compared with
her-hurrying hither and thitherl What was all the energy for, the
fuss? What directives were they all anxiously following? What was


urging them forward? So much seriousness- -getting on to buses,
rushing down into the Tube, calling taxis, kissing, saying hullo,
eating, drinking--un endless wild eletric phantasmagora of motions
which she watched dully from her heavy, motionless corner of the world.
Her mother came to see her in the hotel. She prepared a nice tea
for her, not the hotel's tea bags but a Chinese blend she knew Yvonne"
liked. She bought cakes at Bonne Bouche. She expected to be excited
by the visit--she would tell her mother everything, as she'd always
done, it would cone bubbling out, nothing could stop it. But she must
have changed drastically. She said hardly anything.
She could read her mother's thoughts. She saw money floating about
all round Yvonne's head- -and she knew that the dear darling creature,
looking hardly ten years older than herself, exquisitely slim in that
French way, was thinking that she'd got herself mixed up with rich and
powerful people and had become hard.
She wanted to explain about Dominic. She saw him for a moment-
suddenly merged into Yvonne's face, but he was looking particularly
ruthless, fixed, remorseless, which made her wonder if that was how her
mother saw him, a picture she'd culled trom Louis' accounts.
Yvonne left almost without her noticing it. The thought came to
her afterwards, 'What was that stranger doing here?' Only hours later
did it occur to her that she hadn't So much as risen when. her mother
left the room, much less accompanied her down to the entrance lobby.
Her mother had said a little sadly, "Oh well, I'd better be off.
Don't get up."
And she. hadn't. She just sat. staring in front of her, and Yvonne
had given her a last worried glance before leaving.
The 'other' Doninic still didn't trouble her. She almost laughed
with the pleasure of having been released from his terrifying clutches.
She had lost her looks perhaps, her inner sparkle, but at least she
didn't have to suffer that!
Barbara called her to say that she'd found a nice apartment in
Belgravia for her- -if she could afford the rent. The owner was an
actress who was going to the Bahamas for three months.
She accepted at once. She had the, money from the commercial she'd
done with Jamie Somerson, plus the cancellation fee from the Bel Ami
series. And she'd spent almost nothing of her retainer-salary while
in LA. Almost before listening Barbara out she' said, "It sounds nice,
I think I'll like it."
She called at the Eaton Square address the following morning and


found a spacious flat wi th parquet floorsand frnech windows looking
out on to trees, and potted plants all over the place. It was the
opposite of how she liked to furnish a flat- --which was why she took it
at: once, hardly listening to the price of the rent.
She sat chatting wi th the owner, a quite well-known comedy actress
who'd obviously found her sugar-daddy. They talked shop, exchanging
names, and Angela experienced a sensation of lightness, as if wtching
everything from a great distance.
She noticed that people in her company behaved with much less vivacity
than they'd done in the'old days. Had she had suc h an: electrifying effect
on them? At all events, the electricity was dead now. :
Very little charm came over from the other actress, though clearly
she had big reserves of it. She was thinking all the time of how she
could cut the interview short. Angela got the impression that she
thought of her as an out-of-work actress with money. This produced no
resentment in her, no rebellious determination to assert herself profess-
ionally. Who cered?
the fact
Her nights were terrible, despite/t that the 'other' Dominic no longer
visited her. She yearned, now,. for the real Dominic. She was sleepless.
And this further affected the ravages of her face. Her body was strangely
unaffected. Its curves were as perfect as before, perhaps because of the
desire that permeated her wakeful nights, almost as if he were invisibly
caressing her from thousands of.miles away.
She lay remembering their hours together, every movement and kiss.
She'd become so used to him, his light hands that had sent unbearable
messages deep into ell her cells, hot and yet subtle in their touch.
And his skin, his lips and tongue that seemed to touch her from the past,
and put on her a kind of scstatic dew. There was no relief from this
yearning until dawn came and suddenly threw a black hood over her. for
nine, ten hours- -she slept ravenously, obliviously.
She moved into the flat from the hotel almost without knowing it.
All she had was a suitcase and a couple of bags. She wore one dress
indoors and one outs ide, and the autumn coat kept the chill out for the
moment.
She walked round the apartment: for hours, gazed out of the windows,
sat in the various chairs. She remembered the busy details of her
previous life in London--coffee with this person or that, endless
phonecalls about jobs finished or jobs about to begin, an hour at the
Dance Centre, a singing lesson, a visit to SamuelFrench's to buy a play-
text, and if she wasn't working at the time, or was in rehearsal, someone
might have got her a comp for an evening show, with supper afterwards at
Joe Allen's.


The text of Pygmalion lay whers she'd put it after unpackiny. She
didn't care if rehearsals were. delayed a month---ten years--always.
In fact they began sooner than she expected. Every day she had to
travel to a Methodist hall in Maida Vale. There was good news--the Hoyal
at Brighton would be dark for iwa week S before their opening, which neant
that they could move there for rehearsals niuch sooner than usual, and thus
get the feel of the stage. When they moved into Town, Langford saiu, he
hoped to have 'a very tight show indeed'.
A malicious thought occurred to her that a show could hardly be 'tight'
with the key-role missing. She doubted even hercapacity to learn the
lines. But no panic accompanied this doubt and she thought her indifferen ce
might be a passing mood and once they were beyongthe readthrough stage,
moving abuui, she woulo snap back into her old professional vigour.
There was only one actress her age in the cast, the girl playing
Clara Eynsford-Hill. She was one of those people who are always flying
off. After rehearsal she flew off to dinner. In breaks she flew off
to make a phonecall. Angela began watching her like a curiosity. 'Clara'
was never still for a minute.
Angela was very behind the others with her lines and couldn't do
without the book for a single second.
In the third week the director gave her
a worried look and
said, "I hope you'll be able to put' the book down soon Angie."
"Oh sure!" she said, with the slightest trace of a Californian ac cent
that made the rest of the cast look. up.
More and more as they worked on the text it seemed to her E superb
idea to revive Pyymalion. The scenes were So gloriously, defiantly
theatrical. It was impossible to squeeze Shaw's. lovely text dry-a hundred
hundred films and musicals couldn't do itl
She herself, as Eliza, had some superb little scenes of her own which
most stage performances, on Shaw's advice, omitted. There was one where
she was talking to a saucy taxi-driver, another where she was having, the
first bath of her life. Thankfully.Langford wanted them in.
The sets were going to be ingenious and expensive, and somehow they
would create a taxi and e real buth, even if it had to be done, Langford
said, with lights and special sound effects.
Also her hovel scene, where Eliza says nothing but simply takes off
her skirt and slips into bed, was to be included. People were goiny to
see a brilliant play-a romance, as.Shaw had called it, which 'two films
and a musical had made them forget.
But she saw all this mentally. Not a trenorof excitement did she


feel-not a gasp of apprehensive hope that this part might land her
at the top of her profession in a single.night. Not a thought that
at this moment she had her professional future in her hands.
In the fourth week she was still clinging to the book-while everyone
else was line-perfect. Peter Langtord looked distinctly worrieu.
At home she couldn't concentrate. She could have asked any of a
dozen actor friends to come along and take her through the lines. It
was an expected service in the profession. But she didn't contact a
soul.
She kept putting off a meeting with Louis, who was now in Glasgow.
He told her he was getting a week off- - -she let the week pass before
phoning him again.
Ian Berresfield was failing to tap the Shavian magic as he'd.always
done before (in two previous Pygmalion productions). He was SO preoccupied
with his own part that the fact of his leading lady not learning her lines
worried him less than it iight otherwise.
Also he was the kind of actor who dwells on his own defects rather
than other people's.
On the face of itAngela was doing all the right
things. She rarely dropped a Cue, always knew her moves-a little
mechanically perhaps---aiso she wasn't getting the comedy yet--but then
lots of actresses only get there at the lest minute.
In his heart of hearcs Berresfield thought she wasn't getting the comedy
because he wasn't providing ths sagic. He looked grim and lonely, a
man of remarkable good louks--elegant but robust---quick andi clever in
style-ideal for Profassor Higgins in every way.
He found Angela sasy to work with-but really quite extraoruinarily
dull after all the stories he'd heard about her. And he found her
decidedly plain, though she hed qui te 8 stunning body. He concluded--
like everyone alse in the cest-that her body was what had got her
forward professionally.
Sometimes he wished': she would fulfil some of those grim auguries
that had gone the rounds before rehearsals started. At least it would
hava provided a bit of sxcitement. As it was the rehearsals were the
most boring he'd ever experienced.
They moved- downi to Brighton and she shared a flat quite near the
Front with *Clara', who did her flying-off bit here too. Angela sat for
seemingly hours alone in the poorly lit sitting room with its musty
fur niture, staring in front of her.
Barbara called her from time to time- -she wondered why.
Angela thought the brisk, sea-air woulu do her good and bring some


life baok into her face but it did nothing of the sort.
She had a moment of anxiety when she reckoned up what she was
paying for the Belgravia flat against what she had in the bank. If
the play didn't do well it wouldn't be many weeks before she hit trouble.
The Ballet Ausse contract made no provision for an advance fee, since it
was part of the 'French' parcel-deal made by Everard months before.
The morning after she'd made these calculations, before she went
to rehearsal, Barbara called her to say, "There are a ldt of dollars
waiting for you here. #
"Dollars?"
"They're the cancellation fee on Ambition. You seem to be living
on cancellation feesl I've bad news there--the film won't be distributed.'
She now had the full story from Everard but wasn't going to pass it on.
"And this cheque is because of a very unusual clause negotiated I believe
on the Queen Mary!"
She made it all sound very high-up and important, even the Queen
Mary, and Angela could hardly believe she'd been there herself.
She knew it was Dominic who'd cabled the money-wio'd answered her
anxities of the day before. No message came: with the dollars.
She was late for rehearsals but the work: that day went like a dream.
She only had to consult the book a handfull of times, though each occasion
did throw the rest of the cast dreadfully. She was getting unpopular.
She stopped the action every few minutes and her entrances were dreaded.
The three older women in the cast were thinking of giving her a straight
talking-to, as Langford didn't seem to have the balls to do it.
He was one of those directors who, to put it at its most compliment-
ary, direct with a loose hand. After blocking the moves early in the
rehearsals he tended to let the actors find their own 'levels'. No one
quite knew what he meant by levels but it was definitely a fact that
under his loose hand, order developed out of chaos if only because, after
looking to him for guidance and failing to get it, an actor had to solve
his problems for himself.
Usually a Langford show pulled together in the last few days of
rehearsal or even during the previews. Once, the technical rehearsal
on one of his shows had taken place on the morning of opening night,
and the dress rehearsal three hours before curtain-rise. The show had
run for three years.
Managers trusted him, the box office supported their trust, and since


Pygmalion rehearsals were without excitement-ndteers, no panic,
no gloomy prognostications-the cast as a last resort put all the faith
it had left in him.
Three days before the first dress rehearsal Angela was still running
across the stage to her book on the piandor coffee table and muttering
"Sorry! Awfully sorry!" while everyone groaned. The pace of the perform-
ance was suffering dreadfully--in fact it couldn't achieve one. Ian
Berresfield was desperate but still saw her distress as the result of his.
failure. Langford could do little but watch, which was all he did anyway.
Sitting in the stalls he bit his lip and kept his fingers crossed.
She was getting more publicity than anyone else in the show. Almost
every day a newspaper called her up or she waswanted for a press interview
during lunch or morning break. There continued to be picture-stories
about her in the big-circulation nationals. Advance booking in Brighton
was encouraging.
The problem for Langford was that while public attention would be
centred on Angela her performance was nothing like big enough to meet it.
1 Clearly something was needed which maintained her as the play's centre
without leaning too heavily on her acting abilities. One evening in
London, taking a break from rehearsals and at dinner with one of the
producers, he had a brainwave. Her bath-scene would save the show.
When he got back the following day he took her aside and asked her,
"Would you be prepared to play your bath scene precisely as Shaw wrote
it, that is completely naked for a few moments after Mrs Pearce tears
the dressing gown off you?"
He expected her at least to look surprised but she didn't.
"Naked?" sheasked,as if fogged about the meaning of the word.
"That's what I would like," he said. "I think it might be quite
a knock-out."
She thought for a moment and then. said, "OK".
"It's without a G-string,mind," he said.
"What about stage regulations-do they permit that?"
"We'll have to forget about stage regulations, it's only for a few
seconds."
He couldn't believe his good luck. Whoever had told him that this
was a difficult actress must have got his telegraph wires crossed. Then
later he heard that on the Ambition film she'd stepped out of her clothes
at the drop of a hat.
For a moment the audience would see Angela not only naked but dancing
up and down with frustration. as she screamed, just before a blackout.
This gave an extra dimension to the publicity. One national printed
a half-column picture of Angela in the nude with the headline A BATH? NUT


BLOODY LIKELYI
It was all developing nicely towards a popular production. which
the conoscenti would come to as well. Advance booking started at the
Piccadilly in London, and this too looked healthy.
Two days before opening she was still not line-perfect, and rehearsals
were still being held up by her lapses. The woman playing Mrs Pearce asked
her if she'd like her to go through her lines with her after rehearsals,
and Angela said, quite as if the idea had never occurred to her, "Oh that
would be great!"
They sat up together until after two in the morning going through her
scenes again and again. The basic trouble was that Angela felt no anxiety
or panic. This would have provided the necessary spurt of nervous energy
to force the lines into her head.
Her great scene at Mrs Higgins' flat, when she is shown off to the
upper classes for the first time, was funny only by dint of Shaw's writing,
not by anything provided by Angela. At the same time Langford saw with
relief that she was settling into the part the more as she became line-
confident. She gave Eliza a certain oafish quality which horrified him,
but with luck the quality of the acting all round her would soften that,
especially after Brighton was done. He'd seen actors get hold of a part
in the third or fourth week of a pre-London tour.
But the production seemed to rest on so many imponderables that he
was scared as never before in his career. The producers told him not to
worry because they saw Angela from the point of view of the publicity
about her. But Langford knews that a Pygmalion without an Eliza just
wouldn't get across however much the papers talked about her.
To his vast relief two runthroughs of the play went without Angela
dropping a single line or calling for prompt.
Quite unexpectedly, on the Sunday before the opening, a national,
one of the heavies, came out with an important-sounding article on Shaw,
the phonetic alphabet and Pygmalion, and featured rehearsal photos from
the future Langford procuction. Tt was one of thoce intangible signs
by which a major success is signalled. The cast began to perk up, though
the pace in the runthroughs was getting slower and slower, and running
times sometimes showed a' twenty-minute difference, a bad sign. But this
as put down to nerves.
The technical side became very tense and bolshie. There were well
over a hundred lighting cues, and the sound-script had to be seen to be
believed. There was hardly a moment in the play unpunctuated by a sound
effect, music or voices 'over.
A full technical rehearsal didn't take place until two days before
opening and resulted in a quarter of the sound-tape being removed. This


involved new cues and rushed late-night rehearsals of certain scenes.
It all added to Langford's nervous burden.
On the day of the dress rehearsal (the first one) everybody seemed
to be falling over everyone else-stagehands, lighting staff, actors.
The technical side had been up all night. The highly elaborate stage
machinery (there were complicated sliding sets thatfitted into each
other) had stuck. What with simulated bathrooms, Rolls Royces and
taxis on stage it was a wonder the actors had time or silence enough to
speak their lines.
But somehow the rehearsal happened. The intricate scene changes
went without a hitch. And Angela became one part of a whole. Her
failure to learn her lines quickly enough became historical, almost
endearing compared with the catastrophes that loomed up now- as: when a
light-bar almost crashed to the stage and a backcloth showing the St Paul's
portico came down in Mrs Higgins' drawing room, almost taking the flats
with it.
In her few spare hours-mostly in the middle of the night--Angela
sat by one of the windows in her flat staring at the narrow sea-resort
street below. She could hear the waves in the distance. 'Clara' was
always in bed by this time. Angela asked herself again and again what
she'd done to her life to bring about this present state of numbed isolation,
which human company only seemed to exacerbate.
Ian Berresfield chummed up with her in the lst days of the rehearsals.
As neither of them liked pubs or heavy drinking they went to a local coffee
house together or sat in the lounge of the sea-front hotel where he was
staying. He found her dull, and she was well aware of this. In the
long silences between them her mind would be on Dominic, picturing him
as he drove the Bentley down to Long Harbour, or did an FM class with
Pauline, or phoned Greg Merrytown. She wanted to talk-b ut only on
one themel
There was a tiny pub in the street below, under a lamplight, and
she would watch its doors opening and closing surreptitiously long
after closing time, as people continued to drink and sing and play
snooker inside, under lowered lights. These illegal festivities looked
and sounded strangely muffled and mimed. They interested her far more
than Pygmalion. She would stare down at that pub for hours.
She hadn't even decided on her make-up. For the first dress
rehearsal she slapped something on, hoping for the best. And such was
the looseness of the director's hand, and the enormity of his other worries,
that he didn't notice.
In fact luck hovered here as over many other aspects of the show-


her careless make-up gave her a certain grotesque, haunted yet comic look
which suited Eliza Doolittle down to the ground.
She noticed how vast her face looked in the dressing-room mirror.,
But this suited the stage. She made a face at herself and was surprised
at the larger-than-life burlesque effect.
When the day itself arrived the cast was aquiver with nerves, afraid
that the laughs weren't going to come in the right places (or windfalls come
in the wrong ones), yet dazzled and encouraged by all the advance publicity
the show was getting. Their two weeks at Brighton werc alrcady bcoked out.
Experienced pros living in the area said it looked like 'the typical Langford
mess ' that preceded a hit.
Berresfield developed a temperature and started going hoarse but said
this always happened if he saw 'the sword of Damocles hanging in the flies'.
Really, all in all, the cast began to feel that the bad nerves were
the best augury so far. Yet nothing seemed to happen on stage. The play
went through without a hitch but it never took off. On the other hand an
audience full ofpublicity-stimulatad expectations might supply the missing
magic. Perhaps this was one of those shows so impatient to reach a live
audience that it refused to reveal itself in rehearsal.
And of course there was the popular notion that a bad dress rehearsal
augured a good performance. In this case there were no fewer than three
bad dress rehearsals.
The final one, on the afternoon of the show itself, ' went OK. That
was all you could say about it. There was no technical trouble, except
that the dimmer switches went wrong and a new lighting console had to be
rushed down from London.
They finished an hour before the show was due to go up.
Angela thought she ought to lie down in her dressing room, not because
she felt tired or nervous but because she'd always done that. She went
through: 'throat exercises, a few muscle-looseningroutines.
Langford came round wishing everytody luck and smiling. She felt waves
of bad nerves from the other dressing rooms, and wondered that people could
take it all so seriously. Langford was impressed by her calm, though he
agreed with Berresfield that she was a bit dumb.
There were telegrams from her mother, Louis and Barbara Gleeson who
couldn't make it because of the opening of a new musical in Town.
Just after the knock on her door and a voice calling the half and
wishing her good luck there were footsteps along the corridor and Fred,
one of the,stagedoor staff, came in with a huge bunch of roses. He


put them down on a coffee table and she picked out the card, which said
'Caterina, always', nothing more.
She burst into tears and Fred said, "Now that's no way to treat flowers!"
It was also no way to treat her make-up and she had to mask out the
rivulets. There was another knock on her door--for the quarter. She
could hear the murmur of the audience over the intercom, which should have
sent a thrill of excited fear through her veins like chill air on bare skin
but didn't.
Fred made a second appearance-- -gingerly this time as it was too close
to curtain-up to disturb an actor. But a phonecall had come from Amercia
virtually giving him orders to deliver a cable that had arrived late. He'd
meant to slip it into her mirror while she was on stage.
The cable said simply TONS AND TONS OF MERDE LET IT FALL FROM HEAVEN
YOUR OWN DOMINIC.
At the end of the show champagne was popped but most ofthe company
dashed- home after a few sips. There was a ten o'clock call the next
morning for director's notes and everyone wanted to sleep. Angela was
among the first to leave. Ian Berresfield kissed her on both cheeks and
said "Thank you darling". She didn't know if it had gone well or badly.
They'd taker a lot of curtain calls but: then it was first night.
It had been one of those remarkable evenings when the audience, the
moment it sat down, seemed determined to witness a success irrespective of
what happened on the stage. The very first words- -Clara's "I'm getting
chilled to the bons"--brought a laugh as if a collective decision had
been taken to stamp every line of the play as potential farce. For the
director it was worrying laughter because sn lonse-footed, taking little
account of the text. The danger was, on these occasions, that the cast
would begin taking little account of the text togand start acting 'all
over the shop', so that finally the onstage confusion reached the audience
where in fact it had originated.
But tonight it didn'tthappen like that. Laughter continued to come
in regular waves throughout the evening. The cast had the feeling that
it had been swept up like a nervous child in strong adult arms.
It was. the sort of avening that happens a handful of times, if
that, in an actor's.life. Ian Berresfield didn't know what had hit him-
suddenly his movements, projection, business, worked like a dream.
Langford in the circle began breathing the biggest sigh of relief in
his career. .
Not that the laughter was sustained. At points where it should


have been instantaneous it was a second or so todlate. Even Angela's
"Not bloody likely!" failed to get its rightful gushing assent. Langford
put it down to first-night stiffness.
Angela's bath scene-was enjoyed but no more. Her sudden nakedness
evoked a surprised hush, followed at once by conscious self-readjustment
in the form of laughter. There wasn't thedelight Langford had hoped
for.
Buti all these things could be handled before they moved into Town.
He made more notes in his aisle-seat than on any other first night of
his life. There was something about this production that defied
analysis or prediction and he couldn't put his finger on it.
At one time he'd thought it was Angela. Her failure to learn her
lines had seriously hindered the rehearsals. Adtimes he'd felt like
going to the producers and having her substituted but the lavish publicity
she was getting made that impossible.
Now she fitted in well enough. In fact, line-wise, she was doing
rather better than the others. 'Mrs Pearce' ghosted no fewer than four
times and even Berresfield had to be prompted in a scene that had always
gone with a swing at rehearsals.
Audience reception at the end was asenigmatic. There were generous
curtain calls, the clapping was solid-but there was a vague sense of
nothing very memorable having happened. The shell was there but not the
nut. Mixing with the audience briefly in the foyer afterwards, as he
always did, he got a positive impression. They'd enjoyed themselves.
For once he couldn't say if he'd got a flop, a hit or a mild three-month
run on his hands.
Angela walked home alone, Dominic's cable inher bag, one of his roses
in her coat. She hated herself for those moments she'd stood on the
stage naked, jumping up and down so that her breasts quivered, under
about thirty lanterns and two spots.
It wasn't that she felt ashamed towards Dominic-Just that she hated
to reveal an unloved body.
But the second night she didn't mind so much, and by the third and
fourth it became mechanical.
If the show didn't get better during its Brighton season it didn't
get worse either, and nothing happened to stem the tide of publicity in
her favour, or the advance bookings in London.
It soon became clear that her nude scene was pulling them in rather
than any brilliance in the acting. Ian Berresfield had a definite follow-
ing in the theatre but the Brighton reaction to his performance wasn't
encouraging.
They all moved back to London on the Sunday morning after their last


two Saturday performances. The first preview in London was to take
place the following evening, Monday, which everyone said was madness.
First night would be on the following Thursday. A dress rehearsal
took place at the Piccadilly the evening they arrived in Town, ana adjust-.
ments to the moves, made necessary by the new stage, went on until two
or three in the morning. There was another reheersel the fellowing
afternoon, and the first preview took place at seven-thirty in the
evening.
She was heppy to be aloné again in her flat. Once more she moved
about from chair to chair aimlessly, yet with a curious sense of satisfact-
ion which she couldn't account for. Her nights were more restful too,
less tormented with desire for Dominic. It was as if she'd learned
at last that, because their relation was no ordinary love,circumstances
couldn't change it and they could never be separated. She felt him with
. her all the time, encouraging her. But he was unable (or perheps unwilling?)
to bring back her inner sparkle.
The weather became so mild and beautiful, with a clear autumn sun
that made everything glitter.and flash, that she took to walking for hours
in Knightsbridge and Hyde Park.
She continued to sleep a lot, especially now that there were no
morning rehearsals. She walked round the streets, her hands deep in her
she
pockets, and only the day before first night did remember that she
hadn't got her mother a seat for it. She raced round to the box office
to 8ee if there was anything going but the moment she entered the foyer
she decided to leave it. If her mother rang she would tell her shei
wasn't proud of her performance. But Yvonne didn't ring. She seemed
to know.
When she got back from the theatre that night there was a note on the: mate
She bent quickly to snatch it up, feeling that it contained important
news.
It said, 'I'm at the Connaught. Let's meettomorrow. By the time
you get this I shall have seen the show. Love, Pauline.'
She stared at the note, reread it again and again. Pauline was
herel Paulinel She danced round the room. She kissed the note.
She called the Connaught at once but Pauline wasn't in."
On second thoughts Angela decided it was better to wait till tomorrow
morning. She wanted to sit all alone in the meantime, thinking out why
Pauline had come, daydreaming about the possibilities, wondering what the
new plan wasi She laughed to nerself, cried, couldn't keep still.
Anyone in the Pygmalion cast, seeing her then, might have thought.
she was excited at the way the first night had gane. For her it had


But
passed like any other night. The reception had been if anything better
than at Brighton, the laughter less foot-free. Tension had built up round
her nude scene and when the dressing gown waswhipped off her shoulders by
Mrs Pearce there was that sudden electric rustle in the auditorium that
denotes maximum excitement. Nobody in the cast could understand it.
Nor could Langford. But that was how it was.
Ian Berresfield said grimly, "You don't have to act these days."
It was astonishing, he said, what inept publicity could do to
the reception of one of the cleverest plays ever written.
The silliest people had come to her dressing rooni afterwards to
congratulate her. She didn't know any of them. Even Langford came
round looking bemused, as if duped by his own deception.
Ian Berresfield almost çut her. . But hesaid to his wife afterwards,
"It isn't really her fault, poor darling, she just can't act."
Angela got to bed about three, smiling to herself, serenely happy. 1
She fought sleep, not wanting to lose this feeling. Then she slept until
ten. A few minutes after she woke Pauline called.
"I saw the show," she said.
"I don't want you to say anything about itl I wasn't in itl"
Angela told her,
"That's just what I was going to say!"
She deliberately didn't enquire after Dominic in case something was
wrong. If Pauline kept quiet about him too it would be a sign that nothing
had changed. She was excited like a young girl.
They were to meet for lunch and she chose bright colours to wear.
It was still sunny and quite'warm. As she left the flat to find a taxi
she felt she hadn't been allve all these weeks, since leaving LA.
They met at Porter's in Covent Garden but there was a queue so
they walked to the Market and ate at one of the delis, under the glass
roof. Angela kept gazing at Pauline and clutching her hand.
"I can't believe you're herel Won't you come and stay with me
for a few days? I've got a spare bedroom!"
"Are you crazy?" Pauline said. "He's expecting me back tonightl
I mean, remember the man we're,dealing with!"
"So he sent you?"
"As a matter of fact I suggested it and he jumped at the idea, so
quick that I was on a plane inside two hoursofthe suggestion!"
Pauline was dressed nicely in a short-sleeved wool dress, thickly
striped in primary colours. Her hair fell about her face in a way
that inexplicably suggested happiness to Angela.
"And how about you?" Angela asked her. "Have you found another
boyfriend?"


"Oh yes!" Pauline looked away shyly,.half laughing. "I'm never
without one for long. I get passed from one to the other-I mean i
they all know each otherl"
They had pastrami rolls and coffee. At one end of the Market
a man was clowning with birds and a dog, and tap-dancing. The sound
of his old record and tapping feet echoed under the roofs..
"I thought Dom was going to die when you left," Pauline said.
"Did you think he'd be happy?"
It was the first time Angela had really thought about that side
of it, so deeply was she convinced that Dominic had the strength to
bear anything.
"But Pauline I couldn't bear seeing thatother Dominic all the
"Oh we both realised that. And he agreed that you had to go.
In fact one day when I started criticising your behaviour he cut me
off with 'It's the only way she could have done it'." She patted :
Angela's hand. "I'm not over here on a moral mission honey So don't:
get scared!" She broke off for a moment and sat up very straight,
scrutinising Angela with slightly narrowed eyes. "Do you know I found
out who the other Dominic is or rather was? Hewas somebody Dominic's
been hiding from mo -just as you've been hiding Caterinal"
Something cautioned Angela---she thought perhaps it might be
Caterina herself-not to say anything.
"Can you tell me what this other Dominic looked like?" Pauline went
on. "Did he look the same as Dominic?"
"He looked exactly the same, except that he was a demon. His eyes
gleamed and he said all those horrible things I couldn't understand while
he looked as if he was talking sweetly. It wasn't like a dream,.it was
utterly reall It wasn't even ghostly. I could have sworn I saw an
actual person standing there and only afterwards did I realise there
couldn't have been."
"But he was standing there. He was real! Only he wasn't in the
flesh. Dominic went through hell in about three FM sessions while I
squeezed the truth out of him."
"What truth? That he wanted to harm me?"
"Listen Angela why don't you two stop making war on each other?
Do you think you can play about with this kind of thing? Don't you
see it's taken hundreds of lives to get you where you are now and
you're both throwing it away!"
"But I couldn't stand it any more-I was sick! You saw it
yourself!"


"Because you were making war on him!"
"First you made a separate deal with one of his own producers,
then you made a film he dadn't have a finger in although ne was the
man who got you over thore, then you did those nude scenes- --you did
all these things without a thought, because you were an actress and
thought you were the seme person as you'd been the year before. And
you weren't! Everything had altered and all you could talk about was
your careerl You'd found your affinity, which is something that happens
in a hundred years! Most people don't even know it's possible. And
you treat it liks another Jove affair. Now either you're wit th your
or you diel There are no two
affinity
ways. Are you two going to
kill each other- --because that's what you're going to do if you don't
get together and agree on priorities!"
"But we are together. We've never had a quarrel. He didn't mind
me doing the Ambition film, in fact he was proud of me."
"Of course he was! But don't you see you have other lives to cope
with which may not see eye to eye with that? So Ambition fell to nieces!
Nothing happened as either you or he wanted it to happen. You pulled it
down by having that allergy every time Jamie Somerson touched you, and
Dominic pulled it down by setting, his demon freel"
"Was that the truth you squeezed out of him, about the demon?"
"It was he who pulled the film down, with your uncohscious help,
it was he who killed Saul Weinand and took away your good looks So
you couldn't be an actress any morel"
"He killed Saul? What do you mean?"
"I'm talking about your other lives! Saul died, didn't he?
The film collapsed soon afterwards. All kinds of unfortunate things
Max
happened--lights crashed to the ground, Hx Pennance was beaten up.
Let's admit that unfortunate things happen anyway but surely it's
strange that as soon as Saul died the demon actually began appearing
to you, which it had never done before!"
"But my allergy happened before!"
"That was the war you. were making on yourself, on your own body!
It was your own past calling out to you not to be a fool. You spend
hundreds of lifetimes trying to get together with your affinity and you fritter
it away--I Those former lives are active forces now Angela, and if we
don't come to terms with them they get: on top of us and make us repeat
the old miseries, and I don't want that to happen!"


Pauline gazed around the Market for a few moments. Then she
said quietly, "Angela, you behave like a child closing its eyes to
the world outside. But don't you see the demon won't let you be
anything under these circumstances, won'thet you enjoy a nything,
he won't even let you have your own facel"
Angela nodded.
"A bomb falls in your life," Pauline went on, "and you treat it like
a. home-made fire-cracker."
"So Dom inic has this demon in him?"
"Way back, I can't tell when, he practised alchemy and magic and
he got trigger-happy. He was just so hungry for power over other people
he started using the magic. It happens all the time. He could kill
people just like that, give them horrible diseases, and he did. He was
such a powerful and feared man that he dominated most of Dominic's
subsequent lives. But the thing is Dominic doesn't seem to know he's
there. He can work independently of Dominic. And this was how he
could appear to you in the clinic and the studios and even when you were
in bed with Dominic."
"Then he's still inside Dominic?"
"Oh surel It accounts for Dominic's frequent ruthlessness.
It explains the power he has over other people--over mel The demon
taught him this many lives ago. Dominic can radiate fantastic psychic
power when he wants to. But it isn't always good power. And so it hits
back at him. Things start going wrong- -iio film projects Tall through,
you run away. Then he needs the demon as a protection. It's a kind of
vicious circle. Now Dominic didn't like you playing in the nude scenes-
he wasn't jealous either, he hardly gave the matter a thought-but the
affinity in him was hurt by it, perplexed, and this was what triggered
the demon off."
"Well then,' I Angela said, "it's the same as what we were talking
about on Catalina Island. It means I eit ther have to give up Dominic
or give up acting."
"But you can't give up Dominic."
"Oh I can try!"
"You can kill yourself! Isn't thatwhat you're doing now, bit by
bit every day?"
"I suppose so," Angela said defiantly. "But I might prefer that
to giving up my art."
"The art has given you up, it's happened already," Pauline said.
"You saw that in my performance last night?" Angela asked almost in
a whisper.


"And what am I to do?"
"Either you stay with your affinity in perfect accord or you die."
"And how do I live while being in perfect accord with him-what
do I do with my mind and training and all the interests I've had since
I was a little girl? The stage means life for me, s0 living with my
affinity means death for me tool"
"That was why Dominic became a producer, he saw it was the only way
to hook you. Put in another way, he knew long before he met you who you
were, and he was guided into the profession that would help you most.
But you have to do the acting he wants you to do, in his way.'
"I thought that'd arouse a scream! I made it sound real bad,
I know. But just think about it. What you won't understand is that
your affinbity w ishes for you whatever you wish for yourself! What :
he wants is what you want, there can't be any other way between two
affinities, because they're aspects of the same essence! It's because
nei ther of you could really believe this that you started going separate
ways. He should have given way over Max Pennance, not made. war on him,
everything bad started from there. That was because power-hunger took
over, the demon was tapping him on the shoulder again."
"So you want me to return to LA?"
"Place has nothing to do with it. Nor has the question of whether
you and Dominic are together. You can be six thousand mi les away from
each other but still make war on each otherl Don't you see that the
demon's working in both of you but he'd be completely powerless if you
talked honestly and openly to each other and let your real identities
come out."
"We've never done that," Angela said reflectively. "We've never
had a real talk, not like lovers- -about silly things or practical things.
No arguments. They haven't been necessary. We could be together for
hours and hours without saying a word-and then at the end it would
feel as if we'd said whole books to each otherl"
Pygmalion at the Piccadilly defied the popular notion that a second
night is always a let-down. Angela'sbath scene got such a spontaneous
roar of approval that it had obviously been stampdd in the public mind
as the show's imprint or signature.
But the reviews hardly mentioned her. Some of them talked mildly


about Ian Berresfield or about former productions of Pygmaliun wien
this or that actor had done memorably. But her name was attached firmly
to the nude scene. There might have been a collective decision among
the critics not to acknowledge her acting abilities in any degree.
Reading the Financial Times review she found herself hating Dominic
for the first time. She let the paper fall to the floor and stared
across at the french windows. It looked as if the demon had done his
work well.
Congratulations poured in. Friends playing in rep out of Town
called her up and said, "We must try and get up to see you Angiel"
They had all heard it was awful. But publicity exercised its own spell,
turned the most forthright of them into hypocrits.
Barbara Gleeson called to discuss the television offers that were
coming in. Angela wae invited to appear on the chat-show-rating,
ten million. She was the 'not-bloody-likely girl'! She refused.
"But Angela, why?",
"Because I'm not interested."
Barbara didn't press her. After all here was a born star- -one who
apparently couldn't go wrong even when she was sick and unable to act and
had lost her looks.
The box office. was hot with activityfrom ten each morning. People
could have walked a few yards down the street to the Windmill Theatre
and seen a two-hour nude show. for perheps less money but the insertion
of a five-second nude scene into a play by Bernard Shaw seemed to have
captured a hidden market.
Angela persuaded Pauline to stay a few more days and got the spare
bedroom ready for her. They sat up talking every night after the show.
Dominic had to be given an account of these conversations the day after
by phone-while Angela was at the theatre. She always knew whether he'd
called, the moment she stepped in the door. Something lurked in the
air, a subtle happiness.
But she never spoke to him herself. It would have been too much
for them. They both knew this.
"He wants me to bury myself in Venetian history," Pauline told her
one evening. "That's why he's letting me stay." She added, "Did you
ever hear of a guy called Wooten or Wottin in British history?"
"He came up in one of my FM sessions with Dobnic. He's connected
with your Venetian background. Only we can't tell when, or in what
capacity. I'm going on the assumption that an Englishman resident in
Venice must have been something important, possibly in the consular
service."


Pauline got a temporary reader's ticket to the British Library
and spent several mornings there reading up Venetian history. Angela
realised she didn't want hner to succeed. There was something about
that 'Venetian background' that frightened her. She wanted to tell
Daminic for God's sake to stop trying tddig up horrors from the pastl
But she'd said it often enough to him inthe LA days. Then her concern
died and a certain dumb, submerged curiosity took its place.
Pauline asked her one evening, "Do you want to see Dominic again?"
"Well of course I dol I'm not alive without him--didn't you say
80 yourself?"
Pauline gazed at her, smiling. "Do you realise he doesn't know
that? I'll tell him tonight. Maybe he'll go out and eat 'something."
"He isn't eating?"
Pauline laughed. "Are you?"
"Not muchl"
The following day she came back with news about the Englishman
resident in Venice. A Sir Henry Wotton had been English ambassador
in that city in the first years of the seventeenth century.
Pauline had come across his name in connection with something called
'the Spanish Plot' which took piace in Venice in the year 1618. No one
was certain that it had in fact beer a Spenish plot, or wiat Lie plut
was. At that time Spanish embassies were regarded as hotbeds of secret
intrigue and were blamed for almost anything suspicious that happened.
Whatever the nature of the plot its exposure caused sudden horror
and confusion in Venice. In the coure of two orthree nights between
three and five hundred men-mostly Dutchmer, it was said- --were strangled,
drowned in the canals or hung in pubiic view.
The Venetians themseives were dumbfounded. No one knew what it was
all about, except that there had been a plot to overthrow the Venetian
republic. The matter wasn't even discussed in the Senate. There were
no official statements. Uniy foreigners like Sir Henry Wotton made
reports about it and despatched them home; otherwise we wouldn't know
about the plot to this day.
A French secret agent called Jacques Pierre revealed the plot. He
had once been in the hire of the Duke of Usuna, at that time Viceroy
of the Spanish state of Aaples. Bufeven Pierre didn't know exactly what
plot he was revealing.
Only the 'Inquisitors' of Venice, three men appointed secretly as
a permanent goverrment agency to run the spies of the city and, it was
said, to organise secret or political murders and then suppress information


about them, knew what plot. or plots they were dealing with. Possibly
the 'Ten' as they were called, another government agency of ten men
with much the same function as the 'three'but fewer powers, were also
in the know.
"Do you remember," " Pauline asked her, "those numbers 3 and 10 coming
up in Dominic's FM sessions? Well there they are as plain as your
finger!"
Angela felt momentary horror-but not at the strangeness of that
numerical connection as at the woe all this might unfold for herself and
Dominic now, hundreds of years after the event. Something whispered to
her that it was better if noné of this was mentioned, thought about.
But she found herself powerless either to speak or close her ears to
what Pauline was saying.
The story went on. The. three Inquisitors didn't have the conspirators
arrested. They watched them quietly for ten months instead.
On the face of it the Duke of Osuna was plotting to overthrow the
Venetian republio by mustering a small foreign army inside its territory.
But the truth was that the Venetian government had made a secret deal
with the Duke to overthrow Spanish power in Naples. The army was
mustered inside Venice with the full awareness of the Three, maybe the
Ten too.
This at least was the only interpretation of the confusing events
which made sense. But why was a plot concerning the Ouke of Osuna
revealed by the French agent Jacques Pierre? It provided a cover story
under which Venice could move three to five hundred French and Dutch
soldiers into the city. Officially, if an official explanation was
ever required (that is, if the Spanish foundout), those troops were
to protect the city against the Duke of Osuna.
Something did go wrong. No one outside the Three or the Ten could
say what but it suddenly became necessary to get rid of every single
foreigner who had entered the city in the Duke of Osuna's service-and
quickly too.
Parhaps the Spanish embassy had got wind of it. Apart from being
great imperial power at that time Spain maintained a most elaborate
international spy system which penetrated nearly all foreign governments.
Open defiance of Spain was something no state, least of all.the tiny
Venetian republic, could afford. Between three and five hundred murders
therefore had to be organised-and the incident had then to be so hushed
up that not even later historians could do more than guess at the real
story.


"Now do you remember Dominic complaining that the soles of his
feet hurt in one of the FM sessions? He said he felt he'd beên trekking
miles, couldn't bear his feet to touch the groundany more. I think he
was bastinadoed, in his Venetian life. The bastinado was the caning of
the solas of the feet, a torture. And I also think that Dominic was
one of the conspirators-one of the men, French or Dutch-who were
1 moved into. Venice and later removed!"
"He was French," Angela said, almost to herself.
There lay the connection she'd so far found missing--with their
common French blood, and the French bias of his television series.
It all fitted now and she realised with a heavy aching feeling at the pit
of her stomach that in some way she and Dominic wouldn't survive this
latest knowledge.
"I hate all this," she said very quietly. "You don't know what
things you might be raising! You talk about me taking it all lightly
but terrible memories should be laid asleepl".
"Even when they make your present life impossible?"
"But why can't we just live now?"
"Because you can't Angela, " Pauline said. "You self-evidently and
demonstratively can't! You're both in misery at: this moment, you're
separated and lonely and. you can't get on with your work, you've lost
your looks and virtually your profession jand you ask me why you can't
live nowl Honestly!"
Angela nodded. "You may be right."
She could hardly get through the performance that evening. Running
time was twelve minutes longer than usual and she was sure she was the
reason.
When she got back to the flat she suddenly said to Pauline, "If
you find out in your researches that I did something bad to Dominic in
the previous life his demon's going to getto work again---you'll seel"
"It's just what we're trying to prevent."
Angela was restless, worried. "Why'can't we live together like :
othar paople?" she repeated. "And forget what we did centuries ago?"
Pauline made a big sigh of impatience. "Because youre affinities!"
For a time Angela thought she should phone Dominic and beg him to
give all this up. But she knew it was useless. She remembered the
obsessive look in his eyes whenever she'd tried to cross him on that
subject before. And to a point she could understand it-after all,
FM had led him to her.
The next day Pauline told her that Dominic wanted her back at once.


She'd collected enough data.
About twenty days after,Pauline had left Barbara Gleeson called
her and said, "I think we'd better meet. It's quite important."
She wouldn't say over the phone what it was. They arranged to
have lunch together at Rule's that same day.
They met at the entrance, arriving almost simultaneously, and sat
downstairs over a drink waiting for a table.
"Well here's the news," Barbara said. "And don't ask me to help
you make a decision because I refuse the responsibility. Your producers
in Los Angeles have been in contact with me through Everard. They've
also been in touch with the Pygmalion management. They want to buy you
out of the Pygmalion contract."
"They could sue me out of it if they wanted to."
"I know.' m
"And why is this?" Angela asked.
"To start the Ballet Rugee saries. Ihey want you in Venice as soon
as possible."
"And you've no professional advice to give me?"
"Well," Barbara said, "the play's doing awfully well and TV offers
are coming in thick and fast. It all depends orwhere you want to go,
I mean career-wise-to the top here or the top in Hollywood. The
possibilities in both cases are great!"
Whioh was tantamount to saying precisely nothing, the way Barbara
intended it.
"I'll think it over," Angela said.
"No. They won't accept that. Ei ther you make your decision today
or they're going to crack down on you legally."
Angela took a sip of her drink and at that moment saw the waiter
beckoning them upstairs to their table.
"I'll think it over," she said, getting up. And she wouldn't say
another word about it throughout lunch.
She knew that the legal threat was one of Dominic's little jokes,
she just knew it.
And of course next day Barbara called her, even more in awe of her
than before, and said, "It's OK, you can think itover as long as you like
as long as you're in Venice by the end of the month."
They laughed together.


The Pygmalion management had apparently asked a big sum for her
release, confident that it would never be met. When they got an affirm-
ative answer less than twelve hours later they thought it was a hoax.
Her mother suddenly turned up attne flat. It was in the middle
of the afternoon and Angela was asleep. In a flurry, apologising for
Rer
not having invited,t 1 to the first night, she threw on a dress and then got
her tea.
When they were sitting down together Yvonne told her, "I've been to
Paul about you."
Paul was Yvonne's hiroscopist. They lived near each other and she
went to him twice a year to have her chart read. It had always been some-
thing of a joke for Angela.
Unknown to anyone else Yvonne had been to him once before with
questions about Angela. It had been several months before the Bel Ami
offer. His picture of Angela's future had seemed so wild and improbable
that she hadn't said a thing about it. He'd predicted stardom, a trip
to Hollywood, one or perhaps two films, a stage success, a lot of money-
all (and this was the most unlikely thing of all) in the space of three
or four months.
And he'd added cryptically, "I'm not saying she's going to be
fortunate or happy."
Paul's method was to examine the chart in detail but then to discard
it and start talking. Some second force then seemed to take over, and
it felt as if he was more or less repeating words that fell into his
head. Indeed he often said that the charts were 'only something to .
look at, to start me off, like a crystal ball.
On this latest visit Yvonne wanted to know about Angela's relationship
with the producer Latouche, whom she'd heard about from Louis and spoken
to on the phone in a state of inexplicable fear.
His reply was quick and. simple: "The man isevil."
She asked him to say more but he refused. She went from him to the
friend who'd first put her in touch with him and asked her, "What does it
mean when Paul refuses to talk?"
"Well, he never says anything if he sees deat th" was the reply.
"And what did he say?" Angela asked her, pouring the tea rather
shakily because she didn't want to hear.
"You know, Paul predicted your trip to Hollywood, and the film,
and Pygmalion."


"I didn't believe a word of it so I didn't tell you. When I went
to him last week I asked about your producer friend."
"Oh do stop hedging mummy! What did he say?"
"He said he was evil and wouldn't say any more. n
Angela leaned back with a laugh which shocked Yvonne. "Everybody
says thatl In fact he's known as the killer!"
"What are you doing with a killer then? - Dont you see what harm
it's done you? What's the good of heving success if you aren't happy?"
"I didn't ask for success! It just happened! And I'm unhappy
because I'm not with hims that's all."
"And why aren't you with him?" Yvonne asked her, slim and, composed
as she always was.
"Oh I can't go through all thatl" Angela replied angrily. "I don't
ask you all about your affairs because I know you wouldn't be able to' talk
about them. Things happen which we don't understand!"
"Of course they do. But that's why I'm talking to you. I think
that while you might be unhappy now you'll be farunhappier in the end if
you see him again."
"But I'm not looking for happiness ainy more than I am success! I
just want to be with the person I belong to, that's all! It's very simplel
And if you or Paul like to call that person evil then I suppose I must be
too, but there's nothing I can do about it."
"Are you sure you're' not looking for happiness?"
"Oh of course I am, but it can't happen without him. / I aidn't know
what being alive was before I knew him, and when I'm not with him I'm dead,
you can see it yourself."
"So what went wrong to make you run away?"
"How do you know I ran away? Oid Paul tell you that too?"
"No. - I just know. You couldn't stand it any more- -perhaps youi
couldn't stand being so happyl Or perhaps you couldn't stand the evil."
Yvonne got no reply to that. They talked about the show, which
she'd seen with e friend the previous week. Yvonne was always blunt in
her criticisms. It was one of the reasons why Angela did so well at
drama school.
"You acted as if you were understudying yourself just for the one
evening, # she said.
At home that evening Yvonne called Louis and urged him to come to
London to help 'bring Angela to her senses".
"Just present yourself at the flat," she said, "don't phone first."


He presented himself the following Sunday morning, having taken
a night-train from Glasgow. Angela had just got up and seemed no more
interested in him than she would a passing tradesman. She listened to
his stories about the show he was in, knowing full well who had sent him.
She prepared the kind of large breakfast he enjoyed, with mâsses of black
coffee.
"I haven't seen Pygmalion yet," he said. "I heard you were great t."
"Whoever said that's an idiot. Who was it?"
"Well perhaps it's just the. impression I picked up from the papers.'
"They hardly talked about mel" She laughed. "You actors are all
the samel You lose your heads whenever you see somebody hit the jack-
pot--instead of finding out who you are and why you're doing the work
you're doing, and what kind of jackpot you're after!"
"All Iwant to do is survive," Louis said quietly.
"You survive with what you are inside, not with bit-parts in bad
rep productions, she seid harshly.
She saws from the size of his stomach that he was drinking too much
beer.
He found her stinging, unsympathetic, and he was glad to leave.
She didn't even kiss him. And he wesn't able to say a word to her about
Latouche or any other aspect cf her private life. She had changed just
as you would expect someone who'd. hit success to change. But there was
a deeper change as well, 'the opposite to what success usually produced.
It was this that put him 'in awe of her. He became aware of his own
weaknesses while with.her, not hers. He felt a peculiar flutter of
apprehension at the thought of making any enquiry into her private life.
One look from her would have settled the 1ssue.
He ret urned to Glasgow the same day. She cried after he'd left.
She didn't like the way she'd treated him. He'd looked so fresh,, so
delightfully inexperienced. That was what they'd shared in the old days,
the lack of experience. P
And in less than five months she'd not onlygrown up but-to judge
from his apprehensive glances at her- become a forbidding individual.


Like many people through the ages Angela had found Venice a damp,
smelly, slippery prison on her first visiti At low tide the canals
became filthy ditches, at high. they were lugubriously oily and dark.
Fog descended on the roofs early in the evening, stinking.of the chemical
plants at Marghera. - The palazzi looked derelict and abandoned,. green
with decay.. The continuous passing of steps on. theharrow calle outside
her hotel-window depressed her. Voices boomed between the walls all
night. In comparison she'd found Florence lively and full of colour
and fun, with the best shops in the world.
This time, when she arrived.at the Marco Polo airport, a taxi-launch
was waiting for her a few steps from the customs shed, and her suitcases'
were whisked quickly away without inspection. She expected a production
assistant or at least a. member of the crew to meet her but instead a: tall
man in a yachting sweater stepped forward as she walked into the reception
hall and said, "Signorina Angela Borna?" and pointed to the. quai where
the taxi was waiting.
It was a clear evening, chilly: She sat in- the dimly lit cabin all
alone, feeling a vague excitement, like: the firststirring of- the blood
during convalescence. : The boat kept a'low knottage, /: : steering between
the wooden piles that marked: the entrance lane into the city.. She looked:
at these stout,. sea-rotten "staves, tied fast together in threes, and felt
a strange familiarity with thems! The lagoon lay soft and flat all round,
and gradually the lightsof: Venice became clear among the shadows of
towers and domes, as they drew near San Michele.. -
The man, outside at: the wheel, didn't say a word ali way. She knew
she was going to a hotel but had forgotten' the name. r
She expected work - to. begin the following day, the boring read-throughs,
the rehearsals, all that nonsense. againl She only hoped that Pennance


wasn't the director on this one because it would only be the repetition
of a terrible nightmare in new surroundings. But of course Dominic would
never permit such a thing.
It had all gone so smoothly. She'diphoned Barbara Gleeson one
afternoon- -quite without knowing even a minute before that she was going
to do So--and told her she would readily leave the Pygmalion production..
It had then been arranged that, she should continue in her part for
a further twenty-one days to allow time for another actress to take over
her part.
The air ticket, together with the reservation-slip for her hotel,
had arrived from Los Angeles via the Universal Studios bag a. week before
her last performance. The management had wanted to throw a party for
her (to use as -a hook for new press coverage) but she'd flatly refused.
She and Berresfield sipped champange perplexedly together at the end of
the last show, and that had been that: She left the theatre on foot
and walked. all the way home.
The taxi gathered speed after San Michele and swept under the arches
into the city, dropping speed again. in the narrow canals, before emerging.
into the Grand Canal from the Arsenale. They went past tugs moored along
the Riva degli Shiavoni, then came the lights from St Mark's Square and-
the Piazetta; flashing on the water among files of black empty gondolas
rising up and down on the slight wash.
She didn't know what emotions were going through her, only that it.
was almost too much. She knew now that she'd seen it all before-but
not on a former visit in this present lifel All the other memories came
welling back. She was so hopelessly confused when the taxi-man. pulled.
the cabin-doors open to help her up the slippery steps to the Gritti
Palace entrance that he almost had to carry her up. : She left her bag.
in the cabin-he was. suddenly behind. her with-it in,his hand, smiling
paternally. She kept dabbing the tears away with her fingers like a
child.. Her cases were already in the apartment before she arrived.
There were two. bedrooms,- a sitting room on the Grand Canal and- avenra
kitchen."
She stood at her window gazing down at the canal as the. vaporetti
passed with their bubbly-sounding engines. There was no: note from
Dominic. She was surprised that even now none of the crew had contacted
her-no prduction assistant, no director. Not a word at, the desk down-
stairs as to when she would be needed next day or where. No flowers of
welcome.


She remembered a restaurant nearby where she'd eaten with Louis-
it was like a baronial hall, with a massive fireplace. She hurried there
after she'd changed, as it was late. Itwas crowded but they found her
a table in the corner close:to the fireplace, where logs blazed. It was
much too hot but she was content.
Afterwards she strolled through the calli in the dead of night,
listening to the echo of her steps and the howling of cats-through the
Campo San Maurizio, along the Calle Larga XX11 Marzo to San Moise, in the -
surprisingly. dry cold air. There were groups of people here and there,
their voices booming between the walls. She remembered from her visit
with Louis that Venice never really went to sleep.. Even in the hour
before dawn you could see people talking together, or sprawled out on
the café chairs. She heard laughter. There was the distant cough of
a vaporetto, perhaps the last of the night, as it pulled in at the -
Giardinetti close to Harry's Bar, where she'd sat with Louis and an Italian
actor who'd looked, she now recalled, a shade like Dominic.. She went
through all the scenes of her last visit:i in her' mind, : retouching them with;
her present feelings of familiarity, so- that they became complete experiences
for the first time.
She woke early next. morning to,warm clear day. Light burst. in from
the Grand Canal and the first passenger boats of the day began passing
each other and crossing from.one bank to the other, and queuing to moor
at the pontili. Venice's rush hour was just beginning. and she. couldn't
wait to get outside. -
She dressed quickly. and. went to a café she remembered on the spacious.
Campo Santo Stefano. She took a capuccino and a brioche standing at the
bar like everyone else, sipping sleepily and gratefully, excited by the
dense bitter-sweet taste of. the coffee and the clean blinding sunlight
outside and the subdued early-morning way everybody- stood around; not
quite awake-yet:
She crossed - the wooden Accademia bridge, staying on it for a while
to watchi the boats underneath. Then she walked to the Zatters where she
took a second coffee, sitting down this time, close to a vaporetto station.
so" that the exhaust drifted across the café tables. in blue clouds every time
one came. in. She felt the sun on her face and was at once reminded of LA.
and Catalina Island. She drank the sunlight in after not feeling it for
so long, and gazed across the water at. the close-packed houses and humped.
bridges of the Giudecca. The shops were opening, their shutters sliding
up with a sharp clattering noise.
She returned to the other side of the Canal slowly, looking at
everything round her. She walked- to the Square, which was still. largely


deserted, then along the Riva degli Schiavoni to the Giardini. There.
she took a boat to the Lido. It was crowded with workers and she stood
outside in the open air, swaying with the boat, feeling that soft musing
detachment that travel inside Venice seems to induceeven in its inhabitants.
The quai at the Lido was crowded and people were running for the buses.
She walked down the main thoroughfare to the sea-front and stood looking.
at the Hotel des Bains where Thomas Mann had cited his Death in Venice
and where Visconti had made his film. Louis had brought her here.
The sea was sluggish, anid there were few people about. The hotel was
closed. : She looked up at the balcony from which Aschenbach had watched
the gypsies perform, when the plague was making its. first ambiguous appear-
ance, and remembered the mocking laughter of the harlequin in the film,
the way he put out his tongue at the guests just before disappearing.
A It was funny-she didn't feel Venice was a different place from the
one she'd hated on her first visit. Perhaps disliking it was part of
the experience of knowing it, perhaps too there was something remorseless
in the city which one sensed the first time but quickly forgot when the
beguilement began...
It was still a: prison despite- the gilding ofthe sun. - How was it-
she could, know that? But she felt she didn't mind being caught in this
prison, didn't even mind going down into the sea with it, it was such a:
lovely gilded cage, on: certain days, and even the rain and the mist.
whispered things to: you. These thoughts surprised her, almost made her
laugh.
There'd been no note at the hotel desk that morning, no sign of the
existence of a Ballet Ausse company, not a' word from Dominic. She didn't:
care. She was in no hurry at, all.. She could wait, oh, days;. weeksl
She would gladly let winter pass into. spring and spring into summer,"
waiting and wandering and gazing, still travelling. from San Zaccharia.
to the. Lido every day and back again, still strolling through the calli
behind the Fenice Theatre, where Louis had. made a sort of operational
headquarters. Close to the theatre it stank under the arches. of urine;
the canals were full of plastic refuse and, dead shell-fish encrusted
with black oii,. clinging to the canal walls. But she knew what. the
city was saying to her now. It was that the world didn't deserve Venice
so Venice was like the harlequin putting its tongue out and slipping
further and further down and-its mosaics and domes were corroding and =
fragmenting in. the chepical smog.
Sometimes when she stood on - a bridge gazing down into the water
she felt she was there in the water gazing up at herself and the mellow


stonework. It was a disturbing sensation.
The walking and the air gave her a great appetite and she returned
to the Accademia to eat at Montin's, where she'd been with Louis and a
group of. Fenice technicians. She sat in the courtyard behind with its
gravel paths and remembered being told that Eleanora Duse and d'Annunzio
had sat here talking for hours.. She ordered her - food without fuss, -
pointing to what she wanted. She seemed to know that San Pietro alla
grglia was a fish filet and it was. She drank white wine mixed with"
mineral water so as not to gét tipsy. Bits of Pygmalion kept floating
into her mind-perhaps Dusa's ghost was hovering over the place, with
thoughts of theatre. She was amused by. Eliza Doolittle and realised
her
only now how she should have played, what a triumph it would have been
had she not been under a spell, had the demon not. stolen her acting
abilities! She felt that Dusa didn't blâme her for abandoning her art
for love.
The Eliza lines made her: laugh. She was a little tipsy after all.
How odd that the lines hadn't seemed funny at. the timel It felt as if
only her. body had beeri in the play. She looked. round the crowded court-
yard. Other people were sitting at her table, equally absorbed in- their -
own - thoughts, obviously people who worked nearby and wanted. to get away;
quickly. Was she coming to. life again? -
Close. to her hotel, in. a corner of the CampoSanta Maria del Giglio,
a woman was selling roses cheaply. She bought three or four dozen and
expected them to fall to pieces in her arms, at thatiprice. But- they
didn't. She asked for vases at. the hotel desk and some were went up.
She had an: enjoyable timer cutting and separating them and" deciding where
they should go. There. were burgundy reds, Sonyas, tea-yellows. It -
felt as if Dom inic had got them for her, or rather that he'd planted
the woman down. there at the corner.
She slept for two hours in the afternoon, realising how exhausted
she was.. She- took another coffee in the Campo Santo Stefano. So life
went on. She bought herself underwear along the Mercerie, and" perfume.
in the Calle Larga XX11 Marzo. She wandered about, ate two hearty meals-
a day, lay on her bed for hours. watching the subdued liquid flashes" of
light from the Grand Caral on' the ceiling.' It continued finé for days-
chill and clear at night, then the radiant mornings..
She knew what had happened.. She was Caterina again. She realised
it suddenly walking past the cake-shop in the narrow calle leading from.


Campo San Maurizio. Her walk became di ferent, her eyes seemed to
open further. And people actually began to look at her again.
Recently she'd got into the habit of never looking at herself in
the mirror, except in her dressing room at the theatre. She never made
up in the morning. At the hairdresser's she would keep her eyes.lowered.
She did all manner of things to prevent seeing her reflection in shop
windows and polished surfaces.
Only when in the theatre did she look at herself boldly, before
quickly hiding the day-mask with the evening one.
Now she ran back to her hotel and went to a massive gilt-framed
mirror in the. lounge. She saw before her a girl much younger than she
felt inside. And-while her face seemed not to have greatly changed
since London-and of course it could be her imagination-her new state
of mind-yet perhaps thère was something of Caterina's sparkle in her :
eyes. She left the lounge vowing not to look in a mirror that day. or thel i.
day after but to let Caterina grow back into her body at her own pace.
That evening she walked in the calli between San Zaccharia and the,
Square, gazing at the shops, and passing through the Campo Santa Maria
in Formosa, she turned and recognised the palace behind her with two -
bridges leading to its doors,from.long, long ago. Then the impression
faded. But it was a definite memory, like all those early ones she'd"
had in LA.
Nor was the impression an. isolated one. All that evening she
continued to feel about the buildings round her, the tiny bridges, the
campi with' their fountains or statues, that she'dgrown up among them
and knew- every stone. But the impression always faded quickly, it was
nothing you could put' your finger on. Almost- almost- -she would
remember playing ball at: this or that corner. She could remember the
different qualities.of the light that fell" on Venice, changing"e every
moment, and the smells, the pigeons,: the gulls. She could hear the
deep flap of wind-shaken sails in the lagoon. She could hear horses'
hoofs on the cobbles-but didn't know if' there had ever been horses
in the city. She heard her mother's voice--rather. rich and. vibrato-
'Cater-i-nal, with a long, singing emphasis on the third syllable.
It stirred confused feelings in her. That voice had come from windows,"
had echoed across courtyards, so safe, so certain-'Cater-i-nal' Oh
there'd been such love between people in those times!
She remembered the torches that used to be carried in front of


people at night to light their way, naked flames. that licked up into
the darkness. Sometimes they were stuck in iron holders on the walls
of the palaces to light a procession. Otherwise, when one looked out
of the window at night, it was into a dark, dark pool of shadows with
the lagoon and the sea even darker beyond. And such a silence that you
felt you could float into it and be lost for ever.
The possibility that Dominic might not come; that there might be no
film, hardly occurred to her exc ept to make her smile at the thought.
She almost felt she could conjure Dominic up 'at will, just an urgent
message through the darkness would do it. But she was in no. hurry to: see
him--in even: less of a hurry to start work.'
Just to check that she hadn't dreamed her commital to be in Venice
within, a day of her release from Pygmalion she went. to the bank on the
Calle Larga XX11 Marzo where Barbara Gleeson.had told her
to go andi
enquired if an account had. been opened for her. It had.. And money had
been deposited, much more than the stipulated advance on earnings.
She drew out enough to buy herself a dress, having seen something
nice on the Salizzada San Moisë. It was a simple knitted blouse and.
skirt, quite ordinary to look at except for the exquisite cut.. Its
simplicity was. a thorough success. She tried it on and. bought it without
hesi tation.
She wore it next. morning when she took a boatto Torcello and lunched.
at Cipriani's. There was exhilarating light all 'round from the lagoon,
boring into every corner of the tiny island while it: slept: in the water.
There were only a few people. in the restaurant, tourists like herself.
She. had the distinct impression, from the way the waiters hovered solicit-
ously round her, that she reallywas shedding the dreadful mask.. she'd been:
wearing all these months:
It was a' thrilling sensation- -to evoke. positive feelings in other
people againl: What suffering it had "all been-she only realised it
now-being locked in a body that wasn't truly her. own.
In the peaceful restaurant, li'stening to children playingoutside,
she allowed her mind todwell on the 'other' Dominic that had brought
her so much harm. Let him dare: to touch her here- -in her home, her
birthplacel
It was so pleasant sitting in her corner sipping wine:and cracking
crostini while the omelette she'd ordered was being cooked. The waiters
treated her with a soothing mixture of familiarity. and respect. They


didn't mouth their words carefully as if she were a foreigner but
spoke casually, rapidly, and it seemed to her for a few giddy seconds
that she could understand what they said while being quite unable to
put it. into words.
The vague warmth from the wintry sun, the silent lagoon outside,
the murmur of voices from the ki tchen, this was her world, much more so
tkotof
than it was/the waiters, the
the kitchen. because she'd been
cooksin
one
of the people who'd' buile it all,generations, centuries ago! Like
all her family, like all Venetians rich and poor she'd love/Venice witha
desperate, rapturous fanaticism. Her brothers-and she herself if 4.
necessary- --would have died at a moment's notice for the Serenissima:. -
how
That wasj Venetians had built up an. empire.of over two million people -
down the Adriatic as far. as Cyprus and Crete, while they themselves hardly
number/more than a hundred and fifty thousand. This mad abandoned love
gave them each the courage of a hundred men. Betraying Venice was so
unthinkable to herself and her brothers that the thought even of its
possibility never occurred to them. That was why there was hardly an :
instance of a Venetian betraying the. Queen of the Adriatic in all the
thousand and. odd years of its history., And thatlove was in her mothér's
voice,. the way she called her name, and in the silence of the lagoon,
in the changing light and the bells in the evening as the sun went down,
in the way the minarets. shone in the first sun of the day and the. gulls
wheeled and the sky: spread out above the city like a huge!blinding dome!
When you returned to your birthplace after so many centuries away
there were many, many. things to examine closely and remember; so. many
associations and sights and sounds you'd quite forgotten and which now -
came back with a gasping tug at the heart.
No one had sent her a script. Barbara Gleeson hadn't'e even mentioned
one. She remembered Jamie Somerson telling her that Dominic was employing-
a' team of writers to prepare a 'Venetian' script." what had happened to
it? She laughed-it was a ghost film-no crew, no dialogue, no. actors!:
That fitted Venicé ideally!"
She worked out that her savings, and what was coming in from the.
ghost film, would keep'her in style for at. least a year, if not two,
Every day she looked in a glass now. The sparkle was growing. Every
day too little attentions were paid to her,; in the. hotel, in the street,
which hinted to' her' that she might once more be an attractive woman.
Sour


The sun disappeared and it began raining-a slanting rain that
bit into the skin, while the paving stones underfoot became ice-cold.
She had to buy fur-lined boots. The clouds hung low ov er the roofs,
enveloping them sometimes. The windows of her apartment rattled and
the : shutters swung. The Grand Canal showed 'tiny dirty waves as the
boats heaved from one bank to the other. She stayed lying on her bed
for hours. Not a phonecall. Every day she asked at the desk but there
were no messages.
She'd left London without sayinga word to her mother or Louis.
Now she wrote her mother a little card saying she'd been bought out of
the Pygmalion production because the Ballet Russe film was about to be
shot.
Her mother would know it had. something to dowith Dominic, just the
same-'the evil man'. She laughed: How little people knew about evil-
that it was'a mask and you could get behind the mask if you tried as she'd
done with Dominic. And,. as a matter of fact, he'd behaved towards her
like a redeeming angel. So where was the evil?
Thinking of the ghost film again she: realised that no one had instructed
her to take intensive dancing lessons. After all she was going to play
one of the greatest dancers of all time. She could easily join one of
the daily classes at the Fenice. But she didn't. She prferred to stroll
- through the narrow calli behind the theatre and catch echoes of soprano
or tenor voices echoing over the roofs. She strolled to and fro along.
. the Riva degli Schiavoni, watching the car-ferry entering the Giudecca
Canal from the Lido.
The painters of Venetian scenes along the Riva had packed up shop,
their easles were. gone. - There were no photographers, no pigeon-food
vendors any more. She walked bwteen the tall columns on the Molo,
gazing at the numberless gondolas bobbing up and down among their mooring
poles." Something made her look up at the columns. On one there was
a haloed figure with a lance in one hand and a shield in the other.
The coumn opposite had the lion of St Mark.. She didn't'like the feeling
between these columns- a shudder sent her away, no doubt a memory from
long ago.
She walked in the deserted Giardinetti for a little while with its
neat gravel paths which in summer were full of prams and playing children.
She often had lunch" at Harry's Bar, upstairs. Her face became quite
known there and the waiters referred to her as 'l'americana'. She
often had an aperitif there in the evening. choosing the same corner,
but downstairs this time. One of the waiters tried to strike up a.
conversation with her one evening, no doubt intrigued by her always being


alone, but she rebuffed him with a look that was neither offensive nor
flattered but what he might have expected from any Venetian woman, which
he accepted totally.
She felt lighter every day. She had the impression that her face
was- already more delicate, thinner. Like most women she knew that the
best mirror is the world outside, the way it looks at you and responds to
you, and she read her growing resemblance to Caterina in this mirror every
day, more and more.
Two weeks had passed. She began to think it was absurd to pay.
for-a large hotel apartment when she could easily rent a room somewhere.
She tal.ked to the hall porter.
"What about the bill?" she asked him.
"The bill?" He put his glasses on and drew a ledger out from. behind
the desk. He spent so me time examining it, coolly turning the pages,
then he nodded as if to confirm an earlier guess.
"It wasi booked for two months and paid for," he said.
"Saul Weinandi Productions, Los Angeles."
The prevalence of water-sea- -canals began to. oppress her and she
decided to hire a car at: the Piazzale Roma and drive round the countryside
every day. She went to Iesolo and wandered along the deserted beach.
She gazed across the Porto. di Lido.at the long pier, from Porto Sabbioni,
remembering-quite as if she'd been told in this life-how the water of
the lagoon could flow out of these narrow channels while being protected.
by them against the Adriatic tides.
She drove to Udine and spent the whole day' enjoying the crowded -
streets, the arch-protected pavements, the sound of the traffic. She'
picked a clamorous, crowded restaurant to eat in and sat at a tiny table
by a potted- plant on her own. There were Venetian chandeliers and a.
marble bar running the length, of one wall.: The waters dashed across the
room shouting. their orders. Bottles were uncorked, rolls thrown into
baskets and whisked on to-t tables, dessert't trollies wheeled frenzedly
through the narrow free spaces between the tables.
The day was dark and still outside. She thought she'd felt a touch
of spring that day, the lightest hint. It was already March. The-
sky would be changing soon. The Lido would come alive, the shops and
cafés in Iesolo would open their shutters, she would buy herself summer
outfits and new bikinis.
A waiter dashed to her table and asked in a busy voice, "Have you
finished with the oil?", whisking it off the table almost before she'd


nodded. It was done with so much familiarity, asif she were a regular
comer. It was another little sign that her true nationality was recognised.
After five or six days she returned the car and settled down in Venice,
again, strolling about the calli as before, frequenting her favourite
restaurants, especially one called da Gino, behind San Zaccharia, quite
hidden away in the corner of'a campiello, where they did a delicious
zuppa di pesce.
She saw La Traviata at La Fenice, and some ballet. The ballet
stirred no interest in her for her future work. Nor did the gilt-and-
plush theatre itself stir the least professional excitement. The sound
of the audience--its rustling motion when something was particularly
appreciated--meant nothing to her. She preferred in fact the. night air
outside, damp and misty. The paving stones were wet too, even if. it
hadn't rained, for deep underneath of course was the silt and freshwater
streams on which the city was built. She walked miles in the dead of
the night, oblivious to any dangers there might be to her person.. She
strolled and strolled, sometimes stopping at a late-night bar for a
quick amaro or a- sandwich.- She adored the Venetian sandwiches,. bulging
with Aussian salad or tunna fish or chopped- eggs and ham. Since.she
liked only a: dash of milk in her coffee, she had learned to. ask for a
caffamacchiato. . Or she drank an ombra, a shadow, meaning a glass. of
white wine. . People were getting to know her face. and nod to her
pleasantly. She felt no need of friends.
One evéning, feeling tired, she returned to the Gritti Palace early,
meaning- to miss supper and go straight :to bed after a shower. The phone:
rang. It was the first time it had done so.
The hotel operator said, "One moment. please", and there was a pause.
Then she heard Dominic.
Her heart. didn't beat fast.: It was like' speaking to him after only
an-hour away; she had the feeling she'd only left the LA apartment a
moment. before, under the blonde wig and the wide-brimmed hat. He seemed
to feel the same..
""I'm in Rome," he said. - "You OK?"
"You like Venice?".
"Oh I love it Dom!"
He laughed, delighted at her tone.
"Hotel OK?" he asked. "Nothing wrong?"


They laughed together, shy suddenly.
"I'll be coming up to Venice tomorrow," = he said. "Is there room
in that apartment?"
"OK. Listen," he said in a different tone, "that information Pauline
brought back, from London- -did she tell you?-about Sir Henry Wotton?
Well, everything started working after that! I mean, it fixed the epoch-
when we lived. in Venice and do you know what?-in one of my FM classes
way back on, Catalina Island I told Pauline, when I was very. deep under, that
I thought your name wàs Caterina Foss, something like that. Do you know *
what your name really was?"
"No?" (Now her heart did begin to beat a little faster).
"Itwas Caterina Foscarini! And I know who your father was! One
of these writers I've been employing on the Ballet Russe series put me in
touch with a guy in Rome who knows more about Venetian history than all
the professors rolled together. That's why I'm. in Rome. It's amazing
what he's finding outl He's got archives and old documents, he's Venice
crazy; there's nothing he doesn't know even to the height of the clogs.
the women used to wear! He works in some ministry:'
She'd never heard Dominic talk like this; so bubblingly. In a way
it disturbed her. There was a looseness she'd never known. in him before,
just a hint of it.
"Anyway I'll see you tomorrow, # he said. "Expect me in. the evening.'
The next day was very still, dark, though dry. Most of the shops'
had their lights on. She was excited to know more about her identity.
Foscarini! She- -almost- -remembered it but then it was gone in a.
flash as. always. She bought a guide to Venice and a map; meaning to
find out. where Palazzo Foscarini was, butshe forgot to do so in her passion
for walking the calli. She strolled through the narrow Mercerie and -
weaved her. way through to the Campo San Luca nearthe Rialto. People
bustled. along on either side of her, their voices raised.. There were
groups: of people standing in the coffee bars. Now and then-a- handcart
was pushed past her, the boy making a whistle or calling out "Attenzione!"
She'd woken at six and taken a quick shower. She didn't want_to
miss a moment of her city before he came. She'dbeen waking earlier and
earlier these days.
She felt she knew the-rather signsong Venetian dialect-it had been
more, open in her day because there'd been more. love between people. She
remembered her mother calling her again, it had given her as a child a
sense of security so deep that worry had been unknown to her. The previous


life had better than this one, even the tragedies had been thrilling,
they'd produced action, grief, revenge but not the kind of haunted
anxiety she'd known in this life, not the gnawing worry-worm! So when
she heard that 'Cater-i-nal" again a sort of placid delight flooded through
her cells, a sense of blessing.
She took lunch quietly in the hotel. There wasn't a breath of air.
outside. The sky hung dark and immobile close to the roofs. She felt
that every change of the light taught hersomething new about Caterina,
evoked an experience that defied words or images but took place inside
her.
She wondered as she sat in the restaurant gazing across the Grand
Canal at the crooked Palazzo Dario with its strange coloured discs in the
facade, if Dominic had been Venetian too. Caterina seemed. to be telling
her no, he was a' stranger, come from very far away, or at.1 least far away
for those days.
She smiled to herself, lingering over her lunch. In LA he'd been
on home ground. Now she was on hersl
He didn't come that night. Nor did. he phone. She ordered dinner
in her room and left something for him- in. case he should arrive very late.
By one in the morning she was tired. The sky was exceptionally clear
and she could see the stars despite the glow from the city. She switched-
off the lights and sat gzing across the cànal. The passenger boats
ceased. She dozed. She expected him at any moment.: It was his way-
to be mysterious. She woke up with a start in the silence. It was
past three and she went to bed, where she slept soundly until past eight
in the morning.
There were no messages at the desk. No Signor Latouche had called
from Rome.
When she returned from a long walk there was a note-for her. It was
from Dominic,.hastily written and slipped into an envelope. It said,
'I know who you are. I'm in the Biblioteca.Guerini-Stampaglia. D.'
Just that.
She asked the porter if there was a place called Querini-Stampaglia
in Venice and he told- her it was a library.
She wanted to laugh-he was so like a child. with his discoveries!
She waited for him to come at lunchtime but there was.no sign. She
went to da Gino and ate lightly, returned to the hotel. Still no one.


In the afternoon she slept. No phonecall.
She ordered an 'American' coffee in the apartment and sipped it
lying in bed. - She was restless for the firsttime since her arrival.
What had happened?
She still felt Caterina-was trying to tell her something. But she
couldn't decipher the words. The messages came in waves of feeling but
all she got was a sense of urgency, nothing cogent.
She took to walking the calli again, gazing at the shops, but it
was different now, she felt a certain pressure on her. Too much coffee
was going to her head, the tips of her fingers trembled slightly, she
felt nervous. If only he'd comel
When she got back to the apartment the phone rang. She rushed. to
it. A woman spoke. It was her mother, calling from London. She'd.
just got her card.
"You must be mad, going without telling me!" she said. "Didn't
you absorb what I told you about Paul?"
Angela didn't understand. She was listening to her mother but
thinking all the time, 'This isn't my real mother'.
"Nummy, stop worrying, t she said mechanically. "I was contracted
to come to Venice ages ago and I would have had to leave the Pygmalion
show anyway."
"But Paul mentioned dangers-
"Dangers for whom?"
"For'youl"
"Oh there are always dangersl".
Yvonne persisted; "Couldn't I come to Venice Angela? I could get
a week off. You need looking after, you know you do, you don't look fit!"
"I do now."
"And what. about the film, have you started work on it?"
"Are you rehearsing?"
"Sorwhat's happening?"
"I'm waiting for: the crew to arrive."
"All alone?"
"Yes,' " Angela said, "all alone and loving it."
"But what did they want you in. Venice so soon for? I can't
understand! Isn't the director there?"
"Who is then?"
"Nobody! Just me. I


"And what about Mr Latouche?"
"He's here but I haven't seen him yet. He came yesterday."
"Angela this isn't right! I'm coming to Venice whether you like
it or not. I'll be there in the morning!"
And Yvonne put the receiver down' : without' another word.
Well, Angela thought, she'll meet Dominic and see for herself. She'll
probably fall in love with him too.
The stillness of the previous day continued. It was dàrk, not a
breath of air. People were listless, itwas unseasonably close- -afoso,
the hall p Sorter had said several times, waving his hand in front of his
mouth-'breathless'.
In the afternoon there was another note waiting for her. 'Meet me
in the Campo Santa Margherita tomorrow morning, ten o'clock- -Dom. -
"Where's-the Campo Santa Margherita?". she asked the porter, though
she had a map in her room.
"Oh that's easy.".
He showed her on the desk-map- -it was quite near the Accademia
where she always walked.
"Go. from the Accademia, to the Campo San Barnaba, " he told her.
"Turn left along the canal and cross the bridge by a barge full of.fruit-
and végetables, it's always there, you'll see it, and then walk straight
on and. you'll see Campo Santa Margherita at the end. of that calle, on
the left."
He was pointing the route-c out on the map as he spoke So that his
words were a translation she could follow with easei In those few
moments, as he spoke to her in a rather clipped Venetian accent, she
had more a sense of actually being Caterina than ever before. She
thought that this was why shé hadn't gone upstairs. to look at her map
but asked the porter--just to hear him speak, anchisten as Caterina
would have.
She also began to be aware. of Dominiclin the city, quite close by.
Where was" he stayimg?-: Why didn't he come to her at once?-
She had her first. restléss night in Venice.. It was full moon,
with a vast haze round it. The clouds had suddenly lifted at sunset."
Hopefully it.would be a. warm, bright day. for their appointment.
But in the night the clouds drifted back again, the windid dropped,
and once more it was dark, still, breathless, when dawn broke, with. the
sky leaden and immobile, hanging heàvily over the roofs.
She woke very early and chose the woollen dress she'd bought on the
Salizzada. She wore a scarf with it às she had a slight sore throat.
She felt quite nervous, troubled. Was this the old apprehension stirring
again?


Once more she was aware of Caterina trying to talk to her but
somehow not getting through. She walked to her café on the Campo Santo
Stefano and took her usual caffe macchiato with a brioche. She strolled
round the square afterwards and went inside the church, Santo Stefano,
six times reconsecrated because of bloodshed within its walls.
At a quarter to ten she walked over the Accademia bridge towards
Santa Margherita.
She saw him in a small coffee bar by the door. He was eating a
sandwich, seated, his legs crossed, gazing at thefloor. He was dressed
in jeans and a blue sweater with a.silk scarf, no shirt.
She expected him to look a foreigner here but nothing of the sort..
He might have been one of those good-looking young men who hang about
the Venetian squares, taking time off from work, waiting tggor on an
afternoon shift.
The square. of Santa Margherita has squat arch-windowed palaces
and, during the day, vegetable stalls in the middle. * Today the stalls
were under canopies and because it was sodark some of them had their
gas-
torches alight. The way this light fell on the paving stones, despite
her
it being day, fascinated, and she wanted to linger outside in the square. .:
She wondered that she didn't want to run to him. She felt she knew this
light from an event that. happened ages ago- -something important,
thrilling, dangerous but shé couldn't really tell if it had been in this
life or a previous one.
She stood gazing at. him from outside. There was no great elation.
in her from seeing him again, nothing she would have expected after
such a long and painful separation. And he too seemed in an. indifferent
mood-no anxious glancing up. to see if she'd come, no fidgetting.
The image of the coffee. bar with its strip lighting and him sitting
there dark, compact, composed, was much iike something glimpsed" vividly:
in a dream- -with vagueness and sleep all round it, and not leading. any-
where.
Suddenly he looked up. He'd seen her. She watched him go to
the bar in a leisurely way and pay. Then he came out and. they walked
towards each other coolly.
When his eyes were close, two or three yards away, and she could see
into those pupils with their fixed, darkly indomitable gaze, a shudder
went through her which she couldn't recognise as one of unbelievable
delight or terror. It made her put out her armsweakly and totter-
he ran the last few steps and with a sudden cry lifted her clean off the


ground and started whirling her in a circle. Then for a moment he
she
let go of her so that,Fell, slipping through his fingers, but he caught
her again before she touched the ground, making her catch her breath.
They were both laughing and.crying in one, quite silently.
"Oh Dom, Dom!" she kept saying, halfhiding her face.
They stood still for a time, just kissing and hugging.
"Come on," he said, "I wanna show you something!"
He drew her towards a corner of the square, his arm round her waist,
and she determined in that moment neverto leave him again, not for a
single second if' she could help it." Herpody, her skin, her sense of
touch, her voice, her sight were all working again!
"I've never liked St Mark's. Square," he said.' "That's why I
wanted to meet you here-it's the biggest square in Venice after St
Mark's-and it's always beena people's square. And maybe you were
born herel You've no idea what" I've been finding out!"
He gazed at her sideways as if really seeing her for the first time
and said, "You've got your face back!"
"That's why I left you alone, " he said. "In your own city, you
had to get back to your old life in your own way. 10:
They were in a tiny square, hardly more thana corner of' the big
one, and he pointed to the palace facingthem. "fat's where Marco
Foscarini lived. He was doge of Venice. But I can't tell.you yet
if. your father lived there.".
"Who was my father?"
"He was Antonio Foscarini.. He was strangled in the ducal prison
for knowing an Englishwaman." #
"Firts of all do you remember this house? - Look at: it carefully.
Do you remember anything?"
She gazed at the dark. walls, rather sombre, and noticed.as.she'd-
noticed many. times before in Venice a wooden structure at roof level
which she always assumed was for haning the washirig out:
"What's that wooden platform?" she asked him.
"They call it an altana and the women used to sit up- there for
hours sunning their hair until it was blonde. They used to put straws
hats on with the crowns cut out-they put. their hair through the top
so that it draped all over the brim, which, also protected their faces
against the sun."
Of coursel That was why she remembered being blonde though


darkl That was why she'd heard her brothers anckisters clattering
Rid so
up wooden stairs behind her, and/felt/high up! She'd spent hours up
there among the roof-tops--combing and recombing hér long hair until
it was a bright briny goldl That was why she remembered. voices booming
far below her, and handcarts clattering on the cobbles-in those days
you could smell the sea-you felt it all round you--you lived in its
light-you sensed its storms- and at roof level you didn't get the
stench of the canals at low tide.
"No," she said. "I don't remember this house, I remember those
wooden platforms-!"
"That figures because this house wasn't built until the seventeenth
century, in your lifetime, so maybe therewas another family house and
this one was built just for the doge Marco."
As they walked away he told her, "Your father Antonio died during
the night of April 20 1622. He had an affair with this. Englishwoman
Lady Arundel: who.was the wife of the Earl Marshal of England. You see
how much I know?" He laughed. "They had summer houses quite near
each other on the Brenta-that was where the whole of aristocratic
Venice moved in the really hot months."
"But you said he was strangled?"
"In the ducal prison,. yes. It was absolutely forbidden in Venice
to know a foreigner. You couldn't entertain them in your home. Now:
and then, at a stretch, you could visit a foreign embassy in an official
capacity. Otherwise the political security was So hot you hardly' dared
look at a foreigner. The government had spies everywhere. You never
knew who was a spy. Well, a spy saw your father paying visits to Lady:
Arundel's-house in Dolo and he did a frame-up.. He denounced' him to the
Ten for plotting to overthrow the Venetian republic together with'the
Earl Marshal of England.. Venice was very touchy at the time, there was
a véry tense and suspicious atmosphere because only four years before
the Spanish. Plot had happened. So your father was arrested and thrown - :
into gàol and 'as usual.with a nobleman who'd betrayed the republic he.
was strangled in the middle. of the night with catgut, in the dark, >garrotted:
Do you remember me telling Pauline that the figuresthree and ten kept
coming into my regressions?"
"Yes, shie told mel".
"It was the three. Inquisitors, they controlled all the spies on
in the city and arranged private murders when necessary, and the Ten
used to administer and finance the spying- -they were the two government
agencies, tougher than anything the CIA or. FBI ever dreamed up, you can
take it from me! Now do you remember me asking Pauline to find out
about an English guy who lived in Venice,some name like Wotten, and


she found out it was Sir Henry Wotten?"
"Yes. He was English ambassador.' #
"Right! Well when: Lady Arundel heard that her lover had been
executed she went to Henry Wotten and told him she was going to see the
doge himself and complain. He tried to persuade her not to, since the
charge against Foscarini had been high treason and the Venetians didn't
mess around on that subject. But she went to the doge. She told him
that Foscarini had been completely innocent, and she told him they'd had
an affair. And she demanded that the senate officially proclam her
innocent of any political motives in seeing Foscarini. Well. the doge
agreed! The senate did: make anofficial proclamation. And one year
later the spy who'd denounced your father confessed that his evidence
had been false, and he too was arrested and executed. Your father's
name was posthumously cleared and he was re-buried with full honours in
the Frari, which is just over there, shall we go and look at his tomb?"
"Nol I'm tired and I want to go back to the hotel and-enjoy looking
at you-"
"Is that all?"
: But' he was still excited with his- discoveriesas they strolled back.
over the bridge. "When this Roman guy started talking about Foscarini
I nearly went wild! It was obvious, you were Caterina Foscarini.
And I know a. lot more. Oh a whole lot morel"
They walked through.the tiny square of San Barnaba and along the.
winding calle that crossed the Rio Malpaga.
"Did you miss me all that time?" she,asked him playfully.
"I was just sick, sick!"
"You tool"
"Everything fell to pieces," he said..
"What do you mean.".
"Oh I'll tell you later.".
As they walked down. the other side of the Accademia bridge towards.
Campo Santo Stefano he suddenly said,"And they hung your father.on the
Molo after he'd. been strangled-have you seen those tall columns?"
"Yes!" She-didn't tell him what a strange constriction she'd
felt when looking up. at. St Theodore with his lance and shield.-
"I found out I had the soles of my feet canedi" he went on.
"Venice was very cruel in those days. That was a torture they call.
the bastinado."
"Yes, Pauline told me.'
"And I too was hung between those columns on the Molo after I'd
been strangled!"


"Now you know why I didn't want to meet you in St Mark's Square!"
"Oh Dominic please let's talk about something else-let's just be
togetherl"
"We are together and we're going to stay together and we're never -
going to have that misery we've been through again. "
Later, before they reached the hotel; sheasked him, "What about the
"That's one of the. things that fell to pieces. Jamie Somerson
did a good job there, he worked so damned hard to break me and he got
there because I was concentrated on this FM stuff and didn't care about
anything else."
"But whatever happened?"
"I had him almost signed up for this, Ballet Russe series, he'd
agreed on the terms, we'd shaken hands on it, then he went to Marrytown :
and Barry Kurtz and said he'd only go through withit if I dropped out
of the production. Now I don't know if you realise this but Jamie's.
right at the top now, he's got the golden touch and every producer knows
it. So the banks heard about it and started pulling out on me, even
my man in San Francisco went cold, so Merrytown and Kurtz said OK. to
Jamie, and made a secret. deal with me for a third of the takings just
the same, in exchange for the old knowhow and advice. But I was out
of the film industry. Max Pennance joined in the kill as you might
expect, and I believe he's: directing the series. Anyway, inside twenty-
four hours I had no. more to do with the film industry than Pauline or
your mother." He turned to her. "Do you remember me saying in. one 5
of the FM regressions that the three inquisitors were. alive today in
another incarnation?".
"And I said they're sort of protecting you, but they were still
dark: forces; remember that?' Welli know now who they are. -And-they're
out to kill the relationship between you and me sone dead."
"Who' are they?"
"Well one's Sonya Steele. That's obvious huh? She called you
up a short time before you left LA and boasted afterwards all over town
your
that it was she who'd brought you to/senses and made you quit., The
second's your mother. She's doing all she can to stop us seeing each.
other, that right?"
"Yes. She says she'll be here tomorrow morning."


"She will? Just let her try and find us, that's all. And
listen,. the third inqusitor's the biggest surprise of all. It's
Pauline!"
"Pauline? But she loves us both, she's done more for us to be
together than anyone on the earth!"
"Well, I said they were all protectors in a sense. And so they
are. After all I had a scene going once with Sonya-and Pauline got
me. into FMI But now's. reckoning time and they're all showing their hands
for real!"
"But what's Pauline done?"
"She didn't want me to come here, that's. all. She even tried to
block me. psychically-and she's certainly very potent that way!"
Rim
She hugged as they walked the last steps, trying to get his mind on
other things.
"This is where. I walked every morning," she told him mas they passed.
the cakeshop in Calle del Spezier. "I didn't buy a single cake, I wanted
to'be nice and slim for you!". She asked him, "Why didn't you come to the
hotel right away, when you got to- Venice?"
"I had a lot of organising to do, I'll tell you about it tonight,-
it's a big surprise!"
When : they walked into the apartment it was ablaze with yellow roses-
seemingly hundreds of them. They were. everywhere.. New vases had been
brought in. It was like spots of sunshine everywhere in the dimness.
He watched her astonished redation, smiling.
She clapped her hands, "Oh Dominic how do you do it?"
She put her arms round his shoulders and her lips on his and
without moving from him said, "I don't care if you're in the film business
or out of it.or whether you're rich or poor, I belong to you and you
belong to me. and nobody's going to tear us apart!":
The darkness'made everything outside,. even the listless Canal,
look indoors. The warmth produced an uncanny sense of. exhilaration
mixed with lethargy.
When they. sank on to the bed. and began mking love they had the
sensation of disappearing into a different lifetime,. not quite a human
one but an existence that didn't depend even on. consciousness. His
body had none of the taut muscular vigour of the LA days. It felt soft,
even frail, as if terrible deprivations had been suffered. Really
they weren't two people any more. They hardly moved. It was like
being under some delicious hypnosis that lasted for hours, bathed in
a splendid light. They continually opened their mouths in astonishment


but could make no cry. And when the climax came, after several hours,
it was painful because it wrenched them out of that newly discovered
existence which was beyond anything they'd guessed at before. They lay
there wondering what was going to happen to them---because love like that
couldn't be made more than once. It was beyond endurance. The whole
apartment seemed to ring. with it, blaze still with light.
Little by little as they lay there Venice returned to their conscious-
ness-the sound of the vaporetti, a ship's horn from the Giudecca. Canal,
the hotel lift, the clatter of pans from the kitchen below.
It was mid-afternoon and they took a quick lunch downstairs, hardly
speaking. Then they went back to the apartment and ordered coffee.
"You see it was no good in LA," he said. "Things fell to pieces
instead of building up. You did all those nude scenes, you signed a
contract with Saul Weinand for the whole of Hollywood to see-just about
everything you did was against being together with me.' i1
He said it very quietly.
"Do you blame me for that?"
"Which am I supposed to blame--Angela or Catrina?"
"Oh we're the same person now!" she saidwith a laugh.
"But you didn't know her in LA likeyou know her now! And I didn't
know myself like I know myself nowl: All that film; stuff and the. French
series and seeing your clips and you coming over to LA,. that was just a
preparation and I took it for the real thing, So when I heard you were
doing the nude scenes I felt bad, I thought how could you betray me like
"But I was an actress Dominic!"
"You. could have refused certain things, you were in a strong enough
position." He smiled at her. - "Do you notice how you don't talk about
your career any more? The Ballet Russe series has fallen through as far
as you're concerned--oh I forgot to tell you that Jamie Somerson asked
for you to be replaced too- -and your contract's dead, you left the London
play-for-nothing but you're not complaining!"
"I'm at home. nowl I don't need anything else!"
"Are you sure?". he asked her.
"Of course I'm surel"
"That you'll never 'need anything else?"
"Nhy do.you ask?"
"Because in this life:we always need things, a he said.
The vaporetti had their lights on now and these were reflected on
the ceiling as' they passed, moving in ripples.


"Who were you then, in the other life?" she asked him.
She hadn't really wanted to ask the question. It felt as if he'd
planted it in her brain, So slight was the boundary between them now.
"I was Alphonse de Ligeaux,' " he said. "How do you like that?
Comte Alphonse de Ligeaux! You remember it now don't you?"
She said nothing So he looked at her piercingly in the semi-darkness
and repeated, "You do don't you?"
She nodded but didn't know if it was the truth. It was like hearing
a forgotten cousin's name, and with it came a vague stirring of pleasure
mixed with fear.
"You remember you suddenly started erjoying chocolate on Catalina
Island?" he said.
"Well the Comte de Ligeaux first saw you in your convent, in. the
parlour where it was allowed' to mix with visitors under the eye of the
abbottess, who was. usually an aristocratic woman who'd never fished a
husband. The convent parlour was an accepted market for future brides.
You were seventeen at the time. As I told you before, it was forbidden-
for Venetians to mix with foreigners but I came to your convent under
your father's wing, and I was. very close to 'some of' the great families.
of the so-called Golden Book, including the doge's. And also I was one
of the leaders of a very important conspiracy, a top secret Venetian plot:
Now I think one drank chocolate in those convent parlours. Does that
ring a bell too?"
"It seems to."
"If your father. had known. I was after-you hewould have had me
strangled at once, or thrown into a canal. Venice was very: strict at-
that time. As it was, both he and I were strangled, and possibly in
the. same prison celli.."
didde
They went on sitting in:t the darkness. She/want to listen any more.
but felt powerless to stop him, or curb her own curiosity.
"This guy. in Rome, then ministry official, he's amazing--all I gave
him were the names Caterina Foss and Sir Henry Wotten and he pieced the
whole damn thing together! He reckoned that 'Foss'. . had got to mean
either Foscari, another top family of the time, or Foscarini. - On the
Foscari family he drew. a blank-there was no. Caterina. But in the-
Foscarini family he found you, he said, 'She was the same age as the
century-she was seventeen the year before the Spanish Plot'. And in
that year I met you." He stopped. "Pauline told. you about the Spanish
"It was no such thing! In Paris, where I came from, I had a lot


of Venetian contacts through the embassy. and also because I was in the
habit of coming to Venice at least twice a year. I was involved in a
lot of unofficial diplomacy, being related to the great de Guise family.
One of these contacts came to me in Paris.with a prposition. I was to
live in Venice for a time, be received as if Venetian-a terrific
privilege at that time. And I was to build up a small army of mostly
Dutch soldiers with the objective of removing Spanish rule from Naples.
Being a de Guise I had no love of the Spanish. My grandparents told
Fiench
me of the/feud wit th Philip the Second. And now that Philip was dead
and the Spanish. empire ailing I thought it would be good policy. to help
the decline in one of the empire's most important principalities. Now
the Duke of Osuna, at that time viceroy of Naples, was a friend of mine
and as anxious to get rid of his masters' as the deGuiseswere. He was
our circus leader. The plot was financed partly by him, partly by
Venice. I came to this city and settled down, in a palazzo on the Grand
There was something in his manner. she couldn't understand. It
sounded as if he was arguing a case, trying to jusify some action.
"I was here over a year," he said. "Then the Spanish got wind of
the plot and the Venetian government got scared. It was politically
obliged to remove all evidence of what had been going on: No fewer
than five hundred men were murdered in the course of two or three nights
and the lie was put about by that trinity of liars, the Three, that
a plot to overthrow the Venetian republic had been uncovered. The
leaders like myself who had only the day before been received into the
houses of the Golden Nobility, against all.historical precedent, were
sek
strangled in prison after being tortured, and phoney confessions/wrung
from us. And afterwards we were displayed hanging between the columns
of the Molo as your father was four years later."
"And'what about Caterina?" she asked him. "You haven't said. -
anything about herl"
"We were going to run away togetherafter my mission in Naples was
over,-you and I. We made love several times, God knows how because
there was a spy every fifty yards in that cityt- We were in a state of
terror most of the time but it was worthwhile. You became pregnant.
At first I didn't. tell you about the plot, I couldn't."
"Didyou eventually?"
"Yes. Oh I was so much in love I couldn't keep anything from


"And what happened to Caterina after you died?"
"She didn't live to have the child. She went to the ducal prison
after she'd seen my body hanging on the Molo and bribed one of the guards
to let her have the body. An hour before midnight she rowed a small boat
down the canai running under the Bridge of Sighs, to a prison exit. My
body was delivered to her and she rowed it far out into the lagoon, and
then to the sea beyond, and she was never heard of again."
"Oh Dominic!"
They sat there thinking about it in the darkness.
She was suddenly. restless. "Dominic, put the light. on: Let's go
out for a walk!"
The air was still oppressive. Outside she was happy to be close to
other people again, in the lights from the shops, with the echo of voices
and. foatsteps all round. They strolled along holding each other by the
hand. At the cakeshop they ate several of those tiny custard pies the
Venetians call budini.
He was still absorbed in his theme. "Do you know," 11 he said, "that
Roman guy everi found the name of your convent? Your family chose it for
your name- -it was the convent of Santa Caterina. I was there yesterday
but there's nothing much to it now, they've turned it into a school.
You can see San Michele across. the water, the cemetery."
On the way back she said to-him, "And what's your surprise for
tonight?"
"That was in my mind too. Listen, you go back to the hotel, I've
got a few things to do, OK?"
She looked at him quickly. She didn't want him to leave-not for
a; single moment. But she said, "All right", rather sadly.
He chuckled and kissed her on the cheek. "Either you want a surprise
or you don't!".
"Yes I dol".
It was quite dark now, though: still not evening.. She went back
alone. For a time she stood and watched the pigeons settling downi
for the night in the niches of the San Moisè facadé. Then she looked
at the shops along the. Salizzada.
The apartment was heavy with the scent of roses. - As she walked in
the phone rang,, but since it couldn't be Dominic she did't hurry.
It was Pauline, from LA.,
"I've been wanting to phone you all day, but I only got the all-clear
just now," Pauline said.
"What do you mean, all clear?"
got
"Well Dominic was around before, is that right? And I "onlyt the
signal just this minute that you were alone.".


"What do you mean, all clear?"
"Well Dominic was around before, is that right? And I only got
the signal just this minute that you were alone."
"Don't you want to talk to him then?"
"It's you I want to talk tol Angela, you've got to leave Venice."
"It's dangerous for you, you've got to believe me. Come to LA, go to .
London, do whatever you like but you must leave, and at once, before he
comes back!"
"I can't do thatl He's only just arrived!".
"But Angela he's not fit to be wandering around like this. He
got real sick when you ran away and he hasn't recovered yet, you can take
under
my word for it! He should be back here- hospital care but you try and
tell him thatl It's written everywhere-in the Tarot cards, your horoscope,
it came out in his FM classes! Angela I'm. having dreams about this-
you two shouldn't be together at. this moment and I've never been. proved
wrong yet, even Dominic would agree there!"
"Have you two had a quarrel?"
"Oh come on Angela, we're always quarrelling, what the hell's that
got to.do with it? Maybe I should just have stepped on a plane and come
on over. But I didn't want to lose timel This is urgent--listen,.
couldn't you trust me just this once, little actress, and pick up your
coat and an overnight bag and take a taxi to Rome airport-don't go
near Venice airport because he'li follow you there! And then come to LA
and I'll explain all about it. Now don't worry about if you can see him
again,, you'll be back with each other in a few days, so what do you lose?"
"But we've had such a lovely time together! He looks marvelloust."
If he was sick I'd know Pauline. He's been going on a lot about his.
discoveries in Rome but he was always obsessed that way!".
"Listen you're both hung up on your previous lives and it's bad
Angelal I know it's easy for an outsider like me to talk but you. should
both be moving on to new lives, not hanging back in the past!"
"It's Dominic who keeps doing that, not mel"
"Isn't that just what I'm trying to tell you? He's got his head
full of how bad they treated him and how he was murdered in his cell and
how he can. still feel the bow-string tighten round his neck and the
gloved hand clamping itself round his mouth in the middle of the night,
and how he fought for breath- and everything went black! Oh God I've
listened to it a. hundred times! But it's not what FM's about Angela,
he's missed the whole point--I"
"He hasn't told me any of that!"
"Oh there's probably a whole lot he hasn't told you yet. I wish to


God he'd never heard about this Homan guy-but I'm the fool for doing
that research on Henry Wotten!"
"Pauline," Angela said quietly, "I can't leave him. - I can't bear
to be away from him a single moment now. We've waited all this. time
to be together, it's more than I could take physically. I think it's
the same for him. We're in the city where we belong. I've never felt
at home as I do here. I hardly know my mother any more, honestly, she's
like a. stranger to me-I feel. I belong more herethari anywhere else I've
ever been in any incarnation!"
"OK," Pauline said patiently, "I'm not trying to bar you. from Venice.
But you could make an effort-just for me- -come here and talk a bit, then
you'll be ready to have a marvellous time with him! At the moment there's
danger-for you bothl Ch God what an effort italways takes to save -
somebody from himself!"
"Pauline I do trust you and I will try-I"
"To leave?"
"Right now?"
"I'm going to try my hardest!"
"That's great! You'll. never be sorry. Angela."
"If I don't succeed that's too bad but I promise to try. So.1 long as
you can tell me it's not going to harmanything between me and Dom?"
"It's the only way Angela. - You've got to get out of the danger,
then you cCan be together later."
"But if he was so sick when I left before- he might commi tt suicide
this timel"
"Leave him a note, OK? Tell him I' called and you'll-be, with me. in
LA for a few days and you're coming back, . you don't understand what I
want etc. He'll chase you to the airport so that's why you've got to -
take a boat to the Piazzale Roma and persuade a taxi driver to take you
to Rome. Have you got enough money?"
She sat thinking about it afterwards. Not for a moment did she
consider leaving. There were: things she couldn't tell Pauline.
For instance that the sex they'd had- that day had taken them out of the
present world--it. was therefore useless to talk about danger in the
present world because the present world didn't count any more.
How' to explain that? How to explain that she and Dominic were one
person now-and that physical separation, even for a few days, would
kill them?
Most people never experienced this thing that he and she had-


most never even dreamed that such a thing. was possible between two
human beings. So they read danger in it. Of course. It was
dangerous. Hadn't Pauline herself described this thing as a bomb, which
she, Angela, was treating like a home-made firework?
This was what she .told herself. She did try to consider leaving,
as she'd prom ised. But the thought was gone no sooner than the effort
was made.
So Dominic was right--Pauline was one of the 'inquisitors' who wanted
to tear tham apart!
She walked about the apartment settlin'g the roses in their vases,
taking away a few leaves to make them morë comfortable, changing. the
water though it was fresh enough. Their scent reminded her of her suite
at the Beverley Hills hotel-what a callow, ambitious youngster she'd
been then-and how different from this composed Venetian woman looking
after her roses!
The phone rang again and she was sure it was Pauline to ask her
what she'd decided. But it was Dominic.
"This is going to take more time than I thought," he told her.
"I shan't be through till around ten tonight. Listen, would you meet
on the other side of Venice around half-past ten if I told you exactly
where to come?. Have you got a map there?"
She went and got the map she'd bought.
"Is all this in aid of the great surprise?" she asked him.
"Yeah!" He laughed.: "Are you ready? You can take a taxi if
you're feeling lazy but if you want to walk go to St Mark's Square, then
along the Riva degli Schiavoni until you come to a sort of park, that's
the Giardini. Do you see it there?"
"Now you walk right along by the Giardini wit th the lagoon on your
right, OK?"
"Looking more or less straight ahead, slightly. to the right,: you
see the Lido on the other side of the water. Now at the end of the
Giardini the path curls left for a few yards. Just keep going and
you'll find a bridge that crosses over on to the island of Santl Elena.
Are you with me?"
"That's about half an' hour's walk, maybe three-quarters wi th high
heels."
"And what happens at the bridge?"
"You'll see me-I'll call out to youl"


"But why is this taking So long to prepare?" she asked him.
"Well, if it was LA it'd take me all of fifteen minutes but here I've
got the language barrier!"
"I'll see. you at half-past ten then."
"Cover yourself up, it gets misty at night."
Busy' evening sounds rose to the windows-people hurrying by in the
square below, shop shutters lumbering down. She lay on the bed with the
lights out until about half-past nine. She didn't feel like eating.
She slipped a coat on and went downstairs.
It was as warm as. May but with a heaviness, a stiliness that marked
it as unhealthy. Yet she enjoyed the ailing weather. It made her feel
pleasantly sleepy, it parched her already sore throat, which also had some-
thing uncannily pleasant about it.
She walked slowly. Most people were at dinner by this hour.
She took the calli behind St Mark's and emerged on to the Riva degli
Schiavoni at San Zaccharia. From many windows came the_sound of dishes
clattering together. A few people passed. Otherwise Venice had a
deserted look.
She walked past a huge American cruiser anchored at the Arsenale.
From the via Garibaldi came the sound of laughter and raised voices-
she saw lights in the trattorie and bars. A few Aperican sailors were
leaning over the rails of the upper deck gazing down in' silence, smoking.
Then came the gardens. Everything grew darker here. Across the
water were the distant lights of the Lido and the casind: The path
narrowed, at the edge of the lagoon, and here she was quite alone." The
gulls soared and dipped. silently in: thé air, making their cries.
She knew that when Dominic promised her a surprise it would be a
real one, a beautiful one which she couldn't have thought up in a thousandi
years.
The path curled left at the end of the gardens just as he'd said.
And ahead, among pine trees, lay the residential island of Sant' Elena.'
She saw him just beyond the little bridge, on the other side of the
canal that divided Venice from the island.. He'd just stepped out of a
rowing boat. It looked remarkably new. There were coats, blankets
inside. They were going for a row in the' lagoont. She was so excited
she let out a cry before he'd seen her-and he turned round startled.
She ran over the bridge to the fondamenta where he was mooring the
"Isn't it a beauty?" he said.
"It's lovely, Dom, lovely!"


They kissed each other.
"Do you know," he said, "I read somewhere that the best way to see
the Lido was to take a gondola and cross the. lagoon to it at night. but I
don't want a gondola- T want to do my own steering and it took about
three days of mouth and money to convince this Bucintoro Club to let me
have a licence for this thing So that one of their vaporetti can run us
He took her arm and led her away from the boat. "I can't take her
out till eleven, SO let's take a stroll. You feel OK? Warm enough?"
They walked back over the bridge to the gardens and leaned against
the wall overlooking the lagoon.
"It's so quiet,' " she said.
"You see, nobody could tear us away from each other after all, could
"Nol" She looked at him, wondering if he knew about Pauline's call
in some way. But she said nothing about it because it seemed so unimport-
ant to both of them.
"And now we're alone," H he said, "I can tell you what really happened
to me-how I was betrayed. I would have been strangled anyway-
"Oh Dominic let's think about something elsel It's such a lovely
night!"
"You've got to listen to this. I've been waiting to tell you all
this time and now you must listen because you can't go on in ignorance
any morel".
"All right."
"It was you who betrayed me! It was Caterina, long before the
Spanish got wind of any plot!"
She drew away from him.. But with the unusual strength he could at
times muster he held her close to. him.
"You see, I had to tell Caterina about the plot, I couldn't hold it
back any longer. That was my mistake. I had to explain why I'd be away.
for some time, perhaps months; and why I couldn't take you with me.
I told you that something very secret. was going on. I didn't mention .
Naples. - I told you I was one of the leaders. I said that: one day if
you were very patient you'd receive a note at the - convent telling you
where- to meet me and that then you must give up everything-family,
possessions, everything so that we could flee to France. There was no
chance, you see, of your family or the Venetian government agreeing to
a patrician girl like Caterina marrying a foreigner.' :
She tried to pull him away from the wall, wanting to walk. But.
he went on, "Listen! You went back home- -you couldn't get it out of


your head that I was never coming back and that I was plotting against
the republic. You were a kid after all! But anybody else might have
thought the same. Venice was full of rumours. People couldn't under-
stand why there were So many-foreigners in the city. They thought:
they were there to protect the city against a Spanish plot. Your brothers
told you this in whispers. You knew I was a close friend of your
father's, and received by some of the greatest families. You were sure
that these people knew nothing about my plotting activities. Every day
there were fresh rumours that the Spaniards were preparing to blowup the
ducal palace and seize. the doge. Well, we-I mean the Three and the Ten
and leaders like myself-were spreading the rumours! So naturally you
thought I. must be connected with the Spanish Embassy in some way. Now
Venice was everything to you, your life and blood and breath! It was.
more important than a lover. How could you stifle the Venetian blood
in your veins? It ran So thick you were prepared to. sacrifice your own
life--your child's! - All Venetians werelike that! Venice was beyond all
private interest for them and. betraying the state was the_crime you paid
for. with the worst tortures ever devised! So you went and told your:
brother, whose name was Paolo. You called him Paolino. You told him -
you'd heard something strange about his father's friend--you hid the real
facts, about me being your future husband, about the child--and that was
easy because for the moment all they wanted was to get mel Well, your
brother went to your father, and yourfather went to someone he knew to
be in contact with the Three. They didn't arrest me. They told him to
go on entertaining me-outside his home of course-- -and meanwhile they
watched me. That was their excuse. They intened to do nothing, certain
that. I would be in Naples within a few weeks. As it happened the Spanish
got wind of the plot about ten days later. Do you realise they might
have heard about it because of you? Do you see what, reckless things youi
do sometimes, running away from your affinity, refusing. the love it took
whole lifetimes to achievel"
"Dominic!"
"One of your brothers may have blabbered-the, Spanish embassy had
spies all over the cityi So we were all arrested, murdered, thrown into
the canals, the soles of our feet were caned until they burned away, we
were strangled in our cells, slowly, the blood bursting in our heads,
the breathing slowly stopped, struggling against the gloved hand in
front and the tightening of the bow-string from behind- -look-look!
I've got it herel I've got the thing herel"


He pulled a long stout piece of cat-gut from his pocket.
"Do. you see this? The Roman guy gave it to me- -one of his most
precious relics. It could be the string I was strangled with, do you
realise that? Look at it Caterina, look at it!"
It was'trembling in his fingers, hanging.
She began crying, struggling.
But then she remembered how she had rowed him far, far out on the
lagoon and that she still knew the way, along the lanes marked out with
piles on either side, past Porto Sabbionito the open sea.
He put his arms round her and she knew almost thankfully that it
had been for the last time, that afternoon.