Deep and Silent Waters

‘The Lido is a sandbank between Venice and the sea. The city is over there somewhere.’ She waved a casual arm to the right, but Laura couldn’t see anything through the heat haze.

Along the beach road, Laura could see yellow sand covered with a mass of tanned, scantily clad bodies, some of which were leaping around in the sea, swimming or manipulating sailboards with vivid sails.

‘Look at all those people! It looks like Blackpool on a bank holiday. I didn’t realise Venice had a seaside resort so close to it.’

Melanie shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘Most of the crowds will be day-trippers – they’ll leave this afternoon.’

As they walked into the reception lobby of their hotel Laura paused. She felt as if she was back on a film set, not simply because she was confronted by a sea of famous Hollywood faces but because the décor was Hollywood to match – marble and gilt and silk brocade.

‘Give me your passport and I’ll register. Wait for me by the lift then I’ll be able to find you easily,’ Melanie said, and began to push her way through the starry crowd.

Laura did as she was told, then stood gaping like a tourist at the famous faces.

She had made only four films and knew few people in the business so it left her dazed to see so many Hollywood stars at close quarters. Beautiful women with instantly familiar faces embraced, posing as if for a photo-opportunity, cooing like turtle doves in American, French, Italian, while their eyes darted down to assess the style, the cut and guess the designer’s name or how much the jewellery had cost, and see if the other woman had lost or gained weight, was looking any older or showing signs of wear and tear.

‘Darling … wonderful to see you.’

‘Ciao, come stai? Si, tante grazie …’

‘Cherie, ça va? Et ta famille? Bien, oui, moi aussi!’

Laura felt like a newcomer to the Tower of Babel, and a very underdressed newcomer at that. She was wearing no jewellery and her little black dress was far from eye-catching. She was totally out of place, she shouldn’t have come.

All her buried anxiety rose up inside her and she wished she was back in her childhood home, the old farmhouse on Hadrian’s Wall with a long, rolling view in front and behind it, the green hillsides of northern England, backboned in rock, scattered with thorn trees that sang in the wind. Whenever she was unhappy or frightened that landscape comforted her. It had outlasted the Roman Empire, the British Empire, seen suns rise and set for thousands of years, it dwarfed all her fears and griefs and put them into perspective.

Melanie came bustling back. ‘The porter’s taking our bags up to our rooms. Ready?’

Laura pressed the button for the lift. ‘Which floor are we on?’

Melanie didn’t answer. She was staring across the foyer. Her scarlet mouth hung open. ‘Oh, my God, no!’

Idly Laura followed her stare until she saw the face that had caught Melanie’s attention. The hair on the back of her neck prickled; her skin turned icy with shock. Sebastian. Walking towards them, in his usual working gear of well-washed but shabby jeans, a white shirt under an olive green sweater, army-style, with patches on shoulders and elbows. Some in that glittering crowd turned to stare at him, stepping back to let him pass.

‘Where the hell is that lift?’ muttered Melanie. She put her thumb on the button and kept it there. ‘Come on, damn you, come on.’

He looked so much older. Laura couldn’t believe how much he had changed. When they first met he had been only thirty-one, his skin a smooth golden olive, his black hair thick and sleek, his features so hard and clear they might have been chiselled from stone, high cheekbones and temples, an aquiline nose, and above it those bright, dark eyes.

He looked forty now, but could only be thirty-five. Deep lines had been etched into his brow, around his eyes and mouth; his facial bones showed through his skin, giving him the austere, spare look of a monk.

There were silvery hairs among the black at his temples, his mouth was tighter, reined in, tension in the set of it and in the angle of jaw and throat. Everyone who ever worked with him would agree that Sebastian Ferrese was an arrogant, brilliant, dangerous son-of-a-bitch, and it showed now in that face, as if the rock of his nature, which had once been masked by the beauty of his youth, had risen up into view with the passage of time.

On the other side of the room Laura noted a little cluster of people whose faces she knew – Sebastian’s favourite camera man, Sidney McKenna, a quiet, introverted man with a bald head and the blank, sea-gazing eyes of a sailor, Valerie Hyde, and several others from the crew with whom she had worked on her first film. Sebastian surrounded himself with people he respected and trusted. They would all have been with him in South America. Maybe some of them had been nominated for awards, too.

‘Come on,’ Melanie urged, tugging at her arm. ‘The lift’s here.’

Laura turned blindly, but as she did so Sebastian grabbed her other arm with long, tense fingers that bit into her and would not be easily dislodged.

‘We’re in a hurry.’ Melanie would not let go; she was determined to pull Laura into the lift.

Sebastian wouldn’t let go either. ‘Laura, I have to talk to you.’

She quivered at the sound of his voice – deep, faintly hoarse. How familiar, how oddly American, when she had begun to expect him to sound Italian here in Venice – but, then, he had lived in the States for so long.

Somewhere a flash-bulb exploded, then Laura felt the heat of television arc-lamps on her cheek and realised that a TV crew had spotted them and swung their camera round to start filming.

Melanie saw them, too, and ground her teeth audibly. ‘That’s all we need!’ she muttered. ‘Look, will you let go of her and bugger off, Sebastian? Haven’t you done enough harm? If her name gets linked with yours again, it could ruin her. At this stage of her career the wrong gossip could be fatal.’

Sebastian’s eyes flashed at her, black with rage, but he let go, Melanie tugged, and Laura almost fell into the lift. The doors closed and a second later they were gone.