He picked up a leather bag which he had had in his hand earlier and flung on to a chair. Unzipping it, he pulled out a script, dropped it on the rumpled bed. ‘Here, I brought you the latest draft. I’ve tagged the scenes we’ll be shooting here over the next week.’
‘Have there been many changes?’
‘No, just tinkering, sharpening up. You won’t have any new lines to learn for this location, so just check your cues. I’ll mostly be doing background shots and crowd scenes with you in the foreground. But have a read through it, and let me know if you think it’s an improvement.’
Sebastian stood, silently staring at her, a thin dark man with flashing eyes. She waited for him to say something but he just turned and slammed out of the room. Wincing at the crash of the heavy door, Laura almost called him back, but in the end decided not to. She really needed these precious moments alone.
She picked up the script, to the front of which was clipped the pink pages of the shooting schedule starting with day one. Sebastian planned to shoot four pages every day while they were here, she noted. He was optimistic. She flicked through it. Under the title was typed the fact that this was the 15th draft. She wasn’t surprised. Sebastian was a perfectionist.
The first page was almost entirely scene-setting, just four lines of dialogue between herself and someone called the Old Chestnut-seller. The following pages also revealed scanty dialogue. No problems there. She could learn the lines as she went along.
She dropped the script and began to unpack, putting her clothes away in musty-smelling closets and chests of drawers. She had brought a few lavender bags with her and laid these among her undies before she closed the drawers. It didn’t take long. She was now an experienced packer and unpacker: she had her own routine, every move worked out to save time.
When she had finished, she put on a thick, padded green anorak with a black hood, slipped black sunglasses on her nose, put on gloves and knee-length black leather boots and studied herself in the mirror. Nobody would recognise her, surely. The paparazzi had been at the airport, snatching pictures, but they hadn’t bothered to pursue her to Ca’ d’Angeli, and they wouldn’t hang around to catch sight of her in this weather. She was wearing something entirely different, her fiery hair was out of sight under the hood, every strand combed back from her face so it wouldn’t show.
As she left the private apartments she walked past the Contessa, who was talking to several of her servants.
‘Buon giorno, Contessa,’ Laura said politely, and got a faintly surprised, but perfectly friendly, smile.
‘You are going out?’ the Contessa asked, and Laura nodded.
‘It will snow,’ she warned.
‘I’ll be okay.’
Laura walked out into the long gallery, picked her way through the film equipment strewn everywhere, higgledy-piggledy, like the abandoned baggage of a retreating army. There was even a corpse or two: younger crew members stretched out on rugs to snatch an hour’s rest while Sebastian was elsewhere. They didn’t even look at her – they were too tired to take an interest in anything that happened around them.
‘Laura!’ It was Nico’s voice. He took in her outdoor clothes. ‘You aren’t going out, are you? It could blow a blizzard any minute, from the look of the sky.’
‘I have to. I’m meeting some of the crew in St Mark’s Square for a drink, and a few prelims.’
He was baffled by the word. ‘What?’
‘Preliminary shots. Sebastian needs to decide which angles to choose, which views to get in, what he’ll want on the final shot. Apparently we’re shooting a lot of stuff out in the streets, to get the carnival atmosphere. How do I get to St Mark’s? Walk?’
‘You can, but I’ll happily take you along the canal. My boat’s outside. Come on.’
Watching the flicker of his dark eyes, she remembered that moment in the bedroom when she had seen eyes staring down at her and Sebastian. Once again, sickness rose in her throat.
‘No, that’s okay, I think I’d rather walk,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I want to explore this part of Venice before the snow starts again. I may not get another chance for a few days.’ She turned before he could argue and walked quickly towards the stairs, but he ran after her.
‘Go the back way, then – I’ll show you the short-cut. It will take you to St Mark’s Square by the quickest route.’
Nico took her down some narrow, winding stairs to the dark kitchen quarters and out through a corridor into the formal garden, which she had not seen before. He walked her along the maze of gravelled paths, through the snow-decorated top
iary, which had a surreal look, as if it came out of a painting. When they reached a gate in a high wall he unlocked it with an ornate brass key he took from his pocket. It creaked as he pushed it open. ‘You turn to the right, walk to the far end, turn left, over the bridge, straight on along the back canal, the next right turn, and then take a left-hand fork into an alley. You’ll see the piazza at the end of it.’ His face crinkled in a grin. ‘Do you think you’ll remember that, or shall I come with you?’
She smiled back, liking him more every time they met. ‘Don’t forget I’m an actress. I have a good memory. Repeat it, slowly.’
She closed her eyes and listened intently, then opened them and repeated what he had said, word for word.
Surprised, he nodded. ‘Bene. You do have a good memory, don’t you? If you get lost, though, no problem. You’ll find a black arrow painted on corners, pointing either to San Marco or the Accademia. And if you still get lost, most Venetians speak English.’
She thanked him and hurried off, avoiding the eyes of anyone she passed, keeping her hood pulled forward. On one side of the bridge she had to cross she saw a little group of art students in pink body-stockings. They were busy painting each other in gaudy swirls of colour, zigzags of red, yellow and black. One of them, a boy with short black hair cut razor-style and greased to make it stand up in spikes, shouted at her.
‘Sorry, I don’t speak Italian,’ she said.
‘American?’