Countess Dracula (15 page)

Brunswick smiled dutifully at the joke.

‘Anyway,’ Harrison continued, ‘the point is that these boys are commodities, just like motor cars, and you don’t sell something unless you can convince the public that it’s safe and what they want. In a couple of days you’ll be hearing how it was a terrible mistake, I guarantee it.’

‘What about the maid?’

‘The maid?’

‘You didn’t hear about that? It was Grierson’s case; Nayland’s maid went missing a couple of days ago. They took her out, apparently, some night on the tiles to apologise for an accident at work …’

‘That doesn’t sound right.’

‘Yeah, I didn’t believe it either but the housekeeper corroborates the story and they were seen all over the place so Grierson’s running with it. Anyway, Nayland drops her off but it’s the wrong address – the girl’s lied to him because she doesn’t want him to see where she really lives. Then she never arrives home.’

‘And Grierson believes all this?’

‘He’s got loads of eyewitnesses who back the story up, even one of the press boys who took a shot of them over at the Tip-Top Club. Though to be honest with you the picture’s so damned blurred it could be of anybody.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Well, you know, it’s Nayland and Elizabeth Sasdy, isn’t it? You pay attention!’

‘Do you? I couldn’t care less.’

‘Oh come on! You must like Elizabeth Sasdy! She’s a real dame.’

‘The wife? She’s trouble, she’s got it written all over her.’

‘But in such beautiful handwriting.’

Harrison decided to drop it. It was no business of his and if he had to listen to any more of Brunswick’s enthusiasm he’d end up with a headache. What did he care about a missing maid?

In time he would grow to care a great deal.

NEWSPAPERS APPEAR ON-SCREEN ONCE AGAIN:

‘FRANK NAYLAND RELIVING HIS ACTION DAYS IN BAR BRAWL!’

‘DOWN AND OUT! IS FRANK NAYLAND WASHED UP?’

‘JEALOUSY HITS AGING STAR IN NIGHTCLUB PUNCH-UP!’

All unflattering type is further nailed home with a selection of pictures of Nayland looking far from his best. Bloated and bemused, spread wide by those around him as they attempt to haul him away from his intended victim.

Nayland is once again a talked-about actor. However much he may wish otherwise.

‘Well, that’s just wonderful!’ Fabio sighed, dumping the pile of newspapers in front of Nayland. ‘Like we needed this.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You will be by the time I’ve finished dealing with you. Jesus, Frankie, what were you thinking?’

‘I wasn’t. Well …’ Nayland rubbed at his face, trying to force the hangover out of his pores. ‘You know, I was just jealous.’

‘This is Elizabeth we’re talking about, for Christ’s sake, a woman who has more affairs than I have digestion pills. What’s suddenly made the difference?’

‘I don’t know, I guess it just hit me … I’m sick of sharing her.’

‘I hate to tell you this, Frankie, but she was never yours in the first place. You know how this kind of thing works: it was a marriage of convenience, a business arrangement. This was not white lace and red roses.’

‘I know.’ Nayland clenched his fist and rapped it on the table, a move he immediately regretted because his hand was so swollen that it felt like punching a knife. ‘You think I don’t know that? The whole thing is a lie.’

‘Damn right it is. And now it’s a lie that’s got to stop.’

That knocked Nayland harder than anything else so far. He stared at Fabio in genuine confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean we need to arrange a divorce. I can’t work with the two of you like this.’

‘A divorce? What are you talking about, a divorce?’

‘Last night more than helped, Frankie. You’re backing me into an impossible situation here. With Elizabeth’s new looks I need to make a fresh start with her. I certainly don’t need an abusive alcoholic husband to contend with – how am I supposed to make good press out of that?’

Nayland couldn’t believe he was hearing this. ‘I’m not abusive … I’m not a bloody alcoholic, either. Don’t tell me you can’t paper over the cracks on this, I know you can, just like you have whenever one of your other clients has got in a little trouble.’

‘Yeah,’ said Fabio, ‘I can sort this out, I can also make Elizabeth’s comeback bigger and better than ever, but I can’t do both at the same time.’ He shifted in his seat, sweating because of both the heat of the morning and the stress of dealing with his business.

‘Listen carefully,’ he said. ‘Let me spell out to you how this works. I can launch Elizabeth back into the business but it will be a
launch
– nobody’s seen her on a screen for close to five years. I’m starting afresh here. I can do that but right now when I’m trying to talk about her the papers are going to be talking about
you
– you see that, right? If you’re a couple then you share the column inches. I need a clear voice, one beautiful note about a woman making her return to show business. I don’t need every other paragraph bringing up the fact that her husband has a drink problem.’

‘I don’t have a drink problem!’

‘Frankie, it doesn’t matter what you have. If the papers have decided you’re a drunk then, until they get bored, you’re a drunk. You know how this game works – we’re selling stories here and I have to control those stories. So here’s how it’s going to have to be:

‘I release the story that the two of you are separated. That you’re going to seek help for your addiction—’

Nayland began to speak again, incensed at this rubbish. If either of them had an addiction it wasn’t him! Fabio held up his hand.

‘Please, Frankie, we’ve worked together for years and my back’s against the wall here. I want to keep helping you but I need you to listen and not talk right now, OK?’

Nayland, his head throbbing, nodded.

‘So … you vanish for a little while, getting help. In the meantime I make a big fuss about Elizabeth, the beautiful young woman emerging from the ashes of her marriage and her period out of work – she’s the fairy-tale princess, making good in a hard world. They’ll love it. Then, in six months or so we bring you back into the limelight, a reformed character, a man who has battled his demons and won. Actually …’ Fabio laughed, ‘now I come to say that out loud I realise this was what we should always have done. Nothing better than a man returned from the edge, heroic, noble … We could have you playing the loners, the wise father figures, the men who’ve seen it all and lived to tell the tale. The studios will love you.’

‘I don’t care about the studios,’ insisted Nayland. ‘I care about my marriage. I’m not leaving Elizabeth.’

‘Don’t make this hard on all of us, Frankie,’ said Fabio, ‘besides, you don’t have a choice. I built that into the paperwork years ago, remember? At the time it was you that insisted on it. You both had the right to walk out of the marriage if it proved detrimental to your career. Right now that clause couldn’t be more appropriate. I need you as two separate clients again, not a unit.’

‘Elizabeth won’t agree to this.’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Frankie, of course she will. She knows common sense when she hears it.’

Fabio chose not to mention that it had been Elizabeth’s idea in the first place, he failed to see how that would help matters. Much better if the whole thing was kept on the footing of a business deal. If he had any chance of keeping Nayland under control it would be by making the whole thing cold and contractual. On the spur of the moment he decided that a little false hope wouldn’t go amiss, either.

‘Besides, who says it has to be permanent? We break you up, start again, build you both up in the public eye and then the icing on the cake: Hollywood’s greatest tortured couple settle their differences and fall in love all over again! Imagine that! The chicks will be crying their eyes out.’

‘So stupid.’

‘Maybe, but it works and you know it. You need to take a holiday, we retire you for a few months, then – BOOM – you’re back and fighting fit. You got anywhere you could go?’

Nayland was slowly seeing all the ramifications here. ‘This is my house!’

‘It’s the house you both live in, Frankie, just bricks and mortar. I figured it would be better if you were to head away for a while. Hey! You ever been to Europe?’

‘Fabio, I’m English, I was born there.’

‘Oh yeah … I always forget Britain’s in Europe. Probably because they do, too.’

‘I’m going nowhere. Besides, Elizabeth needs me.’

‘She does, and what she needs more than anything is for you to agree to this.’

‘I can’t believe this …’

Fabio decided to fall back on the bullshit again. ‘Come on, Frankie, it’s what? Six months? A year at the outside. You break up, then I bring you back together. Fairy tale. Beautiful.’

Nayland was silent so Fabio decided to press the advantage. ‘Great. I’ll get the paperwork written up. You won’t regret it, Frankie. You know what they say: sometimes you have to knock something down so as to build it back up stronger.’

At least, he thought people probably said that. If they didn’t they should.

‘You just wait, Frankie my boy, the best times are still ahead. I just need you to trust me and do as I tell you. Why have a dog and bark yourself, huh?’

When Nayland finally saw Elizabeth she appeared so happy that he was under no illusion about where she had spent the night. Normally this would have made him all the angrier but now, having stewed in self-pity and fatalism for a couple of hours, he was beyond it. He had also given up on his hangover, deciding that the only safe way to proceed was to drink some more.

Elizabeth had taken precautions this time, hiding her face by the judicious use of a wide-brimmed hat, a large pair of sunglasses and a scarf. A Cinderella returning from her ball, she had no intention of blowing her new reputation by revealing how old she really was. No, not even that, Nayland realised as she removed her disguise. If her reversion to a ‘natural’ state the last time she had used the blood had seemed to add a couple of years to her age, then this time it was more like five.

‘Dear God,’ he said, ‘just look at what it’s doing to you.’

She simply shrugged as she headed towards her master bathroom. ‘Now I have the cure why should I care?’ She stopped and gave him a piercing look. ‘You’re still drunk.’

‘Not quite. I took a few hours to sober up in between.’

Nayland followed her into the bathroom, ignoring her look of disgust and sitting down on the lid of the toilet to watch as she shed her blouse and stood in front of the mirror.

‘Have you nothing to say?’ she asked, raising the small bottle of blood and pouring some into the sink.

‘You want an apology?’

‘I think I’m owed one. After all we’ve been through you then cause a scene like that and threaten everything.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, Fabio’s already explained to me how it’s all my fault. He says we have to get a divorce for the sake of our careers.’

Elizabeth had dabbed a flannel in the blood and had been about to apply it to her face. She paused. ‘And what did you say?’

Nayland gave a humourless laugh. ‘Not surprised, then? No “My God, Nayland, we can’t do that!” or “Who does he think he is?” Just “And what did you say?”’

She didn’t answer, just stared at him for another second before continuing to apply the blood as if it were nothing but liquid foundation.

‘I said no, of course,’ Nayland continued, ‘but he made it clear that wasn’t an option. He reminded me that our marriage was nothing but a business arrangement and that we needed to continue to think of it in such terms. He also insisted that our separation needn’t be permanent.’

Elizabeth had coated half of her face in the blood now. When she stared at Nayland it was with the nightmarish face of a Japanese kabuki performer. ‘Just tell me what he said.’

Nayland did so, admittedly placing a lot more emphasis on the temporary nature of the agreement than Fabio had done. ‘He thinks it’s the only way to stage-manage both our careers.’

‘It sounds sensible enough to me.’

‘It would, wouldn’t it? You’re not the one who has to admit to being a drunk and vanish off the face of the Earth for six months.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Frank darling. You don’t have to vanish completely, just carry on as you always did. Before all this nobody had seen hide nor hair of us for years – nothing’s changed, really.’

Elizabeth’s face was now completely painted and she continued to daub the blood down her neck and across her shoulders and chest.

‘So you don’t see a problem, then?’

She shrugged. ‘Of course not. We do as Fabio says – he’s never let us down in the past. As far as I can tell he’s talking great sense: this time next year we’ll be back at the top again.’

‘We?’

She turned and looked at him, offering a clear smile from within the charnel house of the rest of her face. ‘Frank, you know that I’ll never be faithful to you, I’m simply incapable of it – you’ve always known that. This marriage is, as Fabio says, a business arrangement.’

‘A beautiful public face hiding something grotesque beneath? That’s rather becoming the theme of our existence, isn’t it?’

Elizabeth turned back to the mirror. ‘I shan’t dignify that with a reply and if you’re going to be horrid you can just get out now.’ She painted down to her midriff, coating her breasts liberally before extending her work out to her arms and hands.

‘And will that be part of the agreement, I wonder?’ Nayland asked. ‘Will I have to leave here?’

‘I don’t see why, though you might want to rent somewhere for the sake of appearances. It hardly looks right if we divorce and then you’re still bumbling around the place.’

She stood for a moment, arms wide, letting the blood dry.

‘I certainly won’t kick you out,’ she added, ‘so don’t worry about that.’

‘Really?’ He was pathetically relieved to hear that.

‘Of course not. You know how much I need you.’ She smiled again. ‘We’re a partnership, Frank, and we always will be. What does a piece of paper matter?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll sign the papers.’