Darling Sweetheart (43 page)

‘Make it something long, cold and very strong; no umbrellas, no cherries.’

He fetched the towel and sun cream immediately. The Long Island iced tea took more time but was well worth the wait. While she waited, she rubbed the cream on her arms, tummy and legs. The guards pretended to chit-chat, but she knew they were watching her. It must have been the pills, but everything about her body – apart from her pale tummy – felt oddly perfect.

‘Levine!’ she called. He jerked to attention as if he’d only just noticed her, then approached, solicitously.

‘Yes, Miss?’

‘I’ve told you before, don’t call me “Miss”.’

‘Sorry, Miss.’

‘Would you do my back?’ She handed him the cream and
rolled over. He paused, before going down on one knee. His hands were huge and nice. She spoke quietly, as he rubbed.

‘Is Ben okay?’

‘Ben?’ he murmured.

‘The man who was with me – the one who hit you in the studio. Is he okay?’

‘I dunno. I didn’t see what they done to him – we wasn’t there.’

‘What about my toy? You know, my frog? Where is he?’

‘Not at liberty to say.’

‘Is he here? In this castle? Emerson hasn’t destroyed him, has he?’

‘The cuddly toy is okay, Miss.’ He set the sun cream down. She turned on her side to face him. ‘Was it you who carried me?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ he looked embarrassed, ‘I carried you on and off the plane and to your room.’

She smiled. ‘It was the nicest part about being kidnapped.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. Thanks for doing my back.’

He glanced around then walked off towards the colonnade. She propped herself upright and sipped her cocktail. She felt lifted by the sun – swallows twirled around the château roof, and it was almost as if she might join them. What’s wrong with this, she wondered. Why not marry Harry Emerson and sip cocktails by the pool for the rest of her life, with bodyguards and butlers catering to her every whim? She would never have to think for herself again, beyond which city to shop in on any given day. She set her sunglasses down beside her drink and walked to the pool, a voluptuous giraffe. She laughed at the thought of that, spread her arms like Jesus, or like Jimmy jumping off his speaker stack, and fell forward. The water hugged her even more gorgeously than the sunshine. She surfaced, climbed the ladder and sat on the tiles, moist molecules slipping off her oiled-up skin.

‘Go ahead and marry him, but the other thing ain’t part of the deal.’ Froggy’s voice came from the deep end of the pool.

‘Huh?’

He surfaced, and it was Froggy but it wasn’t, because he was the size of a man, the most glistening green, with a wide mouth and big eyes with inscrutable black pupils. He kicked a pair of long frog legs and glided towards her, his nostrils creasing the surface.

‘I said, marry the sonofabitch, but the other thing ain’t part of the deal.’

‘What other thing?’

‘The bit where you stop thinking for yourself.’

‘Uhh… what do you mean?’

‘Marrying him is the smart play, but you gotta keep thinking for yourself. If you stopped thinking for yourself, then you wouldn’t need me any more, and I can’t allow that.’

‘Why… why can I see you?’

‘Probably because you’re completely off your head on prescription drugs, but at least you’re still thinking for yourself.’ His amphibian skin shimmered with colours that she never knew existed.

‘Is this what you really look like? Are you really an Egyptian god, like my mother said?’

Froggy smiled. ‘Me, an Egyptian god? You really are off your head. I’m just your friend, bug-face. That’s the way it’s always been.’

‘So where are you now? Where has Emerson hidden you?’

‘Sorry, same rules. If you don’t already know something, then I can’t tell you. I can only help you remember stuff, and of course provide my usual sterling advice.’

She lay on her back, keeping her feet in the water. Through the hot tiles, she could feel the earth’s heartbeat, a million miles below. Or was it the sun’s pulse, a million miles above?

‘I’m utterly trolleyed.’

‘Good for you,’ the voice still came from somewhere near her feet, ‘but what’s the plan?’

‘Plan?’ she laughed. ‘The plan is I need to get you back. And I need some more of those pills – they’re absolutely wonderful.’

‘Sounds good to me. Hang in there, bug-face.’

The gurgle of the pool pump blended with the twittering of the swallows overhead. Her body and her mind felt… connected. She was glad she was wearing such a skimpy swimsuit; she felt luxurious. For the very first time in her life, it even occurred to her that she would like to have S-E-X, but she couldn’t decide with whom or with what; with Ben maybe, with Levine, with the sun, the moon or the earth. Proper S-E-X, where she gave herself over, instead of hating every second. She giggled, sat up, then fell forward into the cool, blue water.

Frost and Levine watched her from the shade of the colonnade.

‘How’s she been?’

Levine was glum. ‘Bit upset when she woke up, but she calmed down and then she seemed fine… until she started talkin’ to the swimmin’ pool.’

‘Still,’ Frost gave a sour laugh, ‘if you can’t talk to your reflection, who can you talk to, huh?’

‘Miss Frost, can I ask you somethin’?’

‘What?’

‘Are we doin’ the right thing here?’

‘What do you mean, are we doing the right thing here?’

‘What we’re doin’ to her now, treatin’ her this way?’

‘You get your pay cheque every month, don’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then you’re doing the right thing. When she finishes her swim, tell her that H.E. wants her for supper at nine-thirty. Until then, try to make sure she doesn’t drown her crazy bitch ass.’ Frost strutted off, back inside the castle.

She was waiting for him when he returned, wearing the brown
Rozae Nichols dress that she had worn that first night, sat at the candlelit table by the pool. She sipped another of Talbot’s ultra-strong iced teas; her afternoon’s euphoria had worn off, to be replaced by utter weariness, but she needed to keep her act together and the cocktail definitely helped. She’d put some extra effort into her appearance and that must have helped too, because Emerson seemed surprised to see her – but surprised in a good way.

‘Wow!’ He bent and embraced her in that light, barely touching manner of his. ‘Look at you!’

‘I thought dinner on the terrace would be… nice.’

‘I ain’t dressed.’

‘You’re perfect the way you are. Now sit down and tell me all about your day.’

He looked at her for a moment, as if he expected her to leap up and stab him with her fork, but instead she treated him to her warmest smile, and he seemed to buy that. He pulled a chair out and sat. Talbot whisked a mineral water down by his elbow then vanished again.

‘I had an okay day today. We’re gettin’ back on schedule after all the… interruptions. The new director works fast and listens good; that should help us catch up.’

‘I want to start back tomorrow.’

‘Hmm…’

‘I did a lot of thinking this afternoon,’ she lowered her eyes demurely and fiddled with her twizzle stick, ‘and I see that you were right. I’ve been unprofessional… self-indulgent. I’ve let myself down, but I want to make it up to you.’

‘I’m surprised you could think about anythin’ today,’ he muttered, ‘after takin’ three Oxycontin.’

She exuded innocence. ‘Is that what those pills were?’

‘Yeah. I, uh, take it myself sometimes, when I’m feelin’, you know… blue.’

‘Oh, honey,’ she reached out and touched his hand, ‘you
musn’t feel blue.’ Again he looked surprised, but pleasantly.

‘“Honey”… that’s the first time you’ve ever called me that.’

She squeezed his fingers. ‘Harry… things are going to be very different between us from now on, I promise. I know that everything you’re doing is for the best…’

‘There’s only one thing harder than gettin’ to the top, baby, and that is stayin’ there.’

‘Let me start back tomorrow and it will be just like you said – as if nothing ever happened.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘There’s something else I’d like you to think about.’

‘Yeah?’

‘That beautiful ring you showed me…’

‘The ring…’

She blushed. ‘Well… I don’t mean to be forward, but I’d really like to see how it goes with this dress. This is the dress you wanted me to wear the night you proposed.’

He leapt up, grinning. ‘I’ll be right back.’

As he passed through the colonnade, Frost was waiting behind a pillar.

‘Tell me you’re not gonna fall for that!’ she demanded.

He paused. ‘Judy. I didn’t know you were listenin’.’

‘She’s soft-soaping you! Kissing your ass!’

Suddenly, he did something he had never done before: he reached out and tousled her hair, like a master indulging a goofy dog.

‘Baby – I ain’t just a pretty face.’ He patted her cheek then bounced off along the hall.

The following evening, in a forest clearing not far from Saint-Christophe, Roselaine de Trenceval stared into a campfire. She hugged her legs, her sorrow underlit by flames. Bernard de Vaux lay stretched on the ground beside her, studying her profile.

‘I cannot do this,’ she announced. ‘I cannot fall in love with you.’

‘Why not? I’m already in love with you.’

‘It is not the way I have chosen.’

‘It’s not the way I have chosen either. I came here to rape and pillage, remember?’ She glared at him. ‘Okay, bad joke, but you know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t know what you mean! Killing my people, burning them like pigs – that is not a joke!’

‘No,’ he seemed genuinely contrite, ‘I guess it’s not.’

‘So why are you here? Why do your crusaders come from the north, to attack a peace-loving people? What have we ever done to you?’

‘You have riches, you have land and the pope in Rome has denounced you as heretics. For your average French nobleman, that’s two reasons more than he needs.’

‘You murder and steal in the name of God.’

‘That’s pretty much the way the world works, yes.’

She returned her gaze to the fire. ‘We should not be together.’

‘Yet here we are… together.’ He reached out to touch her shoulder but she shrugged him off, so he picked up a stick and poked it at the flames.

‘I am sorry that we kissed,’ she murmured. ‘It will not happen again. To leave this life, I must remain pure.’

‘If you want to leave this life,’ he pointed his smouldering stick at the trees, ‘you go back to that army waiting outside your father’s castle and tell them who you really are. They’ll do a damn sight more than kiss you before they burn you in front of his walls. They would want him to hear your screams.’

She buried her face in her hands. ‘I don’t care about myself! I just care about my people!’

Bernard sat up. ‘I wanna tell you something… something about me. When I was ten years old, my father’s lands were sacked by a rival. That rival was his own brother – my uncle. I was taken from my family and forced to live as a hostage with my
uncle until I was eighteen, to make my father’s subservience complete. So I know what it means to lose everything you love.’ She looked at him from under her long eyelashes. ‘My uncle, whom I despise with all my heart, is the same man besieging your father’s castle – his name is Simon de Montfort.’

She turned her tear-stained face up to his; chastely, he kissed her forehead, but she guided his chin with her fingers, until their mouths met and locked.

‘And… cut!’ A squat young man wearing heavy black glasses, a black shirt and black slacks stepped from the trees. ‘Loved it, H.E. – loved it, loved it. You too, Annalise; you were great, just great. Okay, people!’ He yelled, clapping his hands. ‘Let’s move! I want us ready for close-ups in fifteen! Let’s not keep Mr Emerson waiting, okay? Fifteen minutes, people - let’s move!’

She lay in her new bedroom, staring at the ceiling. She still wore her costume – a cleaner copy of Roselaine’s dress. The windows were black. Only a small reading lamp fought the darkness, inside and out. She twisted the ruby ring around her finger. Emerson was incredibly pleased that she was wearing it, but he was also, she knew, watching her very closely. Everything was being done his way now. She had been whisked to the location in a black jeep convoy and had performed on demand, with no discussions about script changes. Immediately she had finished, she had been whisked back to her gilded cage again. No horseback journeys, no agonising over her character. There were a few paparazzi loitering outside the castle gates but, through the tinted windows of the speeding vehicles, they had seemed like insignificant shadows.

In spite of receiving her abject co-operation, Emerson had made no further mention of Froggy. Which raised the question - how long would she have to keep her charade up, until she got him back? Days? Weeks? Until shooting was finished? Or until Emerson had her safely tucked away in some heavily guarded
mansion in the hills above LA? Just as he was dictating the film’s script to his tame director, soon he would be dictating the script of her life. She felt like screaming.

Then, she nearly did scream, because a face appeared in one of the tall, dark windows. Her yell was muffled by the duvet as she flung herself on the floor. She crouched, her heart banging, but gradually began to rationalise… No wonder she was jumpy, after the events of the past few days. If she could see giant frogs in the swimming pool in broad daylight, then a blurred blob outside her window at one o’clock in the morning was entirely plausible… wasn’t it? She had just about convinced herself that her imagination was working overtime, when she heard a tap on the glass. She peeped over the bed. It was some sort of animal, an owl, maybe… it had to be, for the window was thirty feet above the garden.

But the face was still there.

‘Go away!’ she cried. However by some black art, the face illuminated. Now, she did scream, although she had enough presence of mind to stuff the duvet in her mouth. The spectral face tapped the window again, this time with a hard shiny object that she realised was a torch. It took her all of five seconds to whip a chair over, jump up and undo the clasp. The window opened inward.