Gill Paul - The Affair

‘I’m fine.’

‘I wrote to you. Did you get the letter?’

‘Yes, I got it.’

‘Why haven’t you replied?’ Diana asked.

‘I don’t know what you want me to say. Of course I miss you, but this wasn’t my decision.’ His tone chilled her. Suddenly she felt cross with him for being so unsupportive but she knew that nothing would be resolved if she lost her temper.

‘I’m going to Ischia tomorrow to check the outdoor sets. They’re building boats for the sea battle of Actium.’

‘No doubt that will be educational,’ he commented drily, then added ‘I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to get excited about it from back here in rainy London.’

There was a long pause, then they both began to speak at once – him to say he had a tutorial to prepare and her pleading ‘Don’t shut me out, Trevor. Please come over to Rome, or at least write to me.’

‘Diana, it’s only a few weeks till Christmas. We can talk then. I don’t see any point in coming out beforehand to sit on my thumbs while you prance around with the stars.’

He was immovable. She had no choice but to agree that they would talk on her return. When she came off the phone, she sat for several minutes with her head in her hands. She knew him well enough to sense that, behind the curt tone, he was depressed and lonely. It had been selfish of her to leave him. She couldn’t blame him for his attitude but wished that he would at least support her now she was there. She was having the time of her life, and didn’t for one moment regret the decision she’d made.

Scott’s editor was pleased with the ostrich feather story but next time, he said, he wanted a picture of Elizabeth Taylor in the dress, and preferably while it was on fire.

‘Rome is crawling with photographers. Surely that’s not too hard to organise?’

Scott went to visit Jacopo Jacopozzi, the amiable chief of Associated Press in Rome. The walls of his office were covered in pictures of popes and presidents, movie stars and politicians.

‘You want it, we got it,’ Jacopozzi told him. ‘I’ve got people covering Elizabeth Taylor from the moment she steps onto her verandah for breakfast until her car takes her home from a restaurant at night. I can get shots from inside the film set, or whichever nightclub she happens to be in. Just say the word.’

‘Did you get the ostrich feather dress?’ Scott asked.

‘Sure,’ he shrugged. He flicked through some files on the desk in front of him and pulled out one that showed Elizabeth Taylor leaving the Grand Hotel in a white dress, with Eddie Fisher by her side. ‘Tazio Secchiaroli himself got this one. You’ve heard of him? He’s our best man. He’s getting more famous than the stars themselves, but he’s not cheap.’

‘How much to use that photo, for example?’

They discussed the rights needed, the print run, the size at which it would be used, and when Jacopozzi was finally pinned down to a price, Scott whistled in astonishment.

‘That much? I’ve got a budget less than a tenth of that.’ He named his figure.

‘It can’t be done, my friend. My photographers are bleeding me dry and I have a family to feed.’ The expensive clothes and swanky office belied his penury.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Scott tried to negotiate an affordable price but it was obvious they weren’t going to agree. Jacopozzi had plenty of business and no need to compromise, so they shook hands and Scott retreated to think of another plan.

That evening he sat outside a café on the Via Veneto watching the paparazzi at work. There was a lookout at either end of the street checking inside approaching cars and calling up or down the hill to alert colleagues to celebrities. Scooters were parked in the road, ready for a quick take-off. Scott watched as Richard Burton and his wife Sybil emerged from one car and walked into the Café de Paris.

‘Who are you planning to fuck on Cleopatra , Richard?’ one of the photographers yelled at him in English.

Another darted in front of them and a flashbulb exploded right in their faces.

Burton looked tight-lipped but didn’t rise to the bait. It made a photo much more valuable if the subject was yelling or shaking their fist and he knew better than to give them that prize.

Scott noticed that one photographer was standing apart from the crowd on a set of steps further up the street. He took several shots of the Burtons and Scott guessed they would work well from that angle. Draining his beer, he left some money on the café table and approached the man.

‘I’m Scott Morgan of Midwest Daily in the States. And you?’

‘Gianni Fortelesa.’

‘I’m looking for a photographer. Would you be interested in coming to the office tomorrow to show me some of your work?’

He realised straight away that he’d chosen well because Gianni’s face lit up. It was a competitive world out there on the street and he seemed keen and hungry. What’s more, he spoke good English.

‘I can’t pay Associated Press prices, but I can give you a retainer and a fee per picture. Bring the shots of the Burtons you took tonight and I’m sure I can use one of them.’

Next day the deal was struck and Scott wrote a quick story about Richard Burton to accompany Gianni’s best photo. He wrote that Burton had only got the role after Stephen Boyd dropped out and neither Marlon Brando or Peter O’Toole were available. The producers had to buy him out of the Broadway show Camelot , where he was playing King Arthur to Julie Andrews’ Guinevere. He was a renowned womaniser who was said to have had affairs with Claire Bloom, Lana Turner, Angie Dickinson and Jean Simmons (while she had been married to his friend Stewart Granger). Sybil, his wife of twelve years, normally turned a blind eye.

‘In fact,’ Scott finished, ‘rumour has it that the only one of his leading ladies he hasn’t had an affair with was Julie Andrews – because he was already shacked up with an exotic dancer called Pat Tunder.’

Cheap it certainly was, but Scott found this kind of journalism couldn’t be simpler to write, and Gianni promised to give him tip-offs about any stories from the film set doing the rounds in Rome. It would buy him time to pursue his own story – the one he was determined to write about the Ghianciaminas, the family who appeared to be above the law.

Ernesto proved an entertaining companion on the trip to Ischia, pointing out landmarks they passed on the train to Naples and then on the hydrofoil across the bay. It was evening when they arrived, but early next morning they drove to the boatyard where the battleships were being constructed and Diana leapt out of the car in her eagerness to have a look. Brilliant sunshine lit the bay, where rocky cliffs descended to coarse bronze sand. Working fishermen plied their trade just along from the set on which a fleet of ancient craft had been constructed. Some were converted fishing boats that would sail on the water, while others were one-sided, to be held in place for camera.

‘ Buongiorno, che piacere vederla ,’ one of the boatbuilders said – ‘nice to see you’ – and they all came over to shake her hand. She soon realised these were proud, perfectionist craftsmen who were keen to hear her views on their work, and when she suggested a slight change in the decorative carvings at the prows, they assured her it would be done. They demonstrated how the barrage of stones and blazing javelins would be fired during the sea battle, showed her the spikes that would protrude from the front of the ships and mimed the way they would ram each other.