Читать книгу The Affair - Gill Paul - Страница 13

Ernesto came to the production office to collect Diana at five to ten the following morning to take her to the script meeting.

‘Are you absolutely sure I’m supposed to come along?’ she asked.

‘Of course. You must be there. You can actually make a difference at this stage.’

The director’s office was in a building opposite the main gate. A dozen people were sitting smoking and drinking coffee, among them Walter Wanger, who leapt to his feet and rushed over to embrace Diana.

‘Sweetheart, you made it! It’s terrific to see you. Let me introduce you to everybody.’ He went round the room, pointing out John De Cuir, the set designer; Hilary Armitage, the woman she already knew from the production office; Leon Shamroy, the director of photography, whom she recognised as the man in the Hawaiian shirt she had seen on set; as well as some production managers, continuity girls, and various others. Diana desperately tried to remember their names. The door opened and in walked a man with an open, friendly face that seemed familiar. He was smoking a pipe.

‘Joe, meet Diana, our new historical advisor,’ Walter called. ‘I asked her along today to see how she can be of use to you.’ This was a lie, of course; Walter hadn’t asked her at all. ‘Diana, this is Joe Mankiewicz.’

She shook hands with the director and realised she had read an interview with him in the Sunday Times; she recalled him from the photograph. He’d struck both her and Trevor as being very bright and articulate.

‘Welcome on board,’ Joe said, then sat on the edge of his desk and held out a sheaf of typewritten pages to a girl called Rosemary Matthews, who began to distribute them. ‘Give Diana a copy as well,’ he instructed.

She liked the smell of his pipe tobacco, which was like new-mown hay compared to the stale harshness of cigarette smoke. Everyone smoked here, male and female – she had yet to meet anyone who didn’t.

‘Joe rewrites the script every night,’ Walter explained. ‘We weren’t happy with the last draft. As soon as you get your copy in the morning you should read it through and tell Hilary if you can see any major problems. You’ll have to be quick, though, because we start rehearsing right after this meeting and we start shooting about noon.’

‘On the script you’ve just written?’

Joe nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s crazy but I’ve known crazier things to happen on movies. You’ll get used to it.’

They began to discuss a scene they wanted to shoot the following week down on the Anzio coast, in which Cleopatra is encamped facing Ptolemy’s troops and trying to work out how to reach Caesar to ask for his help. Joe asked Diana about the way the troops would have been positioned and she was relieved that she knew the answer and could draw a sketch for him on the back of one of the sheets of script.

He nodded, pleased. ‘OK, we can use the natural curve of the bay for that bit and have the cameras here.’ He pointed to a spot on the paper and all heads bent to look.

‘Any dialogue?’

‘I’ll keep it short,’ Joe said.

Ernesto leaned over and told her in a whisper that they avoided dialogue on exterior shots as much as possible because they would have to dub it later, which could be hit-and-miss.

‘Does anyone know if Miss Taylor is coming in today?’ someone asked.

‘Nobody called to say she isn’t,’ Walter told them.

‘Have you checked the calendar? Is it a red-letter day?’ another voice called, and there were snorts round the room, which Diana didn’t understand. She’d have to ask someone later.

They ran through the parts of the script they’d been given and Diana attempted to skim read but it was hard to comment without knowing the context. No one had any criticisms. They just talked about camera angles. It seemed more of a technical meeting than anything else.

Joe got up to leave, but turned for a word with Diana on the way out. ‘Will you leave a message at the production office to say where you’re going to be every night? In case I need to call you about something while I’m writing.’

Diana agreed that she would do, and glowed with importance. The director was going to consult her while he was writing the script! She would be on call, like a doctor.

Brimming with pride, she made her way over to Walter to ask about her other responsibilities. How did he see her role?

‘I want you to have a look at all John’s wonderful sets and discuss with him if there are any little details that could make them just a tiny bit more authentic.’

John De Cuir scowled, making it obvious he didn’t want any interference.

‘Introduce yourself in the props and costume departments and see if they want any advice,’ Walter continued. ‘Talk to people in makeup and hair. You’re the lynchpin, communicating with people across the set and raising the intellectual level of the movie.’

‘I’ve already written some notes on the outdoor sets I saw yesterday,’ she volunteered. She’d brought them with her in her handbag and started to open it.

‘Wonderful!’ Walter clasped his hands behind his back. ‘Give them to Hilary and she’ll make sure the right people see them. It’s great that you’ve got off to a flying start. Is your pensione comfortable?’

‘Charming, thank you.’

‘Good, good. Well, I better get going, but I’m really glad you are with us.’

Ernesto appeared by her side again. ‘They have some stills here from the scene that was shot of Miss Taylor at the altar of Isis. Do you want to have a look?’

Diana went over to a table by the window where the photo­grapher had laid them out. They showed Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra in front of the cauldron that Diana had seen in sound stage 5. Her appearance was completely wrong; Trevor would snort with derision if he could see it. She was wearing a low-cut evening gown, whereas Cleopatra would have worn a long high-necked tunic with coiled ropes of pearls round her neck. In that era, pearls would have been the most desirable jewel, their equivalent to diamonds, and it was known that Cleopatra was especially partial to them. Her hairstyle was wrong as well, with a fringed bob style, as was the heavy black eye makeup that curved outwards at the corners. Ancient Egyptians had used black kohl on their eyelids to protect their eyes from the sun’s rays, but it wouldn’t have been stylised like that.

‘It’s all wrong,’ she whispered to Ernesto.

He grinned. ‘You’re welcome to tell Irene Sharaff your views but take a suit of armour! She has a reputation for not welcoming criticism.’

‘Everyone keeps telling me to give my honest opinion and then they proceed to disregard it. I’ve no idea why I’m here. What am I to do for the next six months?’

He rubbed her arm sympathetically. ‘You could relax and let me show you around Rome. Or you could talk to the key people with some tact and see if you can persuade them to make minor changes to their designs. Personally, I recommend you do both.’

Before leaving the meeting, she took her notes from the previous day over to Hilary. ‘Walter said to give these to you.’

Hilary glanced at them and seemed puzzled. ‘Did he? OK. Thanks.’ She tucked them under her arm.

Ernesto hurried off and Diana returned to the office to read the script properly, but it was invented dialogue without any facts she could correct. When she finished, she decided to walk out to the back lot, where she’d been the day before, and work her way along an avenue that was marked on the map as having several workshops. The first ones she came to contained huge pieces of scenery, most of them in white marble with gold leaf decoration. There were some enormous unguent jars that looked fine from a distance but close up she could see they were papier-mâché and liable to topple over if the wind blew. She saw gold-painted cat-goddess statues but from the wrong period so she took out her notebook and made a note. There was no one around to discuss them with.

In the next workshop, a couple of Italian men were making Roman standards and she stopped to watch. They’d got the eagle’s feet curling over the SPQR lettering, and they’d inserted full stops between the initials, which was incorrect. She drew a quick sketch in her book to show them the authentic style and held it towards them.

‘It should be like this,’ she said in Italian. ‘The eagle’s feet here, and SPQR down there.’ She pointed with the tip of her pen.

‘Chi diavolo sei?’ one of them responded – ‘Who the hell are you?’ – in a manner that definitely wasn’t friendly.

‘I’m the historical advisor. From the British Museum, in London. I’ve just arrived.’

It was only then she noticed that they had already completed around fifty of the standards, which were all propped up to dry, each with the incorrect design.

‘Why don’t you fuck off back to London?’ one of the men said in accented English. He dipped his brush into a pot of gold paint and carried on with his work.

She held up her hands defensively and backed out of the workshop.