Fame and Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte

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СКАЧАТЬ threw a pillow into the back seat. ‘Put Mr Muscle down for five minutes and try and get some sleep.’

      ‘What do you think?’

      Viorel looked across Loxley’s deer park to the house in the distance. It was still early morning, and a low, dawn mist hung over the grass like a gossamer shroud. In the air he could smell scents at once deeply familiar and long forgotten – wood smoke, mown grass, rain, honeysuckle – smells of the English countryside. It felt bizarre to be standing here next to Dorian Rasmirez, of all people, with the director holding out his hand like a proud father, as if the exquisite Elizabethan manor were his home and not some movie location he’d rented by the hour.

      ‘I think it’s perfect,’ said Vio. ‘Quintessentially English. Merchant Ivory couldn’t have dreamed this place up.’

      He’d arrived from LA very late last night and gone straight to his room to crash. The housekeeper who’d shown him where he’d be sleeping was a real blast from his boarding-school past, a bossy, no-nonsense matron type who could not have been less impressed by Viorel’s movie-star status.

      ‘Clean towels are in the cupboard,’ she said brusquely. ‘Sheets are changed on Mondays, and if you want a cooked breakfast you need to be down by half-past eight.’ She was gone with a swish of her tartan dressing gown before Viorel had a chance to ask her her name, let alone where breakfast would be served, or whether she had such a thing as an alarm clock. As it turned out, he didn’t need one. After a fitful night’s sleep on a bed that seemed to have been fashioned out of a solid slab of granite, he woke before dawn to the sound of rooks cawing in the trees and had to pinch himself in order to remember that this was not in fact 1996, he was not in his bedroom in Martha Hudson’s Dorset rectory, and that his fabulous LA life, fame and success were not merely a beautiful dream from which he had just woken up.

      After a cold shower (no hot water till seven, he later learned), he pulled on a pair of vintage Levis and a blue silk Armani sweater and headed downstairs in search of the kitchen and a cup of coffee. Everyone else was asleep, so the house was quiet and gloomy. It took Vio a while to get his bearings. The place was enormous, a veritable maze of corridors, with servants’ staircases popping up in unexpected places and leading you into another section of the rabbit warren. Vio had been in hundreds of similar houses growing up: grand, old, down-at-heel. Hundreds of bedrooms, no bathrooms. Everyone living in the kitchen. But his memories of England had not been happy ones, and the familiarity of Loxley Hall made him more queasy than it did nostalgic.

      Once he found the kitchen, however, he perked up. It was cheerful and bright, with a large jug full of daffodils on the table and a child’s scribbled artwork Blu-tacked to the cupboards. There was real coffee in the fridge, and bacon, and someone had helpfully left a sliced white Hovis loaf and a frying pan out on the table. Two bacon sandwiches and a mug of coffee later, feeling infinitely revived, Vio was just about to explore outside when he ran into Dorian, another early riser. They agreed to take a walk together.

      ‘Wait till you see the farmhouse,’ said Dorian excitedly. ‘It’s like they designed the thing to Brontë’s exact specifications. You’ll love it.’

      Vio followed him down a steeply sloping sheep track.

      ‘You can cross the river at the bottom,’ Dorian panted over his shoulder. ‘Then it’s up the other side and over the hill.’

      ‘What are the family like?’ asked Vio, making conversation as they trudged along. ‘They’re living here for the duration, I gather? That’s a bit unorthodox, isn’t it?’

      ‘It was cheaper,’ said Dorian frankly. ‘We’ve got to save money somewhere if we’re going to pay your fee.’

      Viorel grinned. ‘Touché.’

      ‘Anyway, as it turns out, it’s only one girl and her son,’ said Dorian. ‘Tish Crewe. She’s terrific actually.’

      Terrific? Vio’s ears pricked up. ‘How old is she?’

      ‘Mid-to late-twenties, I guess. The kid’s five.’

      ‘Cute?’

      ‘Oh, adorable. Five’s a great age for a boy.’ Dorian tripped over a bramble and almost went flying.

      ‘Not the kid,’ Vio laughed, helping him to his feet. ‘The girl.’

      Dorian frowned. ‘She’s attractive. Not your type though.’

      ‘Meaning what?’ said Viorel. ‘I don’t have a type.’

      ‘Sure you do,’ said Dorian. ‘I’ve seen your press. The girls on your arm are glamazons. Tish isn’t glamorous. Besides,’ he added, ‘she’s in love with some French doctor.’

      Viorel raised an eyebrow. ‘Wow. You’ve really got to know this woman. She’s confiding in you about her love life already?’ He nudged Dorian in the ribs. ‘Maybe she likes you.’

      ‘Grow up,’ said Dorian crossly.

      ‘Maybe you like her?’ Viorel teased. ‘Am I getting warm, Il Direttore?’

      ‘No, you are not getting warm. I’m a happily married man.’

      This was stretching a point at the moment, but it was true that Dorian had zero romantic interest in anyone other than Chrissie. Tish Crewe was charming and kind and, if he were honest, Dorian probably was a little star-struck by her family background. He might have inherited what Chrissie would insist on describing as a ‘fuck-off castle’, but the Crewes clearly sprang from a far more ancient and senior branch of the aristocratic tree. None of which amounted to Dorian ‘liking’ Tish Crewe, at least not in Viorel Hudson’s sense of the word.

      ‘We’ve been thrown together in the same house for a week,’ he said defensively. ‘Of course we’re going to talk. And yes, I do like her. Just not in the way you mean.’

      Viorel looked sceptical but said nothing. They’d reached the river now and began the short but gruelling climb up the other side of the fell. It was still only eight o’clock, and walking in the shade you could feel a distinct chill in the air.

      ‘What time are the others arriving?’ asked Viorel, changing the subject.

      ‘Sabrina and Lizzie should be here later this morning,’ said Dorian. ‘Jamie and Rhys both got in yesterday.’

      Lizzie Bayer, a well-known American television actress, was playing Isabella Linton, Heathcliff’s wife. Jamie Duggan, a Scottish theatre actor, was playing Catherine’s husband, Edgar Linton. And the unknown Rhys Evans had been cast as Hareton Earnshaw, the young Catherine’s love interest at the movie’s end. Along with Viorel and Sabrina, Lizzie, Jamie and Rhys made up the core cast.

      ‘I’m starting with you and Sabrina, though, first thing tomorrow. You know that, right? Heathcliff’s return-from-exile scene, outside Thrushcross Grange?’

      ‘Absolutely,’ said Vio. He hoped Sabrina would arrive on time and in a fit state to run through the scene with him privately before the morning. He’d tried to contact her numerous times in LA since the read-through, offering to work on their joint scenes together, but she’d blown him off each time. ‘I work better alone,’ she told him arrogantly. ‘If you’re nervous about your scenes, talk to Rasmirez. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.’

      Vio СКАЧАТЬ