The Invitation(89)

Morgan looks genuinely bereft. He makes such a pathetic figure that Hal feels, momentarily, rather sorry for him. ‘We were going to have a good time.’

‘Yes.’ Gaspari nods. ‘They send their regrets.’

Now Stella steps into the breach. ‘Tell me, Mr Morgan. You were talking about the Oscars, I think …?’ She draws him a little way away, as though in confidence. Something about the earnestness of her expression – as though she were talking soberly to a guest at a dinner party – makes Hal smile.

‘How did you do it?’ he whispers to Gaspari.

The director looks pained. ‘I’m not proud of it. I made sure it was worth their while to leave …’

‘You paid them?’

‘Yes – what they would have made from him. I think they understood it was in their best interest. That way they got their money without having to deal with a drunken American actor – or an unconscious one, or worse.’

‘Ah.’

‘Still, there’s nothing stopping them from making some trouble if they want to – telling some grubbing journalist about it. But with no proof, it won’t carry much weight. We are lucky that we are not in Rome. There, there is always a man following with a camera.’

Suddenly there is a cry behind them. Hal turns to see Morgan pawing at Stella, his great hand upon her waist while she tries to extricate herself from his grasp. It is such an unexpected sight that both he and Gaspari are frozen on the spot for several seconds.

‘Per amor di Dio . . .’ Gaspari mutters.

Without pausing to think, Hal launches himself at Morgan.

‘Hal,’ he hears Stella say, ‘don’t …’

In Morgan’s state, all his brawn is useless, and he yields instantly to the force of Hal’s shove. Hal finds himself sprawling upon the ground with Morgan’s face – wearing an expression of slack-jawed surprise – beneath his own. If he had his wits about him, he would stop, now. But he finds himself pulling his arm back and catching Morgan a hard blow across the face. He is ready to go again when he realizes that he can’t get his arm free, that he is being restrained.

‘My friend. ‘That is enough.’

He turns and sees Gaspari, gripping his forearm with both bony hands. Only when he is satisfied that Hal has calmed sufficiently does he let go.

‘I think,’ the director says, in an undertone, ‘we will not speak of any of this again.’

‘No.’ And Hal understands that by this he means to encompass everything – the last part most of all. He glances across at Stella and sees her face. He has to look away. Her disappointment nearly floors him.

He wakes, and then wonders why he has done so: it is still dark. Then he realizes that there is a knocking – soft, but insistent, at his door. He opens it to find Stella standing there in the shirt she sleeps in. Instantly, he is filled with longing. He wants to gather her to him – but as he goes towards her she shakes her head.

‘No, Hal. I have to go back in a few seconds. I told him I was going to get a glass of water.’

He quashes the surge of irritation and jealousy this provokes in him. A matter of days, and she will be his.

‘I don’t know if we should go.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It may have ruined everything.’ She speaks in a whisper, but there is all the force of her anger in it. ‘Don’t you see how it looked? Your overreaction?’

‘I couldn’t let him do that.’

‘Oh,’ she is exasperated. ‘Don’t be absurd. Do you think I can’t protect myself from him? He is a drunken fool.’

‘Stella,’ he says, ‘it will be fine.’

‘But what if he talks about what happened? How you reacted? Frank will guess …’

‘That I knocked him out because he was pawing at you? It doesn’t exactly paint him in the best light, does it? I don’t think he will be in a hurry to tell anyone. Not when he’s the hero of his own story. You’re worrying too much.’

‘What about Gaspari?’

‘Not a chance. If he has guessed, then he is on our side.’

She runs a hand through her hair. ‘It could have ruined everything.’

He nods. ‘All right. I’m sorry.’

‘Good.’ A brief smile. And then, with a quick movement, she turns her face up and kisses him. It is almost violent, and he thinks he again tastes the salt of tears on her lips. But before he can look at her properly, she pulls away.

‘Goodnight, Hal.’

‘Goodnight, Stella.’





36


He is sitting on deck, looking across at San Remo, the sorbet colours paled by the morning light. They set sail soon for Cannes. It will be the first time he has left Italy in several years.

In his mind he is threading the stages of their journey together. In Cannes, he will do some reconnaissance the morning before the screening, and find somewhere disreputable-looking enough to make them new documents without any risk of it getting back to the police. He’ll use his old photograph, but Stella doesn’t have her passport. Truss has it. It is too much of a risk to try and take it from him, and chance him noticing. Hal feels certain, though, that they will work something out. He feels certain about all of it – about the rightness of it – more than he has about anything in as long as he can remember. He feels as though he has reconnected with life. He wants to wrest things from it. Incredible to think that such a short time ago he was quite content to drift through it.