Part 22 (1/2)
She stood up and wrapped the beach towel around her waist. He was still smiling. Indulgent eyes dancing in the crags of his cheeks.
”I trust you have enjoyed yourself?”
”Yes, I have. Thank you, Mr. Crouch.”
”Call me Ozzie.”
The wind was cooler now. They were high up, half a mile or so above sea level at least. Meredith could see Florence from where she stood. Village roads lined by ancient fieldstone and cypress trees looped down the foothills and joined in the city. Thousands of orange-tiled rooftops and Medici-era battlements surrounded the great orb of the Duomo, its roof gleaming pinkish in the afternoon light. It looked close enough to touch, even though Meredith knew it was actually a half-hour's drive away.
”Recognize it?”
”Florence?”
”The view.”
It was not a question that demanded an answer. Meredith shook her head.
”It's the same one they used in A Room with a View. The director was an old friend of mine. I let him shoot a few exteriors from here. After the film came out they issued a new edition of the book and came up and photographed it again for the dust jacket. I'll show it to you one day.”
The breeze came up. Meredith s.h.i.+vered. Ozzie slipped off his robe, revealing more of himself than she was entirely comfortable seeing, and threw it over a chair. She could sense the other guests around the pool stirring from their prostrate positions and taking notice of what was going on behind the potted lemon tree.
”I was just about to take my afternoon swim,” said Ozzie. ”Why don't you go back to your room and get changed for dinner and then meet me in the library around five? I have something I want to show you.” He checked his wrist.w.a.tch, a stainless steel mariner's model with more switches and dials and gauges than a submarine control panel.
”How did you know who I was?”
”I recognized you from the photographs.”
”What photographs?”
”The ones your mother sent. When you were a little thing. Irma and I were once great friends, you know.”
”She mentioned something.”
”I've always taken an interest in your progress. And now I finally get the chance to meet you as an adult. I understand you were working on my latest film in London.”
Meredith dragged her bare toes across the edge of a large pink flagstone. ”That didn't exactly work out.”
That grin again. Like a hungry cat. For a moment she was afraid he might actually open his mouth and lick his chops.
”Do not worry, my dear. It was all for the best. I'd never let a good script girl go to waste. You are...” He hesitated, waved a finger around and let it fall to his chin with a professorial tap. ”Far too important to the process.”
Meredith gave a skeptical snort. ”It's a craft. At best.”
”Yes,” said Osmond. ”And there are too few craftspeople in our industry today. Too many auteurs, not enough craftspeople. Too much creativity, not enough continuity.”
Osmond patted her cheek and strode off toward the diving board to take his afternoon swim.
16.
Osmond and Meredith met in the library at the appointed time. He bowed slightly when she entered and offered a Bellini. A finger moved over his lips. Then he walked over to one of the bookcases and pulled it aside with a magician's flourish. Where the shelf had once stood was a small door, flat to the wall, with an arched top. He took a candle from the top of the piano and lit it. Without breaking the silence, he opened a troll-size door and led Meredith down a long hallway, a tunnel really, with a crumbly clay floor and ceilings so low even a tall child would have had to stoop to get through.
”The monks built this place in the seventeenth century as an escape route,” Osmond began in the solemn tone of a tour guide. ”They never were attacked, although one of the subsequent owners, a French countess, was bludgeoned to death by her cook and left to die here. And of course the n.a.z.is occupied the place during the war. G.o.d knows what nastiness they got up to.”
At the end of the tunnel was a bolted doorway. A line of white light glowed in the s.p.a.ce between the floor and the crooked wooden slats. Osmond handed Meredith the candle and withdrew a long rusted iron key from his pocket. He opened the door and Meredith stumbled behind him into the early evening glow. She inhaled as though she had not drawn breath for several minutes.
”Mmm,” said Osmond, raising his hand to the twilight. ”Shame we're not shooting today.”
The garden was gloriously ill-tended, an open expanse contained by high stone walls and spilling over with roses in full bloom, their fleshy petals spread and vulgar with scent. Jasmine and ivy vines made stealthy progress over everything that was not alive or asleep, twining themselves over a birdbath, a sundial and a crumbling marble bench, even climbing up the warty trunks of a clutch of ancient trees. In the corner a fountain burbled, glugging bilious water from the mouth of a cement stag. The animal looked about to dash, frozen mid-leap and vomiting swamp water. Lily pads floated on the surface of the small pond. Beneath the surface Meredith saw a metallic flash. Goldfish.
”Welcome to my movie set,” Osmond said with deliberate ostentation. ”Come.” He led her down the path, under a wrought-iron arch and behind a rosebush that looked and smelled like a rich lady's cheek. There, hidden to the uninitiated eye, was a crumbly stone outbuilding.
Osmond took another key from his pocket and winked. ”Step into my trailer.”
Inside, the building was filled to the rafters with film equipment, some of it state-of-the-art, some of it vintage, and everything in between. There were four cameras, a Steadicam holder, two dollies and a pile of slates. High canvas folding chairs were stacked up against the wall in a row beside a mahogany makeup vanity, salon chair and lighted mirror. Meredith saw standing lights, smoke machines and fans. In the corner stood a huge metal contraption she took to be a generator, and beyond that, Osmond indicated a door leading to a private editing suite. A rack of costumes lined the back wall. Silk dresses and men's summer suits dangled askew from satin-covered hangers. The place even had the carnival smell of a film set. Meredith turned to Osmond, astonished.
”What do you do here?”
”I make my movie.”
”But where's your cast and crew?”
”You've met most of them already. Reno, the butler, he's my leading man, as well as my director of photography. And my first a.s.sistant. And Marcella, the woman who served your dinner, plays opposite him. She is my muse, an old-fas.h.i.+oned star. Knows how to find her light without being told. She's also the wardrobe stylist, the dolly grip, the second AD and the focus puller.”
”So who operates the camera?”
”I do, of course. All proper directors do.”
”And what about sound?”
”No need. It isn't a talkie.”
Meredith snorted. ”You. Osmond Crouch. Hollywood big shot. Purveyor of box-office-record-breaking commercial entertainment. In the twenty-first century. Are making a silent film?”
”What is wrong with that?” His tone was wounded.
”I'm just surprised.”
”You are?”
”Obviously.”
”Obviously what?” He shut the door behind him. The room got darker. There was a defensive glint in his eye. ”I don't see that there is anything obvious about it.”
”No, no, of course not.” Meredith said this in what she hoped was a rea.s.suring tone. ”That's just the thing. It's unusual. I mean it's cool. Very...ahead of the curve.” She watched his shoulders, which had become pugilistically hunched, lower themselves an inch or so. ”How long have you been working on it?”
”Including script development?” Osmond looked at his watch. ”About fifteen years.”