‘I’ve seen all your films,’ Beattie was now telling Tristan.
Lucy was on her way out when she heard Tristan, who’d taken an empty seat at the table, explaining the auto da fe to Beattie. ‘The Spaniards are experts at ritualistic torture,’ he was saying. ‘Look at the ballet of killing the bull. In the same way, auto da fe sets fire to humans in dunces’ caps to humiliate and express power of Church.’
‘I love Spanish men,’ said Chloe, who hadn’t been listening.
‘Me too,’ sighed Beattie.
‘Well, you’re both stupid bitches,’ said a furious voice.
Looking round, everyone was amazed to see a trembling, red-faced Lucy holding a tray, off which a glass of orange juice and a salad were sliding.
‘I hate Spaniards. Hate, hate, hate them,’ she went on hysterically. ‘When greyhounds are past their sell-by date in England, they’re sold to Spain where they’re raced into the ground.’
‘Oh, pur-lease.’ Chloe raised her eyes to heaven.
‘But the fucking Spaniards are too stingy to shoot them or put them down so they string them up in the woods with their toes just touching the ground and have bets on which is going to die first. It takes hours. The poor dogs scream in agony like the heretics. And you like fucking Spaniards?’
The appalled silence was broken by Lucy’s salad crashing to the ground, and orange juice spilling all over Chloe’s new pink dress. Flora, Baby and Granny leapt to their feet, but Tristan reached Lucy first.
‘It’s all right, sweet’eart, of course it’s terrible, whether it’s greyhounds or heretics.’
But Lucy had wriggled out of his arms and, shouting, ‘Why don’t you have a word with King Carlos? I bet he shot partridge with your father,’ she fled, sobbing, back to her caravan.
‘Dear, dear,’ drawled Chloe. ‘When make-up artists start having tantrums, the rot has set in.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ yelled Flora.
Tristan was about to go after Lucy when Bernard seized his arm and dragged him off to an urgent meeting in Sexton’s office. This Tristan did not enjoy. The budget, Sexton told him bleakly, had hit twenty-two million and was still climbing: Tristan must hurry up the crew. After a snide piece in the Stage, picked up by the nationals, the backers were getting antsy. Rannaldini must be persuaded to release more money when he returned tonight.
‘He won’t unless we allow him to do his sodding introductions.’ Tristan unwrapped another piece of chewing-gum. God, he needed a cigarette.
Sexton was just saying he couldn’t pay this week’s wages when Tab barged into the room. ‘What’s that bitch doing here?’
‘Get out,’ bellowed Bernard.
‘She was Daddy’s mistress between marriages,’ stormed Tab. ‘She nearly ruined him. She stopped him and Taggie adopting babies in England, she got Abby Rosen sacked, and she outed my brother Marcus. She’s the most evil woman in the world.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Beattie Johnson, who’s interviewing Chloe,’ said Tab. ‘In that big black bag are a hammer and nails to crucify her victims.’
‘That’s blasphemous,’ exploded Bernard.
‘But a shrewd assessment,’ agreed Sexton. ‘If Beattie stitches us up, the backers really will pull out.’
Tristan wrinkled his brow. ‘I think she’s a friend of Rannaldini. We’d better throw her out before he gets back.’
He found Beattie buttering up Pushy.
‘If you weren’t so lovely, people would take you more seriously as a singer.’
‘Sir Roberto’s always sayin’ that.’
‘He says you stand out from all the other extras.’
‘Ay’m not an extra, Ay’m a featured extra,’ said Pushy haughtily.
‘Off the record, how well do you know Alpheus Shaw? What a hunk.’
Tristan had heard enough. Beattie was incandescent with rage when he told her that a car, with her suitcases all packed in the boot, was waiting to take her back to London.
‘Do not say Liberty Productions does not evict with style,’ he added, as he opened the door for her.
Chloe was also insane with anger.
‘We hadn’t even begun the interview yet. Everything was off the record.’
‘Every inch of that evil frame is taped,’ said Tristan.
Spurred on by his meeting with Sexton, he returned to the set determined to dispatch the last gruesome seconds of the auto da fe in one stint. It was even hotter. Hermione was flushing up in her new red dress from Versace. Flora and Granny sweltered in their dark suits, but not nearly so much as Alpheus in his gold regalia, or Baby, Mikhail and the courtiers in their ermine-trimmed peers’ robes.
As Lucy, tearstained after her outburst at lunchtime, rushed round trying to cool people down with a chamois leather soaked in cologne, Baby could be heard grumbling that he’d be barbied without going near any stake.
‘If you confessed at the last moment, you could be strangled before you were burnt to death,’ volunteered a listless Flora, who hadn’t heard from George since her night with Baby.
To capture the intense drama, Tristan was using a crane to film from above, with Valentin and his camera on a tiny platform hanging twenty feet above the funeral pyre. It would be a wonderful shot, tracking over the excited crowd, the bigwigs of church and state in their gilded regalia and the poor, doomed victims. The head of Props waited with his finger on the button of the smoke-machine. The flames would be added later by special effects.
‘Take that “I survived Don Carlos” badge off at once, Baby,’ ordered Bernard. ‘Quiet, please, everyone.’
‘OK, let’s go for a quick rehearsal,’ shouted Tristan, from a first-floor window.
‘Shit,’ muttered Valentin, who from his platform could see an orange Lamborghini Diablo sneaking up the drive. ‘Rannaldini’s back.’
‘Ignore him,’ snapped Tristan.
In moved the paparazzi like a firing squad, their long lenses trained on the heretics. Swiftly the executioners chucked petrol cans of water on the shredded Scorpions, then flicking on their lighters pretended to set fire to the damp newsprint.
‘Cue for smoke,’ yelled Tristan, and a white cloud engulfed the heretics. ‘Excellent, let it clear,’ he shouted, ‘and we’ll go for a take.’
Adjusting his director’s cap to a more military angle, Tristan felt a surge of power as he looked down at the huge crowd. He was a general commanding a mighty army. The landscape shimmered with heat-haze, a hot breeze ruffled the red-tipped barley into flickering flames. He was just shuddering at the thought of Tab’s body being burnt to death when he was roused by a dreadful screaming. And fantasy became reality as the shredded newspaper beneath her stake burst into flames, and flared up around her. For a moment, everyone was motionless with horror. Then, as the screaming grew more terrified, Tristan leapt straight down into the smoke, miraculously landing safely on the stony courtyard.
‘It’s all right, chérie.’
Diving for the rope tying her to the stake, aware of flame caressing his chest, his long fingers somehow managed to untie the knot without fumbling. A moment later he had dragged Tab to safety.
Beating out the flames snaking up her yellow heretic’s robe, feeling no pain except that of frantic worry, he dragged the peer’s robes off a horrified extra and rolled Tab in them. It was over in thirty seconds.
Next moment, Wolfie, who’d been watching from a second-floor window, hurtled into the courtyard, yelling, ‘Is she OK? Get the paramedics, for Christ’s sake.’
The front of Tab’s hair, her long blonde eyelashes and her eyebrows were singed, there was a terrible stench of burning, but she didn’t appear hurt, only dazed and terrified as she collapsed sobbing wildly into Tristan’s arms. As Tristan clutched her to his sweat-drenched shirt, examining her face for burns, kissing her frizzled hair, crooning in rapid French that she mustn’t be frightened, the extras, thinking it was part of the plot, led a round of applause. As he ran into the courtyard, and sized up the situation, Rannaldini’s face was shrivelled into a mask of evil.