One-man Woman Read online

  One-man Woman

  By

  Jessica Ayre

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  ONE-MAN WOMAN

  Never again would Jennie let a man invade her feelings, only to shatter the equilibrium of her life, the way Max had done so cruelly. In future she was going to concentrate on her very pleasant job as a television make-up girl, and leave men severely alone. But how long would she keep her resolve, once she had met Derek Hunter?

  Another book you will enjoy

  by

  JESSICA AYRE

  NOT TO BE TRUSTED

  Lynda Harrow was a very talented interior designer—without conceit, she knew it; and she ought to have worked very well with the equally talented architect Paul Overton. So it was very disheartening when he seemed to be doing all he could to disparage her and her work. It was even more disheartening when she fell in love with him—and realised that the glamorous Vanessa Tarn had got there first!

  First published 1982

  Australian copyright 1982

  Philippine copyright 1983

  This edition 1983

  © Jessica Ayre 1982

  ISBN 0 263 74121 4

  05-0283

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jennie Lewis stood back to look at the face beneath her. It had put on years in minutes. She gently added another furrow to the brow, drew a few more pale, crinkly lines around the corners of the mouth. Then she dabbed some blue-grey cream under the eyes and rubbed it in delicately with her fingertips.

  'I think that's it,' she said. 'You can look now.'

  Daniela Colombi raised her head and opened lustrous eyes wide to look into the brightly-lit mirror.

  'Madre mia!' Her shriek pierced the quiet of the dressing-room, making the walls echo. 'What have you done to me, you cruel girl?'

  Jennie flinched as if she had been hit.

  'My instructions were to age you by some thirty years,' she controlled her voice, 'and I've done just that.'

  'You've done it too well,' Daniela Colombi muttered. 'I look older than my mother—per Dio, my grandmother!' She grimaced into the mirror, tried a smile, then a frown, and sighing, reached for the slightly scruffy grey-streaked wig perched on a dummy's head at the corner of the dressing table. She pulled it over the transparent plastic cap which covered her own luxuriant curls and gazed at her reflection. Suddenly a deep throaty laugh broke from her. It so jarred with the newly wrinkled face and thin-lipped mouth that Jennie too found herself giggling.

  'You're brilliant, my Jennie, brilliant!' Daniela Colombi turned and patted Jennie's smudged hand. 'I must only swallow my enormous vanity and get used to my new self.' She got out of her chair, and then catching herself, sat down again and repeated the gesture more slowly, as if arthritis had suddenly gripped her joints.

  Then she gave Jennie a sly wink, smoothed down the shapeless black dress which added pounds to her curves, and shuffled slowly towards the door.

  Jennie watched the Italian actress in amazement mingled with admiration. Beautiful, voluptuous Daniela Colombi had turned into a suffering, shabby old woman. Reaching for a glass of tepid water, Jennie breathed a sigh of relief and sank into the nearest chair. She wiped a bead of perspiration from her brow and allowed herself a moment's rest.

  They had been shooting for some weeks now and the pace had never slowed. It was Jennie's first major television film job. The cast and production team were of international repute and despite herself, Jennie was secretly thrilled. Her initial trepidation at working with stars had faded as she quickly fell in with the smooth professionalism of the rest of the team. Only Daniela Colombi presented a problem, and the make-up supervisor had assigned her specifically to Daniela. It had taken Jennie a little time to get used to Daniela's open shows of temperament, her rapid and violent shifts of mood, her outspokenness. She was quite unlike any actress Jennie had worked with before. Her blatant vanity, her quickwitted digs if everything wasn't just right, made Jennie nervous. Yet the actress's genuine warmth, her ability to vent her feelings immediately and loudly, had grown on Jennie.

  So unlike me, Jennie thought as she pulled herself to her feet. She put together the creams, crayons, powders she would need for touching up between takes, washed her hands, drying them carelessly on her slender jean-clad legs, and strode out into the studio.

  Once again the labyrinthine complexity of the vast space took her by surprise. A warren of constructed in—some with ceilings, some without, always with their fourth wall missing, like little makebelieve rooms in a doll's house. Yet lifesize, and set off from each other by lanes filled with soft-ware: cameras, monitors, lights. If she raised her head she saw a tangled web of girders and beams from which outlandish instruments projected, like some intricate spacecraft from the year 2500. It was all strangely hushed, lifeless, despite the seemingly random movement of people, the echoing sound. Until suddenly, with the clack of a clapperboard, lights and actors brought one room in the maze, one particular set, to life.

  The commotion at one end of the large hangar-like space indicated to Jennie that they hadn't yet started to shoot. As she approached, she noticed Daniela Colombi at the centre of a noisy group. Among them were Matthew Tarn, the bulky good-natured English director; and his Italian assistant, Piero Sraffa, quick and elegant in his movements. Towering over the others was the scriptwriter, Derek Hunter, his blue gaze unseeingly directed at Jennie.

  Jennie stopped in her tracks until Daniela waved her insistently towards the group. 'Come, Jennie, you're the one they should be congratulating, not me. I'm simply your creation.'

  Jennie felt a flush rising to her cheeks, as Daniela urged her to the centre of the hubbub. She hated being conspicuous and she stood there uncomfortably, shifting from foot to foot, as the other woman acknowledged her handiwork.

  'Let me tell you something,' Daniela Colombi looked at her conspiratorially and stage-whispered. 'They all secretly prefer me this way.' She cast her oddly wrinkled luminous eyes over the group of men. 'The all-embracing peasant mamma they never had—and too old to challenge them!' She burst into an infectious laugh which stopped short as she met Jennie's eyes. 'Oh, I'm embarrassing you, cara.'

  Jennie shook her head a little stiffly. But she was grateful that Matthew Tarn chose this moment to call them to work. She briskly inspected Daniela's face, then turned toward a chair at the far end of the set. Just as she was moving out of earshot, she overheard Daniela say, 'So solemn, these English girls. What's wrong with you men? Can't you bring a smile to her lips?'

  Jennie felt herself flush again. She was relieved that she was now all but invisible to the rest of the crew, and could watch their co-ordinated activity from a safe distance.

  A hush fell over the set and as the clapper boy shouted out, 'Scene 212, Take 1,' an old peasant woman busied herself with scrubbing the stone floor. Despite the intrusive floodlights, the movement of the cameramen, Jennie was transported to a Sicilian kitchen, only to be rudely thrust back into the present by a shout, 'Boom!' .

  Jennie shook her head and smiled. It had never ceased to amaze her that with all this sophisticated technology no one had ever devised a sensitive microphone which didn't need to be held on a long pole over the set and inevitably cast its shadow on something or someone. Now the scene had to be started all over again. Jennie laughed to herself. Daniela couldn't often have scrubbed floors, but she did it with an air of practised authenticity.

  The distinct impression that a gaze was moving up her spine and fastening its
elf to the nape of her neck startled Jennie back to reality, and she turned abruptly to look over her shoulder and the make-up kit fell off her lap, clattering to the floor. Jennie groaned and simultaneously heard the director's exasperated, 'Cut. Can we have quiet over there, please?' She murmured an apology, picked up the kit and moved noiselessly back to her chair.

  A featherlight tap on her shoulder almost made her jump out of her seat again, but she controlled her movements, only lifting her face slightly. Yes, she had been half prepared for the face she would meet—Derek Hunter's. His sea-blue eyes had left their imprint on her before, but she was unprepared for the frank intimacy of his gaze now, as his fingers lingered on her shoulder and he mouthed a soundless, 'Sorry.'

  Jennie gave him a withering look, jerking away from his touch and fixing her eyes deliberately on the set in front of her. But it wasn't so easy to rid herself of the sense of Derek Hunter's presence. She had noticed over the weeks how behind the coolly relaxed, the friendly facade, there was a fierce energy, an almost reckless determination. It showed itself in the sudden flare of his nostrils whenever there were arguments over even a detail of the script; and he inevitably got his way. Jennie had also observed that even the apparently fearless Daniela was a little in awe of him, listening carefully when he went over the script with her or made directorial suggestions, and looking for his approval between takes.

  She felt her eyes now drawn toward him. Covertly she caught the outline of his long legs stretched carelessly in front of him, the movement of a hand through a thick mass of burnished hair.

  'Cut. We'll take that again.' Matthew Tarn's voice was the signal for Jennie to move into action. She walked towards Daniela, aware of Derek Hunter's soft tread just behind her, and then matching hers.

  'Sorry about all that before.'

  'Oh, it's all right.' She kept her voice cool, impassive.

  'Can I take you out for a drink tonight to make up for it?' He made her turn to face him and she looked up to see a humorous glint in his eyes.

  Jennie shook her head, relieved to hear Daniela's voice calling hep. It saved the necessity of finding excuses.

  'Come quickly, Jennie, I think the years are melting off!' Jennie hurried to repair the wrinkles and creases on Daniela's face, and Derek followed.

  'Are you two, how do you say it, hatching something together?' Daniela looked at them quizzically. 'I warn you, Jennie, don't steal my boy away from me.' Daniela had taken on her character's plaintive croon, but Jennie detected an undercurrent of seriousness in her tone, a knife-edge of menace, and it surprised her. Was there something between Daniela and Derek Hunter? She spent so much effort keeping herself to herself that she hadn't noticed. Yet the thought troubled her a little. Daniela, she knew, was married, or had been married, to a famous Italian producer. Their union had been prominent in the press some years back. But perhaps… Jennie chased the fruitless speculations from her head and busied herself with pencils and creams. It was, after all, none of her business.

  For some time now Jennie had deliberately steered well clear of all relations beyond the professional. She had put behind her any thought of close friendship, of men, of anything that would intrude on her private life. A chill ran through her as she pushed the reasons why from her mind and concentrated on dabbing a little powder on Pamela's nose.

  Derek meanwhile had taken Daniela's cue and was improvising a little comic scene.

  'Oh, Mamma, how could your little boy leave you yet? He's only approaching middle age and desperately needs you to look after him. Like all good boys.'

  Daniela gave him a playful kick and relaxed her face into Jennie's hands. 'That one, Jennie, is a dangerous man. He pretends to be all kindness and light, and underneath he's like granite. One has to take a hammer to him.'

  'Mamma always knows best,' Derek joked, but his deep wide-set eyes as they momentarily met Jennie's over the unseeing Daniela were strangely cold.

  Matthew Tarn strolled over with Arno Sati, the gentle, somewhat weatherbeaten actor who was playing Daniela's husband in later age. 'Almost ready, Jennie?'

  She nodded.

  'Good. And no accidents this take, please. I want to finish on time tonight, not only to save pennies, but so that we all get a proper break over the weekend.'

  Jennie bridled at the rebuke, but said nothing. Derek's eyes were on her again, charged with an insistence which was almost palpable. She tried to still the slight quiver of her hands and moved quietly away to the far edge of the set, hoping he wouldn't follow her.

  A question from Arno kept him with the others as they once again paced out the movements for the scene. Jennie watched him from her safe distance: the tall, broad-shouldered, firm body, tensed, yet with an athlete's agility, was somehow incongruous with what she knew was a keen intelligence. She had heard him briefing the cast at the beginning of the film, and his perceptions on Italian history and current politics—not a subject she was in the least familiar with or indeed particularly interested in— had captured her imagination.

  It was odd, too, that he seemed to be playing such an active part in the shooting of the film. In her year's experience of working on television plays, she hadn't yet encountered a writer intervening quite so much in the filming. The word was that directors normally kept them at bay, worried that there might be arguments, concerned that actors and cameramen didn't receive two separate sets of instructions and grow disgruntled. Yet Derek and Matthew worked well together, bantering, discussing, one happy to accommodate the other's ideas.

  Over the year Jennie had grown to love the work she had taken up only in order to keep skin and bone together. When things were going well during filming there was a sense of camaraderie, a team spirit which was quite unique in her lonely life. But she continued to keep herself separate, to guard her apartness. There was too much she felt she had to hide, and any intrusion on this self-enforced privacy might topple the fortress of order she had struggled so hard to build. Never again would she let a man invade her feelings, only to shatter the equilibrium of her life. Meanwhile, she realised, she was almost happy.

  'Cut!' Matthew's voice and the sound of the clapper broke into Jennie's reflections. She hurried to see whether Daniela's face needed touching up. Matthew was giving instructions to the cameramen and lighting technicians to reshoot part of the scene from a different angle.

  Jennie had been astounded at how slow and repetitive filming was. Each brief take could be repeated countless times until the tedium was resounding. Yet there was also an excitement to it all, a rising tension tempered only by replays of the scenes on the monitors, when they were using video-cameras.

  She applied some light greyish powder to Daniela's face, took a hurried look at Arno and moved quickly out of the way. She was the only make-up woman on the set for the moment and she didn't want any more rebukes from Matthew or glances from Derek. Thinking of him, she had the distinct impression that she could once again feel his eyes on her. Her hand moved unconsciously to the nape of her neck and turning her head a little, she saw that he had followed her to her place at the edge of the set. He gave her a slow questioning smile and sat down next to her.

  Jennie focussed her eyes on Daniela and Arno, watched the flow of their gestures and voices as they acted out the scene. Daniela was really remarkably good. Jennie could hardly believe she was the same woman who had walked into the studio that morning. And it wasn't only her new face or her clothes, but the way she had matched each motion to the character.

  'All right, everyone, let's call it a day now.' The floor manager's voice rang out across the studio as he relayed Matthew's instructions from the monitoring room above. A hum of conversation and activity sprang up from all sides. Jennie got to her feet to go and help Daniela remove her thick make-up, but a restraining hand held her back, and she turned round and found herself face to face with Derek, her eyes level with the soft material of his shirt taut over broad shoulders. He placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face to meet his. Jen
nie lurched backwards away from his touch and collided with Jim, the chief sound technician.

  'Sorry,' she muttered, feeling ridiculous.

  'Are you sure you don't want that drink?' Derek asked, the insistence of his eyes belying the humorous tilt of his lips. 'It might steady you.'

  'You'll be lucky if you can get a yes out of this lady,' Jim intervened drolly. 'I've tried for months—offered her. castles in Spain, dinners at the Savoy, glittering diamonds, even myself. And still she said no.' Jim shook his head in mock despair. 'But perhaps she'll respond to your greater charms.' He flashed them both a smile and sauntered off.

  'Difficult, are you?' Derek looked her up and down with evident curiosity.

  'Perhaps I am,' Jennie flung at him, her embarrassment tinged now with anger. 'And the answer is still no.' She strode off to the dressing room, letting her long legs carry her as quickly as they could without breaking into a run.

  In the dressing room, Daniela had stripped off her wig and was rubbing her face with cold cream. 'I thought I might try going out in the streets with this old face just to see how people responded, but I lost my nerve.' Daniela grimaced despondently. 'I depend on men's glances far too much. I need them to confirm that I exist, exist beautifully. Not like you, eh, my modest little wildflower? Untouched by the eyes of men.'

  Jennie shrugged. When she thought about it, she realised that she spent much of her time trying to be invisible. But untouched? Involuntarily, her hand moved to the nape of her neck and she felt the imprint of Derek's look. She ripped Daniela's plastic cap off with unusual force and watched the richly auburn curls tumble about her face and shoulders.

  Daniela caught her eye in the mirror. 'I've made you angry, Jennie. I'm sorry. It's this big mouth of mine— everything comes spilling through it. But I'm right, no?' she curved her full lips into a pout. 'You forgive me, yes? and when we finish this film, I'll make you up. You'll see, you'll be even more beautiful than you are now.'