The Perfect Retreat Page 0,27

general, Simon had told her. Instead he was driven from place to place in a black Bentley with darkened windows. Reclusive, brilliant and married four times without any children, he was a fascinating and influential director whom the critics adored and the general public treated as an artist.

The doorbell to Willow’s suite rang. She wiped her clammy hands on the cream sofa, flipped her hair and answered the door with a smile.

‘Hello,’ she said.

A small man of about sixty, maybe older, stood on the other side of the door, wearing a silk smoking jacket, velvet slippers and a large pair of dark sunglasses. ‘Willow,’ he said in a transatlantic accent. ‘Harold Gaumont.’ He gave the briefest flicker of a smile and Willow threw her most charming one back.

‘Please come in.’ She stepped back to let Harold through into the living room. ‘I was about to order afternoon tea. Is that OK?’ she asked.

‘Can I ask you something before I make my decision about the tea?’

‘Of course,’ she said casually but racked with nerves.

Willow stood in the centre of the room waiting for the question, aware of his reputation for odd requests during auditions. She had once heard that he had put an actor through a secret audition: he had hired actors to push the man to breaking point while waiting in line at a railway station, all the while secretly filming him.

‘Can you please speak in a British accent while I visit with you?’ asked Harold.

‘Any particular region?’ asked Willow, more confidently than she felt. Please don’t ask me to do a Welsh accent, she thought desperately.

‘Think well bred, country house. Yes to the tea,’ he said.

Willow thought for a moment and Kitty jumped into her head. Channel Kitty, she thought, and she walked over to the phone, dialled the number for room service and gave the order for tea in a perfect English accent.

Harold sat down, smiled, took off his glasses and laid them on the table between them. ‘Excellent start, Willow. Now why do you want to be in my film?’ he asked, and sat back in his chair, resting the tips of his fingers together and placing them in front of his face.

Willow looked at him closely. He was quite handsome without the glasses, sort of like David Niven crossed with Willy Wonka, she thought.

‘Well, I would love to be in one of your films. Your work is legendary,’ answered Willow honestly, in an accent that could have cut glass.

‘Naturally,’ he said, with no arrogance at all. ‘But why do you want to be in my film personally? You haven’t worked in what? Five or six years? You won an Oscar for a film that really wasn’t worth an Oscar nomination. You must have been surprised when you won?’ he said, not unkindly.

Willow paused for a moment.

‘I was surprised to win,’ Willow said, still speaking in a perfect accent. She looked down at the table and straightened his sunglasses. ‘Honestly? I need the work. I need it more than you will ever understand. I want to work, I need to work, and I want to do something that I can actually be proud of, not like that silly film I won the Oscar for.’ As she spoke her eyes filled with tears and she realised it was all true. She was unworthy of the Oscar and she did want to work. She had three children and a fuckwit of a husband. It was time to get real, even in a faux English accent.

Harold lowered his hands and rubbed them together. ‘Good answer. Now where’s my tea that you promised me?’

Just as he spoke the doorbell rang again and Willow let the waiter in with their afternoon tea. ‘Thank you. I’ll take it from here,’ said Willow to the waiter, still in her accent.

The waiter recognised Willow. He tried not to roll his eyes. Those bloody Americans who spent a few years here and then ended up speaking like the Princess of Wales, he thought as he left her suite.

Willow set up the tea in front of her and Harold. ‘Shall I be mother?’ she asked as she turned the teapot.

‘Yes please,’ he said. Willow poured the tea and set the tiny sandwiches and cakes out in front of them both.

‘Milk? Sugar?’ she asked.

‘Both please,’ he answered, as he watched her carefully pour the tea into the fine china cups.

‘Are you married, Willow?’

‘I was,’ she said. ‘Now separated.’

‘Ah; very modern thing, divorce. I’ve done it many times. You