her daily activity unnerved her. She wished he would leave her alone. She felt the familiar edge of the pavement with her stick. Just five more steps to her table. Angelo, the head waiter, always kept it for her so there was no embarrassment, no need to move someone else on. Her hand reached out for the familiar back of the chair and she sat down.
‘Well,’ the young man said, ‘it was lovely to meet you… I’ve often wondered about you.’
It was such an odd thing to say… so intrusive. She looked up and could see his outline. He was tall and dark-haired. But in spite of his forward manner, she felt drawn to him; she wished she could see his face properly.
‘I’m sure I don’t know why,’ she replied.
‘Oh, I don’t mean to be rude – forgive me.’ He sounded nervous. ‘I merely meant that you are so elegant, and every day you sit here, drinking your coffee, studying the paper with your magnifying glass.’
‘Well,’ she said, smiling faintly, wishing to bring an end to the conversation. ‘Goodbye then. And thank you again.’
He bowed and moved out of her field of vision.
Angelo placed a cup of coffee on the table, together with a folded copy of La Stampa, her daily newspaper.
‘Ecco, signora,’ he said politely.
‘Grazie.’
Livia took a little sip of the coffee and felt it reviving her. She opened her handbag, retrieved the silver-handled magnifying glass and laid it next to the coffee cup. Unfolding the paper, she spread it out, holding the magnifying glass to her eye so she could follow one line of print at a time.
She perused the headlines, before turning to the inside pages, where her eye was drawn to a story about an Italian actress who had just died. The name was familiar – Isabella Bellucci, otherwise known as la fidanzatina d’Italia – Italy’s little sweetheart. She had risen to stardom in the late 1930s, the paper said. She had married a British businessman after the war, and retired to the hills around Rome. Her son had died twenty years before, leaving one solitary grandson.
Livia felt her pulse quicken. She began to turn the pages of the paper, searching for a longer obituary. As she read about Isabella’s life – of her wartime experiences, of the scandals, the trial – she thought back to those days during the war, when trust in Italy was in short supply, betrayal was everywhere and the world went mad.
Part One
The Fascist Years 1941–1943
‘Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.’
Benito Mussolini, known as ‘Il Duce’,
the Prime Minister of Italy 1922–1943
One
Cinecittà studios, Rome
September 1941
‘Signorina Bellucci, they’re ready for you now.’
It was Mario, the assistant floor manager, poking his head around the make-up room door.
Isabella took one last look at herself in the mirror. Her dark hair was waved to perfection, her rosebud mouth rouged. False eyelashes had been painstakingly applied one at a time to her top lids, giving her the wide-eyed girlish look her fans adored.
The make-up artist brushed away the excess powder from Isabella’s flawless pan-caked complexion, put a smudge of Vaseline on her lips to add a little shine, and removed the cape from the star’s shoulders with a flourish.
‘Perfetto, signorina,’ she said, ‘you are ready for your close-up.’
A star’s close-up was a constant source of friction between actor and director. The actors demanded it for the simple and straightforward reason that the more close-ups you had, the more the public loved you and the more important you became to the studio. Directors, however, found them irritating: they got in the way of the story, they took time to set up and they pandered to the worst excesses of an actor’s ego. All the female stars at Cinecittà had a certain number of close-ups written into their contract for every film. Isabella – by nature, shy and lacking in confidence – had realised early on in her career that if she was not to be pushed around by the studio, she would have to play the part of the ‘Diva’. Her performance over the years had been so effective that she had earned the unfortunate moniker of ‘The Tyrant’ among some members of the crew. Isabella was rather hurt by the nickname, because she knew it was both inaccurate and unjustified. But she played along with it, and in her latest film had demanded no fewer than eight close-ups. In order to be ready she had to