she had worn the grey suit. Being a femme fatale was the last impression she wanted to give. She blushed with embarrassment as Vicenzo helped her on with her coat.
Before Isabella left the house, her mother hugged her. ‘Don’t lose this one,’ she whispered.
The restaurant Vicenzo had chosen was a small family-run affair in Trastevere – a charming part of Rome that had the feel of a village, with its cobbled streets and little shops and cafés. The tables were covered with red-checked cloths, lit by candles, inserted into empty raffia-covered Chianti bottles. The other customers stared openly as the glamorous couple entered, squeezing past the tables. Isabella felt overdressed, and nervously sipped a glass of mineral water the moment they sat down.
‘The menu is not huge here,’ Vicenzo explained. ‘There’s not much meat – rationing has seen to that – but the pasta is good.’
He was an attentive host and she began to relax. Over dinner, Vicenzo probed her about her acting aspirations. ‘The films you do, about schoolteachers and orphans, do they give you pleasure?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She felt a little confused by the question. ‘Although the one about the orphans was exhausting,’ she continued. ‘Playing a blind woman is not easy. They made me wear a blindfold, and I bumped into so much furniture on the set, I was black and blue.’ She laughed, but Vicenzo wasn’t smiling. ‘It’s just my work… it’s what I do,’ she went on nervously. ‘I’ve made films like these since I was sixteen. It’s all I know.’
He sipped his wine thoughtfully. ‘You don’t feel they are…’ he paused, choosing his words carefully, ‘… restrictive at all?’
‘Restrictive? In what way?’
‘Emotionally, as an actress. What I mean is, these films are not true to life, are they? They are fantasies, fairy stories.’
‘I’ve never thought about them like that. They are simply stories which make our audience happy. That’s what people want from us, isn’t it – escapism? For a few hours to forget about the war, the rationing, the suffering.’
‘You see, Isabella, for me, cinema is about realism. To show things as they really are, not how we wish they could be. Anything else is propaganda. People don’t run about in pretty dresses, or have perfect make-up all the time, or use white telephones for that matter.’ He was laughing now, and for the second time that evening she felt embarrassed – and patronised.
‘But what if they make people happy?’ she said uncertainly.
‘But do they? I think what would make them happy is having a proper job, enough money and a benign government. People’s lives are not simply happy or sad; they are complex. I believe our audiences want to see this in the films they watch. They need something they can relate to. Do you understand?’
Isabella felt stung by his criticism. ‘So you think the films I make are trite, unworthy in some way?’
‘No,’ he said, reaching across the table and taking her hand. ‘But I think you are capable of so much more. You have great depth, Isabella, genuinely you do.’
‘You really think so?’
‘Of course. Why else would I have asked you to audition for me? I can see something special in you, Bella, something very special.’
He drove her home in silence. It had been a strange evening. He could wound her deeply, only to buoy her up moments later. He rejected her with one hand, whilst attracting her with the other.
Sitting in the car outside her house, he held her tightly in the darkness, kissing her ear, caressing her hair. ‘Little Bella,’ he whispered.
She inhaled his scent and ached for him.
Suddenly the mood changed. He leant across her and opened the car door. ‘Goodnight,’ he said softly.
She turned towards him, expecting him to kiss her, but instead he wound down his window and lit a cigarette. She sensed him withdraw, as if a door to his emotions had been shut in her face. She climbed out of the car, and he pulled the door closed behind her, with a slam.
Through his open window, he simply called out: ‘Goodnight,’ before driving off, leaving her alone and confused.
A few days later, Isabella received a phone call from a French film director called Marcel L’Herbier. ‘I wonder if you would do me the honour of meeting me?’ he asked. ‘Could you come to Nice?’
‘To Nice?’ she said with surprise. ‘You mean in France?’