Chapter Four
Lila
Lila had never been much good at travelling.
Actually, no, that wasn’t true. Shelikedthe travelling part; she was very good at sitting back on a bus or a train and – as she discovered the week before last – a plane. She enjoyed staring out the window at the scenery flashing by. Listening to people’s conversations and imagining where they were going and why. That bit was all good. There was no expectation to be doing anything other than waiting out the journey. And she was great at all the heightened areas of travelling etiquette: not making too much noise, not making uncomfortable amounts of eye contact, not eating overpoweringly smelly foods.
No, it was the starting of journeys and finishing of journeys that she found hard. Beforehand, the anxiety would kick in with packing. Whether it be a short trip or long – she was always sure she was going to forget something. In some ways, the fact Sibyl had only given her twenty-four hours’ notice was a good thing. It had meant she didn’t have as much time to spend talking herself in and out of going like she usually did. All those hours where she’d fret over whether sheshouldactually do the journey at all, because – whatever the destination – she was bound to wish she was right back at home, safely out from under the gaze of Real People in the Outside World.
Instead, once she found out on Monday, all she had time to think about was the logistics of actually getting there and what she would need. Passports, tickets, do the online check-in, how much luggage could she take –shouldshe take – which airport, how long would it take to get there from where she was in London, did she have enough books downloaded on her Kindle?
Once that was all worried over, she then spent ages trying to figure out where she would need to go at the other end. They said a minibus would be picking up a group of the crew to take them to the blocks of apartments they were providing as accommodation, but Lila’s worst fear was getting lost. Not in a massive, middle-of-the-woods, I’m-going-to-have-to-drink-my-own-urine-to-survive type of way, but just not seeing the right turn-off, or not recognising the right person and looking like a vacant idiot, bumbling her way through life. If Lila could be invisible until the precise moment when she knew she was in the right place and prepared, ready to speak to her work colleagues, it really would have been ideal.
She boarded the plane at five in the morning and spent the first few hours of the journey reading a historical romance paperback about a suffragette and a duke, which she couldn’t help picking up at the terminal.
And then the sun started to come up as they were going over the Alps. She put the book down in her lap and just stared. Tiny white caps turning blush pink, stretching out in peaks and crevasses. She’d never seen anything like it. They dog-legged over Italy – or she assumed they did – and the view disappeared back behind the clouds while she had rubbery scrambled eggs for breakfast. Once they started a slow descent, she looked back out the window and the ethereal majesty of the mountains had been replaced by the bluest sea she’d ever seen, as the Mediterranean stretched out before her. Deep cobalt, sparkling in the sunlight like it had been sprinkled with broken glass.
It was slightly unnerving the way the plane was dropping towards the expanse of water, but then the island came into view. Craggy with misty mountains – and a volcano – and dusted at the edges with cliffs and sandy beaches while pale buildings and deep green bushes sprawled over the land in between.
It was beautiful.Thiswas where she was going to spend the next few months. A gorgeous, rugged island, full of history.
Lila was a city girl. Raised in the urban jungle – though she was more of a frog species that hid under rocks than a prowling panther. Still, she’d never been anywhere but the city, with the exception of a handful of school trips and the disastrous camp experience. Mom never had the money, nor the inclination to take her anywhere else. All she knew of green expanses was parks. All she knew of mountains were the man-made kind where people went to work. Shedidknow the sea a little more, but it was rarely warm and welcoming. The Atlantic was a cold grey ocean most of the time. It spoke of miles and miles of distance. Not the friendly kind of waters here that ran in between island and mainland and beckoned you to swim and sail, to explore and relax and catch fish.
She wanted to get into that sea. She didn’t have a bathing suit, but she could get one and there was sure to be time outside of filming for her to go, wasn’t there? The idea of warm water against her skin and bright sun overhead had her pressing herself against the window like she was ready to take a dive out right then and there.
But all her excitement fizzled away as the plane bumped down on the runway. Her stomach ricocheted up to her throat. The daydreaming had to end. She had to get off the plane, collect her bags and find that bus.
The airport was tiny in comparison to those back home. It made it less intimidating to try and figure out where she was going as there weren’t endless boards and overlapping, unintelligible announcements. There did seem to be a distinct lack of queuing though, which made it awkward when it came to spotting her luggage going around on the baggage carousel. Eventually, she just let most people get theirs and, when there was finally a space, nipped in and grabbed it. After that it was a straight walk outside to figure out where the production bus might be. There were a couple of huge holiday company coaches right in front of her, but when they drove off, Lila’s breath caught in her throat all over again.
Mount Etna was right there in front of her. Well, notexactlythere – but she could see it, totally clearly, reaching up to the heavens with a little bit of white at the peak and a wreath of wispy cloud around it like a halo.
Beep, beep, beep.
Lila looked over to her right where a woman had leaned in the window of a small minibus in front of the driver to use his horn and was now waving at her. Lila thought she looked familiar from the week at the production office and blushed, having been caught gawking at the scenery, rather than trying to find her ride. Excellent. A tick in that vacant, bumbling-along-in-life box again.
‘Hey,’ the woman greeted her as she drew closer, ‘you’re Lila Moorcroft, right? MUA?’
Missing in Action?Lila’s brain supplied for a moment, probably because it felt appropriate – but no that was MIA. MUA was her job title. Makeup assistant.
‘That’s me.’ She nodded and came to a halt in front of the van. A few people were already inside, though she couldn’t make out their faces behind the tinted windows.
‘I’m Sally Deacon. Production assistant.’ The woman smiled and held out her hand. Lila shook it, trying not to be too limp and hoping she wasn’t all clammy either. ‘Also known as the muppet who got landed with organising all the staff accommodation on top of everything else.’ But the wry smile was still on her face. ‘This all makes up for it though, eh?’ She looked out at the view and the gesture instantly relaxed Lila.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she admitted. ‘Not in real life.’
‘Beautiful isn’t it.’ Sally flashed her another warm smile. ‘Still, I hope it stayspreciselylike that while we’re here. Tucked in and sleeping, like I wish we were. Right, we’ve got to wait for the next flight in but then we can be off, so if you want to dump your bag and grab a coffee or something, now’s the time.’
‘Oh, right. Okay.’ Lila took her bag around to the trunk and then the door slid open on the side and the familiar face of Ruth poked out, calling her inside.
‘Hey, roomie.’ Ruth looked far too fashionable in her lime green jumpsuit to have travelled for over five hours like Lila had. ‘We’re sharing. Did Sally tell you?’
‘No. Not yet. That’s great.’
‘Uh-huh. What happened to you last Friday at the pub? Did you get lost? We missed you.’
‘Oh, no. I got caught up doing some stock checking stuff,’ Lila replied, telling her blood that it was actually a version of the truth, and it needn’t rush to her cheeks to rat her out for lying. Or because she was thinking about being trapped in a dark room with Rowan Walker, and his velvety voice, and his strong hands…
She felt Sally’s eyes on her and darted a glance at her. That wry smile was still on her face, but Lila didn’t think she’d said anything funny? It was probably because she looked so guilty. She was going to have to learn to deal with thinking about Rowan without her body sending out signals that she was overstimulated. She was going to have to learn to deal withseeingRowan without doing that. Getting flustered and clumsy whenever he was around wasn’t an option.
