Rosa and the Veil of Gold Read Free

cradle, feeling flat and disappointed. He knew the feeling well, and didn’t want to descend into the melancholy haze that ordinarily followed it. Voices drifted up through the window, and he snatched up his room key and let himself out. Downstairs, behind the guesthouse, lay a tiny courtyard where his co-workers gathered to drink and share cigarettes.
    “Here’s Daniel!” called Richard, the chief sound operator, already half-drunk and in shoulder-slapping mode. Daniel slid onto the bench beside him and looked at the shiny new leaves on the birch spreading above them. “Isn’t it supposed to be summer soon? When will it warm up?”
    “Have a vodka, that will warm you up.” This was Aaron, the producer, who had worked with Daniel on another project four years ago. Was that the last television job he had done? No wonder he had trouble making the rent. Aaron thrust a drink into Daniel’s hand. Five other men sat on the bench or on the flagstones under the tree, and their voices echoed around the walls of the buildings which bordered the courtyard.
    “Thanks.” He sipped the drink and tried to let Rosa go. “Does anybody know what times the trains run to St Petersburg from here?”
    There was a loud snort of laughter. Aaron raised his eyebrows with a smile. “You’re asking us? You’re the train expert.”
    Daniel bit his tongue. He had refused to fly from London with everybody else. He didn’t like to think of his aversion to aeroplanes as a phobia, but had to admit after five consecutive days on English, French, German and finally, Russian, trains only something as severe as a phobia could have led to such extreme measures.
    “Why are you going to St Pete?” asked Richard, reaching for a cigarette and offering one to Daniel.
    Daniel shrugged and took the cigarette. He wouldn’t call himself a smoker, but was taking alarming numbers from the crew at the moment. “To see an old friend.”
    “You should drive,” Richard said. “Frank would let you take the hire car.”
    Frank was the executive producer, stuck back in London in urgent meetings with the accountants. Richard meant that Frank would never know where the hire car ended up.
    “No, I prefer not to drive,” Daniel muttered, hoping for a quick subject change.
    “Afraid of driving too?”
    “Wrong side of the road,” Aaron offered. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
    Before Daniel had to admit he was right, Aaron said, “Ask Em.She’s going up tomorrow afternoon. And she’s a Yank. They all drive on the wrong side.”
    “I’ll just catch the train,” Daniel said, blowing a long stream of smoke into the afternoon air. “I wouldn’t know what to say to Em on a three-hour car trip.”
    “She’s easy enough to get along with,” Aaron said, puzzled.
    “Nah, I’m with Daniel,” Richard said. “She’s frozen solid under there, I’d bet money on it.”
    “I can’t stand the silence,” Declan, one of the cameramen, said.
    “The silence?”
    “When you talk to her. She’s perfectly silent. No nodding, no ‘uh-huh’, no encouraging smile. Like she’s watching an actor perform.”
    A laugh went around. Daniel joined in. It was a perfect description.
    “I’ve heard that she had a man sacked for answering his mobile phone between shots,” George, the production assistant, said.
    Declan threw his cigarette into the gutter. “I’ve heard she has a kid, back in America. She abandoned him when he was a baby.”
    “I’ve heard she doesn’t just abandon babies, she eats them,” Richard said, finding this so funny that he doubled over with laughter.
    Daniel smiled but didn’t offer any speculations about Em, concentrating instead on his cigarette and his vodka. Maybe if he was more like these men, he’d be able to get over Rosa easier. Laugh her off as crazy, as a good time gone bad.
    Aaron shook his head. “Em’s not so bad. Sure, she’s a little odd, but who in television isn’t? Especially the really successful ones.” He