THE PARTY
She wore black velvet. The gown left her shoulders bare but swept to the floor like a train. It was heavy, but Genevieve could carry the weight. An unappreciated advantage of vampirism was the ability to dress spectacularly but comfortably in outfits that would choke, constrict, strangle, or hobble a warm woman. She didn't wear the veiled hat that went with the dress, which she had needed at the funeral.
Since the funeral, she hadn't been out of the apartment for more than an hour. As she left, she picked up Charles's invitation as well as her own. It might be amusing to give it to a random stranger, and let them enjoy il principe's hospitality. Then again, the welcome of Dracula had occasionally proved fatal. He was probably over his craze for nailing guests' hats to their skulls or impaling lieutenants who complained about the stench of the dying, but it was best not to take chances.
The invitation specified that transport would be provided to Fregene if she were to be at the Piazza del Quirinale between six and ten o'clock. It transpired that a fleet of cars was going back and forth to and from the Palazzo Otranto for guests who chose not to make their own way.
She was sharing a Daimler with people she didn't know. Jeremy Prokosch, a Hollywood producer with crimson glasses and a little red book for jotting down ideas; Dorian Gray, the Italian actress not the English libertine; Dr Hichcock, one of il principe's personal physicians, and his silent wife, one of the many women of fashion who made herself up to look as much like Princess Asa as possible; and an unhappy-looking hollow-cheeks named Collins.
Genevieve would have been interested in talking with Collins, a rare American vampire, but Prokosch delivered a showbiz monologue. Apparently, he'd just missed being in the car before, with Orson Welles, who was playing Argo in the Argonauts film, and John Huston, whom Prokosch wanted to hire for a movie of I Am Legend with Charlton Heston. She hadn't seen any of the films the producer had made. They were mostly about orgies, but based on classical (out of copyright) sources.
'The best way to keep costs down on a costume picture is to cut out the costumes,' Prokosch said.
Collins tried hard to smile at her.
'Have you ever done any modelling?' the producer asked.
'Not recently,' she said.
By the time the car pulled up outside the Palazzo Otranto, night had fallen. Genevieve felt as if she'd been clubbed over the head with a rolled-up copy of Variety. There was a delay in escaping from the Daimler because the official door-openers were trying to prise Orson Welles out of the car in front. Welles, bearded and enormous, couldn't stop laughing as he wriggled like Winnie the Pooh stuck in Rabbit's hole. Finally, John Huston stabbed a lit cigar against Welles's enormous backside, and the spherical genius was ejected like a ball from a cannon.
Prokosch produced a script from under his cummerbund and scuttled off after Huston. Genevieve wished him 'boffo boxo' and stepped out of the Daimler. She looked up at the palazzo. Very nice. More baroque than gothic. Swirly columns and uncontrolled ivy.
'It looks like a big onion,' she remarked, to no one in particular.
She joined the human stream flowing toward the huge doors. A cadre of warriors, with fur-trimmed armour and teeth like cashew nuts, checked invitations and waved in the guests. Paparazzi crowded around the Tartars but were discouraged from getting in the way. Broken cameras, indeed broken photographers, littered the driveway. She saw a pest dashed against a solid-stone wall.
Her invitation passed muster and she was allowed in. She drifted along a corridor which opened into a ballroom the size of a cathedral. An all-girl orchestra played dance music by Nino Rota, under the direction of a skeleton-thin figure whose face was a blank mask. A buffet was set out on two hundred-yard tables, offering cold meats and salad for the warm and a selection of still-living animals for the undead. Waiters and waitresses, healthy warm folks, paraded with bare necks and wrists, spigots already inserted into their veins. She accepted a measure of human blood and sipped.
Scanning the room, she recognised many guests: Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones, representing the Queen; John and Valerie Profumo, representing Lord Ruthven; Senator John Kennedy and Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, representing America and hating each other; Carlo Ponti and Sophia Loren; Alberto Moravia, the author; Gina Lollobrigida and General Mark Clark, liberator of Rome; Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin; Pier Paolo Pasolini, the poet; Jonas Cord, the aviation millionaire; Rita Hayworth and the Aga Khan; Tot
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