Chapter Thirty-Four
Three days later, as the Blue Team slogged through the thick jungle growth of the island to reach the beach on the far side that would form the main camp, it was one member down. St John had been removed for that all-purpose cover story, ‘health issues’. The truth was that he had developed delirium tremens from alcohol withdrawal, something that had never happened in the history of the show. Apparently St John had not been boasting when he claimed on the first day that like Dr Johnson, author of the famous dictionary, ‘he could drink three bottles of port wine a night and be no worse for it’. The trouble came when the port was no longer available.
At first when St John casually mentioned that he was hearing voices, his teammates had assumed that he was clowning around for attention. He was such a larger-than-life character that they had swiftly learned to expect pretty much anything to come out of his mouth. But soon afterwards, they started to worry. He began to shake to the point of finding it hard to even do simple tasks, or raise a spoon to his mouth; his irritability went through the roof; he started to hallucinate. After two days, the medical team was called in, and researchers back at the hotel discovered that he had not been charging all his alcohol to the show, but ordering bottles on room service and paying for them with his own credit card to conceal the degree of his addiction.
The consensus between the remaining five Blue Team members once St John had been stretchered away raving about gigantic snakes trying to squeeze him to death – a scene that would definitely not be shown on TV – was that he could not possibly be expected to return. Joe, who had been a fantastic sport and taken very good care of his teammate during the meltdown, was given the reprieve of a day chain-free, which he spent improving his spear-fishing skills for the benefit of the camp, watched admiringly by Debbi and Veronica, who had both formed enormous crushes on him.
At least it meant that the two women rarely fought about where to go in camp. If they weren’t eating, sleeping or using the dunny, they were sitting together staring at Joe, engaging in increasingly bawdy talk about his muscles and his physical prowess. And then, when he was chained to the two of them, their delight in being so close to him was even better comic relief.
This left Santino and Caroline entirely to their own devices. They volunteered for the challenge on the second day, which involved racing against two other pairs from the Red and Yellow teams, who were sequestered on different beaches around Survivor Island, to win food for camp. Santino jogged regularly, and Caroline’s recent experience with running on sand meant that, to everyone’s surprise, they were the victors. It was very obvious that the embrace into which Santino swept Caroline after they crossed the finish line, having dropped the rubber ducks they had been assigned to collect into the big Blue Team paddling pool, was noticeably more passionate even than the normal excitement felt by hungry people who had just won a pack of chocolate digestives for their camp.
Caroline knew very well how this was going to look to the viewers at home. She was burning her bridges with a vengeance. But it didn’t even feel like a choice she was consciously making. Now she fully understood what Darrell Rose had meant when he compared Lexy to a tornado, all those years ago: Santino had picked Caroline up just like a twisting cyclone and whirled her away with him.
From the moment they had climbed into their kayak together and started to paddle towards Survivor Island, he had been openly flirting with her. Each shackled couple had pushed their camp beds together so that they could, for instance, turn over as they slept without jerking their partners over with them, but Santino and Caroline were the only ones who slept pressed to each other for warmth in the cool night air. They fed each other, giggled incessantly at each other’s jokes, and when they needed to use the dunny, Santino had announced that he would sing opera during the process to cover Caroline’s embarrassment, as he knew that British people were shy about that kind of thing. This had quickly progressed to him teaching her some Italian folk songs, including one called ‘Bella Ciao’, which he told her was very sad: she didn’t understand any of it, of course, but there was a repeating line, ‘O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao’, which she could belt out with him every verse.
It would have been impossible, Caroline honestly felt, for any woman to resist Santino dell’Aquila when he set his sights on her at such close quarters. Even a married woman would have flirted with him, and Caroline was neither married nor engaged, but having an affair with a man who had a wife from whom he was not even formally separated. Besides, the clock was ticking down to the release of Bad Girl, and it would be a miracle if Frank still wanted to be with her after that came out.
Viewed through the lens of cold, hard calculation, this was by far the best resolution to the situation. Caroline had been utterly obsessed with Frank, infatuated with him; if Santino hadn’t been in the picture, she still would be. But after all, she knew, she had made her choice when Miranda called her to suggest that she write a tell-all about Lexy. Caroline had already picked her career over Frank. This was just the last nail in the coffin.
Yes, Caroline would look like a slut to the British viewing public, but she had nothing to lose, as frankly that was how they saw her anyway. It was why she had been cast on Celebrity Island Survivor: she was the homewrecker who had sneaked into Lexy’s home and her marital bed, taking advantage of the moment that Lexy had a slip of judgement.
Besides, engaging in a flirtation, or even an affair, on the show was one of the best ways to get publicity for yourself and keep you on it longer. There was absolutely no way that Caroline could win: not only did she lack a fanbase, but most of the married women in the UK resented her for her affair with Frank. But the prospect of salacious scenes of her and Santino canoodling were almost a guarantee that she wouldn’t be voted out immediately. The public would want to see how far the two of them would go.
Santino, after all, was famously single, a widower who had recently declared himself ready to look for love again after the tragic death of his adored wife. This made him an infinitely more appropriate romantic interest for Caroline than Frank was. In her dizziest imaginings, she pictured Santino beside her as she signed copies of Bad Girl, staring at her lovingly as the fans thronged to see both of them together in real life, now an established couple.
It was crazy, of course, to think like this when she had barely known Santino for three days. But a reality show was a hothouse of emotions. When a group of people were marooned together for several weeks, hungry and bored, the producers were always hoping for sexual tension to spark into something fiery enough to titillate viewers; cast members, over the years, had done everything from sneaking kisses to stripping off and making out in the sea. It was nothing compared to the antics of the recent Big Brother, on which not one, but two couples had actually had sex, barely concealed underneath the sheets; but then, that show was particularly known for casting young, attractive and unstable contestants striving for their one chance at any kind of fame, even if it was infamy.
As much as some of those couples might swear that they had fallen deeply in love, almost all of the pairings had split shortly after the show, when they no longer had the heightened excitement of being isolated from the world while given challenges and pitted against each other. Caroline knew this, of course. She was an intelligent woman. But as she had fallen asleep last night on the uncomfortable canvas camping bed, Santino’s arm over her waist, his breath warm on her shoulder, the smell of his body, musky and rich, all around her, it had been frighteningly easy for her to tell herself that three days chained together were equivalent to weeks of dating, that after this was over, they would be sharing a king-size bed in the hotel instead . . .
He wrapped his arm around her waist now, above the chain, and Caroline turned to smile at him even while they trudged along in unison. Ahead of them, Veronica, Debbi and Joe, a cheerful threesome, were giggling together, Joe and Debbi on either side of Veronica as they helped her along the uneven dirt track. They had to pause frequently so Veronica could get her breath, and after twenty minutes or so Veronica, wheezing, declared that she had to sit down for a while and drink some water.
The threesome ensconced themselves on a log she had spotted by the side of the path, and Santino whisked Caroline into the undergrowth, behind a tree, both hands at her waist now, the links of the chain rattling as he smiled down at her. The chain was such a part of their lives now that they barely noticed the noise it made, automatically adjusting it whenever necessary. It was extraordinary how swiftly they had got used to it.
‘Ecco,’ he said. ‘We have a moment of peace before we meet everyone and it is crazy.’
There was a lens pointed at them, naturally. Two cameramen had been with them in camp, and had followed them on their cross-island trek; one was capturing the three Team Blue members chatting on the log, while the other, seeing Santino and Caroline slip away, was only a few feet behind, picking his way through the foliage to find the best angle from which to film them. Meanwhile, their body mikes were recording everything they said.
It was a cliché that, as every cast member of a reality show had said in post-show interviews, you quickly became accustomed to the presence of the hovering camera, learned never to look at it directly; the reason clichés become so prevalent, however, is because they are based in truth. Besides, Caroline and Santino had no wish to avoid the camera. They were both perfectly aware of the advantages of creating scenes that would hopefully be selected by the programme’s editors as part of that day’s show, forming the headlines in tomorrow’s red-top papers. A stolen romantic moment would be highly prized.
‘I’m not looking forward to getting to a bigger camp, with people we don’t really know,’ she confessed coyly. ‘We’ve had such a lovely time these last few days, the five of us—’
‘The five of us?’ Santino feigned distress. ‘The two of us, cara mia!’
Caroline giggled.
‘Well, both,’ she admitted. ‘Who’d have thought you could have so much fun chained to someone?’
‘I am going to be sad when they take this off,’ Santino said, jingling the chain at his waist.
‘Will you still sing to me when I go to the loo?’ she asked.
‘Of course! And I will sing for you when I go too!’ he responded instantly.
‘We are so stupid!’ she said happily, beaming up at him.
‘Carolina, I very much like to be stupid with you,’ Santino said, and he captured both her hands in his and brought them to his lips.
She knew that she should let Santino make all the moves, that her reputation meant that she needed to be the one seduced, not the seducer; but having her fingertips kissed was so delightful that she couldn’t help raising one hand and stroking his cheek, gazing up at him.
‘Ah, Carolina,’ he said, ‘when you look at me like that . . .’
She waited breathlessly to see how he was going to finish the sentence, but instead he lowered his head, very slowly, taking all the time in the world. An uncharitable person might have thought that he was ensuring the cameras captured every moment of this first kiss, but Caroline was mesmerized.
His resemblance to a bird of prey, the narrow eyes, the proud beak of the nose, had never been more pronounced, and his lips, chapped by the sun, were dry and hard. But the sensation of his mouth on hers, the tip of his tongue hot and wet, not forcing anything but asking her a question, made her instantly respond to it with an unspoken ‘yes’, opening her lips, answering with her own tongue, her eyes closing, her body softening against his.
Her arms reached around his neck, his sunwarmed flesh hot against hers. She smelt his sweat, very strong now; it was inevitable in this weather, with just a bar of soap for them to share and no real way yet to wash their clothes. He was heavily stubbled already, of course, and it scraped against her sunburnt skin, rubbing her raw. Despite herself, she flinched, and he pulled back.
‘Cara, are you all right? I thought you wanted—’
‘Yes! Yes, I did! It’s just—’
‘It’s Frank?’ he asked, frowning. ‘I am confused about how things are with him, with you and me . . . but these last days I have felt there is something with us, something strong . . . I think that to kiss you is okay, that you want it too . . .’
‘Yes, I did!’ she said quickly. ‘I’m confused about Frank, too, of course . . . it’s such an odd situation, I don’t know what to say . . . but I did want you to kiss me, it was just the stubble! It scratched me . . . I’m a bit sunburnt.’
‘You must put more cream on,’ he scolded. ‘I tell you many times, it’s important for the women! For men, it is not manly. But for the women, yes, they need the smooth skin.’
‘You’re so sexist!’ Caroline said happily, even as Veronica’s deep voice boomed:
‘Santino! Caroline! Where the hell are you two lovebirds?’
They emerged from the forest grinning, hand in hand for the first time.
‘Did you snog?’ Debbi screeched. ‘Oh my God, you did, you snogged, didn’t you? You fucking dirty birds!’
‘I am chained to a beautiful woman for three days!’ Santino said, shrugging. Caroline had learned that a shrug from an Italian was not necessarily dismissive; it could also be used to signal that you were stating the blatantly obvious. ‘I need to let her know I find her beautiful, before we are free and she can go to find another man.’
My God, Caroline thought, her head still spinning from Santino’s kiss, the taste of his mouth still on her lips. Half a year ago I was nothing and no one, dowdy and fat, with nobody but Riz looking at me twice, and that was just as a secret fuckbuddy.
How far she had come in that short time! She had lost almost three stone. Her skin was clear and glowing, her body slim. She had snagged Frank Callis, and Santino dell’Aquila, Italian heartthrob, had just called her beautiful. Unless he was toying with her horribly, it seemed very clear that he wanted her, not Debbi or the other two glamour models and beauty queens on the show. He could easily have waited until today, when the teams merged and their chains came off, to hit on one of them.
Instead, he had picked Caroline. And his reputation was very far from being a sleazy flirt or fame-whore. Santino and his wife had been childhood sweethearts, and even as his fame built and temptation was increasingly strewn in his path, there was never a shred of gossip about him cheating. He hadn’t rushed into another relationship after the tragedy of her premature death; he had taken time to mourn her and devote himself to their sons. Was it possible that now he was ready to contemplate giving them a stepmother?
Caroline had learned from Lexy, her mentor and her target, that each new boyfriend was a way of garnering more publicity for the project she was currently selling. It was vital, as Lexy had explained, that the man have something newsworthy about him. Although ideally you would always move up the ladder – from a C-list footballer to one in the Premier League, say – you could temporarily also settle on a stripper or a male model, as long as he understood that he would be required to take most of his clothes off and pose with you as much as you needed.
Santino was a step downwards in status. Frank Callis, with his vast football fortune and regular TV punditry, was definitely at the top of anyone’s ranking. No wonder Lexy had married him. But Caroline’s relationship with Frank would tank as soon as her book came out, while it would be an excellent image makeover for her to leave the married man behind and take up instead with a much more suitable candidate, a widower who seemed flatteringly interested in her . . .
After all, Caroline thought as Veronica levered herself to her feet and started to waddle away down the dirt path, supported by Joe – Debbi turning not just to wink at Caroline as they went, but making a lewd gesture which suggested that Caroline and Santino would soon be having sex – it’s not like I don’t have experience in pretending to get on with someone’s children in order to make them like me!
Santino was still clasping her hand as they set off slowly behind the unlikely trio, their chain clanking between them. There was a cameraman ahead, filming the group’s progress, and one behind. That evening, on the UK daily round-up show, everyone would see them kissing, holding hands, hear Santino saying that he had wanted to mark his interest with her before they were unchained and she could flirt freely with other men.
The die was cast. Anything with Frank was dead in the water from this moment on.
There was no guarantee, of course, that she and Santino would last even the duration of the show. But the camera ahead of them showed Caroline’s face glowing, her eyes bright, her lips unable to stop smiling as she kept looking down at her hand clasped in Santino’s. For that moment, her sheer elation truly made her what he had just called her: beautiful.