Hotel Pastis (29 page)

“Not like Saint-Tropez.”

Simon threw up his hands in horror. “Certainly not like Saint-Tropez! More like …” Oh God, what was the French equivalent of Bognor Regis? “Well, more like a quiet family hotel. You know—respectable.” He leaned forward. “And, of course, there is the wall.”

Madame sniffed at the wall. “My husband has a ladder.”

And probably a telescope for the girls as well, Simon thought. “I think I can guarantee that the guests will be completely proper.” He had a mental picture of one of Philippe Murat’s popsies parading around in a string, tanned buttocks exposed to the breeze. “In fact, I will personally pay close attention to this matter.”

The lips unpursed fractionally.
“Bon.”

The audience was over. Simon was shown out of the gloom and into the sunlight, and madame stood and watched as he walked back to the hotel. His parting wave was acknowledged by a slight movement of the head, which was, he supposed, a minor triumph for diplomacy.

With the departure of the painters the following week, it was possible to plan an opening date. Staff had been hired, the
cave
was stocked, the repertoire of Madame Pons decided. Trucks arrived daily with beds and crockery,
matelas
for the pool, hundreds of glasses and towels and sheets, telephones, ashtrays and toothpicks, brochures and postcards—enough, it sometimes seemed, to equip the Ritz.

The three of them worked a fourteen-hour day before falling into the kitchen for a late supper, tired, grubby, but satisfied. The hotel was taking shape—a surprisingly warm, comfortable shape, considering the amount of stone and the absence of soft surfaces. All the angularities had been smoothed and rounded away, and there were no hard edges to jar the eye. Going from room to room was like walking through sculpture, a blend of honey-coloured floors and pale walls and flowing corners. Blanc had done well, and when the paintings were hung and the rugs from Cotignac laid, they would achieve what Mr. Waldie would have described as the desired effect. Now it was time to think about adding guests.

“Well-connected chatterboxes,” said Ernest. “That’s what we need for the opening. People who like to be everywhere first, and tell their friends. Word of mouth is going to launch us, so we need some big mouths.” He looked at Simon and raised his eyebrows. “And we certainly know a few of those, I’m sure.”

“I think Johnny Harris will come down, and Philippe from Paris.” Simon took a pear to eat with his cheese. “We can always get the girls from the glossies. And I was wondering about fitting it in with the Cannes festival. It’s only a three-hour drive.”

Nicole looked at him in disbelief. “You think movie stars will come?
Non
. Be reasonable,
chéri
.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the real festival. There’s another one, in June. Everybody in advertising with a good enough excuse and a pair of sunglasses comes down—directors, producers, agency people—and the last thing they want to do is sit in the dark and watch the commercials.”

“So what is it they do?”

“Oh, pretty much what they do in London or Paris.
They have lunch with each other. The difference is they’re on the Croisette or on the beach instead of somewhere in Soho, and they go back home with a tan.”

“And they do talk,” Ernest said. “Proper little gossips, all of them. I think that’s a good idea.”

“I’ll find out the dates and get Liz to send me a list of the delegates. We’ll pick a few. I’m sure they’ll come, just out of curiosity.”

They took their coffee outside and sat on the terrace. A half moon hung over the Lubéron, and the bark of a distant dog carried up from the valley. By the side of the olive tree, the cherub urinated endlessly, and the soothing splash of the fountain mingled with the croak of frogs. The air was completely still, almost warm, hinting at summer. Simon glanced at Ernest and thought he’d never seen such obvious contentment on a face.

“Still missing Wimbledon, Ern?”

Ernest smiled and stretched his legs and contemplated his gingham check espadrilles. “Desperately.”

Now that the water in the pool had been heated up to a bearable twenty-four degrees Celsius, Nicole and Simon had started coming down to the hotel every morning before breakfast for a swim. Before long, as she said, this would be guest territory, so they should take advantage of the chance to have it to themselves.

It was a novelty for Simon, starting the day with a swim, and he quickly became addicted to the first slight shock of water on his skin, his body coming awake, the stiffness of sleep wearing off and the cobwebs disappearing from his head and his lungs. Five laboured lengths gradually turned into ten, and then twenty. He realised that he was slowly and pleasantly getting fit.

He finished his lengths and hoisted himself out of the pool. Nicole was lying on the flagstones, her one-piece swimsuit rolled down to her waist, droplets of water drying on breasts that were already lightly tanned. “Breakfast of champions,” he said as he bent over them, and then stopped. Something had caught the corner of his eye. He looked up just in time to see a bald head duck down behind the wall. “Oh, shit.”

Nicole lifted a hand to shade her face against the glare of the sun. “You know something, my darling? You get more romantic every day.”

“I’m not the only one.” He nodded towards the wall. “You have a secret admirer. I just saw his head. I think we’ve got Peeping Tom for a neighbour.”

“Who?”

“A voyeur—he must be the husband of the Brassière Watch Committee.”

Nicole sat up, laughing as she looked at the wall. “Monsieur Arnaud is an old goat—everyone in the village knows about him. Someone told me the other day that he hasn’t seen his wife undressed since forty years ago, on the honeymoon.”

Simon remembered the stern face and vise-like lips of Madame Arnaud. “Probably just as well.”

“Don’t worry. She may complain, but he won’t. It’s more fun for him than spraying his roses.” She smoothed Simon’s wet hair from his forehead, and her hand slid down to the back of his neck. “Now, what is this breakfast of champions?”

T
he opening had been fixed for the first Saturday in June. Not surprisingly, since the rooms were being given away, the hotel was going to be full for the weekend.

Nicole and Simon were having breakfast in the restaurant when Ernest emerged from the kitchen. He came over to the table clicking his tongue with disapproval and looking pointedly at his watch.

“Here we are, up at dawn and scurrying around like little woolly bears, and what do we find?” He pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. “The
patron
and madame, lolling over their breakfast buns, and getting in the way of all these poor boys.” He fluttered a hand at the young waiters, spruce in black trousers and white shirts, who
were setting up the tables for lunch. “Now then. I think one final tour of inspection, don’t you?”

Nicole and Simon gulped their coffee and allowed Ernest to chivvy them up the stairs. Françoise, in a demure cotton dress which was unsuccessful in disguising the effect of an aggressive new bra, was patrolling the reception area, checking her makeup each time she passed the handsome antique mirror that hung opposite the desk. Beneath it, on the dark, polished oak table, a massive vase of thick glass held fresh flowers, and their scent mingled with the faint smell of beeswax.

“Bonjour, Françoise. Ça va?”

Before she had a chance to answer, the phone rang. She clicked across to the desk, removed an earring, and inserted the receiver carefully under her coiffure.

“Hotel Pastis, bonjour.”
She frowned, as if the line was bad.
“Monsieur Shaw? Oui. Et vous êtes Monsieur …?”
She looked across at Simon and put her hand over the receiver.
“C’est un Monsieur Ziegler.”
She passed the phone to Simon and put her earring back on.

“Bob? Where are you?”

“L.A., and it’s the middle of the fucking night.”

“And you couldn’t sleep, so you called to wish us luck.”

“Sure. Now listen. Hampton Parker called. His kid is taking a year off from college, and he’s leaving for France tomorrow. Do you know a place called Lacoste?”

“It’s about twenty minutes from here.”

“Right. Well, that’s where the kid is going. Some kind of art school. He’ll be there for the summer, and Parker wants you to keep an eye on him.”

“What’s he like?”

“Shit, for all I know he could have two heads and a crack habit. I’ve never met him. What do you want, a blood test? Jesus. It’s only for the summer.”

Simon reached for a notepad. “What’s he called?”

“Boone, after his grandpa. Boone Hampton Parker. Weird goddamn names they have in Texas.”

“But nice big accounts, Bob.”

“Bet your ass.”

“How’s it going?”

“It’s going. Why? Getting bored?” Ziegler snorted, the closest he ever got to laughing. “Listen, I’m going to get some sleep. Take care of the kid, okay?”

It had been one of the most congenial conversations Simon could remember having with Ziegler for years. Perhaps the little brute was becoming mellow, now that he had the world to himself.

Ernest stepped back from adjusting the flowers. “For one ghastly moment, I thought we were going to have a surprise guest.”

Simon shook his head. “Ziegler would never come down here. He’s allergic to scenery.”

They spent the next hour going through the bedrooms, checking the bar, the pool area, the tables on the terrace, cool and inviting under the canvas umbrellas. The sun was high and hot, the early morning bustle was over, Madame Pons was having her first glass of the day. The hotel was ready for business.

Simon slipped his arm round Nicole’s waist, and they strolled over to the pool house bar, where Ernest was issuing instructions to one of the waiters about the aesthetically correct disposition of the bowls of olives and peanuts.

“What are the chances of a drink, Ern?”

They sat in the shade of the tiled roof, a bottle of white wine in the ice bucket, the glasses chilled and opaque. “Here’s to you two,” Simon said. “You’ve done a fantastic job.” They smiled back at him, teeth white against tanned faces.

“Here’s to the guests,” said Ernest. “God bless them, wherever they may be.” He looked up towards the terrace and took a hurried sip of wine. “Well, my dears, here they come.”

Françoise was standing on the terrace, a hand shading her eyes as she looked towards the pool house. Next to her were three figures in black, the sun glinting on dark glasses and bouncing off stark white complexions. The girls from the glossies had arrived.

They came down the steps, cooing over the view, and Françoise led them over to the pool house, where they identified themselves.

“
Interiors
. What a brilliant spot. Absolutely brilliant.”

“
Harpers & Queen
. Are we the first ones here?”

“
Elle Decoration
. You must tell me who did the façade. It’s terribly clever.”

Simon was confused. The girls, all in their late twenties or early thirties, could have walked out of the same wardrobe, and were wearing almost identical uniforms—loose black tops, black trousers, black glasses with circular black steel frames, long and artfully disarranged hair, office skins, and enormous shoulder bags. They accepted wine and revealed their names, which added to Simon’s confusion. They all seemed to be called Lucinda.

They sat back and congratulated each other on successfully having reached the end of the world.
Interiors
was the first to recover from the rigours of travel. “Would it be possible,” she asked, as she nibbled at a colour-co-ordinated black olive, “to have a quick snoop round before the others arrive?”

Before Simon had a chance to answer, Ernest stood up. “Allow me, my dears. Bring your drinks, and I’ll give you the grand tour.” He shepherded them away, talking animatedly as he led them past the fountain—
“discovered in a junkyard not far from here, actually, and luckily his bladder was in working order”—and back into the hotel.

Simon shook his head and grinned at Nicole. “I think Ern likes all this.”

“I think so.” She looked at him appraisingly, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t you?”

“It’s rather like showing clients round the agency. For the past few months, all I’ve thought about is getting the place finished, and now that it is … I don’t know, it’s just a different job.” He reached over and touched Nicole’s cheek. “Stop frowning, or you’ll frighten the customers. Let’s go and see if anyone else has turned up.”

The small reception area was crowded and noisy, as half a dozen refugees from the advertising film festival, with girlfriends and wives, jostled for position in front of Françoise, talking to her cheerfully in loud English with the occasional French word tossed in. Jeans and running shoes, Panama hats and Ray-Bans, Rolexes on recently sunburned wrists, bags scattered everywhere, cries of
“Où est le bar?”
mingling with attempts to help Françoise locate their names on the guest list—and then ruddy faces, several with the two-day stubble that marks the free creative spirit, turning to look as Simon and Nicole arrived at the desk. Handshakes and claps on the back from acquaintances, hugs from friends, and, after a few minutes, a semblance of order as two of the waiters started taking the bags and their owners up to their rooms.

Simon went behind the desk to help a flustered Françoise put names against room numbers, and reassured her that the English en masse were often boisterous, particularly when they were leading lights in the advertising business. He asked her if anyone else had arrived.

“Eh oui,”
she said, pointing to the list,
“Monsieur Murat. Il est très charmant.”

I bet he was, the old stoat, Simon thought as he rang Philippe’s room.

“Oui?”
Nobody else Simon knew could make a single syllable sound like an invitation to a dirty weekend. He probably thought Françoise wanted to come up and help him unpack.

“Sorry, Philippe, it’s only me. Simon. Welcome to Brassière.”

“My friend, this is wonderful. I arrive, and already there are three girls here from room service.”