Hotel Pastis (3 page)

Simon smiled. “Caroline would have had a fit.”

Ernest wiped his hands on his apron and picked up his glass. “The trouble is,” he said, “that your entire life is spent with sensitive flowers who have fits. The sainted executive committee, the clients, those pipsqueaks in the City, that frightful old adolescent who’s supposed to run the creative department—how he thinks nobody notices when he goes to the gents’ every half-hour and comes back with a runny nose, I don’t know, I’m sure—all of them are more trouble than they’re worth, if you ask me.” He managed to sip his champagne and look disdainful at the same time. “Which of course you didn’t.”

Ernest put down his glass and mixed the salad dressing as though he were punishing it, beating the olive oil and vinegar until it was almost frothing. He dipped his little finger in the bowl and licked it. “Delicious.”

“It’s business, Ern. You can’t expect to like everyone you have to work with.”

Ernest cut the block of foie gras into thin pink slices and put them in a blackened cast-iron pan that had been warming on the hob. “Well, I’m not going to let them spoil our dinner.” He poured the dressing over the salad and tossed it with quick, deft hands, wiped his oily fingers, and moved across to peer into the pan. “It can all vanish, you know, the foie gras, if it gets too hot. It melts away.” He put the salad on two plates and, as the first tiny bubbles appeared round the edge of the foie gras, took the pan off the heat and slid the soft slices onto their lettuce beds.

Simon took his first mouthful, the lettuce crisp and cool, the foie gras warm and rich. Across the table,
Ernest was conducting an investigation of the wine with long, appreciative sniffs, his eyes half-closed.

“Will it do?” asked Simon. “According to the books, we should be drinking Sauternes with this.”

Ernest held the wine in his mouth for a moment before answering. “Absolute heaven,” he said. “Let’s not send it back.”

They ate in silence until they had finished. Simon wiped his plate with a piece of bread and leaned back in his chair. “I haven’t enjoyed anything as much as that for months.” He drank some wine slowly, rolling it around his mouth before swallowing. “What’s the kitchen in the new place like?”

“Horrid,” said Ernest as he started carving the lamb. “Poky and plastic. Perfect for a dwarf with no taste who loathes cooking. The rental agent was very proud of it. Custom-built, she said. Custom-built for what, I said—TV dinners for one?”

Simon had taken a short lease on a flat in Rutland Gate, mainly because it was round the corner from the office. He’d hardly looked at it; the car had been waiting to take him to the airport. What the hell. It was only somewhere to sleep until he found somewhere to live.

“It won’t be for long, Ern. We’ll look at flats as soon as I’ve got some time.”

Ernest served the lamb, rosy and running with juice. “Well, I won’t hold my breath. I know you. Off to New York every five minutes, or Paris, or Düsseldorf. Rush rush rush, jet lag and bad temper, and when you’re in London it’s one dreary meeting after another.” Ernest finished his wine and poured some more. His cheeks were flushed as he leaned forward into the candlelight. “They don’t care, you know, at the office.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They don’t care about you. All they care about is what you can do for them—their new cars, their bonuses, their silly little status games. I heard Jordan having the vapours for half an hour the other day because a client had parked in his space in the garage. You’d have thought someone had touched up his secretary. ‘I shall have to take this up with Simon if something isn’t done at once.’ Pathetic. Well, you know better than I do. They’re all like children.”

“I thought you weren’t going to let them spoil dinner.”

Ernest went on as if he hadn’t heard. “And another thing. Holidays. Three hundred people in that office, and only one of them hasn’t had a holiday this year.” He reached for the decanter. “Another glass of wine if you can guess who that is.”

Simon held out his glass. “Me.”

“You. No wonder you look so peaky.”

Simon remembered his reflection in the bathroom mirror. When was the last time he’d taken a few days off? It must have been nearly two years ago, when he and Caroline had been pretending they still had a marriage. He’d been delighted to get back to the office.

Ernest cleared the plates and put the cheese on the table. “Maybe it’s the wine talking,” he said, “and you can call me an old nag if you like, but I don’t care. You need a holiday.” He fussed over the cheese board. “A bit of each?”

“I don’t know, Ern. I’ve got a lot on at the moment.”

“Leave Jordan in charge. He’d be thrilled. He could use your parking space.” Ernest put the cheese in front of Simon. “There. Have a nibble of the Brillat-Savarin, close your eyes and think of France. You’re always saying how much you love it. Take a car and drive down
to the south.” He cocked his head and smiled at Simon. “You know what they say about all work and no play?”

“Yes, Ern. It makes you rich.” And then he took a mouthful of cheese and thought of the south. The warm, seductive south, with its polished light and soft air and lavender evening skies. And no executive committee. “It’s tempting, I must say.”

“Well, then,” said Ernest, as if he’d just won an argument, “lie back and enjoy it. That’s what temptation’s for.”

Simon reached for his glass. “Maybe you’re right.” The wine felt warm and round in his mouth, comforting and relaxing. He grinned at Ernest. “Okay, I give in. Just a few days. Why not?”

S
imon was in the office by eight-thirty. The long and tastefully stark corridors were quiet, empty except for the potted palms and ficus trees that were now so numerous an official agency gardener had been hired to look after them, a willowy young man who wore cotton gloves and spent his days polishing leaves. Ernest called him the foliage executive.

Passing an open door, Simon saw a junior account man crouched over his first memo of the day. He looked up, pleased that his diligence had been noticed. Simon nodded good morning and wondered what his name was. There were so many of them now, and most of them looked the same in their suits of serious colour and fashionable cut. Maybe he should get them to wear identification tags.

He went through Liz’s office and into his own. A visiting American had once told him that it was a power office, because it occupied a corner and so had twice the view that less exalted employees could enjoy, and—a great touch, so the American had said—there was nothing as humble as a desk in sight. Deep leather couches, low tables, a wall of TV and computer screens, conspicuously larger and lusher plants than those which decorated the agency’s common parts. Tycoon heaven.

Liz had left the previous day’s accumulation of paperwork on a side table, neatly divided into four piles: messages, correspondence, contact reports, and, the most forbidding pile of all, strategy documents and marketing plans, several hours of intense boredom bound in glossy dark blue covers.

The fax machine chirped next door as Simon looked through the message pile. Ziegler had called from New York. Caroline’s lawyers. Four clients. The creative director, the financial director, two account supervisors, and the head of television. And Jordan. God, what a way to start the day. And then Simon remembered the decision he had taken last night, and his mood lightened. He was going on holiday.

He took Jordan’s message—“Must see you ASAP”—and scrawled on the bottom, “Ready when you are. 8 a.m.” The small lie would put Jordan on the defensive; he never got in before nine-thirty. Simon took the message across the hall to deliver it, and to catch up on Jordan’s latest hobby, traces of which were always on casual but prominent display in his office. It must be hell for him, Simon thought, trying to keep ahead of the rank and file. Tennis had been abandoned a long time ago, when junior executives had taken it up. There had been a period of shotguns and game bags when Jordan first bought his country seat, and then a nautical
phase marked by sea boots and oilskins. Now, apparently, it was polo.

Three mallets were propped against the wall behind Jordan’s desk, and a pristine helmet hung above them, next to the pinboard where the fixture list of the Ham Polo Club partially obscured an invitation to drinks at the Reform. Polo, of course, was the ultimate hobby for the socially ambitious advertising man—ruinously expensive, glamorous upper-class accoutrements, and, with any kind of luck, a chance to be on swearing terms with royalty. Simon smiled, and wondered how long it would be before Jordan wanted a parking space for his ponies and a company helicopter to whisk him off to Windsor.

He heard the click of high heels on the tiled floor, and left the message tucked into the frame of a photograph of Jordan’s acceptably pretty and, according to gossip, very rich wife.

Liz was sorting through the faxes that had come in overnight from America, her body silhouetted against the window, long dark hair falling forward across her cheek. She was dressed with a businesslike severity that accentuated a spectacular pair of legs. Simon considered himself a connoisseur of legs, and Liz’s were as good as he’d seen anywhere, very long from knee to ankle. For all his good intentions to hire plain middle-aged spinsters with halitosis and flat feet, he always ended up with attractive secretaries, and took great pleasure in looking at them. The sight of Liz bending over had sustained him through countless meetings.

“Good morning, Elizabeth.”

“Good morning, Mr. Shaw. How are you today.” She smiled at him over her bouquet of faxes. Whenever he called her Elizabeth she knew he was in a good mood.

“I’m fine, and a cup of coffee would make me even better. And then we must look for my bucket and spade and sunhat.”

Liz stopped on her way to the coffee percolator, eyebrows raised.

“I’m going to take a few days off. I thought I’d drive down through France and see if it’s true what they say about Saint-Tropez.”

“I think it would do you good. What do they say about Saint-Tropez?”

“Autumn in Saint-Tropez,” said Simon, “is completely devoid of temptation. It will be just me and the seagulls on the beach, and solitary evenings in my monklike cell. Could you fax the Byblos and make a reservation?”

Liz bent over her desk to make a note on her pad. “You’ll need a place on the car ferry.”

“And one night in Paris. The Lancaster.”

“When do you want to leave?”

“Tomorrow. Give Philippe Murat a call and see if he’s free for dinner. And for God’s sake tell him it’s business, otherwise he’ll bring one of his girlfriends from
Elle
and he’ll be blowing in her ear all evening. You know what he’s like—beneath that veneer of after-shave lurks a sex maniac.”

Liz looked prim. “I think Mr. Murat is very charming.”

“Well, don’t ever get into a lift alone with him, that’s all.”

Simon felt almost happy, impatient to get away from the office. Ernest could organise the flat in Rutland Gate, and Jordan would have the time of his life playing chief executive for a week. Nothing much could go wrong in a week.

Liz came back with the coffee. “Shall we do the calls?”

“Just the clients. Jordan can deal with the agency stuff.”

“And Mrs. Shaw’s lawyers?”

“Ah. Them. You don’t think I could send them a postcard from Saint-Tropez?”

“I had the senior partner on yesterday. He said it was urgent.”

Simon sipped his coffee. “Elizabeth, did you know he has a timer next to his phone? He charges by the minute. If, God forbid, you should ever be desperate enough to call and invite him to dinner, he’d charge you for the call. A postcard would be cheaper.”

“You’ll only have to speak to him when you get back.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right.” He sighed. “Okay. Let’s get the thieving swine before he issues a writ for contempt of phone calls. But you listen when he comes on the line. You can hear the timer. It ticks. It’s one of those things you use for boiling eggs.”

The call was brief and expensive. Caroline wanted a new car. She needed a new car. She was entitled to a new car, under the terms of the settlement. Simon agreed to a BMW, but haggled about the stereophonic equipment until he realised that he could have bought it for the price of a five-minute legal conversation. As he put the phone down, he wondered if killing a lawyer could ever be excused as a
crime passionnel
.

He looked up to see Jordan standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee in his hand, the sartorial antithesis of most people’s idea of an advertising man. His appearance was old-fashioned and deeply respectable, which was probably why clients felt safe with him. Ernest swore that he’d once heard Jordan’s suit creak, it was so heavy.
Today he was disguised as a successful merchant banker—three-piece pinstriped suit, striped shirt, sober tie, the gold watch chain in his lapel disappearing into the voluminous silk folds of his breast-pocket handkerchief, highly polished black shoes. His mouse-coloured hair was brushed straight back and made wings over his ears. Simon noticed that he was cultivating small tufts of hair on his cheekbones in the manner of retired naval officers, embryonic buggers’ grips. He could not have been anything but English.

Simon didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Come in, Nigel, come in. Listen, I’m sorry I had to cancel last night, but I’d had a hell of a day. Just wasn’t up to it. Have some more coffee. Have a cigar. Tell me I’m forgiven.”

Jordan folded his lanky body onto a couch and put down his coffee so that he could shoot his cuffs and smooth back his hair. “It’s not that I mind, Simon,” he said. He spoke as if his shirt collar were too tight. “It’s the others. They’re beginning to wonder if the executive committee still exists. Three meetings in a row cancelled. Feathers are ruffled, old boy, I can tell you.”

Simon could guess whose feathers were the most ruffled. “Anyone in particular? Anyone you think I should pop in and see?”

Jordan produced a gold cigarette case and took his time selecting a cigarette. He took a gold lighter from his waistcoat pocket. The light caught his heavy gold signet ring and his gold cufflinks. The man’s a walking bloody jewellery store, Simon thought.