Hotel Pastis (30 page)

“Don’t flatter yourself. They’re from magazines. Didn’t you bring anyone?”

“She was very surprised. She’s in the bathroom.”

“Well, if you can fight your way through the women, come down and have a drink.”

Simon put the phone down and glanced at the guest list. Ten rooms filled, two to go. He looked at Françoise.
“Ça va?”

“Oui, j’aime bien.”
She smiled and half shrugged, a twitch of one shoulder, and Simon wondered how long it would be before she’d start causing havoc among the waiters.

There was the sound of a car pulling up outside, and Simon went to the entrance. The tall, slender figure of Johnny Harris in his south-of-France outfit of a pale yellow cotton suit unfolded itself from the little rented Peugeot. They shook hands over the open sunroof and the blond head of the passenger.

“You’re looking well, for a middle-aged dropout.” Harris pointed into the car. “This is Angela.” He managed not to wink. “My research assistant.” A slim hand
poked up through the sunroof and waved its fingers at Simon.

“Pull in over there, and I’ll give you a hand with the bags.”

Angela blinked in the sun as she got out, and rescued her dark glasses from their nest in her hair. She was a foot shorter than Harris, covered from throat to just below the pelvis in a suffocatingly tight layer of inevitable black, the only concession to colour on her feet, where scarlet peep-toe shoes revealed a hint of matching toenails. She looked like an eighteen-year-old with twenty years of experience behind her. She smiled sweetly at Simon. “I’m bursting. Where’s the ladies’?”

The hotel suddenly felt alive. There was the sound of splashing from the pool and laughter from the bar. The advertising ladies were already greased and prone in the sun, spraying their faces from time to time with aerosols of Evian water. The girls from the glossies, careful not to get any sun at all, drifted from one patch of shade to the next, taking reference photographs and whispering confidential notes into their small black tape recorders. Ernest darted solicitously from group to group, smiling and nodding and directing the bar waiter, and Madame Pons, in a vast white apron, was making a final stately tour of the tables to make sure that everything was as it should be for the start of lunch.

Simon found Nicole sitting on the terrace with Philippe Murat, who was showing her, with what Simon thought to be quite unnecessary intimacy, his miniature video camera, his arm round her shoulder as he helped her aim it towards the pool.

“You’re breaking union rules,” Simon said. “Don’t fondle the camera operator.”

Philippe grinned and stood up to embrace Simon.
“
Félicitations
. This is superb. How did you find it? And why have you kept Nicole a secret from me? I never meet lovely women like this.”

“You’re a disgraceful old lecher, and you’re far too brown for anyone with an honest job. Where have you been?”

Philippe pulled a face. “We made a commercial in Bora Bora. It was hell.”

“I can imagine.” Simon looked over to the pool. “Where’s your friend?”

“Eliane?” Philippe waved a hand towards the hotel. “She’s changing for lunch. After that, she’ll change for the pool, then she’ll change for dinner. She gets bored with her clothes every three hours.”

“Elle?”

“Vogue.”

“Ah.”

Nicole laughed. “They say women are bitches.” She looked at her watch. “
Chéri
, we should get them in for lunch. Everybody’s here, no?”

“I haven’t seen Billy Chandler yet, but we can start without him.”

The guests, moving with the languor induced by sun and wine, were met on the restaurant terrace by Simon and Ernest and shown to their tables. Simon noticed Françoise peering in fascination from an upstairs window at the assortment of outfits: the advertising ladies, glistening with tanning cream, their swimsuits covered by long shirts or pareos; the girls from the glossies, looking wintry in their black; Angela in a body bandage of cerise Lycra; Eliane (who had evidently been to Bora Bora too) with cropped dark hair and a shift of emerald
green silk, slit to the hip. And then there were the men: apart from Philippe, in white trousers and shirt, the fashion of the day was long shorts and well-worn T-shirts. There was a kind of reverse snobbery, Simon thought, about what they wore; they looked like labourers down on their luck until you saw their women and their complicated watches and their cars.

He waited until they were seated, and tapped the side of a glass with his fork.

“I’d like to thank you all for dragging yourselves away from London and Paris and Cannes to help us open the hotel. I think you’ve met Nicole and Ernest, who did all the work. But you haven’t met our chef, Madame Pons.” He stretched an arm towards the kitchen. Madame Pons, standing in the doorway, raised her glass. “There is a woman whose cooking can make a man moan with pleasure.

“We’re having a little party tonight, and you’ll meet some of the natives. Meanwhile, if there’s anything you want, ask one of us. And when you get back home, make sure you tell everybody about the hotel. We need the money.”

Simon sat down, the waiters moved in, and the drinking and gossipping continued. He looked around at the faces, glowing under the flattering light which filtered through the umbrellas, and smiled at Nicole. There was nothing quite like lunch outdoors in the early summer, overlooking a spectacular view. And they all seemed to love the hotel. He was at peace with the world as he took the first tiny mussel from its shell, dipped it in homemade mayonnaise, and lifted it to his mouth.

“Monsieur Simon, excusez-moi.”
Françoise was standing at his shoulder, biting her lower lip. Simon put his fork down.
“Un monsieur vous demande. Il est très agité.”

Simon followed her upstairs to the phone on the reception desk. “Hello?”

“Simon? It’s Billy. Listen, I’ve got a bit of a problem.”

Simon could hear him smoking. “Where are you?”

“In Cavaillon. In the bloody nick.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I parked the car and went to get some cigarettes, and when I got back there was a bloke getting into it.”

“Did he get away?”

“No—he was only about four foot six, so I pulled him out and thumped him.”

“And they arrested you for stopping him stealing the car?”

“Not exactly. Wasn’t my bloody car, was it? Mine was the next one down. They all look the same here, small and white. Anyway, he screamed like a stuck pig, and the law arrived. Rough buggers they are, too.”

“Jesus. I’ll be right down. Don’t say anything. Just stay there.”

“I think that’s the general idea.”

The car was like an oven, and Simon’s stomach was still getting over the disappointment of losing lunch. Another epic triumph for Billy Chandler, the most pugnacious photographer in London. Leave him alone for five minutes in a pub, and there’d be a brawl by the time you got back. The trouble was, the rest of him didn’t match up to the size of his mouth, and Simon had lost count of the bunches of grapes he’d sent to various hospitals—broken jaw, broken nose, cracked ribs. He’d even been knocked out once by a model, one of those big girls he couldn’t resist trying to jump on. Simon couldn’t help liking him, but he was a definite social liability.

The
gendarmerie
at Cavaillon, up at the top end of town opposite a row of cafés, smelt of nervous people and black tobacco. Simon prepared himself for some apologetic grovelling and went up to the desk. The
gendarme
stared at him, stone-faced, silent, intimidating.

“
Bonjour
. You have my friend here, an Englishman. There was a misunderstanding.” The
gendarme
said nothing. Simon took a breath and went on. “He thought his car was being stolen. It was a mistake. He regrets it very much.”

The
gendarme
turned to call through the open door behind him, and finally spoke to Simon. “The captain is dealing with it.”

The captain, whose moustache outranked the gendarme’s by several centimetres, came out, smoking and looking grim. Simon repeated what he’d said.

The captain’s expression became grimmer. “It is a grave matter,” he said through a mouthful of smoke. “The victim has been taken to the Clinique Saint-Roch for X-rays. Bones may have been broken.”

Christ, Simon thought, the only decent punch he’s landed in twenty years, and he has to do it here. “Captain, I will of course undertake to pay any medical expenses.”

The captain took Simon through to his office. Forms were produced, a deposition was taken regarding the character of the attacker, the details of Simon’s circumstances in France were noted, his passport demanded. Possible reparations to the injured party were discussed. The office grew thick with smoke. Simon’s head ached. His stomach rumbled.

Finally, after two and a half hours, the captain judged that sufficient paperwork had been accumulated, and the prisoner was led out. He was wearing baggy black trousers and a white shirt buttoned at the neck. His
thin, lined face under a bush of greying hair wore an expression of tentative relief.

“Hello, mate. Sorry about this. What a turnup.”

The two of them nodded and bowed their way out of the
gendarmerie
and walked very fast down the street for a hundred yards before stopping. Billy let out his breath as though he’d been holding it all afternoon. “I could murder a bloody drink.”

“Billy.” Simon put his hands on his friend’s bony shoulders. “If you think I’m taking you into one of those bars to go fifteen rounds against an Arab with a knife, and then spend what’s left of the weekend in the police station, you’re wrong. Okay?”

Billy’s face creased into a grin. “Just asking.” He slapped Simon softly on the cheek. “Good to see you again. It would have been nicer without the red alert, but I really thought the little sod was after my stuff. All right, what’s the drill?”

By the time they got back to the hotel, the guests around the pool were beginning to stir from the stupor brought on by food and drink and sun. Simon was watching them from the terrace as Billy came out with a beer in his hand, apparently completely recovered from his ordeal.

“Well, my son,” he said to Simon, “this is the life.” He looked down to the pool. “Dear oh dear—it’s enough to make your eyes water, all that. Be lucky if you could make six hankies out of what they’re wearing.” The ladies were obviously determined to get as close as possible to the total tan, naked except for brightly coloured triangles that in most cases were slightly smaller than their oversized sunglasses.

Simon glanced over to the wall and nudged Billy. Just
visible in the shade cast by a tall cypress tree was the top of a bald head. “That’s our neighbour. I think he’s given up television for the summer.”

Simon took Billy down to the pool and introduced him, watching with amusement as the little photographer insisted on shaking hands with all the women, ducking and bobbing his head as low as he decently could over the array of oiled flesh. Simon left him as he was asking Angela if she’d ever done any modelling—how many times had he used that one?—and went to find Nicole and Ernest.

It was, everybody said, the most perfect evening, windless and warm, the sky flushed with the last of the sun, the mountains a hazy dark mauve. The terrace was filling up, locals and foreigners circling each other with polite interest as Ernest, resplendent in pink linen, encouraged them to mingle. Nicole and Simon, armed with bottles of champagne, moved slowly through the crowd, topping up glasses and eavesdropping on fragments of conversation. The French talked of politics, the Tour de France, and restaurants. The advertising group talked, as always, about advertising. The expatriates and owners of holiday homes compared plumbing disasters and, with a mixture of disbelief and secret satisfaction, shook their heads at the latest excessive leap in property prices.

Billy Chandler and his camera stalked pretty women; he always said they could never resist a fashion photographer. The girls from the glossies, black uniforms and sunglasses abandoned in favour of loose, pale tops, tight leggings, and high-definition makeup, picked the brains of a decorator who specialised in making the interiors
of old Provençal farmhouses look like apartments in Belgravia. Johnny Harris observed them all and waited for the drink to take hold. Sober people watched their words too carefully.

Simon found him on the fringe of a group which included Philippe Murat, a French writer who was complaining about being famous, and a young heiress from Saint-Rémy, wearing several kilos of gold jewellery and a permanent pout.

“Getting any scoops, Johnny?”

Harris smiled with relief. “Can’t understand a bloody word they’re saying. What I need is an English-speaking gossip with an urge to confide in me.” He sipped his champagne. “A nice, talkative expatriate with absolutely no sense of discretion would be perfect.”

Simon surveyed the mob of nodding, talking heads until he found the face he was looking for—a chubby, tanned, animated face framed by frizzy, shoulder-length light brown hair. “That’s your girl,” he said. “She’s a real estate agent, been here for fifteen years. If you want a rumour to get round here like a dose of flu, all you have to do is tell her in the strictest confidence. We call her Radio Lubéron.”

They picked their way through the crowd, and Simon put his arm round the woman’s plump, bare shoulder. “I’m going to steal you away to meet a gentleman of the press. You can tell him all about our charming neighbours. Johnny, this is Diana Prescott.”

“Johnny Harris.” They shook hands. “I do a little column in the
News
. Simon tells me you might be able to give me some local colour.”

She looked at him through wide, prominent blue eyes and giggled. “Is that what they call it nowadays? Well, where would you like to start? The top ten snobs? The
actors who don’t act? The decorators’ Mafia? People think it’s the back of beyond down here, but it’s positively seething.”

“I can’t wait to hear,” said Johnny. He appropriated the bottle that Simon was holding. “This will be just between you and me and my countless millions of readers.”