Last Resort (7 page)

Of course she couldn't wear the kind of clothes Marielle was wearing, but her knee-length navy suede jacket that was covering a long, cornflower-blue sweater dress with starched white collar was pretty smart and both were great colours for her hair and eyes. And besides, she wasn't here for either a beauty contest or a fashion parade, she was here to do a job!

As she stepped outside she inhaled deeply and took a brief look around. There was a glorious crispness to the air and a radiance in the light that made the wintry bleakness of England seem like the planet's dungeon by comparison.

Trying to keep control of her trolley as she hurried across the road after Marielle, who was striding on ahead through the swaying palms into the car park, Penny was beginning to feel like some kind of simpleton lady's maid.

This wasn't a good start, she was telling herself, but putting Marielle in her place wouldn't be much

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of one either. There would be plenty of time over the next few days to assert her authority, as subtly as she could, for alienating Marielle was definitely not on her agenda. Having spoken to her frequently this past week, Penny was already aware of how invaluable Marielle's knowledge and contacts were going to be. Her hostility might be a bit of a problem, though, but Penny was pretty certain she'd win her over eventually. Not right away, though, as she hadn't told Marielle yet that she had already taken the decision - with Sylvia's approval

- to do away totally with the magazine as it stood, for the format was so bland and so depressingly tradesmanorientated that it wasn't any wonder they'd had to give it away.

"This your car?"

Penny smiled, catching up with Marielle, who had stopped beside a sleek little red Japanese number.

Marielle nodded as she pressed a button on her key ring unlocking the doors.

She offered Penny no assistance with heaving her case into the boot; instead, she slid into the driver's seat and waited for Penny to get in beside her.

When Penny came to open the car door she very nearly plonked herself on Marielle's lap.

"You're in France now,"

Marielle informed her smoothly.

"Of course!"

Penny laughed.

"Force of habit, I'm afraid,"

and walking quickly round to the other side she got in and fastened her seat belt.

"So,"

she said decisively as they joined the autoroute into Cannes,

"maybe we can go straight to the office. I'm dying to see it."

Glancing in her rear-view mirror, Marielle pressed her foot down hard and proceeded to eat up the autoroute as if it was a long, slippery string of spaghetti being sucked into a hungry mouth.

"Wow!"

Penny muttered, blinking at the passing blur 47

of scenery; then suddenly she was jamming her feet hard into the floor as Marielle raced up behind a Mercedes and sat inches from its tail. Making a mental note not to travel with Marielle unless absolutely necessary, Penny decided to try a little light conversation.

"Were you born here?"

she asked.

Tes."

"Actually in Cannes?"

"Yes."

"It must have been quite something growing up in such a beautiful place/ Penny commented.

Whether it was or wasn't, Marielle obviously wasn't going to let on.

"Your English is excellent,"

Penny said, with an ingenuous smile that totally masked the sarcasm, for so far Marielle hadn't managed much beyond yes and no. But Penny knew from their telephone conversations that Marielle was even better at English than she, Penny, was at French.

"Where did you learn?"

she asked.

"I have a lot of English and American friends."

Penny nodded. That's nice,"

she said. Then,

"Are you married?"

"No."

Penny waited, but when no reciprocal question was forthcoming she said,

"Me neither."

The vaguely hoped-for camaraderie of independent, single women was obviously a nonstarter too.

"Are you always this talkative/ Penny enquired after a while,

"or is it just me that you've decided to pour your heart out to?"

Marielle scowled, showing that this time the sarcasm had managed to hit home, but she clearly wasn't going to rise to it.

"Well, if we're going to work together/ Penny said as Marielle threw some coins into the net at the payage,

"we're going to have to find some way of communicating. How's your semaphore?"

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Penny might just have imagined it, but she thought she'd caught the ghost of a smile twitch those perfect red lips. Well, it was enough to be going on with, for friendship was more of a luxury than a priority and she could tackle it again when the time felt right.

A few minutes later they were turning off the boulevard Carnot on to the voie rapide, the road that ran parallel to the coast with the most exclusive part of Cannes sandwiched between. Not that Penny had a clue where they were. All she could see were the backs of tall, mostly slender white buildings on one side with the odd ad for Monoprix or Indian cuisine, and a fringe of extremely grand, almost Florentine-looking, villas interspersed with holiday apartments through the lush tropical foliage on the other. It was in a secluded, palmstudded forecourt outside one of these villas that Marielle brought the car to a halt.

This is it?"

Penny said incredulously, turning to her. These are the offices?"

"Yes,"

Marielle answered, already getting out of the car.

Penny looked up at the creamy-yellow facade of the villa, at its dark-green shutters, wide, filigree balconies and intricately carved friezes. On both sides of the upper storey were two large, balustraded terraces and reclining on each side of the pointed roof were two happily fat and impudent-looking cherubs. From the outside it appeared more like the home of a minor branch of the Medici family than it did an office, but if this was where she was going to be working she reckoned she could live with it.

The entrance hall was vast, with a high, domed ceiling, art-deco cornices and a dusty marble floor. There was no furniture to speak of and the paint was peeling, but it wasn't hard to imagine what it had looked like in its glory days.

"We don't use the downstairs,"

Marielle told her,

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already halfway up the balustraded staircase.

"But we will - eventually."

Penny smiled, following on.

"You said on the phone that you have an assistant working with you at the moment. Is she here?"

"Not today/ Marielle answered, offering no explanation as to why.

"But it's been just you two running the shop since the previous editor left?"

"Just us and a few freelancers/ Marielle confirmed, pushing open a heavy white door. This is the main office/ she said, standing aside to let Penny through.

Penny stopped on the threshold to look around what might once have been a small, but nevertheless grand, ballroom. All the shutters were open and the sunlight was streaming across the room in wide, misty bands. The walls were cluttered with the usual paraphernalia of a magazine office, though pretty sparsely so, and only one of the half a dozen or so desks had anything on it.

"It's perfect/ Penny murmured, more to herself than to Marielle as her imagination went instantly to work.

"Where are the computers?"

she asked.

There/ Marielle replied, pointing towards an antiquated Compaq that Penny had overlooked.

Penny blinked and, realizing that to ask if it was linked to the internet would be like asking if it was linked to Mars, she saved her breath and tried to remain positive.

"Well, if we get things a little more organized in here/ she said, walking further into the room,

"we can put a production table in the centre and find a use for all these empty desks. I take it they were once occupied?"

"In the early days."

It was as if Marielle was volunteering just a fraction of what she really wanted to say, as though the rest of it would only be forthcoming on demand.

Penny decided to give it a miss for now and wandered over to the high, 50

wide french windows to gaze out on the speeding traffic of the voie rapide.

With the windows closed the noise wasn't a problem, but no doubt when they were open it would be, which meant they would need to install airconditioning for the summer.

"What's through there?"

Penny asked, pointing towards a half-open door at the far end of the production office.

"That/ Marielle said, going to the door,

"is my office."

Correction, Penny thought, as she walked into the room: was your office. The desk was surprisingly untidy, given the neatness of Marielle's appearance, and the walls were sadly devoid of anything other than a couple of jejune front covers of previous issues. A computer terminal complete with its own compact laser printer was on a side desk and behind the grand, leather swivel chair a set of french windows opened out on to a large, balustraded veranda.

"And in here?"

Penny said, pushing open the door to a floor-to-ceiling cubicle in one corner.

"That is a cuisinette,"

Marielle informed her.

Penny nodded, looking it over and thinking they either needed a cleaner or must change the one they had, since the sink was a bit grimy and the twin hotplates were a touch too grungy for her liking.

"Well,"

Penny said, clasping her hands together as she walked back into the production office,

"as I said before, it's perfect. 1 take it those are more offices over there behind those two doors,"

she said, pointing to the windowless, north side of the room.

Marielle nodded.

"They have never been used/

Well, at least one of them would be now, Penny was thinking with relish, for in her mind she was already assigning whichever one he wanted to David Villers who, interestingly, hadn't even attempted to make contact yet, and since she had no idea where he was she considered that her own negligence in that area was

51

perfectly excusable.

Looking around again, she felt a momentary depression steal o$?r her as the hollow stillness and lack of human bustle made her feel as though she had been plucked from all the carousing hullabaloo of a circus and deposited in Shirley Valentine's kitchen. London had never felt so dear, nor so far, as it did in that moment.

"OK,"

she said, casting aside the gloom and pulling a chair up to one of the empty desks,

"we've a lot to sort out in the next couple of weeks, so let's start by getting someone in to discuss our technical needs."

Marielle's perfect brows arched as she perched on the edge of her assistant's desk.

"And what exactly would they be?"

she enquired in a supercilious tone.

"That's why we need experts/ Penny pointed out.

"Someone who can advise us on everything from airconditioning to computer graphics."

She picked up her briefcase and flicked it open.

"I have a list here of the kind of equipment and people I thought we might require to get things operational."

She handed a copy to Marielle, who grudgingly took it and treated it to a frosty-eyed glance.

"We are already operational/ she intoned.

Penny took a breath.

"For The Coast maybe, but not for the new magazine."

Then, without giving Marielle a chance to respond, she went on:

"I've had a rough blueprint drawn up of what the magazine might look like. The final decision will of course be taken after consultation with you and David, but you will see from this/ she said, handing Marielle a copy of the blueprint,

"what sort of areas I intend to cover. If you know anyone with an interest in any of these fields - fashion, interior design, gardening, cookery, entertainment, et cetera - and who may like to contribute, I'll be happy to see them. There is one stipulation, though. Whoever they are, they must be bilingual because my intention is to make the new 52

magazine bilingual, since to cater just for the Englishspeaking population imposes unacceptable limitations on the circulation. It will be a community nagazine and, as the French make up by far the greater part of the community, it would be insane to cut them out. And here/ she said, delving into her briefcase again,

"is a list of people I would like to meet, the editor of the NiceMatin being the most important. Maybe your assistant, when she next graces us with her presence, can fix up some meetings for me.

"Now, about recruitment..."

she continued. To begin with we shall be quite a small team consisting of myself, David Villers, you, a general assistant, a sales and marketing director, an advertising director and two subs. As well as the deputy editorship I would like you to take on the role of production director."

Not even a glimmer of a response.

"But the most important person at this stage is the designer. I have already recruited someone in London who will come down to oversee everything from the look of the magazine to the launch of it. His name is Jeffrey Silver. He drew up the blueprint you are looking at there and he's had considerable experience in getting new magazines off the ground. On the list of people I would like to meet I've included several advertising agencies. They will handle the actual launch, which I hope will take place at the end of August."

There was a tightness around Marielle's mouth that told Penny how royally pissed off she was, but she said nothing.

"Uh, before we go any further/ Penny said, looking through more documents she had taken from her briefcase, her mind clearly dealing with several things at once,

"maybe you could hire a team of decorators to come and spruce the place up a bit. Oh yes/ she said, as her eyes alighted on a memo she had sent Sylvia,

"there are two extremely important points here, the first being 53

that the new magazine will be a bimonthly as opposed to a monthly and, second, it will no longer be free. We'll need to discuss the setting of a price with David when he comes."

"And when will that be?"