Sunset in St. Tropez (13 page)

“More or less. Sometimes she wears more, sometimes less, but it's usually the same kind of outfit. But she's a pretty good cleaner. She helped me get the place in shape before you got here.”

“It looks cool, anyway,” Eric said, as he picked a peach from the bowl on the kitchen table. The fruit Pascale had bought was delicious. “Is it raining in here, or do we have a problem?” Eric asked, looking up at the steady stream of water coming from the ceiling.

“John says the toilet is flooding,” Pascale said as Eric nodded, and she served the eggs. A few minutes later, John joined them, looking harassed and a little frantic.

“There are two inches of water on the bathroom floor. I had Marius turn off the water till he calls the plumber.”

“How did you manage to tell him all that?” Pascale looked impressed. In twenty-five years, he had barely said ten words of French to her mother, most of it bonjour and au revoir, and merci, and only when he truly had to.

“I used to play charades when I was in high school,” he said, diving into the eggs, as Marius walked in and put a bucket under the stream of water coming through the ceiling. It seemed to be coming faster and harder, but he looked unconcerned, as he disappeared again and Agathe followed.

“Did you sleep well?” Pascale asked Eric over their eggs. And she poured them all steaming cups of strong coffee.

“Perfectly,” Eric answered, with a glance at Diana. They seemed not to be speaking to each other, or at least not more than they absolutely had to. And there was a definite sense of tension between them, and as soon as they finished eating, Pascale suggested to Diana that they go to the market. John wanted to stay back and see the plumber, and Eric announced that he was going to check out the sailboat and see if it would sail.

It was an easy morning for all of them, the weather was spectacular, and Diana and Pascale chatted on the way to the market. Pascale commented that Eric seemed to be trying to make an effort to be nice to her, and Diana nodded and stared out the window.

“He is,” she admitted to her friend, “but I"m not sure it'll make a difference.”

“Maybe you should just see what happens on the vacation. The time away may do you both good, if you let it.”

“And then what? We forget it all, and pretend it never happened? How do you think I could do that?” Diana looked annoyed at the suggestion.

“I"m not sure I could either,” Pascale said honestly, “I'd probably kill John if he did something like that. But maybe that's what you have to do to fix it.”

“Why do I have to fix it?” Diana asked, sounding genuinely angry.

“He did it, I didn't.”

“But maybe you have to forgive him, if you want to stay married.” “I haven't figured that out yet.” Pascale nodded, and a few minutes later, they reached the market. They stayed for two hours buying bread, and cheeses, and fruit and wine, some wonderful terrines, and a strawberry tart that made Pascale's mouth water just looking at it. And when they got back to the house with their purchases, they found Eric and John sprawled out in deck chairs, while John smoked a cigar, and they both looked relaxed and happy. And as the women came in with their string bags and a big basket, John told them that the plumber had come to fix the toilet. But as soon as he had left, the one in Eric and Dianas bathroom had flooded, and Marius was upstairs trying to fix it.

“I don't think we should buy the house,” Eric said matter-of-factly. “There's a news flash,” John said, waving his cigar at his wife. “I hope you didn't spend too much money on food.”

“Of course not, I only bought cheeses that had gone bad, stale bread, and the fruit that had gone rotten. It was a real bargain.”

“Very funny,” he said, turning back to Eric and drawing on his cigar.

The foursome ate lunch outside, and afterward they all swam, and Eric took Diana out in the sailboat. She seemed reluctant to go with him at first, but eventually he convinced her. She wasn't a big sailor, and she seemed determined not to open up to him. But Pascale had gone to take a nap by then, and John disappeared shortly after.

And there was nothing else to do, so Diana decided to go with him.

And by the time the Donnallys emerged from their room at six o"clock, Eric and Diana were speaking, and looking far more relaxed than they had that morning. Things were obviously not perfect with them, but they were a little better than they had been.

Pascale cooked squab for them that night, from an old recipe of her mother's, and they ate the strawberry tart she and Diana had bought at the market. It was delicious. They topped it off with café filtre, and afterward they sat around the table and chatted. Robert was coming the next day, and Diana asked Pascale if she knew anything more about the mysterious friend he said he might be bringing.

“I haven't heard anything more from him since I left New York. I assume he'll tell us when he gets here, but I really don't think it'll be that actress. They hardly know each other. I think we were worried for nothing.” In the relaxed atmosphere of St Tropez, she was feeling less concerned.

“I hope so,” Diana said, looking stern. Particularly after Eric"s infidelity, she seemed like the guardian of all morals. She had already promised herself she was not going to let Robert make a fool of himself, and if he told them he had invited Gwen Thomas to St Tropez, Diana had every intention of telling him what a mistake he was making, and what an insult to Anne's memory it was for him to be dating some starlet. She was hardly that, at her age, but Diana was quite convinced, as was Pascale, that she couldn't possibly be a decent person, and all they wanted was to protect Robert from himself.

But the next day, when he arrived, Robert looked entirely respectable, as he got out of his rented car with Mandy.

She was wearing a white T-shirt and white jeans, a straw hat, and Robert was wearing a blue cotton shirt and khakis.

They both looked fresh and clean and wholesome, and very American, and a little startled when they saw the villa.

“This isn't how I remembered it, from the pictures,” he said, looking puzzled. “Am I crazy, or is this a little more rustic?”

“A lot more rustic,” Pascale explained, as John shot her an amused look.

“And wait till you see the maid and the gardener,” he added, “but we got half our money back, so it's worth it.”

“Why did they do that?” Robert looked surprised by what John had told him.

“Because they screwed us. They"re French. What do you expect?” Pascale shot him an evil glance as he said it, but he wasn't daunted. “To be blunt, when Pascale got here, apparently it looked like The Fall of the House of Usher.

She spent two days cleaning it up, and it's fine, just don't try to flush the toilets, and don't expect to see it in Architectural Digest.” Robert nodded with a look of amusement, and Mandy looked instantly worried.

“Can we use the toilets?” There was a note of panic in her voice that instantly amused Pascale. Anne had always complained to her that her daughter was spoiled and very fussy.

“Sure, you can,” John reassured her, “just wear your galoshes.” “Oh my God,” she said, as Pascale tried not to laugh. “Should we go to a hotel? Can we stay here?” She had visions of not being able to use the plumbing at all, and would have preferred a hotel.

“We"ve been here for two days,” Diana said practically, “and we"re surviving just fine. Why don't I show you your room,” but when she did, Mandy was only slightly reassured. The plumbing was gurgling and running, and she noticed a damp, musty smell in the room. She was one of those people who never felt totally comfortable, or at ease, when she left home. “I'll open the windows for you,” Diana said, trying to be helpful, and when she tried, one of them literally fell out and into the garden. “I'll have the gardener come and put it back in again,” she said with a smile at Mandy"s horrified expression. And five minutes later, she went back to her father and asked him if he thought the house was safe. She also had a phobia about spiders and bugs, and the house clearly had more than its fair share.

“I really don't think we should stay here,” Mandy said cautiously to her father, and then suggested they look at the Hotel Byblos, the best hotel in St Tropez. One of her friends had stayed there the year before.

“We'll be fine here,” he said reassuringly, “it'll be fun. It's more fun to stay here with our friends. We don't need to go to a hotel.” And Eric had already told him that the little sailboat was sound, and he was dying to go out in it with him.

“Maybe I should go to Venice early,” she said, still looking worried. She was meeting friends there.

“Whatever you decide,” he said calmly. Anne had always been much better at handling her than he had. He got impatient with her when she was nervous or worried, and it was obvious that she preferred luxurious to “rustic.” But at her age, he didn't think a few days in a crumbling villa would hurt her, bugs and all. And he actually liked it. It was comfortable, and everything was a little frayed around the edges, but he thought the house had charm, and he had already told Pascale he liked it, which pleased her. She was feeling very guilty that it was so much less grand than she had promised. But they had all adjusted fairly well.

The first minor crisis came late that afternoon, when Mandy went to lie on her bed and read for a while. She had just gotten comfortable when it collapsed beneath her. Two of the legs were broken, and it had been carefully propped up to conceal them. The moment she moved, she shifted the delicate balance, and wound up on the floor. She let out a small scream, and Pascale stopped in to ask her what was wrong, and then laughed when she saw her sprawled out on the floor. “Oh dear, I'll call Marius to come fix it.”

But when he appeared to attempt the repair, the bed had been glued back together so often that he couldn't get it to hold this time. And Mandy had to resign herself to sleeping on the mattress flat on the floor, which gave easier access to the spiders and bugs. She was a good sport about it. But Pascale could tell she wasn't pleased, and suspected she'd be leaving for Venice before long.

With his tool kit in hand, Marius left her room in an alcoholic stupor, and she thanked him for his help.

“He's a good guy,” John laughed about him later, “and his wife is a real gem. You'll love her outfits,” he promised, and when Agathe reappeared late that afternoon, she was wearing a white lace blouse you could see right through over a black bra, and white short shorts that barely covered her bottom. Mandy couldn't help but laugh, although her father looked somewhat shocked.

“I think she's kind of cute,” John said, looking amused, and Robert grinned in spite of himself. “Wait till you see her little leopard number, or the hot pink bicycle shorts.” Robert chuckled as Mandy disappeared. He'd had fun in the sailboat that afternoon, and he was amused by the decrepit state of the house. To him, it seemed like an adventure, and he was convinced that Anne would have loved it too, and seen the funny side of it. She had always been more adventuresome than her daughter, and wasn't afraid of bugs. Mandy was a city girl.

As Pascale cooked dinner that night, and checked on the chickens she was roasting, the oven door fell off and landed at her feet on the kitchen floor. But Eric managed to repair it. He used baling wire, and created an ingenious system to reattach it, as the others applauded his ingenuity. Although afterward, Mandy mentioned the Byblos to her father again, with a hopeful look. She clearly wasn't enjoying the rustic charm of the house as much as her father and his friends.

“I like it here,” her father said simply, “and so do the others.” Although, admittedly, it wasn't as much fun for her.

There was no one her age for her to hang out with, and she was beginning to think it had been a mistake to come.

But she didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by leaving sooner than planned.

It was her father who finally offered to let her off the hook.

“This isn't much fun for you, sweetheart. The house isn't as comfortable as I thought.” And even the little sailboat didn't offer her much distraction. Although her brothers were avid sailors, Mandy had always hated to sail. She loved waterskiing, and going dancing at night, and being with people her own age.

“I love being here with you, Dad,” she said honestly. And she had always liked her parents" friends. But it also made her lonely for her mother not seeing her in their midst, although she was fond of Diana and Pascale.

“Do you want to leave earlier for Venice? My feelings won't be hurt.” He was happy with the Morrisons and Donnallys, but Mandy felt guilty abandoning him.

“Of course not. I love it here.” They both knew it was a stretch of the truth.

“I think you should try to meet up sooner with your friends.” And he urged her to go shopping in St Tropez that afternoon, where she ran into a friend staying nearby, in Ramatuelle. He was a very pleasant young man and came by to take her to dinner that night.

The others were going to Le Chabichou for dinner, which Agathe had suggested to them. They left the house in two cars and were in high spirits, except for Eric and Diana, who split up and went in separate cars. Eric seemed subdued, and Diana was far quieter than usual. But they were all pleased with the restaurant, and even more so when they tasted the food. It was superb.

And at eleven o"clock, they were still there, happy and sated, and they had drunk three bottles of wine among them.

Even Eric and Diana's spirits had improved, although they weren't sitting next to each other and hadn't spoken to each other all night. Pascale was deep in conversation with Robert, when he mentioned again that he had a friend arriving on Monday. Mandy was supposed to leave by the weekend, if not before.

“Is it anyone we know?” Pascale asked casually, dying of curiosity, but not wanting to sound as though she was prying into his affairs.

“I don't think so. It's a friend I met two months ago, when I was out with Mandy.” Pascale pricked up her ears then, wondering if it was the infamous actress, or at least she assumed she was infamous and Diana agreed. “I"m sure you"ve heard of her,” he continued, “she's a very nice woman. She's staying with friends in Antibes this week, and I thought it might be fun for you all to meet her.”