The Good Life (23 page)

“Even when you're giving me so much of it?”

“You'll want more. You don't have
any
yet.”

“What about all this?” He opened his hands with a flash of gold and made a little gesture to include the compartment.

“I'm helping you learn how to spend money. You had to have it to spend. I've never known anybody who needed money more in order to make the most of himself. It would be wasted on many others.”

“Is that why you didn't mind my being sort of a whore?”

“I expected you to be. Most penniless young men are if their looks favor them. I don't think whoring deserves unqualified condemnation. You were honest with yourself for the most part. I like that.”

“You're more clever than you look, Billy. Have some more wine.” They shared conspiratorial laughter again while Perry filled their glasses to the brim.

“There!” Billy exclaimed. “The Mediterranean. I'm as close to home as I'll ever be.” Perry had never seen him so excited.

Perry looked at an expanse of turquoise sea bounded by the curve of a white beach and felt Billy's excitement. They had come a long way to get here, but the world felt smaller than he had expected. This was home for Billy and therefore accessible, a place anybody could get to, no longer remote and exotic. A speck of white sail drifted across a backdrop of untroubled blue. He was going to be sailing out there soon, getting to know the Mediterranean. He was the luckiest guy in the world.

They perched on the edge of their seats and waited. He felt the speed of the train accelerating as if it were making a headlong dash to the sea. It was surely going to have to slow down soon. After another moment it did so, and its momentum was rapidly reduced as he felt the brakes more firmly applied.

He glanced at Billy, who nodded delightedly. Billy's panama hat was on the seat beside him, and he dropped it on his head at a jaunty angle. He stood, his feet lightly balanced to adjust to the car's movement. He always looked in supreme control of his surroundings. It was one of the things that impressed Perry most about him.

The train ground to a halt.

Billy strolled ahead while Perry checked that they had everything and tipped the attendant.

When he caught up to Billy, he was greeting a wiry middle-aged man wearing a beret and a smock rather like the one Billy wore for painting. He noticed some unexpected palm trees and a few dusty-looking shrubs. Billy introduced him to a Monsieur Canetti. Perry shook the hand that was offered him and was reduced to helpless smiles by the flood of French with which he was greeted.

“Mr. Canetti talks a lot like all
méridionales
— southerners,” Billy explained, “but he has a heart of gold, and I couldn't live without him. The car is always waiting for me.” He waved ahead at a big touring car drawn up beside the platform.

“The touring car? How fabulous.” Perry admired it as they approached. It was very racy-looking, with wire wheels and spares mounted on the running board, attached by straps with gleaming buckles. The hood was conspicuously long, as if the motor were enormous. It sat high off the ground and looked big enough for eight or ten passengers. It glowed from end to end under a rich enamel of forest green. They waited beside it while the luggage was stowed in its cavernous depths.

Billy looked wistfully over the station fence at a cafe that had its awning out over sidewalk tables, then beamed suddenly. “Do you want to drive, Perry?”

“I'm dying to. Do I dare?”

“Why not? Mr. Canetti won't mind. He loves to show it off.”

“What is it?”

“What kind? A Bugatti. Custom-made. Hand-tooled. It's ever so grand. The French are impressed.”

“So am I. Is it yours?”

“I think so, but I'm not sure. Mr. Canetti and I have been doing deals with cars for years. Sometimes they're mine. Sometimes they're his. I think he let me have this one. It'll be fun having you to drive. We won't have to call for Mr. Canetti all the time. I believe it has a few extra gears, but he'll show you. Shall we climb aboard?”

“I feel as if I should have goggles.”

“I don't want you to have to concentrate on the road and miss the countryside. Drive and get the feel of the car, then Mr. Canetti can take over.” Billy was swallowed up in the backseat.

Perry pulled himself up behind the gleaming wooden wheel with Mr. Canetti beside him, spouting French and gesturing at everything in front of them. Perry adjusted the rearview mirrors and looked at him questioningly. Mr. Canetti turned the key in the dashboard and indicated the starter button on the floor. Perry stepped on it, and the motor sprang into life.

He felt as if he were in command of a battleship. The motor purred with power. He clutched into what he assumed was first and looked at his instructor, who nodded enthusiastically. They moved smoothly away from the platform.

“Somebody better tell me where I'm going — and soon,” Perry called back to Billy.

“Turn around. We go left when we get to the main road. We're going down to the coast road. Once on it, it's clear sailing till the Saint-Tropez turnoff, but I won't let you drive that far. I want you back here with me to see the sights.”

“Okay. Here we go.” Perry accelerated and swung around in front of the station, then headed off in the other direction.

The hills receded, and the land opened out onto a fertile valley. There were groves of citrus trees along the road, interspersed with vineyards. Long, compact farmhouses with tile roofs like the ones Perry'd seen from the train were scattered about among the fields. He decided to give up the wheel so he could watch.

“Grimaud and Cogolin are the biggest towns near here,” Billy said. “They're back in there.” He pointed inland, off to the right, where low hills rose. They were thickly covered with trees, which Perry saw weren't pines. They looked like real trees, with leaves.

“What kind of trees are those?” he asked.

“Cork oaks. There's forests of them along here. Where the corks come from.”

“Corks?”

“You know. Those things you have to pull out of bottles.”

“Corks grow on trees?”

Billy laughed. “Not the way they are when you see them. They don't grow like berries. They have to be cut out of the bark.”

“Corks come from bark? Amazing.”

“You'll see where the trees have been stripped. They wait for the bark to get thick enough and then cut it off in sheets. After that it has to be put through machines, I imagine, to turn out the finished product. All so we can pop a cork.”

“You're full of useful information, Billy. I'll know where to come if I'm looking for a cork.”

After another few miles they came to an intersection and turned left. “Here we are — the Saint-Tropez peninsula,” Billy pointed out. “The road we were on follows the coast to Toulon and Marseille. This one goes nowhere but here.”

Ahead of them Perry saw a low pyramid of ocher rectangles that seemed to rise out of the water, crowned by a sort of citadel with a square tower. Coming upon it so unexpectedly was a giddy shock. He couldn't think of anywhere else quite like it; it was unrelated to the rest of the coast he'd seen, unique and isolated. “Now we're getting somewhere,” he said. “Where did it come from? What's it doing here? I love it already. Let's buy that house.”

“That's settled.” They clutched each other's knees and laughed.

Details took shape as they approached the town. The ocher rectangles became old houses that rose in irregular ranks toward the citadel. The waterborne effect was lost as perspective was restored, and they could see the formation of the land on which they were built. Houses fell into line along the road, unadorned facades with weathered painted shutters.

The houses began to crowd closer to each other, and the road became a narrow village street. Unpretentious shops appeared, and people, mostly women, moved about unhurriedly on their errands. Mr. Canetti used the bulb horn liberally to warn them of danger. It sounded rather festive in the narrow street, but nobody paid any particular attention to them.

After a moment they emerged from the street onto a big, peaceful port bordered on three sides by wide paved quays from which rose tall buildings, five or six stories high. They leaned precariously against each other as if for support and were color-washed in streaked and faded shades of pink and blue and green. The fourth side was open to the bay, and a massive seawall protected the entrance to the harbor.

Billy sat forward briefly, looked across at Perry, then sat back, smiling. “She's there,” he announced.

“Bet?” Perry asked with a twinge of apprehension. The unknown was always a potential threat no matter how secure he felt now.

“We'll soon find out. I was talking about the boat.”

“Oh, good. Where?” He turned to look where Billy's eyes had been.

“You'll get a good look in a minute.”

There was a small fleet of clumsy-looking sailing boats tied up at the quay along which they were making their stately advance. Farther out near the seawall there were several gleaming craft with tall masts that looked impressive enough to be private yachts. One of them was conspicuously bigger than the others.

They turned onto the third leg of the quay, heading toward the yachts. He saw that several of the ground floors of the tall buildings had been converted for business — a couple of bars, a shop with lots of clothes hanging carelessly in front of it, another with a single coil of rope in front of it. None of them had show windows.

“Senequier's,” Billy said as they passed one of the bars. “The hub of Saint-Tropez. It's hard to believe, but it'll be crowded in about an hour. The locals have it pretty much to themselves till noon, and then all the summer crowd comes out. Quite a lot of people come from up and down the coast for the day. The swimming at the beach they call Pampelone is superb. It's getting to be a bit too famous. All we need is a three-star restaurant, and we'll be sunk. Actually, there's a couple of pretty good restaurants nobody knows about yet, but that won't last.”

Mr. Canetti swung the car around as if he were going to drive into the harbor and came to a halt.

Billy looked eager and expectant, perched on the edge of his seat. “I seem to have been saying ‘Here we are' every few minutes for the last two days. But here, finally and definitively, we are.”

He climbed spryly out of the car and stood near the end of the gangplank that had been let down from the stern of the biggest yacht at the quay. BELLE ÉPOQUE was painted in big gold letters on the stern with CANNES in smaller letters under it.

“Belle Époque,”
Perry read aloud.

“The former owners named her,” Billy said. “I thought it would be bad luck to change a name like that.”

“Someday I may be well-educated enough to get all your references, Billy. I've heard of the Belle Époque, but I don't know exactly what it is.”

“It means ‘good times' in a general sense. It refers in particular to the early years of this century before the Great War when all of Europe was thriving and prosperous and at peace. You could hardly call the Depression a belle époque.”

Perry didn't take his eyes off the boat. He was too unfamiliar with sailing and water to be a judge of what he was looking at, but she looked comfortably big. The hull was black, and the rest of it, the cabin part, was white. There was a lot of glittering brass everywhere. The two masts weren't as tall as a couple of the others nearby. There was an American flag at the top of one of them.

As they looked, a man in white shirt and pants appeared on deck. He caught sight of them and called out, waving as he trotted down the gangplank to join them on the quay. He and Billy greeted each other with cordial familiarity, shaking hands warmly. Billy introduced him as the captain.

“This is Captain Mario,” Billy said. “He'll be in charge of us for the next six weeks.”

The captain was a swarthy, stocky man who spoke fluent English with an Italian flourish. “You're right on time, boss,” he said. “I've been watching for you. You said the morning of the fifth.”

“Here I am. Have you heard any news of my daughter?”

“Nothing, boss. Several of your friends have come to ask if you were coming. I told them what you said. I've been here a week like you told me. We're all shipshape and ready to go.”

“Send somebody to help Mr. Canetti with the bags.” Billy waved Perry up the gangplank and followed, with the captain at their heels. They stepped out onto the deck under an awning. There was a burst of activity around them. Young men in black trousers and white shirts appeared from somewhere and, after deferentially greeting Billy — “Welcome back, Mr. Vernon!”— hurried down the gangplank to the car. Others in less tidy work clothes drifted out to pay their respects to the owner. Their bags were paraded up the gangplank and past them through a door that presumably led to living quarters. The captain returned.

“The boys will get you settled, boss,” Captain Mario said. “Henri will be along in a minute to give you drinks. He and Emile are back. Sylvain's the new boy. He's from the islands too. I told them to put Mr. Langham in No. 2 cabin. The cook's the same. So's the engineer. We've got a good crew, boss. I've known the new deckhand since he was a kid. He even knows how to handle sail. I can show you the books whenever you can spare the time. Everything's up-to-date. No shocks. We're in good shape.”

“Leave them in my cabin,” Billy said. “I want to explain them to Mr. Langham. He'll be helping me with the routine. If you're cheating, you'd better be careful. He'll catch you.”

The captain looked at Perry with hearty good humor. “You and me, we May be do a deal together,” he said. “We can work something, he'll never guess what's happening to him.” He nodded cheerfully at them both and disappeared somewhere up front.