Dreaming of St-Tropez

by T A Williams

  ‘One thing’s for sure – we’re immensely lucky to be here, aren’t we?’

  ‘You said it. And, Jess, one way or another we’re going to do our very best to help George get over his loss, and David get over his accident. Right?’

  ‘Right… but it isn’t going to be easy.’

  Chapter 10

  Over the next few days, their walks with Brutus gradually increased in length and the dog started to shed a few pounds and gain energy. Antoinette ran Jess and Brutus into the town centre one afternoon in her little car and walked them through the streets, pointing out the best shops for bread and other food, cheaper restaurants and good value cafés. The dog trotted along with them quite willingly, which was definite progress. It was while they were down at the harbourside, however, that Jess had her first embarrassing moment in St-Tropez.

  They had stopped for ice tea in one of the less expensive pavement cafés and Jess hooked Brutus’s lead around the leg of the table. Antoinette was exchanging a few words with an elderly lady at the next table while Jess was idly studying the hordes of people who came strolling past. Among these were a mother and child, the little girl holding an ice cream cone. The little girl stopped to pet the friendly Labrador, but made the mistake of letting her ice cream come too close to the ever-hungry dog. Before Jess could stop him, with a move like a striking cobra, Brutus suddenly jerked his head forward and vacuumed the ice cream out of the cone and down his throat. It disappeared without touching the sides.

  As his long pink tongue licked his lips in appreciation, the little girl stared uncomprehendingly at the empty cone for a few seconds before looking up at her mother, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. Keen to avoid an international incident, Jess leapt to her feet, pressed the lead into Antoinette’s hand and apologised to the mother, who was still trying to work out what had happened.

  ‘Excusez-moi, Madame. Le chien mange tout.’ She was relieved her A-level French proved to be up to the task.

  To her surprise, the lady laughed and replied in English.

  ‘Don’t worry. I keep telling Holly she should eat more quickly. It’s a good lesson to her.’ Her accent was unmistakably Scottish.

  ‘I’m so sorry. Do let me get her another one. Please.’

  ‘It’s all right. She was losing interest anyway. Thank you, but there’s no need.’ She glanced down at her daughter. ‘Want another ice cream, sweetie?’

  The little girl thought for a moment and then shook her head, returning to stroking Brutus. After a second or two she hesitantly held the empty cone out to him and he took it very gently from her fingers and crunched it up. The mother smiled again.

  ‘That’s good. We don’t need to look for a litter bin. Enjoy St-Tropez.’

  As she and her daughter set off again, Jess sat back down again and addressed the dog sternly.

  ‘You are a naughty, greedy dog, Brutus. No more stealing food, all right?’

  She wagged her finger at him and he leant forward and licked it – totally without any signs of remorse.

  Antoinette handed Jess the lead back and grinned.

  ‘They were British, too, weren’t they? I bet if you asked everybody in a fifty-metre radius of us now where they came from, you’d have a dozen different nationalities, and more foreigners than French people. St-Tropez really is multilingual and truly cosmopolitan.’

  Apart from having coffee or tea with Antoinette from time to time over the days that followed, Jess and Hope made a point of meeting up with George as often as possible – for coffee in the kitchen of their house, or for a drink on his terrace – and did their best to put, and keep, a smile on his face. Jess was very pleased to find him starting to spend time in the walled garden, beginning the laborious process of removing the weeds. Considering that he had told her he had barely been outside for a year, she took this as a very positive sign and she and Hope joined in to give him a hand.

  Hope disappeared for a few hours most days to be with her sailor, and the grin on her face when she returned from her visits to the Helios grew ever wider. Jess spent an hour or so most evenings weeding the flower beds around the guest house. Pretty soon, the place began to look really rather smart.

  The weather remained very warm, although the forecast for the weekend wasn’t so good. Hope and Brutus swam in the sea every day and Jess got up to forty lengths of the pool each time she went. Her skin gradually began to turn a golden brown in the sunshine and she felt fit and relaxed. This holiday was definitely doing her good. She saw nothing more of David – either in the pool or at his window – although his car was still parked beside the Range Rover most of the time. She wondered if he maybe went out on foot or even in a boat, but there was no sign of him.

  On Saturday morning the sky was overcast, but it was still very warm, although the humidity had definitely increased. Jess had decided that the time had come to buy herself a new bikini. The one she had been using was a few years old and regular daily wear was beginning to take its toll. After her Miss Wet T-shirt moment earlier in the week, she decided she really couldn’t run the risk of a wardrobe malfunction while at the pool – particularly if David or his father were around. She asked Antoinette where she should go to buy a replacement and received the suggestion that they take the ferry across the bay to Ste-Maxime, where shops were likely to be a bit more affordable than the very expensive ones they had spotted in St-Tropez.

  They left Brutus at the villa – George had promised to take him for a gentle stroll –and walked round the coastal footpath once more, stopping off for a coffee at the beach bar. The friendly waitress, Terri, welcomed them.

  ‘So, how’s it going, girls? Having a good time?’

  Hope answered for both of them. ‘Amazing, thanks, Terri. St-Tropez’s a wonderful place.’

  ‘And have you started to make friends?’

  Hope grinned. ‘I have – very definitely.’

  Terri smiled and glanced across at Jess. ‘And what about you, have you been making friends?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been making friends.’ Antoinette and George surely qualified. ‘Although Hope has been friendlier than me.’ She winked across at her friend.

  ‘There are some rather good-looking men in St-Tropez… very good-looking.’ Hope sounded as if she knew what she was talking about.

  Terri grinned and then looked back at Jess. ‘You should come along this evening to try our rum punch – do a bit of dancing maybe. You’ll find a lot of good-looking men here – take your pick. Any time after eight. Come and see me and I’ll give you a drink on the house.’

  When Terri had gone off to get their coffees, Hope looked across at Jess. ‘Max has got a bunch of bankers on the yacht for the weekend, so I’m at a loose end tonight. Shall we give it a go?’

  Jess didn’t really feel in the least bit interested in hooking up with some random man, but she said yes anyway. It would be good to meet some new people. She wondered if David ever came along to the beach bar, and the idea of bumping into him rather appealed, even if she had a pretty good idea what his sullen reaction to seeing her would be. Why oh why, she demanded of her subconscious, was she still thinking about him when he was patently not interested? Annoyingly, her subconscious refused, yet again, to provide an answer.

  The fast ferry across the bay took barely fifteen minutes. Jess reflected that in the car they had taken three times as long to crawl through the queue of traffic. Clearly, here in the gulf of St-Tropez, the best way to travel was by boat.

  Ste-Maxime was bigger, noisier and more modern than its more famous neighbour back across the water. There was a marina and a promenade with palm trees, meticulously-manicured lawns, and people everywhere. They found numerous restaurants, most with tables outside, as well as ice cream shops and cafés. There were also lots and lots of cars, with a busy road running along the seafront. When Jess commented on the traffic noise to one waiter, he told them they were lucky they hadn’t been there a few weeks earlier. Every year in May, apparently, thous
ands of Harley Davidson motorbikes descended upon the area en masse and the noise levels were ‘enough to make the fillings fall out of your teeth’.

  Jess and Hope each bought themselves not one, but two, new bikinis. Somehow they got the feeling they were going to get a lot of use. They weren’t cheap by any means, but Jess felt confident she would have paid even more on the other side of the bay. She also bought a couple of new tops – a bit skimpier than her normal stuff, but now that she was getting a decent tan, she felt she could show off a bit. After a sandwich lunch in one of the narrow streets in the pedestrian area – where they could no longer hear the traffic – they took the ferry back across the bay. As they did so, Hope got very excited as she spotted the Helios come past, heading out to sea. Max’s mop of yellow hair was clearly visible on the high bridge but, in spite of Hope’s shouts and waves, he didn’t notice her among the other passengers on board the ferry.

  As it was getting even more hot and humid, in spite of the now total cloud cover, they took the little bus back to the villa. There were only half a dozen people on board apart from themselves and it appeared that everybody knew everybody else, including the driver. He evidently knew the addresses of some of the older ladies and delivered them right to their doors. It was rather sweet in a Trumpton sort of way and added to the very homely feel she was beginning to get from St-Tropez. Very different from Jess’s notion of the place as some sort of international jet-set hangout, peopled exclusively by Latin lovers and dyed blondes. She was pleasantly surprised – and impressed.

  After dinner that evening they walked back to the beach bar just as dusk descended. The air felt clammy and both of them were wearing their lightest clothes. Jess, ever prudent, had checked out on the internet the best way to go home afterwards along roads, having decided against using the coastal footpath for their return. The cloudy sky would mean no starlight to guide them and the rocky stretch was likely to be dangerous in the dark. She had even considered driving, but the sheer bulk of the Range Rover in the narrow roads was a bit off-putting, particularly when it came to finding a parking space.

  The party was in full swing by the time they arrived at the beach bar. Terri the waitress spotted them as they walked in and called them over to the bar, where a huge glass bowl contained the rum punch. She ladled them each a generous serving, complete with chunks of fruit and little paper umbrellas, and led them to a spare table.

  A few people were dancing, but most were sitting around, chatting and drinking. The dance floor was, of course, just sand, and Jess was relieved to see that her choice of shorts and flip-flops was what most people were wearing. It was lovely to sit back and relax, watching the lights of the disco reflect out across the water, the little waves sparkling as they rolled into the beach. She raised her glass and clinked it against Hope’s.

  ‘Sitting on a beach in St-Tropez drinking rum punch takes a bit of beating, doesn’t it? Good old Mrs Dupont. Here, a toast to her and her faithful hound.’

  Hope nodded contentedly and held up her glass, a blissful expression on her face. They tried the punch and agreed that it was very good, very fruity, and probably lethal. Just then Hope’s phone whistled and she checked the incoming text message.

  ‘It’s Max.’ Jess could see her friend’s eyes sparkling. ‘He’s coming round to join us, bringing some of his bankers.’ She grinned. ‘Only, he spells it with a W. He did say they were a bit hard going.’

  The last thing Jess wanted was to meet up with a bunch of objectionable rich boys – and probably drunk ones as well – but she couldn’t really say anything, seeing as they would be with her best friend’s boyfriend. If the worst came to the worst, she knew she could always go home early and leave Hope with Max. Her thoughts were interrupted.

  ‘Hi, did I hear you speaking English?’

  They both looked up. There was a man standing by their table, looking down at them. The light from behind hid most of his face, but his outline was unmistakable. This guy was either the Incredible Hulk, or in the later stages of a cataclysmic allergic reaction to peanuts. Alternatively, he had been working out – very seriously indeed. As Hope put it later, he had muscles in places where other people didn’t have places.

  ‘Yes. Are you from England, too?’

  The Hulk moved slightly to one side and Jess found she could now see his face. She could also see at least some of the tattoos on his bare arms. His T-shirt had had the arms ripped off – quite possibly with his teeth – and his biceps bulged alarmingly. Jess had never been a fan of body-builders, but she had to give him credit for the effort he must have put into getting to this state – and no doubt the dodgy substances he had ingested in the search for what he deemed to be physical perfection.

  ‘Yeh, but I work here now.’ His accent was indefinable, with just a hint of American in there somewhere.

  ‘Really?’ Jess remembered that Hope’s boyfriend until last year had spent every spare hour in the gym, but without achieving the monumental results of this man-mountain standing in front of them. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a minder.’ The Hulk glanced round and dropped his voice dramatically. ‘There are some very important people who live here or visit here. I work for an agency that provides protection for them. My name’s Pete. What’re yours?’

  ‘I’m Hope, and this is Jess.’

  He held out a massive hand and Jess saw Hope take it, shake it, and retrieve her hand uncrushed afterwards, so she did the same. She was grateful to receive only the lightest squeeze from him.

  ‘Can I get you two ladies a drink?’

  Jess pointed to her punch. The glass was still nearly full. ‘Thanks, but we’ve only just got these.’

  He nodded. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’

  ‘Do, by all means.’ Hope pointed to a spare chair and Pete lowered himself onto it. Jess distinctly heard a creaking sound as he did so – presumably from the chair, rather than Pete’s knees.

  ‘So, are you here on holiday?’

  Jess sat back and let Hope do the talking. She listened idly as Pete spoke of his time in the Marines, his sporting achievements, but not about his work. Clearly this was a taboo subject. As he talked, she was mildly surprised to hear that he didn’t appear to be hitting on either of them. Maybe, she wondered to herself, there was a Mrs Hulk somewhere nearby. He was still chatting when Hope spotted an inflatable boat, coasting in to the shore, and she jumped to her feet.

  ‘Here’s Max.’

  As he watched her rush off to the water’s edge, Pete glanced across at Jess.

  ‘Max?’

  ‘Hope’s new boyfriend. He’s got a yacht.’

  ‘Got a yacht or works on a yacht?’ Pete sounded as dubious as Jess had been.

  ‘Both, I think. He owns a yacht that he charters to rich folk. I think he still goes along as skipper, though.’

  ‘Well, there’s no shortage of rich folk around here. Some of them keep yachts that they only use three or four times a year.’

  ‘All right for some…’

  She left the rest unsaid as Max appeared.

  ‘Hi, Jess, I’ve brought you some company.’

  Jess stood up to greet Max and his party.

  ‘Hi, Max. Come and have a rum punch. This is Pete.’

  There were three men with Max. Jess took a good look at them as they came into the light and suppressed a sigh. She knew the type. Pale skin, immaculate hair, manicured nails, and branded clothes that implied a familiarity with water sports that they most probably didn’t deserve. She didn’t need the wave of alcoholic breath that accompanied them to tell her they had already started on the booze. Still, Max was Hope’s friend, so she summoned a bright smile.

  ‘Hi, guys. Welcome to the beach bar.’

  ‘And hello to you, darling.’ The tallest of the three came across and offered her his hand, squeezing it a damn sight harder than the Hulk. Jess recoiled, surreptitiously rubbing her hand behind her back to restore the circulation as he introduced himself. ‘I’m M
onty.’ He was wearing a T-shirt, on the front of which was the slogan: Second Place isn’t an Option. She sighed again.

  The other two also shook hands and Monty made a point of sitting down right beside her, in the seat where Hope had been.

  In fact, the evening didn’t turn out to be as bad as she had feared. The other two bankers – with or without a W – were fairly normal and spent most of their time talking to Pete and Max. Monty was evidently very interested in Jess, but she managed to keep him at arm’s length. The rum punches flowed and the music was equally intoxicating. At one point a strange contraption, like a jump from a gymkhana, was produced and a limbo competition ensued. Jess had never been particularly good at this sort of thing – with her long legs her centre of gravity was too high up – but Pete the Hulk turned out to be an expert, easily winning the first prize.

  First prize turned out to be a local delicacy – Tarte Tropézienne – a large round sponge cake filled with a mass of soft cream. Jess and Hope had already spotted these on sale in the town, but had decided to give them a miss as they probably contained more calories than an average family needed in a whole day. It was all right for Pete. No doubt he would be able to work them off in the gym.

  As Jess stood in the crowd, watching the final stages of the limbo competition, she felt a hand tap her on the arm. She looked up to see a tall, good-looking man at her side, who greeted her in French.

  Although they were in France, Jess was almost surprised to hear French being spoken. Up to now, most of the people she had met had spoken English – apart from the bus driver and a few of the old ladies on board. She had had just about enough rum punch by now to be prepared to risk running out her rusty A-level French, so she took a deep breath and had a go.

  ‘Bonsoir. Je m’appelle Jess.’

  ‘And my name’s Olivier. I’m very pleased to meet you.’ He had correctly worked out that his English was considerably better than her French. She heaved a silent sigh of relief as she shook hands with him.