Not Quite Nice

by Celia Imrie

  ‘They had speed enough on the way out, didn’t they?’ asked William.

  ‘Not as much as we’d all have liked,’ said Zoe. ‘Too many dramas.’

  ‘Dramas?’ William leaned in.

  ‘Jessica wasn’t too bright on the way out. I suppose you either have sea legs or you don’t.’ Faith grimaced. ‘She seemed upset. I think the real problem was something that Sally said to her.’

  ‘Sally?’ William was perplexed. ‘What did she do wrong?’

  ‘It was odd,’ said Faith. ‘The boat hit some wash and lurched, and Jessica sort of clung on to Ted, and when she recovered her equilibrium, Sally said something that had a huge impact on her.’

  ‘Don’t leave us on tenterhooks, Faith,’ said Carol. ‘Spill!’

  ‘It was something like: “I know what you’re up to and who you really are.” Then Jessica hesitated, as though she was going to make an announcement, but instead smiled, and took a few steps away, then turned back and shot her such a look.’

  William leaned in. ‘What kind of look?’

  ‘It was a mix of being scared and being full of spite. She kind of shrank and grew at the same time. Very strange. Then she moved to the back of the boat, sat looking out at the sea with tightly pursed lips and refused to communicate with anyone till we got off. But she had an air of malevolence about her. No one dared go near.’

  ‘Does anyone know where she is now?’ asked William.

  ‘Are we talking about that ghastly blonde bint who’s always making dewy eyes at Ted?’ Zoe, who been gazing out to sea, suddenly decided to rejoin the conversation. ‘I last saw her down near the port, when we pulled in so that the blokes could pick up a few bottles. Face like fury, waiting at the bus stop, gabbling into her mobile phone. I pity the poor person on the other end of the line.’

  Theresa, William and Carol all caught eyes. They each knew it had to be Sian on the receiving end. Her own silly plan to set up Jessica as a bait-cum-spy on Ted had obviously backfired.

  The worm had turned.

  Before they could continue a shadow loomed over Theresa’s shoulder.

  She turned to see Brian, blocking out the sunlight.

  ‘Sorry if I startled you, Theresa, but I appear to have left my passport at your place. Silly me! It must have slid under the bed in my room or somewhere.’

  Theresa took him along the road to her flat and she was surprised to find that Imogen and the kids weren’t there. Theresa took the moment to use the lavatory while Brian disappeared into his old bedroom looking for the passport.

  When she came back into the living room Brian emerged from Imogen’s room, waving his passport in the air.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Theresa. ‘Now, Brian, promise me you won’t vanish away out of my life, just because my family turned up.’ Theresa opened the front door and they both stood on the step looking out at the seafront. ‘We must keep in contact. Do you have a number or address, so I can invite you over sometime?’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Brian smiled. ‘I’ll still be coming over for the weekly Cookery Club. Look!’ He pointed towards the beach. ‘Your daughter and the children appear to be enjoying themselves.’

  Theresa had to blink to believe her eyes.

  Imogen was happily sitting on the sands under a little parasol, which she must have bought at the local shop. At her side the kids were engrossed, earnestly making sandcastles.

  Theresa gave a wave, hoping that someone would notice.

  Chloe looked up and gave her a huge grin and a wave back.

  ‘Come and have a drink with the gang, Brian,’ suggested Theresa.

  ‘I only have enough time for a quick one. I need to dash up to the station,’ said Brian. ‘Got an appointment with the lawyers – hence the need for my passport.’

  Theresa and Brian went back to the brasserie and sat at the end beside William.

  Brian waved gaily at everyone and ordered a couple of bottles of wine for the table. He drank half a glass then excused himself.

  ‘I’ll just use the gents, then I’ll slip off,’ he whispered into Theresa’s ear.

  Theresa watched him go inside. He certainly was a fine figure of a man, with a broad back. As he vanished into the shadows she turned and whispered into William’s ear. ‘I saw something today and I’m torn as to whether or not to tell you about it.’

  ‘Now that you’ve said that, of course, Theresa, you know you have to tell me.’

  ‘In the Old Town at Nice . . . I saw the man who robbed me.’

  William drew back to look more closely at Theresa’s face. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘I . . . er . . . well, I have some information about Benjamin.’

  ‘Yes?’ William’s eyes were slits. He barely moved a feature. ‘Like what?’

  ‘It may mean more or less to you, and I don’t want to stir up trouble, but I saw Benjamin too. In the same place.’

  ‘In the same place as what?’

  ‘As the man who robbed me.’

  The two turned their seats slightly out of the circle as Theresa explained how she had seen the man who had robbed her, and then seen Benjamin coming along for an apparent liaison with him. What she really wanted, she explained, was to track that thief down and put the police on to him. Maybe Benjamin could help her?

  William’s lips tightened. He didn’t say a word. His breathing became shallow and tight. Then suddenly he banged his fist on the table, causing everyone’s glasses to rattle.

  ‘Fuck it!’ he said under his breath, as he flung a euro bill on to the table and stood up.

  ‘What’s happening today? Why is everyone behaving like a prima donna?’ Carol reached out to William, who roughly pushed her hand away and stalked off. She turned and spun back to Theresa. ‘What on earth did you say, Theresa? My God, he’s gone off like a volcano.’

  ‘I told him I’d seen Benjamin in the alleys of Old Town, talking to the man who robbed me.’

  A loaded silence reigned at the table until Zoe broke it.

  ‘Well done, Theresa, darling,’ she said, with a kittenish smile.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Theresa. ‘I only thought I was giving William a warning, and rather hoped that Benjamin could lead me to help get that thief taken off the streets.’

  ‘Oh, you stirred up a little more than that, my dear. Now all I can say is: “You lit the blue touch paper, now let’s all stand well back.”’

  As a shadow had fallen over the proceedings, which appeared to be her fault, Theresa felt awful. She waved to the waiter to get the bill. It would cost a packet, but the least she could do was pay for everyone’s drinks and hope everything would lighten up a bit.

  The waiter arrived and told Theresa that there was nothing to pay. The tall gentleman with grey hair had already paid.

  Brian!

  How sweet, thought Theresa. He didn’t even really have a drink, yet bought for the whole table.

  18

  It seemed that everything always arrived in packs, just like they said of London buses. After years here on her own, Sally now had both Marianne and Tom staying, and soon possibly she would have another visitor: Marianne’s mystery beau.

  Marianne had supper with her mother and then, despite much protesting from Sally, ordered a taxi to take her to her hotel a few miles away somewhere just outside Beaulieu. She wanted to see whether it was as pleasant as it seemed in the brochure. ‘These things lie,’ she said.

  Sally was left pondering the whole mysterious business of children. As their mother you felt that they somehow belonged to you, were part of you, and yet, as they grew up, you were forced to realise that they weren’t. They were just other people, with their own thoughts, desires and secrets. Sally felt she could just about understand Tom, but Marianne was like an alien. The ruthless determination was quite frightening to behold. Sally dreaded Sian’s reaction if Marianne was to make good on her threats. But then, at the start of her own acting career, wouldn’t she herself have gone t
o some extreme lengths to further her chances? She remembered hugging information to herself so that she might get to an audition, while her friends didn’t. Perhaps Sally had had that naked ambition too, just had forgotten it over the years of being out of the business. Well, if Marianne could be as successful as Sian, that would be one thing. Sally only hoped she would be happier in her personal life.

  She wished she knew more about the mystery man, but knew also that asking too many questions would only drive Marianne further away.

  Sally sat up waiting up for Tom to come home, but when an hour or so later she woke to find herself sitting in the armchair dribbling, with the television blaring a football commentary, she gave up and retired to bed, leaving a note for him, telling him that they’d have breakfast together in the morning, before going into town looking for canvas and paints.

  Sally was woken just after midnight by a violent banging on the front door. As she wrapped her dressing gown round her and shuffled towards the door she feared that this must be Tom back, maybe drunk, perhaps having mislaid his keys.

  She opened up.

  Carol stood there, looking agitated, but, as ever, beautifully turned out.

  ‘Is Tom back?’

  Sally shook her head.

  ‘Nor’s David. And I can’t get any response out of his phone.’ Carol bit her lower lip and pressed her gloved hands tight together. ‘You don’t think they’re still out there, at sea, do you?’

  ‘Oh God!’ Sally immediately understood the connotations of this. ‘What’s the sea like? Rough?’

  Carol nodded. ‘Pretty choppy.’

  Sally cursed herself for trusting Ted. Who knew what might happen out there at sea in the darkness? And Ted had had no formal training, only the Australian male ego.

  ‘Tom doesn’t have a mobile. I’ll try Ted.’ Sally grabbed her own phone and dialled Ted’s number. It rang out for a long time, then went to answer-phone.

  ‘What else can we do?’ asked Sally. ‘Phone the coastguard? Do they even have a coastguard in France?’

  ‘I thought of trying something like that, but what if they’ve come ashore and are stuck in some disco, where they can’t hear their phones, or . . . I don’t know . . . just drunk somewhere, or simply asleep?’

  Sally put her coat on over her pyjamas and dressing gown, and grabbed her keys. ‘Let’s go and see if the boat’s there.’

  Carol pulled a face. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?

  The two women ran along the sea wall to the port de plaisance, where Sally and Ted had a mooring.

  Their space was empty.

  ‘What now?’ said Carol. ‘Perhaps they came in up the coast, in Monte Carlo or somewhere.’

  ‘Perhaps. I’m worried that Ted got pulled in and asked for his certificate.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He doesn’t have one. I do.’ Sally took out her mobile phone. ‘You keep ringing David. I’ll keep ringing Ted.’

  They sat at the harbour side, repeatedly dialling.

  After about five minutes Ted picked up.

  ‘Ted?’ Sally screeched into the phone. ‘Where the hell are you?’

  Ted groaned.

  ‘Um. Not sure.’

  ‘Ted? Where’s David and Tom?’

  ‘Oh, those two Boy Scouts? They’re asleep on the boat.’

  ‘But where’s the boat?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ted.

  Carol, who had been squeezing her face close up to Sally’s to listen in, took this moment to grab the phone from her and bellow into it.

  ‘Where have you left my husband, Ted? And Tom? Are they safe or are they lost at sea? We have to know where they are, before I dial the police.’

  ‘Oh jeez, don’t do that . . .’ Ted’s voice changed from the voice of a person lying down to someone sitting up. ‘No the boat is all safe and tied up, and they’re on board.’

  ‘And where the fuck are you?’

  ‘Easy on, easy on now, Carol. Don’t throw a wobbly at me. The boat is in the harbour.’

  Sally took the phone back. ‘No, Ted, the boat is most definitely not in the harbour, because we’re standing right beside the empty mooring.’

  ‘Did I say Bellevue-Sur-Mer harbour? No. It’s in another one.’

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Another harbour.’

  ‘Which harbour?’

  ‘I don’t know. We just ran out of petrol and pulled in at . . . Cap Martin, Cap Ferrat . . . Cap-something, Cap-wherever it was.’

  Carol took over yelling into the handset. ‘Why aren’t you with them, Ted? You’re the fucking sailor.’

  ‘I got a bit interrupted on my way back to the boat. But, hey, they’re both fine, so what’s your problem?’

  ‘If you would only let me know where they are, Ted, I could get into the car and go and get them.’

  Ted groaned. ‘Oh no, Carol, please don’t do that. Blokes like sleeping on a boat, you know? It gives them a sense of adventure. Come on, gals. Stop giving me such an earbashing and give them a bit of space. I’ll make sure they’re back with you for breakfast. OK?’

  Sally and Carol accepted Ted’s promise, but both really wanted to know the exact details of what had happened and why the men hadn’t simply come back home.

  ‘You realise what’s probably happened, don’t you?’ said Sally.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ted’s hooked up with some floozy.’

  Carol held up a hand. ‘Don’t get me started.’

  Realising they were going to get no nearer to finding out what had actually happened till the morning, they both retired to their homes.

  Sally was sorry that she was alone in the house, knowing that both children were so near. But she also knew she had somehow to stop thinking of them as children. They were grown adults, with their own plans and hopes and dreams, just as she had had at their age.

  With a heavy heart, which was somehow at the same time light and full of joy, she pulled off her coat and made her way back to bed, where she lay awake for hours.

  Meanwhile, Theresa, who was also awake, sitting at her table looking out at the bay, while the snores of Imogen and the children resounded round the flat, saw the two women pass on their way back from the mooring. She noted that, for some reason, Sally was in her pyjamas.

  She herself was still worried about her earlier exchange with William. She had gone back over all the little signals Benjamin had given her in the past in front of William. And those signals told her to shut up. She thought of the first time she had set eyes on Benjamin, when he had been so unpleasant to her in that second-hand furniture shop and how when the subject of the table had come up later he had stopped her mentioning it to William.

  Was Benjamin sleeping around? Could that be it? Was he having an illicit relationship with Pierre of the furniture cave? She supposed that that would be reason enough to send William off in a temper. First doing it with Pierre in the shop and then maybe the robber fellow up the alley. But, though she couldn’t speak for the man who had knocked her over and robbed her, Pierre didn’t seem at all the type to go for men, in a sexual way. But when it came to sex, who knew anything?

  She wondered about Brian too. How lovely of him to buy everyone’s drinks today. Had he ever been married? He seemed very eligible. It was strange for him to be left on his own at his age. She wondered where he was now. Where was he staying? Would he come back when Imogen and the children went back to Wimbledon?

  How complicated the lives of people were: William and Benjamin, Michael off in Rome with the Italian nanny, Verdiana; Imogen, middle-aged but still running to Mummy in time of trouble. Sally and Carol obviously also in the middle of some crisis up the road. Ted and Sian, his rightly suspicious termagant wife, and Jessica who was perhaps sent here to lead him on, acting as Sian’s agent provocateur while spying on him and all his other women.

  It all made the drunken antics of Zoe seem like a rather pleasant and sane way to grow old.

  In comparison to ev
eryone else, things didn’t seem as complicated for her. She had Imogen here, and the grandchildren were finally coming round to liking her too.

  That thrilled her.

  Yes.

  Things weren’t so bad after all.

  19

  The next Cookery Club was held at Sally’s as, with Imogen and children in Theresa’s flat, it didn’t seem quite right to hold it there and, more importantly, Theresa was worried that Imogen might start interfering and sending everyone home if she believed that the noise was keeping the children awake or on some other pretence. Mind you, while Theresa was making the phone call to Sally to ask her, she pondered on Imogen since she had arrived in Bellevue-Sur-Mer and how much she seemed to have softened. Her only complaints so far were about the loud voices she could hear from the Hôtel Astra, above. Everything else appeared to please her.

  Perhaps it was the pain of an injured psyche, after her husband had vanished with the nanny, or maybe it was simply that Riviera touch, the same magic which had soothed Theresa when she first arrived here, that had softened her.

  Theresa had done a quick phone around, and the usual gang assembled, with a few extra live-in strays: Tom, who decided to act as a kitchen help, and Marianne, who sat in the corner ignoring everyone, reading a book.

  Theresa phoned Brian’s mobile and persuaded him that he must come, things wouldn’t be the same without him, and he duly arrived, a little early, and appeared to be even more assiduous in his gentlemanly ways, pulling out a chair for Jessica when she came in, handing round the plate of nibbles, and making sure all the glasses were kept topped up.

  They were making another Niçoise speciality, a pissaladière, and having finished rolling out the pastry, had moved on to chopping onions.

  Zoe sniffed first, while beside her, Faith rubbed her eyes. A general sniffing started.

  Tom started to laugh.

  ‘Listen to you all!’ he exclaimed. ‘It sounds like some drug den full of coke heads.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said William, looking up through bleary eyes. ‘What do you mean?’