Not Quite Nice

by Celia Imrie

  Theresa’s French obviously wasn’t up to discouraging lesbian advances!

  She scraped about in her head for any French words she knew which might politely express her meaning: she was not there in the bar to make friends, she was actually married (mind you, what did that mean nowadays?).

  However, every word she said in her faltering French seemed to come out wrong and give the woman further encouragement, for the woman smiled more and more, and shifted her seat closer.

  Theresa saw that there was no point to do anything but continue to sit there sipping her drink, with some strange Frenchwoman sitting beside her, grinning like an idiot.

  ‘Anglais?’ said the woman.

  Theresa nodded.

  ‘J’aime Marks and Spencers,’ said the woman.

  Theresa gave a weak smile.

  ‘Fish and chips, cuppa tea, Benny Hill,’ said the woman. ‘Norman Wisdom.’

  Good God, thought Theresa, was she going to run through the gamut of British clichés as a pickup line?

  Theresa looked up, hoping to find something else to talk about. She gazed towards the crowded street, where a set of acrobats had started a frantic tumbling act for the people sitting in the restaurant next door.

  And there he was.

  Brian’s drug-dealing companion was sitting alone at a table near the front of the terrace, looking down while he keyed something into a green smartphone.

  Theresa made a burbled attempt at ‘Excusez-moi’, as she rose from her chair and squeezed through the tables and chairs, trying to get to the front. When she arrived next to him, he looked up, perhaps distracted by her shadow which fell across his shoulder.

  They caught eyes.

  ‘You thief!’ she said calmly. ‘Where’s Brian?’

  ‘Fuck off you stupid old cow,’ said the moustachioed man. He had a thick Glaswegian accent. He swiftly slipped his phone into his pocket, and grabbed his cigarette packet, before stumbling to his feet and making off.

  ‘Where is he?’ screamed Theresa, running after him. ‘Where is Brian?’

  As he ran away from her, the man was gaining speed, while Theresa felt as though every person in the market-place was standing in her way. She saw that the man didn’t care who he knocked, or flung out of the way. Whatever it took to escape he would do it, regardless of who got hurt.

  ‘Thief!’ Theresa cried at the top of her voice. ‘Voleur! Voleur! Au secours!’

  But she ran out of breath long before he did, and she watched him disappear into the dark alleyways of the Old Town.

  She had not caught him, but at least now she knew that he was still in the area, although she also felt that it was totally depressing to have got so near to him and yet to be no nearer to catching him.

  She went back to the bar and paid her tab, then caught the bus home to Bellevue-Sur-Mer, where she sat outside the brasserie terrace, hoping that William might come in and she could have another, more tactful attempt at getting Benjamin to help her set a trap to catch the thief.

  The two Englishmen she’d seen before were there, sitting at the same table.

  This time they had no eyes for her. They had a plan of the town and they were deep in conversation. One of them was scribbling notes into a small pocket notepad, while the other pointed out places on the map and marked them with a red X. From what Theresa could see, her own address had an X across it.

  She ordered a coffee.

  The man with the notebook looked up, then looked back at his notes, then looked her in the eye and said: ‘Theresa Simmons?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ she replied.

  The man with the map held up an enlarged photocopy of the old newspaper article, and pointed at her picture.

  ‘Don’t believe everything you read,’ she said. ‘It’s a pack of lies.’

  ‘We know that,’ said notepad man.

  ‘Do you know the whereabouts of this person?’ The man with the map pointed at the photo of Brian.

  ‘I wish I did,’ said Theresa. ‘The bastard.’

  The man with the notepad grinned and nodded to his colleague.

  ‘He’s called Brian Powell, and he ran off with all my money and my best friend,’ she said.

  ‘Well, there we have it,’ said the man with the map.

  ‘You see, one of the lies in the newspaper article is that fella’s name,’ said the man with notepad. ‘He’s not called Brian at all. His is actual name is Ronald Arthur Tate.’

  The two men rummaged around in their jacket pockets. They both presented police warrant cards.

  ‘I’m DCI Thomas and this is my colleague, DI Wilton. We’re from Scotland Yard, and we’ve been on quite the wild-goose chase looking for this scoundrel and his partner-in-crime, Stewart McMahon. I suppose you haven’t had any contact with him at all – rough-looking Scottish bloke, swarthy, about five foot ten?’

  He pulled a photo from the file. It was the man who had robbed her. The very man who had just this afternoon called her a ‘stupid old cow’.

  ‘At the moment he’s got a Zapata moustache,’ said Theresa. ‘I saw him about an hour ago. In Nice.’

  DI Wilton pulled out his mobile phone and talked rapidly into it.

  ‘He was heading into Old Town from the Cours Saleya,’ said Theresa. ‘Brown leather jacket, green tartan shirt, torn blue jeans. Stinks of stale tobacco.’

  ‘You still at the same address here?’ said DCI Thomas.

  Theresa nodded.

  ‘We’ll see you later,’ said the detective, gathering his things and loping away towards a car parked on the front.

  When she arrived at her home Theresa felt excited. Maybe now she would have a chance. She realised she hadn’t told them about Carol, or asked what level danger the poor woman might be in.

  But she could do that later when they called to see her.

  Who knew? Perhaps by then they would have picked up the Scottish scumbag and he’d have blabbed on Brian, or rather, Ronald Arthur.

  There was a flashing message on her machine, and during the day a letter had been hand-delivered.

  While opening the envelope she listened to the message.

  It was Sally, telling her that tomorrow was Faith’s birthday and that they were all going to have a blow-out girls’ lunch in Monaco. Faith knew Theresa’s predicament, said Sally, and really wanted to treat her and all the girls, as it was an expensive restaurant and Faith could not think of going on her own. It would be no fun.

  Alfie couldn’t be there, he had already left for a business meeting in Zurich, and Faith had suddenly come up with the idea of having a really extravagant lunch with Sally, Theresa and Zoe. A luxury girls’ day out for the ladies who lunch.

  Theresa pulled the typewritten letter from the envelope as she dialled Sally’s number to respond.

  Sally answered on the first ring.

  ‘You’re coming, right?’ said Sally. ‘The restaurant’s got three Michelin stars!’

  ‘Oh, Sally, I don’t think I could. Not if I can’t pay my own way.’

  ‘Theresa, you don’t understand. Faith really wants to do this. It’s been one of her life’s dreams to go with a gaggle of friends to this place and have the meal of a lifetime. It’s one of the reasons she didn’t want to buy the house, and why she let me buy it. So she had enough money to do things exactly like this. To live her life to the full. Come on.’

  ‘All right,’ Theresa shrugged. ‘I feel awful about it, but you’ve convinced me. We’ll treat her to something else in return, another day.’

  While Sally gave her the details, what she should wear, where they would meet, Theresa was absent-mindedly reading the letter. It was from David, but seemed to make little sense. A second page was just a weak photocopy of an old American school yearbook. Theresa went back to the first page.

  ‘My God, Sally,’ Theresa interrupted Sally’s stream of instructions. ‘Have you had a hand-delivered letter from David?’

  Sally said yes she had, but she had been so busy making the r
eservations and arranging Faith’s party that she hadn’t read it yet.

  Theresa only said two words. ‘Open it.’

  She read a few sentences back again and then said ‘Oh God, Sally! Read it, then call me right back.’

  ‘Dear friends,’ the letter read. ‘I have left town. The house is on the market and, by the time you read this, I will already be flying over you all in a jet bound for New York. Over the years of my French exile, you have been great friends and I thank you all for your kindness, your humour and your generosity.

  ‘You all know that, by running off with that shallow, smarmy, greasy Englishman, Carol upset me very deeply and you know also that, in my efforts to get her back, I hired a private eye.

  ‘This man made enquiries about Carol’s current whereabouts and, drawing a blank, as all detectives do also started making enquiries about Carol’s past, her marriage to me, her own friends and family, and all that stuff.

  ‘I met Carol Heinz in LA, we married in Las Vegas and, before we moved here to Bellevue-Sur-Mer, we lived happily together in New York City.

  ‘But the person we all know as Carol Rogers, née Heinz, was in fact born in Muncie, Indiana and was christened Mark Morgan.

  ‘Mark’s father left home when the boy was five, and, soon afterwards, his mother moved to Pittsburgh, where she took a factory job at the Heinz cannery to support her son.

  ‘I enclose a page from Mark Morgan’s high-school yearbook. He’s the third row down, second on the left.

  ‘When he was eighteen, Mark came to Europe, to a clinic not so far from here, where I believe Zoe is a frequent client. There, he underwent the necessary surgery to transform himself into Carol, and that, I suppose, is when he fell in love with the place.

  ‘The reason behind all the spurious excuses I was given by Carol, explaining why we could never have children, now become all too clear.

  ‘I hope you understand why I have to leave Europe. I have friends in NYC who will give me the necessary support and I am confident that a good lawyer will get me a swift annulment.

  ‘Meanwhile, I will probably spend the rest of my life undergoing therapy.

  ‘David.’

  Theresa tossed and turned all night.

  A couple in the Astra were at it for hours, groaning and moaning, then, when that all stopped, chose to have a loud fight.

  But it wasn’t the noise which kept Theresa awake so much as a head full of thought.

  Her money all stolen, catching eyes with the man who had robbed her, and then being told his name by a pair of police officers. And Brian was his partner-in-crime and was really Ronald Arthur.

  Carol was really Mark.

  Carol!

  She worried for her, alone with Brian, wherever they had gone.

  Then, of course, there was the thought of David’s letter. What a surprise!

  After reading it, Theresa had gone over to Sally’s and they had sat together for the whole evening talking about Carol. Could it be true? Had David had a breakdown? But, bit by bit, they thought of tiny clues, which gave away Carol’s dark secret: the deep voice, the broad shoulders, the long legs, the perfect make-up; Carol often wore polo-neck tops or a scarf round her neck, and always, always gloves.

  ‘Who are we to judge?’ said Sally.

  ‘I know,’ said Theresa.

  ‘I take my hat off to her,’ said Sally.

  ‘She’s a more gorgeous specimen of womanhood than any of us,’ said Theresa.

  Theresa lay in the dark and prayed that no harm would come to Carol, wherever she was. She had always been so tender and caring towards Theresa, always funny, and always full of grace.

  Brian – Ronald Arthur – was so duplicitous, such a charming and cloying evil liar.

  Theresa opened her eyes.

  Why were British detectives here in France chasing two men across the continent? Surely it wouldn’t be so urgent for them to fly out to the South of France if Brian (or rather Ronald Arthur) was just an embezzler, or Stewart just a petty thief or even a drug dealer? There must be some more sinister crime for which they were chasing Brian – or Ronald Arthur – and his friend Stewart McMahon.

  The only one she could imagine serious enough to warrant their presence was murder.

  Oh, God! Poor Carol!

  26

  Next morning they all met, bright and early, at the railway station, wearing their Sunday best, ready to go to Monte Carlo for Faith’s birthday lunch.

  Faith had specifically asked for Zoe to come to the lunch, so Sally tried to keep a quiet distance and hoped, for today at least, to be able to put all their differences aside.

  Theresa had decided that although the newspaper article had made fun of her jewellery she would not be bullied into becoming someone else, and therefore arrived in her brightest kaftan, with chunky necklaces and earrings of pink, mauve and turquoise.

  ‘Before we go any further,’ said Faith, taking her seat in an upper-deck section for four, ‘I just want to say that I will not accept any payment or offers of money towards this lunch. You must please realise that it had always been my dream to go to this restaurant, and, although I could have gone alone, what fun would that have been?’

  ‘Lots of fun,’ said Zoe, ‘if you’d gone on your own you might have got off with one of the waiters.’

  Everybody laughed.

  ‘And we have another fun outing tomorrow,’ added Faith. ‘I think Tom has invited us all, and the boys, to some mystery thing he’s whipped up for your birthday, Sally.’

  While Zoe gave a Cheshire cat grin, Sally blushed, and said: ‘I wouldn’t get that excited. Tom has a weird sense of humour.’

  While they were on the train Theresa’s phone rang.

  It was Imogen.

  ‘The girls have been suspended from school for a week.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Theresa. ‘What did they do?’

  ‘They bared their bottoms at a visiting netball team.’

  Theresa had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing.

  The party of ladies arrived in Monte Carlo and they strolled from the station to the restaurant, the Louis XV in the historic Hôtel de Paris, where the maître d’, a handsome dark-haired man in a tail suit, ushered them into the dining room, a perfect baroque salon with dove-grey panels, tall mirrors swagged with ivory curtains and framed with gilt boiserie, and crystal chandeliers.

  ‘Would you prefer the dining room, or the terrace, Mesdames?’

  ‘Oh, the terrace,’ said Faith. ‘Then we can people-watch.’

  ‘They would do better to watch us, I think,’ said Zoe. ‘What will we see but a lot of blister-red, fat backpackers, and pretentious poseurs showing off their garish lime-green Porsches and their sunshine, yellow Lamborghinis, oh-so-carefully parked outside the casino? But look at us! We’re gorgeous.’

  Her trout-pout wobbled ever so slightly, as she tried, and failed, to raise her eyebrows up into her glassy smooth forehead.

  They walked through the French windows on to the terrace.

  ‘Wow!’ said Theresa, looking out towards the magnificent Garnier opera house and casino. ‘There’s a view! I blame that building for my moving to Bellevue-Sur-Mer.’

  ‘I don’t think your tiny flat quite compares, Theresa,’ said Zoe.

  ‘I had a little flutter. It put me in such a good mood I went mad and bought the flat.’

  Zoe had another attempt at getting her eyebrows up. ‘You won that much?’

  ‘No!’ Theresa laughed. ‘A couple of hundred. That’s all. But it gave me a kind of wild optimism.’

  A waiter with a trolley topped with a mound of ice advanced towards their table. From holes in the ice, necks of champagne bottles protruded.

  ‘Could I interest you all in an aperitif?’ he asked. ‘Une petite coupe de champagne?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Faith. ‘One each, please, Monsieur. And let’s all have pink.’

  Sally and Theresa made to protest, but Faith raised her hand.

 
‘Please, ladies, remember that if things had turned out a little differently I might be in my coffin now. This is important to me. I’d like us all to raise a glass . . . to life.’

  The regal and impeccable luncheon proceeded: course after course of culinary perfection were laid before them.

  Everyone agreed that the whole experience was faultless, this even in spite of a buck-toothed child at the next table who kept banging her doll on the table and whining loudly every few minutes that she was ‘bored, bored, bored’.

  ‘They should let her go play with the traffic,’ said Zoe. ‘She wouldn’t be nearly so bored if a bloody big pink Alfa Romeo was coming down the hill towards her at sixty miles an hour.’

  Despite themselves, they laughed.

  ‘Are we really all going to pretend we don’t know the contents of David’s letter?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Yes,’ they all replied in unison.

  ‘I have to say, he was the best-looking woman I ever saw,’ said Zoe. ‘Despite the size twelve feet.’

  ‘Change the subject, please,’ said Faith.

  ‘And don’t use the past tense,’ added Sally. ‘We really have to hope that Carol’s all right.’

  ‘I’d love to see inside the Opera House,’ said Theresa as they ate dessert. ‘It’s where Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes were based.’

  ‘Not to mention Mr Lermontov, Moira Shearer and The Red Shoes,’ said Sally.

  ‘Nellie Melba sang there too,’ said Theresa.

  ‘Really,’ said Sally. ‘When did you become such an expert on her?’

  Theresa blushed, and was silenced. She had a little secret with Tom, which he had arranged with her weeks ago. It was especially for Sally’s birthday tomorrow.

  ‘I think we should all go to the casino, and be done with it,’ said Zoe. ‘We could come out millionaires.’

  ‘Or lose the shirt off our backs,’ said Faith.

  ‘I’d be in trouble – my clothing today is a one-piece!’ said Theresa.

  ‘I think you have to have your passport, before they let you inside,’ Sally added hesitantly.

  ‘Really?’ exclaimed Faith. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘The casino is the engine of the principality. Instead of taking tax from the inhabitants, I think the place gets the bulk of its income from the losses at the gaming tables. And in order for that money not to get frittered away, I believe no Monégasque may enter.’