Hysteria! Hallucination! DTs, anything! Please! Some part of his mind was whimpering that again and again. But somewhere, altogether elsewhere, was there a pale brown woman smiling bitterly?
The swelling of his eyes was incredible. His vision blurred and distorted. He flung himself prone on the bed as leggy creatures writhed from the backs of his hands and more teeth fell to chalky shards; he flung himself down, wanting desperately to take refuge in the safety of the dream before—
3.47 AM.
MISTRAL by Jon Wynne-Tyson
Jon Wynne-Tyson was born in Gosport, Hampshire in 1924. After a variety of jobs in publishing, bookselling, journalism, and less congenial fields, he started the Centaur Press in Sussex in 1954 and has run it single-handedly ever since. He has had seven books published to date and has contributed to a good many British newspapers and journals from time to time. Of interest to fans of the noted author, M.P. Shiel, Wynne-Tyson (as Juan II) is the third king of the tiny, rock-bound Caribbean island of Redonda—a desolate and uninhabited volcanic outcropping given to Shiel by his father a century ago. That Caribbean island figures in Wynne-Tyson’s latest novel, So Say Banana Bird. Another novel and a book of his short fiction are to be published during 1985, and at present Wynne-Tyson is looking forward to production of his play, Marvellous Party. In addition to his multifaceted interest in books, Wynne-Tyson sails, plays racquet games, and enjoys chess.
If you know the South of France (what most people mean by the South of France, that is—the Cote d’Azur), you may know Saint-Tropez. But maybe not. Users of what is loosely called the Riviera are extraordinarily insular. Even with the autoroute—perhaps because of it—the country west of the Esterel is as foreign to many who favor the region to the east as Perth is to Penzance.
But not to me. I have seen all I want of the French coast from Marseilles to Menton, and you can have Nice, Monte Carlo and the rest with a pound of tea. They have nothing on Saint-Trop.
I am prejudiced, of course. Partly, perhaps, because enjoyment of today’s Cote d’Azur is an art, not a choice easily bought by casual application to the tour operators. Nowhere along that expensive littoral is it more essential to exercise that art than in the area of Saint-Tropez. Where Cannes and Monaco have something to offer at almost all times of the year, Saint-Trop demands from the visitor the approach, the reverence, of the connoisseur.
In high summer, for instance—the most popular and unsuitable period—you need to be a rabid bon vivant, a truly person person, to endure the sheer excess of humankind in a region offering no outlet for urban overspill. In the winter, on the other hand, none but a misanthropic masochist with an inordinate concern not to miss the first golden promise of mimosa is going to suffer the bleak desolation of empty streets so often scoured by that most unpleasant of God’s varied gifts, the mistral.
“Unpleasant,” for many, is putting it mildly. Some, the purists—those likely to hold that the Riviera lies only between Nice and Genoa—say that nowhere west of Cap Ferrat is really habitable, so frightful is that cold dry wind that roars down the Rhone valley to spread its fury over Provence, proving to pursuers of the dolce vita that Nature alone is truly egalitarian. Others, less hysterical, chance wintering in Cannes and Antibes. But further west, beyond the Esterel, there you have to know what you are about. There you have to have some special reason for defying the natural and man-made perils so inadequately repelled by the Massif des Maures.
One of those special reasons, of course, is the concentrated pulchritude of Saint-Trop. Not only are its summer girls beautiful and plentiful, but they show a lack of inhibition less apparent in such self-conscious resorts as Cannes and Nice than on the cleaner beaches and the open waters of Saint-Trop. Not for nothing has that delightful little town so long been the haunt of writers, artists, and the least stuffy of media persons.
Even a few miles, down the coast in Port Grimaud—that pseudo-Venetian aqua-suburb for retired civil servants and bank managers from Croydon and Saint-Cloud—nubile girls, still with ponies in Surrey meadows, bare their breasts the moment they set foot on a Gulf-bound yacht or motorboat.
Be that as it may, the last person I expected to meet there, even in June, was Ambrose. One of the connoisseur months, June is a little ahead of the worst of the mob, a time when one can sit at a cafe table in the Place des Lices, enjoying the cool shade below the huge plane trees, listening early and late to the click of boules, watching through the hotter hours those who forsake the quayside and the expensive refreshments at Senequiers to explore the quieter streets and squares. In June, before the French rush like lemmings to the coast, the weather can be exquisite. But in no month of the year can one be sure of avoiding the mistral.
Ambrose had not seen me. His gaze was on the dry brown powdered earth of the square. His shoulders were more stooped than I remembered, his expression verging on the gloomy. Seeing that he was literally attached to the sexiest woman I had seen in years, this seemed odd.
“Hey! Ambrose!” I called.
He looked up.
“Oh, hallo, Charles,” he said. His voice lacked animation, let alone surprise. Our last meeting might have been five days back, not five years.
“I didn’t know this was your beat and season,” I said.
He compressed his lips and wrinkled his brow in a facial shrug. He certainly looked older, but except for an unremembered scar on his neck, much the same dapper, neat little man, a head shorter than myself.
“It’s not really,” he said, “but Angelina likes the warmth.”
I smiled, feeling that an introduction was called for. On the few times we had met since school days, Ambrose had invariably been accompanied by beautiful women, none of whom he had married, so far as I knew. I had never known him well—he was too much of a woman’s man for that—and if it had not been for the school link I might not have numbered him among remembered acquaintances. As with relations, those one has known at school are not necessarily the people one keeps up with.
“Well, have a drink,” I said.
Ambrose introduced me. “This is Charles Massingham. Charles, meet Angelina.” He gave her no second name.
Angelina offered me a slim, brown hand. Her wrists bore several thin gold bangles and her nails were painted the tawny brown of dried blood. She did not grip my hand, yet I felt through her fingers a strange, urgent strength, and this was apparent in the way she moved. Her figure was flawless, her body extraordinarily supple. I wondered if she was a dancer. She wore a bronze-gold jump suit that fitted her perfectly, emphasizing the spareness, the alert animality of her body. Her long legs—like me, she was inches taller than Ambrose—were flattered by fine high-heeled gold sandals that must have cost the earth, and her black hair was drawn back from a face that was more feline than human, though of exquisite delicacy and proportion. The only imperfection, though it detracted nothing from her sensuality, was a slightly overfull lower lip, imparting a faint air of smoldering challenge. She reminded me of one of the great cats—a cheetah, perhaps. This impression was strengthened by the fine chain leash that was attached to her left wrist and held by Ambrose, for all the world as though he were walking an Afghan or Saluki.
I carefully avoided a second glance at the gold leash. Ambrose had always enjoyed reactions from those more unimaginative and staid than himself. Even at school, in the days when I was far more interested in The Boys’ Own Paper and the egg-laying habits of peewit and sparrow hawk than in the thin dark ice of human relationships, Ambrose was a living legend to the older boys. In fact, his precocity did little for his formal education: for having made it in the shrubbery with Saint Bartholomew’s singularly pretty matron, he was expelled without a moment’s hesitation by the matron’s husband, who as it happened was the headmaster, and never got round to taking the exams that might have channeled his energies toward a university, a solid job, and a more serious lifestyle. To make matters worse, his father died about then, leaving investments and property that provided his son with
an all too adequate income for the rest of his life. Riches and randiness: a heady combination few survive.
I had reached that time of life when, meeting a beautiful woman, I could take her or leave her, so to speak. Well, leave her, then, without actually taking. You know what I mean. But I had to admit that Angelina was something special. She sat at the table almost gingerly, as though unaccustomed to a chair, so lightly in contact with it that I felt she might have sprung away through the plane trees at the slightest provocation—had it not been, of course, for that slender gold leash. Her eyes were watchful, never still; alert, restless, seeking. Yet seeking what?
“Well,” I said unimaginatively, “this is quite a surprise.”
“For me too,” said Ambrose. “I didn’t suppose you still came out here.”
“I’m flattered you’ve considered the matter,” I said.
The waiter appeared.
“What will you have?” I asked.
“Angelina likes orange juice. The real thing. I’ll have the same.”
Angelina seemed to accept his choice.
“What do you want in it?” I asked Ambrose.
“Nothing. Just as it comes.”
I blinked. I had never known Ambrose to drink anything non-alcoholic. Even at school he had a reputation for rather good wines. “Clarets, dear boy,” I remember him saying as we waited to bat in some house match, “are really the best for your digestion. Go for the Medocs and you will have little trouble.” It never struck me in those days that his sophistication could be anything but innate.
“Right,” I said, and ordered.
Angelina stroked Ambrose’s arm with her free hand and looked into his eyes. Except for a murmured “ ‘Allo” when we shook hands, I had not heard her speak.
“I mus’ go Hawaii for lily time,” she said mysteriously.
“Must you?” Ambrose replied. “Very well, then; come straight back.”
I had noticed the small key on the fine chain round his neck, and now he used this to unfasten the little padlock that held the leash to the lowest and most robust of the bangles on Angelina’s wrist. She slid silently from her chair and disappeared into the cool depths of the cafe.
“Italian?” I asked.
“Hungarian with a dash of Spanish.”
“Some mix!”
I clenched my fist, grimacing, and punched the air, holding my forearm rigid in a gesture familiar to men, but one I had not used for many years. Ambrose nodded. The old animation had definitely gone.
“I know what you’re thinking. She’s not all body, though.”
“No?”
“No. You may not believe it, but she has a lovely nature. Very tenderhearted. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Loves animals. We were with Brigitte only yesterday.”
“Bardot?”
He nodded. “She’s intelligent, too. Quite a thinker. Angelina, I mean.”
“Well, you never know,” I said.
“She’s very environmentally sensitive.”
“Really? Low technology? Alternatives?”
“Population control, especially. She thinks our numbers should be drastically reduced until we have small communities living only in suitable climatic areas.”
“Not the kind of thing the politicians would want to follow up,” I said.
The waiter brought their orange juices.
“Are you quite sure you’d like nothing stronger?” I said. “Before Angelina returns. A little gin, perhaps?”
He shook his head. “I’ve made a deal.”
“Who with? Alcoholics Anonymous?”
“With Angelina.”
“She doesn’t look the type to exert a reforming influence.”
“As you said, ‘you never know.’ ”
“Well,” I agreed, “it’s probably no bad idea to watch things a bit once one’s in sight of one’s fifties.”
“That’s what Angelina says. She says she wants me fit or not at all.”
“You don’t think,” I said, “that in this climate, with a girl like that, at our sort of age ...?”
Ambrose gestured, a little impatiently.
“It’s an attitude of mind, Charles. You’ve given up too soon.”
“Not given up exactly,” I replied. “I’m still married to Christine.”
“Well, there you are. We make our beds.”
I changed the subject.
“Are you ever in London?”
“Seldom. Last July, for two weeks, but we move around. Angelina won’t winter in Europe. It has to be the Caribbean, the Seychelles—that kind of thing.”
“An expensive girl.”
“But worth it. I could tell you—”
“Don’t. I may have given up, as you put it, but the heat still turns one on a little.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Ambrose said. “Angelina thrives on heat. She says we were intended for subtropical temperatures. That was what I was about to tell you. She really has a most inquiring mind.”
“But the other side ...?” I asked. “Surely ...?”
“Of course. That too. But there’s another face to the coin, you know, Charles. Sex isn’t everything.”
“No,” I said. “No, indeed. How true.”
The conversation flagged. The waiter, hopeful, handed me the menu. I looked at my watch. Ambrose looked at his, then toward the dark interior of the cafe.
“Seeing to her face,” he said.
“It’s getting on. How about lunch here? It’s adequate.”
Ambrose glanced at the menu.
“I don’t know there’s much for us.”
“Steak?” I suggested. “Veal? The fish isn’t bad.”
“We ... I ... don’t eat like that any longer,” he said.
“Problems?”
I’d had some myself. All part of the aging process. Mushrooms and sweet corn seemed immune to the digestive juices.
“Not really. More a ... reorientation.”
“You could have an omelette.”
“Do they do a good salad?”
“I’m sure they could,” I said. “What about the cold plate?”
Ambrose came out with it.
“We don’t eat meat.”
My memory was that he ate little else.
“There really have been some changes,” I said.
“Angelina feels it’s for our own good. Meat doesn’t suit her. She’s for whole food, grains, fruit, nuts—that kind of thing. She says it’s as necessary we eat the right things as that we don’t live in cold climates.”
“Why so much concern about the cold? Do you catch chills easily?”
“No, but Angelina is—how shall I say?—better adjusted in the heat. Warmth and a bland diet is what she needs. The cold prompts her to eat things that, well, disagree with her. When the mistral blows, we stay indoors.”
“It all sounds a trifle restricting,” I said.
A worried look crossed his face.
“It can be a bit of a strain, actually. Angelina needs constant encouragement to ... be herself.”
“Nasty wind, the mistral,” I agreed, not quite knowing what to say about his last remark. “Gets into the bones. The sirocco can be unpleasant, too, and I’m told people can go potty in that wind they get on the northern slopes of the Alps.”
“The fohn,” Ambrose said. “They call it the ‘chinook’ in the Rockies. It cools at the saturated adiabatic lapse rate as it reaches the peaks, then dries as it descends on the leeward side, gaining heat.”
“I’ve never heard it better put,” I said.
He nodded. “Mind you, ‘it’s an ill wind ...’ Angelina really turns on in the mistral.”
“You mean ...?” I said.
He nodded again. “All I can handle until it gets warmer again.”
“Here she comes,” I said.
Angelina’s jump suit was more open than before, exposing a delicious area of brown skin and just enough of each plump breast to ... well, never mind; it was one o’clock and very warm indeed.
She approached slowly, like a cautious cat not wanting to draw attention to herself. As she sat down she extended her arm submissively toward Ambrose, who attached the chain to her wrist. I wondered what the women’s libbers would have thought about it all. I noticed that her nostrils were dilating and contracting gently, like an animal scenting its prey. Although she had walked only a few yards, she was panting quietly, her small pink tongue a little extended. She was wildly beautiful—and I mean “wildly”—despite that submissive act to Ambrose. Old and almost forgotten tremors threatened to disturb my peace of mind. I shifted on my chair.
“So how long are you here, Charles?” Ambrose inquired, toying with the crudites, which the waiter had brought with a promptness suggesting no special preparation.
“Another week. July and August are unbearable. Besides, I hate to miss the English summer in our cottage. The scabious will be flowering on the Downs soon—the most beautiful color in the world. With the corn ripening, the real woods to walk in ...”
“You were always a one for nature,” Ambrose said. “At your own level.”
“Well, here it’s all over. Nature is resting. Don’t you miss England in spring and summer? The larks? The cowslips?”
He nodded. “I suppose so. One certainly knows where one is with cowslips.”
“I can’t think what one would do out here,” I said, “once everything dries up and the trippers descend like locusts. The sailing fraternity tests the savoir vivre of the most gregarious.”
“I read a lot,” Ambrose said.
“That’s another change in you, then,” I said. “You were always too busy doing ... other things.”
“One matures,” Ambrose said.
“What do you read? Bond stories? Agatha Christie?”
“Not often. More, reincarnation, Eastern religious thought.”
“Good God!” I said.
A sudden swirl of air swept through the Place des Lices, a welcome disturbance of the almost solid heat, yet a warning of less pleasant things to come. I looked up from my plate at Angelina, for I thought I had heard a sharp in-drawing of breath. She was gazing up at the rustling leaves of the plane trees, her fork poised above her plate, her nostrils contracting and dilating again, but more forcefully than before. Her food looked so dull—just raw vegetables and a small portion of cream cheese.
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