Last Resort

by Susan Lewis

  Penny stopped on the threshold to look around what might once have been a small, but nevertheless grand, ballroom. All the shutters were open and the sunlight was streaming across the room in wide, misty bands. The walls were cluttered with the usual paraphernalia of a magazine office, though pretty sparsely so, and only one of the half a dozen or so desks had anything on it.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Penny murmured, more to herself than to Marielle as her imagination went instantly to work. ‘Where are the computers?’ she asked.

  ‘There,’ Marielle replied, pointing towards an antiquated Compaq that Penny had overlooked.

  Penny blinked and, realizing that to ask if it was linked to the internet would be like asking if it was linked to Mars, she saved her breath and tried to remain positive.

  ‘Well, if we get things a little more organized in here,’ she said, walking further into the room, ‘we can put a production table in the centre and find a use for all these empty desks. I take it they were once occupied?’

  ‘In the early days.’

  It was as if Marielle was volunteering just a fraction of what she really wanted to say, as though the rest of it would only be forthcoming on demand. Penny decided to give it a miss for now and wandered over to the high, wide french windows to gaze out on the speeding traffic of the voie rapide. With the windows closed the noise wasn’t a problem, but no doubt when they were open it would be, which meant they would need to install air-conditioning for the summer.

  ‘What’s through there?’ Penny asked, pointing towards a half-open door at the far end of the production office.

  ‘That,’ Marielle said, going to the door, ‘is my office.’

  Correction, Penny thought, as she walked into the room: was your office. The desk was surprisingly untidy, given the neatness of Marielle’s appearance, and the walls were sadly devoid of anything other than a couple of jejune front covers of previous issues. A computer terminal complete with its own compact laser printer was on a side desk and behind the grand, leather swivel chair a set of french windows opened out on to a large, balustraded veranda.

  ‘And in here?’ Penny said, pushing open the door to a floor-to-ceiling cubicle in one corner.

  ‘That is a cuisinette,’ Marielle informed her.

  Penny nodded, looking it over and thinking they either needed a cleaner or must change the one they had, since the sink was a bit grimy and the twin hotplates were a touch too grungy for her liking.

  ‘Well,’ Penny said, clasping her hands together as she walked back into the production office, ‘as I said before, it’s perfect. I take it those are more offices over there behind those two doors,’ she said, pointing to the windowless, north side of the room.

  Marielle nodded. ‘They have never been used.’

  Well, at least one of them would be now, Penny was thinking with relish, for in her mind she was already assigning whichever one he wanted to David Villers – who, interestingly, hadn’t even attempted to make contact yet, and since she had no idea where he was she considered that her own negligence in that area was perfectly excusable.

  Looking around again, she felt a momentary depression steal over her as the hollow stillness and lack of human bustle made her feel as though she had been plucked from all the carousing hullabaloo of a circus and deposited in Shirley Valentine’s kitchen. London had never felt so dear, nor so far, as it did in that moment.

  ‘OK,’ she said, casting aside the gloom and pulling a chair up to one of the empty desks, ‘we’ve a lot to sort out in the next couple of weeks, so let’s start by getting someone in to discuss our technical needs.’

  Marielle’s perfect brows arched as she perched on the edge of her assistant’s desk. ‘And what exactly would they be?’ she enquired in a supercilious tone.

  ‘That’s why we need experts,’ Penny pointed out. ‘Someone who can advise us on everything from air-conditioning to computer graphics.’ She picked up her briefcase and flicked it open. ‘I have a list here of the kind of equipment and people I thought we might require to get things operational.’ She handed a copy to Marielle, who grudgingly took it and treated it to a frosty-eyed glance.

  ‘We are already operational,’ she intoned.

  Penny took a breath. ‘For The Coast maybe, but not for the new magazine.’ Then, without giving Marielle a chance to respond, she went on: ‘I’ve had a rough blueprint drawn up of what the magazine might look like. The final decision will of course be taken after consultation with you and David, but you will see from this,’ she said, handing Marielle a copy of the blueprint, ‘what sort of areas I intend to cover. If you know anyone with an interest in any of these fields – fashion, interior design, gardening, cookery, entertainment, et cetera – and who may like to contribute, I’ll be happy to see them. There is one stipulation, though. Whoever they are, they must be bilingual because my intention is to make the new magazine bilingual, since to cater just for the English-speaking population imposes unacceptable limitations on the circulation. It will be a community magazine and, as the French make up by far the greater part of the community, it would be insane to cut them out. And here,’ she said, delving into her briefcase again, ‘is a list of people I would like to meet, the editor of the Nice-Matin being the most important. Maybe your assistant, when she next graces us with her presence, can fix up some meetings for me.

  ‘Now, about recruitment . . .’ she continued. ‘To begin with we shall be quite a small team consisting of myself, David Villers, you, a general assistant, a sales and marketing director, an advertising director and two subs. As well as the deputy editorship I would like you to take on the role of production director.’ Not even a glimmer of a response. ‘But the most important person at this stage is the designer. I have already recruited someone in London who will come down to oversee everything from the look of the magazine to the launch of it. His name is Jeffrey Silver. He drew up the blueprint you are looking at there and he’s had considerable experience in getting new magazines off the ground. On the list of people I would like to meet I’ve included several advertising agencies. They will handle the actual launch, which I hope will take place at the end of August.’

  There was a tightness around Marielle’s mouth that told Penny how royally pissed off she was, but she said nothing.

  ‘Uh, before we go any further,’ Penny said, looking through more documents she had taken from her briefcase, her mind clearly dealing with several things at once, ‘maybe you could hire a team of decorators to come and spruce the place up a bit. Oh yes,’ she said, as her eyes alighted on a memo she had sent Sylvia, ‘there are two extremely important points here, the first being that the new magazine will be a bimonthly as opposed to a monthly and, second, it will no longer be free. We’ll need to discuss the setting of a price with David when he comes.’

  ‘And when will that be?’ Marielle asked coldly.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Penny answered, continuing to lay things out on the desk. After a while she stopped and looked up at Marielle, who hadn’t moved. ‘I’m sorry,’ Penny said, ‘I obviously didn’t make myself clear. When I asked if you would sort out the decorators, I meant now.’ Then, with a beaming smile. ‘There’s no point in dragging our heels, is there?’

  Marielle’s nostrils flared, but, slipping off her coat, she went to sit at her assistant’s desk.

  ‘Is there a photocopier?’ Penny enquired, glancing around.

  ‘There.’ Marielle pointed at a small, desktop job.

  ‘Well, that’s not going to get us very far, is it?’ Penny remarked. ‘Make task number two the hiring of a decent-sized copier, one with all the magical little functions but no tendency to break down. Incidentally, did you manage to contact any estate agents to find me somewhere to rent?’

  ‘Yes. We have a rendezvous with her tomorrow morning.’

  Penny nodded. ‘Her’ wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind, for she’d been planning a blitz on house-hunting, but one agent was a start.

  It was
much later in the day, after Penny had gone through the laborious task of copying virtually everything in her briefcase for Marielle’s perusal, that Marielle at last spoke without prompting.

  ‘Your ideas,’ she said, fixing Penny with her sharp, green eyes, ‘are ambitious, to say the least. I am wondering where so much money is coming from.’

  ‘From the Starke Organization,’ Penny answered. ‘And as to whether they will all be cost-effective, I can’t say yet. Again, we need to speak to David, but before we do that perhaps you’d like to put forward any ideas of your own.’

  Marielle looked down at the single sheet of paper she was holding. ‘If I have any,’ she said eventually, ‘I’ll let you know.’

  Not a particularly satisfactory reply, since brainstorming was something Penny adored. However, it seemed she was going to have to wait until they had a few more people on board for the real fun to begin and, meanwhile, time hadn’t been wasted. Several decorators would be arriving over the next few days to give quotes; delivery of a photocopier was promised for the end of the week; a team of boffins from a computer company were eager to explore how best to serve their needs; France Telecom had agreed to come and discuss phones the following week; an office-supply company had already biked round their brochures and an employment agency was lining up security guards, secretaries and cleaners to be interviewed.

  Unfortunately, throughout all their endeavours not so much as a crack had appeared in Marielle’s polar icecap of a demeanour, which, Penny was thinking to herself as she stretched and yawned, was going to become pretty wearing if she didn’t break it down soon. But, she reminded herself, she wasn’t looking for a bosom pal and since Marielle’s efficiency, grudging as it was, had more than helped to get the ball rolling Penny supposed she’d just have to make do with that for now. It would be a whole lot easier, though, if Marielle would come out with some serious opposition to the changes, or if she’d spit out all the resentment she was harbouring and give them the chance to have a thundering good row and clear the air. But maybe that wasn’t Marielle’s style.

  ‘OK, time to call it a day,’ Penny said, stifling another yawn as she hefted her briefcase back on to her desk and began to refill it. ‘What time am I meeting the estate agent in the morning?’

  ‘Ten o’clock.’

  Penny looked at her, waited, then with a long-suffering sigh said, ‘OK. Is she coming to the hotel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does she know which hotel?’

  ‘She will by the morning.’

  ‘Fine. Now, if you wouldn’t mind dropping me off I’ll see what I can do about hiring a car.’

  After leaving Penny at the fancy Carlton Hotel, Marielle sped out on to the Croisette and raced furiously off towards Cannes la Bocca and the HLM – council flat – she shared with her mother. She’d known, even before meeting Penny Moon, that she was going to despise her. Now that they had met, she more than despised her, she loathed her, self-opinionated bitch that she was. Oh, sure, she was going to make a success of this glitzy new magazine – how could she fail when she had the backing she had? Well, that was OK by Marielle, she’d always wanted to lift the profile of the magazine, and if having to put up with Penny Moon for a while was the way it had to be done, then so be it. Penny Moon wasn’t going to last long, though, Marielle already had assurances on that, but she had to make sure that Penny Moon’s personal failure did nothing to damage the magazine, so that when Penny Moon went back to England in disgrace it would be she, Marielle, who was the obvious choice to take things over. She gave a snort of laughter. Just one day in Penny Moon’s company had been enough to show Marielle where her Achilles’ heel lay, for Penny Moon was, without a doubt, the kind of woman who’d let her heart rule her head. Disastrous! And with the self-esteem problem Marielle had detected the instant they’d met, Marielle didn’t see how she could fail. And maybe, now she came to think about it, she was going to enjoy using Penny Moon’s emotions as the weapon that would finish her, and, if all that Marielle had been hearing about David Villers was true, then Marielle could hardly wait to meet him.

  The next two weeks sped by and what she, Marielle and Clothilde, the mumsy, smiley assistant of Marielle’s, managed to achieve in that time was enough to make Penny’s head spin. That she all too often felt like Quentin Tarantino might if he were asked to script Neighbours was something she forced herself not to dwell on. Instead, she reminded herself how refreshing it was to find such willingness and enthusiasm in Clothilde, when Marielle’s sullen co-operation was beginning to make the telephonists at Electricité de France seem positively helpful. Unfortunately Clothilde could only work part-time, since she had a husband, three children and an ageing father to look after, but what she managed to get through during the hours she was there was enough to convince Penny that, come what may, she was going to keep her on.

  The most productive hours of all had been spent with the editor of Nice-Matin, who, amazingly, had yielded up a whole wealth of contacts with such disarming readiness and generosity that Penny had almost felt embarrassed. But that was the French for you, she remarked happily to herself: either all – as with the editor and Clothilde – or nothing – as with Marielle.

  She had left Marielle in charge of following up on possible contributors that morning while she went off on a last foray into the villa-strewn hills behind Cannes to look for a house before going back to London the next day. She’d visited so many villas and mas and private domaines that in her mind they were now all starting to blend into one blurry mass of stupendous luxury. But, despite the numerous appealing features and false-start excitements, nothing so far had felt totally right. That was until the agent drove her through the meandering, leafy lanes around Mougins, to a villa that as soon as Penny clapped eyes on she knew she would take.

  It was fairy-tale time: a blushing, glowing, riotously fertile Eden of tropical colour and breath-taking splendour. The house, all Moorish arches and gleaming white walls, sprawled across the end of the long, curved drive like a secret haven enticing you to come and share its private view of the sea. The lawns flowed across the hillside like gentle, undulating waves, the palms soared and fanned against the backdrop of a brilliant blue sky: the giant cacti bristled with sturdy pride.

  As the agent let herself into the house Penny walked round to the south-facing terrace and let her eyes make the slow, entrancing journey from the turquoise-blue pool with a bubbling jacuzzi at one end and a bougainvillaea-claimed pergola at the other, out to the distant, slumbering red rocks of the Esterel, across the sparkling Mediterranean Sea and on to the pine forest that hugged the boundaries of the property.

  As she wandered down the wide, semicircular steps to the edge of the pool she felt like Alice in a wonderland of unbelievable riches. Behind her the agent was pulling open the white slatted shutters to let the bright spring sunshine pour into the house. Penny retraced her steps and followed her from the farmhouse-style kitchen to the vast sitting room with its balustraded mezzanine, ivory grand piano and huge stone fireplace; then on into the two downstairs bedrooms and bathrooms. All the parts of the house were on different levels and each room had its own access on to the sun-dazzled terraces, which were linked by finely mosaiced steps and edged by bougainvillaea-covered balustrades.

  Back outside again, the agent showed her the summer-kitchen, the utility room, the barbecue area, all the time keeping up her estate agent’s spiel, her voice as crisp as the air and her appearance as neat as the garden beds. Then, leading the way back in through the french windows to the dining area, she stopped as Penny stood on the threshold and marvelled at the seductive elegance of the place. The long, glass dining table for twelve with its brass legs and accompanying high-backed, pale linen-upholstered chairs was on the upper level of the sitting room, and as Penny wandered down the steps, passing over antique silk rugs scattered across the terracotta-tiled floor and ran her hands along the backs of voluminous-cushioned sofas and chairs, she couldn’t help wondering why t
he rental was so low for such a magnificent house.

  ‘Because,’ the agent told her, ‘the owners will only accept a five-year commitment and they realize that often people want only two years, maybe less.’

  ‘And what if I want to leave before the five years are up?’ Penny asked, wandering out into the oak-beamed and stone-flagged entrance hall and making for the stairs.

  ‘They will require a minimum of six months’ notice.’

  Penny didn’t think that would pose much of a problem. ‘Where are the owners?’ she asked.

  ‘They live in South Africa.’

  ‘Don’t they ever come here?’

  ‘No, the house is an investment,’ the agent replied. ‘As you can see, it is beautifully furnished and cared for.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Penny commented, thinking how surprisingly homely it felt despite its rambling spaciousness and air of grandeur.

  ‘And this,’ the agent said, pushing open a solid oak door on the first landing and standing aside, ‘is the master bedroom.’

  As Penny went past her, the agent flicked on the lights, then went to the double french windows to push open the shutters. Beyond was a cosy little veranda with its own view of the sea and a white, wrought-iron table and chairs set slightly back from the jasmine-covered balustrades.

  When the agent turned round, she was bewildered to see Penny shaking her head and laughing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Penny said, ‘but it’s so fantastic I can hardly believe it,’ and bouncing on to the king-sized antique brass bed, which was covered in the same white satin and lace of the drapes that fanned down over the wall behind it, she sat surveying the expensive fitted wardrobes, chests and dressing table that lined the walls.

  ‘And through here is the principal bathroom,’ the agent said, going inside and switching on the lights.

  Penny was already prepared, but, even so, its luxury made her gasp. Everything, from the long, double-basined vanity unit with its recessed lights, to the bidet and toilet, to the multi-head shower and deep corner bath, was in a soft, ivory-coloured marble with a hint of green vein running through. The palms and ferns were fake, but it was hard to tell even when she touched them, and the plush, cushiony carpet was deep enough to lose her feet in.