Escape to the Riviera

by Jules Wake

  Unfortunately, when it came to Richard, she’d be lying. The good-looks fairy had dropped her entire quota of magic dust smack bang on his head when he was born, along with a bucket load of charm and a total disinterest in mirrors.

  ‘Fraid so.’

  ‘But is he nice? Eliza met John Ryan once and he was dead arrogant and up himself.’

  In a way, Carrie hoped so. It would be a shame if stardom had spoilt him. ‘He used to be. I wouldn’t have married him otherwise.’

  ‘I guess. How did you meet him? And how long were you together?’

  ‘It was in the first term at drama school. Talk about naïve. Most people had had a few years out but I went straight from sixth form. I was seriously wet behind the ears. The tutor in improvisation class put us together to do a piece together. For some reason Richard decided the scene should have a passionate kiss in it. And, of course, I was trying to be terribly cool and blasé and pretend that I could handle it.’ Carrie laughed. ‘The mean sod told me after the first rehearsal that I was a dreadful kisser and that I needed to practise.’

  Jade’s eyes almost bugged out. ‘Oh no, what did you do? I’d have cried.’

  Carrie grinned at her. ‘No way. I told him it was his lousy technique and he was the one that needed to practise.’

  Jade giggled. ‘That’s cool. What did he say?’

  ‘He laughed, he’d been joking. It was his way of asking me out. He suggested we go out, get a few drinks and get some practice in. And that’s how it all started. We moved in together and then after about eighteen months, we got up one day and decided to get married.’

  ‘What? Just like that.’

  Carrie’s stomach clenched. No, not just like that. Not like that at all. It hurt too much to remember the intensity of those days. The utter do-or-die emotion that she felt for him.

  ‘We got married and then a month later, a week after we’d graduated, Richard was invited to do a screen test in LA. Flown out first class.’

  ‘Wow and did he get the part?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. It took a while for him to pick up again when he came back. He really wanted to prove to his dad that he could make it as an actor.

  ‘He came back with his tail between his legs.’ Carrie sighed at the memory. ‘God he was miserable for those few weeks. I’d landed a very small part in Blood Brothers and—’

  ‘Back up a minute. You were in Blood Brothers? What? In London? How come I never knew that?’

  ‘It was only a small part.’

  ‘Yeah, but even so. That’s cool.’

  Carrie smiled. At the time it had been more than cool, it had been amazing. Working in a proper theatre six nights of the week, doing what she loved. Richard came to watch three times in the first week.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Richard got another call. He’d been back barely two weeks. This time we made a big joke about it. He said he’d bring me the first-class goodies back from the plane and he’d see me in a week’s time.

  ‘Only he got the part. God, we nearly wet ourselves with excitement.’ They’d squealed like toddlers in a ball pool when he told her. ‘He came back, with the champagne from first class.’ And they’d made a grown-up plan. He would go back out, make the film and then she’d either join him or he would come home.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He made the film and then, while filming, he got an agent, who helped him audition for a part in a play in New York. He got that and during the run another director saw him and offered him another part, being filmed on location all over the place. I was still in the theatre. It turned out to be impossible to keep in touch. Phones weren’t like they are now.’

  And Angela’s arthritis took a turn for the worse. But she wouldn’t tell Jade that. Leaving Angela with a young child hadn’t been possible. And she thought Richard would come back one day. But he never did.

  A full-scale production had commenced in the kitchen and Angela was in her element when Carrie, having absorbed the worst of the shock, had come back down to the kitchen. Now a frisson of excitement danced low in her belly as well as outright curiosity. Richard wasn’t the man/boy she’d known all those years ago. He was new and reinvented but there was no reason why it couldn’t be fun getting to know him again. However contrarily she didn’t want Angela or Jade to think that she’d accepted the situation yet. Although she’d forgiven Jade, her niece needed to realise the consequences of what she’d done and Carrie was relying on Angela to reinforce that message.

  Marisa, who’d stopped by to check on the towel situation again, had been drafted in as sous chef and chief confidante. The two of them sat at the breakfast bar, perched on the stools, poring over recipe books spread out across the counter.

  ‘If we did the pork loin, we could do a goats’ cheese and walnut salad for a starter.’

  ‘Or what about ze petite quiches as hors d’oeuvres?’

  They batted ideas back and forth like good-natured tennis players keeping a volley going for the sheer pleasure of it.

  Angela spotted her. ‘Richard’s not allergic to anything, is he?’

  ‘Not when I knew him, but for all I know he might have gone all Hollywood and eat some weird diet. He probably exists on a macrobiotic diet of grains and raw fish with a portion of bean curd on a good day, washed down with wheatgrass. Don’t they all have almond milk instead of dairy these days?’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll have a very sophisticated palate as well,’ said Angela staunchly. Carrie had a vision of her picking up her recipe books and clutching them to her as if they were her babies and challenging Richard to eat her food.

  ‘I bet he eats in posh restaurants all the time,’ she said. ‘And if he doesn’t he might be grateful for some home cooking.’

  ‘When I knew him, he was grateful for a tin of beans,’ said Carrie acidly. Personally she didn’t think they should make any special effort or any fuss, but that would have denied Angela this special moment.

  ‘Where’s Jade? She should be chained to the sink and be your galley slave for the next fifteen years.’

  Angela wrinkled her nose. ‘She’s trying to decide what to wear.’

  ‘Sackcloth and ashes, if I have anything to do with it,’ muttered Carrie darkly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For what Jade’s done.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. Besides, she’s already apologised.’

  Angela’s mouth dropped open. ‘And you’ve forgiven her?’

  Cassie threw herself moodily against the kitchen cabinets. ‘I didn’t have much choice. Besides she didn’t do it to be malicious.’

  ‘No she did it because she wanted to meet Richard Maddox and boast about it to all her friends.’

  ‘There is that,’ said Carrie. ‘But it’s done now. I have to get through it. If he even turns up.’

  ‘He’d better.’ Angela cast a look at the food on the side.

  ‘Why does he want to come? That’s what I don’t get. He could have got in touch with me at any time.’

  ‘Maybe he wants a divorce too. Realises the time is right. He might have met someone else.’

  Carrie felt slightly sick.

  Angela added, ‘That would be handy. He’d be prepared to speed things up. You won’t have to tell Alan about not being divorced or,’ she paused, ‘about being married.’

  She ducked to one of the cupboards, pulling out a selection of brightly coloured cloths. ‘Ah, here we go, just the thing. This will look lovely and there are matching napkins. I think we’ll eat outside. We can hang lots of candles up around the verandah, make it look pretty.’

  The Richard she knew had had to make do with candlelit suppers because they couldn’t always round up enough fifty-pence pieces for the meter down the hall.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Angela had done herself proud, the table twinkled jewel- bright with a pink gingham tablecloth, solid royal-blue napkins and coloured wine and water glasses. Tea-light
holders were suspended from every nook and cranny on the terrace overlooking the pool, waiting to be lit.

  Little pottery bowls, dark with shiny tapenade, and plates piled high with slivers of unleavened bread awaited the guests. Cutlery lining each place mat attested to the courses that Angela had planned with her right-hand woman, Marisa. The menu had been arranged and prepared with military precision, leaving nothing to chance. Alternatives had been discussed and were on standby should Richard, in the intervening years, have become a vegetarian or, woe betide him, a vegan. Carrie found it difficult to believe that such a devotee of the bacon butty and Burger King’s Whoppers might have undergone such an about-face, but Angela felt that anything was possible in the wilds of the Hollywood hills and Californian liberal (whacko, according to Jade) influences.

  Carrie steadfastly refused to get in a tizz about Richard’s arrival and spend hours getting ready. At six-thirty she was still in the pool. Her forty-sixth lap hadn’t proved any more calming than the first, tenth or forty-fifth. Ploughing up and down, with only her thoughts in her head for company, had given rise to numerous imaginary conversations, all of which were accompanied by a hideous tinkly laugh that her imagination had introduced to every scenario. She wasn’t going to get out of the pool until she’d reached fifty laps.

  When she did get to fifty, she threw an extra one in out of sheer pig-headedness. Richard’s visit was going to be a perfectly normal event. An old friend, she hadn’t seen for years. Who happened to be gorgeousness incarnate, once the love of her life and now an international superstar.

  Who was she kidding?

  When she finally got into the shower, she opted for Marguerite’s best Jo Malone soap to get rid of the smell of chlorine. Rather than spoil the rather divine smell of lime, basil and mandarin orange, she decided to go the whole hog and use the matching shampoo and conditioner and the body lotion afterwards.

  Dressing was easy. She pulled out a navy blue cotton halter-neck sundress with large white daisies dancing across the bottom two-thirds of the full skirt.

  The distinctive, almost, fifties style, had come from vintage or pre-loved clothes, as was the trendy term these days, shop, called Vogue in Berkhamsted. It was one of those mesmerising dresses that hints at all the things you might be, that you still could be and taunts you for being a coward. Displayed to advantage on the back wall by itself, it reminded of her of one of those clever portraits where the eyes are watching you from whatever angle you stand, only this was in reverse and from wherever she stood in the shop, she could still see it. In her drama-school days, she would have snatched it off the hanger and dived into the nearest changing room. She must have been hormonal or something that day because she kept circling around the shop and coming back to it. Even as she told herself she’d never wear it, that it was totally impractical and had it even seen an English summer, she was handing her card over to the shop assistant, who didn’t bat an eye at her buying such an obviously unsuitable dress.

  With a sigh, she let the fabric whisper over her head, settling like a second skin. When she stared in the mirror to add a barely-there touch of make-up, it was almost as if she’d gone back in time. With her hair down, she reminded herself of the Carrie Richard used to know. She tidied her room. Folded her underwear in the drawer. Rearranged her toiletries on the dressing table. Straightened the bed.

  It was nearly seven-thirty. Would he be fashionably late? Or was that arrogantly late? For a minute she thought of Alan and his scrupulous punctuality. Richard would be late.

  With absolutely nothing more she could do in her room, apart from open up her laptop again and check her emails, which she’d done two minutes before, she gave herself a last perfunctory look in the mirror, not examining her appearance too closely, and left the room.

  Angela fussed in the kitchen, putting the last-minute touches to everything. She’d dressed for dinner in a pretty print dress that suited her colouring perfectly and her flushed face.

  ‘Do you think he’ll definitely come?’ asked Angela.

  ‘He’d bloody better after all this effort.’ Carrie opened the fridge. ‘I need a drink; does it matter what wine I open?’

  ‘Yes, it does. The Sancerre is for the main course. You can open the Côtes de Provence.’

  Carrie wrestled with the unfamiliar corkscrew, she was used to screw caps. It seemed rather undignified to have to fight her way into a bottle or maybe her hands were shaking.

  ‘Just a small one for me,’ said Angela, peering into the oven.

  Carrie poured herself a large glass and handed her sister a second glass.

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘I’ve asked Jade to light all the candles when he arrives. I hope he’s going to be on time,’ Angela checked her watch. ‘I think everything’s ready. You could stop pacing. It’s making me nervous.’

  ‘I’m not pacing.’ Carrie stopped dead in the middle of the room and sipped at her glass.

  ‘You’re tapping your foot.’

  Carrie huffed. ‘I’ll go and see how Jade’s doing.’

  As she walked through the lobby area, under the diamond- bright chandelier, the buzzer for the front gate sounded. She jumped and also, for no apparent reason, yelped. The buzzer sat beside the front door, innocuous and innocent. What if she pressed the intercom and told whoever it was, in the vague hope that they weren’t Richard and someone stopping for directions, that the family wasn’t home to visitors?

  Jade came barrelling past. ‘He’s here. That’ll be him. Let him in. Let him in. Quick.’

  ‘Calm down.’ She might as well have spoken to the wind, Jade skipped past her, depressing the button. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi, it’s Richard Maddox. Here for dinner.’

  ‘Come right in.’

  Carrie raised an eyebrow as Jade blushed. ‘What’s with the American accent, all of a sudden?’

  Jade giggled. ‘No idea, it seemed sort of appropriate.’

  Through the glass sidelights they could see the headlights of a car wending its way up the road.

  ‘You can open the door, introduce yourself,’ suggested Carrie, before adding, with a stern look, ‘And make sure you confess and tell him that I knew nothing about this. I’ll be outside on the terrace.’

  She rushed outside so fast she tripped but managed to stop herself falling headlong into the table. Instead she splashed wine down her dress, leaving a Zorro-like streak across the skirt. Drawing on every breathing technique known to man or drama student, she staved off incipient hyperventilation but couldn’t do a damn thing about the skippety-skip of her erratic heart, which had decided to play silly buggers.

  She heard the deep baritone of his voice, a low buzz pitched against Jade’s higher tones, which even from here she could tell were scaling Everest peaks of excitement.

  ‘We’ve met before, but I don’t suppose you remember.’

  ‘Gosh, sorry. I was quite little,’ said Jade.

  ‘No, you were far more interested in the Peppa Pig that Carrie bought you.’

  ‘Wow, I still have that.’

  ‘Good because we walked the length of bloody Oxford Street to find the damn thing.’

  Jade giggled as she and Richard came into view.

  Every nerve ending stood to attention and then he was there, gliding towards her, his hand outstretched, a big stupid grin on his face and not an ounce of awkwardness.

  ‘Carrie.’ Behind him, Jade hovered, the last great romantic, in anticipation of some coup de foudre reunion.

  ‘Richard.’

  With consummate ease he planted a kiss on either cheek.

  ‘Excuse the face. It’s for continuity, although my co-star keeps complaining it’s like being kissed by a pineapple.’

  ‘You haven’t improved your technique, then,’ said Carrie, with a wicked glint in her eye.

  Angela, appearing at the French doors, let out a gasp and Jade caught her eye, clearly trying to hide her laughter and also slightly shocked.

&n
bsp; Richard let out a delighted laugh.

  ‘You never let me get away with a single thing, did you?’ he asked, stepping back and giving her a thorough once- over.

  ‘Definitely not. Then or now. Don’t think anything’s changed because you’re a big Hollywood hotshot.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Richard’s eyes met hers and although he was smiling, serious intent lurked there.

  For a moment she felt as if she were on a thin crust of ice that could give way at any second. On the surface everything was fine and dandy, underneath was another matter altogether.

  Focusing on his face and meeting his gaze without flinching took every ounce of concentration, especially as all her senses were aware of the subtle spices of his aftershave and the electric hum of his closeness. Just that proximity was too close to the eye of a storm and everything whirling around them. It triggered sensations she’d forgotten and an immediate response from her body that appeared to think nothing had changed.

  All their yesterdays were caught fast, like leaves in a net. It was hard to believe that she hadn’t seen him for so long. It was as if he’d walked out of the flat the day before and strolled back in a day later.

  He smiled, his eyes crinkling, a few more lines than there used to be but, if anything, even more attractive. ‘You’ve no idea how glad I was when Jade got in touch. You vanished so quickly the other day.’

  ‘That was Jade’s doing, not mine.’

  ‘I think I realised that,’ Richard teased.

  ‘And you weren’t above taking advantage,’ challenged Carrie, narrowing her eyes at him, enjoying the exchange. It took her back to those days when they’d first met. Richard had been used to women fawning over him. She’d always kept him on his toes.

  Richard grinned, his teeth white against the tan and dark bristles. ‘Absolutely not.’