Maestra

by L. S. Hilton

  James declined my offer of a romantic stroll on the beach, as I knew he would, and the waiting car took us back to the hotel. We could have a drink on the terrace, I suggested instead, to enjoy the wonderful view. It was a short drive, but James’s head was lolling on his shoulder like an overblown cabbage after five minutes. He emitted loud, viscous snores. I caught the driver’s eye in the mirror.

  “Perhaps you’d like to wait while we help monsieur inside? Perhaps a little too much champagne . . .”

  The banknote crunch of Hôtel du Cap gravel roused James. He pretended of course that he hadn’t been sleeping, but added thickly that he might turn in. I followed him solicitously up to the suite and steeled myself for an affectionate good-night kiss, but he was already shambling toward the bed. I heard him banging about for a few minutes, then the strip of light beneath the door vanished and there was silence. I counted slowly to sixty, twice, until the snores resumed.

  Mercedes wanted to go to Jimmy’z, the famous nightclub on the port at Cannes, but it was too early, and besides, I had an idea it would be lame. I asked the driver to take us somewhere “decontracté” and he swung the car right, toward Antibes, climbing away from the coast and into the hills for about a quarter of an hour, until we arrived at a low stone building done out Ibiza-style, all in white and silver, with a huge terrace and a gaggle of black-suited doormen. Two Ferraris were being parked as we pulled up.

  “This looks all right, eh,” said Mercedes, and suddenly I started giggling. I’d never had anyone to do this with before. I felt giddy and even affectionate toward her. I told the driver he could go, we’d get the doormen to find us a taxi.

  “Come on, then, girl,” I said in a voice that hadn’t been my own for a decade. “We’re going to have a right laugh.”

  The bouncer gave us a quick once-over and unfastened the redundant velvet rope.

  “Bonsoir, mesdames.”

  We took a table on the terrace and ordered kirs royale. There were a few groups of older Euro types, all open-collared white shirts and giant watches, one gaggle of etiolated Russian hookers, and several younger couples. As I wondered if Balensky might even make an appearance, two coupes of champagne appeared.

  “With the compliments of the two gentlemen,” intoned the waiter solemnly.

  I followed his gaze and saw two young Arab guys in absurd sunglasses nodding to us.

  “We’re sending them back,” I whispered to Mercedes. “We’re not prostitutes.”

  “Speak for yourself, love.”

  “Bitch.”

  We drank three kirs as the club filled up, then moved inside to the dance floor. I watched the men watching us. I think this is the moment I like best, the flirting, the choosing. Shall I have you, or you, or you? We did a bit of fairly halfhearted shimmying while we made our minds up.

  “What about them?”

  “Too old.”

  “Or them?”

  “Too fat. Too fucking fat.”

  We collapsed, shrieking. It seemed like the funniest thing in the world.

  “Or them?”

  “Promising.”

  Mercedes was doing some frantic false-eyelash signaling to a raised alcove, obviously the VIP section. Two men sat at a table with an ice bucket of vodka, both texting while a waiter unloaded a tray of sushi. They were young and presentable-looking, though we were too far away for the watch and shoe check.

  “Go on, then.”

  “I’ll go and say hello.”

  I clutched her back. “You can’t! I’ll be ashamed!” This was how it was meant to feel, wasn’t it, being a girl? “We’ll sit down and wait for them to come to us.”

  “What if they don’t? What if someone else gets in first?”

  “They will. Watch.”

  • • •

  AND THEN SOMEHOW, an hour later, we were in an open-top Porsche driving stupidly fast toward the old port at Antibes, with Dom Pérignon drying on my yellow dress and Mercedes necking one of them madly in the back. Everyone was smoking, and a little podgy guy whose name no one knew was doing coke from a Guerlain compact in the parcel shelf.

  “I wanna go to Saint-Tropez,” yelled Mercedes, surfacing for a second.

  “I wanna see the Picassos!” I yelled back.

  Then we were veering crazily over the cobbles of the old town, nearly knocking over a weary paparazzo kneeling on the dock; the podgy guy vanished and Mercedes was being carried down a gangplank, legs waving like a beetle.

  “Take your shoes off!” I called after her.

  “Friggin’ ’ell, Lauren,” she screeched, “get in here!”

  The driver of the Porsche and the owner of the boat, which was as bright and new and shiny as his money, was called Steve, and if I was a Russian hooker he’d have smelled like Christmas. But I’d noticed that he hadn’t touched the vodka or the coke, so nor had I, and while Mercedes made some low-rent porn noises with his friend offstage, he made me a hot chocolate and we looked at his three Picassos, which were rather good, and he told me about his contemporary art collection, because of course he collected contemporary art, then Mercedes and Thing reappeared and we all stripped off and got into Steve’s hot tub on the deck of Steve’s enormous boat and drank some more Dom and he tried to look as though this was happy. Maybe it was. Maybe being happy is, just for once, not being on the make.

  We lurched into the Hôtel du Cap at about three, carrying our shoes wincingly over the gravel and past the impassive night porter. Once we’d opened the door to the suite with painful care, it seemed necessary to crawl commando-style to our bedroom, but Mercedes caught the table with her shoulder as she performed a teddy roll, bringing down the baroque vase of lilies with a crash that seemed loud enough to be heard in Saint-Tropez. We froze, but the only sound was our sudden harsh breathing. For a few seconds I felt as though I had swallowed a balloon, but James didn’t stir behind his door. There was not even any sound of snoring. Which meant that by the time we were safely in our own bed we were helpless with giggles. I don’t ever remember having fallen asleep laughing before.

  A shaft of strong white sun cutting between the heavy draperies woke me at about nine. I slipped out from beneath the sheet and looked into the sitting room. The lilies had magically been replaced and the Times was fanned out on the table, but there was no other sign of life. James must still be sleeping. I fumbled in my bag for a couple of ibuprofen and hauled myself under the shower, letting the water stream through last night’s makeup. There was just today to be got through—maybe I could persuade him to go to the Picasso Museum at Antibes? He would enjoy feeling cultured. After last night I almost felt a bit sorry for him. Wrapped in a huge towel, I went to wake Mercedes.

  “Come on, he’s not up. We’ll leave a note and get some breakfast in the garden.”

  We slipped robes over our bikinis, and with sunglasses and crystal goblets of sweet fresh orange juice, everything felt sort of fantastic. I thought it looked more considerate to order breakfast for three, but though we took our time with the exquisite warm croissants and tiny Kilner jars of quince and fig preserves, James didn’t appear. Looking at the other guests breakfasting, and the hotel gardeners in their red jackets raking the paths and practically polishing the grass, I almost forgot him, as though we were there in our own right. And that was fantastic too. Mercedes lowered her glasses, cringing a bit at the strong sun.

  “D’you think he’s okay?”

  “Sure. Maybe he got breakfast upstairs.” Though we had left him a note, and he seemed the type to want the full value of my company, at least.

  “I’ll just run up and check,” Mercedes offered.

  When she came back she was carrying two of the hotel’s monogrammed towels.

  “I knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer. Let’s go swimming!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT MIGHT SOUND FUNNY, but I knew ther
e was something wrong when James didn’t appear for lunch. Mercedes had immediately fallen back to sleep in the sun, the strings of her bikini top trailing untied across her back, and I had passed the time reading a biography of Chagall that I’d brought in case we had the chance to go up to Saint-Paul de Vence. At half past twelve, I started to worry, and though I tried for a few minutes more to concentrate on the book, I knew something was strange. What if he was ill? He had been going on about his gruesome diarrhea. He might need a doctor. The last thing we needed was bother. I tied my robe and went back up across the lawn, too impatient when I got inside to wait for the lift. On the second floor I barreled down the corridor, muttering “Désolé” at a maid who was bent over a vacuum cleaner. I went straight to James’s room and as soon as I saw him, I knew.

  I had never seen a dead body before. But there was a vacant immobility to the flesh, a strange hollowness to the features, which signaled a total absence of vitality. James didn’t look as though he was sleeping. He just looked dead. His huge body in the white sheets was covered in a cotton nightshirt; with his rinded, thick-nailed feet sticking out, he resembled a grotesque elderly putto. I knew, but still I went through some motions I had learned from films—I went and fetched a blusher compact from my makeup bag and cautiously held the unsnapped mirror over his face. Nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to try to open his eyes, but I gingerly lifted the ham of his arm and tried to feel for a pulse.

  “James?” I hissed urgently, trying to control a gulping scream. “James!” Nothing.

  I walked round the bed to pick up the phone and call reception, but I checked myself. I felt dizzy and like I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t lose control. He’d been drinking—he didn’t usually drink; maybe he couldn’t. I took a huge, shuddering breath. I saw it all, the swift, discreet staff, the ambulance, the police station. If they did an autopsy they would find whatever stupid cocktail of tranqs Mercedes had given him, and it would be manslaughter. I saw the newspapers, our names, my mother’s face. The unimaginable impossibility of prison. I suddenly heard the sound of the vacuum getting closer. The maid was on her way to clean the room. I jogged to the main door, fumbled with the hangers of breakfast and safety cards, dropped them, scrabbled for the Do Not Disturb. In a place like this, that would give us hours. I sat slowly on one of the white sofas. Breathe, Judith. Think.

  I had never sent our passports to reception, I had just forgotten. I had scrawled LJ on the breakfast tab, just notional initials. We had called each other by our club names, worn sunglasses most of the time. The staff had seen us coming and going, but this was the South of France; they would simply assume we were whores, rented as a double act for a weekend. If we could get out, they had no way of tracing us beyond our descriptions, and this was a major hotel, with staff who were trained not to be too observant, I guessed. Fingerprints? I had no idea, really, how that worked, but I certainly had no criminal record, and to my knowledge neither did Leanne. Didn’t they have some bureau where they were held? Some megatech international DNA databank?

  I couldn’t think that. I’d often dipped into my roommates’ medical textbooks, but I wasn’t sure if there were any visible signs of sudden cardiac arrest. He was obese, it was hot, and he’d had sex—surely that would be the obvious conclusion? I thanked God for the fact that nice girls always swallow: there wouldn’t be much evidence of me on the sheets. By the time anyone worked out there was more to it than that, we would be back in our lives. And if anyone came looking . . .

  The night porter had seen us coming in last night. We could say we had come out for a laugh, that we couldn’t really go through with it. Two silly girls taking an old man for a ride. We could say that James had been angry when we didn’t want to follow up on the promised sex, told us we had to go home today and we’d gone out on the town without him. We didn’t say good-bye because we thought he was sleeping, furious. Plausible. I took my mobile from the robe pocket and texted Leanne to get upstairs immediately. My thumb slipped greasily across the screen. He had a wife—Veronica. They would find her, through his passport; perhaps she would want to keep things quiet, to avoid scandal. Surely she would have been expecting a heart attack in the not-too-distant future, anyway.

  My phone buzzed. Leanne was at the door. I opened it and pulled her into the suite.

  “Sit down. Don’t say anything, and for God’s sake don’t scream. He’s dead. No joke, no mistake. Whatever you gave him, it was too much. He’s in there.”

  I had never seen anyone go white before—part of me was interested to see that the blood did indeed drain from her face, leaving it greenish under her tan. I went to the bathroom, fetched one of the fine linen towels hanging by the bidet to wrap round my hand, and fetched her one of the mini-bottles of cognac from the bar, no glass.

  “Drink this.”

  She swallowed obediently in one gulp and began to sob, burying her face in the sleeves of the robe. I took the bottle and padded through to James’s room. I didn’t look at the thing on the bed, just set the empty down on the bedside cabinet. There was already alcohol in his system, so that couldn’t hurt.

  I tried to make my voice as gentle as I could.

  “Leanne, this is bad. It’s very bad. We can’t tell anyone, do you understand? If we do, it’s a crime, even though we didn’t mean it. We would go to prison. Tell me you understand.”

  She nodded. She looked incredibly young.

  “I can handle this. Do you want me to handle this?”

  She nodded again, grateful, desperate. I hardly believed it myself, but my instinct was all we had. I just needed to keep my actions as quick as my thoughts. Leanne started gasping, the hiccupping in her throat moving toward hysteria. I gripped her arms tightly.

  “Look at me. Leanne, look at me! Stop that. Breathe. Come on, just take a deep breath. And another one, that’s it, come on, now. Better?”

  She nodded again.

  “Okay. Now all you have to do is exactly what I tell you. They don’t know who we are—it will be okay. Listen! It will be okay. Get dressed, something neat and smart. Put everything in your bag. Check the bathroom carefully, no makeup, bottles, anything.” I didn’t think that really mattered, but having something to concentrate on would keep her quiet. She shuffled into our bedroom like a hospital patient.

  I went back to James. If I kept my eyes away, it was all right, but I had a queasy fear that one of those fat dead hands was suddenly going to reach out and grab me. Looking round the room, I saw his navy linen jacket hanging on a chair. Using the towel again, I reached inside and found his phone, which was switched off. All the better. There was a wallet with credit cards, driver’s license, a few fifty-euro bills, and a silver Tiffany money clip. Probably a gift from Veronica. I took out the cash. Most of it was in pink five-hundred-euro bills, some yellow two-hundreds. I counted it, disbelieving, and counted again. Then I remembered. This was the Eden Roc. The hotel was famous for only accepting cash—I remembered reading some vulgar restaurant reviewer boasting about it. God knows how much a suite here cost, but James had obviously withdrawn all the money for the bill, plus what he had promised to me. There was just over ten thousand euro. I took two of the fifties from the wallet, added a two-hundred, and placed them back in the money clip in the jacket. For a mad second I thought of removing his huge gold Rolex, but that would be way too dumb. The rest of the money I rolled up tightly and stuffed into the pocket of my robe.

  Leanne was sitting patiently on the bed in her jeans and a gray tee, staring at her feet in their platform wedges. I tossed her my beige canvas Alaïa jacket. It was a sacrifice, but I guessed I could get another one now.

  “Put that on, and your glasses. I won’t be long.” She tried, but she started shaking and couldn’t get her arms into the tightly seamed sleeve.

  “If you start having hysterics, I’m going to hit you. Stop it. Just be fucking grateful I had the sense not to call the police.”

/>   I scrabbled my things into my weekend bag, including the trashy lingerie I’d worn just the day before. Heels, makeup, phone charger, books, hairbrush, laptop. Then I took out the Chanel bags from their carriers and stuffed our other bags inside, shoving the branded pouches back on the top. This way we wouldn’t look as though we were leaving, just sauntering off for a bit of Saturday shopping. I wondered what time checkout was. If it was noon tomorrow, or even eleven, we’d have lots of time with the Do Not Disturb up. I dashed back into the sitting room. The note I had written, a jaunty “Gone for a swim! See you downstairs, darling x” was on the Eden Roc pad. I removed it, and the sheet underneath for good measure, in case the pen had left an imprint. I scrunched them up and shoved them into my pocket.

  “Right, we’re going. Have your phone out. When we get to the lobby, start texting, keep your head down. Don’t hurry.”

  The maid was still hovering in the passage. I thought I was going to throw up when she spoke to me.

  “Voulez vous que je fasse la chambre, madame?”

  I managed a casual smile. She was not much older than me, but her face was sallow and pitted. I guess she didn’t get to see much Riviera sun.

  “Pas pour l’instant, non, merci.”

  We passed on, took the lift to the lobby, and stepped onto the drive.

  “Vous avez besoin d’une voiture, mesdames?”

  It was the same bellboy I had tipped yesterday. Damn.

  “Non, merci. Nous avons besoin de marcher!” Pissed English slags walking off their hangover, I hoped he was thinking.

  Then we were walking down the drive, Leanne’s ankles lurching precariously on the slope. The hotel was a fair way out of Cannes, and for a while we walked along an empty road, banked on both sides with white walls and security gates. We passed several green plastic wheelie bins, so I lifted the heavy lid of one and pushed the torn-up scraps of paper inside. It was the hottest time of day and the cord handles of the carrier were digging wheals in my fingers. I had a headache and I could feel a wet patch of sweat on my back. Leanne plodded silently beside me.