by Peter Mayle
Ziegler called out to his secretary. “Get that out of here, will you? This isn’t a goddamn warehouse. Jesus.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ziegler. It was for you personally.”
“Shit.” Ziegler got up and hacked at the heavy tape sealing the carton with a letter opener before ripping the top open. The carton was packed with cans and tubes and boxes, all with the red star Parker Foods logo. Tucked in the middle was an envelope. Ziegler opened it and took out a single sheet of paper.
“Son of a bitch!” He slapped the paper on the table in front of Simon, punched him on the arm, and grinned. “Son of a bitch!”
Simon looked at the letter. It was headed: “From the Office of the President.” It read: “Congratulations. Hampton Parker.”
By the time Simon looked up, Ziegler was on the phone to public relations on the floor below, telling them to arrange a press conference, all signs of tiredness gone, arrogant, swollen with triumph. There was a time when Simon would have felt that same charge of excitement instead of a weary sense of satisfaction mixed with anticlimax. In the end, it was just another hand to hold, even if the hand was stuffed with money.
Ziegler banged the phone down and looked at Simon across the polished acreage of his desk. “Three fucking hundred fucking million. Minimum!”
“That should keep the wolf from the door.” Simon stretched. “Congratulations, Bob.”
“There’ll be some dead bodies thrown out of the windows over at M&R when this gets out.” Ziegler seemed to relish the thought of the massive and instant redundancies that inevitably followed the loss of a giant account. “They’ll be vulnerable. Better take a look at their list and see what else we can knock off.” He made a note on his pad.
Simon stood up. “Well, I can’t hang around having fun with you all day. I’m going to see if I can get on the 1:45.”
Ziegler was delighted, as Simon knew he would be. He’d have the press conference all to himself. “Sure. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days.” Simon hadn’t reached the door before Ziegler was on the phone again. “News? You bet I have fucking news. Listen to this.…”
Simon was the last to board British Airways 004. The other passengers looked up as he made his way down the aisle, and then, seeing just another tired man in a dark suit and not a celebrity or even an ex-President, went back to the contents of their briefcases. Concorde and its cargo of business gypsies took off and pointed its snout across the Atlantic.
Simon made a halfhearted attempt to concentrate on his bundle of faxes and then gave up in favour of a glass of champagne. He stared out at the stratosphere. It had been an incredibly successful trip, one of the biggest account gains for many years. It would keep the City sweet, keep the share price up, keep him rich. He yawned and accepted another glass of champagne from the stewardess. He thought of the empty, impersonal flat in Rutland Gate. He thought of working with Ziegler for the next few years until one of them got rid of the other. He thought of the problems waiting for him in London, and he thought about the business of advertising.
For years, he had been happy to defend his occupation in the face of condescending comments from his contemporaries—acquaintances in banking or law or publishing or journalism—who wondered, with superior smiles, how he could possibly be interested in making commercials for lavatory paper or beer. Their barely concealed resentment used to surprise him. An “ad man,” they called him, always with a patronising curl of the lip. The curl disappeared, of course, when they wanted favours like Centre Court tickets.
Well, to hell with them. They were irritating, but unimportant, and Simon no longer cared what they thought. More and more, he no longer cared about the business either, not enough to put up with the squabbles in the office or the tedium of the meetings or, most of all, the incessant stroking of clients. From the chairman to the most lowly brand manager, they wanted constant attention, reassurance, endless discussions, frequent meals—the whole wearisome ritual dance that was officially described as “servicing” an account. And it was never, ever over.
Simon dozed. When he woke, the sky was black, the plane angling down on its landing approach. The pilot’s professionally cheerful voice informed passengers that it was raining in London.
It was nearly eleven by the time Simon cleared customs, and the arrivals lounge had been taken over by cleaners, moving with the deliberate slowness that characterises workers on overtime.
A tall figure in a black hat and a long black raincoat was watching the passengers as they came out, and walked briskly towards Simon.
“Welcome to Heathrow, dear. Isn’t it glamorous at this time of night?”
Simon laughed. “I didn’t recognise you in the hat, Ern. How are you?”
“Breasting the waves like a dolphin at play. You’ll see when we get outside. The monsoon season has started.”
As Ernest drove the big Mercedes through the downpour towards central London, he gave Simon his personal summary—the result of daily visits to Liz’s office—of the events that had taken place in the agency over the past few days. Jordan and the creative director, David Fry, weren’t speaking to each other. The Rubber Barons still hadn’t made a decision about their account. There had been a piece in the trade press about a rumoured breakaway, and Liz had started going out with an undesirable young man who wore an earring and drove racing cars. Apart from that, there were several flats to see when Simon had a moment, and a beef stew waiting in the kitchen at Rutland Gate that just needed heating up.
“And how was New York? Is our Mr. Ziegler as modest and charming as ever?”
“We got the business,” Simon said, “so he’s very pleased with himself. You’ll be fascinated to hear that he’s started wearing red braces.”
Ernest sniffed disdainfully. He and Ziegler had loathed each other at first sight. “A belt as well, I hope. The thought of how that man would look if he lost his trousers is enough to shrivel the imagination.”
The car turned into Rutland Gate and pulled up outside the flat.
“Home sweet home,” said Ernest. “Such as it is. Never mind. The place I saw in Wilton Crescent has distinct possibilities.”
They said goodnight, and Simon let himself in. He dropped his bags in the hall and went through to the sitting room, wrinkling his nose at the stuffy, sterile smell of central heating and warm carpet. A hotel room smell. He went through a pile of compact discs until he came to Erroll Garner’s Concert by the Sea, poured a glass of whisky, lit a cigar, putting off the moment of going through the folder of papers that Liz had left for him on the table. He sometimes felt that he’d be buried one day beneath a mountain of memos, contact reports, strategy documents, financial projections, staff assessments, the great mass of corporate chewing gum. He sighed and opened the folder.
There was a clipping from Campaign, the advertising magazine. It was an item in the “Hotline” section, the magazine’s repository for the least plausible rumours of the week, and it hinted that a group of key executives planned to leave the agency, taking “significant” accounts with them. No names were mentioned, and there was no substance to the report. It ended with the old standby, calculated to add credibility to the rumour, that “top management were unavailable for comment.” Simon wondered how hard the reporter had tried to reach top management.
He worked his way through the papers, scribbling notes to remind him of the duty calls he’d have to make in the morning, and then came to an envelope that appeared to have been stamped on by an agitated spider with inky feet. He recognised the scrawl and winced. Uncle William was obviously broke again.
Dearest boy,
Forgive me for disturbing your Olympian deliberations, but I find myself, through no fault of my own, struggling to survive in desperate circumstances.…
Simon shook his head and sighed. Uncle William, artist and elderly philanderer, came into Simon’s life infrequently and expensively, pinching bottoms and bouncing cheques with the vigour of a man half his age, a walking embarrassment.
With some difficulty, Simon had managed to keep him away from London, fending him off with bribes. Even Ernest had never met him, and Caroline had never known of his existence. Any feelings of guilt that Simon experienced were cancelled out by thinking of the social carnage that would ensue if ever Uncle William were allowed to escape from Norfolk. Simon looked in his attaché case for the chequebook.
Another envelope, this time in neat, unfamiliar handwriting.
Dear Simon,
Un grand merci for dinner. I hope New York was not as terrible as you imagined.
I leave London tomorrow for Provence and maybe some sun after three days like a wet rat in the rain. How do you support this weather?
I have a little idea for you, but my writing English is not good. It’s better if we talk.
Bisous,
Nicole
Simon looked at his watch. One in London, two in France. He’d call first thing in the morning. That, at least, would be a pleasant conversation before dealing with the office. He got up and gave himself another tot of whisky.
Bisous. He liked that. Kisses. He looked through the rest of the papers—a letter from Caroline’s lawyers, a status report on new business prospects, a request for his presence at a client’s think tank on increasing the market for frozen chicken. Now there was a challenge to stir the imagination. He yawned and went to bed.
9
Simon’s conversation with Nicole had been brief and irresistible. She had refused to answer his questions about her idea. It’s something you must see, she’d said. Why don’t you come down? Through the fog of early morning and jet lag, he’d suddenly realised that it was Saturday, and two hours later he was in a taxi on the way to Heathrow.
He picked up his ticket at the desk and went through to the duty-free area, dodging past small, determined Japanese women as they stripped the shelves of malt whisky. What brand of cigarettes did Nicole smoke? What scent did she wear? As the final call for his flight was announced, he settled for two bottles of Dom Pérignon. She was certainly a champagne girl, he thought, as all the best girls are, and he wondered what she’d found that couldn’t be explained over the phone. Whatever it was, it would be more interesting than his usual Saturday of working in an empty office. He had the pleasant feeling of playing truant, of taking a secret holiday.
The plane rose above the cushion of cloud positioned almost permanently over Heathrow, and his mood became even better at the sight of blue skies. French voices in the seats behind him discussed the glories of Harrods and Marks & Spencer and compared cashmere prices and London restaurants. He looked forward to dinner, a long, quiet dinner a million miles away from anyone who knew him. Escape felt very good.
Simon had never landed at Marseille before. It could almost have been North Africa—rail-thin dark men with their plump wives and fat plastic suitcases, the guttural cough of Arabic, the smell of black tobacco and sweat mixed with pungent, sweet cologne, flight announcements for Oran and Djibouti. Hard to believe it was less than two hours from London.
Nicole’s blond head stood out in a sea of swarthy faces. She was dressed for the mild Mediterranean winter in pale grey flannel trousers and a dark blue sweater, her skin still the colour of honey from the sun. “Bonjour, Mr. Shaw.” She held up her face for two kisses.
Simon smiled. “How are you, Madame Bouvier?”
She put her arm through his as they walked across the concourse to the baggage claim area. “You forgive me for taking you from the office?”
Simon looked down at her. “I have a nasty feeling it’ll still be there on Monday.”
They found Nicole’s little white car, and she was silent with concentration until they had filtered onto the autoroute. “Bon,” she said, and shook a cigarette from the packet on the dashboard. “It’s easy to miss the turn, and then you find yourself in Aix.”
“There are worse places to end up.” Simon settled back and watched Nicole jab the cigar lighter with an impatient finger. He was pleased she didn’t wear nail varnish.
“Merde,” she said. “This car. Nothing works.”
Simon found some matches, reached over and took the cigarette from her mouth and lit it, enjoying the faint taste of lipstick.
“Merci.” She blew smoke out of the open window. “You don’t ask any questions, so I think you like to be surprised.” She glanced over at him.
“I’m on holiday, and I never ask questions on holiday. I turn into a giant vegetable. All I want is to be driven up and down the autoroute at dangerously high speed by a blonde who’s not looking at the road. That’s my idea of a nice relaxed time.”
Nicole laughed. Tiny lines appeared at the corners of her eyes, and one slightly irregular tooth stood out from the rest. She looked as good as he remembered.
They talked, easily and of nothing important, and as they left the autoroute, Simon noticed that autumn had come to the landscape. The sky was summer blue, but there were splashes of red leaves on the cherry trees now; some of the vines brown as rust, others yellow; dense pockets of shadow in the folds of the Lubéron; smoke rising from faraway bonfires.
They turned off the main road and began the climb up the long hill leading towards Gordes. “I made you a reservation at the same hotel,” Nicole said. “It’s okay?”
“Best view in Provence,” said Simon.
Nicole smiled and said nothing. She waited in the car while Simon checked in and left his suitcase. He came back carrying a bright yellow plastic bag.
“I almost forgot,” he said. “This is for you. Take it twice a day before meals, and you’ll never have indigestion.”
Nicole looked inside the bag and laughed. “A Frenchman would say more elegant things about champagne.”
“A Frenchman would only have bought one bottle. Where are we going.?”
“To my house first, and then we walk.”
Nicole’s house, the highest in Brassière-les-Deux-Eglises, was at the end of a cul-de-sac, a narrow, three-storey building of weathered stone with wooden shutters painted in a colour somewhere between grey and faded green. Stairs led up to a carved wooden front door with a knocker in the form of a hand holding a ball, and the leaves of an old wild-grape vine flared autumn red against the wall.
“This is lovely,” said Simon. “How long have you had it?”
“Ten, eleven years.” Nicole turned the key in the door and nudged it open with her hip. “One day it will be finished. The top floor is still to do. Be careful with your head.”
Simon ducked inside. At the far end of the long, low room, through a glass door, he could see a small terrace with blue hills beyond. Comfortable, slightly shabby armchairs were arranged in front of a cut-stone fireplace that had been laid with vine clippings. On the other side of the room, the wall had been knocked away to waist height to make a bar, with a gap at one end leading through to the kitchen. Books were everywhere, books and flowers. The air smelled faintly of lavender.
Nicole unpacked the champagne and put it in the refrigerator, looking up at Simon as she closed the door. “Twice a day?”
“Absolutely—doctor’s orders.” He ran his hand over the stone top of the bar. “I like your house. I love places that aren’t fussy.”
“ ‘Fussy’? What is that?”
Simon thought of the house in Kensington where he and Caroline used to live. “Well, it’s when every square foot is decorated to death—when you have so much going on in a room that people spoil it. I had a house like that once, and I hated it. I was always sitting on the wrong cushion or putting cigar ash into the antique porcelain. It was like a bloody obstacle course. All that space and nowhere to live.”
Nicole nodded and laughed. “That’s good you don’t like fussy places. You’ll see when I show you.”
They left the house and walked down to the centre of the village, the afternoon sun already beginning to drop in the west. Fallen leaves the size of hands made a yellow carpet outside the café where Simon had spent his first night in Brassière, and he could s
ee an old woman watching them from a window of the house next door, her face partly hidden by the folds of a lace curtain.
They turned to go down the street leading from the main place, and Simon saw the façade of the old gendarmerie, still without doors or windows, still abandoned.
Nicole touched his arm. “Have you guessed?”
They stopped, and looked through the empty building towards the Lubéron, a series of spectacular pictures framed by the openings in the far wall.
“Give me a clue.”
“You say you want to change how you live, change what you do, non?”
Simon nodded, half smiling at the serious expression on Nicole’s face.
She led him through the doorway of the gendarmerie, picking her way through the rubble to one of the window openings. “Look. There is the best view in Provence, and this—” she waved her arm at the dusty, cavernous room—“this, well, imagine how this could be. And then on top you have bedrooms, and below, the restaurant.”
“The restaurant?”
“Of course a restaurant—not too big, but with the terrasse in the summer, space for maybe forty people, a little bar by the piscine—”
“Nicole?”
“Oui?”
“What are you talking about?”
She laughed. “You didn’t guess already? This is your hotel. It’s perfect. Small, but with a charm—I can see it in my head—and the view, and so much work already done.…” Her voice trailed off. She perched on a stone window ledge and looked up at Simon. “Voilà. That’s my idea for you.”
He took out a cigar and lit it, feeling like a client who had just been shown a campaign he wasn’t expecting. It was ridiculous, of course. He knew nothing about running hotels, and it would be a full-time job just getting the place restored. Then finding staff, building up the business—although with his contacts that shouldn’t be a problem. All the same, it was a big undertaking, not something he could do sitting in an advertising agency in London. It would be a leap, a gamble, a complete change. But wasn’t that what he said he wanted? And Nicole was right; it could be spectacular. He looked at her. She was backlit by the last slanting rays of the sun, could have come straight out of a shampoo commercial. Once an advertising man, always an advertising man. Or was he?