The St Tropez Lonely Hearts Club

by Joan Collins

  Often known as the ‘Siberian siren’ (and, to some people, the ‘Slavic slut’), Lara’s glory days were far behind her. However, she still commanded attention in the Eurotrash set and with readers of celebrity magazines. But today she wasn’t in the mood to take ‘selfies’ with her fans and brusquely got rid of a couple with a dismissive wave.

  Aware of the tourists’ curious glances, a young waiter threw a white napkin over her nether regions as Lara sank even further into her seat, holding the vodka glass up to shield her face. ‘So,’ she whispered, ‘if he wasn’t with someone else, where the hell was he?’

  ‘Lara, calm down. He was just with me in Paris on his way to his singing lessons and I promise there was no slut, stupid or otherwise. I have a tail on him all the time.’ Maximus had been getting an extra stipend from Lara for a private detective service, one so discreet it was like a phantom, which in fact it was.

  ‘So, where are those photos you promised?’

  ‘What? They didn’t send them yet? Merde, those idiots! I will demand they send them immediately or else I promise you they will be fired!’ Firing was Maximus’s best expedient for getting out of a ruse – and he always knew how to end a con before it backfired. ‘But, my dear, there is nothing incriminating in them.’

  ‘Maximus, Maximusssshh!’ Lara stared at her cell phone. ‘Are you still there . . .? What was I saying?’ Lara’s short skirt was riding up to her waist now as she slid down almost horizontally.

  Realising she was almost completely exposed, she pulled down her skirt, no mean feat holding a glass of vodka, and suddenly her vision gained a new perspective – she’d never noticed the ceiling at Sénéquier before. It was a nice ceiling, freshly painted white. She dropped her cell phone and gazed, in mesmerised admiration, at a fat bumblebee lazily circumventing the ceiling.

  ‘Madame.’ A waiter – whose pity had clearly overwhelmed his Gallic sensibility for laissez faire – sidled up, picked up her phone, and suggested maybe he could help hoist her back up to a sitting position.

  ‘I’m just resting,’ Lara replied curtly, then wailed piteously to the bumblebee on the ceiling, ‘Oh, what am I to do?’

  ‘Madame?’ The waiter was confused that this famous socialite seemed to be engaging in conversation with him, although she wasn’t looking at him. He bent closer, staring, fascinated by her artificially enhanced features. Face job, nose job, boob job, nail and hair extensions and, underneath the shades that had slipped halfway down her face, weird turquoise contact lenses . . . which part of her was real? he wondered.

  His colleagues behind the bar sniggered. This had happened to all of them at one time or another – François, the rookie waiter, was about to get hooked into an endless conversation about Lara’s love trouble with Fabrizio. An hour wasted just for taking pity on the poor creature. Tips would be lost due to the unenviable task of dragging Lara back to her flat on Rue des Ponches.

  A deep voice from her phone suddenly boomed, ‘LARA? LARA! ARE YOU STILL THERE?’ Maximus’s voice reverberated off the rafters of Sénéquier, chasing the bumblebee away and startling Lara out of her reverie. She pressed the ‘end call’ button in a daze and her focus was suddenly wrenched back to her phone, which started ringing almost immediately.

  ‘Who on earth is calling me at this time of day?’ she snapped at a surprised François. ‘Don’t they know it’s impolite to call before noon? And what happened to Maximus? Wasn’t I just talking to him?’ Lara’s eyes swam in and out of focus.

  François picked up the phone and handed it to Lara. She mumbled, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and then, overwhelmed, blacked out and almost fell to the floor. François caught her just in time.

  François wasn’t as stupid as some people thought. He knew all the gossip about the trampy Lara Meyer: a rich bitch who drank like a fish and, when in her cups, stupid as a sheep about men, especially her gigolo, Fabrizio Bricconni.

  ‘I’ll take her home,’ he insisted as the manager, Jean-Robert, came rushing over to see what was going on. ‘I know where she lives.’ He avoided the eyes of several British and German tourists gaping at this staple of the celebrity magazines passed out cold.

  He took the spare key to Lara’s third-floor apartment from a hook behind the restaurant’s bar, then hoisted her none-too-slender frame further on to his young shoulders like a sack of coal and quickly jogged a few streets away to where she lived, while Lara’s red head bounced up and down against his back. He entered the dark, stuffy apartment, strewn with the detritus of Lara and Fabrizio’s chaotic existence – empty vodka bottles, magazines, clothes, shoes, underwear – and none too gently lowered her on to the unmade bed.

  He stared at the stucco walls, where photographs and yellowing newspaper clippings were framed higgledy-piggledy. The tarnished silver frames cluttered every dusty surface. This poor cow was famous, thought François, but she had certainly seen better days. He was fascinated by the front page of a New York tabloid, which showed Lara, her then husband, Jonathan Meyer, and a beautiful teenaged blonde slugging it out on the slopes of Saint Moritz. ‘Can Divorce Be Far Behind?’ shrieked the tabloid. Another cover picture on People magazine, in colour, featured a much younger and more beautiful Lara in a gorgeous wedding gown, exchanging vows with Jonathan Meyer. ‘Inside the Golden Couple’s fabulous wedding’, the banner headline shrieked. ‘Tycoon Weds Glamour Model’.

  ‘Ha, the jet set – bunch of losers,’ muttered François. He surveyed the room, then returned to where Lara lay splayed out awkwardly. Looking down at her, he spied a key lying on the floor, half under a rug. Close inspection revealed it was a replica of Lara’s door key.

  Without hesitation, François pocketed the key, then opened one of the drawers next to the bed. Inside was a mess of bottles of pills, face creams, candy wrappers and some diamond earrings and gold bangles, all hopelessly mixed up with hairpins, lipstick and a couple of sex toys. ‘What a slut,’ he muttered, resisting the urge to pocket the earrings too. Then he walked silently to the door, leaving the snoring Lara to her slumbers.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The First Party of the Saint-Tropez Season, early June 2015

  Carlotta had arrived in Saint-Tropez the previous day. Maximus had met her at the airport and driven her to a beautiful small house in the Parc de Californie, which he had rented for the season.

  ‘One of the most prestigious addresses in Saint-Tropez,’ he announced proudly. He introduced her to the staff – Lilliane, a housekeeper and cook, who was married to the gardener, Denis. ‘And Denis will also drive you whenever you want to go somewhere.’

  ‘Oh, but I love driving and I want to explore this beautiful part of Provence!’

  ‘Excellent,’ beamed Maximus. ‘So, my dear, there is an amusing party tomorrow for Mina Corbain. Do you know her?’

  ‘Of course, I met her with you last year at the Grand Prix. I mean – who doesn’t know her? She has had a meteoric rise, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, indeed she has. So you will you be my “plus one”?’

  ‘Of course, I’d love to.’

  ‘Well, my dear, then you should get some rest and I will pick you up at nine p.m. tomorrow.’

  After he had left, Carlotta explored her new home with delight. It was charming, light and airy in the modern Provençal style – all white walls and furniture, cosy sofas and a brilliant azure pool that sparkled invitingly outside the sitting room, and a view of the Mediterranean that glittered and shone as hundreds of tiny yachts sailed gaily on the creamy waves.

  I think I shall like it here, she thought as she lay on a sun lounger beside the pool, enjoying the hot, comforting sun on her body. I think I shall like it a lot.

  Carlotta was excited. She gripped Maximus’s arm tightly as they sauntered into the spacious hallway of billionaire Harry Silver’s palatial villa in Cap des Salins, one of the most prestigious addresses in Saint-Tropez.

  Harry Silver had made his fortune by selling arms to North Korea, but what the hell? Someone ha
d to do it and this was, after all, Saint-Tropez, where for the most part you are only as good as your money, your youth, or your looks. Who cared where the money came from, as long as it was used to maximum effect and the procreation of pleasure?

  Maximum effect had certainly been achieved on Harry’s villa. It was an avant-garde vista of shining, whiter-than-white marble floors, with zebra-skin walls slotted between black mirrors, and fat black and white candles clustered on every surface.

  It was a warm night and a full moon glimmered on the calm Mediterranean. A long table was set out on the terrace, thick with candles, orchids, Tiffany glasswear and gold cutlery. The sound of cicadas competed with the sound of South American sambas from Luigi the famous DJ, and the lights of Saint-Tropez twinkled across the water below.

  ‘Ah, I see that the usual suspects are here,’ confided Maximus to Carlotta. He loved nothing more than a good party, as did Charlie Chalk, the rotund and affable British TV personality who was the life and soul of every gathering. Next to Charlie stood his life-partner Spencer, an Australian ‘trolley dolly’ with Qantas Airlines, who spent more time faking illness to enjoy the Saint-Tropez high life than he did dispensing cocktails in the air.

  Maximus introduced Carlotta and then pointed to a roguish middle-aged American movie star and whispered, ‘There’s Dirk Romano, aptly named “Dirk the dick”. He loves dropping his pants and mooning the paparazzi while boating with his latest young fling, who is usually the age of his granddaughter.’ Maximus laughed, wheezing as Carlotta followed his portly behind, wobbling in too-tight pink trousers, swaying over to greet their host.

  Harry Silver was standing at the edge of the black onyx pool, a Havana cigar clenched between moustachioed lips, his slick, dyed-jet-black hair gleaming like a patent-leather helmet. Clutching at his legs, one on each, were his adopted twins, a pair of gorgeous three-year-old African infants, dressed in the latest blue denim diamanté-studded Saint-Tropez baby gear, their huge eyes gazing around with wonder.

  ‘May I present the Contessa Carlotta Di Ponti?’ Maximus said proudly. He loved a title, as did Harry, who bestowed a cigar-scented kiss on Carlotta’s hand.

  ‘I hope you’ll enjoy the evening, Contessa. It’s in honour of Mina Corbain as you know. Khris Kane is coming tonight and we will be the first to hear the new record he’s produced with her,’ bragged Silver.

  Maximus was impressed. ‘Khris Kane – he’s the biggest record producer in the world now . . . And I hear Mina’s out of rehab,’ Maximus knew everything about everyone, thanks to TMZ, social media, and his gossipy acquaintances. Gossip was his currency and he used it to maximum advantage.

  ‘This is the only party she will be coming to,’ said Harry smugly, not mentioning that he was paying Mina a fortune to attend his soirée. This was just between him and her ‘people’, although Maximus suspected Harry had paid a whopping fee for the privilege. Superstars like Mina didn’t attend parties of people they hardly knew, unless a lot of money changed hands. Mina was new and hot, a great coup to have at any event. Designers fawned over her and sent truckloads of clothes and handbags to her LA mansion, hoping she would choose to wear them and get their wares advertised for free in the media.

  ‘Ah, here she comes now,’ said Harry with forced nonchalance.

  ‘Mamma mia, but she is gorgeous!’ Maximus was awestruck. He was in social heaven. After money, parties and food, there was nothing that made his day more than meeting a real-life superstar.

  ‘She’s the biggest singer in the world now,’ Harry had a self-satisfied grin on his face. ‘And she’s singing at my villa.’

  ‘Hope she’s off drugs,’ said Charlie Chalk jovially as he watched Harry striding towards Mina to greet her.

  Lara and Fabrizio were standing near Sophie Silvestri, her two acolytes propping her up as she tottered over to an inviting sofa. Fabrizio’s face lit up as he saw the legendary actress. She had been his father’s favourite and he admired her too. Lara was extremely jealous of the seventy-four-year-old icon and believed Fabrizio fancied her.

  ‘Maybe when I was nine,’ he had told her many times. ‘Or maybe Papà did . . . when Papà was nine.’ He laughed at his own joke.

  Actually it suited Fabrizio for Lara to be jealous of Sophie. It allowed him to slip away for his alleged golf, tennis or gym sessions and let Lara’s jealousy focus on Sophie when he was actually having matinées with some rich oligarch’s trophy wife or a nubile young stranger from the beach.

  ‘She’s a witch,’ hissed Lara, then stumbled over to embrace Harry with a vodka-scented air kiss. ‘Darlink – we’re so excited – tonight will be one to remember.’

  ‘It will indeed,’ replied Harry, and turned his back on her to continue talking to the ravishing Mina Corbain as the whole room gawked, basking in the glow of her celebrity.

  Across the room, Sophie Silvestri glared at the young singer. So used was she to being the centre of attention at most Saint-Tropez parties that her nose was being put seriously out of joint.

  But that didn’t faze Mina who, seeing the legendary actress, hastened towards Sophie to greet her with a warm embrace and several air kisses. ‘Oh, my God! They said you’d retired! I didn’t know you STILL went out,’ she said excitedly. ‘Oh, I always admired you so much, my mom did too!’

  Tight-lipped, Sophie allowed herself to be hugged and kissed, her nose wrinkling at the strong scent the girl wore.

  Mina beamed, taking Sophie’s expression of distaste for admiration. ‘It’s my new signature perfume: “Scallywag”. Do you like it? I’ll send you some.’

  ‘It’s – lovely – er – quite original.’ Sophie tried to escape from the singer’s embrace, conscious that the whole room was agog at the sight of these two divas, generations apart, face to face. She cast a ‘help me’ look towards Frick and Adolpho, but they were too awestruck by this amazing summit meeting to do anything but take pictures on their cell phones. Mina was hanging on to Sophie’s arm, chattering away, and wouldn’t let her go.

  ‘I hear she got two hundred and fifty thousand euros just to show up tonight,’ Maximus whispered to Carlotta, equally entranced by the tableau.

  ‘What did Sophie get then?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he sneered. ‘Everybody’s seen her a million times. She’s over. Yesterday’s news.’

  ‘I love your dress – it’s so retro!’ Mina gabbled to Sophie admiringly. ‘My grandmother had one just like it in the 1960s! She loved your movies so much that she used to take me to all of them when I was a little girl.’

  Sophie had had enough. Mumbling a brief, ‘Oh, how sweet’, she wrested herself from the singer’s grip and toddled on her agonising stilettos over to Frick and Adolpho. She noticed Lara staring at her and recalled that fateful night twenty-five years ago at the Manhattan opening of her elegant new fashion line, when she was still a big star and a society hostess to be reckoned with. Lara and Jonathan Meyer, the darlings of New York society at the time, hosted the event. However, Sophie had been given the wrong address and was photographed by a gleeful paparazzo, who was inexplicably also at the empty restaurant when she entered triumphantly to be welcome by a bemused junior waiter with a tray full of dirty dishes.

  The photos went viral and the papers ridiculed her mercilessly. Sophie was sure Lara had planned it on purpose to embarrass her and claim the number one spot in the Manhattan social world, which she soon did. Sophie had never forgiven her because – over the next fifteen years – young and beautiful Lara had become one of the top hostesses on the charity circuit in New York, while Sophie’s star as an actress waned. Eventually, when the phone stopped ringing she decided to exile herself back to France again, where she was still an icon.

  Sophie was a cunning creature who cared little for her fellow man, and she didn’t particularly like women either. She lavished all her love and attention on the thirty cats and dogs that shared her grand dilapidated villa, high in the hills above Saint-Tropez. They slept on her bed and left trails of droppings all o
ver the house. Consequently, although Sophie managed to pull herself together in the glamour department when she went out, she never quite managed to erase the faint feline aroma that clung to her costumes. She had never married or had children, and had been famed for a constant stream of lovers, usually of the out-of-work musician, magician or bodybuilder variety. But recently there had been no young lovers and she relied on Frick and Adolpho to escort her to events like tonight’s party.

  ‘She’s amazing for her age, isn’t she?’ Mina announced to her assembled admirers, but loud enough for Sophie to hear. Diplomacy was not the singer’s forte, and she seemed unaware that being more than five decades younger than the actress, this was a terrible faux pas.

  ‘Yes, amazing,’ agreed Fabrizio, who had managed to ooze himself past Mina’s hangers-on and admirers. Using his most seductive Italian stallion technique, he clasped both her hands in his and gazed into her big brown eyes. ‘But you are so amazing. Incredible, you are incredible. No wonder they call you the most beautiful singer in the world.’

  Mina accepted the compliment as her due, dismissing Fabrizio with a cursory smile. Yes, he was handsome, but handsome studs were a dime-a-dozen in LA, and she certainly had her plate full right now. She politely removed his hands and drifted over to Khris Kane, who was busily knocking back the vintage Cristal with property wunderkind Roberto LoBianco.

  Roberto was enthralling Khris and a few other guests with the merits of the new luxury resort he was developing on an island 70 kilometres across the water from Saint-Tropez. ‘Saint-Sébastien will make Saint-Tropez look like Bognor Beach,’ he enthused. ‘It has everything Saint-Tropez has but much more, and it’s totally exclusive. You can only get there by boat so there won’t be all that tourist riff-raff. I know we’re going to get a lot of the rich folk who live here to buy there. It’s hot, it’s new and it’s absolutely glamorous – it’s really happening.’