When I got out, my wine was waiting, the cool bottle sweating slightly in the sun. I dried off, pulled on a T-shirt to protect me from the breeze, and poured the rosé slowly, savouring the faint glugging sound against the background of lapping sea. I held up the glass to let the sun highlight the pale pink liquid, sniffed at the combined tanginess of the wine and the sea air, then tipped the whole glassful over my groin.
This was not a tasting technique that I’d learned at the hen party on Collioure beach. No, it was because something had put me off my aim.
It was a vision.
Climbing out of the water up the metal ladder was the weirdest thing I had ever seen. And in the past few days, I had seen some very weird things indeed.
In itself, the apparition wasn’t at all shocking. It was, on the whole, pretty easy on the eye, and reminded me more than anything of that key moment in cinema history when Ursula Andress emerged from the Caribbean and made sure that no one would ever forget seeing the first James Bond film.
It was her. This time, it really was her. The dark hair was wet and tied up in a bunch, but it was definitely hers. The eyes, the lips, were hers. The way she walked back to her lounger. It was the smooth, self-assured walk I’d seen on the ramparts of Collioure castle. And she looked at me, catching my eye and glancing away again, exactly as she had in the restaurant.
It was her.
‘Sèche?’ the waitress said, presumably a suggestion to dry myself off after my accident with the wine.
‘Oui, I will do it myself, merci.’ I began to dab at my groin with my towel.
‘Sèche, Monsieur?’ she repeated, holding a plate of squid under my nose.
‘Ah, oui, seiche, merci,’ I blustered.
The mystery girl, whose lounger was only about six feet from my table, was smiling. She must have heard my linguistic mistake.
I poured another glass of wine and made sure it all went in my mouth this time. The bite of the cold liquid at the back of my throat convinced me that I was awake and not dreaming.
This woman, who had been popping up in my consciousness ever since I first saw her, was now a couple of yards away, smiling at me while she rubbed sea water off her tanned body. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but there was something enticing about her. She was smallish and muscular rather than curvaceous, as if she did some kind of intensive sport. Her face was slightly angular, with high cheekbones, and as she dried herself off, there was a fierce determination about her. She looked almost dangerous. And she kept looking at me.
It was as if M had set this up – a honeytrap to see if I was the faithful kind. She announces that she’s going away for a day and a night, and half an hour later a woman starts giving me the come-on.
I prayed that a husband, boyfriend or girlfriend would come along and receive the kind of lingering kiss that would tell everyone she’s not available.
But no, her lounger was on its own. It seemed she wasn’t expecting company.
Maybe her phone would ring and she’d answer it with a string of chéris and je t’aimes?
But she didn’t seem to have a phone. Her only visible possessions were a towel, sunglasses, sandals and a bikini.
And she was walking towards my table.
‘Bonjour,’ she said, holding out a suntanned hand. ‘Léanne.’
‘Bonjour,’ I replied, gripping the proffered fingers. ‘Paul.’
‘Ah, you’re English!’ I hoped it was the way I said my name, and not my pronunciation of ‘Bonjour’ that had told her this. ‘I love to speak English. I am a tourist guide.’ She had a strongish French accent and a husky voice. ‘I am sure we have seen ourselves before,’ she added.
‘Seen each other? Yes, I think so. In Collioure.’
‘Collioure, yes!’ She looked even more delighted, and squeezed the hand that she hadn’t yet let go of. She had an almost painful grip. ‘In the restaurant, no?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were with your girlfriend. She is not here on Bendor with you?’
‘No. Well, yes, she’s gone to Marseille. She won’t be back till tomorrow.’ I wondered why the hell I’d added that.
‘She is English too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really?’ She looked surprised, for some reason.
‘Yes. A scientist.’
‘A scientist?’ Again, she looked as though she didn’t believe me. I guessed it was because M didn’t look the classic boffin type.
‘Yes,’ I said, and was struck dumb. I wanted to ask her what she’d been doing up on the castle ramparts, and whether she’d actually seen me through her camera lens, but I knew that prolonging the conversation wasn’t a good idea. It felt like a blatant – and highly flattering – chat-up, which was the last thing I needed. I wanted to make things work out with M.
‘Is it good?’ She was nodding towards my squid, which was cooling on the plate.
‘I don’t know. I haven’t tasted it yet.’
‘Try it, please, and tell me if it is good.’
Holy shit, I thought, next she’ll be feeding it to me. The image was a pleasant one, but I banished it from my mind and took a businesslike forkful of squid.
‘Mm,’ I concluded. ‘Very good.’ I swallowed, and rinsed it down with a sip of wine, thinking now perhaps she’d wish me ‘Bon appétit’ and go back to her lounger.
‘Well, in that case may I join you? I am very hungry, and I have had enough of eating alone.’
It had to be M playing a trick. This woman in a bikini was going to sit there opposite me, slurping down squid tentacles? Only a eunuch saint would have been unmoved.
She ordered squid and the same rosé as me, and asked what I was doing on the island. ‘Vacation?’
‘Yes.’ It seemed the simplest answer. ‘We’re travelling along the coast.’
‘Ah. Where are you going next?’
‘Saint Tropez. I have some friends with a house there.’ I didn’t really know why I felt the need to show off, but it came out very naturally.
‘Your friends, or friends of your girlfriend?’
‘Friends of mine.’
‘Ah. And what do you do? In life, I mean?’ she asked.
‘I’m in catering.’
‘Cat-ring?’
‘Catering. I’m a traître. I mean, a traiteur,’ I corrected myself. ‘For weddings.’
‘Ah.’ She smiled and nodded, as if this was exactly what she was looking for. With any luck she’d announce that she was getting married next month and still hadn’t ordered any food for the reception. It occurred to me that I’d actually be interested in the job, too. Catering for weddings might be fun in France, I decided. It was worth talking to Jean-Marie about adding this as a permanent sideline to our business.
‘In London?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m based in Paris.’
‘Ah.’ She was less pleased with this piece of information. I didn’t know why.
‘And where do you work?’ I asked.
‘Everywhere. I live in Saint Tropez, but I go with groups or families to different parts of the region.’
‘And are you here with a group?’
‘No. This is purely, you know, pleasure.’
She hadn’t said the word provocatively, but I winced all the same.
The spell was broken by a crash and a woman’s squeal a few tables away. A parasol had been picked up by the wind and blown from one table to the next. I just had time to see it flop to the ground behind the woman who’d screamed. She was an old, deeply suntanned lady, with a chunky gold bracelet on the wrist that she was now holding. She was grimacing in pain.
The woman with her – her daughter, presumably – stood up and started bawling out the guy at the next table whose parasol had done the damage.
‘We told you! We told you!’ she yelled.
‘Told me what?’ The guy shrugged. He was small and frizzy, and his tan was even deeper than the old lady’s.
‘We told you to put down your parasol!’
r /> ‘And I told you to watch out because my parasol might get blown away.’
They both had strong southern accents, and were pronouncing their syllables so clearly that I understood every word.
‘Look at Maman’s hand. It’s turning blue!’ Maman held up the battered wrist to support her daughter’s argument.
‘You should have moved.’ The guy wasn’t letting a milligram of guilt get anywhere near his conscience.
‘We should have moved? Why should we move? We’re chez nous!’ The woman was in even more of a fury now.
‘And who do you think I am, a Parisian?’ The guy shook his head and returned to his meal.
‘It is typical of us,’ Léanne said. ‘Here on the Côte, we think we can do anything, because we are chez nous. We can break the law, do anything, because it is Parisian law.’
‘Maybe someone should give the old dear a bucket of ice cubes,’ I suggested.
‘You are right.’ Léanne made to stand up, but I told her to finish her squid and went to ask the waitress for a ‘seau de glaçons’, which I delivered to the table myself.
Mother and daughter were melodramatically grateful, and the wrist-dunking ceremony was performed with a full set of sound effects, including the loud clanking of the mother’s gold bracelet against the side of the ice bucket.
‘Merci, Monsieur, merci,’ the daughter repeated, glaring over her shoulder at her mother’s attacker, who was giving his full attention to a chocolate mousse.
I returned to my own table, where Léanne was looking thoughtful.
‘That was kind,’ she said, almost as if it contradicted something she’d believed about me before.
‘I ought to be going,’ I said. ‘I have to make some important phone calls.’
‘Oh.’ She looked disappointed. ‘You don’t want coffee, or dessert?’
‘No.’ This whole situation was getting dangerously cosy.
‘Maybe we can have a drink later?’ she said.
‘A drink?’
‘Yes. If your girlfriend is not returning before tomorrow, I suppose you are free?’
‘Well …’
‘Meet me for a drink at six o’clock in the hotel bar? Please?’
‘OK.’ She’d made it impossible to refuse.
‘Excellent. Do not worry, I will pay the bill,’ she said.
‘Oh no, no, allow me, please.’ I pulled out my credit card from my shorts and sent my hotel key skidding across the table. The room number landed face up, staring Léanne in the eye like a crude invitation.
Bugger this, I said to myself, pull yourself together. I picked up my key, turned towards the cash desk and collided with the old Maman, who’d been limping from the table to her lounger. The ice bucket tipped down the front of her knee-length T-shirt, making her scream even louder than when her wrist had been hit by the flying parasol.
‘You must excuse Monsieur, he’s not from chez nous,’ Léanne called out, laughing.
3
If I’d been daring or drunk enough, I could have jumped off the balcony of my hotel room into the channel that ran between the island and the mainland, a cobalt-blue current that flowed gently with the breeze, from east to west. The town was so close that from the balcony, I could practically read the gold logos on the sunglasses of people driving along the seafront, and yet here it was completely peaceful, the only sound the slap-slap of the water on the rocks below.
In my head, though, things were much less peaceful. I was being buffeted back and forward between meeting Léanne for a drink and just not turning up. Difficult to avoid her, though, on such a small island.
There was nothing ambiguous about the meeting, I tried to convince myself. I didn’t fancy her. There was something too tough about her. Unlike M, who had several layers of fragility just below the surface, Léanne seemed to have a diamond-hard inner core. The way she’d breezed up to me and sat there in her bikini. The completely unconcerned way she’d insisted we meet up for a drink. She didn’t give a damn if I had a girlfriend. She’d seen the opening and gone for it. It’s what they say about French women – they’re fearless, conscience-free man-eaters. And now she wanted to tear a chunk of flesh off me.
No, no, I was being too arrogant. Just because a girl invites you out for a drink doesn’t mean there’s anything more to it. She was amused by the coincidence of meeting up again, and she was travelling alone, so she wanted a bit of company. And she probably doesn’t get that many chances to speak English with a genuine Brit. I’d met language groupies like her before. Groupies of any kind, though, were the last thing I needed.
‘Bloody hell, M,’ I said to a passing seagull, ‘why did you have to bugger off to Marseille?’
I needed advice, and as I’d often done before, I yielded to a self-destructive part of my nature and called the one man who was sure to make me feel even more confused.
‘Jake? Hi, it’s Paul.’
‘Pol! Hey, man. How are you going?’
I told him I was in a bit of a pastis, and described my encounter with Léanne.
‘Lay-ann? What nationality is that?’ His first question about any girl.
‘French.’
‘Frinsh? Oh mon dieu, Pol, you’re so pre-visible.’
‘What?’
‘I mean, merde. An English girl, then a Frinsh. Can’t you fuck a spaniel for a change?’
‘A spaniel?’
‘Yeah, what do you call them? A girl from Spain. Espagnole. Or at least an Italienne.’
I told him that geography had nothing to do with my problem, and tried to describe the whole M–Léanne situation to him.
‘It’s très simple, man,’ he pronounced. ‘You fucked the Anglaise, right? So now fuck the Frinsh. It’s repetitive, but at least it’s a changement.’
As usual, he was driving me over the cliff of despair.
‘God, Jake. Don’t you ever think beyond your next orgasm? What about emotions? Have you got a girlfriend at the moment?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What nationality is she?’
‘D’accord, man. Touché.’ He sounded sheepish. ‘She’s American.’
‘Aha.’
‘But she’s a Cajun, so at least she’s a different group ethnic. And my posy touches her.’
‘Kinky.’
‘Don’t mock yourself of me, Pol. She comprehends my posy. She reads it.’
‘Wow.’ So Jake’s new girlfriend was into SM.
‘She likes me to write it on her with maple syrup. I dunk my zizi in the syrup and then—’
‘Too much information, Jake, thank you.’ I had enough sexual complications overloading my brain without Jake inserting himself into my photo album.
‘And parling of posy,’ he said, ‘what about Elodie’s pair?’
‘Her pair of what?’
‘Her dad – her père.’
‘Jean-Marie?’
‘Yeah. Have you discuted my festival with him? Can he pass my demand for fon to the Francophony minister?’
‘Maybe, I don’t know,’ I said.
‘It’s pressing, man, it’s urging.’
‘OK, I’ll try him again. Meanwhile, thanks a million for all the advice.’
‘No problem, man, you sérieusement needed it.’
I hung up, and I had to admit that I was feeling better. Just talking to someone who was a billion times more screwed up than me, and didn’t even know it, had done me good. It was like having a headache and then seeing someone else get guillotined.
I speed-dialled Elodie’s dad.
‘Jean-Marie?’
‘Pol. Are you with Elodie?’
‘No.’
‘Ah. Merde. You know where she is?’
‘No, don’t you?’
‘No. We have had a dispute. She does not answer my calls.’
‘A dispute about what?’
‘This marriage to the cretin aristocrat, of course.’
‘Valéry? I’ve met him. He’s a nice guy.’
‘Maybe, but his grandmother is a vieille pétasse.’
So Bonne Maman was an old fartbag as well as a bitch and a vache. This posh lady wasn’t getting much respect from Elodie’s family. I wondered why father and daughter had fallen out. They seemed to be on exactly the same wavelength.
‘Aren’t you glad she’s marrying into a family like that?’ I asked. ‘It sure beats some of her old boyfriends, like the bimbo model and the old rock-star dwarf.’
‘And you, of course, Pol.’
‘And me, yes, merci beaucoup. I think she must be in Saint Tropez. I’ve got to go there and discuss the catering with the pétasse, as you call her.’
Jean-Marie laughed and loosened up a little. ‘Just don’t let yourself be snobbed,’ he told me. ‘They are not better than us, you know. France is a republic, not a monarchy. Don’t let the pétasse think she is a queen.’
‘She’s going to be a client, Jean-Marie, and I always think that clients ought to feel like royalty.’
He growled at me. ‘You have spent too long in the USA, mon ami. Here in France, we want all our clients to be terrified of us.’
‘OK, Jean-Marie.’ It was usually easiest to agree and ignore him. ‘Talking of America, have you had any thoughts about my friend Jake’s project?’
‘What? Oh, yes. You think I have time for idiots who want to encourage those Cajun losers to write poems? Find Elodie and tell her to call me. OK? Au revoir.’
It seemed Jake might have to look for other sources of support. It was sad, but deep down I felt that anything that limited the supply of Jake’s poetry, or even poems that he had influenced, was ultimately kinder to the planet.
I put in a call to Elodie, who ranted on about her dad not understanding what was at stake, and then said she had to go because it was ‘la crise totale’ over at the chateau in Saint Tropez.
‘What kind of crisis?’ I asked.
‘No time to explain. Just come quickly. Bye.’
She hung up, and left me wondering what sort of chaos I’d be walking into when I went over to Saint Tropez. Although it couldn’t possibly be more complicated than the merde I was in here on Bendor.
4
Merde was only one of the words that came to mind when I saw Léanne perched on a stool at the hotel bar. She was wearing a backless black dress, and had her hair loose. Her bare legs were crossed, and her smooth, firm calves tapered down to a pair of chic heels. She was in full man-hunting gear.