It had been a long day and all I wanted was to eat a quiet meal and to read, but leaving the Capitole I’d mistakenly brought one of Houston’s books instead of the one I’d been hoping to finish. Not one I’d written, but even so, I had no interest in reading it. So I found a copy of Monaco-Matin – the Monaco edition of the Nice morning newspaper – and settled down on the roof terrace, which enjoys a fine view of the Princess Grace Rose Garden, to try and improve my French, leaving Houston’s latest book unread on the table, where it ended up catching Colette’s eye. As did I.
There were one or two more women around the bar at the Columbus than was usual, but then it was early summer and the fishing fleet of hookers had arrived in port. Whatever naïve ideas John Houston may have entertained about Colette’s profession it was obvious to me the first time I saw her that it could only have been the oldest one. Perhaps the Columbus was her first call on an evening that would have taken in Zelo’s, Jimmy’z, the Buddha Bar, the Crystal Bar at the Hermitage, the Black Legend, the seventh-floor bar at the Fairmont Hotel, and, if things were desperate, the Novotel.
‘Are you a fan of Houston’s work?’ she asked, speaking English.
‘Yes, you could say that.’ I stood up, politely.
‘Which one is your favourite?’
‘That’s quite a hard question. You see, I help Houston write them. As a matter of fact I’ve been helping him to write them for twenty years. I’m a sort of ghost.’
‘That’s where I’ve seen you before,’ she said. ‘You were in the Odéon today, weren’t you?’
‘You’re not supposed to see a ghost,’ I said. ‘That’s rather the point. But yes, I was. Only I don’t remember seeing you.’
‘Colette Laurent.’
‘Don Irvine. Pleased to meet you.’
She sat down and arranged her legs neatly under the table. They were certainly worth a little bit of care and attention; her short black business skirt revealed a pair of bare knees that were as shapely as they were tanned: with legs like that she could have modelled an elasticated bandage and made it look sexy.
‘I got out of the elevator as you and John got in,’ she said. ‘Are you staying here?’
‘No. Are you a neighbour of John’s?’
‘In a way, yes. For now. I’m just looking after the apartment for a friend, until I can find something of my own. I couldn’t possibly afford something like that on my own.’
‘Me neither. Like I said, I’m just the ghost. One of several. There’s a whole haunted house of us.’
‘Yes, he mentioned that. The studio. No, what is it he calls it?’
‘The atelier.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re friends then, you and he?’
She shrugged. ‘We see each other in the gymnasium almost every day. And now and again we have a drink afterward. Anywhere other than Monaco that would count as an acquaintance. But here, that’s almost a close friend.’
She glanced over her shoulder as if mentioning a drink had prompted her to look for a waiter.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Yes. Thank you. That’s very kind of you. I would.’
I waved a waiter over and she ordered a Badoit, which impressed me, since Cristal seems to be the only drink that most women in Monaco have ever heard of.
‘Your name is Don, you said?’
I nodded.
‘How do you end up being a ghost?’
‘First it’s necessary that you should die,’ I said. ‘As a real writer, I mean.’
It was a joke that everyone in the atelier had made at one time or another, and while it contained an element of truth, I didn’t really expect her to get it; her English was good but I didn’t expect it was equal to my sarcasm. I certainly didn’t expect her to smile and then to say what she said:
‘Yes, that’s what John says about all of you guys.’
‘He does? Oh. I see.’
‘No, I meant, how did you become a ghost for John?’
‘Years ago, we both worked as copywriters for the same advertising agency. In London.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ve known John for a very long time indeed.’
‘Since the very beginning, then.’
I nodded. ‘Since the very beginning. As a matter of fact it was me who gave him the idea of setting up the atelier. For the mass production of bestselling novels.’
‘Very successfully, too.’
‘It was good while it lasted. At one stage we were producing five or six books a year. And selling millions. John is the Henry Ford of publishing.’
The waiter came back with our drinks, shot her and then me a look as if to say ‘You lucky bastard’, and then left us alone. He was right, of course. She was worth a look. Since Colette had sat down I hadn’t once looked at the Princess Grace Rose Garden.
‘It was an excellent arrangement, too. I was never much good at plots. And John never had much patience with nailing himself to a PC and knocking out 3,000 words a day. He always enjoyed the research much more than the writing.’
‘Yes, but you speak about it as if this is over. Are you leaving John’s atelier?’
‘We all are. The atelier is over.’
‘But why? Why, when you’re doing so well?’
‘He wants to go back to basics, apparently, and write something a bit more worthy. Something for posterity. Something that will win him the Nobel Prize for Literature.’
‘And do you think he could?’
‘Win the Nobel Prize?’ I laughed. ‘No. I was joking.’
‘You think he couldn’t?’
‘I know he couldn’t. For one thing he’s not Swedish. The prize committee seems to award the Nobel to a disproportionate number of Swedes you’ve never heard of. And for another – commercial literature makes money, not merit. I’ve got more chance of winning the Euro Millions jackpot than John Houston has of winning a Nobel Prize for Literature. Not that John is about to become poor any time soon. Even if he does start paying lots of income tax.’
Colette shook her head. ‘But I don’t understand. There isn’t any income tax in Monaco.’
‘No, but there is in England.’
‘It can’t be true.’
‘I’m afraid it is. And I should know. I’ve been paying tax there for more years than I care to remember.’
‘No, I meant … are you saying that John’s going back to live in London?’
‘Yes. At least, that’s what he told me when he said he was closing down the atelier. Misses the football apparently. And the cricket. Not to mention the Garrick Club. He longs for the greenness of his native land, he pines for the Gothic cottages of Surrey; already in his imagination he catches trout and enjoys all the activities of the English gentleman.’
By now I was quoting from the final scene of Lawrence of Arabia; and doing rather a good job of it, too.
Colette smiled faintly. ‘And he misses his children, I suppose.’
‘Them rather less, I think. John has always had a difficult relationship with his kids.’ I laughed. ‘That’s why he had a vasectomy. So he couldn’t have any more. At least, that’s what he told me.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘I’ve known John for more than twenty years. There’s not much he doesn’t tell me, eventually.’
‘Oh,’ said Colette, as if she’d felt a sharp pain or a heart palpitation. She closed her eyes and looked away for a moment. It was clear from her expression that John’s plan to leave Monaco was a blow to her. Her Colgate smile had quite disappeared, her already noticeable chest had become quite agitated and her neck was turning as rosy as the blooms in the Princess Grace Garden. Without meaning to, I’d said too much. Without intending it, I’d also discovered that John and Colette Laurent had enjoyed or were still enjoying a relationship that went way beyond an innocent chat in the Odéon’s gymnasium of a morning. Looking at her now, I couldn’t find it in myself to blame him for this: the Archbishop of Canterbury would have jumped o
n the bones of a girl like that and people would have understood.
She stood up, abruptly, let out a deep breath and shook her head.
‘Alors,’ she said quietly.
‘You’re not leaving?’ I said.
‘Yes. I have to go. There’s someone I have to meet.’
‘Not John.’
‘No, not John.’
I stood up and offered her my hand. ‘It was nice to meet you.’
‘Yes,’ she said, distracted as she shook my hand. ‘Yes, it was. Goodbye, Mr Irvine.’
She turned to walk away.
‘Hey, don’t forget your handbag.’
She came back and fetched it, nodding her thanks.
I sat down and watched her go. The waiter came back.
‘That’s a very nice-looking girl,’ he observed with considerable understatement. ‘A friend of yours?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve seen her here before.’
‘She’s gone now.’
‘Better luck next time.’
‘What do you think? Is she a working girl?’
He smiled. ‘Monsieur, this is Monte Carlo. All of the girls who are here are working, one way or another. Even the ones who are married.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps the ones who are married, most of all.’
I picked up my so-called newspaper. I started reading an article about yet another lovely gala evening at the casino. It was for charity, of course, but as always the charity was a way of clearing the conscience, in order that the rich residents might be able to do what rich people like to do, which is to go somewhere smart and eye-wateringly expensive with lots of other rich people and still feel that by doing this they are also doing the world a favour. The celebrities attending the gala were the usual fashionable suspects, which is to say the here today, gone tomorrow crowd of pretty girls and even prettier boys. But after a moment I saw that Colette was back at my table. She was wearing a light pair of wire-framed glasses now and her eyes were red as if she’d been crying, but that didn’t diminish her beauty – at least not in my eyes; indeed, the glasses and the tears made her seem like less of the pneumatic fantasy figure I’d imagined earlier – more real and therefore sexier.
‘That was rude of me,’ she said. ‘Juvenile. You’d just ordered me a drink. And then I left.’
‘Not at all. You were upset. About John going back to England. I could see it came as quite a shock to you.’
She took out her handkerchief, removed her glasses for a moment and dabbed her eyes.
‘It wasn’t only that,’ she said, ‘but yes, it was a little.’ She sat down again. ‘And now I think I should like a real drink. In fact I’m certain of it.’
We waved the waiter back and she ordered a large cognac.
‘I’m sorry. I had no idea that you and he were such good friends.’ I lifted my head to have another look at her. I suppose she was about thirty. Good-looking but perhaps not so very bright either. Her hair was gathered in a ponytail and shone like a newly groomed horse. She was tall and athletic and I wondered not what she was like in bed – I knew the answer to that just looking at her – but what I would be like in bed with her: restored, rejuvenated? There is no Viagra quite as powerful as a woman half your age. ‘I spoke out of turn. Really, it’s none of my business.’
The waiter returned with her cognac. She took it straight off his tray and drank half immediately before placing the glass on the table. Had she not been so unworthy of a famous writer like John I might almost have felt sorry for her.
‘Oh, but it is, I think, Mr Irvine. Your business and mine. We’ve both been disappointed, haven’t we? You as a writer; and me as a GFE.’
‘A what?’
‘Girlfriend experience. That’s the abbreviation men use these days for someone like me who’s effectively a girlfriend for money. In my defence I must say that I did think I was something more than that, but evidently I’m not.’ She tried a smile but it came out ill-shapen and bitter-looking. ‘It seems that I’ve been deluding myself and that after all I’m just a talonneur, like all the rest.’
‘You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that.’
‘I’m just being honest. I’m not an escort. No, I’m not that. At the same time it would be dishonest of me to tell you that I loved John for himself. But I do love him. It’s true, the fact that he is so very rich didn’t discourage this feeling in me. Indeed, it helped convince me that I have feelings for him. Nevertheless I do have feelings for him. Even now that I find he was planning to abandon me. I love him, yes. And that is why this hurts so very, very much.’
‘We don’t know any of what I said for sure,’ I said. ‘For all I know, what he told me was not the whole truth. In fact I’m sure of it. The truth is never whole with John. In fact I think he only gives you half or three-quarters of the truth at any one time, depending who he’s slicing it for. But it’s still the truth. Only not all of it, you see? It’s because he’s a writer, I suppose. A lot of the time his mind is dwelling in some fantasy place – he’s thinking about a book he’s planning, not about anything real. Sometimes the two get blurred. John can tell more truth with a lie than a lot of people can do by telling the truth. So, just because he said that he wanted to move back to London doesn’t mean to say that he was actually going to do it – at least, do it right away. He might just have told me that in order to furnish me and the other guys with an excuse to close down the atelier. To get rid of us with a minimum of explanation. It might be several years before he moves back to London.’ I touched her knee and gave it what I hoped would feel like an encouraging squeeze. In truth I just wanted to feel what her skin was like: it was taut, and slightly moist and when I brushed my nose with the same hand a second later, I could smell the scented body-butter on my fingers. Body butter: just the words made me want to spread her on a thick slice of bread and stuff it in my mouth. ‘Honestly, you should ignore everything I said before. I have no idea what his plans in Monaco are.’
‘You’re very sweet.’ She smiled. ‘And I understand exactly what you say. John lives his life in compartments. You in one. His wife in another. Me in a third.’ She shrugged. ‘Although perhaps I flatter myself. I know there are others beside me, so perhaps I am in a lower number than three. Maybe six or seven, I don’t know. But I haven’t heard so much as a little slice of what you said before. Not even a sliver. The last conversation I had with him, on the subject of him and I, John told me that …’ She stopped. ‘Or perhaps you don’t want to hear this. You are his friend, after all.’
I made a wry-looking face.
‘I used to think that was true. But the truth is he’s always regarded me not as a friend but as a long-term employee. As half of a professional relationship that has endured. Which isn’t friendship at all – at least not for me – but a kind of indentured servitude. So I do want to hear it. Like you said before, perhaps we have more in common than we know.’
She looked around. ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘I don’t like this place.’
‘No? I quite like it.’
‘That’s because you’re a man. Everywhere seems different when you’re a man. Monaco is a little like the Vatican in that it’s set up for men, not women. But women go along with that. For all the obvious reasons.’
‘All right.’ I stood up and waved the waiter over. ‘Where shall we go?’
‘Your hotel?’
‘The Capitole.’
She frowned. ‘I don’t know that one.’
I grinned. ‘It’s in Beausoleil.’
‘But, I don’t understand. You’re working for John. Why doesn’t he put you up somewhere nice? Somewhere in Monaco. Even this place would be better than Beausoleil.’
‘I have to take care of my own expenses.’
‘Let’s go back to my apartment,’ she said. ‘In the Odéon.’
‘Suppose we bump into John?’
‘Do you really care if we do?’ She shrugged. ‘I know I certainly don’t. Not any more. And if he’s with her, w
hat can he say?’
‘Good point.’
I paid the waiter, who shot me the same ‘lucky bastard’ look he’d given me earlier, only this time it was alloyed with an element of amused respect, as if he’d underestimated me. And her perhaps: the glasses made her look much more formidable.
In the lift, Colette said, ‘But why doesn’t John let you stay in that enormous apartment? Or on his boat? Which is almost as big.’
‘Like I said. It’s a professional arrangement. Not a friendship. Besides his wife, Orla – we don’t exactly get on, she and I. It’s all she can do to say hello to me when I come through the door. Which isn’t very often.’
‘What do you think of her?’
‘Beautiful. Irish. Bitch. To be fair, I only dislike her as much as she dislikes me. You see, I used to be a soldier. In Northern Ireland. And I think she holds me responsible for the death of every Irish man and woman since Oscar Wilde was sent to Reading Gaol.’
We left the hotel and walked east from Fontvieille Port to Larvotto and the Tour Odéon. Colette took my arm, not because she wanted to be close to me but because her high heels made it difficult to walk. It was a fine evening and we walked in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the Silvikrin sunset and the warm air. Out of the corner of my eye I took in the sexy toe-cleavage in her Louboutins, the Fabergé lacquer manicure, the sugar and gold Rolex, the tailoring details on her jacket sleeve; after more than a year of monastic celibacy it felt exciting to be out with a good-looking woman. As we made our way through the streets we got a few looks from other people who were out that evening, which is to say that Colette was the subject of more than a few appreciative glances. But with a much younger woman on my arm – even one wearing eyeglasses – I looked like any other old fool in Monaco: a slightly gnarled olive tree next to a rather luscious pink bougainvillea. If Toulouse-Lautrec had been alive today he might found much to inspire him in the principality.
We went into the Odéon and rode the lift up to Colette’s floor without seeing either John or his wife.