‘It means,’Richard said, waving his mug at Penny for more coffee, ‘Don’t attract attention. Just try and live a quiet life.’
Laura’s new quiet life started in the boot of Richard’s Humber. Not a mode of travel she’d recommend to anyone, but it was either that or face Peter heading up a firing squad.
Their departure was timed to co-incide with the arrival of Mackenzie on the Press tea run. Mounted as usual by the irreproachable Mrs Percival and making an entrance to a whistled chorus of the Dam Busters march from the cameramen, Laura could hear that Mackenzie was enjoying acting up for the cameras and magnificently disdainful of sugarlump bribes.
The Press were accustomed to Richard commuting to the school. With Mackenzie providing his reliable diversion, the Humber passed through the gates, taking Laura at last away from the house that had become her prison.
When they were a safe distance away, Richard stopped and let her out of the boot. She stretched. ‘You’ve got grass growing in that boot.’
‘I know. It’s from the hay the girls feed the ponies in the winter.’
On the journey, Richard gave her the news, quite matter-of-factly.
‘The governors are not confirming me in the Headship. The post’s going to be advertised, and of course I can apply along with everyone else.’
Richard was in his early thirties . The school was his life. If they appointed another candidate over his head Laura wondered if he’d be able to live with himself. At least he hadn’t said, Well what do you expect? How could the governors appoint me when you’ve been consorting with dodgy MPs, prostitutes and you’ve been all over the papers with nothing on.
Laura started to say she was sorry, he was obviously the best person for the job, even if he had to compete at interview, he was bound to be chosen, but he cut her short.
‘Laura please. Just go away and try and live a quiet life. Please.’
He drove Laura to the airport, checked her in, handed her a boarding card and watched her through Departures. Laura had thought she’d have to be smuggled on board, but Peter said that was over-theatrical.
‘Just wear Penny’s anorak and a bobble hat and look tired and no-one will notice you.’
Laura was obliged to keep the anorak on for warmth on a chill November day, but Peter’s recommended headgear she consigned to the bin. There was no question of her arriving in the South of France wearing a bobble hat.
Laura didn’t recall ever saying she wanted to improve her French, but Penny said she remembered distinctly that she did, so Laura assumed it was one of those idle things one says, like I’d love to learn to paint properly, or take up the piano. In any case, Laura was in no position to argue. The Norfolk house was still besieged, with the Press offering Laura vast sums for an interview. The papers were revelling in every juicy detail provided by Vince. The fact that Marla had spent her mornings helping at a nursery school had caused a shoal of predictable headlines. Meanwhile, Penny was frantic to get her children home from her cousin’s and back to school, and a settled routine for John-John.
Peter and Richard were shoulder to shoulder in dealing with the crisis. Neither of them unbent for days. To Laura, it was like living with two close-boarded fences. The attitude was, you Laura, have behaved not just badly but worse than any of us could ever have imagined. We, on the other hand, are behaving now with ruthless efficiency. All attempts at counselling, sympathy, rapport are now out of the window. You are out of the window. We are shipping you off to the South of France.
‘You’re so lucky,’ Janet said, in the careful way of someone delivering a rehearsed speech. ‘Friends of ours have two apartments there. They’re never there, really, so they’d be glad of someone to keep them aired, and plants watered and um…’
‘And Menton’s so pretty,’ Penny enthused. ‘Full of lemon trees and flowers, pretty gardens. Lucky you!’
On the plane Laura read what her Côte d’Azur guidebook had to say about flowery Menton.
‘Facing inland, one’s eye is drawn to the gentle graduations of colour and height: lush pink borders and serried ranks of palms and citrus trees fade to distant mauve hills. The lemon trees are decorated with fairy lights…The present Casino, facing the seafront, is a staid affair, reduced to seaside cabaret, sedate thé dansants and low-key gambling. As if in disapproval, St John’s Anglican church turns its back on the Casino. It provides retired British expatriates with spiritual counselling, fetes and free library books. In the afternoon, elderly visitors congregate on the Promenade du Soleil to enjoy the sea views. Along the seafront we see Belle Epoque villas. Some have been converted into chic flats or homes for retired French civil servants. Nearby, genteel dowagers sip afternoon tea in the George V salon de thé. The solicitous service is reminiscent of an expensive nursing home…’
Peter had fixed it so when Laura landed that evening at Nice airport, there was to be no bunking off on the razzle in Nice, Antibes or Cannes. The waiting taxi driver said his instructions were to take her straight to Menton.
He didn’t chat much on the way, except to mention that the Monaco casino was better than the Menton one and if she wanted to go to either, she must remember to take her passport. ‘You have to prove you’re over twenty-one.’
Laura, just twenty-five, felt flattered that they’d ask. That said, she was quite prepared for Peter to be one step ahead, on the phone personally to Prince Rainier to have her barred from Monaco entirely.
Soon they began the long descent into the hushed, tree- lined streets of Menton. It was well lit, and to Laura it was like driving through a respectable Surrey suburb, except instead of mock Tudor and mock-orange bushes, there were Italianate villas, and the orange trees were real.
The driver turned right and stopped outside high iron gates and a sign proclaiming this to be Les Residences Lilas. Through the floodlit gardens, Laura could see two modern apartment blocks. ‘Oh. I was hoping the apartment would be in one of the older houses,’ Laura said, handing the driver some of the francs that Richard had given her.
He replied in good English (all local taxi drivers, Laura was to discover, could speak English, especially when it came to adding up the fare.)‘Then you’d have old plumbing, old shutters that don’t work and old bits of plaster falling on your head.’ He heaved out her suitcase and immediately a youngish, fit-looking man came rushing up and unlocked the gate. He was followed by a smiling young woman.
‘Je suis gardien,’ he said, taking her case and leading the way to Block B. They took the lift to the first floor. The gardien’s wife followed on foot and was quickly up the stairs as the gardien opened a semi-glazed door into Laura’s apartment.
The gardien’s wife said, in halting but passable English, ‘There are a few permanent residents here, so you won’t be all on your own. At the bottom of Block A is our Reception office. We are always on duty. We will help.’
She glanced round the bright apartment. ‘Naughty of us leaving the lights on. Electricity is very expensive in France. But I wanted it to be welcoming for you.’
It was deadly quiet. Laura didn’t want the gardiens to go.
Finding ice in the fridge, Laura broke into her duty-free gin. Glass in hand, she explored her new home. It was a well-proportioned apartment with a large sitting dining room, good sized bedroom and bathroom, and fully kitted out kitchen.
There were two problems.
The first, about which she could do nothing, was the wallpaper in the bedroom and sitting room. The bedroom featured orange and brown flowers and the sitting room had orange and blue flowers. In addition, the decorators had papered not just the walls, but the doors as well.
Laura perched on a wicker chair as the implication of this hit her. Janet had said vaguely that the apartments were owned by some friends of theirs. But no English person would wallpaper their doors. The apartment was clearly French owned and Laura was willing to bet hard cash that neither Peter nor Janet had any French friends. Not after they got their fingers burned buying that crumbling Provençal
villa and getting stitched up by the locals when they tried to sell it.
Still, she could determine the ownership factor later. The gardien would surely know. But it looked as if Peter had rented this apartment for her. Looked as if she was financially indebted to bloody Peter.
She remembered she’d promised to ring Penny when she arrived. But as soon as Laura started dialling, an automated French woman came on the line gabbling something uncomprehensible. She tried again. Same woman, same gabble.
She poured another G and T and set about tackling problem two in the apartment. The flower-bedecked walls were adorned with the most dreadful paintings. Charging bulls, lurid landscapes and sentimental prints of prissy girls. Laura took everything down and shoved them under her bed.
The phone rang. Penny. ‘Are you all right? You said you’d ring.’
Laura explained about the gabbling woman.
‘Oh dear. You get this in rented places. People can call in but you can’t call out. But we can’t have you without a phone. I’ll get Daddy to speak to the agen – the people – his friend.’
Suddenly Laura was very tired. Penny and Richard, the girls and their ponies seemed a very long way away. She made some toast (Penny had given her some sliced bread) made up her bed and just before she fell asleep she was conscious of a sound she hadn’t noticed before. The sound of the sea.
She woke at eight. It was dark. Come on, Laura urged herself, time to start work.
Her job, Richard explained, was to caretake the rental flat, which was number eight on the same floor as hers. Richard would arrange the rentals, and Laura was to do the cleaning, wash the sheets and iron them. Obviously, she must be on hand to sort out any problems the tenants had. For this she would receive 10% of the rental income and on top, Richard would pay her a retainer to give her a living wage.
Laura could no longer hear the sea. The wind must have changed direction. What she could hear were the cats. It sounded like an army of them, screeching like the baddies in a TV cartoon.
In the sitting room, she wound up the metal window shutters. She’d deliberately avoided taking in the view last night for fear of disappointment. If you’re in the South of France, what you want is a view of the Med. Although she’d been able to hear the sea last night in bed, she could still be destined for a view of an ugly building or a backyard strewn with dustbins and the quarrelsome cats.
The shutters squeaked slowly up. The room was flooded with light and suddenly, so was Laura’s heart. She stepped onto a small terrace looking out on a glimmering sea, waves white-tipped on sapphire, framed by the stately palms and pines of the Residences garden. It was a formal garden with curving paths, clipped evergreen hedges, expertly pruned shrubs and – Laura could hardly believe it in November – the scent of newly mown grass.
On the path, gazing up at her, were three angelic cats. One black and white, one fluffy tabby and one ginger kitten. Surely this couldn’t be the trio who’d been kicking up such a fearful racket? But then she saw they were guarding a red food bowl. Empty.
When she was bathed and dressed, she went along to inspect apartment eight. It was similar to her own, but with two double bedrooms. In the sitting room, apart from the wicker chair, everything else was a bed. There was a sofa bed, a bed with bolsters to make it look like a sofa, and a large square footstool that turned itself into a child’s bed. Laura wouldn’t have been surprised to find in the broom cupboard a selection of hammocks to string from the light fittings. Obviously, the more people the flat could sleep, the higher rental income it would attract, but it meant that in addition to sleeping facilities, the owners had felt obliged to provide enough dining chairs for six adults plus children plus friends.
Checking out the terrace, Laura saw that the weather was like a crisp autumn day in England, but with stronger sun. She’d intended to take the train to Nice and see what mischief she could find, but on impulse, she changed her mind. She could do that now, she realised. She could change her mind on a whim, change it back again and there was no one she’d feel she’d let down, confused or upset.
Perhaps it was the sight of the happily fed cats looking sweetly domestic as they licked their paws, but Laura found the woman in her taking over the day. She would go to the market, buy flowers, fresh fruit, good bread and wine. She’d make the apartment pretty and hers, and enjoy herself stocking up the fridge, then cooking a splendid supper.
Back from the market, which she’d found by following a stream of men and women carrying straw baskets, she enjoyed an indulgent lunch on the sunny terrace. A whole jar of fish soup, crusty bread and an excellent dry rosé. Another advantage of living alone, she thought. None of the men she’d ever been involved with had shown any appreciation of rosé.
From the terrace she could see that ‘her’ three cats down below were having to evict an intruder. The newcomer was an elegant creature, dove grey with long legs. Cleverly, she wasn’t just barging towards the red food bowl and risking getting clawed by the other three. She was keeping her distance some way down the path, sitting perfectly still, her little front feet perfectly together. Then slowly, patiently, she started tacking up the path, stopping when one of the others stared her down.
This was no good. Laura dragged her eyes back to the French grammar Richard had given her. After her dismal, stuttering performance at the market this morning, she felt she’d better give herself a refresher course.
‘Je m’appele Laura,’ she began confidently, ‘et j’habite à…’
Ah. Where exactly did she live these days? Where was home?
‘J’habite à Londres. J’aime beaucoup Londres, il y a beaucoup a faire. Les cinemas, les theatres, le dancing.’
Pitiful. Just pitiful. And, Laura thought, I have A level French. However did I ever achieve that?
Around midday on Sunday she found herself glancing at the phone, which now allowed her to dial out. Then she remembered that France was an hour ahead of England and Penny had said they’d be out all day doing something horsey with the girls.
She’d go out, then. Treat herself to a nice lunch at one of the beach restaurants.
The weather was sunny, but cool enough for a jacket and light sweater. By the sea, the Promenade du Soleil was pretty with fringed yellow parasols, but a cold wind blowing inland dictated that it wasn’t sitting out weather. She chose a beach restaurant promising an important word her French grammar had reminded her of – chauffage. Laura had never felt comfortable about eating out on her own,but she’d brought a paperback novel to make her look occupied.
So had every other solitary woman in the place. Most were sipping water and had chosen tables near the chauffage, a tall, powerful Calor gas heater.
Just as there is an out-of-season sadness about summer pleasure resorts, so the same tristesse was reflected in the faces of these women of a certain age. These middle-aged ladies were evidently who, Laura felt, she was stacking up with. Will I look like that in twenty years’ time? Will I look so disappointed, so lacking in zest, in curiosity?
Laura realised how cunning Peter had been, exiling her to Menton. There seemed absolutely no chance of her picking up anyone. Most men were with their wives and families or were, as Richard would put it, pansies. Of the rest, any man half-way decent of any age was sitting gazing into the eyes of a stunning twenty-year-old. These girls were immaculately groomed, with teased hair, meticulous maquillage, fashionable leather mini-skirts displaying thin, bronzed legs, calfskin buckled bags and long, narrow feet lying fallow in highly polished boots.
The man and the girl at the table near Laura ate little, drank less and smoked De Reske. Conversation between them was difficult to figure. There was no animation, no evidence of passion, no sign that the man, like Hugo, was talking dirty with a deceptively straight face. Just once, during the course of the meal, it would happen that the man would reach out and with a possessive langour run his hand through the girl’s hair. She would sit completely still, like the grey cat encroaching on the others’ t
erritory. But perhaps it was some subtle signal because shortly after that they would leave, slide into a sleek car and disappear. In Laura’s time on the Côte d’Azur she never saw the same couple twice, but she saw this same scene enacted over and over again.
And that was her Sunday lunch. She didn’t stay for coffee or dessert. She needed fresh sea air to blow away the memory of those sad, middle-aged women. She could hear Penny, ‘They’re probably great fun when you get to know them. Couldn’t you strike up a conversation? You’ll need some friends…’
Not them. Not that soggy circle round the Calor gas. Laura felt she’d rather make friends with one of the older women parading – with stately assurance – down the Promenade du Soleil. They were done up in furs, their facelifts masked by orangey make-up, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses adorned with great gobs of gold.
The wind was starting to whip in more strongly from the sea. As Laura opened the Residences Lilas gate, the gardien drove in ahead of her, and stopped. His office was shuttered. Obviously, he had Sundays off. He was driving the most delicious pistachio green Porche.
Laura said, ‘Elle est belle. C’est à vous?’ She couldn’t believe the gardien actually owned a Porche.
He shook his head. ‘Malheurusement, non.’ Laura thought he said then that he drove it each week to keep it ticking over until the owner came in the summer.
A few weeks later she came across him sweeping up leaves at the entrance. Autumn. Season of mists and bonfires. Soon it would be winter. She doubted if any snow fell on the Riviera, but knew she’d miss the squeak of boots on snow, and the way, at sunset, the snow flushed pink.
‘Bonjour Mademoiselle,’ the gardien stilled his brush. ‘Lundi, le marche est fermé.’
Laura wasn’t going to the market. She was aiming for one of the local shops to get loo rolls and soap for apartment eight. In the end she had to make two trips, because the loo rolls were bulky and she needed to go back to buy gin, wine and bread for herself.
Realising she’d better clear out her booze cupboard of the empties, Laura was just stacking them in a box in the hall, when her doorbell sounded. She stood still, astounded. In the three weeks she’d been in Menton she’d never had any visitors. She hadn’t known before what her doorbell sounded like.
Strangers in a Garden Page 19
