by Celia Imrie
‘Two million five hundred thousand . . . Two million eight . . .’
‘Can you hear all right?’ William said.
‘If you’d shut up we might,’ snapped Zoe.
Sally hushed her.
‘Three million . . . Do I hear three and a half? Madam? The gentleman in the green tweed suit?’
‘I hope he isn’t accidentally bidding while he’s waving his phone about,’ said Zoe. ‘A green tweed suit sounds quite William’s style.’
‘Four million . . .’
‘Alleluia!’ Carol made jazz hands.
‘I need a stiff drink,’ said Theresa.
‘Four million five . . . Yes, sir. Five million . . . Six million . . .’
‘Six million and rising!’ hissed Sally, closing her eyes. ‘There is a God.’
‘Seven million . . .’
‘With seven million we won’t need to run a restaurant,’ said Sally. ‘We can just live the life of Riley.’
‘Who is this Riley?’ asked Zoe. ‘I’ve often wondered.’
‘Shut up, Zoe!’ Theresa was still leaning over the phone.
‘Spoilsport.’ Zoe scoffed. ‘I think we can all sigh an enormous sigh of relief now. Can’t we?’
‘Wait a minute . . .’ William said.
‘Is there a bottle of champagne in the house?’ yelled Carol.
‘What?’ It was William, whispering hoarsely into the phone. ‘WHAT?’
‘WHAT?’ replied everyone, excitedly pressing in around the table. ‘WHAT???’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said William. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Someone’s jumped up to ten million. Haven’t they?’
William’s breathing echoed loudly down the line.
‘William?’ said Theresa, trying to sound level. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Tell us!’ echoed the others.
‘Just a minute, Theresa.’ William had cupped his hand over the receiver. They could hear the muffled sounds of him talking in French with someone in the auction room.
‘Perhaps they leaped up to twelve!’ shouted Zoe in the direction of the phone on the table. This received no more than further muffled sounds from William.
Then he said abruptly, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and hung up.
As Theresa put the receiver back into the base, a strange silence fell on the group. All smiling, but biting their lips with anticipation.
‘Perhaps someone fainted?’ suggested Sally.
‘Probably Benjamin, thinking about all those drugs he could buy.’
‘Shut up, Zoe.’ Sally slammed her cup down on the saucer. ‘You know he’s stopped all that stuff.’
Carol grabbed the receiver.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Sally. ‘He said he’d phone us back.’
‘I can’t wait. I’m phoning him.’
Theresa wrestled the receiver from her hands. ‘Carol. Sally’s right. Something has clearly happened. Someone’s been taken ill or whatever . . . I’m sure William, of all people, will phone us back the moment he gets a chance.’
Carol rose from her seat and strode round the room like a prisoner trapped in a cage. She threw her arms up and cried to the ceiling: ‘I just can’t stand the waiting.’
‘Shall I make some more tea?’ suggested Theresa, also rising from the table.
‘No,’ everyone called in unison.
‘But a stiff gin wouldn’t be out of the question,’ added Zoe.
Theresa went to the kitchen cupboard and pulled out a bottle of Bombay Sapphire and plonked it down in the centre of the table beside the phone, then went back for glasses, bottles of tonic and a lemon.
At this moment the phone rang again.
Zoe was first to grab the receiver. ‘William, dear boy, how rich are we?’
The others were silenced.
Sally reached forward once more, trying to activate the speakerphone button.
‘What do you mean? . . . But they can’t do that. You’re not serious? So now what? The bastards. I understand. I’ll tell them. Yes.’
Zoe put the phone down. She sat well back in her chair and whispered, ‘Sod it!’
The others gathered like vultures around a dead cow.
‘Well?’
‘We’re bolloxed.’ Zoe grabbed the gin bottle, poured some into her teacup and knocked it back in one. ‘Zero,’ she said. ‘Nil, nought, nothing, bugger all. The bastards!’
‘But . . .’ As she sank into her chair, Theresa felt oddly calm. ‘How can that be?’
‘The sale was stopped and the mosaic was withdrawn.’
‘By William?’ Sally slammed her fists on the table, rattling the gin bottle. ‘Has the man gone mad?’
‘You won’t believe this.’ Zoe sighed and poured another measure into her teacup. ‘Lawyers arrived . . .’
‘Lawyers?’
‘From the Picasso Estate. They got there just at the crucial moment and halted the sale.’
‘Halted the sale?’ echoed Sally.
‘But they can’t?’
‘They did.’ Zoe took another swig from her teacup. ‘They say that the work was illicitly taken by Old Mother Hubbard, or whatever her stupid name was, and never did belong to her. They say that she was never Picasso’s mistress – she was his cleaner. And, while cleaning, she had stolen it. And if the mosaic did not ever belong to her, equally it does not belong to us.’
‘So who does it belong to?’ Theresa took a deep breath.
‘According to those lawyers, it belongs to the descendants of Picasso.’ Zoe shrugged and started to shout. ‘As though they needed the money, the little, spoilt, grasping, tight-arsed, nappy-wearing, ugly little sods.’
‘So there’s no sale?’ Carol put her face in her hands. ‘Oh Gaaadddd.’
‘Do we get some kind of compensation?’ asked Sally. ‘We must get something?’
‘Nothing.’ Zoe shook her head. ‘As I said: zip, zilch, sod all.’ She quaffed some more gin. ‘Actually I’m wrong. We not only get sod all, we will be given the present of a massive bill from the auction house for administrative costs, photographs, insurance, storage, advertising . . . and the rest.’
Theresa felt as though she was about to fall through the floor. Suddenly everything was blurred. She feared she would pass out. She stretched forward for the gin.
‘Now what?’ she said, gripping the blue glass bottle to steady herself. ‘That is the question.’
‘Well, I suppose the first thing . . .’ Zoe looked at her watch ‘ . . . would be for you lot to go to La Mosaïque and open up. You’ve got one booking for tonight. Table for one. Me.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Zoe,’ said Sally. ‘Thank you for still having faith in us.’
‘Who’s talking about faith? I’m quite aware that you won’t be able to pay me back the money you owe me in pounds, shillings and pence, or even in euros for that matter, so instead you can pay me in kind. Starting tonight.’
Whey-faced, William and Benjamin had arrived in La Mosaïque at the end of the night’s service, having flown down from Paris immediately after finishing the dire business concerning the mosaic.
The group stayed in the dining room of the restaurant and talked until late into the night about the consequences and choices of the day’s debacle.
They could choose to engage lawyers to fight the claim, but having no evidence of the sex life of the late Widow Magenta, the previous owner, or of her relationship with Pablo Picasso, they knew that, by hiring anyone to defend them, they would probably only be throwing good money after bad. After all, the Picasso Estate was obviously not short of a bob or two, and would have enough dosh to buy the best legal team in the world to fight their case.
‘Tomorrow the restaurant is shut, as usual, and I propose we use our day off to get the accounts straight. I will do this myself, with your help, Theresa, if I may.’
Theresa paced about the room. ‘Well, I don’t know much about money, but I did used to work for a solicitor,
so I vaguely know my way around the law, albeit the law of Great Britain.’
The way things were going she feared she would be back working in a London solicitor’s office all too soon.
‘Once we know exactly where we stand financially, then we can choose whether to sell up or struggle on.’
‘When will we get your verdict, William?’ asked Carol. ‘In here, tomorrow evening?’
Sally piped up. ‘No. That’s too sad. Let’s meet at mine. For once I’ll cook. I’m no Theresa, but it’ll be like the old days.’
Everyone agreed that that would be a good idea. Sally would prepare the main dish, Carol would bring starter and dessert and Benjamin would get the wine.
‘Honestly, William, what are our chances of survival?’ asked Theresa, her stomach filled with the dull ache of fear. ‘Now that we won’t be getting this money which we’d all been depending on.’ Her head was so full of the grim thought of being forced to sell up and move back to dreary old Highgate that she barely listened to his reply.
William shrugged. ‘Let’s say we’re going to have to be very creative. I suspect our best chance of staying out of jail is by selling up our interest in the restaurant and going our own different ways. And if necessary taking the first steps towards declaring insolvency.’
Theresa slumped into the nearest chair.
TWO
In the cold morning light, Theresa wrapped her turquoise mac tight and resolved, even though it was drizzling, to walk along the shore before going up to William’s house to start the accounting.
This mac would always remind her of her first days here in Bellevue-sur-Mer, meeting Carol and the others, the beginning of what she realised had been the happiest years of her life.
She did not want it all to stop now. She would hate to find herself aimless, penniless and forced to return to London, where she knew she wouldn’t have a chance of surviving, either mentally or financially.
If La Mosaïque were to fail, and close down, which certainly seemed the most likely way forward, she would have to find another means of getting by. And by getting by Theresa realised it wasn’t simply a financial concern. She wanted to have a decent reason to get up each morning. She needed something to look forward to, something to love.
She stepped carefully down the stone ramp to the small pebbly shore. With a loud cry a seagull swooped and dived into the water, chasing a fish.
Theresa picked up a smooth, flat stone and, like a child, skimmed it across the dark blue surface of the water.
It was important, she realised, to try and keep positive. Once you let yourself slide down that black hole of depression, who knew where you might end up? She had to stay positive. And here, in this lovely little town, there was plenty to keep positive about. Around three hundred days of the year without rain. No freezing-cold winters. A beautiful turquoise sea to gaze at, calming and enlivening at the same time. A gang of really great friends. And last, but certainly not least, wonderful food. Theresa understood how important that was to her. Certainly, here on the Côte d’Azur, even the cafés and market stalls served wonderful things – from socca and panisse to pissaladière and pizza; hand-held snacks, but all quite delicious.
She flopped down on to a rock and sat staring out at the sea. She had about ten minutes before she’d have to trudge up the hill and start the hellish day of accounting. At the bottom of her heart, even though she couldn’t extinguish a flicker of hope, she knew that in all likelihood the day’s work would end with one decision: La Mosaïque was finished; La Mosaïque had to go.
With a piercing cry the seagull was suddenly back, circling round a stretch of water which appeared to have a slightly different surface from the surrounding sea. The bird dived again and this time came up with a fish in its beak. Within minutes, as though from nowhere, scores of seagulls appeared, all circling and diving into the same patch of water, which obviously contained a shoal of fish.
Everything needed to eat. Not only everything but everyone. La Mosaïque and her dreams of being part of a restaurant might go up in smoke, but there had to be other ways she could use cooking to continue her life here.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook and pencil. And as she jotted down the first few ideas, the sun came out and shone so strongly she needed to take off her mac.
Sally drove the van along the coast road to Cagnes-sur-Mer. She was visiting a little fish stall from which she frequently bought red mullet and sea bream for the restaurant. She hoped to buy something good – a treat which she could cook up for everyone at tonight’s dinner of fate.
As she climbed out of the driver’s seat, the sun emerged from behind a black cloud.
It felt so lovely, especially after the dismal weather this morning, that she couldn’t resist running out on to the beach and darting about, abandoned, springing up like Isadora, dipping in and out of the water, even though she was wearing shoes.
When she had exhausted herself with her little display, she flung herself down on the sand and closed her eyes.
That was exhilarating!
She felt like one of those blonde-haired girls who used to twirl around in misty 1970s adverts for Polaroid or Nimble and other long-forgotten products. As Sally recalled, those girls usually seemed to steal an apple somewhere along the line, and so pretty were they that nobody ever arrested them for theft.
What a turn-up! Only this time yesterday she had thought that today she would be rich. This morning it was all change. Her dreams of round-the-world cruises and new wardrobes of lovely clothes right out of the window. Not only that but she was much worse off than she had been a few years back before plunging much of her savings into La Mosaïque.
She closed her eyes, basking in the warm March sunshine, and felt guilty because, despite everything, she still felt happy.
It was inexplicable. Immediately after the bad news came, she felt terrible. But once she was out of Theresa’s flat and walking up the lane to her house a kind of thrilling pall fell upon her. She wondered whether this wasn’t a leftover from her years in the acting business. That sense of not-knowing what will come next, the wide dark hole which opens up as every job ends, understanding that you might never work again, but, at the same time, now you were again available to all offers and it was possible that your next job might take you to Hollywood, riches and world fame. Sally realised that, like most actors, she was addicted to those adrenalin surges, and living a life which was like walking a tightrope. She could never have been happy sitting around, smug, behind a desk, with a pension lined up, guaranteed promotions in the pipeline and safe, reliable security all round.
She bit her lip and winced.
It was a pity that the others felt so very bad about the end of La Mosaïque.
Of course it would be a struggle for them all. She felt slightly foolish for having put quite so much of her spare cash into the place, but, until yesterday, nothing about that seemed to be risky. In fact, the whole project seemed to be just like a game they were all playing while waiting for the spoils.
Her feelings towards La Mosaïque reminded her of moments when she was a child, running a post office with one of those paper kits your grandparents invariably gave you every Christmas. Little pink, yellow and blue envelopes; stamps with teddy bears and bunny rabbits on them; a rubber stamp and a red ink-pad …
Now she and her friends were running a toy restaurant, only this time the food was real and customers were spending real money, not plastic tokens. But Sally and her friends carried none of the actual pressing anxiety that all the other local establishments must have been feeling over the last three years.
For, at the back of the minds of the owners of La Mosaïque, whatever came to pass there was always that safety net lurking: the cosy, warm security of the Picasso.
She opened her eyes.
Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!
She laughed aloud, even though she was lying alone on the beach. She peered along the way to see if anyone had heard her.
> It reminded her of when she played Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady for one of the better northern repertory companies. Hadn’t Higgins said that when she slammed the door on him?
She looked around to make sure no one was staring. But the other people there all seemed too preoccupied with digging out their sunglasses and blowing up beach balls to care about anyone else.
Now that La Mosaïque would soon meet the dust Sally also realised that she was going to have a lot more time to herself, which might be fun.
She could get back to classes at the Sea School. See if she could get that Yachtmaster Certificate. Or perhaps she could try something else. A course in wine or perfume. There was so much opportunity if you went out to find it.
A shadow fell across her face.
At first she presumed it was someone passing by, looking for somewhere to set down their blanket for the afternoon. But the shadow remained.
Sally felt quite irritated that these people were blocking her sun. She wished they would just settle and get out of her ray of sunshine.
She kept her eyes determinedly shut.
‘Oh, yes! It is.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
They spoke English, too. How awful! She prayed it was not fans who remembered her from years back when she was well known on English TV.
‘Sal? Is that you?’
Sally opened her eyes. She could barely see who was looking down, but could tell it was two people, a man and a woman.
‘I don’t believe it. Sally Doyle! Salzy, old darling! How faberoo de vous voir.’
Sally shielded her eyes but could still not make out the identity of the man and woman who loomed over her.
‘It’s Eggy, darling! Eggy and Phoo.’
Sally sat upright, rather quickly.
Edgar Markham and his wife Phoebe Taylor were the most famous married couple of English showbiz, known to the tabloid press as ‘The Magical Markhams’. Edgar – ‘Eggy’ – was renowned for playing classical roles on stage and diplomats and barristers on film, while his wife had been the queen of TV sitcom, in particular the immensely popular long-running TV series, Paddy and Pat. Taking the role of Pat, Phoebe, known in the business as Phoo, officially became a ‘National Treasure’.
