Sunset in St. Tropez

by Danielle Steel

  “Maybe he will forget her. But I won’t,” Diana said honestly. “Every time I look at him, I’ll know he betrayed me. I hate him for it.”

  “That’s understandable,” Pascale said sympathetically. “But it happens to people sometimes. Maybe it could even have happened to you. If he ended it with this girl, you have to try to forgive him for it. Diana, you can’t divorce him. It will ruin your life, as well as his. You love each other.”

  “Apparently not as much as I thought. At least he doesn’t.” There was nothing in her eyes of forgiveness, only anger and hurt and disappointment, and Pascale felt so sorry for her.

  “What does he say about it?”

  “That he’s sorry. That it’ll never happen again. That he regretted it the minute he did it, but he still did it for three months, and it might have gone on longer if Katherine’s baby hadn’t gotten sick that night. He might even have left me for her.” Diana only cried harder as she said the words.

  “He can’t be that stupid.” But he was handsome and looked terrific for his age, and he dealt with women all day long. He had more opportunities than most men to meet women. And anything was possible, even for a man as responsible and trustworthy as Eric. But she could see in Diana’s eyes what it had done to her. Pascale was amazed she had actually come on this vacation, and asked her about it.

  “I wasn’t going to after I found out, but he begged me to come. And now he says he can only stay for two weeks, and if he goes, I’m going to think he’s with her every minute.”

  “Maybe you should believe him, that it’s over,” Pascale said quietly, but Diana looked furious about it.

  “Why should I believe him? He lied to me. How can I possibly be expected to trust him?” She had a point, and Pascale didn’t know what to answer. But it broke her heart to think of them ending their marriage. “I just don’t think I can stay married to him, Pascale. It will never be the same for me again, and I probably shouldn’t have come on this vacation. I told him I was going to call a lawyer before we left, and he asked me to wait at least until this trip is over. But I don’t think it’ll make any difference.” It was a heavy burden to be taking with them on the trip, like a set of lead luggage. And it didn’t bode well for the vacation. “Would you stay married to John if he cheated on you?” Diana asked her, looking her in the eye with a bitter expression. She didn’t even seem like the same woman. She had always been so carefree and so happy, as had Eric. And they had such a great relationship. Of the three couples, Pascale had always thought they had the best marriage, or maybe Robert and Anne did. She and John had always had their differences, and they argued a lot more than the others. And now Anne was gone, and Diana was talking about divorcing Eric. It didn’t bear thinking.

  “I don’t know what I would do,” Pascale said honestly. “I’m sure I’d want to kill him.” John always talked a lot about women, but Pascale never thought he did anything about it. In fact, she was sure he didn’t. He just liked the aura it gave him. But it was all talk and bravado in his case. “I think I’d have to give it a lot of thought before I did anything, and maybe try to trust him again. People do these things sometimes, Diana.”

  “Don’t be so French about it,” Diana growled at her, and then started to cry again. She was absolutely miserable, and she was still sorry she had come on this vacation. Every time she looked at him, it upset her. She didn’t know how she was going to get through the month, or even another day, with him.

  “Maybe the French are right about some things,” Pascale said gently. “You have to give it a lot of thought before you do anything you’ll regret later.”

  “He should have done that, before he slept with that woman,” Diana said angrily. And it seemed particularly cruel that the woman was so much younger. It made Diana feel suddenly old and unattractive. He had hurt her in the most painful way possible, and she didn’t know how she was going to live through it, or if their marriage would survive.

  “Have you told anyone?” Pascale asked cautiously.

  “Only you,” Diana answered. “I’ve been too ashamed to. I don’t know why I should feel embarrassed, but I do. It makes me feel like less of a person, as though I wasn’t enough for him.” She truly looked devastated.

  “Diana, you know that’s not true. He just did something very stupid. And I’m sure he’s embarrassed too,” Pascale said, trying to be fair to both of them. “I think it was brave of you to come here.” She actually admired her for it, although it was obvious Diana wasn’t looking forward to being there. She was too distraught to care about the trip.

  “I didn’t want to let you down,” Diana said sadly “or Robert. I know how hard it will be for him to come here. I felt I owed it to him too. I came more for him than for Eric.”

  “Maybe it will do you both good to be here,” Pascale said hopefully. But they needed a lot more than a vacation on the Riviera. Their marriage needed major surgery, not Band-Aids.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for it,” Diana said, crying again.

  “Not yet certainly. But maybe in time,” Pascale said wisely. She put an arm around her friend then, and they hugged each other, and after a while they went back to the living room to join their husbands. And when the men came back inside after their cigars, Pascale could see now the chasm between Diana and Eric. They looked at each other as though they had lost each other, and Pascale’s heart ached for them.

  She was still looking depressed about it when she and John went upstairs to their bedroom, and he noticed it immediately, which was unusual for him. Sometimes he was far less perceptive about her. “Is something wrong?” He wondered if he had inadvertently done or said something to upset her.

  “No, I was just thinking.” She didn’t want to say anything to him, unless Diana gave her permission. She didn’t want to violate her confidence, and she had meant to ask her if she could tell him, but she hadn’t.

  “What about?” John asked, looking concerned. Pascale really looked worried.

  “Nothing important. What to make for lunch tomorrow.” She lied to him, but only to protect Diana and Eric’s secret.

  “I don’t believe you. Is it something big?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I think I know what it is. Eric just told me he and Diana were having problems.” John looked upset about it too.

  “Did he say what kind of problems?”

  “No. Men aren’t usually that specific. He just said they had hit a rough spot in the marriage.”

  “She wants to divorce him,” Pascale said, looking grief-stricken. “That would be just awful. For both of them.”

  “Is it another woman?” John asked, and she nodded. John looked as distressed as she did.

  “He says it’s over, but Diana says she’s too hurt to forgive him.”

  “I hope they’ll work it out,” John said, looking concerned. “They’ve got thirty-two years behind them. That counts for something.” He pulled her into his arms then, with a gentle look, which was unlike him. Most of the time he was gruff and blustery, but beneath it, she knew he loved her. “I missed you,” he said gently.

  “I missed you too,” she smiled at him, and then he kissed her. And a moment later, he turned the lights out and took her in his arms. It had been six weeks since they’d seen each other, a long time in any marriage, but he knew how much being in Paris meant to her, and he would never have deprived her of it. She lived for her time there every year.

  They lay in each other’s arms for a long time that night, after they made love, with a full moon shining in their bedroom window. And after he fell asleep, she lay next to him and watched him, wondering how she would feel if he ever did to her what Eric had just done to Diana. She knew how devastated she would be. Just as much so as Diana. And all she could think as she looked at him was how lucky she was to have him. He was all she needed and wanted, and always had been.

  7

  THE NEXT MORNING, AS PASCALE MADE BREAKFAST FOR all of them, John arrived in the
kitchen looking somewhat panicked. He was holding a brass handle in one hand, as Agathe drifted through, wearing a leopard bikini, platform shoes, and wearing a Walkman as she carried a dustbin and sang to herself loudly. John stopped long enough to stare at her in disbelief, as Pascale continued to scramble eggs, looking totally unconcerned by the vision Agathe presented. She had gotten used to her by then, and seemed entirely oblivious to her appearance.

  “The toilet is flooding!” John announced, waving the brass handle at her. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t you deal with it? I’m cooking.” Pascale looked vaguely amused as he continued to wave the brass handle in her direction. “Why don’t you call Marius and get him to help you?” she suggested, and he rolled his eyes in irritation.

  “How do I know where to find him? And how do I tell him what happened?”

  “Just show him,” Pascale said as she waved at Agathe to catch her attention. She was still singing, but she finally took the Walkman off while Pascale explained the problem. But she didn’t look surprised, she just took the brass handle from John and waddled off to find her husband. He appeared minutes later with a bucket, a mop, and a plunger. He was wearing shorts and a see-through T-shirt, and he looked excruciatingly hung over.

  Agathe was telling her by then it happened all the time, and wasn’t a big problem, and just as she said it, a thin stream of water began trickling through the kitchen ceiling. And both John and Pascale looked up in panic. He left at a dead run to return to the scene of the crime, and Marius followed him more slowly, as Agathe put her Walkman back on, and sang loudly as she set the table.

  Eric and Diana walked into the kitchen then, and Eric looked startled when he saw Agathe in her leopard bikini and apron. “That’s a look,” he said circumspectly, and Diana burst into laughter.

  “Does she always look like that?” Diana asked, as Pascale turned off the stove and smiled at her. She was pleased to see that they both looked a little more relaxed and rested than they had the night before.

  “More or less. Sometimes she wears more, sometimes less, but it’s usually the same kind of outfit. But she’s a pretty good cleaner. She helped me get the place in shape before you got here.”

  “It looks cool, anyway,” Eric said, as he picked a peach from the bowl on the kitchen table. The fruit Pascale had bought was delicious. “Is it raining in here, or do we have a problem?” Eric asked, looking up at the steady stream of water coming from the ceiling.

  “John says the toilet is flooding,” Pascale said as Eric nodded, and she served the eggs. A few minutes later, John joined them, looking harassed and a little frantic.

  “There are two inches of water on the bathroom floor. I had Marius turn off the water till he calls the plumber.”

  “How did you manage to tell him all that?” Pascale looked impressed. In twenty-five years, he had barely said ten words of French to her mother, most of it bonjour and au revoir, and merci, and only when he truly had to.

  “I used to play charades when I was in high school,” he said, diving into the eggs, as Marius walked in and put a bucket under the stream of water coming through the ceiling. It seemed to be coming faster and harder, but he looked unconcerned, as he disappeared again and Agathe followed.

  “Did you sleep well?” Pascale asked Eric over their eggs. And she poured them all steaming cups of strong coffee.

  “Perfectly,” Eric answered, with a glance at Diana. They seemed not to be speaking to each other, or at least not more than they absolutely had to. And there was a definite sense of tension between them, and as soon as they finished eating, Pascale suggested to Diana that they go to the market. John wanted to stay back and see the plumber, and Eric announced that he was going to check out the sailboat and see if it would sail.

  It was an easy morning for all of them, the weather was spectacular, and Diana and Pascale chatted on the way to the market. Pascale commented that Eric seemed to be trying to make an effort to be nice to her, and Diana nodded and stared out the window.

  “He is,” she admitted to her friend, “but I’m not sure it’ll make a difference.”

  “Maybe you should just see what happens on the vacation. The time away may do you both good, if you let it.”

  “And then what? We forget it all, and pretend it never happened? How do you think I could do that?” Diana looked annoyed at the suggestion.

  “I’m not sure I could either,” Pascale said honestly, “I’d probably kill John if he did something like that. But maybe that’s what you have to do to fix it.”

  “Why do I have to fix it?” Diana asked, sounding genuinely angry. “He did it, I didn’t.”

  “But maybe you have to forgive him, if you want to stay married.”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  Pascale nodded, and a few minutes later, they reached the market. They stayed for two hours buying bread, and cheeses, and fruit and wine, some wonderful terrines, and a strawberry tart that made Pascale’s mouth water just looking at it. And when they got back to the house with their purchases, they found Eric and John sprawled out in deck chairs, while John smoked a cigar, and they both looked relaxed and happy. And as the women came in with their string bags and a big basket, John told them that the plumber had come to fix the toilet. But as soon as he had left, the one in Eric and Diana’s bathroom had flooded, and Marius was upstairs trying to fix it.

  “I don’t think we should buy the house,” Eric said matter-of-factly.

  “There’s a news flash,” John said, waving his cigar at his wife. “I hope you didn’t spend too much money on food.”

  “Of course not, I only bought cheeses that had gone bad, stale bread, and the fruit that had gone rotten. It was a real bargain.”

  “Very funny,” he said, turning back to Eric and drawing on his cigar.

  The foursome ate lunch outside, and afterward they all swam, and Eric took Diana out in the sailboat. She seemed reluctant to go with him at first, but eventually he convinced her. She wasn’t a big sailor, and she seemed determined not to open up to him. But Pascale had gone to take a nap by then, and John disappeared shortly after. And there was nothing else to do, so Diana decided to go with him.

  And by the time the Donnallys emerged from their room at six o’clock, Eric and Diana were speaking, and looking far more relaxed than they had that morning. Things were obviously not perfect with them, but they were a little better than they had been.

  Pascale cooked squab for them that night, from an old recipe of her mother’s, and they ate the strawberry tart she and Diana had bought at the market. It was delicious. They topped it off with café filtre, and afterward they sat around the table and chatted. Robert was coming the next day, and Diana asked Pascale if she knew anything more about the mysterious friend he said he might be bringing.

  “I haven’t heard anything more from him since I left New York. I assume he’ll tell us when he gets here, but I really don’t think it’ll be that actress. They hardly know each other. I think we were worried for nothing.” In the relaxed atmosphere of St. Tropez, she was feeling less concerned.

  “I hope so,” Diana said, looking stern. Particularly after Eric’s infidelity, she seemed like the guardian of all morals. She had already promised herself she was not going to let Robert make a fool of himself, and if he told them he had invited Gwen Thomas to St. Tropez, Diana had every intention of telling him what a mistake he was making, and what an insult to Anne’s memory it was for him to be dating some starlet. She was hardly that, at her age, but Diana was quite convinced, as was Pascale, that she couldn’t possibly be a decent person, and all they wanted was to protect Robert from himself.

  But the next day, when he arrived, Robert looked entirely respectable, as he got out of his rented car with Mandy She was wearing a white T-shirt and white jeans, a straw hat, and Robert was wearing a blue cotton shirt and khakis. They both looked fresh and clean and wholesome, and very American, and a little st
artled when they saw the villa.

  “This isn’t how I remembered it, from the pictures,” he said, looking puzzled. “Am I crazy, or is this a little more rustic?”

  “A lot more rustic,” Pascale explained, as John shot her an amused look.

  “And wait till you see the maid and the gardener,” he added, “but we got half our money back, so it’s worth it.”

  “Why did they do that?” Robert looked surprised by what John had told him.

  “Because they screwed us. They’re French. What do you expect?” Pascale shot him an evil glance as he said it, but he wasn’t daunted. “To be blunt, when Pascale got here, apparently it looked like The Fall of the House of Usher. She spent two days cleaning it up, and it’s fine, just don’t try to flush the toilets, and don’t expect to see it in Architectural Digest.” Robert nodded with a look of amusement, and Mandy looked instantly worried.

  “Can we use the toilets?” There was a note of panic in her voice that instantly amused Pascale. Anne had always complained to her that her daughter was spoiled and very fussy.

  “Sure, you can,” John reassured her, “just wear your galoshes.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, as Pascale tried not to laugh.

  “Should we go to a hotel? Can we stay here?” She had visions of not being able to use the plumbing at all, and would have preferred a hotel.

  “We’ve been here for two days,” Diana said practically, “and we’re surviving just fine. Why don’t I show you your room,” but when she did, Mandy was only slightly reassured. The plumbing was gurgling and running, and she noticed a damp, musty smell in the room. She was one of those people who never felt totally comfortable, or at ease, when she left home. “I’ll open the windows for you,” Diana said, trying to be helpful, and when she tried, one of them literally fell out and into the garden. “I’ll have the gardener come and put it back in again,” she said with a smile at Mandy’s horrified expression. And five minutes later, she went back to her father and asked him if he thought the house was safe. She also had a phobia about spiders and bugs, and the house clearly had more than its fair share.