Summer Madness

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Towel and suntan cream for Mrs Carmichael,’ he said, holding them out.

  ‘Oh Frederico, thank you,’ Rosalind said taking them. ‘He thinks of everything, doesn’t he?’ she whispered to Consuela as he dived back into the pool.

  ‘More or less,’ Consuela laughed. ‘So what about Danny Spencer and her friends? Do you think we should invite them on Saturday evening?’

  Rosalind shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. It could be fun to have some fresh faces on the scene. And from what I know of Danny she’s mature enough. We’ll just have to hope the others are too. If not, well, what’s one night?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. I’ll call this afternoon to see if they’re free. I wonder if I should mention that I know her mother?’

  Rosalind looked at her curiously.

  ‘I was just thinking that if I did then it will automatically create a generation gap. On the other hand, Suzannah might already have told Danny she knows me.’

  ‘If she had then surely Danny would have been in touch with you through Suzy, not Ricard.’

  ‘True. So I won’t cast myself in the role of her mother’s geriatric friend,’ Consuela smiled.

  ‘Hardly geriatric,’ Rosalind said arching an eyebrow.

  ‘That’s how the young see us, chérie.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Rosalind quipped, sitting up as she heard a car coming up the drive.

  Consuela turned and immediately Rosalind felt her stiffen. She reached out for Consuela’s suddenly unsteady hand and squeezed it as they watched the black, open-topped Mercedes approach. The sun was dazzling the windscreen so they couldn’t see who was driving, but then neither of them needed to see, they already knew who it was.

  ‘Were you expecting him?’ Rosalind said, holding the towel to her.

  Consuela shook her head.

  ‘How did he get in through the gates?’

  ‘He knows the security code.’

  They waited, watching the magnificent car as it glided to a halt at the side of the house. Rosalind’s pulses were racing. It had been a while since she’d last seen Jake Mallory and she was wondering if he would have the same effect on her now as he’d had before.

  Consuela’s grip had tightened on her hand. Rosalind returned the pressure, knowing that Jake Mallory was the source of all Consuela’s suffering, that it was this man’s actions that had driven her friend to live this hermit-like existence.

  Jake stepped from the car. He was wearing a pair of filthy, torn jeans, a faded black T-shirt and a red bandanna was tied around his untidy black hair. Rosalind almost moaned aloud. His sexuality was every bit as lethal as she remembered and the look in his piercing, grey eyes sent shivers of lust through her body.

  She watched in slightly awed admiration at the way Consuela was going towards him with her hands held out to receive him. How could she do it? Rosalind was asking herself. After all he had done and for all Rosalind knew was still doing.

  ‘Jake,’ Consuela said, kissing him on either cheek. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’

  Jake’s answering smile was more of a smirk. ‘It is?’ he said. ‘I thought you might be expecting me.’

  ‘But you’re always welcome, chéri, you know that,’ Consuela said turning away. ‘You’ve met Rosalind Carmichael?’

  Letting the towel drop Rosalind got to her feet. ‘Hello, Jake,’ she said. ‘We met a couple of years ago, in Los Angeles I think it was.’

  Jake clearly didn’t remember but said. ‘It’s good to meet you again, Rosalind.’ His eyes stayed on her face, but there was something about the way he was looking at her that was making her almost feel her palms, her face, her breasts pressed up against a wall while he did things to her from behind that turned her knees weak just to think of them.

  ‘If you’ll excuse us, Rosalind,’ he said turning to Consuela.

  Consuela smiled, and as she and Jake turned towards the house Rosalind was again impressed by Consuela’s remarkable composure when she surely must hate and fear that man beyond anything else in her life.

  5

  ‘HOLD IT! HOLD it, Jean-Claude.’ Sarah cried, putting up her hands to stop him. ‘Did I just hear you say that Erik Svensson, Erik Svensson, the internationally renowned photographer, the drop dead gorgeous, be-still-my-galloping-heart, Erik Svensson, is a friend of yours?’

  ‘’e is a very good friend, oui,’ Jean-Claude grinned. ‘We ’ave known each other since maybe ten or fifteen years.’

  Sarah turned to Louisa. ‘Did you hear that?’ she said. ‘He actually knows Erik Svensson.’

  ‘He knows everyone,’ Louisa said, laughing at Sarah’s incredulous delight and thanking Didier as he passed the bottle of Aligoté across the table for her to help herself.

  They were sitting on the terrace over at Jean-Claude’s where the view of the red-roofed village way down at the bottom of the hill and the swelling peaks of the Alps in the far distance was so beautiful it was hard to believe it was real. Didier was barbecuing lamb chops and sausages while Jean-Claude laughingly impressed them with all the famous people he knew. Occasionally he winked at Louisa, letting her know when he was spinning a yarn, but it seemed that in this instance he really did know Erik Svensson.

  ‘In fact,’ Didier said, forking more sausages onto a plate. ‘’e is coming here this summer, is ’e not, Jean-Claude?’

  Sarah looked at Jean-Claude as though she might devour him she was so dying for him to confirm it.

  ‘Yes, ’e will be ’ere,’ Jean-Claude told her solemnly. ‘But maybe ’e bring ’is wife, I don’t know.’

  ‘Who cares about his wife?’ Sarah cried. ‘It’s his talent I’m after. Do you think he’ll give me some pointers?’

  ‘Some advice,’ Louisa provided when Jean-Claude frowned.

  ‘Oh, I am sure ’e will. ’e is very ’elpful to those who are beginning. Didier, I think we have enough sausage now. Why don’t you sit down and ’ave something to eat yourself?’

  ‘So when’s he arriving?’ Sarah asked as Didier slid onto the bench beside her.

  ‘Who Erik? Soon I think. ’e ’as an apartment in Monaco, but ’e will stop ’ere for a day or two ’e says. Don’t worry, I will be sure to introduce you.’

  ‘Perhaps we can invite you all over to our place for aperitifs, or dinner,’ Louisa suggested. ‘Sarah can cook.’

  Throwing her a meaningful look Sarah turned to Didier who was quite a keen photographer himself and as they became involved in a somewhat stilted conversation given their appalling grasp of each other’s language, Jean-Claude turned to Louisa.

  ‘Have you done much writing these past few days?’ he asked.

  ‘A little,’ she answered, helping herself to another lamb chop and some potato salad.

  ‘How much is a little?’

  ‘None actually. We’ve been sunbathing.’

  ‘That I can see,’ he laughed, looking at Sarah’s pink shoulders. ‘Will she go brown? She is very fair.’

  ‘Yes, she’ll go brown, a kind of honey colour, or so she tells me. Danny looks absolutely gorgeous, but then she already had a tan from when she was in Spain.’

  ‘Where is she tonight?’

  ‘She said she was going into Cannes, but Danny’s plans often change at the last minute, so we’ll see. I hope you’re not upset that she didn’t come.’

  ‘Not at all. She is looking for adventure and she knows she won’t find it ’ere, not with Didier and me.’

  Louisa sighed and leaned back against the window sill behind her. ‘It’s so lovely here,’ she said, ‘so rustic and natural. It’s almost as if we were in another part of France altogether it’s so different from our garden.’

  ‘That is what is so special about here,’ Jean-Claude answered, ‘very little is as you expect it to be.’ He paused a moment to let that sink in, then continued. ‘Didier does the garden,’ he said, ‘but only when ’e feels like it, which is why we are so overgrown. ’e claims it is because ’e wants us to be private and I p
retend to believe ’im.’

  Louisa chuckled and reached out for her wine. ‘Did I tell you we’ve been considering setting up a production company down here?’ she said.

  ‘Sarah mentioned it to Didier this afternoon. I don’t wish you to think me pessimistic, but it is very ’ard and very complicated to start a business in France. Not to mention expensive. Do you ’ave any contacts to ’elp you get started?’

  ‘Not one,’ Louisa answered cheerfully.

  ‘Maybe I will ’ave some, I will think about it. ’ow did you get on by the way with ringing up your friends in London? Did they know any people down ’ere who you can meet?’

  ‘Only more English people. Except Danny’s jazz musician friend, Ricard, he’s put us in touch with a woman who lives on the Cap d’Antibes. Consuela something-or-another. She called us yesterday afternoon to invite us to dinner tomorrow night. We’re going, but only because Danny couldn’t think of an excuse not to.’

  ‘Why does Danny not wish to go?’

  ‘To quote Danny, “more fucking women”.’

  ‘I see. What with gay men and fucking women, Danny is not ’aving a ’appy time, is she?’

  ‘Not really, no,’ Louisa laughed.

  ‘But maybe there will be men at this dinner?’ Jean-Claude suggested.

  ‘I don’t think there will be, actually,’ Louisa said frowning. ‘I can’t remember now exactly what Danny said, but she made it sound like it was an all female thing. Did you get that impression, Sarah? That tomorrow night was all women?’

  Sarah nodded. ‘Sounds a barrel of laughs, wouldn’t you say? Us three hanging out with the lace handkerchief, humming hearing-aid set.’

  Didier, Louisa suddenly noticed, was looking at Jean-Claude. She turned to see why and saw that Jean-Claude was frowning.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ she said.

  ‘No, nothing is the matter,’ he answered.

  ‘Do you know this Consuela woman or something?’ Sarah asked, curiously.

  ‘No, I don’t know ’er, but if she is the woman I am thinking of then I ’ave ’eard about ’er. Didier, ’e knows some of the people who work for ’er.’

  ‘Who work for her? Why, what does she do?’

  ‘I think nothing. She is very rich. She lives alone in ’er ’ouse on the Cap and doesn’t go out very often. But she ’as a lot of people who go to visit ’er. We ’ave ’eard stories of what ’appens there, but we don’t know if they are true.’

  ‘Really?’ Sarah said, her eyes glittering with intrigue. ‘What kind of stories?’

  Jean-Claude’s grin was mischievous. ‘I think maybe I should not tell you,’ he said. ‘I think that maybe you should come back and tell me if they are true.’ He translated this for Didier and Didier laughed.

  ‘Yes, you tell us,’ Didier said, his boyish face flushing ‘We want all detail, yes, Jean-Claude.’

  ‘Oh come on! This isn’t fair,’ Sarah cried. ‘Just give us a hint of what to expect.’

  ‘What we ’ave ’eard is only rumour,’ Jean-Claude said. ‘Some of it is good, some of it is bad. Maybe she is not a woman you should become involved with, but only, I think, because of the people she knows.’

  ‘What kind of people?’

  ‘Very dubious people. That is if the rumours are true. But maybe they aren’t.’

  ‘Just wait ’til we tell Danny this,’ Louisa laughed, ‘wild horses won’t keep her away now.’

  Didier said something to Jean-Claude in French and, laughing, Jean-Claude turned back to Louisa. ‘You say it is an all female evening?’ he said.

  ‘I think so,’ she nodded, looking at Sarah as Jean-Claude’s teasing eyes moved between them.

  ‘This is driving me nuts,’ Sarah declared. ‘Come on, Jean-Claude, you obviously know something we don’t.’

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you will find plenty of men there.’

  ‘Everyone who work for Consuela is man,’ Didier added.

  For the second time that evening Sarah looked extremely impressed. ‘You mean she lives on her own with her own private supply of men to pander to her whims. Wow! What a set-up! This woman I’ve got to meet.’

  ‘You are honoured,’ Jean-Claude told them. ‘I don’t think many people get to see the inside of Consuela Santini’s home. So,’ he grinned, ‘I shall look forward to ’earing all about it later in the ’ope that at least some of the rumours I ’ave ’eard are true.’

  ‘My God, will you just look at this place?’ Louisa murmured as Danny gently accelerated her open-topped BMW into the drive. ‘Are you sure we don’t have to pay to get in?’

  Danny and Sarah laughed.

  ‘It’s like something out of a Scott Fitzgerald novel,’ Sarah remarked, looking about her at the exquisite topiary, the gazebos, fountains, oriental pines, tropical palms and flowers that were so perfect and so vivid they hardly seemed real.

  ‘Did Jean-Claude say how she’d made her money?’ Danny asked.

  ‘No,’ Louisa answered, transfixed.

  ‘Wow, will you just look at that house,’ Sarah gasped as it came into view. ‘It makes our place seem like a hut. It’s a palace, it’s got to be, I’m telling you this is a palace.’

  ‘If it is then it’s a small one,’ Danny responded, feeling the sheer romance of the smooth white walls, the towering, arched french windows and the grand, immaculately carved columns wash over her.

  ‘What’s that building there, through the trees?’ Louisa said, pointing to the far side of the garden.

  ‘Looks like another house of some sort,’ Sarah answered. ‘Maybe it’s where the staff live.’

  ‘I’m glad we brought your car, Danny,’ Louisa said, ‘look at all these others. What’s that one there, the powder blue one?’

  ‘It’s a Ferrari,’ Danny answered, cruising slowly past it.

  ‘Where are you going to park?’ Sarah wondered aloud.

  ‘Is she serious?’ Danny said to Louisa. ‘I mean how much space do you want, Sarah? This forecourt’s got to be as big as a polo field. Anyway, if I’m not greatly mistaken I think someone else is about to take care of that. Hello,’ she said to the young man who was opening her door.

  ‘Hi,’ he said with a devastating smile. ‘I’m Carlos. Madame Santini is expecting you. If you would like to leave the keys in the car I will see that they reach you later.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Danny said, sounding every inch the lady as she stepped out of the car. ‘Maybe you’d like to return them to my friend here,’ she added indicating Louisa. ‘She’ll be driving us home.’

  Louisa smiled up at him, feeling faintly ridiculous just sitting there, but assuming she should wait for him to open the door for her too. He did.

  ‘Hi, I’m Sarah,’ Sarah said smiling up at him as he held out his hand to help her from the back of the car. ‘Oh God!’ she gasped as her foot caught in the seat belt and she fell against him. ‘Sorry. Gosh, I’m so sorry.’

  Carlos smiled, set her back on her feet and gave a slight bow as he directed them towards the house.

  ‘You did that on purpose,’ Danny hissed as they walked towards the house.

  ‘I did not!’ Sarah hissed back.

  ‘You’re going to show us up, I know you are,’ Danny seethed.

  ‘Don’t treat me like an idiot!’

  ‘Then don’t behave like one.’

  ‘Shut up arguing you two,’ Louisa said through her teeth, ‘and swear to me again that this dress isn’t too short.’

  ‘It’s only three inches above the knee!’ Danny cried. ‘And you look fantastic, how many times do we have to tell you?’ Which she did, particularly now that her olivey skin had turned even darker in the sun and the simple pale lemon linen dress, flat gold sandals and gold bangles on her wrists set it off to perfection.

  Sarah too looked lovely. Her skin, as she had predicted, was turning honey, her bobbed hair was even blonder after a week in the sun and though a lot of people her size wouldn’t have dared to wear such a rev
ealing dress, on Sarah it simply contrived to look sexy. Besides, she had good legs and provided she remembered to keep breathing in her figure – with a little imagination – was quite stunningly hour-glass.

  Danny was breathtaking in a silver, sheath dress that showed every curve of her tall, voluptuous figure. Her glorious curly black hair spilled down her back covering the bare skin, but tantalizingly revealing the very low cut of the dress as she moved. She wore black spiked heel sandals making her beautiful, bronzed legs seem even longer and even more perfect than they already were. But even she, usually so confident in her looks, felt faintly diminished by the quiet elegance and sophistication of the woman in the plain, knee-length black dress with a black velvet bow holding back her lovely blonde hair, who was coming to greet them.

  ‘Hello,’ Consuela smiled, moving gracefully down the steps. ‘I’m so glad you could come. Now let me guess, which one of you is Danny?’

  ‘It’s me,’ Danny said, holding out her hand. ‘And this is Louisa, and this is Sarah.’

  ‘Hello,’ Consuela said, taking each of their hands in turn. ‘As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I’m Consuela. Now, won’t you come through to the terrace and take a little aperitif before dinner? My other guests have already arrived. We’re eight altogether. I hope we won’t seem too formal, but this house does rather impose it on one.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ Louisa said, as they followed Consuela up the steps and through the double front door into the entrance hall.

  ‘Have you lived here long?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘It’s been in my family for quite some time,’ Consuela answered. ‘But I’ve lived here permanently for about three years.’

  My God, it’s like an art gallery, Louisa was thinking to herself, as they walked through the capacious hall with its ornate sweeping staircase and innumerable framed portraits towards the sun-bleached doorway at the other end.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to take a look around later,’ Consuela offered, briefly turning back as she descended a set of steps midway across the hall.

  ‘Oh, we’d love tooooo–,’ Sarah cried, grabbing Louisa as her right foot skidded from under her on the polished marble. Louisa tried to catch her, but it was too late and as Sarah hit the floor Louisa was almost dragged down with her.