Hotel Pastis

by Peter Mayle

  Simon looked out of the window. The sun was catching the top of a group of olive trees, turning the leaves silver-green. Behind them, the Lubéron was softened by the heat haze, and the sound of someone diving into the pool hung for a second in the still evening air.

  “Liz, at the risk of giving Mr. Ziegler a heart attack, I’m going to stay here.”

  “Do you want me to tell him?”

  Simon sighed. “No, I’d better call him. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  He put the phone down and looked at his watch for the first time that day. Bloody Ziegler. He kicked off his shoes and called New York.

  Ziegler’s voice had a faint echo to it, and Simon could tell that he had switched his phone to the loudspeaker. He loved to pace up and down as he bellowed, a habit that Simon found intensely irritating.

  “Bob, tell me something. Is your secretary with you?”

  “Sure. She’s right here. Why?”

  “Are you still trying to screw her?”

  “Jesus.” There was a pause, and then a click as Ziegler turned off the loudspeaker and picked up the handset. His voice sounded much closer. “Is that your idea of a goddamn joke?”

  “Now I can hear you better. What’s the panic?”

  “A thirty million-dollar client is coming to London tomorrow, and you’re goofing off in France. Is that what you call running a business?”

  “I call it a holiday, Bob. Remember holidays?”

  “Fuck holidays. You better pack your bags.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. All he wants is dinner and a little stroking. Jordan can stroke him.”

  “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Thirty million dollars, and you can’t spare one day off from sitting on your butt. Jesus.”

  “You know as well as I do that the business is solid. There’s no need for a bloody circus every time a client stops off in London. I’m running an advertising agency, not an escort service.”

  “Let me tell you something. You’re not running shit from where you are.”

  “I’m not going, Bob.”

  “Then I am.”

  The line went dead, and Simon felt a sense of satisfaction. For years, he had followed the advertising man’s reflex to jump to attention whenever a client appeared, to go through the process that was so inaccurately described as “entertaining.” There was nothing entertaining about it. It was hard graft with a knife and fork and a pretence of interest. With one or two exceptions, the men Simon spent most of his life with bored him. Some of them, the corporate bullies who used their advertising budgets like offensive weapons, he despised. And they paid him. He was beginning to despise that too. Was he getting soft and tired, or was he growing up?

  He had dinner alone on the terrace with the ten-mile view, and enjoyed the idea of Ziegler stuck in the traffic on the way to JFK. Concorde to London, hold the man’s hand, Concorde back to New York. Another gallant victory for the agency/client relationship, another defeat for the digestion. Simon took his cigar and strolled back to his cottage. The air was still warm; the sky was clear and pricked with stars; the insistent, rustling chirrup of cigales came from the bushes. His last thought before falling asleep was looking forward to tomorrow.

  The days were long, but passed too quickly. Simon explored the villages, drove up to the bare white crest of Mont Ventoux, walked through the ruins of the Marquis de Sade’s château at Lacoste, dawdled in cafés. Every evening when he got back to the hotel there were messages from London, messages that seemed curiously unreal when he looked through them as he sat barefoot on his terrace. The contrast between the peace of his surroundings and the reports of trivial events in the agency, exaggerated into crises, was something he thought about more and more. Living versus business.

  It was time to be thinking about getting back. Duclos should have repaired the Porsche by now, although it was strange that he hadn’t called. Simon decided to go to Brassière the next morning, and maybe have lunch with the perfectly tanned cleavage after he’d picked up the car. He found the number that Nicole had written on a matchbook.

  “Nicole? It’s Simon Shaw.”

  “Ah, the disappearing Englishman. Where have you been?”

  “I’m sorry. I meant to call, but …”

  Nicole laughed. “That’s the Provençal disease—to do it demain. Maybe.”

  “I wondered if I could take you to lunch tomorrow. The garage has had the car for nearly a week. It should be ready.”

  “A week here is nothing, Simon. But yes to lunch, volontiers.”

  They arranged to meet at the café, and Simon spent a pleasant half-hour looking through the Gault-Millau Guide for a restaurant. He should have called Nicole before, but perhaps he needed to get London out of his system first. He caught himself shrugging again and smiled.

  He arrived in Brassière the next morning to find Duclos in the position he had first seen him, under a car. It looked suspiciously like the same car. Simon said good morning to the oily boots, and the body slid out on its trolley.

  “Ah, monsieur. C’est vous.”

  Duclos had some good news. The spare parts would be arriving next week—certain, garanti, pas de problème. He had meant to call, but …

  In London, Simon would have been furious, but here it didn’t seem to matter. It was a glorious day. He was having lunch with a pretty woman. He could send Ernest down for the car when it was ready. He was surprised at his philosophical attitude, that he was beginning to shrug mentally as well as physically. He thanked Duclos and walked up towards the café.

  The sun made a divided tunnel of the street that led off the square, half blinding light, half deep shade, and Simon was drawn again to the old gendarmerie. He went up the stairs. The second storey looked even bigger than the ground floor, a huge space, cleared and ready for the next stage of building. If anything, the extra height made the view even better: the vines, now turning scarlet and brown; a pine-covered hill with stone buildings visible among the trees, flat, backlit silhouettes against the sun; and, behind it all, the mountain. The air was so clear that Simon could see the outlines of the trees on the highest ridge, tiny but distinct. He heard laughter coming up from the terraces below him, and the sound of a tractor starting up. It was noon, the time when every good Provençal leaves the fields to go home to lunch.

  Nicole was sitting at an outside table when Simon got back to the café. She offered both cheeks to be kissed, and he was aware of her scent, fresh and spicy.

  “How does it go with your car? I hope you didn’t pay what he asked.”

  “He’s still waiting for the spare parts. It doesn’t matter. I’ll send someone down from London to pick it up.”

  Nicole rummaged in her bag for cigarettes. She was wearing a sleeveless linen dress the colour of putty that set off the even tan of her arms and bare legs. Simon regretted not having called her before.

  “So,” she said, “you have to go back?”

  “That’s what they tell me at the office.” Simon ordered drinks from the girl, who was studying Nicole’s clothes with undisguised interest. She smiled at Simon and swayed back into the café.

  “Pretty girl,” said Simon.

  “You’ve met the mother?” Nicole puffed out her cheeks and laughed.

  “You’ve an evil, jealous woman. Just because you haven’t got a moustache and can’t drive a tractor.”

  “Is that what you like?” Nicole looked at him through the smoke of her cigarette, and Simon felt the tug of attraction between them. No, he thought, what I like is opposite me.

  “I love women with moustaches,” he said. “I think it’s the way they tickle.”

  Nicole pulled a thick strand of hair across her face and held it under her nose. “C’est bon?”

  Simon nodded. “Fantastic. Can you eat like that?”

  He had chosen a restaurant outside Gordes, a converted farmhouse with tables set out in the courtyard and a chef whom the Gault-Millau Guide described as one of the stars of the f
uture. Their lunch was long and easy and they laughed often and drank a little too much wine. And then, over coffee, Nicole asked him how he felt about returning to London.

  Simon watched the smoke of his cigar curl up into the leaves of the plane tree that shaded them from the sun, and wondered what he’d be doing at lunchtime tomorrow. Perrier water, probably, and a client agonising over his market share.

  “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “The trouble is, I’ve seen it all before—the clients have the same old problems, the people I work with bore me.…” He stopped, and blew on the tip of his cigar until it glowed under its blue-grey layer of ash. “I suppose that’s it; I’m bored. I used to love it, and now I don’t.”

  “But still you do it.”

  “It’s this character defect I have. I like the money.” With a rueful smile, he looked at his watch and signalled for the bill. “I’m sorry. I’d better get going.”

  They sat in silence while he paid, and then he took from his wallet a card and passed it across the table. “Here’s my number in London. If you ever come over, let me know. Maybe we could have dinner.”

  Nicole paused as she was putting on her sunglasses, leaving them perched on the end of her nose while she looked at him. “I thought you always had dinner with clients.”

  “You could be a new business prospect.” Her eyebrows went up, and Simon grinned. “It’s what you say in advertising when you’re fishing.”

  He drove back to the hotel to collect his bags, and Nicole went home. They were both quite sure they would meet again.

  5

  Simon suddenly hated London. The flat, despite Ernest’s efforts with flowers and some paintings rescued from the house, was as cheerless and impersonal as a suite in a hotel. The long, dull prelude to the British winter had begun. The sky was a low grey ceiling, and people on the streets huddled against the drizzle and jousted with their umbrellas. There was not enough light. Provence was a bright, distant memory.

  The first day back in the office did nothing to lift Simon’s mood. Jordan had clearly loved his week as the lord of all he surveyed and was reluctant to let go, drifting into Simon’s office to offer advice on what he called matters of state. He was mounting his favourite hobbyhorse—the irresponsible attitude of the creative department in general and the creative director, David Fry, in particular—when Simon cut him off. “Let’s get on to that later, can we? I’d better start catching up on all this.” He picked up a pile of documents. “I’m supposed to have an intimate understanding of the condom market by Thursday.”

  Jordan smiled, exposing long, slightly yellow teeth. He’s beginning to look like one of his bloody horses, Simon thought.

  “Rather you than me, old boy,” Jordan said. “Always hated the wretched things. Like drinking claret through a straw.” He whinnied with laughter and strolled back to his office.

  The Condom Marketing Board, or the Rubber Barons, as they were unofficially known in the agency, had asked to see presentations for their five million-pound account. Simon knew that two other agencies were pitching, and he wanted the business. Although the billing wasn’t enormous, it would be worth having for the creative opportunities it offered. Sex and social responsibility—a copywriter’s dream assignment—could be the basis for some showy, provocative work that would be in dramatic contrast to the package-goods advertising that the agency produced for its major clients. And the City would be pleased to see another few million on the turnover. It would be, as Jordan had been heard to say, a rubber feather in the agency’s cap.

  Simon looked through the documents that would be incorporated into a single glossy volume for Thursday’s meeting, the paper crutch carefully designed to support the campaign idea, proof that the agency had done its homework. He weighed the inch-thick pile in his hands, sighed, and forced himself to concentrate.

  The days leading up to the presentation passed in a series of skirmishes between the various departments of the agency. The research people accused the creative people of ignoring their findings. The creative people sulked and complained about lack of time. The media people complained about lack of sufficient money for a national campaign. The executives complained about everybody else’s unreasonable and childish behaviour. The agency bitched and snarled its way towards Thursday, working late and muttering about pressure and brutal hours. It was always the same, Simon thought. Give them three days or six months, it didn’t matter. Panic was part of the game.

  The Rubber Barons were late. The presentation had been set for two-thirty. The receptionist had hidden her copy of Hello! magazine, the charts in the conference room had been checked for the twentieth time, secretaries briefed to look busy, the dartboard taken down from the art department bullpen, fresh rolls of paper installed in the conference room lavatory—the Shaw Group was ready, poised for another triumph, and the members of the presentation team gathered in Simon’s office, trying to look relaxed and quietly confident.

  And now it was nearly three o’clock. The bastards were late, and jittery speculation was rife. They’d been out to lunch with one of the other agencies. They’d given them the business and been celebrating. Bastards. All that work for nothing. The least they could do was call. Probably too pissed, too busy getting stuck into the third bottle of port.

  Simon’s office was thick with smoke and pessimism, and Liz wrinkled her nose as she put her head round the door. “They’re here. Seven of them. They brought one extra.”

  Shit. There were only six in the agency team, and it would never do to be one man short, to leave a client dangling at the end of the conference table all on his own. Clients got very touchy about little things like that, felt they weren’t getting enough respect.

  Simon looked around. “We need another body. Who’d be most useful?”

  A young man in a dark suit—a planner, solemn and safe—was suggested, elected, and summoned while Simon went out to the reception area.

  It resembled a small convention of attaché case salesmen: seven black, leather-look cases, seven sober suits, seven earnest faces. Simon adopted his most welcoming manner as he identified the senior Rubber Baron and shook him by the hand. “I’m so sorry to keep you. One of those interminable phone calls. How are you?”

  “I think we should be making the apologies, Mr. Shaw. One of those interminable lunches.” The Rubber Baron bared his teeth. His cheeks had a three-gin flush, and Simon wondered whether he’d last the course without falling asleep.

  He shepherded the group down the corridor, past secretaries bowed diligently over their keyboards, and into the sombre luxury of the main conference room, windowless, thickly carpeted, silent except for the ruffle of air conditioning. The agency team rose from their chairs around the large oval table as the herd of clients filed in. Names and titles were exchanged and promptly forgotten in a flurry of introductions, attaché cases snapped open in a brisk fusillade, notepads adjusted, orders taken for coffee and tea and mineral water. The senior Rubber Baron accepted a cigar, and Simon stood up to deliver the preliminary patter that he had delivered a thousand times before.

  “Let me start by saying how delighted we are to have the opportunity to make this presentation.” The senior Rubber Baron studied his cigar while his colleagues avoided any chance of eye contact by gazing intently at their blank notepads. “I think you already know, from the material we’ve sent you, that the agency has a consistent record of producing highly visible and effective work across a broad range of products and services. I must say, however, that your business has a special interest for all of us.”

  Simon paused and smiled at seven impassive faces. “After all,” he said, “it’s not often we get the chance to work on a product that is so close to every man’s heart.”

  Not a flicker from the impassive faces. This was going to be like digging a ditch with a teaspoon. The senior Rubber Baron seemed to be fascinated by the conference room ceiling, and the rest of them continued their communion with their notepads.
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  While Simon continued his efforts to inject some enthusiasm into his recitation of the agency’s specialised and perceptive methods of problem analysis, he was making an assessment of the degree of attention that was being paid to what he was saying. Years of experience had taught him to gauge the mood of his audience, and this one could have had anaesthetic for lunch. If they had to sit through an hour of research findings and media planning, they’d be so deeply tranquillised that someone would have to set fire to their trousers to wake them up. He decided to alter the prearranged order of the presentation.

  “Normally,” he said, “we’d take you through the research and the thinking that led us to our creative recommendations. But today we’re not going to do that.” The research director, a man who relished his spot in the limelight on these occasions, looked up from his notes with a frown. Simon saw his mouth begin to open and hurried on. “Today, we’re going to go straight into the campaign.” The creative director stopped doodling on his pad and sent agitated signals to Simon with his eyebrows.

  “We’re doing this for two reasons. First, so that you can see the campaign as the consumer will see it: no demographic breakdowns, no statistical analysis, no marketing forecasts; just the advertising. And the second reason—” Simon directed a look of enthusiastic sincerity at the senior Rubber Baron, who inclined his head graciously—“well, the second reason is that we believe this is one of the most appropriate and exciting campaigns this agency has ever produced. And frankly, we can’t wait to get your reaction to it.” Simon glanced round the table, and two or three heads rose briefly from their notepads. Thank God they hadn’t dropped off yet.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for questions after you’ve seen the work, and of course we’ve summarised the presentation in a document for you to take away.” Simon tapped the pile of bulky, spiral-bound tomes on the table in front of him and hoped that the creative director had had time to recover from his surprise. “So now, I’d like to ask David Fry, our creative director, to show you what we believe to be an extraordinarily powerful idea. David?”