Pink Champagne

by Anne Weale

  Nick looked amused. 'I'm sure there was never much risk that your resignation would be accepted. When I began asking around among the people I knew who knew about publishing, your name was always high on the list of the best people in it, Carolyn.' He looked at the sky.

  'The show's over. Shall we go down?'

  That night they had bowls of vegetable broth followed by cold cuts for supper. After serving the soup, Encarna went home to watch television. When the meal was over they all helped to clear the table and load the dishwasher.

  Then, for the second time, they sat round a fire of logs cut from old olive trees. Nick had a television which he said had been useful when he was perfecting his Spanish but which now he rarely watched.

  'Some of the foreigners here—Americans as well as Brits—have satellite dishes installed so that they can see US and UK programmes,' he said, handing round cups of coffee. 'But there's nowhere I could put a dish without spoiling the look of the building or the garden.'

  He was pouring out liqueurs for everyone but Rosie, who didn't want to get back to London and find that her weight was up several pounds, when Anna said suddenly, 'I've had a brainwave.'

  They all looked expectantly at her.

  'Do you remember, Rosie, how before A listral's Daughter was published a planeload of people was flown to Provence to have lunch with Judith Krantz? Another time a bunch of alesreps flew to Jersey for a champagne party at Jack Higgins' place. I think we should go one better... well, actually two better.'

  She paused and Rosie, with a premonitory inkling of what was in Anna's mind, felt her spirits sink.

  'If we can find a hotel with suitable facilities, we should start by holding the sales conference here on the Costa Blanca,' Anna announced. 'Then we should bring the wholesalers down and have a party for them at El Monasterio. You wouldn't mind that, would you, Nick?'

  Taking his assent for granted, she went on, 'Later, before publication, we'll charter a third plane to bring down a load of literary editors. With an author who lives in surroundings like these, it would be crazy not to cash in on them.'

  'You're right: it's a marvellous idea,' Carolyn agreed.

  Nick said, 'There are several suitable hotels. That's no problem. But I don't think Rosie shares your enthusiasm.'

  From the opposite side of the hearth his blue eyes met her troubled grey ones. 'Why not, Rosie?'

  She had a disturbing conviction that he already knew why not.

  CHAPTER SIX

  'ON THE contrary, I can't think of a better way to get the people who matter interested in and behind the book,' she replied.

  Which was true. In her professional capacity, she gave Anna's plan full marks. It was only the inner self, the once bruised and still vulnerable heart at the core of Rosalind Middleton, PR

  consultant, who had reservations and misgivings in so far as the proposal affected her.

  'Good. Then I think tomorrow morning, while you're working, Nick, Rosie and I should check out some possible venues for the conference,' said Anna. 'The conference for the spring list is held in November which, being out of season, means that it should be possible to get very favourable rates for a block booking. Would it be wise to order a taxi tonight? Would you like to come with us, Carolyn?'

  'You're the experts in that sphere. I'd sooner stay here and go through my notes on Crusade ready to start work with Nick when you two go back on Monday,' said his editor. Rosie's sense of humour, normally more in evidence than it had been so far this weekend, suddenly prompted her to make a suggestion which might jolt Nick a bit.

  'Why not go the whole hog and run a competition open to all female bookshop staff, the major prize being a weekend with Nick at El Monasterio,' she suggested. 'There've often been competitions for the best window display of a specific title. Don't you think a contest for saleswomen, the first prize going to the one who sells the highest number of copies of Crusade in the first two weeks after publication, would be more effective?'

  It was Carolyn who objected. 'It's a bit much to expect Nick to play host to some unknown female who may be a crashing bore,' she said.

  'Journalists never find anyone a bore,' Rosie told her. 'Everyone has something interesting about them. It's a matter of asking the right questions. Isn't it, Nick?' She gave him a bland smile.

  He smiled back at her. 'It's a good idea, but why confine it to saleswomen? Why not any bookshop staff, with the winner entitled to bring their partner or a friend? That way, if they find me a bore, they've got each other to talk to.'

  It was terribly hard not to like him, she thought, with unwilling admiration for his quick and good-humoured riposte. How many people of his standing would suggest, even in fun, that they might be boring to some? Not many. Very few of the VIPs with whom she had had dealings.

  She wondered if Nick's present attitude would survive being number one in the bestseller charts for months on end, for there was no doubt in her mind that that was where Crusade would be soon after its publication.

  Perhaps success wouldn't change him; he had, after all, been successful in two fields already. But bestsellerdom was different. Some writers began to believe their own publicity and become insufferably big-headed and arrogant.

  But maybe Marie-Laure Clermont would keep his feet on the ground in the way that Laure in the book kept the hero, Jake, from losing his sense of perspective. The next morning Anna and Rosie went to look over the state-owned parador at Javea and two ordinary hotels on the coast Nick had suggested.

  By the time they got back to the monastery he had finished his morning stint and joined Carolyn by the pool.

  'How did you get on?' she asked them, looking more than usually pleased with life. Rosie felt sure Nick must have been flirting with her. How could one like a man who exerted his charm on other women when his mistress wasn't around? she thought, vexed at the memory of warming to him the night before. In her book, a decent man was as faithful to his current amour as he should be to a wife. Men who saw the entire female sex as a kind of huge harem were anathema to her.

  When they arrived at the bar where they were having lunch it was full of local family groups, all of them including a grandparent or elderly relation as well as small children and babies. Rosie had already noticed that the old people in Spain were much shorter in stature than their descendants, which Nick said was because anyone over sixty had probably not had enough to eat as a child. The horrors and privations of the Civil War were still within living memory and Spain's poverty had been relieved only by the coming of tourism. A corner table for four was reserved for them and, as Nick led the way to it, he was hailed with unmistakable warmth by a number of locals, one old man in Sunday best actually grasping his arm with stubby fingers with soil under the nails and making what was clearly some ribald comment about Nick's having three women in tow.

  Carolyn and Anna, accustomed to eating in the best restaurants in London, looked rather taken aback by the simplicity of this establishment where the tables were covered with white paper, no side plates were provided and the cutlery was of some cheap dull metal. Rosie too was accustomed to lunching in plusher surroundings but, with her back to the wall and a good view of the crowded room, she found the scene extremely entertaining. Earthenware jugs of red and white wine were brought by a teenage boy, the youngest son of the proprietor, and his sister, also in her teens, brought a large dish of salad which Nick dressed with oil and vinegar from glass containers with a wooden stand.

  'The form is to leave the salad on the big plate while everyone digs in,' he said. 'But if you would like me to ask for salad plates I will.'

  'No, no...when in Rome,' said Carolyn brightly, spreading a small paper napkin over the lap of an expensive wool dress with a matching shawl thrown over one shoulder and secured by a dramatic brooch.

  Rosie had thought that for lunch in a village bar jeans and a sweater would be appropriate. But in fact Carolyn's outfit was more in keeping with the clothes worn by the local women, who were all got up
to the nines with their hair set and their nails varnished. After the salad came the large leg of lamb brought to the table by the proprietor himself—his wife could be glimpsed through a hatch between the dining area and the whitetiled kitchen—in a pan full of sizzling juices. He carved the leg for them, expertly slicing the succulent meat of an animal which had spent its short life grazing on mountain vegetation, including many herbs. Only that morning, on their way to the coast, Anna and Rosie had seen a herd of sheep and some goats being led across a main road cutting through olive groves by a pastor who, although not old, had the deeply weathered face of a man who spent all his life in the open minding his flock.

  Having grown up in a farming community, at one time Rosie hadn't questioned the morality of animals being reared for human consumption. But Sasha had always had scruples and Clare too was repelled by modern farming methods. Now they had an agreement not to buy for their own consumption any meat or poultry which had been factory-farmed. But Rosie could see no harm in eating a sheep which would not have existed at all if it had not been bred for the table and which, from what she had seen of the herd browsing contentedly on the weeds among the olives, led a natural life if a short one. The lamb was accompanied by a dish of mashed potatoes encrusted with roasted almonds, and the wine in the jugs—she chose the red—was a robust local plonk dry enough to complement the richness of the meat.

  'My God! The noise level in here! It must be well over a hundred decibels,' Anna exclaimed, raising her own voice to be heard above the babel of animated Valenciano being spoken at the surrounding tables.

  'Yes, Sunday is not the best day to eat out,' said Nick, his own deep, resonant timbre being one of the assets he had brought to the job of TV reporting. 'But if I had brought you here yesterday, when it would have been quieter, Encarna would have been offended. I could have asked her to change her day off, but I knew her family were coming to see her today.'

  That was considerate of him, thought Rosie. Some affluent bachelors of her acquaintance didn't give a thought to the convenience of the people who attended to their comfort. The bar did not offer a large selection of puddings. There was ice-cream and creme caramel or fresh fruit. They chose to finish the meal with oranges and coffee.

  'That was delicious but I must say it's rather a relief to get out of that hubbub,' said Anna to Rosie, as they walked back to the monastery, a short distance behind the other two. Having unlocked his front door, Nick said, 'If you wouldn't mind amusing yourself for a couple of hours, I have an errand to run. I'll be back by sundown. I've asked a few friends in for drinks. It's not often people around here get the chance to talk to three dashing career girls. It would be selfish to keep you to myself.'

  He didn't say where he was going but Rosie had little doubt that it was to visit Madame Clermont in the clinic at Benidorm.

  Nick's drinks guests were three couples: American, Swedish and a Canadian man with a Dutch wife. Although all the men were retired, they had led interesting lives and now had sufficient means to travel and enjoy life.

  Chatting to the American wife, Rosie couldn't resist asking, 'Do you know Madame Clermont who lives in the village?'

  'Marie-Laure? Oh, sure. She's a great gal. Too bad you won't get to meet her. She's in the clinic right now. She's due to come out on Wednesday, but you'll have gone by then. She has the prettiest house you ever saw. Tiny compared with this place, but to tell you the truth I'd rather have her little dolls' house than this great barn of Nick's. It's a show-place, I know, but too big for my taste. I don't know how Encarna keeps it as nice as she does. Most Spanish maids aren't all that efficient. They flick around with those funny little chamois mops, but I don't consider them thorough. My Amparo just hates using the vacuum cleaner. She'd rather sweep with a brush the way her grandmother did.'

  Nick came over and said, 'I hope you won't mind if I break up this tete-a-tete. Rosie hasn't met Steve and Joke yet.' He took her lightly by the elbow to lead her away.

  'Next time you're here you must come and see our place. It's been nice talking to you,' said the American woman, smiling and turning to join in her husband's conversation with Anna. Taking Rosie to another part of the room, Nick said, 'I hope I was right to break that up. She's a nice woman but inclined to dwell on matters domestic. She would rather live in the States but Chuck tells me it would cost twice as much to keep his boat there as it does here. He's mad about sailing.'

  The visitors stayed a couple of hours. Then, insisting that they relax by the fire, Nick went to organise what he called a scratch supper.

  'I'm going to give him a hand,' said Carolyn, a few minutes later.

  'I'm going to stay here and enjoy being waited on,' said Anna. 'John is a lot more capable than some men but even so I expect I'll find quite a bit of cleaning up to do when I get back tomorrow.'

  'I shan't find that, but I'm quite happy to be lazy and let them do the work,' said Rosie. They discussed the people they had just met.

  'I can't understand Americans wanting to live here when the United States offers such marvellous places to retire to,' said Anna.

  'You've worked there, haven't you?'

  'Yes...had a fabulous time. I'd be there now except that John's job isn't transferable. If it weren't for the American influence, English publishing would be the cottage industry it still was when I got my first job sixteen years ago.'

  Shop talk kept them chatting in comfortable idleness until the others returned with trays of rather more substantial tapas than they had before dinner on the night of their arrival. Carolyn had changed again for the drinks party and was looking very nice in silk jersey trousers and a knitted silk sweater with beads applied to the cable pattern down the front. Would she meet Nick's Marie-Laure? Rosie wondered. Or would he make a point of keeping it from the 'great gal' that his English editor was a young and attractive divorcee?

  The shop talk continued while they ate. Both Anna and Carolyn had a fund of amusing anecdotes about their experiences in the world of publishing with all its in-house rivalries, traumatic takeovers and on-going battle between the creative people and those whose primary concern was profit and loss.

  Rosie had heard most of the stories before and had some of her own to contribute. But much of the time she sat quietly listening, admiring the professional skill with which Nick was steering the conversation so that the funny stories were interspersed with more serious insights and the whole would, if videoed, have made a riveting chat-show. As she had told Carolyn the night before, they had both been trained to bring other people out of sometimes unpromising shells. But Nick had a special flair for it. The reason Carolyn herself was in such sparkling form tonight was largely because he was feeding her all the right cues, giving her, while she was talking, the whole of his attention. Tomorrow night they would be here on their own; an attractive amorous man and a pretty willing woman. The outcome seemed almost a foregone conclusion, unless Nick had the sense to see that a temporary liaison with his editor would be highly unwise. A serious involvement was another matter, but then it would be Marie-Laure he would have to ditch, and she might be deeply in love with him and not wish to be discarded.

  The telephone rang.

  'Excuse me.' Nick rose and crossed the room to answer it. 'Digame.' A pause. 'Yes, she's here. Hold on a moment. It's for you, Carolyn... your brother.' He waited for her to come and take the receiver.

  Guessing that her brother would not have telephoned her in Spain unless something untoward had happened, the others did not resume their conversation but watched Carolyn's expression becoming more and more worried as she listened to what her brother was saying.

  'I shall have to make some enquiries. I'll ring you back. No, you'd better ring me again in about half an hour.'

  She returned to the fireside, her face, so happy and animated a few minutes ago, now deeply worried.

  'My father has been taken ill... a serious heart attack. I must get back as soon as possible. My mother needs me. She's not well herself and my broth
er can't go to her. He's due to fly to America early tomorrow and if he doesn't go it may jeopardise his job. How soon can I get back, Nick:?'

  'Not tonight, that's for sure. There may be a seat on a scheduled flight from Valencia or Alicante tomorrow morning. I'll find out.'

  He strode away to his study.

  'Have you no other relations or friends who can support your mother until you get back?'

  Rosie asked sympathetically.

  'She does have a neighbour with her, bill it's not the same,' said Carolyn. 'She and Dad were both only children so we don't have a lot of relations and Mother and my sister-in-law don't get on too well. Even if they did, Louise couldn't go to her. She has two-year-old twins to look after and she and Bob live in the North. My parents have retired to Dorset.' Looking ready to burst into tears, she wailed, 'Oh, why did this have to happen now... of all times?'

  It was about twenty minutes before Nick returned, the line of his dark eyebrows indicating that he had nothing good to report.

  'It looks as if the first flight you're likely to get on is the one the others are going back on. I'll make some more enquiries first thing in the morning but it doesn't look hopeful.'

  During his absence it had become clear to Anna and Rosie that what Carolyn minded most was having her visit to Spain curtailed before there had been time to work on the book with Nick. Apparently she did not have the loving relationship with her parents that Rosie enjoyed and since her divorce, of which they had disapproved, had seen them only infrequently.

  'Why not call your brother? Tell him you'll be there tomorrow evening and start going through your notes with Nick now. You're not going to sleep with this on your mind. I'm sure Nick won't mind burning some midnight oil,' Anna suggested.

  He, not realising that it wasn't anxiety about her parents which was the chief weight on Carolyn's mind, said, 'Good lord, Anna, you can't expect Carolyn to put her mind to the book in these upsetting circumstances.' He patted Carolyn's shoulder. 'If you like I'll have a word with your brother and explain the situation. Then you can speak to your mother and tell her you'll definitely be with her tomorrow although you can't say what time.'