Anything Considered (3 page)

Sod it. He’d think of something. He always had before. He pushed the envelope away and went over to the bar.

“Léon? I’d like a glass of champagne. But a good one. Not that vinegar you were selling on New Year’s Eve.” He slid a hundred-franc note across the zinc.

Léon’s amiable expression didn’t change. “It was cheap.”

“My friend, it was terrible.”

“Of
course
for ten francs a glass it was terrible.” Léon held up a finger. “I will find you a treasure.” He went through a door behind the bar, and reappeared cradling a bottle with exaggerated care, which he held out for Bennett’s approval. “
Voilà
. The 1988 of Perrier-Jouet.” He set the bottle down and undressed the neck. “Are you celebrating?”

Bennett watched him twist the cork until it came out
with a muffled sigh, and he savored the familiar flicker of hopeful well-being that champagne always gave him. “I’m about to have a good idea.”

Léon, nodding, filled the tall, narrow glass. Bennett listened to the delicate hiss of the wine, bent his head to inhale its toasty bouquet. The old peasants in the back turned to look at this new example of foreign extravagance, shook their heads in disapproval, and returned to their cards and the tumblers of
rosé
they would nurse throughout the morning.

Bennett felt the cool rush of bubbles on his tongue, then turned to the section of his newspaper marked “International Classified,” where tax havens and business opportunities were advertised next to services of a more personal nature. On the left side of the page, a worldwide exclusive marriage agency offered—“for responsible people”—introductions to elite industrialists with alpha personalities. Over on the right of the page, just in case things didn’t work out, was a number to call if you wanted a fast divorce for $495. As he looked through the selection of tax-free cars, apartments of
grand luxe
in Paris, and escort agencies everywhere from Mayfair to Wiesbaden, Bennett did indeed have an idea.

Why wait for something to happen, hoping that fate would be kind to him? He would take the initiative and make his own luck. He would advertise himself.

After a little rewriting and editing, and a second inspirational glass of champagne, he sat back and reviewed his efforts:

In the afternoon, he would call the
Herald Tribune
and place the ad. The season was about to start. There were bound to be dozens of replies. His blood quickened with a sense of impending adventure, and his appetite bloomed. Bennett turned his attention to Anne-Marie’s cooking.

“THESE won’t do for another summer,” said Georgette, holding up Bennett’s last remaining pair of white cotton trousers. “They are exhausted.
Fini.
”

“They look fine to me, Georgette. Worn in. I like old clothes.”

“
Non
. They have suffered. These I have scrubbed too many times. Wine, soup, sauce—every time you eat, you make a catastrophe. Don’t the English ever use napkins?” She shook her head, tossing the retired trousers onto a pile of shirts and shorts that had failed to meet her sartorial standards. Later, they would be taken to the mission of the
Pénitents Blancs
for distribution to the poor.

“Georgette, it is impossible to eat
écrevisses
with your clothes on without some trivial accident. Unfortunately, even in France, one is not permitted to dine naked.”

Georgette shuddered. “
Quelle horreur
. Imagine Papin. Or Madame Joux.”

“There’s no need to bring personalities into it, Georgette.”

“
D’accord
. The trousers go.”

Bennett sighed. It was true that he was prone to the occasional mishap at the table. It was also true that the white trousers seldom survived a meal unsoiled; indeed, in the enthusiasm of the moment, they very often didn’t make it through the first course. But in his current circumstances, more clothes were out of the question. He made a last plea for the trousers. They had a sentimental value, having been bought for him in Saint-Tropez by one of the girlfriends he still remembered fondly. Surely they could survive for one final summer.

Georgette leaned toward him and poked his chest repeatedly with an iron finger. “
Non, non, et non
. Would you walk around in rags and disgrace me in front of the village? Eh?”

Bennett had endured one of Georgette’s sulks before, over the matter of the ancient tweed jacket that he had insisted on keeping against her wishes. She had punished him with a week of silence and had deliberately overstarched his underwear. He wasn’t prepared to repeat the experience.

“Very well, Georgette. I shall have my chauffeur drive me up to Paris next week and buy a complete summer wardrobe. From Charvet.”

“No doubt,” she said. “And I shall win the Tour de France.” Scooping up the pile from the floor, she disappeared, cackling in triumph, to the kitchen.

Bennett looked at his watch and saw that it was eleven o’clock. The post should have arrived by now, and replies were due. His advertisement had run more than two weeks
ago, and he had spent the period since then mostly with a client from Zurich, who had finally decided that his idea of rural bliss was not Provence but an apartment in Geneva. As Georgette cranked the radio up to working level in the kitchen, Bennett let himself out and made his way down the street toward what he hoped would be a sackful of replies and a glittering future.

Monsieur Papin peered at him through the window of the
guichet
, nodded good morning, and retrieved a newspaper and a large brown envelope from a cubbyhole behind him. He surrendered the newspaper, weighed the envelope in his hand. “An important packet,” he said, “from Paris.”

“Ah bon
,
”
said Bennett.

“Seven francs fifty to pay, for insufficient postage. Or if you wish, I can send it back.”

This was known in the village as Papin’s
pourboire
, the little extra he added on when he thought the market would bear it. Three francs here, five francs there—it came to enough to buy himself a few good bottles at Christmas. Bennett handed over the seven francs fifty and asked for a receipt. Papin, scowling, said he would eventually prepare one. The two men parted in an atmosphere of chilly politeness. Bennett rarely disliked anyone, but for Papin he could make an exception.

The café was quiet, the only sounds coming from the wheeze of the refrigerator and the slap of cards from the table in the back. The old men turned their heads in unison as Bennett came in. He nodded. The heads
turned back. Bennett took his glass of
rosé
and settled at a window table. The envelope felt bulky and promising, and before opening it and tipping out the contents, he offered up a silent toast to the patron saint of impoverished Englishmen.

An invitation to invest a quarter of a million francs in Pizza Sympa, the fastest-growing chain on the Côte d’Azur, was the first to be put to one side as a nonstarter. It was followed by a letter, written in lavender ink, from a man in Neuilly in search of a younger companion to share nature pursuits. An escort agency in Cannes promised substantial remuneration for gentlemen of taste and breeding, and requested a nude photograph for their files. Bennett thought of giving this to Papin.

Here was a job he could at least do with his clothes on. A Saudi prince needed a chauffeur-interpreter for the summer—based on Cap Ferrat, choice of three Mercedes, free lodging, uniform allowance, references essential. That might do, Bennett thought, if only he could manage the references. Georgette? Léon? His septic tank clients? He still had a small supply of crested House of Lords writing paper, left behind by an earl who had rented one of the houses last summer. He could use that and write his own reference. The princely letter went to start a pile of possibles.

But the pile failed to grow, as Bennett sifted through the next batch of replies. He decided against becoming a Jehovah’s Witness, a tour guide, a part-time instructor at a language school, or a tout for a pleasure boat operator in
Antibes, memories of the boat business still being too fresh and painful. Finally, a single envelope—the envelope Bennett had saved until last—remained.

Of that rich, self-confident true blue favored by the English establishment, it made Bennett think of Smythson’s in Bond Street, where pinstriped men gather to brood over such arcane but vital details as blind embossing and deckled edges. He opened the envelope carefully and saw that it was lined with darker-blue tissue, a shade that matched precisely the brief printed heading at the top of the letter.

Bennett studied the bold, angular handwriting in deep-black ink. He held the paper up to the light and saw the edge of a watermark. Everything about the letter suggested taste and affluence, and Bennett was out of his chair and halfway to the bar to use the café phone when he realized that it was almost noon. Did people like Julian Poe sit down for lunch at twelve on the dot? Disturbing him at the table would be a bad start. Bennett dithered for a moment, then decided to take a chance.

The voice at the other end of the phone was French,
reserved and impersonal, a servant’s voice. Bennett asked for Monsieur Poe.

“De la part de qui?”

“Bennett. No, wait a minute. Say it’s Box Eighty-four, from the
Herald Tribune.
”

The line clicked to hold, and Bennett signaled Léon for another glass of wine. He felt unreasonably hopeful, sure that this would lead to something. Such is the effect that opulent writing paper can have on a man who has just lost his last pair of white trousers.

The line clicked again.

“This is all very clandestine. Shall I call you Box Eighty-four, or do you have a name?” The voice matched the writing paper—smooth and rich and assured. A toff’s voice. With the instinctive English habit of classifying people by their accents, Bennett placed Poe at the top end of the social order. Probably an Old Etonian, like that little turd Brynford-Smith.

“Yes. Sorry. It’s Bennett.”

“Well, Mr. Bennett, we should meet. I take it you’re not too far from Bonnieux?”

“Saint-Martin-le-Vieux, actually. About half an hour away.”

“Splendid. Why don’t you come over this evening, about six. If we don’t instantly loathe each other, we can dine together.”

Bennett took down the directions to Poe’s house, treated himself to lunch, and went back over the brief conversation. Poe had sounded pleasant and relaxed, and from
what he had described of his property, it seemed as though he owned the major part of a mountain above Bonnieux. Bennett wondered what the job was, and what would be appropriate dress for the interview.

He stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom, trying to gauge the effect he would have on a prospective employer. He was an inch under six feet, and lean, as bachelors with irregular eating habits often are. His face was long and tight-skinned, with sun wrinkles around the blue eyes and well-defined lines on either side of his mouth. His hair, straight and dark brown, was a little long, but it shone, Georgette having long ago convinced him of the benefits of Savon de Marseille on the scalp.

From the neck down, he was irreproachable. A pale-pink shirt, a navy-blue knitted silk tie, a blazer and gray flannels that Hayward had made for him in London long ago, when the money was coming in, and cordovan shoes from St. James’s. He had always bought the best clothes that he could afford, classic rather than fashionable, following the principle that a prosperous appearance was a business asset, particularly when business wasn’t going too well. Millionaires could afford to dress like their gardeners. Bennett didn’t have that luxury. In fact, he enjoyed the feeling of well-made, well-fitting clothes that seemed to improve with age.

He chose a silk handkerchief from the drawer, and was tucking it into the top pocket of his blazer when he felt a small obstruction. Smiling to himself, he pulled out a sachet of dried lavender. Georgette had developed the habit
of seasoning his clothes, and he was constantly finding sprigs of thyme and rosemary or small tablets of mimosa soap among his socks and underwear. The lavender sachets were new. He was grateful that she’d decided against garlic as the flavor of the month. With a final tweak of his pocket handkerchief, he left the house and headed for the Domaine des Rochers.

——

The D36 twists south from Bonnieux, becoming the D943 as it continues down through the Lubéron toward the flatter, less savage country around Lourmarin. It is a narrow corkscrew of a road, cut through rock, the perfect setting by night for the twentieth-century highwayman. Rumors of armed robberies had been circulating recently in village cafés, and the story was always the same. A car, seemingly broken down, blocks the road, with a lone figure standing beside it. The unsuspecting motorist stops to offer help. Friends of the lone figure then jump out from their hiding place in the bushes, often with guns. The helpful motorist is left with a ten-mile walk to civilization, while his car is being processed for resale in a backstreet Marseille garage.

But on a fine spring evening, with the sun still catching the high limestone peaks, the road offered some spectacular views, and Bennett was in the best of spirits as he slowed down to go through the iron gates that marked the entrance to Poe’s property. The coarse gravel track was
smooth and well maintained, curving to follow the contours of the land, always rising. Poe had apologized over the phone for its length, which was nearly ten miles, but had said that the destination was worth the drive.

And so it was. Bennett came around the final sweep of gravel, and stopped the car to look, astonished, at the view before him.