Hotel Pastis (20 page)

That evening, when they had eaten and dropped Ernest off at his hotel, Nicole and Simon sat at the kitchen table over a last glass of wine and the sheaf of notes that he’d made during the day. The list was long, expensive, and suddenly very daunting, and Simon’s initial excitement was tempered by a more realistic mood. There was a lot that could go wrong. The restoration was going to take all the money he had, and he’d have to borrow against his shares. Ernest was sacrificing his job. Getting out of the agency would be complicated, and if the hotel didn’t work, getting back in would be impossible. Ziegler, no doubt supported by Jordan, would make sure of that.

Nicole had been watching him as he frowned over his notes, his wine untouched, his cigar dead in the ashtray.

“You look like an advertising man again,” she said. “Tired and worried.”

Simon pushed his notes aside and relit his cigar. “It’s a mild attack of common sense,” he said. “It’ll pass. But there’s a hell of a lot to be done. And it’s a new job, a new country, a new life.” He watched a plume of smoke as it turned to a wreath around the light hanging over
the table. “I’m entitled to be nervous.” He reached out and stroked the side of her neck and smiled. “It’s my midlife crisis. All the best middle-aged executives have one.”

“You weren’t so middle-aged last night.” Nicole took his hand and bit the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb.

“You’re a shameless and insatiable woman.”

Nicole stuck out her tongue. “Yes, please.”

Ernest and Simon made their way past the two stewardesses and the deeply bronzed purser (“Far too much makeup,” Ernest whispered disapprovingly) and settled into their seats in front of the limp curtain that is the only visible benefit of flying club class between London and Marseille. It had been a better day, a beautiful day, in fact, and Ernest had been able to see the views from the
gendarmerie
for the first time. He had been speechless with delight for three minutes and hadn’t stopped talking since, planning the landscaping over lunch and becoming slightly tipsy with pink wine and excitement. His enthusiasm was contagious, and Simon was feeling more optimistic. It had been harder this time to say goodbye to Nicole. At her suggestion, he had left some clothes at her house. He already missed her.

Simon listened as Ernest delivered his thoughts on garden statuary: one good piece, maybe something quite saucy, among the cypress trees, with discreet floodlighting to pick up the contrast between weathered stone and vegetation. And what about a fountain?

“Fountains are nice, Ern,” said Simon. “Very nice. But we’ve got quite a way to go before we get to the fountains.” He shook his head at the stewardess who was offering plastic-shrouded dinners to those in the
terminal stages of hunger. “Fountains and trees and statues are easy. It’s finding the people.”

“Ah,” said Ernest. “I’ve been thinking about them.” He bent forward and fished in the bag under his seat for his Filofax. Everyone in the Shaw Group above the rank of messenger had a Filofax, but only Ernest had the ostrich-skin model, the gift of a grateful supplier of plants and flowers to the agency. “Let’s see.” Ernest unfolded his year-at-a-glance planners, one for the current year, one for the next. “Here we are in early November. Two months intensive at Berlitz brings us to mid-January, and what a frightful time in London that is, as we know. It would be no hardship to leave. Mrs. Gibbons, I can tell you, would be thrilled. She loathes the winter. Arthritis.”

“Well, we don’t want Mrs. Gibbons to suffer. So what you’re saying is that you’ll move over in January.”

“I shall closet myself with Nicole and that charming Mr. Blanc and make sure everything gets done.” He pursed his lips and peered at Simon over the top of the half-glasses he wore for reading. “Properly done. You know me. I can be a martinet when I have to be.”

Simon smiled, remembering the last time Ernest had displayed his talents for organisation, during the move of three hundred staff into new offices. He had been merciless with everyone from the architect downwards. The office manager had resigned because of what he called inhuman hours, and it was the only time Simon had ever seen a building contractor in genuine hysterics. And the move had been accomplished on schedule. If Ernest was on the spot, the hotel would open in the summer.

“That takes care of one of us,” said Simon. “Getting me out is going to be a bit more difficult.”

Ernest patted him on the knee. “Don’t worry, dear. You’ll think of something. You always have before.”

“I’ve never left before.”

“Something tells me it will be easier than you think. You know what most of them are like, particularly our friend in the self-supporting suits.” Simon nodded. Jordan would be delighted. “They’ll all move up one. Isn’t that what they want? There may be a few crocodile tears, and then they’ll start arguing about who gets your cars. You mark my words.”

Ernest sniffed and returned to his Filofax, and Simon spent the rest of the flight considering the strategy for his departure from the agency. He was under no illusions; once he’d gone, every penny due to him would be resented and disputed. He’d be a nonproductive drain on resources, and he’d heard a dozen stories about the legal acrobatics performed by agencies in order to minimise payments to departed directors. Also, he was committing the cardinal sin in advertising of willingly leaving the business, which was something you were supposed to talk about rather than do.

For all Ernest’s optimism, it wasn’t going to be that easy. And for the sake of the business, it couldn’t be done with any public disagreement that might make clients nervous. The whole thing would somehow have to be presented as a positive step in the planned development of one of Europe’s largest advertising networks. Good. He was already thinking like a press release. Simon made a list of the people he’d have to take to lunch. It was time to start up the bullshit machine.

“I
t’s Simon Shaw. Put me through to Mr. Ziegler, would you?”

Simon looked out of his office window. The sky was turning dark at the end of a brief grey afternoon. London was already showing signs of Christmas, even though it was a month away, and the corner of Harrods he could see through the rain-streaked window was festooned with lights. It wouldn’t be long before the creative department embarked on its annual marathon of four-hour lunches and office parties, and the agency would slip gradually into hibernation until early January. In the past, Simon had taken advantage of the dead period to get some work done. This year, like everyone else, he was going to take a holiday—maybe quite an extended
holiday, he thought, as he heard a click at the other end of the line.

“Okay. What is it?” Ziegler’s voice was like a slap in the ear.

“How are you, Bob?”

“Busy.”

“Glad to hear you’re keeping out of mischief. Tell me, how are you fixed between Christmas and the beginning of January? Skiing in Vail? A cruise in the Caribbean? Pottery classes in New Mexico?”

“What the fuck is this about?”

“I’d like to have a meeting with you when there aren’t a thousand other things going on, and that’s a quiet time of year.”

“A meeting? What’s wrong with the goddamn phone?”

“It’s not the same as face to face, Bob. You know that. And what I have to say is personal.”

There was a pause. Ziegler’s curiosity was almost audible. “Personal” in his vocabulary meant only two things: a career move or a terminal illness.

“How are you feeling, Simon? Okay?”

“Afraid so, Bob. But we need to talk. How about December twenty-seventh? That’ll give you time to get out of your Santa Claus outfit.”

So it was a career move, Ziegler thought as he looked at his diary. “Sure. I can do the twenty-seventh. Where?”

“We’ll need to see someone else. Here would be best. I’ll book you into Claridges.”

“Tell them to turn the goddamn heating up.”

For the second time in a few days, Simon felt a sense of nervous exhilaration at having gone further down the road to a new life. He’d committed himself to the hotel, and now to Ziegler. Jordan, the third member of the
meeting, had better be kept in the dark for the time being. His capacity for discretion was limited, particularly in the bar at Annabel’s. Where would he be over Christmas? Killing small animals in Wiltshire, probably, unless he’d managed to get himself invited to Mustique. Simon made a note to find out, and returned to the press release he was drafting which would announce his departure from London.

He drew up a list of essential clichés: continuing close ties with the agency, vital co-ordinating role, global overview, expansion opportunities, highly effective management team—all the implausible claptrap that is traditional whenever a senior advertising executive and his agency part company.

He had decided to use Europe as his escape route. He could disappear in Europe, as many advertising men before him had done, under the guise of a roving trouble-shooter and acquisition hunter, constantly on the move for the greater glory of the group. That would explain the absence of an official fixed base. He would have to play down his association with the hotel, but that was a comfortable six months away. By then, the business would be talking about someone else. Advertising is not noted for the length of its attention span.

There was a tap on the door, and Simon slipped the draft release into a folder and looked up.

“Bonjour, jeune homme,”
said Ernest. “May I intrude?”

“Come in, Ern. How’s it going?” Ernest was in the first days of his Berlitz course and was taking the role of student to heart, wearing a long scarf and carrying a superior kind of school satchel made from chocolate brown suede.

“My dear, I’m limp with exhaustion. Four hours alone
with Miss Dunlap—or Mademoiselle Dunlap, as she prefers to be called—is completely draining. But my studies are making progress. I’m told that my musical ear helps.” Ernest unwrapped his neck and let his scarf hang down to his knees. “Apparently, my vowels are particularly good.”

“I’ve always admired your vowels, Ern.”

“According to Miss Dunlap, very few of us can pronounce the French
u
correctly.” Ernest perched on the arm of the couch. “Anyway, I didn’t come to bore you with tales of my school days. I’ve had an idea.”

Simon took a cigar from the box on the table and leaned back.

“You remember saying how important it was to have the mayor on our side when the hotel opens? Well, it occurred to me—just a
pensée
, but rather a good one, I thought—that we might give a Christmas party. The mayor and his lady wife, of course, that nice Monsieur Blanc, one or two of the locals. Nicole could advise us on the guest list. It would be a friendly gesture, a little
entente cordiale
, just to let them know what we’re up to. I suppose one could call it public relations.”

Simon nodded. It was sensible. It might even be fun. “Have you thought about where we could do it?”

“Where else, dear? The hotel itself. Our very first soirée.”

Simon thought of the bare stones, the holes in the wall, the mistral. “Ern, it’s going to be cold. It may be freezing. It’s a construction site, not a hotel.”

“Ah,” said Ernest, “you’re being a tiny bit unimaginative. And, if I may say so, terribly unromantic.”

“I can’t be romantic when I’m cold. I remember one of my honeymoons—Zermatt? Yes, Zermatt—what a bloody disaster that was.”

Ernest looked disapproving. “It was the temperature of the wife, I suspect, rather than the weather.” He dismissed her with a sniff. “Anyway, you won’t be cold, I promise you. We’ll have shutters up at the windows by then. The festive log will be roaring in the chimney. There’ll be braziers of glowing coals
partout
, the flicker of candlelight on stone, plenty to eat and far too much to drink—it will all be tremendously cosy. And another thing—”

Simon held up both hands in surrender. “Ernest?”

“Yes?”

“It’s a wonderful idea.”

Later that evening, when the last meeting of the day had ended and the whistling of the office cleaners had replaced the sound of ringing phones, Simon called Nicole. Ernest had already spoken to her.

“What do you think?” Simon asked.

“Well, the village is talking already. The
notaire
’s secretary told the baker, the baker told the mayor’s wife—everybody knows there is a new
proprietaire
. It would be good for you to meet them and tell them what you’re doing. Ernest is right.”

“Who should we invite? Everybody? There’s always a problem with these things—you miss a couple of people out, and they get upset.”

Nicole laughed. “
Chéri
, some will be against you whatever you do.”

“The villagers?”

“No, I think not them. You’re bringing work into the village, work and money. No, it’s the others—the ones who think they discovered Provence, you know? Parisians, British … some of them want nothing to change.”

Simon thought for a moment. It was probably true. He didn’t know much about Parisians, but he could remember, from the time he’d worked as a waiter in Nice, the attitude of some of the long-established British expatriates who would come to the restaurant from time to time: patronising, often arrogant, complaining about the prices and the tourists, conveniently forgetting that they had once been tourists themselves. And, he also remembered, distinguished by the smallness of their tips. The French waiters had competed to avoid serving them.

“Well,” he said, “let’s invite them anyway. All we can do is try. Do you know these people?”

“Of course. In a village of this size, one knows everybody. I’ll tell you about them when you come next week.”

“What can I bring you?”

“More old shirts. I wear your shirts to sleep in.”

Simon smiled. That was a vision to sustain him through the days of tedium laid out in segments in his diary like an obstacle course between London and Provence.

Nicole put down the phone and went back to the pile of plans and estimates that Blanc had delivered that afternoon. He had suggested starting with the completion of the swimming pool before moving into the building, so that landscaping could be done in the early spring. It was logical, although Simon would be disappointed that the interior would be as unfinished as ever by Christmas. Still, Ernest had been full of ideas to dress it up for the party. What a close couple they were, she thought. It would be easy to feel jealous. Yes, easy and stupid. Look what had happened to the other women in Simon’s life.