Jacquot and the Waterman (47 page)

Pulling off the shoulder bag, he lay on his back and looked up at the darkening sky through the lacy branches of the pines, waiting for the thumping in his chest to settle. The smell of resin was strong after the heat of the sun and the earth was warm on his back and legs, the needles tickling his elbows, thighs and calves with tiny pinpricks. He turned over onto his stomach and slithered up the bank- that concealed him from the house, finding as comfortable a position as he could amongst the elbowing tree roots.

Loosening the tie-top of his shoulder bag, Sardé felt inside for the binoculars, pulled them out and trained them on the distant terrace. He worked the focus and a blur of shapes and colours suddenly cleared and steadied - the diving board, the loungers, a wine bucket and glass.

Then, away to the right, came the cut-crystal glitter of a laugh. And then another.

Sardé moved the binoculars and saw the two of them come out of the house, stepping through a set of terrace doors, Madame de Cotigny first, wrapped in a silk gown, barefoot, the woman behind her draping a sweater over her shoulders. The lady of the house turned, slid an arm round her companion s waist and drew her forward, letting her lips graze her cheek, whispering into the woman's ear. Another peal of laughter.

Thanks to the binoculars, Sardé could have been standing right there, next to them, close enough to run his fingers over their breasts. If he'd got there an hour earlier, he reckoned, he'd have seen more than he'd bargained for. He was certain of it. A couple of dykes, he thought hungrily. He'd have liked watching that. But it was too late now, since the younger woman was clearly leaving. She picked up her bag from one of the loungers, let Madame take her hand and the two of them, weaving their arms together, stepped back into the house through the terrace doors and disappeared.

In their absence Sardé scanned each window with his glasses. Not a light. Not a movement. Not a sound. Not that he was expecting any. There'd hardly be anyone else around, he reasoned, with the lady of the house entertaining like that.

From the front of the house, Sardé heard the cranking of an engine starting up, a rasp of gravel and a tinny beep-beep. He swung the glasses back to the terrace and pool. A few moments later, Madame de Cotigny reappeared, stepping into the overlapping circles of his binoculars, tantalisingly close. She came around the pool to the side nearest to him, turned her back and slid off the wrap. His breath caught and he dropped the glasses to take in her arse. But he wasn't quick enough. She'd dived in and the image was gone, just the tiles and lapping water.

Sardé took the binoculars from his eyes and wiped the sweat away.

Camera or knife? Camera or knife? Was this the night he made his move?

He could feel himself pressing uncomfortably against the material of his shorts. Jesus, what a boner. He pushed a hand under the waistband and tried to rearrange himself. More comfortable now, he brought the binoculars back to his eyes in time to see Madame de Cotigny haul herself from the pool, standing at its edge to wring out her hair, water spilling clown her body, the last of the sun licking out a cube of gold across her breasts.

Not bothering with the wrap, she strolled towards him, to one of the loungers, and picked up a pack of cigarettes from its seat, tipped one out and lit it.

She smoked. Sardé hadn't known that.

He gritted his teeth. He wouldn't be able to kiss her now, the bitch. The inside of her mouth, her tongue, all sour and acrid. But there were other places where the taste would still be sweet. And thinking of that, Sardé decided against the camera. Pulling himself into a crouch, he pushed the binoculars into the top of his bag and made his way forward, calculating the distance between them, still not certain what form of approach to make, how to play it.

That would come to him, he knew. The way to play it.

And if things went wrong, there was always the knife.

Suzie de Cotigny watched the beat-up Renault turn out of the drive. A long brown arm snaked up through the sunroof and waved, a farewell beep-beep from the horn, and the next moment the car was gone. Suzie listened as the Renault's engine faded into the silent evening streets of Roucas Blanc, then turned and made her way back to the terrace.

It had been, she supposed, a good afternoon. Certainly everything had gone according to plan. But there'd been something missing, something absent in the encounter, which she hadn't anticipated.

Usually Suzie arranged her solo assignments for the apartment on Paradis but, having Roucas Blanc to herself, she'd told the girl from the gym - Berthe was her name - to come out to the house. It was the first time Suzie had invited someone to visit without Hubert being there to join in, and the idea appealed to her. In his absence, there would be something illicit about the encounter which might add to the thrill, and it would be fun to show the place off. For the de Cotigny residence was certainly something to see. Suzie had worked hard on it: cajoling Hubert's approval as she tore out this and that, persuading him gently for the smaller changes, imploring for the larger, bigger, more ambitious takes, until the makeover was complete. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the tessellated entrance hall, the lofty, panelled salons, the dark Edwardian style of the house modernised, minimalised. Americanised.

Berthe, as expected, had been entranced, twirling around the grand hallway like a ballet dancer, opening all the cupboards in the kitchen, and exclaiming at the salon with its Warhol silk-screens, its cool, designer shades and plump Neime upholsteries. But then, how could she not have been entranced, the little
g
itana
who probably lived in a walk-up in Belsunce or some such place?

Yet none of it had quite . . . worked, or not as Suzie had hoped. The girl from Belsunce - or wherever - might have been in heaven, but Suzie had soon tired of her companion s ooh-la-la-ing enthusiasm. This, she realised, as she lay back on the bed and let her thighs be opened, was not what she wanted. Not this house. Not this life. And certainly not this pert-breasted gypsy whose hands searched her out, too young, too keen to give anything but the most rudimentary, amateurish pleasures. Even though, Suzie conceded, there was a satisfaction of sorts to be had from it.

Coming through the trees at the side of the house, she stepped out onto the terrace. The pool lights were off and, in the evening shade, the water lay greasily still, sucking softly at the overflows. She slipped the wrap from her shoulders, took a deep breath and dived into the water, pulling herself the length of the pool, through its warm thickness, before surfacing in a wash of water that slapped against the edge of the pool and flooded across the flagstones. Flipping onto her back she set her toes against the tiles, bent her knees and pushed away, paddling her feet gently, thigh rubbing smoothly against thigh, water sluicing past her cheeks, bubbling across her lips and streaming down the length of her body. Above her the sky was darkening fast, a few early stars twinkling down and a scent of rain in the air.

Three more hours, maybe. Ten-thirty. Eleven. She had until then, on her own, before Hubert was back.

He'd called while she and Berthe were playing in the bedroom, leaving a message on the answerphone in the salon downstairs. She'd only picked up the guest-room extension when she recognised his voice, not wanting her companion to be privy to anything personal. He still hadn't got to his mother's, he told her. The traffic was
affreuse.
He . . .

On the other end of the line, she heard a car horn sound angrily. She guessed it was aimed at Hubert - not realising the traffic lights had changed, or getting himself in the wrong lane, or stalling the engine, or not using his indicators. Hubert and cars did not go well together.

Suzie was sure she was right; he sounded flustered when he came back on the line. She listened a moment, then told him that she had a headache, had fallen asleep in the sun and felt dreadful - shushing her companion who'd started to giggle again, instead of concentrating on what she was supposed to be doing, down there between Suzie's legs. 'I'll sleep in the spare room, if you don't mind? But I'll make up for it tomorrow, darling. I promise. Would you like me to wake you?'

Flipping over again, Suzie headed for the side of the pool and hauled herself out, water cascading off her, arms locking at the elbow to bear the weight of her body rising up out of the water. She stood, slicked back her hair with lifting hands and, not bothering with the wrap, walked over to the loungers, picked up cigarettes and lighter. Perching on the footstool, she lit up and took a deep drag, funnelling the smoke from her lips to drift out across the lawn. She watched it till it disappeared then, judging the conditions right, tried some smoke rings.

One. Two. Three.

Perfect. Rolling away into the night like tiny grey lifebelts.

Time. To. Move.

As the last smoke ring coiled and knotted and disappeared Suzie acknowledged the fact, admitted to herself, that she was suddenly fed up. Fed up with the house, and fed up with Marseilles. So provincial, so small-town, so . . . out of the loop. And, increasingly, fed up with Hubert and his snobbish, exasperating family. They pretended they were
le tout gratin
- the 'toot cretin' as she liked to call it - the upper crust. But they were as narrowly self-interested as any
petite bourgeoisie.
What really riled her was how Hubert always pandered to them - his mother particularly, the self-centred old crone.

Grasping. Greedy. Self-absorbed.

Suzie blew three more smoke rings.

At first, when she and Hubert met in the States, she'd been awed by him. Twenty years older, he'd seemed so self-assured, so suave and cosmopolitan. So French. The fact that he shared her . . . exquisite tastes, that he understood them and took pleasure in them, only served to increase the attraction, and the wild unpredictability of the affair that followed. By the end of his stay she was his, falling for him like a silver dollar dropped into water.

But somewhere along the line the balance had changed. The more Hubert fell for Suzie, the less she felt for him; the greater his dependence, the greater her independence. Five years on, the glow was fading. He was now fifty-eight. She was thirty-seven. Of course she was fond of him, of course she still loved him, but it was different now. She'd outgrown him, outgrown the house and the city he'd brought her to, and the life they lived. Not to mention the girls, girls like Berthe. Increasingly, their easy, peasant charms had started to run thin. Their manners were appalling, their skin was coarse and their sweat reeked of garlic. Even the lone pleasures of her apartment on rue Paradis had started to pall.