Sunset in St. Tropez (9 page)

It was nearly six o"clock when Pascale got to St Tropez. She took the D98 after the N98 and D25, and drove along the Route des Plages, using the instructions she'd been given, and twenty minutes later she was still looking for the address, and afraid she'd taken the wrong turn. She was getting hungry, but she wanted to drop her things off at the house before she looked for a place to eat. She wasn't planning to buy groceries until the next day. And as she thought about it, she drove by a pair of crumbling stone pillars, with a set of rusty iron gates. She smiled to herself, thinking how much charm the area had. It felt so good just being back in France. And having passed the gates at full speed, she drove on. But ten minutes later, as she diligently checked the numbers, she realized she'd gone past the address. She turned around and went back, and missed it again. And this time, after she made a U-turn, she inched her way along. She knew the house had to be here somewhere, and the entrance was obviously hidden or extremely discreet. She finally located the number just before it, and stopped the car to look around. As she did so, she found herself at the crumbling stone pillars again. And as she looked more carefully, she saw a small bedraggled sign hanging by a single rusty nail. But there was obviously a mistake. The rusty iron gates were the right street number for their house. And the sign clearly said Coup de Foudre, which in French means literally “bolt of lightning,” but the more poetic sense is “love at first sight.” It was dusk on a magically warm night, and she quietly drove in through the gates.

There was a narrow curving driveway, with unkempt bushes that scraped along her car, and Pascale felt a vague sense of trepidation. This was not the entrance she had expected, or seen in the brochure. Some of the weeds in the middle of the drive were so tall that she had to swerve around them in the car. They were actually more like bushes, and everything was overgrown. It looked like a scene in a horror movie, or a murder mystery, and she laughed at herself, as she came around the last bend, and saw the house. The entrance certainly had been “discreet.” You could see nothing of the property from the road. And as the house came into full view, she put her foot full on the brake and stopped. The house was a huge rambling villa, just as the photographs had shown, with handsome French windows, and ivy covering the walls, but the pictures they had looked at must have been taken fifty years before. It looked as though the house had been deserted since then, and was in serious disrepair.

She suspected instantly that it was a lot more than two years since the owners had been there, not to mention the photographer who had shot the brochure.

There was a large overgrown front lawn, with grass and weeds that were nearly waist high. There was some old broken lawn furniture strewn around, and an ancient tattered umbrella over a rusty iron table that looked like you'd need a tetanus shot if you ate there. The place looked like a scene in a movie, and for a frantic second she wanted to ask someone if this was a joke. But clearly, it was not. This was their house. And for Pascale at least it was definitely not “love at first sight,” it was more like being hit by a bolt of lightning than first love.

“Merde,” she said softly, as she sat staring from the car. All she could do now was pray that the photographer had been more honest in shooting the inside. But it seemed unlikely as she pulled over, got out of the car, and stumbled as she stepped into a hole. The paths around the house were full of potholes, and here and there were little puddles of mud. There were a few flowers that had grown wild. The neat flower beds in the pictures must have disappeared years before. And then it occurred to her to honk the horn. She knew there was a couple waiting for her, and she had written to tell them when she'd come. But despite several long blasts on the horn, there was no response, and she walked gingerly toward the front door.

There was a doorbell and she rang it, but no one came. All she could hear were the sounds of barking dogs, at least two hundred of them from the sound of it, a vast number, and presumably small ones. It was nearly five minutes before anyone came, and then finally she could hear footsteps inside the house. Pascale was standing there, feeling worried, as the door finally opened, and all she could see at first was a vast ball of long, wildly frizzy bleached blond hair. It stood out around the woman's head nearly straight. It looked more like a wig in some wild drugged-out movie of the 1960s, and the face beneath it was small and round. All Pascale could remember now was that the woman's name was Agathe, and she said it with a look of hesitation, trying not to focus unduly on the hair.

“Oui, c"est moi.” It is I. It sure was. Who else? She was wearing a halter top, from which her breasts seemed to explode, there was a vast expanse of stomach, and then the shortest shorts Pascale had ever seen. Her body seemed to be entirely round, like a balloon, with virtually no waist. She was all stomach and breasts, and her only saving grace was that she had good legs, and much to Pascale's chagrin, she was wearing six-inch heels. They were the kind of shoes that in the 1950s had been called FMQs. And she squinted at Pascale with a look of disinterest, as a Gauloise papier maïs, with its yellow corn paper, hung from her lips. The smoke rose slowly in a long gray curl, and forced her to close one eye. She was a sight to behold, and whirling around her feet were three frantically yapping little white dogs. Poodles, immaculately trimmed. Unlike their owner, they looked as though they'd been to the hairdresser only minutes before, and each of them was wearing a small pink bow. Pascale continued to stare at the woman, trying unconsciously to determine her age. She was somewhere in her forties, or maybe even fifties, but her skin was smooth on her chubby little face.

Pascale introduced herself, as one of the poodles tried to bite her ankle, and the other attacked her shoe, and Agathe didn't bother telling them to stop.

“They won't hurt you,” she reassured Pascale, as she stepped aside, and Pascale caught a glimpse of the living room.

It looked like a set from Bride of Frankenstein. The furniture was old and battered, you could actually see cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and chandelier, and the supposedly elegant Persian carpets were all threadbare. For an instant, Pascale didn't know what to say, and then she stared at the woman in disbelief.

“Is this the house we rented?” Pascale asked in a voice that sounded more like a croak. She was praying that the woman would tell her the one she had rented was farther up the road. And as Agathe nodded with a chuckle, Pascale's heart sank. By then, the third dog was frantically humping her other shoe. Love at first sight it was not.

Except perhaps for the dog.

“It's been closed for a while,” Agathe explained blithely. “With a little sunshine tomorrow, it'll look great.” It would have taken a lot more than sunshine to make the house look like anything but a tomb. Pascale had never seen anything so grim. The only things she recognized from the photographs were the fireplace and the view, and both were exceptionally pretty, but the rest was a disaster, and she had no idea what to do. The others would be there in two days. All she could do was call the realtor and get their money back. But then what? Where would they stay? At that time of year, all the hotels would be full. And they could hardly go to Italy to stay with her mother. Her mind was racing, and the woman with the blond Afro looked amused. “The same thing happened to some people from Texas last year.” “What did they do?”

“They sued the realtor and the owner. And they chartered a yacht.” At least that was an idea.

“May I see the rest?” Pascale asked weakly, as Agathe nodded, and clicked across the floor again in her high heels.

By then the dogs had gotten used to Pascale and only stood there barking, instead of trying to attack her, as Agathe shooed them away. They were unbelievably noisy, and Pascale wanted to kill them as she followed Agathe through the living room.

It was every bit as large as it had looked in the photos, but not a single stick of furniture that had been in the photos was in the room. The dining room was long and bare and empty, with an antique refectory table, dirty canvas chairs, and a chandelier above it that looked as if it were hanging from a thread. Candles had dripped all over the table, and no one had bothered to clean it, seemingly for years. But when Pascale saw the kitchen, she felt as though she had been punched in the stomach, and all she could do was groan. It was absolutely filthy, nothing short of a firehose would have fixed it. Everything was covered with grease and grime, and the air was heavy with the smell of old food. Clearly, Agathe had not been wasting her time cleaning the house.

The bedrooms were slightly better, they were large and plain and airy, and almost everything in them was white, except for the patches of dirty floral rugs on the floor. But the view from the bedrooms, over the water, was so spectacular that it was conceivable no one would notice or care how sadly the rooms were lacking in decor. It was just remotely possible that if Agathe applied herself, and one filled the room with flowers, one could actually spend a night there. The master suite was the best one, but the others were fairly decent too, just tired and in need of soap, wax, and air.

“You like them?” Agathe asked her, and Pascale hesitated. If they stayed there, which she doubted, there would be a vast amount of work to be done. But she couldn't imagine staying, she knew how spoiled her friends were. Diana liked everything to be perfect, and immaculately clean, and so did Eric, and she knew that neither Robert nor John expected to find this disaster, particularly at the price they'd paid. She just didn't know what to offer them instead, and she hated to give up the hope of spending a month in St Tropez. And she knew that John would never let her live it down. She only thanked God her mother hadn't found it, and she was planning to take on the realtor herself.

Maybe she could find them another house.

A glance into the bathrooms confirmed her worst fears. The plumbing was forty or fifty years old, and the dirt everywhere in them had been there for at least as long. Clearly Agathe didn't do toilets, windows, or floors, or much else. The place was a disgrace. And she couldn't blame the people from Texas for suing the owners and the realtor.

She was thinking of doing it herself. And she was suddenly so angry and so disappointed, she wanted to scream.

“C"est une honte,” it's a disgrace, she said to Agathe, with a look that was not just French, it was Parisian, and if she had dared, she would have kicked all three barking dogs. “When was the last time this place was cleaned?”

“Only this morning, madame,” Agathe said, looking insulted, as Pascale shook her head in barely concealed rage.

Clearly no one had cleaned the place in years. “What about the gardener, the man? Your husband. Can't he help you in here?”

“Marius doesn't do domestic work,” Agathe said grandly, drawing herself up to her full height, which was barely more than Pascale's, even in six-inch heels. And she was easily three times her girth.

“Well, he may have to, if we have to stay,” Pascale warned her, and her eyes were blazing, as she went downstairs to use the phone. There was only one, in the kitchen. Pascale was almost afraid to touch it, it was nearly as greasy as the stove. And when she reached the woman who answered at the realtor's office, she let her have it in a blaze of outraged words. “How could you … how dare you …” She threatened lawsuits, mayhem, murder, and told her she had to find them another house, or suites in a hotel. But staying in a hotel wouldn't be nearly as much fun, not to mention the expense. She cringed thinking of John, and lashed into the realtor again. “There is absolutely no way we can stay here, it's unlivable … filthy … disgusting … déguelace … Have you seen it? What were you thinking? The place hasn't been cleaned in twenty years.” And as she said it, Agathe stomped off in a huff with her flock of dogs.

Pascale was on the phone with the realtor for half an hour. She promised to come by in the morning, to see how she could help, but she assured Pascale that there wasn't another rental to be had in St Tropez. And she insisted this was a good one, all it needed was a little going-over with a vacuum and some soap. “Are you crazy?” Pascale shrieked at her, no longer in control of her temper. “This place would need an atom bomb. And who is going to do it? My friends are arriving in two days. And they"re Americans. This is exactly what they think of France. You"ve just proven everything that people say about us abroad. Sending us those photographs was dishonest, you robbed us, and this house is a pigsty. We are dishonored,” Pascale waxed poetic. “You have betrayed not only me, but France.” Pascale wanted to kill her, and the woman kept reassuring her that her friends would love it, and it was really a great house. “Maybe it was once, but not in a very long time.”

“I'll send a cleaning team in tomorrow to help them,” the realtor tried to calm her, to no avail.

“You be here tomorrow, yourself, at seven o"clock in the morning, with a check refunding us for half the money, or I"m going to sue you. And bring your team with you. You can work here with me for the next two days in fact, and your cleaning team damn well better be good.”

“Of course,” the realtor said with a slightly supercilious air. She was a friend of the realtor Pascale knew in Paris, and Pascale had already assured her that unless she wrought a miracle, her reputation with the agency in Paris would be instantly as over the hill as the house. “I'll do everything I can to help you.”

“Bring a lot of people, a lot of cleaning equipment, and a hell of a lot of soap.”

“Whatever I can do to be of service,” the realtor said haughtily. “Thank you,” Pascale said through clenched teeth, trying to control her temper, but it was a little late for that. She had let the woman have it, and she deserved it. She had misled them completely, to the point of fraud. And as Pascale wandered out of the kitchen, she jumped. She was staring at a man who looked ten feet tall. He was tall and thin and scary, with a long beard and long hair, and he was wearing American denim overalls, with no shirt and a pair of patent leather dress shoes. He looked like a homeless person who had wandered into the house. And with a final sinking of her stomach, Pascale guessed who he was. He was carrying one of the French poodles, still barking, as he lovingly adjusted the pink bow. He could only be Agathe's husband, Marius. When Pascale asked him, he bowed.