Not Quite Nice (21 page)

Sally was left pondering the whole mysterious business of children. As their mother you felt that they somehow belonged to you, were part of you, and yet, as they grew up, you were forced to realise that they weren’t. They were just other people, with their own thoughts, desires and secrets. Sally felt she could just about understand Tom, but Marianne was like an alien. The ruthless determination was quite frightening to behold. Sally dreaded Sian’s reaction if Marianne was to make good on her threats. But then, at the start of her own acting career, wouldn’t she herself have gone to some extreme lengths to further her chances? She remembered hugging information to herself so that she might get to an audition, while her friends didn’t. Perhaps Sally had had that naked ambition too, just had forgotten it over the years of being out of the business. Well, if Marianne could be as successful as Sian, that would be one thing. Sally only hoped she would be happier in her personal life.

She wished she knew more about the mystery man, but knew also that asking too many questions would only drive Marianne further away.

Sally sat up waiting up for Tom to come home, but when an hour or so later she woke to find herself sitting in the armchair dribbling, with the television blaring a football commentary, she gave up and retired to bed, leaving a note for him, telling him that they’d have breakfast together in the morning, before going into town looking for canvas and paints.

Sally was woken just after midnight by a violent banging on the front door. As she wrapped her dressing gown round her and shuffled towards the door she feared that this must be Tom back, maybe drunk, perhaps having mislaid his keys.

She opened up.

Carol stood there, looking agitated, but, as ever, beautifully turned out.

‘Is Tom back?’

Sally shook her head.

‘Nor’s David. And I can’t get any response out of his phone.’ Carol bit her lower lip and pressed her gloved hands tight together. ‘You don’t think they’re still out there, at sea, do you?’

‘Oh God!’ Sally immediately understood the connotations of this. ‘What’s the sea like? Rough?’

Carol nodded. ‘Pretty choppy.’

Sally cursed herself for trusting Ted. Who knew what might happen out there at sea in the darkness? And Ted had had no formal training, only the Australian male ego.

‘Tom doesn’t have a mobile. I’ll try Ted.’ Sally grabbed her own phone and dialled Ted’s number. It rang out for a long time, then went to answer-phone.

‘What else can we do?’ asked Sally. ‘Phone the coastguard? Do they even have a coastguard in France?’

‘I thought of trying something like that, but what if they’ve come ashore and are stuck in some disco, where they can’t hear their phones, or . . . I don’t know . . . just drunk somewhere, or simply asleep?’

Sally put her coat on over her pyjamas and dressing gown, and grabbed her keys. ‘Let’s go and see if the boat’s there.’

Carol pulled a face. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?

The two women ran along the sea wall to the port de plaisance, where Sally and Ted had a mooring.

Their space was empty.

‘What now?’ said Carol. ‘Perhaps they came in up the coast, in Monte Carlo or somewhere.’

‘Perhaps. I’m worried that Ted got pulled in and asked for his certificate.’

‘And?’

‘He doesn’t have one. I do.’ Sally took out her mobile phone. ‘You keep ringing David. I’ll keep ringing Ted.’

They sat at the harbour side, repeatedly dialling.

After about five minutes Ted picked up.

‘Ted?’ Sally screeched into the phone. ‘Where the hell are you?’

Ted groaned.

‘Um. Not sure.’

‘Ted? Where’s David and Tom?’

‘Oh, those two Boy Scouts? They’re asleep on the boat.’

‘But where’s the boat?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ted.

Carol, who had been squeezing her face close up to Sally’s to listen in, took this moment to grab the phone from her and bellow into it.

‘Where have you left my husband, Ted? And Tom? Are they safe or are they lost at sea? We have to know where they are, before I dial the police.’

‘Oh jeez, don’t do that . . .’ Ted’s voice changed from the voice of a person lying down to someone sitting up. ‘No the boat is all safe and tied up, and they’re on board.’

‘And where the fuck are you?’

‘Easy on, easy on now, Carol. Don’t throw a wobbly at me. The boat is in the harbour.’

Sally took the phone back. ‘No, Ted, the boat is most definitely not in the harbour, because we’re standing right beside the empty mooring.’

‘Did I say Bellevue-Sur-Mer harbour? No. It’s in another one.’

‘Another what?’

‘Another harbour.’

‘Which harbour?’

‘I don’t know. We just ran out of petrol and pulled in at . . . Cap Martin, Cap Ferrat . . . Cap-something, Cap-wherever it was.’

Carol took over yelling into the handset. ‘Why aren’t you with them, Ted? You’re the fucking sailor.’

‘I got a bit interrupted on my way back to the boat. But, hey, they’re both fine, so what’s your problem?’

‘If you would only let me know where they are, Ted, I could get into the car and go and get them.’

Ted groaned. ‘Oh no, Carol, please don’t do that. Blokes like sleeping on a boat, you know? It gives them a sense of adventure. Come on, gals. Stop giving me such an earbashing and give them a bit of space. I’ll make sure they’re back with you for breakfast. OK?’

Sally and Carol accepted Ted’s promise, but both really wanted to know the exact details of what had happened and why the men hadn’t simply come back home.

‘You realise what’s probably happened, don’t you?’ said Sally.

‘No.’

‘Ted’s hooked up with some floozy.’

Carol held up a hand. ‘Don’t get me started.’

Realising they were going to get no nearer to finding out what had actually happened till the morning, they both retired to their homes.

Sally was sorry that she was alone in the house, knowing that both children were so near. But she also knew she had somehow to stop thinking of them as children. They were grown adults, with their own plans and hopes and dreams, just as she had had at their age.

With a heavy heart, which was somehow at the same time light and full of joy, she pulled off her coat and made her way back to bed, where she lay awake for hours.

Meanwhile, Theresa, who was also awake, sitting at her table looking out at the bay, while the snores of Imogen and the children resounded round the flat, saw the two women pass on their way back from the mooring. She noted that, for some reason, Sally was in her pyjamas.

She herself was still worried about her earlier exchange with William. She had gone back over all the little signals Benjamin had given her in the past in front of William. And those signals told her to shut up. She thought of the first time she had set eyes on Benjamin, when he had been so unpleasant to her in that second-hand furniture shop and how when the subject of the table had come up later he had stopped her mentioning it to William.

Was Benjamin sleeping around? Could that be it? Was he having an illicit relationship with Pierre of the furniture cave? She supposed that that would be reason enough to send William off in a temper. First doing it with Pierre in the shop and then maybe the robber fellow up the alley. But, though she couldn’t speak for the man who had knocked her over and robbed her, Pierre didn’t seem at all the type to go for men, in a sexual way. But when it came to sex, who knew anything?

She wondered about Brian too. How lovely of him to buy everyone’s drinks today. Had he ever been married? He seemed very eligible. It was strange for him to be left on his own at his age. She wondered where he was now. Where was he staying? Would he come back when Imogen and the children went back to Wimbledon?

How complicated the lives of people were: William and Benjamin, Michael off in Rome with the Italian nanny, Verdiana; Imogen, middle-aged but still running to Mummy in time of trouble. Sally and Carol obviously also in the middle of some crisis up the road. Ted and Sian, his rightly suspicious termagant wife, and Jessica who was perhaps sent here to lead him on, acting as Sian’s agent provocateur while spying on him and all his other women.

It all made the drunken antics of Zoe seem like a rather pleasant and sane way to grow old.

In comparison to everyone else, things didn’t seem as complicated for her. She had Imogen here, and the grandchildren were finally coming round to liking her too.

That thrilled her.

Yes.

Things weren’t so bad after all.

19

The next Cookery Club was held at Sally’s as, with Imogen and children in Theresa’s flat, it didn’t seem quite right to hold it there and, more importantly, Theresa was worried that Imogen might start interfering and sending everyone home if she believed that the noise was keeping the children awake or on some other pretence. Mind you, while Theresa was making the phone call to Sally to ask her, she pondered on Imogen since she had arrived in Bellevue-Sur-Mer and how much she seemed to have softened. Her only complaints so far were about the loud voices she could hear from the Hôtel Astra, above. Everything else appeared to please her.

Perhaps it was the pain of an injured psyche, after her husband had vanished with the nanny, or maybe it was simply that Riviera touch, the same magic which had soothed Theresa when she first arrived here, that had softened her.

Theresa had done a quick phone around, and the usual gang assembled, with a few extra live-in strays: Tom, who decided to act as a kitchen help, and Marianne, who sat in the corner ignoring everyone, reading a book.

Theresa phoned Brian’s mobile and persuaded him that he must come, things wouldn’t be the same without him, and he duly arrived, a little early, and appeared to be even more assiduous in his gentlemanly ways, pulling out a chair for Jessica when she came in, handing round the plate of nibbles, and making sure all the glasses were kept topped up.

They were making another Niçoise speciality, a pissaladière, and having finished rolling out the pastry, had moved on to chopping onions.

Zoe sniffed first, while beside her, Faith rubbed her eyes. A general sniffing started.

Tom started to laugh.

‘Listen to you all!’ he exclaimed. ‘It sounds like some drug den full of coke heads.’

‘I’m sorry?’ said William, looking up through bleary eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s just funny, that’s all. Sniff, sniff.’ Tom held one end of a knife to his nose and mimed out sucking up cocaine.

‘Leave it,’ said Benjamin. ‘We’re preparing onions, for God’s sake, William. We’re going to sniff a bit, aren’t we?’

‘I just think . . .’

‘Leave it!’ snapped Benjamin.

Changing the subject, Benjamin asked whether the sailing party had enjoyed their night camping on board.

‘I feel as though I’m still on the ruddy boat,’ said Tom, wiping a tear from his cheek. ‘I’m rolling about the streets like a drunken sailor. How are you getting on, Dave?’

Carol raised an eyebrow and turned to her husband. ‘Oh, yes, “Dave”, do tell.’

‘We had great fun,’ David replied, ignoring Carol’s sarcasm. ‘It was good to have a bit of man time.’

Carol gave a little snort and exclaimed ‘Lordy Lord! I never realised that being a Boy Scout was equated with manliness. When are you getting a tent and a woggle and joining the jamboree?’

‘Shut up!’ said David, his face now flushed, and his eyes red with onion tears.

‘Don’t you tell me to shut up, “Dave”. I also think,’ continued Carol without pause, ‘that manliness, or even being in the Boy Scouts, might just include the basics of being able to operate a mobile phone to alert people about your safety – or otherwise.’

‘We were fine,’ said David with an extended sigh. ‘Why would we phone?’

‘You knew that,’ snapped Carol, sweeping the paper-like peel into the rubbish sack. ‘Sally and I did not. In fact we were so worried that we were parading along the seafront in our pyjamas.’

‘That’s a sight I’d like to have seen,’ said Ted.

A silence followed, while everyone concentrated on peeling, chopping, wiping their eyes and blowing their noses.

Ted broke the embarrassing pause filled only with sniffs. ‘All my fault, folks. Look, to tell the truth, we ran out of petrol and I went off to get some, and, well, I got a little bit waylaid, but I knew the blokes were happy and tucked up with a bottle of the old vino, so . . .’ His voice faded out.

‘You didn’t need to go off wandering, Ted. You should have been able to get fuel at the marina,’ sniffed Sally, onion tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping on to her chest.

‘Well, I . . . It was cramped in there.’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ Marianne rose from her seat in the corner and grabbed a knife. ‘I thought this was a Cookery Club, not the Marriage Guidance Council? Come on, let’s cook!’ She rolled up her sleeves and started stabbing at an onion.

Theresa finished rubbing the last tin tray with butter, while the others lined theirs with pastry and, in the corner, next to Ted, Jessica sniggered into the counter.