Rendezvous in Cannes (9 page)

Chapter Twenty

It was gone nine o’clock when Anna woke the next morning. She lay there for a few moments reliving the exciting events of the previous night. So many people, so many congratulations, so much champagne.

The general consensus was that Future Promises was about to be a big hit at the box office and earn world wide recognition for its young stars. Consequently Helen and Rupert had been the toast of Cannes last night. Anna, delighted for them, had enjoyed basking in the reflected glory.

The theme of the after-screening party – ‘Future Promises – What’s Yours?’ – had proved to be a major hit. The venue, draped and decorated like a mystical sheikh’s tent, with zodiac signs, huge silver moons and stars hanging from the pleated ceiling and large golden suns shining from the walls, had been a perfect setting for a fun evening of make believe and fortune telling.

There was a wheel of fortune, origami fortune tellers, fortune sticks, Chinese fortune cookies, astrology readings and even a Romany gypsy complete with bunches of lavender and a crystal ball in a curtained booth for those that fancied a personal consultation.

Partygoers eagerly entered into the spirit of things as a king’s fool and jester cavorted around making mischief and encouraging everyone to join in the fun. Music had been provided disco-style by a young DJ and the whole evening had been as Leo said later in the limousine going home, ‘A night to remember for all the right reasons.’

Anna had seen the gypsy fortune teller in her booth early in the evening and had been tempted to have her gaze into the crystal ball on her behalf then, but the number of people already waiting had put her off. It was two o’clock in the morning as she and Leo swayed to a last smoochy dance tune when she saw ‘Cassandra’ sitting alone in her booth.

‘I know it’s silly,’ she said glancing at Leo. ‘But shall we? Just for fun.’

Smiling Leo led her by the hand over to the gypsy woman’s booth. ‘You go in and see what she has to say. I’m going to organise our car home.’

Cassandra looked up as Anna hesitated at the entrance to the booth, suddenly not sure that she wanted to do this.

‘I’m sorry – am I too late?’

Cassandra smiled, shaking her head as she beckoned her in. ‘Please, sit.’

Anna sat down in front of the round table with its scarlet velvet covering and watched apprehensively as Cassandra gazed trance like at her crystal ball before starting to speak.

‘Although something from the past is making waves in your life at the moment, you are entering a very happy period. I see a man who loves you and wants to take care of you in the future. Through him the family life you’ve always dreamed of will be yours, I see grandchildren – a little girl holding a toddler by the hand – families coming together. A journey of some sort. The past embracing the future.’

Cassandra paused and looked up at Anna before adding quietly, ‘Do not mourn the past, nor worry about the future, live the present moment wisely and earnestly.’

Now, reliving the scene with Cassandra in her mind on Monday morning, Anna knew the gypsy had told her nothing that she didn’t already know. She knew she loved Leo as much as he loved her and knew they would be happy together, that his family would become hers, his grandchildren, hers. As for the past embracing the future – what did that mean?

As the picture of Cassandra in her booth faded from her mind, Anna slipped out of bed and, pulling on her housecoat, tiptoed out of the room and went downstairs.

Her mobile phone was on the kitchen work surface and she picked it up before unlocking the door and stepping out on to the terrace. Sitting in one of the cane chairs Poppy had placed out there, Anna opened her phone and scrolled down until she found the number she wanted and pressed the dial button.

As the connection was being processed, Anna tensed, her whole body rigid with expectation, her fingers playing with the locket chain that was again around her neck.

‘Bonjour. Who is this?’

‘It’s Anna,’ she said quickly. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘You didn’t tell me Philippe had a secret family in the States.’

‘That’s because he didn’t,’ Bruno said.

‘That reporter last night, at the Palais?’

Anna could hear Bruno’s deep sigh down the telephone.

‘The press, as usual, have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, Anna. They’ve heard about the possibility of a claim against the estate and have jumped to conclusions. Philippe did NOT have a family he kept secret from everyone. I told you not having a family was the biggest regret of his life. He would have adored having children.’

‘Bruno?’ Anna hesitated.

‘Will you tell me the name of the person who wrote to Philippe please?’

There was a pause before Bruno answered.

‘Oh Anna. I’m not sure that I should before the Cambones make the name public.’

‘Okay. If I put it another way, maybe you can answer me.’ Anna took a deep breath before continuing.

‘Does the signature on the letters contain the name Jean-Philippe? Is it mentioned in the letter anywhere? Yes, or no?’

‘I’m sorry Anna, that name is not a part of the signature on the letters, Jacques showed me. Neither is it in the letter itself,’ Bruno said gently. ‘I can tell you the letters were from a woman,’ he added quietly. ‘Not a man.’

Anna, unable to bear the message concealed behind his words, twisted her fingers round and round in her locket chain until it was cutting into her. As, sad and frustrated, she pulled at the chain trying to untangle it, the chain broke and the locket fell to the floor.

‘Thank you Bruno,’ Anna managed to whisper as she pressed the off button on the phone before beginning to sob uncontrollably as she picked up her broken locket.

She was still crying when Leo found her ten minutes later, her face red and blotched, the locket and its broken chain clutched in her hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed as Leo took her in his arms to comfort her. ‘I’d pinned my hopes on it being Jean-Philippe who had contacted Philippe. Bruno has just told me it’s a woman. Which means it’s not my son who wrote to him.’

Chapter Twenty-One

‘Good morning, Poppy,’ Daisy said, running downstairs into the kitchen early Monday morning. ‘You look busy already.’

Poppy groaned as she looked up from a list she was writing.

‘You’ll definitely be around to help me tomorrow won’t you? This party is getting out of hand.’

‘I promised didn’t I?’ Daisy said, helping herself to a banana from the fruit bowl on the table. ‘What’s the problem anyway?’

‘Everything! I’m spending the day cooking the savoury stuff – I’ll do the desserts tomorrow. There’s still so much to organise I’m beginning to panic. Leo and Anna are now planning to officially announce their engagement at the party, so would I please organise a cake and more champagne. At a day’s notice. Oh, and they want an official photographer.’

‘Poppy, calm down. This is France remember. Every patisserie on every street corner has wonderful cakes, not to mention the supermarkets. We’ll get one of those and I’ll ice it into an engagement cake. OK? Finding a photographer is not a problem either. Marcus has already asked if he can come, so now he can – officially.’

Daisy threw the banana skin into the compost bin under the sink. ‘Tell me more about the engagement. That must have been what the champagne was for the other evening. Have you seen Anna’s ring?’

Poppy shook her head. ‘No. And the quick glimpse I did get of Anna earlier, I thought she looked rather subdued.’

‘Too much partying after the premiere I expect,’ Daisy said cheerfully.

‘Expect so,’ Polly answered, absently writing something on a list. ‘I’ll order an extra fifty champagne glasses for the engagement toast and sixty wine glasses in total. D’you think that’s enough? People do hang on to their glass don’t they, rather than taking a fresh one each time?’

Poppy took a deep breath and ticked something on her list. ‘The pianist is coming this afternoon to check the piano over. I just hope the weather is OK tomorrow evening. I’ve got extra candles to put around the place, and some floating ones for the pool. Oh! Nobody is going to want to swim are they?’ She looked up at Daisy anxiously.

‘Not when they’re all dressed up in their glad rags. Look, I’ve got to go into Cannes now. I have to see Marcus and then I’m meeting up with Anna and Leo at eleven o’clock. Anna’s finally agreed to help me with my ‘Then and Now’ feature,’ she explained sensing Polly’s unspoken question.

‘But I’ll definitely be back mid-afternoon and we’ll make a start on getting everything sorted. OK?’

Walking into Cannes, Daisy thought about the feature she planned to write with the help of Anna’s memories about the twenty-first Festival. She’d already found a few archive photos of Cannes back in the 1960s to go alongside some of Marcus’s modern day shots. Hopefully Anna would have some nostalgic anecdotes about her first visit to the Festival.

If not, Daisy decided, she’d make it more of a photo feature with just a few words comparing the old and new pictures. Before starting to look for Marcus in the Village International on the quay, Daisy found an empty seat in the gardens near the hotel de ville and switched on her recorder.

‘The rain clouds have gone and once again the sky is a clear Azure blue. It’s hard to believe that already the Festival is entering its second week. The days have simply flown by but people are still partying and networking in the cafés and bars. Along the Croisette people are desperately strutting their stuff knowing that time is running out. The presenting of the Palm d’Or is only days away but still the hype continues. Will it be like the year when the very last film to be premiered won the coveted award? Maybe we’ve already seen the winner?’ Daisy spoke quietly into her tape recorder as she watched a fire-eater entertain a small crowd.

‘Today is the private funeral of Philippe Cambone, the famous film producer, born in Cannes, who died suddenly last week. Flags are expected to fly at half-mast this morning but industry VIPs will have to wait to pay their respects at a memorial service to be held after the Festival ends.’ Thoughtfully Daisy switched off her recorder.

She’d get another report e-mailed to the paper today, write up her ‘Then and Now’ feature tonight and then tomorrow she’d help Poppy all day and enjoy the party in the evening. Now to find Marcus. She needed to make sure he still wanted to come to Anna’s party tomorrow and that he was available – didn’t have a hot date with a blonde.

‘Great. I’ll definitely be there,’ he said, when Daisy tracked him down in the American marquee in the Village International.

‘Enjoy your dinner at the Palm Beach the other night?’ Daisy enquired casually.

‘Yes, thank you. You and Nat have a good evening?’ Marcus returned equally casually.

Daisy nodded. ‘Thanks. Marcus, I think we’re going to have to forget that dinner on Bill’s expenses.’

Marcus looked at her, his eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

Daisy shrugged. ‘I seem to be running out of time. Things are so hectic down here. Like you said, there’s always so much going on. Besides, I think it’s better if we just keep things on a working basis. So no more of those kissy kissy French greetings either. OK?’

‘Nothing to do with Nat, this?’ Marcus asked.

‘Nothing. Nat and I are just friends,’ Daisy said. ‘Good friends but nothing more.’

She had no intention of placing Nat in a difficult position with Marcus while they were down here – after all it had been Marcus who introduced them. What happened after the Festival finished was another matter altogether.

‘I’ve heard from Ben,’ she said quietly. ‘He wants me to join him in Sydney.’

Working in the same office Marcus would have heard all about how Ben had left her. If he wanted to believe there was more behind her words than was the case, that was up to him. It would at least put a stop to any ideas he might have had about the two of them getting together while they were down here.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lazily floating on her back in the villa swimming pool before preparing to go indoors to shower and meet Daisy in town, Anna tried to marshal her thoughts.

Tired after the premiere and the party and emotionally drained after her conversation with Bruno, she desperately wanted to be able to concentrate on the present, on Leo, on their future together.

Leo was keen to make plans – engagement announcement, wedding, honeymoon, christening, Christmas. Family plans. Plans for the future that suddenly Anna couldn’t face making. She’d successfully buried the past deep inside her for so many years, refusing to acknowledge what had happened, and wishing she could find love again. So now with Leo in her life, why couldn’t she simply embrace their love and move forward?

Anna sighed inwardly, knowing the answer. By coming to Cannes this year she’d demolished the fragile emotional dam wall she’d built around herself over the years and unleashed a veritable flood-tide of evocative thoughts and feelings. If only Philippe hadn’t died and she’d been able to make her peace with him face to face she would have been able to make plans for her future with Leo with more composure. Wouldn’t she?

Anna turned on to her front and began to swim slowly towards the pool-side steps. All these ifs. If she wasn’t careful her past would drive a wedge between her and Leo.

Once out of the water she slipped into her towelling robe, resolutely tying the belt around her waist. The past was over and done with; the sooner she accepted that Philippe was dead and that Jean-Philippe would never be a part of her life however much she wished for it, the better.

She’d treat today’s walk around Cannes as a cathartic exercise – dig as deep as she could into her memories, expose them to scrutiny and finally exorcise them. Then she’d get on with the rest of her life with Leo.

The Croisette was crowded with sightseers when Anna and Leo arrived and it took them several moments to find Daisy who was still talking to Marcus near the foot of the Palais steps.

‘Hi. This is Marcus – he’s agreed to be your official photographer on Tuesday,’ Daisy said introducing them.

‘Official photographer?’ Anna said surprised. ‘I don’t think we need one.’

‘I asked Poppy to find us one,’ Leo explained. ‘I’d like some engagement pictures to show the family when we get back. I’m sure Rick and the rest of the office would like some memento of the party. Could be useful PR.’

‘See you Tuesday then,’ Marcus said. ‘Just had a tip off that Madonna is coming ashore at the Palm Beach so I need to get down there ASAP.’

As Marcus left, Daisy turned to Anna and Leo. ‘Congratulations to you two by the way. May I see the ring? Oh that’s so beautiful,’ she said, as Anna held out her hand.

‘Have you set a date for the wedding?’

‘Not yet,’ Leo answered. ‘I’m trying to persuade Anna sooner rather than later. I have hopes of a summer wedding.’

Anna laughed. ‘Leo doesn’t realise just how much organising even a quiet wedding takes,’ she explained to Daisy. ‘I think September is probably the earliest, but we shall see. Now, where shall we start this trip down memory lane?’

‘On the other side of the road outside the hotel that stands on the old Palais site and then make our way into the centre of town?’ Daisy suggested.

As they dodged past cars, scooters and an open-top bus to cross the road, Anna said, ‘There was less traffic around in those days, that’s for sure. The crowds are different too.’

‘How?’

‘Older and more middle-class. In ’68 there were lots of students – of which I was one. It was not nearly so colourful then either,’ Anna said looking at a particularly garish gold and silver window display.

‘I found it all rather intimidating, particularly as the news of the Paris riots filtered down and there were demonstrations. Philippe wanted to get involved – did get involved – but I was too scared, particularly after I nearly got trampled.’

‘Philippe? Trampled?’ Daisy asked.

‘My job at the festival was to act as general dogsbody and messenger between the various companies and film studios who were down here,’ Anna explained.

‘One morning when I was trying to deliver some film tapes I got caught up in a student protest. Actually, it was just along here, past the Carlton. I slipped off the pavement, twisted my ankle and fell over as the students broke through the barriers the police had erected and surged forward towards the palais. Philippe left the crowd when he saw me sitting on the pavement nursing my leg and helped me move to safety. Refused to leave me.’ Anna smiled.

‘Was this Philippe Cambone?’ Daisy asked slowly.

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘I’m sorry, Daisy. I didn’t lie to you when you asked if I’d ever worked with him – I hadn’t. But I should have told you I did know him back then.

‘Meeting Philippe changed my life. For six days he showed me another world. Growing up in a quiet Devonshire village I’d never experienced a place like Cannes. Never realised how different other people’s lives could be.’ Anna said, glancing around.

‘Philippe was very French in his support of the students and took me to several meetings wanting me to get involved.’

She shrugged. ‘How could I? I didn’t speak the language for a start, and secondly I was going home at the end of the Festival. Back to art college and a different life.’

A couple of council workers were preparing to erect some temporary barriers across the road and gesticulated to them to walk through quickly.

‘Despite the unrest and the protests it was a lot easier to get close to people in those days. Security was very low key, virtually non-existent. I saw, and in some cases even met, people like Ringo Starr and George Harrison. Philippe introduced me to several up and coming stars too. Bridget Bardot was here that year and Orson Welles.’

Anna paused as a group of Japanese tourists threatened to run them down in their eagerness to pass along the street before the barriers were in place.

‘It was when somebody high up in Paris tried to sack the popular Henri Langois, head of Cinématèque Française, that the Festival itself erupted into disarray. Suddenly everyone was protesting and boycotting things, jury members were resigning, and there were calls for the festival to close – which of course it did.’

‘I found an archive photo of Geraldine Chaplin pulling the curtain across at a screening,’ Daisy said. ‘Was that the end of the Festival that year?’

Anna nodded. ‘End of the Festival yes but the national strikes made it impossible for people to get away. I couldn’t leave for another four days.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Spent most of the time with Philippe. We talked for hours, planning our lives for the next few years.’ Anna was quiet for a moment, remembering the intensity of those days.

‘The words “Life without Limits” was the phrase on everyone’s lips that year. Philippe and I promised ourselves that would be the way we’d live our lives together.’ Anna sighed sadly.

‘It didn’t happen. Philippe was already under contract to work in America for a year. I went back to England and lived another life. A life that has been good to me on the whole and one that has now given me Leo,’ Anna said, catching hold of Leo’s hand and squeezing it.

‘The future is looking good,’ Leo said, drawing her towards him and oblivious of the crowds, kissing her gently.

‘Shall we try to make our way to rue d’Antibes? They seem to have closed this road completely for some reason. Can’t think why. It’s not really anything to do with the Festival.’ Daisy said, trying not to envy them their closeness.

‘Think maybe that’s your answer,’ Leo said quietly, moving apart from Anna and watching as a large black limousine drew up behind the barrier in front of the ornate entrance to a church.

‘Philippe’s funeral cortège,’ Anna whispered. ‘I’d forgotten it was taking place this morning.’

‘We’ll go this way,’ Leo said, taking Anna decisively by the hand and leading them into a small alleyway. ‘Hopefully we’ll come out by the station and we can carry on with our tour.’