Sailing to Capri (27 page)

Patrice took my hand and kissed it, commiserating gently with me about Bob. He’d known him for many years and said
he would be missed. The club had been in Patrice de Colmont’s family since 1955, when his mother and father had bought a beach shack and started cooking for Brigitte Bardot and her film crew, who were then shooting
And God Created Woman.
At that moment Saint-Tropez was “born,” and so was Le Club 55.

We established ourselves on beach mattresses under an umbrella, but I couldn’t wait to get into the water. It slid over me like a soft silk gown, just cool enough and just warm enough. I dived then broke the surface spluttering, shaking my hair from my eyes. I wasn’t thinking about Montana. I wasn’t thinking about Dopplemann. I wasn’t even thinking about Bob. I was thinking only of my own sensual pleasure at being immersed in this smooth crystalline water and of the strength of my own body as I dived through the waves and streaked for the horizon. Bordelaise matched me, stroke for stroke. We hadn’t been on the school swim team for nothing.

Cool at last, we floated serenely back to shore. Shaking off the drops of water like the pair of Labradors who had swum alongside us, we strode back up the beach to our little sanctuary and sat for a while, letting the sun dry us before adding more Hawaiian Tropic.

I lay back on my mattress and closed my eyes. For the first time since I’d left London I felt completely relaxed. Half asleep under the thatched umbrella, I was aware of the sound of laughter and the tinkle of ice in glasses, of the soft rustle of the breeze in the tamarisks and the flop of tiny waves onshore. I wished I could stay here forever and never have to face reality or Montana or the suspects again.

“Madame,
your table is ready.” A smiling young attendant in
a blue T-shirt interrupted my thoughts, and Bordelaise and I put on cover-ups and wended our way through the now-thronged tables. I ordered a bottle of the house rosé, and we sipped it in delighted silence, nibbling on crunchy sweet radishes and nuggets of cauliflower and strips of red peppers, each fresh as the dawn, dipping them in a pungent aioli. A feeling of well-being swept over me like the calm after the storm.

We commented lazily on the gorgeous bodies, the jewels; the outrageous flaunting and preening; the tanned girls and bronzed tattooed guys; on the plump titans of industry in bathing shorts and baseball caps inscribed with the names of their own yachts, the famous models and the movie stars. Of course there were other, regular people who came here year after year, not to see and be seen but simply because they loved it.

We had just finished our striped sea bass and a delicious salad and were on to our second bottle of wine, waiting for the wild strawberries, when Bordelaise said in a whisper, “Don’t look now, but guess who’s coming our way.”

So of course I looked. It was Diane. I heard her exasperated sigh. “Damn it, Daisy, now she’s seen us and she’s coming over.”

She was right. Diane had spotted us and was heading our way.

She glared indignantly at us. “What are
you
doing here? It’s impossible to get a reservation.”

“Turned down, were you?” Bordelaise could patronize with the best when she wanted. “Too bad. Of course Daisy and I enjoyed an excellent lunch, and a lovely day on the beach.”

“Then you won’t mind if I sit here with you.” Diane had parked herself before we had a chance to object. She fussed
with her white leather tote, smoothed her hair, which she wore pulled back in a knot and adjusted the bustier top of her blue sundress. She poured herself a glass of our rosé and drank deeply. Her eyes met mine over the rim of the glass.

“Were you fucking my ex-husband?” she said to me.

I gasped. Next to me, I heard Bordelaise’s snort of laughter.

“I always suspected you were,” Diane said. “You were so close to him, always there, always answering the phones, always on the plane with him, always at that dreadful place. Sneadley Hall. Even here in Saint-Tropez, and at the Hôtel du Cap.”

“I remember you at the Hôtel du Cap,” I said, knowing she recalled all too well the scene she’d created when Bob had told her that the coffers were empty as far as she was concerned.

“Of course you do,” she said, sounding suddenly weary. “What you didn’t know was how much I needed that money. And why.” Her long emerald eyes reflected back the sunlight as she glanced at me. “But then there was no reason you should know the truth, was there? I never told Bob then, so why should I tell you now?”

“What truth?” I asked, but she turned her head away, obviously deciding she’d said too much.

She waved an arm clanking with gold bracelets to summon a waiter. “Bob is dead and gone and I’m sure he’s taken good care of me in his will.” She flashed her eyes keenly my way again. “Hasn’t he?”

“I really don’t know what’s in Bob’s will,” I said. “You’ll have to wait until Capri to find out.”

I thought I caught a desperate glint in her eyes but then she quickly turned to the waiter and ordered the grilled turbot and
another bottle of the rosé. Then she switched on her smile and asked Bordelaise where she was from, and what she was doing here, and how she was liking the cruise.

In an instant Diane changed from a frightened desperate woman to the accomplished social charmer, enjoying herself at the finest beach club in Saint-Tropez, a place she obviously belonged, since people kept coming over and kissing her on both cheeks and asking why they hadn’t seen so much of her.

Her reply to each of them was that her husband had died recently and she was just recovering from the shock.

And maybe she was, I thought, surprised. I’d learned quickly, you never knew with Diane.

We called Paul, the taxi driver, to pick us up and left Diane enjoying her lunch with her friends.

Still puzzling over what she could have meant, we drove back into Saint-Tropez and set out to troll the boutiques, just reopening at four o’clock after the noontime siesta. And wandering the cobblestoned back alleys, who should we come across but Filomena, toting several large shopping bags bearing the names of Hermès and Erès and Blanc-Bleu. She’d obviously been making quiet inroads into her hundred thousand. Immaculate and gorgeous in expensively simple white linen, she strode along as though she owned the place.

“Ciao, amici,”
she called, waving her free hand and beaming at us from across the street. “Look what I got.” She hoisted the bags. “I haven’t had this much fun in years. Shopping sprees always make me feel good.”

Without looking, she darted across the narrow street directly
in front of a blue Mercedes convertible driven by a good-looking blond man. He blasted his horn angrily, then did a quick double-take and stopped.

“I almost killed you,” he said in French, throwing up his hands in mock despair.

“If I had to die I would have been happy it was at your hands,” Filomena called back, laughing.

He leaned an elbow over the car door, looking interestedly at her. “So what are you doing tonight? I know where there’s a good party. On Paul Allen’s yacht.”

Bordelaise and I exchanged meaningful glances. Paul Allen was the Microsoft billionaire and his yacht,
Octopus,
was the biggest and grandest in Saint-Tropez, way bigger than
Blue Boat,
a towering gray-blue hulk topped with
two
helicopters.

Filomena sauntered over to him; cards and smiles were exchanged along with a lingering handshake while irate drivers piled up behind them, honking and shouting. Unfazed, Filomena waved good-bye. She smiled nicely for the angry drivers, then strolled back across the street to where we stood, open-mouthed at her cool.

“Silly young man,” she said dismissively. “He thought I would be impressed when he dropped Paul Allen’s name and his yacht.”

“Well I certainly was,” Bordelaise said.

“Hah! Of course he doesn’t know Paul Allen. He’s like me, cruising on the fringes, hoping to get lucky and break into it, make contact, get some of the perks from the rich man’s table.”

Filomena was mixing her metaphors but we got what she
meant, and like Diane, she surprised us, only this time it was by her frankness.

“I look rich, he looks rich,” she said with a shrug of her elegant brown shoulders. “But we’re both just faking it, hoping we get lucky.”

Just then Texas came around the corner, also clutching a slew of bags, though not Hermès. “Hi,” she yelled. “You gals doin’ some shoppin’ too?” Her shoe heel caught in the cobblestones and she almost fell. “Oh, shoot.” She hopped on one foot, clutching her ankle. “Is that ever painful.”

Brandon came around the corner after her. He smiled at us then glanced, alarmed, at Texas. “What happened?” She wobbled on one leg and he put his arm around her waist to support her, but she groaned some more.

“She caught her heel,” I told him. “It’s probably a sprain. Better get her back to the ship and let the doctor take a look.”

“Of course. Yes, certainly. The ship.” Brandon seemed to talk only in short sharp bursts.

“I’ll come too.” Filomena slid her arm around Texas’s waist.

“Okay, it’s the doc for me then.” Texas moaned. “Sorry to miss more shopping though.”

As she hopped off we saw Filomena holding Brandon’s hand behind Texas’s back and we laughed.

We bought apple turnovers at a bakery and munched them happily, gazing in the window at the fun costume jewelry in a tiny shop called Alix’s. Then Bordelaise bought a bracelet encrusted with turquoise flowers while I went for a splendid necklace—a collar or
collier
as the French saleswoman called it,
of five strands of peridot droplets threaded on thin golden links.

It was now five o’clock and we were to sail at six. We emerged onto the quai right next to the Café Sénéquier, where we spotted Dopplemann, drinking wine and staring blankly at the parade of yachts lined up, stern-in, across the street. Their flags flew and their crews, in white shorts and shirts, stood ready to serve cocktails or set sail at a moment’s notice. As always, Dopplemann seemed oblivious to the passing of time and I reluctantly decided I’d better remind him before he got drunk again and missed the boat.

He jumped when I said his name, sending his wineglass crashing to the floor.

“Fräulein Daisy. And Beaujolais.” Getting her name wrong, he gave her a hesitant smile and scrambled to his feet. His spindly legs stuck out of his shorts like a pair of bleached twigs and he wore a loden green T-shirt; it seemed to be his favorite color. Around his neck was strung a pair of powerful-looking binoculars.

“It’s time to get back to the ship, we sail at six,” I said curtly.

“Ah, yes. Yes, of course.” He quickly picked up the guidebook from the table and added some coins to the tip saucer. “Yes, well, I’d better hurry along.”

He ambled silently alongside us, glancing from time to time at the art show several blocks long. He stopped in front of a small but detailed painting of a fisherman’s cottage: whitewashed walls, blue tiled roof, an open window, yellow curtains blowing in the breeze, a pile of fishing nets and a black dog, snoozing in the sun.

Dopplemann took off his glasses and polished them. He put them back on again and peered even closer at the painting. I glanced at my watch then at Bordelaise, brows raised impatiently, but we couldn’t just leave him.

“I will buy this painting,” he announced loudly. The vendor stated his price and Dopplemann took out a shabby leather wallet that looked as though he’d owned it for about a hundred years.

“I think you’re supposed to bargain,” Bordelaise said, but he shook his head.

“The artist works for his living. He sells. I buy. Is a fair price.”

With the painting clutched tightly under his arm, seemingly as precious to him as a Rembrandt to a museum, we hurried off again. Around the corner we came across Davis Farrell taking a panoramic photo of the yachts.

“Got to get some pictures, otherwise people will never believe I was here,” he said, falling into step with us. “You guys have a good day?”

“Terrific,” I said, thinking that the beach and the lovely winey lunch seemed an awfully long time ago.

“Exactly what era is that hairdo?” Bordelaise asked, frowning at his ponytail.

“Late sixties, I’d guess.” Davis tweaked his shaggy ponytail. “You mean you don’t like it?”

“Let’s put it this way: like an old rug, it’s seen better days.”

We were laughing as, with Dopplemann trailing behind, we boarded our yacht.

“Remember, dinner’s at eight-thirty,” I reminded them.
Then, oh so casually, I asked, “By the way, has anyone seen Montana around?” No one had.

“That’s the first time you’ve mentioned him since this morning,” Bordelaise said. “Not bottling it all up, are you?”

“All what?”

“All that anger you’re feeling toward him. It’s not good. Anger never achieves anything. Think rationally. Montana wouldn’t seduce you then disappear and never want to see you again.”

“He didn’t seduce me. I seduced him.”

“Ah, well … I see…. Still, the same applies.” Bordelaise was trying her best to make me feel better and failing. “No doubt he’ll be in the bar at seven-thirty along with the rest of us,” she said cheerfully as we parted at my door.