Hotel Pastis (25 page)

“We’re meeting Ziegler at Claridges, and I’m going to resign.”

Jordan grinned as he turned out of Rutland Gate. “Pull the other one, old boy.” He stamped on the accelerator, and the big car was doing seventy as it reached Hyde Park Corner, causing a taxi to give way with an angry blast of its horn. “What do you think of the motor?”

“I’d like it better if it slowed down. You take the next on the right for Claridges.”

Jordan cut across two lanes of traffic. “You’re not serious? About resigning?”

“If I live that long.”

Jordan said nothing, and Simon smiled to himself. The loudest noise in the car was the ticking of Jordan’s brain as he drew up outside the hotel.

Ziegler received them in his suite, dressed for jogging in a grey track suit and pneumatic running shoes. He frowned at the unexpected sight of Jordan. “What is this, a goddamn delegation?”

“Compliments of the season, Bob,” said Simon. “I hope you’re well?”

Ziegler looked at them suspiciously. Men in pairs usually meant collusion and trouble, in his experience. He decided to start off being pleasant. “Sure. What are you guys going to have? Juice? Coffee?”

Jordan consulted his watch. “Wouldn’t mind a glass of fizz, actually.” Ziegler looked puzzled. “Champagne.”

Ziegler called room service, and Simon shuffled the papers he’d brought as Jordan went through his cigarette selection routine.

“Okay.” Ziegler sat as far away from the smoking area as possible. “What’s the story?”

Simon took them through his plans slowly and unemotionally, emphasising his desire to make his departure appear to be a positive development for the agency, promising his co-operation and a gradual release of his shares to other directors. He had just given them copies of the press release when the champagne arrived. He got up to tip the waiter and stood by the door, watching the two men frowning over the release as they absorbed the news and calculated its effect on them. Ziegler would be delighted to see Simon go and leave him as undisputed master of the world. Jordan would get a bigger office and a bigger title to go with his big new car. Neither of them would miss him personally any more than he would miss them. It was just business, business and self-interest.

Jordan stood up and came over to Simon, his face doing its best to look solemn. He patted Simon’s shoulder. “You’ll be sorely missed, old boy. Sorely missed. Valued our friendship enormously.” He sighed gustily at the thought of losing his dear comrade and reached for the champagne. “Ah,” he said, “Perrier-Jouët ’85. Splendid.”

Ziegler began pacing up and down. Simon was distracted by his jogging shoes. They looked as if they were inflatable, and gave Ziegler the appearance of bouncing. “I don’t get it. You want to go run some rinky fucking dink hotel out in the boonies?” He stopped and swivelled to look at Simon, his head thrust forward like a dog examining an unexpected and possibly doctored bone.
“You’re blowing smoke up my ass. There’s another agency.”

The room was silent except for the sound of Jordan’s unlit cigarette—tap, tap, tap on the gold case.

“No, Bob. Nothing like that, cross my heart. I’ve had enough, that’s all. I’m ready for a change.” Simon grinned. “Wish me luck and tell me you’ll miss me.”

Ziegler scowled. “What do you want, a chicken dinner and a goddamn medal? You give me a problem like this and I’m supposed to be pleased? Jesus.”

But underneath the bluster, Simon could tell that he was, and so was Jordan, and as they talked on into the late afternoon it became clear that neither of them wanted him to stay any longer than was absolutely necessary. In a matter of hours, his position had changed from indispensable to a potential embarrassment, an executive who had taken his eye off the corporate ball, a believer who had renounced his faith. People like that were disruptive, even dangerous, because they threatened to undermine the agency’s carefully cultivated aura of dedication.

Simon listened as Ziegler and Jordan went through the client list, assessing possible damage and discussing adjustments in top management. Not once did they ask his opinion, and he realised that he was already, in Ziegler’s terminology, history. The lawyers would take care of the details. He was out.

E
rnest parked his old Armstrong Siddeley, dignified and gleaming, outside the flat in Rutland Gate. Today they were leaving for good, emigrating, driving down to a new life.

He let himself into the flat and found Simon kneeling on a swollen suitcase, cursing as he tried to close the locks. “Sorry about this, Ern. I never was a great packer. How much room is there in the car?”

Ernest joined him on the suitcase. “It might be just a tiny bit cramped, but we’ll manage. Is it just this one and the other two?” He snapped the locks shut. “There. Off we go.”

They carried the cases out to the car, and Ernest opened the trunk. “The big one we can squeeze in here, and the others can go on top of Mrs. Gibbons’s basket.”

Simon had forgotten about Mrs. Gibbons. “Where’s she going to sit?”

“Well, she does have this rather tiresome little habit—she’ll only travel in the passenger seat. If you put her behind, she gets terribly upset and eats the upholstery.”

“What about me?”

“You can be the English
milor
and sit in the back.”

Simon peered through the passenger window. Two pink eyes looked back at him, and Mrs. Gibbons sat up and yawned. She had, like all bull terriers, a pair of jaws that looked capable of cracking rocks. She cocked her head at Simon. One ragged white ear pricked up, and he heard a low, bubbling growl.

Ernest came round and opened the door. “We don’t want to hear any more of that nastiness. Now you come out and say hello to Mr. Shaw.” He turned to Simon. “Hold out your hand, dear, so she can have a sniff.”

Simon extended a tentative hand, which the dog examined carefully before hopping back into the car and curling up on the seat, one eye open and alert, the other closed.

“That’s not a dog, Ern. That’s more like a Japanese wrestler.”

“Appearances aren’t everything, dear. She has a very sweet disposition … usually.” Ernest opened the back door of the car and ushered Simon with a flourish into the seat next to the dog basket. “To France!”

They stopped for the night south of Paris at Fontainebleau and set off early the next morning, the old car keeping up a steady, silent sixty-five miles an hour, the sky becoming higher and brighter as they entered the Midi.

“We shall be in Brassière for the cocktail hour,” said Ernest. “And I happen to know that Nicole is making us a
cassoulet
.”

Simon leant forward, his elbows on the back of the passenger seat. Mrs. Gibbons opened a warning eye. “I’m glad that you and Nicole get on so well.”

“My dear, I can’t tell you what a relief she is after our last little venture. Incidentally, did you tell her that you were leaving?”

Simon had decided not to say anything to Caroline until he was safely in France. If she’d known he was leaving the jurisdiction of the English court, the lawyers would have been on him like flies. “No. I thought I’d drop her a note, tell her not to worry about the alimony. She’s got nothing to complain about.”

Ernest sniffed loudly. “That never stopped her making a pest of herself. An extremely spoilt young woman, in my opinion.” He pulled out to overtake a truck filled with sheep. “She’ll be curious, you know, when she finds out. She’ll come down to have a look, nosy little madam.”

“I’m sure.” Simon looked at the rocky, grey-green landscape, and felt suddenly tired. The past few weeks hadn’t been easy, and now that they were over he wanted to collapse, to be with Nicole. He was starting to think of her as home. “Can’t you get this old tub to go any faster?”

They reached Brassière just after six, and Nicole came out to greet them, hugging herself against the cold. She was wearing tights and sweater of fine black wool, with a small and totally impractical white apron. Simon picked her up and nuzzled her neck. Her skin was warm from the kitchen. “You could get arrested wearing an outfit like that. How are you?”

“Welcome home,
chéri
.” She leant back in his arms to look at his face, and then her eyes widened as she saw something over his shoulder. “My God, what’s that?”

Mrs. Gibbons was celebrating her arrival with an investigation of local aromas, moving from lamppost to dustbin with a rolling, bandy-legged, nautical walk, her tail stiff and quizzical. Nicole watched her with disbelief as she chose a suitable spot to relieve herself, her great blunt snout lifted to take the evening air.

“That,” said Simon, “is Mrs. Gibbons. Unusual, isn’t she?”

Nicole laughed and shook her head. A truly ugly dog, she thought, one of God’s jokes. She kissed Simon on the nose. “You don’t get a drink until you put me down.”

They unloaded the car and sat round the fire with a bottle of red wine as Nicole brought them up to date. News of the hotel had spread well beyond the village through the
téléphone arabe
—café talk and shop gossip. Every day now, she said, someone would approach her to suggest an arrangement of one kind or another: a job, a discount on meat, an exceptional opportunity to buy antiques, pool maintenance service, fully grown olive trees at a
prix d’ami
. The whole world, it seemed, had something or someone to sell.

And nobody was more persistent than the burglar’s dedicated foe, Jean-Louis, the alarm system salesman. At least once a day, he would call or drop in with the latest reports of criminal activity in the Vaucluse. Robbery was rampant, according to him, and nothing was safe. Cars disappeared in seconds, houses were violated, garden furniture and statues took flight, even the very knives and forks of the hotel would be at risk. It would be, he told Nicole, his personal pleasure and responsibility to supervise a security system that would rival the Banque de France for impregnability. Not even a rat from the fields would be able to slip through the net.

“He sounds like a con artist to me,” said Simon. “What do we need all that for? There’ll always be someone in the hotel. Anyway, we can train Mrs. Gibbons to kill on command.”

Nicole shrugged. “I think he looks for a job—you know,
chef de sécurité
. He’s quite charming, but a little
louche
. You met him at the party.”

“What about the real chef?”

“Two possibilities so far. A young man who is sous-chef at one of the big hotels on the coast. He wants his own kitchen. They say he is good, and ambitious to do something famous. The other—” Nicole lit a cigarette and laughed through the smoke—“is Madame Pons. She’s from the region, a wonderful cook, but with a temperament. Her last job was in Avignon, but she had a fracas with a client who said the duck was undercooked. She came out of the kitchen and
paf!
It was very dramatic.”

“How do you feel about a dramatic chef, Ern?”

“Artists are never easy, dear. We all know that.”

“I had her
soufflé aux truffes
one night,” said Nicole, “and chicken with tarragon.
Superbe
.” She looked at her watch and stood up. “And now all I have for you is my poor little
cassoulet
.”

The poor little
cassoulet
—a heavy, rich stew of sausage and lamb and goose and beans with a light crust of bread crumbs—was placed in its deep earthenware bowl on the table, next to the wine from Rasteau that they were testing for the hotel cellar. The long, fat loaf of bread was cut into thick slices which felt soft and springy between the fingers. The salad was tossed, the wine poured, and as Nicole broke the crust of the
cassoulet
, a savoury steam came from the bowl. Simon grinned at her as he tucked his napkin into his collar. “I’m taking care of your shirts.”

“
Bon
. Now eat while it’s hot.”

The hiring of the chef, they all agreed, needed to be settled quickly, before the kitchen was built and equipped. A good chef could make an hotel’s reputation in a single season and attract local customers throughout the year. But finding the right chef, being sure, that was the problem. Did you go and try the restaurant, in the anonymous fashion of the Michelin inspector? And if you did, could you be certain that it was the chef, rather than some talented slave, who did the cooking?

Ernest dabbed his mouth with his napkin and took a mouthful of wine, chewing at it for a moment before swallowing. “Mmmm. Very promising. Shall we try the Cairanne? It’s wonderful that all the vineyards are so close.” He got up to fetch clean glasses and poured the wine. “Now, are you ready for an answer to the problem?”

“Another
pensée
, is this, Ern?”

“Exactly, dear. What I suggest is that we ask each chef to come to Brassière—which they’d want to do anyway—and cook for us. A test lunch. Why not?”

Nicole and Simon looked at each other. Why not?

They were not prepared, however, for the delicate and highly important matter of gastronomic self-esteem, the ego of a chef who knows he’s good and who sees himself among the masters like Bocuse and Senderens—revered, courted, treated like national treasures by the President, fawned over by movie stars. When Nicole called the young man on the coast, he declined the invitation to lower himself by cooking in a private kitchen. He would come to Brassière, providing a chauffeur-driven car was sent to Nice to pick him up, but there would be a
déplacement
charge of five thousand francs, and he would not cook.

Nicole put the phone down and grimaced.
“Il pète plus haut que son cul.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Ernest.

Simon laughed. “They don’t teach that one at Berlitz, Ern. It means that he has an exaggerated idea of his own importance—he farts higher than his own arse.”

“An anal ventriloquist. How very distasteful.”

After some difficulty, Nicole managed to track down the second candidate, Madame Pons, and put the same proposition to her. It was agreed that she would come to look at the hotel and then at Nicole’s kitchen. If she liked what she saw, she would cook. If not, they could buy her lunch at the Mas Tourteron outside Gordes, which she had heard was excellent, and that would be her fee for the day. But she was, she said, an optimist. She told Nicole to meet her in Les Halles in Avignon at six the next morning to buy the ingredients for lunch.