The Hotel Riviera(3)
Petite dark-haired Marit, straight out of culinary school and a new recruit this season, was chopping vegetables, and Jean-Paul, the seventeen-year-old “youth-of-all-work” was busy cleaning up. The real season was over; it would be an easy night with just the remaining hotel guests and perhaps a couple of last-minute strays who might wander our way.
I slid a Barry White album, my current favorite sexy man, into the CD player, grabbed a brownie, pushed my way back through the jangling beads, and came across Scramble. Okay, so Scramble’s not a dog, she’s not a cat, or even a hamster. Scramble is a hen. I know it’s crazy, but ever since she emerged from the shell, a soft fluffy yellow chicken cradled trustingly in the palm of my hand, I’ve adored her, and I’d like to believe she loves me too, though with a hen it’s hard to tell. Anyhow, the fact is I’m the only woman who cried the whole way through Chicken Run. And though you might think it’s a sad state of affairs, giving all my love to a hen instead of a husband, Scramble deserves it more. She’s never unfaithful, she never even glances at anybody else, and she sleeps in my bed every night.
She’s quite big now, soft and white with yellow legs, ruby crest and wattles, and beady dark eyes. She’s scratching energetically in the big terra-cotta pot with the red hibiscus outside the kitchen door that she’s claimed as home, preparing to settle down for the night, or at least until I go to bed when she’ll join me on my pillow.
I gave her an affectionate little pat as I passed by, which she returned with a hearty peck. “Ungrateful bird,” I said. “I remember when you were just an egg.”
I cast a cautious glance at the black sloop as I walked back along the terrace. Lights twinkled and banners fluttered festively. I wondered what the Naked Man was up to, and whether he might row the boat’s little dinghy into my cove and join us for dinner on the terrace.
I sighed. I wasn’t betting on it.
Chapter 3
“That’s a pretty little sloop,” Miss Nightingale called. “Rather different for these waters, don’t you think?”
“It is, and I hope they’re not going to play loud music and interrupt your peaceful dinner,” I said.
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so, my dear, it doesn’t look the right boat for that sort of thing. It’s more of a proper sailor’s boat, if you know what I mean.”
I smiled at my favorite guest. Mollie Nightingale was a retired British schoolmarm, and by way of being my friend. Nothing had ever been said, but it was just there between us, that warm feeling, a kind of recognition I suppose you might call it. She had certain qualities I admired: integrity; an offbeat sense of humor; and a personal reticence that matched my own. Miss Nightingale kept her own counsel and I knew little about her private life; just the woman she was here at the Riviera. A woman I liked.
She had been my first guest, the week the Hotel Riviera opened for business, and she had been back every year since, coming late in the season when prices were lower and she could afford to stay for a month, before heading home to her cottage in the Cotswolds and her miniature Yorkie, Little Nell, and another long English winter. Meanwhile, she lived out her annual dream here, alone at a table for one, with a small carafe of local wine and book to hand, and always with a pleasant word and a smile for everyone.
Miss Nightingale was, I would guess, somewhere in her late seventies, short, square, and sturdy, and tonight she wore a pink flower-print dress. A white cardigan was thrown over her shoulders, though it was still warm out, and as always she had on her double row of pearls. Like the Queen of England, she always carried a large handbag, which, besides a clean linen handkerchief and her money, also contained her knitting. Now, I’m not sure if the Queen of England knits, but Miss Nightingale, with her determinedly gray hair set in stiff waves and curls, and her piercing blue eyes behind large pale spectacles, was a dead ringer for Her Majesty.
She was usually first down for dinner, showing up about this time for a glass of pastis, a little self-indulgence to which I knew she looked forward. She’d mix the anise liqueur with water in a tall glass then sip it slowly, making it last until dinner, which I also knew was the social highlight of her day.
I sat with her while she told me about her outing to the Villa Ephrussi, the old Rothschild house with its spectacular gardens up the coast near Cap-Ferrat. She always liked to tell me about the gardens she had discovered; she was a keen gardener herself and her own roses had won many local prizes. In fact, she was often to be found pottering about the gardens here, straw sunhat slammed firmly over her eyes, pulling up a naughty weed or two, or snipping back a recalcitrant branch of honeysuckle that threatened to overwhelm the already out-of-hand bougainvillea.
Settled at her usual table, the one at the end of the terrace nearest the kitchen, glass of pastis to hand, she gazed at the spectacular view and heaved a satisfied sigh.
It was that special time in the evening on the C?te d’Azur, when the sky seems to meld with the sea and all the world turns a shimmering silver-plated midnight-blue. In the sudden breathless silence that always comes when day turns into night, the chatter of high-pitched French voices floated from the kitchen, and a tiny lizard swished by, pausing to stare at us with jeweled yellow eyes.
“Divine,” Miss Nightingale murmured. “How you must love it here, my dear. How could you ever bear to leave it?”