Escape to the Riviera Read online

  They wandered up the hill, their shoes slipping slightly on the smooth old stones, along the streets that held an air of otherworldliness with their secretive recessed doors opening onto geranium pot-filled steps and tiny windows, with painted shutters like wings on either side. Carrie imagined that if you picked up a pot you might find a trefoil curved copper key to unlock one of the wooden painted doors and transport you to another world.

  ‘How much further’? Jade stopped and rubbed at her toes. ‘I’m getting a blister. The signal here’s rubbish. Can’t even send a text and there’s no 3G.’

  Carrie closed her eyes and counted to ten. It would be pointless trying to point out to Jade that she hadn’t been invited in the first place.

  ‘Maybe there’ll be an internet café, where we can stop later,’ said Angela. ‘Come on, let’s see if we can find a baker.’

  As if the fairies in the elaborate tracery of plants had been listening, the artery of streets joined a larger one and suddenly they were in a street of cafés and touristy shops.

  ‘Time for a coffee and a sit-down,’ declared Angela, with a telling look Carrie’s way. ‘And we might be able to find some plasters for your toe, Jade.’

  ‘And while you’re doing that I’ll see if I can find the tourist office and get a couple of maps of the area.’

  ‘Great idea,’ said Angela, almost bundling her away.

  Abandoning them, with Angela musing over what coffee to order, Carrie hurried off before Jade could decide she might be missing out on something and decide to limp after her.

  Following the directions, the owner of the coffee shop had given her, after a few false turns, she turned down what should have been a dead end and suddenly pitched into the noise and bustle of the market.

  Striped canvas roofs covered stalls piled high with food so bright and colourful, her mouth watered. Angela would be in seventh heaven. The nearest stall exploded with a cornucopia of fruit and vegetables, displayed with artistic precision. Ruby-red fat strawberries squatted next to scarlet redcurrants and white-blushed blueberries, while grapes, red and green, jostled together in between rows of shiny plums.

  Across the way a stall stacked high with salamis like Jenga caught her eye. What if you removed one and the stack stayed upright, perhaps you could have it for free? The thought made her smile. And if you sent the pile tumbling to the floor, you had to buy the whole lot.

  Next to them were baskets filled with a variety of cured meats from linen-wrapped Bayonne hams through to the local thinner sticks of meat, Bistouquette Provençale and then short fat salamis available in different flavours, Sanglier, Piment, Canard, Chèvre, Fumé or aux cepes priced at four for ten euros.

  It would have been nice to have her own basket and she could fill it with all the amazing goodies, like the other French women scurrying along, weighed down with bags, haggling with stall holders and exchanging ribald banter.

  The crowd, busy with purpose, jostled and pushed, propelling her along as part of the tide of shoppers. She didn’t mind. For the first time it felt like she was in France proper, stepping into another world with the smells, the sights and the sound of French spoken at a machine-gun-rattle pace, the guttural consonants flowing into each other – a stream of incomprehensible words.

  When she reached the end of the row and turned into the next one, the throng of people slowed its pace, like liquid wax cooling, and the path through the market steadily became more congested. Whispers and nudges, nods of ‘come see this’, rippled through like a Mexican Wave. It was difficult to see what was going on but as she craned her head, she spotted the unmistakable fluffy torpedo of a boom mic.

  With a gulp, she swallowed hard and smoothed down her skirt. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Happy, no, convenient, coincidences happened in films and books, not in real life. When she’d set out this morning, in her heart of hearts, she hadn’t expected to find the film crew. It had been one of those deliberately fooling-yourself moments that you’re doing something positive when you know it’s no such thing because it’s never going to happen. Now it had and she was totally unprepared.

  For a while she stood, happy to hide in the crowd, far too scared to worm her way forward because she hadn’t the foggiest what she would do if she got to the front and spotted Richard. With the inevitability of the ebb of the tide, as people became bored, they relinquished their place and Carrie found herself sucked to the front of the crowd, two rows back. Artificial light cast from several arc lamps lit up the shaded market stalls on the right-hand side and beyond them, a row of vans and trucks lined the road.

  The butterflies, she told herself earlier not to get in a tizz, suddenly took flight in a frenzied rush, bouncing around her stomach, leaving her breathless and wide-eyed. She’d never imagined she’d stumble across the filming, although she’d made a massive assumption about it being the right film and that Richard might even be here. The dammed butterflies didn’t give two hoots about that. They were making a do-or-die attempt to escape right through her stomach wall.

  There was no sign of any filming taking place, although quite a lot of people buzzed about, zipping backwards and forwards, looking terribly busy and important. A girl with a clipboard and headphones was nodding urgently with two men, both of whom looked as if they’d been sleeping rough in the streets for the last couple of nights. Over in the corner, a cameraman was laughing with a small group of people who had to be extras and the soundman was dismantling the long pole of the boom.

  Carrie squeezed behind two women of indeterminate age, who were excitedly whispering to each other in English. Both were dressed as if they’d recently stepped off a golf course, in smart chino shorts, matching T-shirts and peaked sun visors. One was slightly taller than the other and Carrie heard her addressed as Hilary.

  ‘That was definitely him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, no, but it might be him,’ said Hilary.

  ‘Excuse me?’ The two women swung round. ‘Do you know what they’re filming? Or who’s in it?’

  ‘Shh, you have to be quiet,’ said Hilary nudging her and nodding towards one of the two scruffy men. ‘The director keeps getting shirty because we’re making too much noise. He keeps threatening to move us on.’

  ‘Hmph,’ said the other woman with a disdainful sniff, ‘I don’t know why. It’s a public place. What does he expect? And, quite frankly, he looks as if he should have been moved on. A good wash and scrub wouldn’t do him any harm.’

  ‘Apparently,’ said Hilary, in a confiding whisper, ‘it’s an American film. Hollywood. Blockbuster. Big names.’ Her eyes widened with each phrase making Carrie wonder whether she might dislocate something.

  ‘Is it anyone famous?’ Carrie asked, her words almost sticking in her throat.

  ‘Famous? Oooh yes! It’s that fella from,’ Hilary turned to her friend, ‘what’s that film he was in? You know thingy.’

  ‘Oh, that one. Yes. The one where he drove that—’

  ‘—silver car.’ Hilary nodded. ‘And it had a dog in it.’

  Carrie bit back a smile at their conversation, as incomprehensible to her as it was clear to them. They reminded her of a married couple, together for so long they didn’t need to converse in whole sentences.

  ‘Yes. Now what’s his name?’ mused Hilary.

  Carrie waited, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to hide the fact she wanted to grab Hilary and give her a damn good shake.

  Hilary scrunched up her face. ‘He was also in …’

  Carrie bit her lip. God give her strength. ‘Do you mean Richard Maddox?’ she asked, sounding normal and sane and not wanting to rip the woman limb from limb.

  ‘That’s the one.’ Hilary’s friend hissed in a carrying whisper. ‘You clever girl. Ooh are you alright? You look rather pale.’

  ‘Have you seen him?’ Carrie stood on tiptoe but there was little going on. The two tramp look-a-likes had gone, leaving the girl with the clipboard moving from group to gro
up, gesticulating madly.

  ‘Not now. He was here earlier. I bet he’s gone back to his Winnebago.’

  ‘Do you think you’d get a Winnebago up these streets, Kathleen? I’m not sure.’

  ‘Maybe he’s dropped off in his chauffeur-driven Bentley each morning.’

  With nothing very much happening now, the crowd began to thin and Carrie had a much better view. A jolly market tradesman in an apron, who clearly wasn’t a trader, sipped coffee and chatted to a couple of other decidedly French- styled people with string baskets and shopping trolleys. Definitely extras, Carrie guessed. The crew worked around them with that busy precision of people who know exactly what they’re doing. Some peeled the gaffer tape securing the cables to the floor, others were dismantling the lights and others consulted schedules while packing things into large padded boxes.

  To a man they ignored the crowd around them, they might as well have been behind a sheet of bullet-proof plate glass, a deliberate policy to discourage the general public from getting too close, as if they were an alien species apart from everyone else.

  Carrie hesitated, imagining the crew might dismiss her as yet another fan or a lunatic stalker but she couldn’t let this chance slip by. For a minute, a smile played around her lips. What if she marched up and told them she was Mrs Maddox, Richard’s wife? It would be worth it to see their reaction, before she was carried off to the funny farm.

  Thing was, she had once been in this world. Okay, she’d had a few walk-on parts in a couple of films, none of which had been spotted by a director and propelled her to instant stardom or even a bigger part, despite her vain hope that one of them would say who is the girl with the curly hair?

  It had been such a long time ago; she’d virtually buried that part of her life. Being on set had been such a thrill, despite sometimes being tedious. There could be a lot of hanging around to get one small scene in the can but she’d loved being part of something, working alongside the whole crew all beavering away to achieve that goal. It had always been fascinating watching all the separate parts; the sound guys making sure they’d got what they needed, the camera men anxiously checking the light and conferring and most of all watching the director in action and comparing how she might approach a scene instead.

  Added to all that, there was something quite indulgent about being on set, apart from the horrifically early hours. You didn’t have to do anything but focus on what you needed to do, your scene. Not like in her job now, when as a teacher you were pulled in a thousand different directions on a daily basis. On set you might spend hours between takes but you had nothing else to do apart from learn lines or rehearse and there was always someone to talk to, someone else having to hang around. No wonder food was always plentiful. The catering guys worked non-stop and there was always a never-ending supply of bacon butties. Did they have salami baguettes here instead?

  With a mental rap of the knuckles, she told herself to stop stalling. Here was her best chance to track Richard down and she’d done nothing for the last five minutes but hop about from leg to the other like a demented stork. If she didn’t get a wiggle on, they’d have packed up and left.

  She forced herself to wander over, picking the youngest- looking member of the crew, on the basis that she hadn’t been doing this long enough to be blasé about her job and therefore would respond to the friendly chat of a passer-by.

  ‘Hi, looks like you’ve been hard at it since the early hours.’

  ‘God, yes,’ the girl, in her early twenties, brushed her hair out of her face, straightening up from the coil of wires she’d recently gathered. ‘We started at five, but it’s a wrap now.’

  ‘Got much more to do today?’ Carrie summoned up a sympathetic tone.

  ‘A couple of takes with the extras to get some general shots. But most of the crew are going on to the next location to do a recce.’ Carrie bit back a smile, the girl didn’t look as if she’d had that much experience, but she was certainly up to date with the jargon.

  ‘The talent did it in a couple of takes. Which is always nice. They’re done for the day.’

  Inwardly Carrie cursed Jade. If she’d left when she’d planned, she might have got here in time.

  In time to do what, mocked a voice inside her head? March right up to Richard and then what?

  ‘Who is the talent?’ For her own peace of mind, she had to check. She didn’t quite trust Hilary and Kathleen. ‘Anyone I would have heard of?’

  The girl laughed, producing a bag of cable ties from her back pocket. ‘You’re kidding. Unless you’ve been living in a cave for your whole life.’ She lowered her voice, ‘Richard Maddox and Savannah Murray.’

  ‘Wow. What is it? A big feature film?’ Carrie was starting to enjoy herself, getting into character of friendly star-struck person who happened to be walking by.

  ‘Turn on the Stars. It’s a romantic comedy. Great script. We were lucky to get them both on board, it’s taken a while for their schedules to coincide.’

  ‘Are you out here for long? You sound English? Where are you filming next?’

  ‘I’m from Essex. This unit is from England as most of the filming is here. I think there are a few scenes set in the States and they use a unit there. We’re here for the next six weeks.’ She grinned cheerfully. ‘Not a hardship. Summer back home looks crap.’

  She stooped down and started disconnecting some of the cables from each other and tying them up with the plastic ties. ‘I’ve got no complaints and for the next week we’re down on the harbour at Port les Pins. Less busy than St Tropez, thank goodness. It’s a pig to park the vans down there and the traffic is horrendous this time of year. The local authorities are helpful, though, it’s good for tourism. The tourists love it when they see …’ The girl faltered.

  Carrie laughed. ‘Yes we do. But many years ago I was an actress. I know the drill.’

  ‘Oh, sorry I didn’t mean to … you know.’

  ‘It’s fine. The film world looks glamorous to the outside world. They don’t see the long hours and the hard work the crew put in.’

  ‘God no, I mean I love it but its non-stop. We’re back on set again tomorrow morning at five. The early mornings are killers.’

  ‘I remember having to travel miles between sets, as well.’

  ‘This isn’t too bad, our base is in St Tropez.’

  ‘Nice,’ teased Carrie. ‘Posh hotel?’

  ‘Yeah, right! We’re in the Ibis. The director and the big names are staying in Le Chateau de la Messardière. Now that is posh.’

  ‘And of course, that’s where Richard Maddox and Savannah Murray are staying?’ Carrie twinkled, a sudden fizz of excitement at how easy this was turning out to be. Her first attempt and she’d discovered where Richard was staying. This Mata Hari lark was proving to be rather enjoyable.

  ‘Of course, not that I’ve been there.’

  ‘You done with these, Lorraine?’ A thick-set man with a sharp buzz cut came up, barely even glancing at Carrie.

  ‘Yup, they can go in the van.’

  ‘Can you go and give the sound guys a hand?’

  ‘Sure.’ She flashed Carrie a quick grin. ‘Gotta go, nice chatting with you. Might see you down at the harbour. We’re filming on one of the floating gin palaces down there. Be interesting getting the power generators on board.’

  ‘Lorraine,’ the man gave an impatient nod of his head.

  ‘Bye.’ She turned to her colleague and handed him one of the coils.

  With a casual wave hiding her excitement, Carrie turned and walked away, trying not to skip. Result. She wouldn’t even have to see Richard, she could simply go to the hotel and leave him a letter there.

  While she’d been talking her phone had buzzed several times. There were three impatient texts from Jade.

  Where are you?

  Have you got lost?’

  Your coffee’s going cold.

  Jade and Angela were sitting outside the café, Jade scrolling through her phone and Angela leaning b
ack in her chair, her eyes closed, soaking up the sun.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Jade scowled up at her before looking back at her phone. ‘We’ve been here ages.’

  Angela sprang to attention, her eyes asking a million questions as she mouthed, ‘Did you see him?’

  With an imperceptible shake of her head, answered, grateful that Jade was more interested in her phone.

  ‘Sorry I got distracted by how amazing the market was. Even made me want to cook.’

  Angela raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Almost,’ she ducked her head. ‘Okay, chop things up and have them with bread.’

  ‘I’m too lazy to move at the moment and we’ve got plenty of food in the fridge, I’d better not go and take a look. I know I’ll be tempted.’ Angela shunted her seat up, so that Carrie could squeeze in.

  ‘They have a market on Sunday as well. We can come back then. Urgh.’ The coffee was stone-cold.

  ‘I’m too hot,’ said Jade.

  ‘You do look very pink, did you put any sunscreen on?’ asked Angela.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And I didn’t bring any with me.’

  They decided that as the temperature had hit the 90s already, they’d head back to the villa for a swim to cool off and then have lunch.

  Halfway back to the car, as they emerged from the shady streets, Jade suddenly realised she’d left her brand-new sunglasses behind. Seeing that Angela was wilting in the heat, Carrie offered to go back and get them, giving the car keys to the others so that they could at least put the air conditioning on.

  The sun was at its highest now and most people had sensibly stopped in some of the pavement cafés, leaving the streets mostly deserted.

  She’d got used to having the street to herself when a man in dark sunglasses came abruptly around a corner and she almost cannoned into him. For a minute they did that very English side-stepping dance.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Carrie, lifting her sunglasses as she spoke, immediately realising she should have said ‘pardon’ and regretting taking them off as she squinted into the sun at him.