Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle Page A

interest. She smiled at Simon and swayed back into the café.
    “Pretty girl,” said Simon.
    “You’ve met the mother?” Nicole puffed out her cheeks and laughed.
    “You’ve an evil, jealous woman. Just because you haven’t got a moustache and can’t drive a tractor.”
    “Is that what you like?” Nicole looked at him through the smoke of her cigarette, and Simon felt the tug of attraction between them. No, he thought, what I like is opposite me.
    “I love women with moustaches,” he said. “I think it’s the way they tickle.”
    Nicole pulled a thick strand of hair across her face and held it under her nose.
“C’est bon?”
    Simon nodded. “Fantastic. Can you eat like that?”
    He had chosen a restaurant outside Gordes, a converted farmhouse with tables set out in the courtyard and a chef whom the Gault-Millau Guide described as one of the stars of the future. Their lunch was long and easy and they laughed often and drank a little too much wine. And then, over coffee, Nicole asked him how he felt about returning to London.
    Simon watched the smoke of his cigar curl up into the leaves of the plane tree that shaded them from the sun, and wondered what he’d be doing at lunchtime tomorrow. Perrier water, probably, and a client agonising over his market share.
    “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “The trouble is, I’ve seen it all before—the clients have the same old problems, the people I work with bore me.…” He stopped, and blew on the tip of his cigar until it glowed under its blue-grey layer of ash. “I suppose that’s it; I’m bored. I used to love it, and now I don’t.”
    “But still you do it.”
    “It’s this character defect I have. I like the money.” With a rueful smile, he looked at his watch and signalled for the bill. “I’m sorry. I’d better get going.”
    They sat in silence while he paid, and then he took from his wallet a card and passed it across the table. “Here’s my number in London. If you ever come over, let me know. Maybe we could have dinner.”
    Nicole paused as she was putting on her sunglasses, leaving them perched on the end of her nose while shelooked at him. “I thought you always had dinner with clients.”
    “You could be a new business prospect.” Her eyebrows went up, and Simon grinned. “It’s what you say in advertising when you’re fishing.”
    He drove back to the hotel to collect his bags, and Nicole went home. They were both quite sure they would meet again.

5
    S imon suddenly hated London. The flat, despite Ernest’s efforts with flowers and some paintings rescued from the house, was as cheerless and impersonal as a suite in a hotel. The long, dull prelude to the British winter had begun. The sky was a low grey ceiling, and people on the streets huddled against the drizzle and jousted with their umbrellas. There was not enough light. Provence was a bright, distant memory.
    The first day back in the office did nothing to lift Simon’s mood. Jordan had clearly loved his week as the lord of all he surveyed and was reluctant to let go, drifting into Simon’s office to offer advice on what he called matters of state. He was mounting his favouritehobbyhorse—the irresponsible attitude of the creative department in general and the creative director, David Fry, in particular—when Simon cut him off. “Let’s get on to that later, can we? I’d better start catching up on all this.” He picked up a pile of documents. “I’m supposed to have an intimate understanding of the condom market by Thursday.”
    Jordan smiled, exposing long, slightly yellow teeth. He’s beginning to look like one of his bloody horses, Simon thought.
    “Rather you than me, old boy,” Jordan said. “Always hated the wretched things. Like drinking claret through a straw.” He whinnied with laughter and strolled back to his office.
    The Condom Marketing Board, or the Rubber Barons, as they were unofficially known in the agency, had asked