could camouflage a number of flaws for the benefit of the camera, and that she could continue to hide the tell-tale signs of fatigue with a few clever makeup tricks. But she had also recognized that afternoon that it would be foolish not to take a rest, especially since the network owed her so much time off. She had been feeling debilitated and emotionally drained, and apparently the signs were now all too evident to others.
And so she had put her mirror away and made a snap decision. The same day she had phoned Clee at his Paris office, and told him she would like to accept his offer of the farmhouse, if it was still open. He had been thrilled that she wanted to go to Provence.
‘Hey, babe, that’s great,’ he had said, his excitement echoing down the wire. ‘I’m leaving for Moscow tomorrow, to photograph Gorbachev for Paris Match, but Jean-Claude will make arrangements for you to be met in Marseille, and then driven up to the farm. All you have to do is get yourself to Marseille, either via Paris or Nice. Just let Jean-Claude know the day you’ll be arriving, and the time. I’ll call you from Moscow, to find out how you’re doing, how you’ve settled in.’
Within forty-eight hours she was zooming across the Atlantic faster than the speed of sound, a passenger on board the French Concorde, landing in Paris a short three hours and forty-five minutes later. After spending the night at the Plaza Athénée, her favourite hotel, she had taken a plane from Orly Airport to Marseille the following morning.
Jean-Claude, Clee’s office manager, had explained to her that a chauffeur from the car company they used would be waiting for her at the airport. ‘You won’t be able to miss him. He’ll be holding up a card with your name written on it in bold letters,’ Jean-Claude had said on the telephone.
True to Jean-Claude’s promise, the chauffeur had been there when she had alighted from the plane and gone to the baggage area. He had introduced himself as Etienne, and he was a pleasant, chatty and informative Provençal, who throughout the drive inland had kept her highly entertained with rather fantastic folkloric tales of the region. He had also recited more facts about Aix and Arles than she could possibly absorb at one time.
Although she spoke French well, having spent part of her youth in Paris with her globe-trotting parents, Nicky had nonetheless found the Provençal accent a bit difficult to understand at first. But relatively quickly she had realized that Etienne was adding the letter g to many words, so that bien became bieng, and so forth. Once she had got the hang of this adjustment of the French language, had attuned her ear to the rich and throaty cadence of his speech, and his rapid delivery, she had discovered she had no problems grasping everything he said.
On the way to Aix-en-Provence from Marseille, Nicky had begun to notice that the landscape was completely different from the Côte d’Azur, which was the part of southern France she knew so intimately. Her parents were Francophiles, and as a child she had been taken to many of the renowned coastal resorts by them, for annual holidays and shorter stays. In particular, her mother and father had favoured Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Cannes and Monte Carlo. And then in October of 1986 she had spent those two extraordinary weeks in Cap d’Antibes with Charles Devereaux, before he had disappeared from her life altogether. And forever.
But this area of Provence was entirely new to her and, as such, it did not hold any kind of memories, neither good nor bad.
This sudden knowledge had made her feel more at ease, and finally she had begun to relax in the air-conditioned comfort of the Mercedes, continuing to glance out of the window from time to time.
They had passed through a land of flat plains interspersed with hills and mountains. There were quaint little towns set in bucolic surroundings, and picturesque hilltop villages that looked as if they were propping up the vast unblemished blue sky. Many fields and hillsides were luxuriant with purple lavender, and dark vineyards and an abundance of cherry and fruit orchards stretched for miles. And dotting this fertile landscape intermittently were lines of crooked olive trees and stately black cypresses which stood like sentinels against the far horizon.
Clee’s farmhouse was in the department of Provence called the Bouches-du-Rhône, situated between the ancient university town of Aix-en-Provence and St Rémy. It was on the outskirts of a tiny village close to the lush green foothills of Lubéron, one of the great mountain ranges of Provence.
The farmhouse was larger than Nicky had expected it to be. It was sprawling yet had a certain gracefulness and was obviously quite old. It had looked beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine which glanced across its red-tiled roof and cast a warm honey-coloured glaze over the pale stone walls. Standing at the end of a long straight driveway lined with cypress trees, it was visible for the entire approach to the white front door.
When the car had finally been brought to a halt by Etienne, he had exclaimed, ‘Eh, voilà!’ and had waved one hand at the farm with a grand flourish. Then he had swung his head and smiled at her triumphantly, looking as though getting her here had been a major achievement on his part.
Clee’s housekeeper Amelia and her husband Guillaume had been waiting for her on the doorstep, and they had welcomed her enthusiastically, their smiles warm, their manner friendly.
Guillaume had then promptly whisked away her luggage - along with Etienne. The latter had apparently not needed a second invitation from Guillaume to ‘come inside the kitchen for a pastis.’
With billowing laughter and perpetual smiles, Amelia had ushered Nicky inside the farmhouse, and had insisted on showing her around before taking her upstairs to her quarters.
They had started out in the kitchen, obviously Amelia’s favourite spot in the entire house, and she was apparently proud of it.
The room was large, painted white, and had dark wood beams on the ceiling, terracotta tiles on the floor. A massive stone fireplace took up an end wall; to the side of this stood a big oven, and several marble-topped counters for baking and food preparation were set under the three windows. Placed on these were flat woven baskets brimming with local produce. One held a selection of fruit - apples, oranges, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, cherries and grapes; the other overflowed with vegetables - carrots, cabbage, potatoes, beans, artichokes and peas. Ropes of onions and garlic, and bunches of the herbs of Provence swung from a ceiling beam, and the lovely aroma of marjoram, rosemary and thyme wafted to her on the air.
A round table stood in the centre of the kitchen, covered with a red-and-white gingham cloth to match the neat little tied-back curtains at the windows, and taking pride of place on the far wall was an antique baker’s rack made of black wrought-iron trimmed with brass. It had been stacked with a variety of copper pots and pans that glittered and winked in the sunlight, while on the wall opposite a series of built-in shelves displayed colourful pottery platters, plates, soup bowls and double-sized café-au-lait cups and saucers.
The dining room opened off the kitchen, and these two rooms flowed into each other, were visually linked through the use of the same terracotta floor tiles, white-painted walls and ceiling beams.
Here there was a big, old-fashioned fireplace and hearth made of the local cream-coloured stone and stacked with logs for the winter, and a window at each end of the room filled it with light. A country feeling had been created by the long oak dining table, high-backed chairs and carved sideboard. Floating over the table was a rustic black-iron chandelier, and running down the centre of the table was a collection of brass candlesticks holding thick white candles. Huge bowls of flowers in the centre of the table and on the sideboard brought touches of vivid colour to the rather simply furnished room.
Hurrying forward, Amelia had next shown her out into the main hall, and had opened a door into a small downstairs sitting room. Highly polished cream flagstones gleamed on the floor, the walls were painted a soft butter yellow, and two sofas covered in cream
