Brian Freemantle: The Namedropper

Jordan excused himself immediately after lunch, talking of prior arrangements that were going to keep him busy for the rest of the day and into the evening, sure he detected her disappointment at their not spending more of the day and perhaps dinner together.

‘Don’t forget what you’ll need tomorrow.’

‘It’s a boat, right?’

‘Maybe. You don’t like the sea?’

‘I told you I’ve lived in the Hamptons, remember?’

Lived, in the past tense, isolated Jordan. ‘Much rougher there than here.’

‘So I’m right!’ she demanded.

‘Wait and see.’

‘What time?’

‘Ten. I’ll call you if there’s any change.’

Not wanting to use those of previous expeditions, Jordan got the names of three new yacht charterers from the concierge on his way upstairs and fixed meetings with the two most convenient, both with boats available in the port. A man of instinctive attention to detail Jordan checked the following day’s predicted wind strength and chose the twin-hulled catamaran instead of the older, mahogany-fitted single hull he would have preferred in calmer conditions. It took longer to decide the food and wine he wanted, even for a one-day charter than it did to choose between the two yachts. The departure was confirmed for ten o’clock, which meant he didn’t have to alter their already agreed schedule. Jordan could easily have got back to the Carlton for dinner but guessed she would be eating there, so he ate again in the restaurant dominating the marina. From his balcony table he could easily see the catamaran he’d hired being prepared for the following day.

Jordan’s 9 a.m. call was a test, to assess her tone.

‘Is there a problem?’ she asked at once

‘None at all. I’m just checking it’s still all right with you?’ She’d been worried, prepared for disappointment.

‘I’m looking forward to it.’

You got everything?’

‘Everything.’

‘I’ll see you in the lobby at nine forty-five.’

She carried a small duffel bag and wore jeans, a white shirt with a thin anorak looped around her shoulders, her blonde hair in a ponytail under the bill cap, confident without any make-up, and Jordan thought she looked good enough to eat and hoped he would be doing just that very shortly. He definitely wouldn’t be moving on soon. He’d ordered a hotel car rather than bother with the hired Renault, pleased to see that the previously tipped crew of two men and one woman were already waiting for their arrival, the catamaran open and ready to sail.

As they cleared the marina on engine Alyce said, ‘It’s time I knew where we’re going.’

‘To see the cell in which the man in the iron mask was actually held,’ announced Jordan. Her reaction was exactly the same as that of the two other women – one English, the other Australian ’ he’d taken on the same trip, hopefully this time with the same uncomplicated result of the previous two.

‘ What! ’

‘Alexander Dumas’s story is based on fact. One of the fictions was that the mask was iron. It wasn’t. It was black velvet.’

‘I can’t believe what you’re telling me!’

The catamaran cleared the immediate harbour and the sails billowed out above them. Jordan said, ‘Why don’t you relax in the webbing between the hulls?’

‘Because I want you to tell me what you’re talking about! It’s not really true, is it?’

‘Totally true. What no one has ever established is his real identity, although he’s buried as “M de Marshiel”. He was a state prisoner, of Louis XIV. For forty years he was held in jails all over France. He died in the Bastille in November, 1703. Whenever he was moved, from jail to jail, he had to wear the velvet mask to prevent anyone ever recognizing who he really was…’ Jordan waved his hand beyond her. ‘And one of those prisons was on the Ile St Marguerite, where we’re going.’

Alyce swivelled to look at the undulating smudge on the horizon. ‘We’re going to see the actual cell?’

‘The actual cell,’ echoed Jordan. It was going to work. It always had.

‘I don’t believe it!’ she said again.

‘You can use your schoolgirl French to read the memorial plaque. There’s a pamphlet, too.’

‘What horrendous crime did he commit, yet escape execution?’

‘No one knows that, either. There’s a lot of legends. One is that he was the Due de Vermandois, an illegitimate son of Louis, although on the face of it that’s an extreme way to treat your own son. In his book, if you remember, Dumas copied Voltaire in suggesting the man was an illegitimate elder brother of Louis, fathered by Cardinal Mazarin. There’s also a lot of historical insistence that he was a Count Mattiolo, a minister of the Duke of Mantua, who tried to trick Louis during diplomatic negotiations and was punished with a totally unknown and unrecognized living death.’

Alyce shuddered. ‘Kept locked up for forty years!’

‘A non person for forty years, someone whose face was never again seen except by his jailers: there’s even a story that he had to wear the mask before he was given food, so that even the jailers wouldn’t know what he looked like. If he defied them and refused to put it on, he wasn’t fed.’

Jordan thought she was remarkably agile, disembarking at the island, as she had been boarding the catamaran. She slowly read the memorial plaque and collected the pamphlet, and in the bare cell, which was very cold compared to the outside near midday heat, she shuddered again several times.

‘Whatever he did, he didn’t deserve what was done to him,’ she insisted.

‘It had to be bad.’

‘It doesn’t make any difference.’

By the time they returned to the anchored catamaran the crew had erected a sun awning. Alyce didn’t refuse the champagne but stopped at the second glass of Chablis and didn’t need any urging to eat the lobster with her fingers. They let the strongest heat go out of the day before swimming off the port fin, Jordan delaying his climb back on to the boat because of his momentary and too obvious excitement at seeing her, surprisingly unashamed, in the briefest of bikinis. When they got back to Cannes she said she wanted to walk back rather than call for the hotel car or a taxi, and did so almost immediately taking his hand, moving her fingers over his. She said she wasn’t hungry when he suggested dinner but that the sea air had tired her and that she thought she’d go directly to bed.

‘But not alone,’ she added.

Jordan thought it was far more exciting than Ghilane might have made it discovering that Alyce was indeed a natural blonde. And very eager and proud to prove it.

They checked out of the Carlton together the following morning, Alyce leaving the American Express office in Cannes as her forwarding address for any mail and, despite the inevitable traffic congestion on the meander to St Tropez, once they got off the autoroute they managed to get to the Residence de la Pinade and their comer tower room in perfect time for lunch on the sea-bordering terrace, even after he’d organized the necessary safe deposit box. Held by the excitement of discovery they spent the afternoon in bed in fresh exploration and decided they didn’t want the additional exertion of walking into the town in the evening. Nor to eat anything other than each other. She didn’t enjoy the following day’s bustle of the town or the clutter of polished Harley Davidson motorcycles looped like a necklace around the harbour edge so they escaped by taxi over the hill to Pampalon Plage, and the Tahiti restaurant, the first of several they visited over succeeding days – judging the Tahiti their favourite – except for the day Jordan chartered another yacht, traditionally hulled this time, to sail the coastline to the car-free lies de Porquerolles. That was the day – or rather the night, as they lay side by side, naked, recovering from their lovemaking – that Alyce suggested extending her vacation by another week and Jordan said he thought she should tell him about the status of her marriage.