Page 32 of Rendez-Vous in Cannes
Daisy nodded. ‘Marcus, I think we’re going to have to forget that dinner on Bill’s expenses. I’m running out of evenings. Things are so hectic down here. Like you said. There’s always so much going on. Besides, I think it’s better if we keep things on a strict work basis. Okay? Friends?’
‘Nothing to do with you and Nat then?’
Daisy shook her head. ‘Nat and I are just friends.’ She had no intention of placing Nat in a difficult position with Marcus while they were here – what happened after the festival was another matter altogether. ‘I’ve heard from Ben,’ she said quietly. ‘He wants me to join him in Sydney and I’m thinking about it.’
There, that should be enough to stop Marcus speculating about her and Nat.
* * *
Anna tried to marshal her thoughts as she floated lazily on her back in the villa swimming pool before preparing to go indoors to shower and meet Daisy in town.
Tired after the premiere and the party and emotionally drained after her conversation with Bernard, she desperately wanted to be able to concentrate on the present and her future with Leo. To make plans. He hadn’t said yet what he wanted to talk about, but she knew he was a great organiser, so it was probably about some family events with Alison over the summer that needed to go in her diary.
But shaking off thoughts about what was currently going on in Cannes with the Cambone family was proving impossible. She might have successfully buried the past deep in the recess of her mind, but by coming to Cannes this year the jack in the box had jumped out and was now snapping at her heels.
The fragile emotional dam she’d built around herself over the years had been breached and unleashed a veritable flood of evocative thoughts and feelings. If only Philippe hadn’t died and she’d been able to make her peace with him face to face as she’d planned, she would have been able to make plans for her future with Leo with more composure? Wouldn’t she?
Or was it possible the opposite would have been true? Would she have found her lifelong love for Philippe was greater than that for Leo? That was a hypothetical question too far and Anna turned on to her front and began to swim slowly towards the poolside steps. All these ‘ifs’. And just then a new major ‘if’ popped uninvited into her thoughts. If she wasn’t careful her dead past could drive a wedge between her and Leo. And that possibility didn’t bear thinking about.
Climbing out of the pool, Anna slipped into her towelling robe, resolutely tying the belt around her waist. The past was over and done with; the sooner she accepted that Philippe was dead and that Jean-Philippe would never be a part of her life, however much she wished for it, the better.
She’d treat today’s walk around Cannes as a cathartic exercise – dig as deep as she could into her memories, expose them to scrutiny and finally exorcise them. Then she’d get on with the rest of her life with Leo. Push Philippe and the whole Cambone family back deep into the past where they belonged. They certainly had no part to play in her current life.
* * *
The Croisette was crowded with sightseers when Anna and Leo arrived and it took them several moments to find Daisy, who was talking to Marcus near the foot of the Palais steps.
‘Hi. This is Marcus – he’s agreed to be your official photographer on Tuesday,’ Daisy said, introducing them.
‘Official photographer?’ Anna said, surprised. ‘I don’t think we need one.’
‘I asked Poppy to find us one,’ Leo explained quickly. ‘I’m sure Rick and the rest of the office would like some mementos of the party too. Could be useful PR.’
‘See you Tuesday then,’ Marcus said. ‘Just had a tip-off that Madonna is coming ashore at the Palm Beach, so I need to get down there ASAP.’
As Marcus left, Anna turned to Daisy and quietly asked, ‘Now, where shall we start this trip down memory lane?’
‘Other side of the road outside the hotel that stands on the old Palais site and make our way along inwards to the centre of town?’ Daisy suggested.
As they dodged past cars, scooters and an open-top bus to cross the road, Anna, trying to get into the spirit of things, said, ‘There was less traffic around in those days, that’s for sure. The crowds are different too.’
‘How?’
‘Older and more middle-class. In ’68 there were lots of students – of which I was one. It was not nearly so colourful then either,’ Anna said, looking at a particularly garish gold and silver window display. ‘I found it all rather intimidating, particularly as news of the Paris riots filtered down and there were demonstrations. Philippe wanted to get involved – did get involved – but I was too scared, particularly after I nearly got trampled.’
‘Philippe? Trampled?’ Daisy asked.
Anna took a deep breath and began to explain. ‘My job at the festival was to act as general dogsbody and messenger between the various companies and film studios who were down here,’ Anna said. ‘One morning when I was trying to deliver some reels of film, I got caught up in a student protest. Actually, it was just along here, past the Carlton. I slipped off the pavement, twisted my ankle and fell over as the students broke through the barriers the police had erected and surged forward towards the Palais. Philippe left the crowd when he saw me sitting on the pavement nursing my leg and helped me move to safety. Refused to leave me.’ Anna smiled.
‘Philippe, as in Philippe Cambone?’ Daisy asked slowly.
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘I’m sorry, Daisy. I didn’t lie to you when you asked if I’d ever worked with him – I hadn’t. But I should have been honest and told you I did know him back then.’ Anna gave a slight shake of her head before continuing.
‘Meeting Philippe changed my life. For ten days, he showed me another world. Growing up in a quiet Devonshire village, I’d never experienced a place like Cannes. Never realised how different other people’s lives could be,’ Anna said.
She glanced at Leo. Her memories of Cannes in the late sixties were joined together in a complicated knot involving Philippe. No way was she going to upset Leo by talking about another man. But the expression on his face was one of interest, so she continued.
‘Philippe was very French in his support of the students and took me to several meetings, wanting me to get involved.’ She shrugged. ‘How could I? I didn’t speak the language for a start, and secondly, I was going home at the end of the festival. Back to my parents, art college and a different life.’
