“You might want a towel, too,” he said. “In case we find that beach.”
So I fetched my surviving hat, and a towel. Also a large silk Venetian scarf under which I could shelter, a flask of water to stave off dehydration, and—need I say it?—a book.
The Cap d’Antibes may once have been a place of thistles and desolation, but at some point in the past century this wilderness had been claimed by the rich. As a result, villas had sprouted, tropical gardens were coaxed into existence, and narrow lanes were lined with the gates of winter homes. The afternoon was quiet, the sun baking our shoulders until we dropped down onto the northern slope, and even then, the path Terry and I described wove back and forth to take advantage of any overhanging trees.
Fortunately, there was little traffic.
In the end, we came to a beach, a pale-gold crescent of sand between a low stone wall and the blue waters of a little bay. Where the right-hand point of the crescent faded into trees, some skiffs were tied. Closer to hand was a café—but it was shut for the season.
“Perhaps,” I suggested as we sidled into a patch of shade, “three in the afternoon is no time to linger under the Riviera sun.”
There was one person in sight: a man dressed in baggy linen trousers, a striped French jersey, and cloth espadrilles. His head was bound with what looked like a large bandage, although I thought it was probably a way to keep the sun off his scalp.
He was wielding a rake, shifting washed-up sea-weed towards the far end of the beach.
Not that the solitary labourer was the only evidence of life. Further along the sand—the nice, well-raked sand—were indications that people had not only been here, but planned to return: a festive blue-striped changing-tent, half a dozen leaning beach umbrellas, some sand-covered bamboo mats, a picnic basket. A pile of inner-tubes, water-wings, the bloated shape of a blow-up rubber horse, half a dozen buckets and some small shovels testified to a family. Either that, or the raking gentleman planned to top his pristine surface with a sand-castle.
Terry studied the signs of civilisation, then ran his eyes along the rest of the beach. All the way down to the groundskeeper, the sand was clear. After his bent figure, a strip of sea-weed had been left by the receding tide. I made a small wager with myself as to what Terry would do…
And won.
“Let’s get you settled,” he said, “and I’ll have a word with that chap. He might know when people will show up again. And anyway, seems a bit rude to take advantage of his work without giving him a tip.”
“Terry,” I said, “you are a very nice man.” It was hard to see beneath the dark lenses and hat-brim, but I could tell he was blushing.
I spread my towel on a bit of the sand, arranged the scarf as a personal tent, took a swallow of already-warm water, and opened my book. Tiny waves lapped. Seagulls bickered. I watched the pantomime drama unfold down the way.
Terry had set off under the assumption that the man in the head-cloth was a groundskeeper, hired to clear the sand each day. I noted that this work would be less Sisyphean here on the placid Mediterranean than on an English beach, where a day’s tides may rise and fall twenty feet.
The man with the rake turned at Terry’s approach. Terry stopped to ask a question about the missing family, one hand sketching a gesture towards the tent and mats. The stranger replied. There was an exchange of some kind, then Terry’s posture went straight as he registered surprise. A moment later, the two men were shaking hands, and the other fellow leaned on his rake handle while Terry assumed his familiar happy-retriever stance.
So: not a hired groundskeeper, but an off-season resident of one of the villas. Most probably the one that Terry had been told to look up, by a mutual friend.
It was a cycle I had witnessed at least a dozen times since meeting the Hon Terry, the easy shift from stranger to chum through shared interests, friends, boarding school, or some distant blood relationship.
I took another swallow of water and turned a page. From time to time, I glanced at my companions. The man with the rake resumed his labours, Terry keeping him entertained with talk. The band of sea-wrack grew shorter, the conversation more animated. When the two men turned to come back up the now-spotless beach, they walked as brothers.
I tucked in my book-mark and stood to meet my inadvertent host. Terry trotted forward in his eagerness.
“Mary, this is the very chap I was ordered to hunt down here! Ain’t that a sign it was meant to be? Gerald, this is Mrs Mary Russell, a friend from Venice. Mary, meet Gerald Murphy, an artist and a gentleman.”
I knew him for an American even before he spoke, from the way he pulled the brief head-cover from his thinning hair and extended his hand.
“Russell? And you’ve been in Venice—say, I think I know your husband. Doesn’t he play the violin?”
“That he does,” I said in surprise. Not many people in the world thought of Sherlock Holmes as a musician.
“Then I met him last month at Cole’s place—Cole Porter?”
“Oh, of course! Very pleased to meet you, Mr Murphy.”
“Please, call me Gerald. Your husband and Cole spent days putting together music for a ‘do’ at Cole’s palazzo. And Terry here says he crashed that party, but what with half the people in masks and drink flowing like the canal outside, I have no clue if we actually met. Sara and I were still pretty high when we left Venice the next morning,” he added with a laugh.
My relief at this close call made my greeting effusive. “Oh yes, that was quite a night! And thank you for sharing this lovely patch of sand with us. Though I’m afraid the next tide will bring your labours to naught.”
“It’s not our beach, we just camp out here. As for the sea-weed, raking’s a kind of meditation. The first clear-up of the season is a job, but after that it’s like shaving, or cleaning your brushes after a session. The world is fresh and clean, water meeting sand, a blank canvas ready for life.”
Murphy was a likeable sort, friendly and confident without feeling in the least pushy. His smile was easy, his accent was Boston modified by an Ivy League education—Yale?—and some years in Paris.
“You’re an artist, then?”
“I paint a little.”
I found myself smiling back at him as I gestured at the empty mats behind me. “It looks as if your colleagues on the canvas of life have abandoned you, at present.”
“The children rest in the afternoon. Some of the grown-ups, too, for that matter. They’ll all be back when the sun is lower. In the meantime, can I offer you two some shade and a drink? Warm, I’m afraid, but better than sea water.”
Terry and I gathered our things and followed our host to his empty encampment, where we sheltered gratefully beneath the striped umbrellas and accepted, with a degree less enthusiasm, beakers of tepid sherry from a half-empty bottle he took from the picnic basket.