After a few impatient hours, a stunning slender woman wiggled up the stairs to the pool deck, closely followed by the eccentric billionaire, finally making their way into the executive crowd from the deck below. Incredulous, haughty and jealous eyes followed the siren off the stairs and into the pool area, examining every curve and bulge in a contemptuous attempt to find fault in her near perfect features; but Monsieur Rousseau soon settled the fervour with a castigating introduction.
“Ladies, this is Gigi Baudin and she is a friend of Monsieur Robert. She will step in for Isobel until she has returned from leave. Make her welcome!”
A disgruntled shimmer rippled through the staring huddle of disapproving women, confused at an apparent conflict and whispering maliciously. Is this the tramp Baudin or is this someone else? Maybe Isobel had been mistaken and taken leave for no reason? Apart from her killer looks, she appeared harmless enough. The bewilderment only increased as the siren elegantly ambled past the gaping executive staff congregated at the rear of the vessel and disappeared from view, but apparently making a beeline for the blue collar workers gathered at the front of the vessel.
Determined to keep the charismatic enchantress in view, one of the group slipped away from the executive staff and followed close enough to keep watch and deliver what they saw back to the rest of the personal assistants keeping Monsieur pampered and entertained. It wasn’t long before a group of blue collar workers gathered around the woman, eagerly listening to her sweet words, laughing along with her jest and completely comfortable in her breathtaking presence.
*~*~*~*
Philippe observed discreetly, hidden by the crowd from a vantage point out of view while the brown flirting eyes scanned his co-workers until her searching gaze settled directly on him. A calculating flutter adorned the sultry eyes and as recognition settled, an exaggerated smile lit the siren’s lips, locking onto the focus of her visit and ambling through the delighted onlookers parting to give the exquisite woman an unhindered path. When she stood only feet from Philippe, she took advantage of a rogue swell that jostled the boat and deliberately fell into Philippe’s arms.
“Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur. Please excuse me for my clumsy feet,” came the exhilarating voice, soft and dripping with sweet temptation.
The exquisite brown eyes were only inches from his, stirring something deeply unsettling in the older man and helplessly pulling him into her gaze. Losing himself in a confusion of disturbing overpowering desires and feeling trapped and drawn, Philippe fought with all he had and in a sudden desperate bid for freedom, he broke from the hypnotising stare.
Trembling violently, Philippe excused himself, brushing her aside. Breathing heavily and escaping among a throng of envious onlookers, he eventually secured a lonely spot, finding comfort in anonymity while crashing realisation sharply dawned.
So this is Father’s new game.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 19
A passing rainstorm rattled down on the Tauxe family roof, followed by a far off rolling rumble echoing around the semi-darkened chalet’s interior, waking Ryan with a start and instantly refuelling a recent musical memory with its crashing beat. He rolled over, dragging the tangle of blankets and sheets with him and glanced at the bedside clock with bleary eyes. It was just past noon but even after eighteen hours, he still couldn’t get the flamboyant opening number from the Montreux Jazz Festival out of his mind.
The gyrating chords of a spastic highly polished electric guitar swirled around the stage, leading the straining guitarist like a snapping dog on a chaotic lead. Catching the glint from burning coloured spotlights far above their heads, the flashing guitar manipulated the crowd into an uncontrollable frenzy with its energetic electronic warble. As the guitarist attempted to restrain the pouncing dog, holding its collar high above the crowd, the chords wobbled and faltered on a note seemingly too high for the guitar to achieve.
Sticks flashing and staring down the guitar’s ferocious snarling chords with an eruption of bass, the drummer crashed the scene, stealing the guitarist’s thunder and replacing it with a thunder of his own. The drummer and guitarist flew into a manic rage of fingers and sticks, challenging the atmosphere to hold their vibrating warfare while the crowd, overpowered by the crashing melodic concussion, screamed and chanted for more, copying the duo’s movements precisely in a mimed frantic battle using imaginary instruments of their own.
Just when it seemed the hysteria couldn’t build any higher, a barrage of percussion and electric guitars joined the fray, whipping the sea spray of frenzied teenage adoration into a dark explosive storm. Moments later, the electric atmosphere tingled with high voltage static while the shrieking charismatic voice emerged into the gloom and screeched high above the frenetic melee. Instantly, a searching spotlight erupted with a blinding flash and powered down onto the glittering culprit, following his handsome dark features as he pranced across the stage, drawing a chorus of rippling hysterical screams from infatuated female voices. Over and over, the single phrase song spewed out across the worshipping teenagers in a violently choreographed spasm orchestrated by the enigmatic ear-piercing figure and backed by the wildly pounding beat.
Soon, the repeated words caught alight, burning from teen to teen and echoing around the vast auditorium, unravelling desperate teenage emotions, coaxing and manipulating young minds with a solid wall of meaningless nothing. Once the music stopped and the delirious hormonal high fractured, it left punctured emotions raging at the idol’s feet and begging the charismatic performer for more, willing to offer anything to regain the feverish lusting torrent and to feel the hypnotic musical drug coursing through hyperactive teenage desires.
“Ryan, get down off your bed! Standing on your mattress like that will only break the slats supporting it. What’s gotten into you and what are those words you keep repeating?!”
Strangely, Ryan wasn’t perturbed by his mother’s castigation and lowered his imaginary guitar silently to the quilt and climbed down off his divan. Still hearing the gasping hysteria wildly playing in his head, Ryan resented the intrusion from a voice dragging him back to the brink of reality and sighed contemptuously. “The Sticky Lizards’ new song, Mum, and it’s called Sfidare il Male. Way... way... cool!”
“What does it mean, Ryan?” the matriarch was becoming disturbed at her son’s unusual passion for something she didn’t understand.
Ryan shrugged defiantly. “I dunno! They’re an Italian group. I guess it’s something in Italian!”
“It means, challenge evil!” the disgruntled voice of Ryan’s father appearing at the bedroom door brought the teenager back to earth with a thud. “And don’t you ever talk to your mother like that again, boy, or you and me will have more to sing about than Sfidare il Male.”
Ryan’s chin dropped to his chest in embarrassment. He hadn’t intended to be so rude to his mother, but a stern word from his respected father soon brought the whole situation back into context.
After Ryan’s father had left the scene, his mother embraced her progeny and whispered, “It’s time for dinner, son. What time did you get in this morning?”
The realisation that Ryan’s mother knew he hadn’t arrived home before the small hours of the morning and the suspicion she’d probably been awake all night, prompted a guarded reply. “I stayed until the Rock Cave closed and caught the last pyjama bus at 5 am,” he whispered and then glanced to the door, hoping his father hadn’t heard his reply.
A concerned expression flashed across Ryan’s mother’s face but she held her tongue. Her boy was fast becoming a man, but the time to speak into the boy’s life had come and gone, relying instead on the many years of positive parenting that both she and Ryan’s father had meticulously exhibited and drilled into their children. The lonely test of adulthood was a trying time for both teen and worried parent hoping their progeny would survive, leaping across the troubling gap between the turbulent teens and mature adulthood. The perilous rocks of destruction waited at the chasm?
??s floor for all those who couldn’t make the leap. To render greater panic, there was always an impenetrable wall of malevolent adults waiting on the other side, ready to trip up the jumping teens and shove them ruthlessly backwards into the chasm, laughing callously as the struggling adolescents self-destructed on the rocks far below.
Ryan ambled through the chalet from his room to the dinner table and yawned, filling his tired lungs with fresh mountain air but eager to repeat the previous night’s experience all over again tonight.
Ryan’s father looked up from the table and smiled at his son, waiting to be joined by the remaining family members for the midday meal. “Tell me about your work at the festival, son,” Ryan’s father quizzed as Ryan pulled out a wooden chair and took his place at the table.
Ryan fidgeted with his dinner utensils for a moment, trying to highlight the acceptable aspects of his first night at the jazz festival while trying to turn down the raging musical torrent still pounding in his head. “I... I work with one of Samuel’s friends cleaning the Rock Cave. His name is Alex but I can’t remember his surname.”
A sudden light of hope shone across his father’s face. “Alex Dupont?!”
Ryan thought for a while; the name appeared to be familiar. “I think so. Yes, I’m sure that’s it.”
A gazing unspoken epistle erupted between his parents, answering questions with just a glance but the smile from his mother would’ve given away the obvious delight for Alex’s presence in Ryan’s world, if Ryan had lifted his head to engage her.
The meal time around the Tauxe family table had been unusually quiet and once the remains had been cleared away, Ryan kissed his mother on the cheek and signalled his intention to catch a bus back to the festival before starting work at 5 pm. Ryan’s mother apprehensively watched her son walk away from the front door, feeling a deep sense of growing uneasiness.
She flinched when her husband wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and shocked her out of her thoughts. Leaning back into his embrace and feeling the comfort of his arms, she almost whimpered, “I’ll be so glad when the two weeks of this festival are over.”
Her husband turned her in his embrace to face him. “We can only trust him to our Lord and ask Him to walk with Ryan. Don’t forget, Alex is working with our son and that’s a God thing.”
An insignificant smile tried to light her face, slightly reassured by Alex’s presence, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep tonight until Ryan returned home safe.
*~*~*~*
Finally the lumbering bus from Chailly to Gambetta arrived in Gambetta and with a hiss the bus door opened, allowing passengers to disembark. Ryan waited for an elderly couple to wearily descend the steps to the pavement first before easily bounding down himself and overtaking the arthritic pair on his way to the festival.
As he strolled mindlessly along the picturesque undulating paths into Montreux, he reached into his shirt pocket for his cell phone. Holding the device in one hand, Ryan nervously searched the address book for a number. Not just any number, but Delphine’s number. He desperately wanted to talk to her and apologise for letting her down the last time they met, trying to explain he just wasn’t sure if she was expecting what he thought she was expecting and if she was, he had blown it and he wanted another chance with her. Ryan’s mind was in a confusing jumble and his jabbering tangled explanation only confused himself more, not knowing if he could string together a sensible account for his misdemeanour convincing enough for the lovely Delphine to accept.
As he walked, a shaking finger hovered anxiously over the call button while a storm of nerves sent pins and needles coursing through his body. In a desperate bid to end the comedy, he tapped at the enter insignia, too late to change his mind now. He apprehensively paused by an ancient wooden shelter and nervously listened to the persistent ring tone. Nearby, a bubbling stream of fresh mountain water splashed from a pipe into an ornamental trough, continually running over and spilling into a purposefully carved drain. A rectangular bed of happy flowers bloomed in appreciation of the spring water and the gardener’s meticulous care. The tone eventually rang out and an annoying voice stated the obvious, ‘The person you are trying to contact is not answering; try again later.’
Ryan sighed an exasperated sigh, but feeling a desperate need to make amends and hear her sweet voice, Ryan loaded Delphine’s number again and tapped call, but this time the message was clear.
‘The person you are trying to reach has their phone switched off.’
*~*~*~*
Chapter 20
Wandering along the Quai de Vernex’s curving bend from Clarens, Ryan suddenly encountered a stifling wall of frolicking people gathered around the Music in the Park Pavilion and moving in time to the rhythmic seduction of Brazilian salsa. He lingered on the spot and tried to imagine the deserted scene only two days previous, gloating to the impressionable and desirable Delphine about his employment with the Auditorium Stravinski while her disinterested and disappointed expression seemed to seal her latest decision to freeze him out. In his current frame of mind, Brazilian music just didn’t cut it and he needed something more in tune with the morose tone of his hollow feelings and the painful stab of missed opportunity for romance.
A heavy bump from a passing pedestrian and a subdued apology from the culprit brought Ryan back to his senses. Standing stationary, in the direct path of a gawking moving mass hypnotised by the rhythmic music and watching the scene rather than the direction of their walk, probably wasn’t a healthy thing to do. Besides, it appeared he’d have no further prospect today of capturing Delphine’s coveted attention, deliberately suffocating his attempts to contact her by switching off her phone.
Ryan took a few steps in an attempt to converge with the distracted horde, but a momentary glance at the dancing crowd unearthed a sight he wasn’t expecting. The unmistakable figure of Delphine’s exquisite outline some distance away, shuffling to the music, captured Ryan’s stare and left his mouth hanging open in shock. As her gyrating form turned slightly, she locked eyes with the staring Ryan, halting her moves and riveting her to the spot. Deciding to leave no doubt of her dissatisfaction with Ryan’s lack of performance, her head snapped backwards in a disgusted lilt and then turned away, at the same time reaching for the arm of a deeply tanned muscled man, complete with long dreadlocks dangling in an unwashed tangle. Forcefully bumped again from behind, Ryan willed his feet to move and leave the wrenching picture behind. There was now no doubt of Delphine’s intentions and his heart sank into his boots, leaving him wandering aimlessly among the crowded Quai Edouard-Jaccoud and gazing back brokenhearted.
The hot sun suddenly dimmed as a passing cloud waved a fluffy hand over the burning sentinel, causing Ryan to glance up at the sky instead of the concrete pavement. All around, street performers juggled and squeaked, hoping to gain the attention of passing party people and loosen the grip on their hard earned Swiss francs. A confusion of blaring music erupted from all parts of the lakeside walk and mixed in the unsettled summer atmosphere while enticing food smells wafted from squawking street vendors crying above the din and vying for a cut of the passing hungry public’s attention.
“Hey, Ryan!” a muffled voice called from somewhere close by, forcing the distraught teen to search the faces, identify the owner and affirm the shout was directed at him.
Ryan’s eyes settled on a familiar black bearded face and the image of a man hungrily biting down into a huge jumbo kebab. Alex Dupont beckoned the teen with an animated wave to a vacant seat beside him and just out of reach of the tangled milling crowd. Not feeling much like company, Ryan waved back at the older man and signalled his intention to keep moving, but the black bearded man was insistent and Ryan reluctantly complied.
Alex stole another hungry bite from a bulging kebab before Ryan ambled over and took a seat beside the ballooned-cheeked masticating man. It took a few seconds for the tasty brew to satisfy busy taste buds, and then being sufficiently lubricated to slip down the gapin
g trapdoor and toboggan around tight belly-bends before crashing into the previous mouthful.
Alex pointed at another paper bag and offered its contents to Ryan, “These kebabs are so delicious! Go ahead, son, and join me.”
Ryan shyly glanced at the enticing bag, his mouth watering from the aroma but courtesy forced him to deny his stomach the tantalising treat. “I’ve not long ago eaten, Alex. Besides, I don’t want to deny you of your lunch.”
Alex picked up the bag and placed it in Ryan’s hands. “You’ll offend me if you turn it down. Anyway, your face needs something better to do other than dragging along the pavement. We’ve got plenty of time before we start work and I’m the best listener.”
Ryan sighed loudly and stared at the paper bag. “Is it that obvious?” the dejected voice whispered.
“No, not if you’re a blind man,” Alex wiped his sprawling black-face-carpet with his hand and beamed while a cheeky glint made Ryan lighten slightly, disarming the reluctance to talk.
The salivating teen studied the massive bun occupying both of his hands and tried to work out an appropriate way to attack the mammoth feast. Throwing caution to the wind, Ryan opened his jaws as wide as they could possibly go and gnawed an impressive hole in the side of the roll and chewed the tasty mouthful, enjoying the rich flavours and thoroughly engaging narcissistic taste buds. Alex cracked the plastic top off a 500 ml Ovo Drink Choco and drained the flavoured milk in one thirsty swig, but at the same time glanced sideways at Ryan, watching the obvious pleasure in demolishing the jumbo kebab and expecting the young man to unburden.
“Mmmlllgrottenumped.”
Alex stared at Ryan, confused and then laughed. “What was that?”