The St. Tropez Lonely Hearts Club
Read The St. Tropez Lonely Hearts Club Online
Authors: Joan Collins
Tags: #glamor, #rich, #famous, #fashion, #Fiction, #Mystery, #intrigue
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Also by Joan Collins
Memoirs
Past Imperfect: An Autobiography
(1978)
Katy: A Fight for Life
(1982)
Second Act: An Autobiography
(1996)
Passion for Life
(2013)
Nonfiction
The Joan Collins Beauty Book
(1980)
My Secrets
(1994)
Health, Youth and Happiness
(1995)
My Friends’ Secrets
(1999)
Joan’s Way: Looking Good, Feeling Great
(2002)
The Art of Living Well
(2007)
The World According to Joan
(2012)
Fiction
Prime Time
(1988)
Love and Desire and Hate
(1990)
Too Damn Famous
(1995)
Star Quality
(2002)
Misfortune’s Daughters
(2004)
HE
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A Novel
Joan Collins
Published in collaboration with Renaissance Literary & Talent
Los Angeles, California
November, 2015
Copyright © Joan Collins, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-938402-54-8
Also published in Great Britain in 2015 by Constable
The right of Joan Collins to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the UK Copyright
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication,
other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
For Jackie.
I will never forget you.
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I
NTRODUCTION
The French Riviera is a place of sublime contrasts. Running from San Remo, just past the principality of Monaco, and almost to Marseille at the west end of the coast, each village, town and beach has its individual charm. Most villages have looked the same for hundreds of years, yet some of the larger towns – stately Monaco, and the grand old city of Nice with its stunning boardwalk, elegant Promenade des Anglais and its splendid hotels and superb shops and restaurants – have combined the best of modern architecture with nineteenth-century grandeur.
And then there is Saint-Tropez.
That humble and holy name conjures up an idyllic paradise where hedonism reigns and wealth and beauty conquer all, supposedly. Some have called it a cultural bone-yard, for the seven deadly sins abound in this happy hunting ground.
The myth of Saint-Tropez is known worldwide, but its reputation as the
de rigueur
party spot of the summer is comparatively recent. Although the sleepy little port village had existed for thousands of years, it wasn’t until the 1950s that it started hitting the headlines, thanks to sex kitten Brigitte Bardot, the most nubile of post-war stars. Brigitte and her husband Roger Vadim discovered the delights of the nearby beaches of Pampelonne – then almost inaccessible thanks to the thick brush of parasol pines and tangled seaweed – while on location for Brigitte’s first starring role, . . .
And God Created Woman
in 1955.
On what would end up as the most famous of all Pampelonne beaches, a tiny hut, owned by the de Colmont family, cooked lunch every day for Vadim’s film unit. After the film crew left, the de Colmont family decided to keep cooking but to invite only those they knew and liked. Shortly thereafter, Bernard de Colmont created Le Club 55, named after the year of its birth, and it soon became the most sophisticated and exclusive beach club in the world. The elite of the world have done nothing to erase its unpretentious primitive charm, and it is a mecca for not only the denizens of Saint-Tropez, but for the summer season’s visitors.
In the 1960s, the newly named ‘jet set’ finally discovered the delights of Saint-Tropez and its lush, gorgeous sandy beaches. Millionaires, playboys, film stars, heiresses, high-class hookers and low-rent boys descended on this elite paradise, and the party hasn’t stopped yet. Some twenty years later, fat-bellied tourists in their buses and trailers, backpacks eternally glued to their spines like bizarre camel people, also descended in droves, marring the beauty and tranquillity of the village and its surroundings.
But Saint-Tropez has expanded significantly. In the past twenty years the environs of this charming village and the nearby villages of Ramatuelle, Gassin and La Croix-Valmer have spread like octopus tentacles via the new speedy roads and concrete apartment complexes, giant superstores and, saddest of all, McDonald’s eating establishments.
Most people only think of Saint-Tropez beaches as filled with topless hookers, heavy hitters and illicit sex. That goes on in some of the more decadent beaches, such as the recently defunct Voile Rouge, where groups of rich playboys thought nothing of paying €10,000 for a jeroboam of champagne, which they liberally squirted over their squealing, scantily clad lady friends. Lunches at some of these beaches begin around three p.m. and rarely finish before eight or nine p.m., complete with floor shows and fashion parades of the flimsiest beachwear and wild, uninhibited dancing on the tables and bars to the heaviest of rap beats.
In the hills above Saint-Tropez lie some magnificent and expensive villas, many owned by billionaires who only spend as little as one or two weeks a year in their houses. Between November and February, the village is home to only five thousand souls. As the sun shines brighter, the Parisians and foreigners arrive to un-shutter their villas until, by June and July, more than 35,000 people are squeezed into Saint-Tropez. Add to that the daily influx of some 50,000 tourists and the pace becomes frenetic as the beat goes on.
This tale is about one sizzling summer season in this bacchanalian utopia, of sun, sin, sex and scandal, and the people who made it happen.
ROLOGUE
Lying face down in a pool, August 2015
How has it come to this? Me, the stud of Saint-Tropez. Twenty-nine years old. Handsome. Devilishly amusing. Big dick. Every woman in Saint-Tropez gladly accepting my advances. Well, not every woman, but I am seldom turned down. Think of an Italian Brad Pitt crossed with the brooding Latin sex appeal of a Benicio del Toro and that’s me. The ultimate fuck machine, constantly horny, my body a factory of raging hormones. I don’t like to boast . . . well, actually I do.
And my singing. Certainly I am no Julio Iglesias, but by the light of any silvery moon, my guitar playing and mellow, sensuous sounds have charmed many ladies (and the occasional man) into the sack. Sure, there are plenty of husbands and lovers who are insanely jealous of me, but I haven’t lasted for nine years as a gigolo without knowing how to avoid them. After all, I am the stud of studs, the adored of the bored, the life and soul of every event, ‘the second coming of Sinatra’ . . . even I admit that was a bit over the top, but Maximus, my PR, my agent – well, my pimp – actually had a hangover that morning after the night I sang at Charlie Chalk’s black and white ball and had no regard for originality when he thus described my performance to
Gala
magazine. That was one of the last nights I performed, while that ancient bitch Sophie Silvestri shot daggers at me.
I can hear people yelling and police sirens near me now, but I’m worried about the black silk Valentino shirt I’m wearing. My dear
fidanzata
bought me that as a making-up present last year for throwing my Etro bags off the back of her yacht. Now utterly ruined, soaking and blood spattered. I picture the wild-eyed Russian cow with her threats of ‘I will kill you, you stupid wop-bastard’, but she and I both know that her hands shake far too violently with the DTs caused by two bottles of Grey Goose a day to have done this.
My thoughts drift to the husbands. I’d cuckolded several by July, but none of them seemed to care as they traipsed off to the golf courses with their pot-bellied pals. Except the American mega-mogul, whose gorgeous trophy wife I slept with twice.
There have been hundreds, no thousands, of visitors in Saint-Tropez this hot summer, and I have rubbed shoulders with many of them. I have rubbed almost all other parts of my body with many of them too. We attend the same parties, lunches and dinners over and over again. Same people, same faces, same dialogue.