Bordeaux Housewives. Daisy Waugh

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СКАЧАТЬ is looked upon by her French neighbours with something almost approaching fondness. One way and another she has certainly paid for it.)

      The château’s front door, where Maude and Horatio now stand, pausing one last time before banging on the giant iron knocker, opens directly onto the drawing room, a room which, excepting the modern kitchen, cloakroom and two lavatories, takes up the whole of the ground floor. Stone-flagged in ancient slate, which had been ‘rescued’ from an impoverished monastery in the Ukraine, Emma Rankin’s stunning drawing room is the size of a small airport terminal. There are Persian rugs scattered about the place, and before each of the four stone fireplaces (Emma added two more), a couple of sofas, each one large enough for two people to stretch out comfortably side by side. There are vast modern tapestries – elegant depictions of ancient orgies – hanging from the thick stone walls, and at the cathedral-sized windows hang thick golden velvet curtains, richly embroidered, and specially commissioned by Emma from the only Catholic convent in the Sudan.

      Tonight it is too warm for fires. Emma has placed a host of giant wax candles in the grates. She’s put them along the first-floor gallery and up the spiral stairs, and the room is dancing to their light. She has thrown open the three weddingdoor French windows at the far end of the room, and laid out dinner on the terrace beyond, from where, a hundred foot below, the great Charente River can be seen shimmering softly in the moonlight.

      As they stand at the front door waiting for someone to let them in, the tension of it all suddenly makes Maude giggle. ‘Feeling nervous, Heck?’

      He grins a little sheepishly. ‘Not remotely,’ he says.

      ‘You should be.’

      Just then the door is pulled open and Emma stands before them, smiling warmly, glowing and golden as her Sudanese curtains, in a simple, pure white cotton djibba. She has thin brown slippers attached by delicate strands of leather to her thin brown feet. And that’s it. She looks stunning.

      Maude sighs. Her feet are already aching. Why the hell did she even bother?

      ‘Come on in. Quickly,’ whispers Emma Rankin, gathering Maude in her thin arms and ignoring Horatio. ‘We’re having the direst evening – ever. Thank God you’ve arrived. Let me get you a drink –’

      There is a maid hovering; a middle-aged woman in black, wearing a white maid’s apron. Emma turns to her.

      ‘Mathilde. Madame Haunt veut bien un –’ She pauses midinstruction, turns to Maude with a secret merry smile, as if she and Maude were the only two in the world intelligent enough to understand the secret joke involved in choosing a pre-dinner drink. ‘Alors, Maude. Qu’est-ce que tu prends ce soir?’

      ‘I’ll have vodka and tonic, please,’ Maude says. ‘If you have it.’

      Emma beams at her. ‘Horatio,’ she says, still not really looking at him, ‘why don’t you tell Mathilde what you’d like to drink and then come on out and join us?’ She tucks an arm beneath Maude’s and leads her towards the terrace, leaving Horatio bewildered – and a fraction disappointed, despite so many good intentions – to fend for himself.

      ‘God, Maude,’ Emma mutters into her ear. ‘I’m so pleased to see you. I’m afraid we’re in for quite a grim evening. Direst-of-direst. We’ve got our new hôtelière, Daffy Duff Fielding. Who’s an awful drip, really. And her revolting husband.’ She glances at Maude, who hasn’t responded yet, who all-round, in fact, isn’t coming across very warmly. ‘Oh Maude,’ she says suddenly, dropping her voice even lower and gently pulling Maude to a stop in the middle of the great room. ‘I’m so pleased you agreed to come to dinner. Really. It’s such a relief…’

      Maude looks at her, a little confused. ‘Is it? Why a relief?’

      ‘…And I am so sorry. About…the other week. Month. Whenever it was…But if you knew how much I’ve regretted it. Still regret it. It was just the stupidest, silliest, drunkenest – I’ve thought about it and thought about it, Maude. And I can only put it down to summer solstice insanity…’

      ‘Can’t have been that,’ says Maude. ‘The solstice isn’t until 21st June.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘Anyway. It doesn’t matter.’

      ‘No, it doesn’t. I’m so glad you say that! The fact is, Maude,’ Emma continues in her dulcet, most confiding undertone, ‘I like you so much. You’re interesting, intelligent. And my God, I wish I could say that about more people around here! Maude, it would be tragic if we allowed some idiotic, ill-conceived…’ she leaves a gap ‘…some idiotic, ill-conceived nothing non-event…to get in the way of our friendship. Do you agree?’

      ‘Let’s forget about it, shall we?’

      Emma beams. She gives Maude’s arm a happy squeeze. ‘I was so hoping you’d say that. I thought, when you agreed to come to dinner, I thought maybe, just maybe –’

      ‘Let’s – seriously, let’s forget about it.’

      ‘Absolutely…And thank you,’ she says again.

      Maude waits. She and Horatio had agreed they wouldn’t, under any circumstances, refer to Emma’s Eritrean comment before Emma did. But she’s finding it hard. She desperately wants to ask Emma what she meant by it, and she opens her mouth, specifically to form the question –

      ‘Anyway,’ gushes Emma. ‘You’re probably dying to meet Daffy Duck. Are you? Daffy Duck, the new barmaid. She’s un-be-liev-ably wet, poor little thing. God knows how she’s going to cope, running that dilapidated place all on her own. She’s going to need a builder. Ooh. Talking of which – lovely, delicious Jean Baptiste –’

      Oh God, thinks Maude. Here we go.

      ‘– I told you Jean Baptiste is coming? Didn’t I?’

      ‘Oh! Yes. Yes you did.’

      ‘Did you know he used to be a chef? In Paris?’

      ‘I did, yes.’

      ‘Isn’t it extraordinary? He doesn’t look like one imagines a chef would look…’

      ‘No. I suppose not. I think he gave it up because –’

      ‘Yes…’ breathes Emma. ‘Because he wanted to work closer to the soil.’ She shivers. ‘God. Only a Frenchman could get away with saying something so pretentious and still be quite so attractive. I do adore him, don’t you?’

      ‘He’s a good friend,’ Maude replies carefully.

      ‘Yes…’ Emma looks at Maude through veiled watchful eyes. ‘Yes, he said that about you too. Anyway,’ she says, changing tone suddenly, ‘so we’ve got you and Horatio. Daffy Duck and her ghastly husband. Called Timothy, if you please. David’s here. I’m here, obviously. Lovely Jean Baptiste’ll be here any minute…And last but not least, I’m afraid we’ve got the bloody awful Bertinards. His wife never stops eating. I presume you’ve met the Bertinards?’

      ‘Not since he became mayor, actually. No. Well –’ She thinks of Olivier Bertinard staring through his car window this morning. СКАЧАТЬ