Bordeaux Housewives. Daisy Waugh

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СКАЧАТЬ says, leaning across the table. ‘Vous parlez de la mayonnaise?’

      Daffy goggles at him, as she’s been struggling not to do all evening. His sexy French presence, just his sitting there, almost opposite her, has been difficult enough for Daffy to deal with serenely. Now he’s gazing at her with those hazel-green eyes, and the crickets are singing, and he’s gabbling away in French, and she can’t understand a word. Not a word…And he really is, she thinks, really, truly – outrageously – gorgeous. She glances automatically at Timothy, as if for rescue or permission to speak, but he’s chewing away on the lobster, raspberry lips smeared with mayonnaise. He shows no sign of interceding. So she turns back to Jean Baptiste. ‘Err. Mayonnaise,’ says Daffy, smiling, nodding her head. ‘Mayonnaise!’ she says again, with fresh confidence, and then, with a French accent, as if it might somehow help: ‘Verrrry verrrry tasty!’

      He nods. ‘Je suis absolument d’accord. C’est délicieux, n’est-ce pas? C’est superbe. Et moi aussi, je me demandais qu’est-ce que Emma avait mis dedans. Mais, alors, vous avez suggéré le safran si j’ai bien compris?’

      ‘Er. Crikey…’ Daffy snorts. She laughs, actually, which takes her husband faintly by surprise. ‘Pardon, Monsieur. Sorry! Sorry. But, I mean, absolutely – non understandie!’

      ‘“Non understandie”?’ mutters Emma, not much appreciating Jean Baptiste’s switch in attention, nor the peculiar but undeniable cuteness of this new female impostor at her table. ‘Not sure I understandie myself!’ She sniggers softly, hoping to catch someone’s eye.

      But Daffy doesn’t seem to hear her. ‘– Anyway, I think it’s très bon mayonnaise. Oui?’ she perseveres. ‘Is that what we’re saying?’

      Timothy smirks. Dabs his napkin on his greasy chin. ‘Unfortunately Daphne can’t speak French,’ he informs the table. ‘She hasn’t the faintest idea what the young man is talking about. Do you, Daphne?’

      ‘Well –’ Daffy shrinks a little. She can hear the small, fat Frenchman with the double chins, Monsieur Bertinard, chortling merrily. ‘I’m sorry,’ Daffy says. ‘Muchas…pardon.’ She smiles apologetically at Jean Baptiste. ‘…I bought some tapes, you see,’ she adds feebly, ‘only I haven’t exactly had time…’

      ‘I am saying,’ begins Jean Baptiste slowly, kindly, and with his smiling eyes turning her heart, body and mind into a warm pool of useless embarrassment, ‘le safran in the mayonnaise. All the evening I am trying so hard to find what it is, this small taste. I am tasting, tasting, thinking…But of course! It is le safran! Mais c’est tellement subtil, n’est-ce pas? You are very clever. You must to be a fantastic cook yourself, I am correct?’ He has a soft voice, low and confiding, a way of making her feel that they – he and she and their joint appreciation of small amounts of saffron – are the only beings in this world that really matter. He smiles at her, a friendly smile, strangely intimate, directed at her and at her alone; a smile which annoys Timothy and Emma about equally, and which leaves Daffy so confused she has to grasp hold of the table to steady herself.

      Daffy gazes at him hopelessly. ‘…Muchas pardon…’ she says again. Utterly unable to come up with anything better.

      Timothy smiles, lays down his napkin. ‘Young man,’ he says to Jean Baptiste, slowly, and unnecessarily loudly. ‘In case you hadn’t guessed, my wife doesn’t actually have A CLUE what you’re banging on about!’

      ‘Oh I think she does,’ interrupts Horatio irritably. Feeling sorry for Daffy suddenly. It’s the first time he’s said anything in ages. ‘Do you speak good French, Timothy? I don’t think I’ve heard you speak a word of French all evening.’

      Timothy eyes Horatio, picks up his napkin again and takes another dab before replying. He is not much accustomed to anyone talking back to him. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘But I’m not the one wanting to buy a hotel in the middle of a French village, now, am I? How’s she going to run a hotel, Horatio – you tell me – if all she can say to her customers is “no understandie”? Frankly,’ he chuckles, shakes his head, ‘it’s not going to get her very far, is it?’

      ‘No, but Timothy, I’m going to learn,’ Daffy bursts out before Horatio has a chance to continue defending her. ‘Of course I will. I mean, I’m going to work really hard at it. Especially now I’ve been here and seen how lovely everything is…It’s all I’m going to concentrate on when I go back to London.’

      Timothy gazes at her pink face, so full of hope and enthusiasm. She looks carefree suddenly; possibly even a little drunk.

      ‘…Go back to London?’ he repeats slowly, smiling, as if he didn’t quite understand. ‘But Daphne. Who ever said anything about going back?’

      ‘I’m – pardon? Sorry. What? I mean, pardon me?’

      He manages not to wince or sigh. Actually, he’s smiling, not a broad smile, but a smile nonetheless: ‘Evidently you didn’t examine your aeroplane ticket as carefully as you might have done.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘Is my supposition correct?’

      There is an unmistakable edge to his voice, unmissable to everyone present. They look at Daphne, at the fear on her face, and then at Timothy, his raspberry lips upturned slightly in a cool, supercilious smile…

      ‘Well – I. Sorry, Timmie,’ stammers Daffy. ‘I’m not sure I understand. Normally you look after the tickets. I don’t think I even saw –’

      ‘Ah,’ interrupts Timmie. ‘Well. That would explain it then…’

      Another silence while Timothy, still with that half-smile on his luscious raspberry lips, pulls a small set of keys out of his pocket and dangles them over the dining table.

      ‘…I, Daphne dear, shall certainly be returning to London tomorrow afternoon. But you, on the other hand, will be staying out here a little while longer.’ He tosses the keys over the table towards her. She moves to catch them, misses, and they land on her plate, plop in the middle of her mayonnaise.

      She gazes at them. ‘I’m not sure I – Sorry, Timothy. I’m not sure I understand…’ But she does. She’s beginning to.

      Timothy shrugs. ‘Because the lady wanted it,’ he says simply, ‘I bought it for her. After all,’ he looks around the table as if expecting a round of applause, ‘what else are husbands for?’

      Nobody reacts. Even Emma is momentarily too nonplussed to speak.

      ‘But…that’s not…’ Daffy stops, swallows. Tries again. ‘You bought it? But when? Timmie, you haven’t even seen…Don’t you want to –?…I mean – you haven’t taken a step inside!’

      ‘Congratulations, Daphne,’ Timothy interrupts her. ‘You’ll find an account opened for you at the Crédit Agricole bank in Bordeaux. I’ll give you the full address in the morning. It has more than enough money to keep you going. So. Well then.’ The silence stretches out.

      Everyone looks at Daphne, whose face and lips look blue suddenly by the pale moonlight. She gazes down at the keys, splayed out in the mayonnaise, and when she looks back up at her husband there are tears rolling down her cheeks. Jean Baptiste, sitting opposite her, and only half understanding all that is going on, leans across and lays a comforting hand on her own limp one, and it’s all Daffy can СКАЧАТЬ