The Party: The thrilling Richard & Judy Book Club Pick 2018. Elizabeth Day

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ twisted the cap, releasing a fizzing jet of air. As he poured, the splash of liquid against glass cracked the ice cubes.

      Martin

      Burtonbury, 1989

      BURTONBURY WAS SITUATED ON THE OUTSKIRTS of a picturesque Midlands town which had flourished in the late Victorian era thanks to an abundance of natural spring water. The school building had once been a hotel for gentlemen afflicted with rattling coughs or dyspeptic stomachs, and pale-faced women in black lace suffering from attacks of the vapours who travelled up from London with their valises and their maids in order to ‘take the cure’. It was the most fashionable place to be seen: the rehab centre of its day, where faded personalities would disappear for weeks on end in order to drink from the wells and soak in tepid baths with hot flannel compresses strapped to their fevered brows.

      For a time, a handsome young doctor from Adelboden in Switzerland – called, rather wonderfully, Dr Schnitzel – took up residence as the medical director. When I arrived, there was a sepia photograph of him still hanging in the school’s entrance hall: a bearded man with curlicues of hair framing each ear, his eyes hooded, like a lugubrious Russian novelist.

      But the water cure, just like the cabbage soup diet, was a transient fad and, after a while, Dr Schnitzel returned to Adelboden, the custom dried up and the red-brick, high Gothic Empire Hotel fell into a state of disrepair. It was requisitioned during the two world wars. In the 1950s, it was bought up by a couple from Birmingham who made it into a care home for the elderly, ripping out all the marble-floored bathrooms and hand-painted cornices and replacing the luscious carpets with a thin, hard-wearing material in institutional green.

      It became Burtonbury in 1960, a boys’ boarding school designed initially to cater for the children of diplomats posted abroad. Through the years, it cultivated a reputation for middle-ranking academic rigour and some modest sporting success. It was a decent school, but it didn’t belong to the higher echelons of private education. It tried very hard to be Eton or Harrow and yet, like a newly minted millionaire who buys a bright blue Rolls-Royce without realising it should have been a petrol-black Bentley, it never quite outgrew its arriviste status. Burtonbury always languished just outside the top twenty in the annual league tables. The Tatler

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAu4AAAR/CAIAAADLlfRBAAAACXBIWXMAAC4jAAAuIwF4pT92AAAA IGNIUk0AAHolAACAgwAA+f8AAIDpAAB1MAAA6mAAADqYAAAXb5JfxUYAE2soSURBVHjabP1bs2RL ciaG+S0i1srMfanLqT7n9A1o3DEzgEgOiCEJgjPEiKRJRpPE25NMpl8hYMhHvpBGaiiZTHqimUzG F8loMr2J4ggjiZTIwQyaGGAANPqCvp7uPn3qXntn5lorItxdD74yK6ua29r67F2VlXvlWhEe7p9/ 3+f48uULInIHMyMid5/neb/fE2AqeRzH6+vrn/zkJ/+H//3/7g//wX8zlEGQq/ZXb17N01xyxiTa +831zdVud7e/m+b5arvdDNs39/e9VUToailJKWVeZiZhwmWep3lxgJTS9dXV7c2NmnWzVuvheJjm +Xg8TPN0mKbr7fbhzYPWe86JWWptkoSFwZ2E0RAZ3WxeFgZ69erly1evRPjDjz7+tV/7tX/qr/3a zYMH5pjz8Orl8z/+k3+81LoZhuubm588e/qHf/jVH//4UxEEACRCBFcDRAJ0dwC/ub199ODBvNS5 NkJkAhIyh/3d/s2b1//sb/zmv//v/wd/9dd/bTrstSsQMZKBExMzuzsiIqI7mLlqT0kAYJ7n1lpK SUSYGQDcnYgQ0cwQAYABzMwQkYjMDADiBarq7kRi5ohIhGYdEePXqSoAAEC8LP6cmRGx9x6/BQDd gQjNVNVEEhG6OxHEX/Xe3dc1ENcfFxDvc/4tFP8A0d3dgVni8gANEAgIEczczAAQkUrJ4zh89av/ 8D/+D/+D50+f5VI++vjjf+Pf+Df/yq/9mqTi5u7We3MHjFtABA7xueLKzaz3TkRE1FQRgRmJOXN5 9uyzH//oB1e3D37hF39lKKW1BgCIFJ+UwB1MDdydmeIWgZkhABCCbzbb3up/9p/9n/43f/d/fX11 Za7LsogkN2+tmVnvLaV0fXPLiNM8t94cAMxFBBjNfcyDtn6/v99sRyS6u7/vvQmKqjrBZhiYWNXm VoGwMLv50lrKcrW5en33xh0fPrgdN+NSl+PhyEg5p1qrug8liwgA5JzXO+yQUlJTdMw5H4+HpTVi 9m7H6egAV1db7Xo8TMM4bjYjADBxbW0YS0nFwHMWcHLz4/G+dd1sNkw4zYskub25NfVXr54DEuc0 Hw9Xu4e5lNd3L9CRkI7Hfcrpwc0jAH/1+uU3vvXtL3z+83/3P/lP/qW/9S/f3R/MTSgeWaxkihUS S8jciRjACQ0A4zm4OwD03i+W07odYhGamTvE64kwlqu5MzIQOribATgiEpI7bbfjNO3/t//J3/2/ /ef/191ul0u+P9wxCSK6a0oZHWprzJKEU87Ior0y0bRMtXYmdrPb2xtVf/Hi+fXt7ZBkOkyAgEwO 5o4pD9rr/v4NSRqG3JoZgJtZ6+Z2nOc3d3c3Vztm7qpu1mo1B2Q209iJrlpb9/UGuIOr+vXVVRK+ 3+9LKR9/9BEjzfOMhLGYCekwT4iYRXpdOKXW+t1+72qIIEnGYcgpqwMCpkQA2GqLLZOScOZ5mrXp MI6AoKpEnFNyd21drXNKSbg3JeFe2+F4qL0TkfaOCML56vqaCV+/fhWrsceXmZ++kAgA9BRqUkqq Nk0TE0mS3ruZqSqevt7+Q4zFEN/E5wVETikRoZurdgLgXHLOIokQBdHcDbz1DgCbYUAAVQWExKKm h2lGopxTllTr3GpXcwXflEKMS2tmPpYyDoOq7g97QhrLxsGTsIP33pG4q6k2YWFiU62mAMC4Ltpx HLRbrV2yaO9LXZZax2GDTNrqdhyBqPWeWJiomWprTEzEqtp7bb2nlJDZ1JgIAee6oJuqArIwm/tU J1cTZmY2gDWqE7l7LKTdbifMtXUAMFMnBAdBHIfNUttS55xz6zVJEpLjMiNAKcWsdzNhESRtvfZW e/P1/QmJREi7uhkiMDECmpnTumcBQN29KxMZuJmJCBG11tw9IpWpgoMDOAARgjs6mAMQJubYLojo AF3N3eV0FKqbGwAAE5qbuiMAre/DxGS9M1EcaoiIROYO7kzkAMTMRBzRJOJOKSVJqq212uZ5Ph6P T5588Bt//a8D4IsXL17vD6/uXh8Oh6UutTXtmlJOSZgJAcCcWcbtOI4bInEAZs55uL6+YeZpPgJi GTeSUhkGZnaz4/F4OB7BXU1779YbmI1lyJLULJWcSwZHZk6JM4ubquqYCjO5KrirGSd+8ODB9dVu qbW7PXzy+MmHH45D2Ww3u+trJ/jOt//yD/7BPxCR4/H4+7//93/wgx+KUGwkU3WPhAYNHFzNLLIr U+u11rqo6TLN0I2Ze+/T4bjUSkRGoOjuxsxJBBHOu3QNQ5EnuSFiSomZzdZk5RzBT/kBumukC+e/ jYdyTlAQncgBHPGdFOf8emaOYyCO7HP4iBhB5IgQmRCAAcTJEVfoABDr8nwIxR+ePw4RRgaGSPHH 5791BzdHB3dU9dOyd0QnQgBQ896buwPym/u7b37r65/+6EcM8T6AQAjo5gTotv5qAzewCFvn+4Dg iKCqvVUgu7m9TiUfD8e2zMzITHFzmMkdFEANTvkZuRMRIa9R0x1Slrku3/nOt4/TDETnG05EwiIi KclxOj5/+byZ5pwZudV2nKf7w/54nIaUtpsx5ZxSmqZ5nuYskiW5u7n23uda51rnZW7zUqep9joM 5dHDW3c4ToftZrPUudbKzKpGiEjgbsMw5pynadrv97VWd6+1AoCkpKrmllJikTIM4zgQgoGmJIDm AI7etEY22Vpzt5R4HAoL99aYmQhrRHdwQNjudqWkw37/5s2b2hYHBKBEiYnMOpMzgHZFQs6ZAF++ +Oz588+SyIcffc7JX71+uQZBX0/myOAvFgC4GyEgxrqNHMXd4WKbvF298f15vZ2T8ljV7o6ASAhu boo

СКАЧАТЬ