Kathleen Tessaro 3-Book Collection: The Flirt, The Debutante, The Perfume Collector. Kathleen Tessaro

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       Make Me a Willow Cabin at Your Gate

      Arnaud Bourgalt du Coudray paused as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He was on his way out to supper. Again. He was taking Svetlana to George’s and on to some club afterwards.

      Automatically, he stopped to appraise himself in the mirror in the front hallway. How things had changed! A person might mistake me for forty-five, he thought, shaking his head so that his hair covered his bald patch, and flashing himself a strange little smile, parting the lips but keeping the upper half of the face completely immobile; a trick his mother had taught him for not getting wrinkles. (The fact that as an expression it failed to convey any warmth or good humour had escaped them both.)

      Yes, in many ways, he considered, life couldn’t be better.

      Business was going amazingly well. In a couple of weeks when he launched the Nemesis All-Pro Sport 2000, he was certain to rise to the very pinnacle of the sporting goods industry. He might even be nominated for the prestigious Silver Sock Award – the sporting industry’s highest honour. In addition, he hadn’t spoken to his mother in weeks. Normally she rang twice a day to vent her ill-will at him but she’d treated herself to a month-long spa break and they’d thoughtfully wired her jaw shut.

      Best of all, there were no real obstacles to him seeing Svetlana. Here they were, trotting out for the third time this week. And he was guaranteed sex. (It took a couple of recreational drugs to work herself up to the task, but once high as a kite, she did a creditable impression of a sexually predatory creature possessed with lust and desire. One of the drawbacks of having been inconceivably wealthy all his life was that Arnaud was absolutely certain no one had ever slept with him for the sex alone.)

      Still, a profound sense of unease stirred in the pit of his stomach.

      Surely something was wrong, deeply wrong, if no one even cared where he was going or what he was doing? And he realized that the ingredient missing from this otherwise flawless existence was the presence of his beautiful, faithful, chronically unhappy wife.

      Where was Olivia? Why was she no longer trailing after him in the mornings like a doomed wraith? In the almost eleven years that he’d known her, she’d never been so conspicuously absent from his life. He’d been threatening to move into one of the guest rooms every day this week – surely she should be frantic!

      And, having done everything in his power to repel and degrade her for the past six months, Arnaud found himself outraged.

      Was this part of some larger plan? Was she toying with him? Did she imagine he was like some schoolboy to be neglected and manipulated as she pleased?

      ‘Gaunt!’ he shouted, suddenly furious. ‘GAUNT!’

      Gaunt appeared from below stairs. ‘Yes, sir?’

      ‘Where is my wife?’ He spat the words out, resenting them even as they left his lips.

      ‘I believe, sir, she is still at the gallery. Shall I ring to confirm?’

      The man was impertinent; laughing at him, he was certain.

      ‘No.’ Arnaud pushed his way past him, flinging the front door wide. ‘I’ll take care of it myself.’

      When Arnaud arrived at the gallery, there were at least two dozen people milling about, unloading trucks, hanging canvases, repositioning video cameras, and shouting at each other. The artists were instantly recognizable as a small cluster of vagrants puffing away on cigarettes in a corner underneath the ‘No Smoking’ sign.

      ‘Where is my wife?’ Arnaud demanded of a scruffy young man.

      ‘And, like, who are you?’ the rogue challenged.

      ‘I am …’Arnaud stopped himself. It was degrading to have to introduce himself. He cut straight to the point.

      ‘Fuck off,’ he said and stamped away, aware that they were laughing at him.

      Arnaud loathed art. It had never bothered him much before he was married, but after Olivia became a devoted patroness, he came to despise it. He especially hated the word ‘talent’ and the way it was thrown about, landing on any and every substandard imbecile who took his wife’s fancy. Michelangelo was talented. Leonardo da Vinci had ability. But Walter Fripp from Woking with his papier mâché mannequins dressed as sexually explicit Teletubbies had severe mental problems, not talent. He had tried on many occasions to explain this to his wife but she refused to see his point. She talked about vision and cultural references and metaphors for modern life until he wanted to shout. So he did. Educated women insisted on having ideas and opinions. His mother had enough opinions for all the women in the world. He didn’t need any from his wife.

      Then he spotted her, talking to that fop, Simon Grey.

      Arnaud СКАЧАТЬ