LITMIR.BIZ

       LOBSTER WITH MAYONNAISE

      ‘Right then,’ says Maude, as Horatio drives in through the Rankins’ mini portcullis and into the château’s large oval courtyard. ‘If she starts teasing you about carrot-growing again, ignore her. And if she says anything remotely cryptic about Jean Baptiste, or Eritreans, or passports or anything – We’re not here to satisfy her curiosity. We’re here to suss out exactly what she knows. And how she knows it –’

      ‘Oh shut up, Maudie. I know why we’re here.’

      ‘Fine. Fine. If you say so.’

      He switches off the engine and they pause for a moment, as if preparing for battle. Suddenly Horatio leans across. He touches his wife’s chin, turns her tense, angry face to look at him.

      ‘It’s going to be OK,’ he says quietly. ‘Don’t look so worried.’

      Maude turns away again. To stop herself from blubbing. She nods.

      ‘Please, Maude. You have to trust me. You have to forget –’

      ‘I’m trying to,’ she snaps. ‘But it’s a little hard. Under the circumstances.’

      He pulls her back towards him. ‘I love you,’ he says, and kisses her. ‘So much. You know that, don’t you?’

      ‘The question at the moment, Heck,’ she says, pushing him away, ‘is whether or not I love you.’ She smiles at him, a little less hostile now, but with the threat of tears still lingering. ‘Let’s just get this over and done with, shall we?’

      Set on a hill above a tiny hamlet, the Château de St Jean looks like a toy fortress, with ramparts, turrets, a working portcullis and high walls surrounding its oval courtyard. Emma Rankin only ever wanted the place for its exterior. She gutted the inside, preserving just the vast stone fireplaces at either end of the great hall, a spiral stone staircase at the back, and some ancient oak panelling, which she had moved from the ground floor to the galleried landing upstairs.

      She spent a fortune on the place of course, and much of it on the local workforce, whom she charmed and bribed in equally generous measure to ensure that the job was done. (It is why Emma Rankin, unlike the other local ‘rosbif‘, so much less fragrant and more impoverished than she, 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.

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