LITMIR.BIZ

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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 do not to dissolve beneath such kindness. In that moment, she sees everything. At last. Her entire life with Timothy. She sees that – here, now, in front of these strangers, and with this kind man’s hand squeezing hers – Timothy is disposing of her. He is leaving her here in France, to fend for herself.

      ‘…So?’ Timothy says, not smiling any more, irritated – disappointed even – by Daphne’s lack of dutiful enthusiasm. ‘I suggest you start learning a little French!’

      She nods, dumbly.

      ‘And I suggest you ask your kind neighbours here if they can recommend a good builder and so on. You’ve a lot of work to be getting on with.’

      She nods again.

      ‘Perhaps the gentleman here –’ he nods at Jean Baptiste’s hand, still holding Daffy’s, ‘will help you to find a builder…I understand he’s in the trade. Well, Daphne?’ he says, when still nobody speaks, ‘You are now the proud owner of the Hotel Marronnier, Montmaur. What do you have to say to that?’ Again, he turns to the table, expecting approval. ‘I should think “thank you” might have been a good start!’

      Daffy stares at him. Again, the silence stretches out.

      ‘You don’t have to take it, you know,’ Maude hears herself saying. ‘…Daffy?…Not just because he says so…You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do…’

      Daffy glances at her, unseeing, unhearing. Such talk could be in Japanese for all Daffy understands. Or French.

      ‘I mean –’ Maude is embarrassed. Horatio scowls at her. She’s not helping, and she knows it. She really wants to take the poor, skinny, idiotic woman and give her a big hug. But that probably wouldn’t help much either. ‘Sorry. Sorry Daffy. I’ll shut up. I only mean – well – welcome to France!’

      ‘Welcome to France!’ everyone repeats. It sounds painfully flat. They raise their glasses and drink without anyone looking anyone in the eye.

      Daffy nods dumbly. Tugs her trembling mouth into a terrible smile, and turns back to her husband. ‘Thank you, Timmie,’ she manages at last, trying to pull herself together, desperately trying to sound like an adult; not afraid, in control, like the sort of woman who renovates rural French hotel/bars all the time. ‘And thank you everyone. For a lovely dinner.’ And she disintegrates into tears.

      It seems to take Timothy by surprise.

       COFFEE AND PETITS FOURS

      As soon as Daffy has wiped her eyes and apologised to everybody, Timothy announces it is time for them to leave. He is embarrassed and angry and it’s obvious to everyone that he can hardly wait to get his wife alone. The guests feel a united blast of pity as they see her tripping along behind him, saying her feeble goodbyes. He’s going to give her hell in the car. Emma – rather more lively now, after the mini-drama – suggests that remaining guests should move from the terrace, where it has grown a little cool, to the drawing room, where Mathilde will soon be laying out coffee and home-made petits fours.

      ‘I told you he was gruesome,’ she announces, to no one in particular, as she returns from waving them both goodbye via the downstairs lavatory and one of her briskly administered sharpeners. ‘I just knew he was a bully.’ But no one pays any attention. They have already settled themselves into little groups and are doing quite adequately without her.

      Horatio is nowhere to be seen, having mumbled something about a football match, or possibly the news, and needing to find a television with satellite.

      Madame Bertinard, fat, middle-aged, and hopelessly intimidated by her smart surroundings, sits perched like an eager parrot beside her liverish and sulky looking host, Mr David Rankin. She’s sliding most of Mathilde’s petits fours into her mouth and nodding earnestly at her husband, seated on David’s other side, while he expounds on the civic value of his new position.

      ‘Fascinating,’ murmurs David Rankin. Not even bothering to look at him. ‘Fascinating. Fascinating.’

      To Monsieur Bertinard there are two types of Englishmen: the ones who come here, push up the property prices, clutter up the schools with their English children, and then go slowly broke. And then the others. Who don’t. The smell of money which exudes from David Rankin’s fat, spoilt body is intoxicating to him. It’s actually making the Mayor’s hands sweat.

      ‘…And I am presently in the situation, Mr Rankin,’ he is saying, leaning a little closer, so that his knees and Mr Rankin’s thigh are touching, ‘I am in the situation of comprehending that you are someone who is involved, on a day-to-day foundation, in the business of the high financial world. This is very, very interesting to me.’

      ‘Jolly good,’ says David, throwing back the remainder of his brandy. (Not for David anything so rough as the local pineau. David only drinks the best.) ‘Well – Monsieur…Monsieur…If you’ll excuse me.’ He begins to lever himself forward and upwards, but it’s hard work climbing out of Emma’s deep sofas. Especially when a man like Olivier Bertinard is working against you.

      ‘You will allow me to observe, Mr Rankin,’ continues Bertinard blithely, ‘that you must be superbly proficient in this department. This beautiful château has certainly costed a little more than the purchase of a small caravan! Yes, I imagine so! It’s a correct supposition, David, non

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