The Patriarch, page 6
“And there’s a Dutch Warmblood gelding you might also want to look at if you want a good strong horse,” Marguerite said. She was leading out Primrose, but she was addressing Bruno. “We call him Rudi. I’ll bring him out if you like, let you look at him, then you can ride them together. Rudi can do with a bit of exercise, but he’s very good natured, so you won’t find him difficult.”
She walked the two horses in turn around the stable yard. Pamela and Bruno began by making friends, offering each horse a carrot and then stroking their long necks. Pamela checked the teeth and legs and shoes with a practiced eye. Then they saddled each of them and took them to the ring, trotting gently. Marguerite kept the gate open, and having seen that they were good riders, she signaled to them to take the horses out into the paddock for a canter. They rode up to the house and then around the back, pausing to take in the weeds that were beginning to attack the all-weather tennis court that stood beside the empty pool. There was another paddock with half-a-dozen battered obstacles that needed a fresh coat of paint. Pamela took Primrose over two of the smaller jumps and then stopped beside a fine-looking orchard of fruit trees and asked Bruno to change horses.
“What does she want for the Selle?” he asked.
“Seven thousand, but I think she’ll have to come down. She’s a good horse, but there’s not much of a pedigree, so I won’t pay more than four. It’s a buyer’s market, these days, with the price of feed so high. What do you think of the Warmblood? He looks quite strong. Is he a bit of a handful?”
“I hadn’t heard of that breed, but the name suits him,” said Bruno, stroking Rudi’s neck. “He’s certainly strong with lots of energy, keeps wanting to break into a gallop. I don’t think he’s had much exercise lately. But he’s not difficult to handle, seems to have a good nature.”
Pamela gestured at something hanging in the apple trees and asked, “What’s that?”
They led the horses across to look and found each tree had a small plastic net containing crushed eggshells hanging in its branches. Baffled, they exchanged horses to ride back to the stable yard where Marguerite awaited, a hopeful expression on her face.
“I think seven thousand is a lot more than I can afford, even considering what you told me of the pedigree, and I’m not planning to ride her in competitions,” Pamela began. “But before we get into that, tell me about the gîtes. Do you rent them out?”
“Yes. They each have three bedrooms, and I charge twelve hundred a week in July and August, a thousand in June and September and eight hundred in May and October. That’s what’s kept me going after Dominique died. You may have heard of her, she was on the Olympic team at Munich so she was always the one who brought in the customers.”
“So your gîtes haven’t been full?” Pamela asked. She was speaking casually, but there was an alertness to her posture that Bruno recognized, a little tilting of her head that meant she was getting her teeth into something. He smiled to himself, thinking it was pleasant to know a woman well enough to interpret her moods from her body language.
Marguerite shook her head. “Not this summer. I’ve had to do all the cleaning and the laundry myself, and then there was the leak in the swimming pool that needed to be repaired, and I didn’t have the money for it. That’s why I have to sell Primrose. I’ll never be able to rent the gîtes if I can’t offer the guests a swimming pool.”
“I’ll give you four thousand for the Selle, and we can complete the sale this week subject to a checkup by my vet. I don’t want to bargain,” Pamela said firmly. Bruno had never seen her in business mode before. “But if you let me look through your books, I’ve got a friend who might be interested in buying the whole estate, if the price is right.”
“I’ve got some other people coming to look at the horses and then a riding class. If you come back this afternoon, we can go through the books then. Could you go to five for the horse? I really don’t want to let her go for four thousand. My friend Laura picked her out as a foal and always rode her until she became too ill, so she’s my favorite.”
“In that case we might not have a deal. I don’t want to pay any more. But let’s look at the books together, and then we can talk. I can come back anytime this afternoon, but I’ll probably need a few hours to go through your accounts and get a sense of the business.
“By the way,” Pamela added. “Why do you have those eggshells hanging in the apple trees?”
“It’s an old local remedy to stop leaf curl and pests. I’m not sure it’s very scientific, but it seems to work. Dominique was born in the countryside, so she was full of old remedies like that. She’d put yogurt pots half full of beer in the garden to drown slugs and save soapy dishwater to get rid of wasps’ nests.”
Marguerite swallowed and put a hand to her eye and wiped away a tear. “Sorry, I’m still not…You can see how the vegetable garden has suffered since she passed away, just like everything else. Just like me, really.”
8
Soon after leaving the riding school, Pamela and Bruno were sitting on the terrace at Laugerie Basse, the great cliff looming above them and off to one side the cave shelters of prehistoric people with their carvings of giant auroch bulls. The restaurant was a local favorite, family run and serving lavish meals at low prices. In the hunting season Bruno was here once a week with his hunting club, dining inside the same overhanging cave where people had lived fifteen thousand years ago.
“If I get all those gîtes running properly, I could bring in a hundred thousand a year,” said Pamela, showing him the notebook on which she had been calculating possible rental income.
“Less taxes, cleaning costs, repainting and upkeep and then there’s the marketing,” said Bruno. “You might clear forty thousand if you fill them all every week from Easter to the end of October, but that’s unlikely. And there’s a lot of money to be put in to repair the pool, fix up the jumps, repaint the stables and replace the broken tiles. And that roof on the big house looked to me like it needed replacing, next year if not this. You’d need a couple of stable hands at least and somebody else to help with the riding school and with the cleaning in the summer. There goes your revenue from the gîtes, and that’s without thinking of the costs of fodder and the vet’s bills.”
“I like running my own business, and I’m good at it,” she replied, sipping at her glass of rosé. “Unlike Marguerite. I can’t believe what a bad businesswoman she is, telling us all about what she can’t afford to do. Every time she spoke, I mentally knocked a few more thousands off the price.”
“She struck me as overworked, tired and depressed, and still in mourning for her dead partner,” said Bruno. He didn’t add that he’d been even more struck by Pamela’s decisive business style.
“And I’d get a good price for my own place,” Pamela went on. “I’ve already had one offer from those people from Wales who come back every year. And with the money from my mother’s estate I’d have the cash flow I need plus a very healthy cushion. I’d have to buy some new horses and a couple of ponies for children. The horses we didn’t look at seemed quite old and a bit run down, like the whole place.”
“Well, you know the risks and the hard work involved.” Bruno sat back as the plates of rillettes de canard were served along with a basket of bread and a bowl of cornichons.
“The risk might not be all mine,” she said, serving herself rillettes. She paused, and then spoke again, a little too casually and reaching to pour each of them a glass from the water jug to avoid meeting Bruno’s eye. “It was Jack Crimson who told me this place was up for sale. He said if I was interested in running it, he’d be ready to take a share in the venture. I’d have to set it up as a company, and it would be useful to have a second shareholder.”
Surprised, Bruno put down his knife and looked at her. He’d been about to remind her that there had to be a reason that riding schools around the region were going out of business. But he caught himself before he spoke. After all, it was her affair, her mother’s inheritance. Pamela raised her eyes to look at him, and her voice seemed deliberately offhand when she added, “Jack thought it could be a good investment.”
Bruno’s mind was racing. This was a surprise. He liked Jack and counted him as a friend, even though he’d been surprised when he’d first learned that the retired civil servant whom he’d first met at the St. Denis tennis club had spent his career in British intelligence. They had become friends after sharing an adventure that had begun with Jack’s home being burgled and Bruno then being lucky enough to track down his stolen possessions and recover them. A well-preserved man in his midsixties, Crimson was a widower whose wife had died shortly after they had bought their house near St. Denis. He seemed very comfortably off and was always generous with local charities. If he’d already spoken to Pamela about an investment, she visited the riding school to do more than look at a horse for sale.
“He’s a decent man and very smart. If he thinks it’s a good investment, it probably is,” Bruno said, recalling that he’d introduced Jack to Pamela at one of his own dinner parties. “I didn’t know you knew him that well.”
“Both being British, I suppose,” she said vaguely, looking away again and then starting to eat. “He knew I was looking for a horse, so he e-mailed me about the place and said it looked like it might be a bargain. We talked about it over dinner in London with his daughter, Miranda. I think Jack wants to get her involved, help her make a new start with the children. She’s just been through what sounds like a very unpleasant divorce, so I can sympathize.”
Bruno digested this. It was the first he’d heard of their meeting for dinner in London. “Would Jack be involved in running the place, or is he just planning to invest some money?”
“Too early to say, but he’s no horseman.” She put down her knife and fork and paused before looking Bruno squarely in the eye. “I think he recognized that I was ready for a new challenge, something I could get my teeth into. I’ve had just the two gîtes to run once Fabiola started renting one of them. When Mother died, I began asking myself if I was really happy with my very pleasant but predictable life, and I realized that I wanted to do something really ambitious while I still have the energy. This seems like a worthwhile project. I know gîtes, and I love horses, and this way I can combine the two while building a real business.”
“It sounds as though you’ve already made up your mind,” he said, and began to eat. If Pamela was intent on making such an important change in this aspect of her life, then she was probably ready for something different in her romantic life. He’d expected this, and while there was some sadness, he was also aware of a small but distinct sense of relief.
“I’m certainly determined to do something different,” Pamela said. “I think I told you I’d spoken with Florence about giving some English conversation classes to the senior class at the collège. But I’d rather do something involving horses. I always have.”
“It sounds as though the riding school is what you want to do. You love horses, you’re good with them, and speaking as your most recent pupil, I know you’re a natural teacher. And you know how to run a tourist business. I’m sure you’ll make a great success of it.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked, her eyes shining. Their empty plates were whisked away and replaced with generous portions of roast chicken and petits pois with carrots. “It won’t leave me much time to spend with you.”
“I understand, but I’ll still have to come along to exercise the horses, morning and evening. But if you’re going into business, I’d better start paying stable fees for Hector.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “But morning exercise will be different if we’re taking out a long string of horses behind us.”
“You’ll just have to ensure you have so many pupils at your riding school that they’ll do most of the exercising for you,” he said. “Then you might not even need Fabiola and me.”
“That reminds me,” she said. “I should have thanked you for the lamb last night. It was delicious, different from that slow-cooked version that you start marinating the previous day, but just as good in a different way. Fabiola was raving about the lamb this morning when we had coffee together before we took the horses out.”
Bruno sat back and thanked the waitress as she removed the empty plates and left a bowl of salad for them to help themselves. From the choice of desserts, they both picked the crème brûlée. “It’s good to see her and Gilles so happy. Fabiola said they had a lovely time, the weather was perfect, and the oysters were delicious.”
Arcachon was famous for its beaches, its seafood, and for a giant sand dune, nearly three kilometers long and over a hundred meters high, which shifted back and forth along the coast at the mercy of storms and tides. It had been Fabiola’s first real holiday since arriving in St. Denis. From what Gilles had said over dinner, Bruno had the impression that they’d spent more time together in their room than sightseeing, which was as it should be for new lovers.
They were well matched, he thought, Fabiola the gifted doctor and Gilles the writer, his passionate interest in national politics tempered by a warm good humor and a dry wit that Bruno appreciated. Bruno’s own interest in politics was mainly confined to the affairs of his commune and the département, but he liked to listen to Gilles’s views. It was something new for Bruno to have a close male friend who didn’t hunt, had little interest in rugby or any kind of sports and spent most of his time reading or attached to his laptop. It made Gilles a good partner for Fabiola, whose radio was always tuned to France Culture and whose favorite reading, apart from medical journals, seemed to be Le Monde Diplomatique. Other than the mayor, Bruno supposed they were the first intellectuals he’d known.
The crème brûlée finished, he and Pamela ordered coffee and enjoyed the view down the cliff and over the River Vézère, Bruno wondering if this would be the last time this year he’d be able to eat in the open air. And it might even be one of the last times he lunched with Pamela alone, which would be a loss, since he enjoyed her company.
“Would you like me to drive you back to the riding school?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’ll probably be there some time, poring over account books and getting a sense of just how far the place has run down and how much it’s going to cost me to put it back in order. If you drop me off at home, I’ll drive myself over there. I also want a good look around inside the gîtes and the big house. From the outside it seemed rather too big for me, but maybe I could rent it out and live in one of the gîtes. There’s always a good market for big manor houses like that in the summer.”
“Even if you decide against the riding school, there’s always that horse, Primrose. I liked riding her, a bit like Hector only smaller and less of a mind of her own.”
Pamela grinned. “I had a pony called Primrose when I was a little girl. And I won’t object if the Warmblood comes as part of the deal with the stables. He seemed a decent buy.”
“He didn’t have the charm of your Primrose.”
“She was luring you in; you know what they say about the female of the species,” Pamela said. “But she’s a fine-looking horse, a little short for a Selle, but with a good, broad face and a strong neck. She looks like a good worker, so she could be just what I want. But I’ll have to ride her a bit more to get a sense of her character and how well we’d get on together. You’re lucky, bonding with Hector the way you have. Not every rider is so lucky.”
“Probably because they weren’t taught to ride by you,” said Bruno. He’d been thinking of raising the question of their own relationship, but Pamela seemed too focused on her plans for the riding school. He put down a twenty-euro note and another five in coins, thinking a four-course meal with wine might have cost him twice as much in Bordeaux or Paris.
“I’ll call you this evening and let you know what I find out,” said Pamela.
9
Bruno paused at the end of the gravel drive, looking down the avenue of fruit trees to admire Jack Crimson’s home, a small manor house of the kind that was these days called a gentilhommière, a gentleman’s residence. Crimson said he’d chosen it because it reminded him of the Georgian country houses in England, albeit in miniature form. There was a handsome front porch flanked by stone pillars, two sets of French windows on each side of the door and five mansard windows on the upper floor. The effect was pleasingly symmetrical. The house looked comfortable and inviting with its roof of old tiles and the warmth of the honey-colored stone. Some hardy late roses provided a splash of pinks and yellows.
Balzac gave a cheerful bark and scampered down the drive, stopping to sniff at the various trees before lifting his leg on a cherry tree. Then he ran onto the porch just as Crimson opened the front door and bent to caress the basset hound he’d known since Balzac was a puppy.
“My dear Bruno and Balzac, a pleasure to see you both, and you’re just in time for a p’tit apéro,” said Crimson with a wide smile. As usual, he looked as if he’d taken care in how he was dressed, as if he were preparing to be photographed for a glossy English lifestyle magazine. His gray hair was neatly brushed, and there were precise creases in his khaki slacks. His checked shirt was open at the neck, and a yellow cashmere sweater was slung with casual elegance around his shoulders. His brown brogues were highly polished.
“A glass of scotch, a Ricard, some wine? I think it’s still warm enough to enjoy it in the open air while Balzac renews his acquaintance with the garden.”
Installed on the terrace with its view across a well-kept lawn to the ridge that led down to the River Vézère, Bruno accepted a small glass of single-malt whiskey, Crimson’s usual Balvenie. His host added a splash of water, murmuring something about the need to liberate the bouquet. Crimson clinked their glasses together and said Slahnge, and Bruno replied Tchin in the French way.
