Read Online Gentleman's Relish by Patrick Gale - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Patrick Gale
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became a writer,â she foundherself saying suddenly. âFor the excuse it gives simply to sit quietly and watch.â And, sitting and watching, she spotted several writers from the festival walking by and she felt gratifyingly less of a tourist than they were, simply by virtue of sitting still. âThank you,â she said at last. âThank you for that.â Lent courage by having a pale and interesting young poet at her side, she had no trouble in hailing them a taxi back to the hotel.
They rode in silence but there was no awkwardness because the driverâs radio was serenading them with flute music. When she caught Peterâs eye occasionally, as they bumped around a corner or swerved to avoid a precariously laden scooter, he smiled at her before looking back at the passing night scenes.
âCan you really not pay your bill?â she asked at last as they were walking back through the grounds.
âOh. Probably not. But it couldnât matter less. Iâll plead ignorance, say I thought it was all covered by the festival. It couldnât matter less, honestly, Edith. I have been here before.â
She realized they had observed none of the usual literary festival etiquette of exchanging addresses or cards or assurances to review one another favourably but he had cast a kind of spell on the eveningâs end so they merely shook hands and he melted peaceably into the scented night. The scent, she had discovered by now, was nothing more exotic than citronella oil burning in the little lanterns onevery surface to discourage mosquitoes, but she was still enchanted by it and by the elegance with which the lanterns had been used instead of banal electric light to outline flights of steps around the grounds.
She packed everything but the clothes she would be travelling in and the unwieldy Norwegian novel she had yet to finish. Then she sat out on her terrace, feasting shamelessly on fruit she couldnât name and listening to the gentle plashing of water in her infinity pool and the distant flutes and drums coming from a temple that had been silent every night until now.
What, she wondered, would her friend Margaret have done differently had she been there? Struck up useful friendships, certainly. Left with invitations to festivals in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai all but confirmed. Eaten more. Drunk more. But Edith doubted she would have befriended Peter John. At heart, like most crime writers, Margaret was a social conservative and his pale and interesting qualities, his lack of vim, would have repelled her.
Edith ate the last rambutan in the bowl, dabbed her chin with a napkin and decided that when she got home she would institute some changes. She might even do what her agent had been suggesting for years and write something wildly different under a pseudonym. Something with sex and risk. Something with a plot.
She woke very early, as she always did the night before a long journey. Once sheâd dressed andthrown back the curtains, she saw Ayu had not yet taken up her usual patient position on one of the terrace chairs. But perhaps that was because it was her last day and there could be no question of her suddenly requiring excursions or treatments.
Despite the terrific heat, she had not once swum in her pool because it had not occurred to her to bring a swimming costume to a book festival. She appreciated the pool as a thing of beauty, though, lined with slate tiles and reflecting the canopy of great trees overhead. The wind must have risen a little overnight for each morning the poolâs surface had been thinly carpeted with leaves which a groundsman would patiently extract with a rake while she was at breakfast.
This morning there were petals as well as leaves, as though some crimson shrub had shed all its blossom in the night. And, inches beneath them, Peter John was floating, open eyes to the morning sky, dressed in his habitual linen trousers and baggy white shirt. He looked
They rode in silence but there was no awkwardness because the driverâs radio was serenading them with flute music. When she caught Peterâs eye occasionally, as they bumped around a corner or swerved to avoid a precariously laden scooter, he smiled at her before looking back at the passing night scenes.
âCan you really not pay your bill?â she asked at last as they were walking back through the grounds.
âOh. Probably not. But it couldnât matter less. Iâll plead ignorance, say I thought it was all covered by the festival. It couldnât matter less, honestly, Edith. I have been here before.â
She realized they had observed none of the usual literary festival etiquette of exchanging addresses or cards or assurances to review one another favourably but he had cast a kind of spell on the eveningâs end so they merely shook hands and he melted peaceably into the scented night. The scent, she had discovered by now, was nothing more exotic than citronella oil burning in the little lanterns onevery surface to discourage mosquitoes, but she was still enchanted by it and by the elegance with which the lanterns had been used instead of banal electric light to outline flights of steps around the grounds.
She packed everything but the clothes she would be travelling in and the unwieldy Norwegian novel she had yet to finish. Then she sat out on her terrace, feasting shamelessly on fruit she couldnât name and listening to the gentle plashing of water in her infinity pool and the distant flutes and drums coming from a temple that had been silent every night until now.
What, she wondered, would her friend Margaret have done differently had she been there? Struck up useful friendships, certainly. Left with invitations to festivals in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai all but confirmed. Eaten more. Drunk more. But Edith doubted she would have befriended Peter John. At heart, like most crime writers, Margaret was a social conservative and his pale and interesting qualities, his lack of vim, would have repelled her.
Edith ate the last rambutan in the bowl, dabbed her chin with a napkin and decided that when she got home she would institute some changes. She might even do what her agent had been suggesting for years and write something wildly different under a pseudonym. Something with sex and risk. Something with a plot.
She woke very early, as she always did the night before a long journey. Once sheâd dressed andthrown back the curtains, she saw Ayu had not yet taken up her usual patient position on one of the terrace chairs. But perhaps that was because it was her last day and there could be no question of her suddenly requiring excursions or treatments.
Despite the terrific heat, she had not once swum in her pool because it had not occurred to her to bring a swimming costume to a book festival. She appreciated the pool as a thing of beauty, though, lined with slate tiles and reflecting the canopy of great trees overhead. The wind must have risen a little overnight for each morning the poolâs surface had been thinly carpeted with leaves which a groundsman would patiently extract with a rake while she was at breakfast.
This morning there were petals as well as leaves, as though some crimson shrub had shed all its blossom in the night. And, inches beneath them, Peter John was floating, open eyes to the morning sky, dressed in his habitual linen trousers and baggy white shirt. He looked
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