Read Online Gentleman's Relish by Patrick Gale - Free Book Online Page B

paler than ever, as though the moonlit water had chilled him from merely pale to a silvery kind of blue.
    She knelt at once and, dropping her book and spectacle case, tried to grasp his trailing shirt tails. He was floating just beyond her reach however and she was fearful of falling in herself. Growing breathless, she stood, glancing about her, and called out, ‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded especially feeble andbloodlessly English against the exotic birdsong and rustling of leaves. Usually the grounds were discreetly busy with staff by this hour. There always seemed to be a gardener raking up fallen leaves or one of the smarter-dressed personal assistants ferrying a guest in a buggy, but for once there was nobody in view. Edith hurried back inside, fumbling to fit her key into the lock with shaking fingers, and dialled 1.
    â€˜There’s a man in my pool, Ayu. A fellow guest. I…I think he’s drowned,’ she said.
    The sofa was immensely deep and comfortable and she found she had no power to leave it now she had sat. Perhaps she had not slept as well as she’d thought. Feeling her sixty-nine years, sweating despite the air conditioning, she waited and ate a grape or two abstractedly. Then she heard voices by the pool: a man’s and a woman’s, Ayu’s. Ayu sounded almost angry but then she appeared at Edith’s door, utterly composed, and tapped lightly on the glass.
    â€˜Miss Chalmers? Are you all right?’
    â€˜Yes. I’m fine,’ Edith said, forcing herself to rise. ‘It was a bit of a shock, that’s all.’
    â€˜Er. There is no one in the pool, Miss Chalmers. Here. Come and see.’
    One of the groundsmen, his skin far darker than Ayu’s, was raking the leaves and petals off the water and heaping them in a shallow, woven basket.Peter was no longer there. The groundsman saw her staring and said something in Bahasa. Ayu snapped back at him but he smiled at Edith and she felt stupid.
    â€˜I’m so sorry to have alarmed you all,’ she said.
    â€˜That’s all right. There were a lot of flowers on the water. Perhaps it was a trick of the light?’
    â€˜Yes. Of course. Yes. I’m sure that’s all it was. I’m so very sorry.’
    â€˜I’ve had them bring your breakfast to the terrace,’ Ayu added. ‘In case you were…’ She sought the correct word and, as always, her cautious use of an idiom highlit its strangeness. ‘In case you were not quite yourself .’
    â€˜How kind.’
    â€˜Your flight for Singapore leaves at twelve forty-five so I’ll bring the buggy for you at a quarter to ten.’
    â€˜Thank you. And will you bring my bill then?’
    â€˜Your bill? Oh. Please, Miss Chalmers, there is nothing for you to pay.’
    â€˜Nothing? But I had several breakfasts. And snacks.’
    â€˜Nothing. Enjoy your breakfast.’
    Ayu performed a tidy namaste and withdrew via the poolside where she dropped her courteous tone to deliver another clattering rebuke to the groundsman.
    There were several altars about the place, lappedin the black and white checked cloth Peter had explained symbolized the perfectly maintained balance of good and evil. Every morning someone left fresh offerings on them, Lilliputian arrangements of flowers and fruit on a leaf, usually with a smouldering incense stick in their midst. One saw these everywhere in Ubud, not just on altars but on the pavements and thresholds, protecting a house from unhappy spirits presumably. Edith had assumed that the hotel altars were purely decorative, like the faux-antique Buddhist or Hindu statues she had seen tourists showing off to one another at the festival. But perhaps not? Perhaps they were ancient sites of worship that long predated this artificial, impeccably staffed Eden.
    As Edith obediently sipped her Juice of the Day – carrot, papaya and lime, a little card informed her – she saw an old woman, surely