Flight by Victoria Glendinning Read Free Book Online

where the different rocks are to be shifted to. He’s the chief executive. He’s the man with the big desk and the sexy secretaries in the movies you saw.’
    â€˜You haven’t said what happens to a top caveman after the revolution,’ said Giles. ‘But I’ll tell you. He can’t shift rocks. No one wants his opinion about where they should be shifted to. He’s finished. He’s dogmeat.’
    A silence.
    â€˜Management has four prongs,’ announced Giles. ‘The first is goals. You’ve got to have goals. Then, motivation. Then, facilitation. Then, evaluation.’
    â€˜That’s terrible,’ said Martagon. ‘I hope you didn’t think that up for yourself.’
    â€˜No, I read it in a book.’
    â€˜In a book?’ Martagon affected incredulity.
    â€˜Oh, ha ha.’
    â€˜Let’s talk about goals, then.’
    â€˜Power. That’s my goal. I told you, before.’
    â€˜You just want to make people do what you want them to.’
    â€˜That’s not what I want,’ said Amanda. They had forgotten her. ‘That’s not power. There might be a revolution, anyway, and then you’d be dogmeat. I’ll tell you my idea of power. I want to be free to do, by myself, for myself, anything that I want to do. That’s power.’
    â€˜What’s the relation between power and responsibility?’ asked Martagon. ‘Is power the same as control?’
    â€˜There’s lots of ways of controlling people,’ said Giles. ‘You’ve no idea of the power of compliance. Women get control over men through sex and domesticity and the niceness of everyday, making men dependent, making them soft, like number-one caveman who can’t shift his own rocks. Women are like crack-dealers creating an addict. It gets so he doesn’t feel good without regular fixes of what she supplies. Amanda’s got me that way…’
    â€˜Don’t be daft,’ said Amanda flatly. ‘Goodnight, I’m going to bed.’ And she went.
    â€˜It’s true, though,’ said Giles. ‘It’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a good woman.’
    â€˜I should be so lucky,’ said Martagon.
    He hadn’t yet fallen into the pale, seductive hands of Marina de Cabrières. Women like Marina were much more to Lin Perry’s taste than Amanda was, and he knew Marina before Martagon did. ‘Marina is to die for,’ he said.

TWO
    Martagon’s first impression of Bonplaisir was unexpected. He stepped into the shade of the gatehouse arch, looking forward to seeing the famous façade for the first time. What met his eye was a row of pristine white lavatory bowls, ranged tidily against the stone wall, gleaming in the sun, beneath the open ground-floor windows. From within the château came the noises of drilling and sawing and, further away, the thrumming of a cement-mixer.
    Then she appeared round the corner from the gardens. As she came nearer he realized with a jolt that it was the woman he had seen in the café, even though this time she was wearing a white shirt and jeans, and her red hair was loose, hanging in tendrils round her neck. He could tell from the way she met his eyes that she remembered too.
    Martagon smiled at her. She smiled back. They shook hands. She made a gesture towards the lavatory bowls and the din from inside the building, and shrugged. ‘An army of occupation,’ she said.
    His heart was lurching.
    It was a relief to turn away and recover his equilibrium walking beside her round the gardens, doing the business he had come to do. He had a feeling of dread. There was no reason for it. Nothing had happened.
    But something was going to happen.
    He was a single man. His relationship with Jutta, his German girlfriend, had come to an end. So what was he dreading?
    There’s a lightness in stalking on your own through the world, not caring immeasurably about anyone,