Flight by Victoria Glendinning Read Free Book Online Page A

open to adventure, in no danger of being betrayed or of becoming a betrayer. Once you step with someone else hand in hand into the dark forest, one of you risks getting lost or abandoned or slaughtered.
    Marina carried her height well, walking with her head erect, looking straight ahead. Martagon began to do the same, realizing how most of the time he walked with his neck bent, his eyes on the ground a few feet in front of him. He lifted his chin and walked tall, beside this gorgeous woman who was nearly as tall as he was.
    Her voice was deep for a woman’s, with a catch in it. There was something tentative, uncertain, about that voice, even though she seemed assured as she talked about the money still due to her from the airport consortium. Martagon took scrupulous notes.
    She gave him lunch on the terrace. They sat opposite one another. The chair she sat in was high-backed, carved and gilded, with sphinx heads for armrests and great claw feet. Her pale, long-fingered hands caressed the sphinx heads as she talked. Martagon was riveted. He could not take his eyes off her hands, her face.
    The château had fallen silent. The workmen, too, were taking their lunch-break. Looking out beyond the gardens they could see five yellow cranes rising above the trees, and hear the whinings and clatterings from the airport construction site.
    â€˜How much do you mind all this?’ he asked.
    â€˜I mind a great deal and I don’t mind at all. I’m taking the important things – memories, and money.’ She laughed a wicked, sexy laugh. ‘And this,’ she added, patting the arms of her great chair. ‘It’s very old, my mother found it in Alexandria. She always sat here, in this chair. I fought my brother, Jean-Louis, like a tiger for it. I’ll have it taken back to my place tonight.’
    Marina was no longer living at the château. She had moved into a farmhouse ten kilometres away that belonged to the family property and was not part of the sale.
    A cheerful, meaty American girl in shorts who was introduced as ‘Billie, my assistant’, brought out their picnic lunch and arranged it on the table.
    â€˜You know Nancy Mulhouse? Billie’s her niece.’
    â€˜Ah. No, no, I don’t know Nancy Mulhouse, I’m afraid.’
    â€˜You don’t know Nancy? How can that be? Anyone who spends time in these parts knows Nancy.’
    â€˜Well, I’ve never met her,’ Martagon said.
    People in Provence – expats – were always asking him if he was going to Nancy’s big party, or whether he liked Nancy’s makeover of her garden, or whatever. It was beginning to irritate him.
    â€˜I know Auntie Nancy’s keen to meet you,’ said Billie. ‘I heard her say so to Lin Perry the other night. You remember, you were sitting with him, Marina.’
    Billie disappeared back into the château.
    The architect of the airport, Lin Perry, being famous and exotic, was obviously a natural as one of Nancy’s regular house-guests.
    â€˜How can it be that you don’t know Nancy Mulhouse?’ Marina could not let it go.
    â€˜I don’t move in those circles, I suppose. I know she has a house round here somewhere, and I know she’s from Texas, but I wouldn’t recognize her if I was standing next to her at the supermarket checkout.’
    â€˜You’d be most unlikely to meet her at the supermarket checkout. If you did, you’d remember her. But you haven’t told me how you like the wine?’
    â€˜I know it well, I’ve been drinking Domaine de Bonplaisir for years. It’s always been a nice, big, fruity wine.’
    â€˜The fields are being ploughed up. It’s finished … But this is the very best. Nineteen eighty-nine. It must be drunk now before it goes over the top. I liberated the last dozen cases of it before I moved out of here – my brother would kill me if he knew.’
    So they drank the wine