Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding Read Free Book Online

sweater. Olivia forced herself to breathe normally and looked into the dark, penetrating eyes. He raised his eyebrows quizzically.
    “I tried acting once. I was given some roles in a comedy revue. One by one all my parts were taken away from me, apart from that of Miss Guided, the mute chambermaid.”
    The wannabes and the little oily man looked at her, baffled.
    Ferramo showed a glimmer of amusement. “You will excuse us?” he said to the group, taking her arm and beginning to guide Olivia away.
    As the wannabes glowered, Olivia had to fight down playground-level feelings of smugness and one-upmanship, feelings she deeply disapproved of in any circumstances. Divide and rule. Ferramo was dividing his roost of girlies in order to rule it.
    A waiter hurried up with a tray of champagne.
    “Oh, no thank you,” said Olivia quickly as Ferramo handed her a long-stemmed glass.
    “But you must,” he murmured. “It is French. It is the finest.”
    Yes, but are you? His accent wasn’t easy to place.
    “ Non, merci ,” she said. “ Et vous? Vous êtes français ?”
    “ Mais bien sûr ,” he said, with an approving glance. “ Et je crois que vous parlez bien le français. Vous êtes, ou — je peux? — tu es une femme bien educatée .”
    I wish. Worksop Comprehensive, she thought, but merely smiled mysteriously, asking herself if educatée was a proper French word and resolving to look it up later.
    p. 39 Olivia had an ear for languages, and had discovered that even when she couldn’t speak a foreign tongue, she could often understand it. Even if the words were double Dutch, she could usually guess at what the person might be saying, or figure it out through her sensitivity to nuances of expression. There had been a time when her lack of university education had made her sad, so she had made up for it herself. With books and tapes and visits she had developed fluency in French and passable Spanish and German. A couple of visits to the Sudan and the Muslim islands of Zanzibar and Lamu had given her the rudiments of Arabic. Unfortunately, the world of style-and-beauty journalism was not giving her much chance to use all this.
    Taking a large swig of champagne, Ferramo led her through the party, ignoring the bids for his attention. It was like being with the star at a film premiere. Eyes followed them, particularly those of the tall Indian beauty. “But of course, Ms. Joules, the French are not exactly populaire in your country,” he said, leading her onto the terrace.
    “Nor in this,” she laughed. “ ‘Cheese-eating surrender-monkeys,’ Homer Simpson called them.” She looked up at him, smiling while gauging his reaction. He leaned against the cruise-ship-type railing and smiled back, gesturing for her to join him.
    “Ah, Monsieur Simpson. The fount of all human wisdom. And you? You were at one with the French sensibilité ?”
    She leaned on the cool metal rail and looked out to sea. The wind was still raging. The mood [moon?] appeared from time to time behind ragged, racing clouds.
    “Were you?” she asked.
    “I was ashamed of my countrymen.” Yes, but which countrymen? “And you? What was your position?” Why was he asking her this?
    “I always find it a bad idea to talk politics at parties.”
    “Not when asked for an opinion directly, surely.”
    “I was against the invasion.”
    “You were ? And why was that?”
    p. 40 “Well, since you ask: there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda or September 11, and they were punishing a breach of international law by breaking international law themselves. I thought it was mad, unless there was something they weren’t telling us, which it turns out there wasn’t.”
    “You are right,” he laughed, “you are not an actress.”
    “Because I’ve got an opinion? That’s a bit sweeping, isn’t it?”
    “Actors. Do you know that, every day, over five hundred young people arrive in