Strike Out Where Not Applicable by Nicolas Freeling Read Free Book Online Page B

Healthy-looking, like an eat-more-fruit advertisement, marvellous eyes and teeth, looks fine in breeches and on a horse, always very tanned. And people like her – not only the men but the women too.’
    â€˜Remarkable,’ without irony.
    â€˜Very. She’s shrewd too – has I’d say a cold calculating eye for things on occasion. She has an extravagant generosity though – gives big tips, gave Marion an antique porcelain tea service for her birthday that must have cost a fortune. They are friendly – she’s one of the inner ring there at the manège, along with people like Stefan – he does international show-jumping – and the big oils, like Kampen’s coffee and Miersma the dry-cleaners – shops you see in every village in Holland. That crowd have yachts and private planes. I’m the lowest of the low, I can tell you, and Janine, who thought her fur coat pretty grand when she started, soon discovered she was small fry. They go over to England every week, some of that lot – the husbands have conferences with Shell or Unilever, and the wives go shopping and hairdressing, and the theatre in the evenings, and whichever nightclub is in the wind.’
    She was no longer intimidated by his making notes. She knew that he was not writing her down word for word. On the contrary, he was looking for the gaps in her sketches. People with dry-cleaning empires had cracks, pasted over but deep, in their glittering image, and she was not expected to know about them.
    â€˜And Bernhard?’
    â€˜I haven’t seen him that often. He’s only been a regular at the manège in the last couple of weeks, but I’ve seen him a few times at the restaurant when the horses rendezvous’d there. Like a bear, wore a cook’s jacket but no hat or apron to show he was the boss. Used to get up and act mine host and then go back to natter with pals. I thought him rather nasty – simply because he was servile to people he knew had money, and inclined to look over the top of your head if he thought you hadn’t.’
    â€˜How was Marguerite with him?’
    â€˜I wouldn’t know, really – a bit offhanded: affectionate phrases but sounding a bit crisp – you know. They seemed to know well enough how to get on with each other.’
    â€˜Have you seen those paintings they have there in the living-room?’ irrelevantly.
    â€˜Francis, you mean? I’ve only been in the living-room once, when it was her birthday. I brought her a bunch of flowers and she thanked me as though they were diamonds – you couldn’t get in the door for flowers! We were invited upstairs for drinks – sweet vermouth, ugh – and I remember seeing them. Rather good, I thought. I’ve seen the painter – he’s often pottering about; seems to specialize in horses. Maybe they think a lot of him on account of that – rather a tatty chappy by their standards. Supposed to be French – doesn’t look it. I’ve no idea – never as much as exchanged the bonjour.’
    â€˜Isn’t that odd? He must know you’re French.’
    â€˜Oh I dare say he’s not even aware I exist. More coffee?’
    â€˜What does he look like?’
    â€˜Oh young, thin, quite goodlooking in a sallow way. Wears those terylene suits that go shiny and look so cheap, so he has a kind of slummy smartness. Doesn’t look like an artist.’
    â€˜What do artists look like?’ laughing.
    â€˜Oh, I only mean he’s conventional-looking – hair cut short, wears a collar and tie. I say, there’s a concert in the big amphi at the university tomorrow night, an American soprano doing a Schumann group; we might go, don’t you think?’ He hadn’t quite finished fishing.
    â€˜You know a thin woman with brown hair and skin, lot of diamond rings, got two little girls with ponytail hair?’
    â€˜Maggie Sebregt,’