Antonia Fraser [Jemima Shore Cool Repentance (v2.0) (epub) i

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.Yes, thank you, Christabel, I will have an egg.No toast.Yes, I know I should look after myself more and I'm too thin.Both sides please.''I know your tastes, darling.''Hardly can 1 forget it,' continued Gregory, easing himself down on to the polished bench, with its bright check cushions, by the kitchen table.'It's rapidly turning into the Gregory Rowan Festival, I fear.Since that touring company is bringing down one of my plays - their idea, nothing to do with me.I would have so much preferred to write a moving piece specially for the Festival about the night King Charles [I spent at Larminster escaping after Worcester.Good rousing local stuff: the village inn, the village maiden, lots of them, a rib-tickling mistress of the tavern, a Mistress Quickly part - would have been good part for you there, Christabel, if you're really making a come-back - exciting new departure style—''The Larminster Festival,' said Julian, pointedly interrupting, 'has been chosen by some television company—''Megalith,' put in Christabel.'Cy Fredericks runs it.That's the point.He's a darling.Or rather, he used to be a darling.That sort of thing doesn't change.''Larminster has been chosen to feature in a coming series about British arts festivals.From the highest to the lowest.' Julian smiled, more at ease.*I imagine Larminster comes somewhere near the bottom of the latter category.If not the bottom.The presenter, or whatever you call it, is that woman with reddish hair everybody goes on about for being so beautiful and so brilliant, what is she called? She generally concentrates on social causes like housing and unmarried mothers and that sort of thing.She did that huge series last year called The Poor and their Place.The arts, we gather, are a new line.What is she called, darling?'But it was Gregory Rowan who supplied the name.'Jemima Shore,' he said in a thoroughly disconcerted voice.'Jemima Shore Investigator, as she is laughingly known.General busybody might be a better name.You have to be referring to Jemima Shore.Is she coming here? To the Larminster Festival?''She is coming to Lark Manor,' responded Christabel, placing aperfectly fried egg in a ramekin in front of Gregory; she gave the impression of performing the action in front of a larger audience.There you are, just as you like it.Eat up.Never say I don't look after you, darling.'3Sea-ShellsOn the way to Sunday lunch at Lark Manor, Jemima Shore took a detour which brought her down to the sea.She took along her assistant, the lovely Cherry; Flowering Cherry as she was known at Megalithic House.The famous curves which were the toast of that establishment were on this occasion delineated by a tightly belted mackintosh; it covered Cherry's traditional outfit of white silk pearl-buttoned blouse, buttons hardly adequate to the task imposed upon them, and short tight skirt (Cherry was one of those girls who never noticed the temporary disappearances of the mini-skirt from the ranks of high fashion).Cherry, who both admired and loved Jemima Shore with all the enthusiasm of her passionate nature, nevertheless felt able to disapprove her inordinate taste for the sea without disloyalty.'At least she can't plunge in, this time,' thought Cherry, huddling her shoulders as she stood among the pebbles; she looked like a plump little bird, fluffing out its feathers.Jemima Shore, immaculate as usual in a red suede jacket and dark-blue trousers with long boots - 'That jacket must have cost a fortune,' thought Cherry reverently - stood at the edge of the water watching it hiss towards her feet.She looked, Cherry reflected with less reverence, as though she expected a message from Megalith Television to arrive in a bottle.But when the message came, it was not from Megalith Television and it was not in a bottle.Jemima and Cherry appeared to be alone on the seashore.The stretch of shingly beach was not in itself very extensive: the centre of it was a river - the river Lar no doubt, for according to the one signpost Jemima had suddenly spotted on their route to the manor, they had passed through Larmouth.The river was surrounded by groups of trees on either side of its banks where it flowed onto the beach, making ashallow course among the pebbles.The village itself appeared to consist of one pub called The King's Escape (jolly picture of a black-moustached Charles II swinging in the breeze above, empty plastic tables outside), a telephone kiosk and a row of cottages.But the beach was quite hidden from the view of the houses by a turn of the cliff; this made it an unexpectedly secluded and charming place.Jemima's fast Mercedes sports car, a recent acquisition, was parked on the crunchy pebbles where the grassland gave way to the sea-scape beneath the lee of the cliffs.It was a new crunch which attracted Cherry's attention, although Jemima - 'mooning as though she'd never seen the sea before' in Cherry's words - did not turn her head.The crunch was caused by a very large, not particularly well-kept, estate car; it was black and with its long body bore a certain resemblance to a hearse.The man who got out of it was however so long in himself that Cherry got the feeling that he might have needed the hearse to house his legs.Like Jemima, he wore very tight trousers, although his - pale cords -were as worn as hers were pristine.Standing together by the sea-shore, with their height and slimness, they resembled two birds, two herons perhaps, visiting the sea.Cherry was one who, however preoccupied, never failed to assess a male face; she had rather liked the look of this one as he passed.The worn countenance in particular appealed.Cherry was, as she put it, currently into older and worn men (it was fortunate too for her enthusiasm that the two categories so often coincided).Cherry was a great watcher of late-night thirties movies on television, a way of life which had probably started the craze [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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