Hotel Pastis Read Free

add a few thousand to the price. Subliminal advertising. He left the butt still smoking in the fireplace and went back to the kitchen.
    He found the bottle of Petrus and put it gently on the table, and enjoyed the careful ritual of opening it, cutting the lead capsule cleanly and drawing the long cork with a slow, even pull. What a wine. A thousand pounds a case if you were lucky enough to get hold of any. Nowthat would be a job worth having, the proprietor of a great vineyard. No presentations to clients, no idiots from the City, no board meetings—just a few acres of gravel and clay to deal with, and nectar at the end of every year. He held the bottle against the light and poured the dense, rich wine into a decanter until he saw the first traces of sediment reach the neck of the bottle. Even at arm’s length, he was aware of the powerful, soft-sweet bouquet.
    He had just placed the decanter on the table when he heard the front door, and Ernest’s light tenor singing “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” Simon smiled. Divorce obviously agreed with Ernest; he had been noticeably happier since Caroline had left the house.
    “Well!” said Ernest as he put a shopping bag down. “The food halls at Harrods are not what they used to be. A zoo. People in running shoes and track suits with saggy bottoms, hardly an English voice to be heard, and those poor boys behind the counters rushed off their feet. Where are the days of grace and leisure? I ask myself. Never mind. I escaped with enough for a simple peasant meal.”
    He took off his jacket and put on a long chef’s apron and started to unpack the bag. “A
salade tiède
to begin with, I thought, with slices of foie gras, and then your favourite.” He took out a plump leg of lamb. “With garlic and flageolets. And to finish—” he unwrapped two packages and held them out—“some Brillat-Savarin and a fierce little cheddar.”
    “Couldn’t be better,” Simon said. He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of champagne. “You’ll break the habit of a lifetime, won’t you?”
    Ernest looked up from the garlic cloves he was peeling. “Just a glass to encourage the cook.” He put theknife down as Simon twisted the cork out and filled two glasses.
    “Cheers, Ern. Thanks for taking care of all this.” He waved a hand at the packing cases stacked against the wall.
    “Happy days, dear. You won’t be too sorry to go, will you? You never really felt at home here.”
    “I suppose not.”
    The two men drank.
    “If I may say so,” Ernest said, “the state of our trousers is not what it should be for this evening. Not quite up to the wine.”
    Simon looked down at the grey smear of cigar ash and started to rub it.
    “No, no, no. You’re rubbing it in, not rubbing it off. What would our tailor say? You go up and change while I get on down here. Leave those out and I’ll see to them tomorrow.”
    Simon took his glass and went up the broad staircase and into what the decorators always referred to as the master suite. The scent that Caroline wore was still there, very faint, as he passed the line of fitted closets that had held her last few dozen dresses, the overflow from the dressing room. He pushed back the folding doors. Hangers had been dropped on the floor in a spiky pile next to discarded shopping bags from Joseph, Max Mara, Saint Laurent—glossy, crumpled souvenirs from half the boutiques in Knightsbridge. A pair of beige and black Chanel shoes, their soles barely scuffed, lay on their sides in the corner. Why had she left them? Simon picked them up and noticed a nick in the leather of one of the heels; £250 tossed away because of an almost invisible scar.
    He put the shoes back and undressed, dropping his clothes on the four-poster bed. It was too big for Caroline’snew house, and he wondered idly who would be sleeping in it after him. He’d always hated the damn thing. With its pleats and ruffles and billowing curtains, it made him feel like a trespasser in a