The Irresistible Inheritance Of Wilberforce Read Free Page B

wine. Moreover it would be the fourth, possibly the fifth bottle of wine I had drunk today, and that was before I found my way home and drank the bottle of Montagny that I always had as a nightcap.
    The fact remained that I could not bear the thought of anyone else having that bottle. It had to be mine. It was as simple as that. ‘Please bring it, anyway,’ I said.
    The sommelier bowed but there was doubt in his eyes, and I saw him go and have a conversation with the head waiter. I think they were wondering whether I would make more of a scene if I drank the wine than the scene they knew I would make if they did not bring it up for me.
    Then he disappeared and after a few minutes came back with the second bottle of Pétrus, and whilst he went through the same rituals as before, he found time to refill my glass from the first bottle. I noticed some curious glances from around the restaurant. One man, more inquisitive or ill-mannered than the others, arose from the table of three that I had noticed earlier and walked across to me.
    ‘Forgive me for intruding,’ he said, ‘but I noticed the label on that bottle of wine. Is that Pétrus you’re drinking?’ Without waiting for an answer he bent over and examined the label, which the sommelier instinctively turned so that he could read it.
    ‘My God. The 1982,’ he exclaimed, and then turned and said to me with some admiration, ‘I say, you really know how to push the boat out. Well done, old boy. Enjoy yourself! ’ He went back to his table and there was a little extra buzz to their conversation. I tried hard to ignore their looks and after a while the wine absorbed me again in its powerful and aromatic embrace. I found that I was drinking wine from the second bottle. It was nearly the same, but not quite: once again the sense of being in a different place, but now seeing the landscape of this unknown country from a new vantage point. And Catherine came back, somewhere nearby, and together we sang a few bars of ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’.
    This brought the head waiter back. ‘I really must ask you not to sing quite so loudly, sir,’ he said. ‘It is disturbing the other customers.’
    ‘And I really must ask you not to interrupt me while I am drinking my wine,’ I replied. ‘It is impossible to enjoy it properly if I keep being distracted like this, and I feel I have paid a fair price for the goods in question and am entitled to a proper enjoyment of them.’
    It sometimes happens that my mannerisms of speech become a little strange under the influence of a lot of wine. I find my language tends to become ornate, almost flowery, and sometimes bends and even breaks under the weight of the complex ideas I wish to express. I stopped humming for a while, and after a moment the head waiter went away again. But by now I was the object of some attention around the restaurant. I think that, by then, everyone in the room knew that I was sitting drinking my way through more than six thousand pounds’ worth of expensive wine on my own.
    I heard, or I imagined that I heard, snatches of conversation: ‘He doesn’t look like he could afford a can of Special Brew, let alone one of the most expensive wines in the world.’ ‘He’s probably a hedge-fund manager having a blow out after making a few million quid.’ ‘Or after losing it, more likely.’
    ‘What an odd-looking creature,’ said a woman’s voice.
    ‘He’s so pale,’ said another. ‘I hope he’s not going to be sick all over the place.’
    ‘Darling! I’m trying to enjoy my dinner, thanks very much.’
    It was too much. I stood up and turned around to try and catch sight of Catherine, to ask her what to do. My chair fell over backwards. I raised my glass of wine in the direction where I thought Catherine might have been standing a moment or two ago, before I turned around, and sipped it and said, ‘Darling, come and try some of this. It’s really very good.’
    The room moved sideways and I