“What do you want that for?”
I shrug.
“Strange they should mention the back alley. I’m probably imagining things, but I really felt like I was being watched the other night when I was out there feeding the cat.”
“Your imagination is worse than mine,” she mutters.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What are you planning to do today?” she asks as she finishes her coffee and picks up the one I made for the officer, to down that too.”
“Laundry and then sauce.”
“Are you still trying to master the perfect b?chamel?”
“No. I think I’ve got that. I’ve moved on to Velout?,”
“Jesus, do I even want to know?”
“It’s one of the five mother sauces of all French cuisine, Margarita. I have to know it in case…” I trail off. I don’t want to jinx myself about getting an interview by mentioning it, but I know it is too late, I’ve gone and done just that.
“Tell me you haven’t applied to Madame Boufant’s again.”
“I have,” I sniff and walk into the kitchen, determined not to listen to the lecture I know is coming.
“Josephine,” she sighs, following me into the kitchen, “every time you apply, and they don’t offer you an interview, you fall into a deep, dark hole of depression for a week or more. Don’t do it to yourself, girl.”
“I have to,” I frown as wash the coffee cups, “it’s my dream.”
“Yeah, well I think you should dream bigger. Dream of marrying a billionaire and hiring your own French chef and never having to burn yourself again or scream in frustration over a bloody sauce that won’t do what you want it to do.”
“I will master the Velout? today,” I smile, hugging her briefly before walking to my room to collect the laundry, “and who knows, one dayImight be the chefyouhire.”
She snorts as I return to pick up the manuscript and place it precariously on top of the laundry for the short walk down the road to the laundromat – may as well have something to read while I wait.
New entry
The gardener says four million will not even cover re-establishing the walls, let alone the ponds and rills.
He suggests I need to hire a landscape designer familiar with estates of this age and size to re-establish the entire park to the way it historically looked. And a landscape designer of this calibre will charge at least one million pounds just for a design.
I am annoyed, but if I am honest, I thought I was perhaps underestimating how the price of labour has escalated. It has been some time since I’ve hired anyone in this country. Americans are so much easier to work with, so much more open to negotiation, but these Brits, no, they will not bargain.
Except when it comes to their lives, oh yes then they are very open to negotiation – but of course, if it has come to that stage, there will be no change in the price from my side.
Gerald called today. He is most put out that I killed Celeste.
“Nicholas, you destroyed a great talent,” he moaned the moment I answered the phone.
His sombre tone was almost laughable, and I told him so.
“Gerald, I’d Kept her for the required number of years – you’ve known me long enough to know I don’t get attached to them.”
“Yes, but her paintings, she was such a prodigious talent. Her last exhibition sold out before the paintings were even on the walls. At the very least, you could have passed her over to me.”
I laughed then. Gerald and I have known each other for close to400 years – and he knows I have never shared a Kept. I keep them for a reason, and then I dispose of them – they always know it is coming, and so should he by now.
“What are you whining for? The ones you bought from her gallery will be worth even more now she is dead. As all the great masters are.”
