The Finishing School Read Online Free PDF Page A

tartan, oh, God. François Bonivard would have a thick beard, gray and white. I wonder if there’s a portrait of him somewhere?
    “Rowland—some salad?” Nina said.
    Rowland sat on, not eating, unnoticed, while Chris thought out his new chapter and the others chattered of Chillon in the recent past and the holidays in the near future.

6
    Thris was enjoying his solitary position at College Sunrise. With the view of the lake and the French Alps, it felt like a luxury hotel. Some mornings after he had worked a few hours on his novel, he wandered along the lakeshore to various hotels where he would sit in the bar observing the passing scene, listening to the chatter of English and German package tourists. He would sip white wine or Coca-Cola. In one hotel he would play chess with an old man on a lawn chessboard. He took notes. In another, once, he lolled at the bar and read carefully through their brochure; then, with his finepointed, clever Biro he changed their advertised “Fitness Room” to “Fatness . . . ,” and did so on the entire pile of brochures under the eye of the barman, who saw but simply didn’t notice. Chris was always impressed by the non-noticing faculties of people.
    When he left his room at College Sunrise to go out, Chris blatantly locked the door.
    “We can’t get in to clean,” Nina complained.
    “Does it matter?”
    “No one’s going to steal anything,” the maid, Claire Denis, said with great indignation.
    “Madame Denis, come and make my bed,” Chris said. “Try to come early before I go out. All I want to protect is my work.”
    “What should I want with Monsieur’s papers?”
    “Nothing. Monsieur Rowland might want to see them.”
    She said nothing until she had made the bed. Then “Monsieur Rowland does not write. He sits and looks at the words on the computer.”
    Chris was impressed by her noticing faculty, so unlike the barman at the hotel.
    “I daresay,” he said, “that Monsieur Rowland is thinking. When one writes a book one has to think. Or perhaps he’s thinking of the school. It’s an enormous responsibility.” Chris stressed the word énorme in a way that provoked Claire Denis to look at him sideways. “No kidding,” said Chris. This was the end of the conversation. Nina looked round the door. “Oh there you are,” she said to Claire. The students were discouraged from “fraternizing” with the domestic helpers. It could lead to difficulties.
    Nina sat in the office with her lists of lecturers. It was early morning, before anyone was up. The school itself was now fairly empty. All the pupils except Chris had left. Albert, the odd-job gardener, was on holiday. The sisters Elaine and Célestine Valette were still at College Sunrise. Claire Denis did not live in the college.
    Nina had her lists of scholars before her. She had the job of arranging next term’s lectures. These generally included overnight visits from a few professors or university lecturers. Nina felt they were the most attractive part of the school’s curriculum. She regarded scholars with awe, as if they were so many orders of angels, thrones, Dominations, Powers, Cherubim, Seraphim: Dr. D. Dabbler of Southampton University, lecturer in French Provincial Art, Dr. Savoie Laroche of Reading, lecturer on the English Potteries, Dr. Laura Markoff of Cambridge, lecturer on the Bayeux Tapestry. The subjects were innumerable, the sacred lecturers were equally numerous but not equally affordable. To Nina it was of course impossible that scholars could have ideas of their value above their actual worth, which was anyway priceless. It was only that some were happy to come more or less for the trip away from home, with a moderate fee thrown in, and others wanted a fat paycheck.
    Then, on another set of lists came the politicians. Nina let her mind soar above the clouds to the realms of the Archangels, Tony Blair, God, but finally she returned to the realistic earth with a choice of three old pensioners,