The House with Blue Shutters Read Online Free PDF Page A

elegant and understated. Jonathan usually complimented her when they dressed
     up to go to a dinner party or an occasional concert in Toulouse, and in groups with other husbands she felt less invisible
     than she had at twenty.
    Claudia’s looks, Aisling decided as she started down the road towards home, were definitely not the problem, though it was
     disturbing to see Alex mooning over her so, jumping up to fetch her cigarettes or her pashmina, attentions that Claudia seemed
     to demand as little as she took them for granted. No, it was her tone. Last night, with the PGs safe, prodding mirthlessly
     at her carefully marinaded chicken breasts, Aisling had felt relaxed, expansive, proud of her home and her beautiful view,
     of Oliver and Richard, neat in pale blue shirts, of the fragrance of her food, so she had felt awkward when Claudia had turned
     the conversation to the fact that after their two years in France, the Harveys had not really made any French friends.
    ‘Really?’ she had said, exhaling a long plume of Marlboro Light over the remains of the strawberry brûlée. ‘Are the people
     here unfriendly to strangers, then?’ Her inflection was entirely solicitous. At home, Aisling thought, she would have asked
     the girl to put it out.
    ‘Incomers, eh?’ put in Alex, snorting as though he had said something clever.
    ‘Not quite that, I think,’ defended Jonathan, ‘more that, well, the people around here have lived here for generations, and,
     well …’
    ‘They’re not quite PLU?’ suggested Claudia, her head on one side.
    ‘Darling!’ said Alex, with mock sternness, taking her hand and turning it to kiss the inside of her slim wrist, so that her
     ring caught in the candlelight, his eyes turned up to her face. Claudia pulled away, the movement slightly exaggerated with
     Armagnac.
    ‘Since we’re in the country, darling, let’s call a spade a spade. Or a peasant a peasant for that matter. Shall I help you
     clear, Aisling? Gorgeous pudding.’
    Scraping and stacking the plates for the dishwasher, Aisling had felt an unaccustomed urge to explain, to justify herself
     to Claudia. But why should Claudia make her feel insecure? What would she know about living in France, or the countryside,
     or the French? She was obviously a snob, probably intimidated by Murblanc and trying to feel superior at the Harveys’ expense.
     Yet, distressingly, she was right, in a way. Aisling’s acknowledgement of this blended with her certainty that she would find
     the little tartlets she had made for the Laws family untouched in the morning, and that somehow, this was connected to the
     fact that she and Jonathan had never been asked for drinks by Monsieur d’Esceyrac when he stayed at the chateau that overlooked
     the village, even though he had been perfectly affable to them that time they had met at the
chasse
lunch in February, and had told Aisling that she waswelcome to the walnuts and plums that fell from his strayed fruit trees on to Murblanc land.
    Aisling had meant to make a warm clafoutis of these plums for the new PGs, who would arrive that evening, but along with the
     linens, she had forgotten to take the labelled bag from the big freezer, and now she would have to think of something else
     that would be quick, as she had to drive the boys to the riding stables in the afternoon. Oliver and Richard were not quite
     yet at the age when hours of fusty morning sleep were an urgent necessity, and although it was only half past eight she heard
     them in the pool as she let herself through the side door, quickening her pace as she stepped down the narrow corridor with
     the pantry on one side, the boot room and the
buanderie
on the left, thinking that she must consult the dreaded exercise book for the welcome dinner. She could feel the calm of
     her walk draining from her, parched out by the strengthening sun.
    The kitchen was full of cigarette smoke, blue and nauseating. Claudia was perched on the worktop in a