“And yet . . .” I said.
“And yet . . .” he echoed, with a heavy sigh.
And that was when I had the only brilliant inspiration of my life.
Or possibly, as I wondered later, credit ought to go to the digestif.
At all events, we dined the following night at the Tour d’Argent. And, apart from drinking rather too much so that he wished a hangover on himself, the Baron made an excellent recovery—which removed his last objection to my scheme.
I have one faint regret about the whole affair, and that is that nowadays I have rather less time for my writing. On the other hand I no longer feel the intense financial pressure which so often compelled me to cobble together an unessential bit of made-work simply so that I could meet the bills that month. My routine outgoings are automatically taken care of by the admirable performance of my holdings in Eurobrita Health Food SA, a concern whose product we often patronise and can recommend.
What did we do about Gregoire?
Oh, that was my inspiration. What the Baron had overlooked, you see, was the fact that despite my having slandered him for effect Gregoire was not absolutely stupid. He couldn’t be. I confirmed that the moment I put my head around the door of the kitchen he was working in and found it fitted with an electric stove and separate glass-fronted, high-level oven, a far cry from the kitchens at the family château with their open fires of wood. A few minutes of questioning, and he opened up like a mussel in a hot pan, as though he had never before been asked about the one thing he really understood: cooking equipment. Which, given the character I’d deduced for his longest-term employer, was not I suppose very surprising.
It emerged that he had advanced by way of coal-fired, cast-iron ranges, and then gas, and had even had experience of bottled gas and kerosene stoves, and had gone back to wood during hard times. I think once he burned some furniture, but on that point he would not be pinned down.
Well, with his enormous experience of different sorts of kitchen, did he not think it time he was put in charge of a really large one, with staff under him? And what is more, I pressed, we can give you a title!
His sullenness evaporated on the instant. That was the ambition he had cherished all his two centuries of life: to be addressed with an honorific. Truly he was a child of the years before the Revolution! His is not quite the sort of title one used to have in those days, of course, but his experience with so many various means of cooking had borne it in on him that there had been certain changes in the world.
And now, in a room larger than the great hall of the château, full of vast stainless-steel vats and boilers, to which the necessary ingredients are delivered by the truckload—being much cheaper bought in bulk—Gregoire rejoices in the status of Contrôleur du Service de Surveillance Qualitative, and everybody, even the Baron, calls him Maître.
He learned almost before he could grow a beard that he must never discuss his longevity with anybody except his employer, so there has been no trouble on that score; his uncertainty in a big city was put down to the fact that he had been isolated near Guex in a small backward village. Inevitably, someone is sooner or later going to notice that on his unvarying diet he doesn’t visibly age.
But that will be extremely good for sales.
What Friends Are For
After Tim killed and buried the neighbours’ prize terrier the Pattersons took him to the best-reputed—and most expensive—counsellor in the state: Dr Hend.
They spent forty of the fifty minutes they had purchased snapping at each other in the waiting room outside his office, breaking off now and then when a scream or a smashing noise eluded the soundproofing, only to resume more fiercely a moment later.
Eventually Tim was borne out, howling, by a strong male nurse who seemed impervious to being kicked in the belly with all the force an eight-year-old could muster, and the Pattersons were bidden to take his place in Dr Hend’s presence. There was no sign of the chaos the boy had caused. The counsellor was a specialist in such cases, and there were smooth procedures for eliminating incidental mess.
“Well, doctor?” Jack Patterson demanded.
Dr Hend studied him thoughtfully for a long moment, then glanced at his wife Lorna, re-confirming the assessment he had made when they arrived. On the male side: expensive clothing, bluff good looks, a carefully constructed image of success. On the female: the most being made of what had to begin with been a somewhat shallow prettiness, even more expensive clothes, plus ultra-fashionable hair style, cosmetics and perfume.
He said at last, “That son of yours is going to be in court very shortly. Even if he is only eight, chronological.”
“What?” Jack Patterson erupted. “But we came here to—”
“You came here,” the doctor cut in, “to be told the truth. It was your privilege to opt for a condensed-development child. You did it after being informed of the implications. Now you must face up to your responsibilities.”
“No, we came here for help!” Lorna burst out. Her husband favoured her with a scowl: shut up!
“You have seven minutes of my time left,” Dr Hend said wearily. “You can spend it wrangling, or listening to me. Shall I proceed?”
The Pattersons exchanged sour looks, then both nodded.
“Thank you. I can see precisely one alternative to having your child placed in a public institution. You’ll have to get him a Friend.”
“What? And show the world we can’t cope?” Jack Patterson rasped. “You must be out of your mind!”
Dr Hend
