forcibly discourage from polishing the turtle. This, on Basia's explicit instructions, had to be left to weather naturally. Even the Insider people had stopped short of photographing the zen garden, although they had been very excited and complimentary about the rest of the place. It had apparently been given six pages in the forthcoming issue of the magazine. That, at least, was something . Yet the faint glow of comfort in Samantha's breast faded as a cursory examination of the Carinthia article revealed it to be ten pages long.
Carinthia leads me to the kitchen, where she motions me to a roomy shepherd's chair at the deep-grooved farmhouse table where generations of families have broken bread. She crosses the delightfully uneven Elizabethan baked floor tiles [on which generations of families have broken their legs? Samantha imagined viciously] and stir s something savory and satisfying in a vast iron pot on the shining stove. Lunch is imminent…
Samantha ground her teeth, remembering without enthusiasm her own lunch of a single slice of rye bread topped with olive oil and thyme. She closed her eyes as, utterly without warning, a mighty wave of shuddering envy of society potter Carinthia D'Arblay Sidebottom crashed over her. Samantha was aware of a violent longing for an exquisite little cottage—as long as it wasn't too little—and a glamorous garden with a delicious touch of wildness and without a verdigris turtle in sight. Suddenly, Samantha felt she hadn't wanted to be anybody, not Nicole Kidman, not eve n Catherine Zeta-Jones, quite so desperately as she now wanted to be Carinthia D'Arblay Sidebottom.
She looked round Basia's minimalist kitchen with loathing. Had generations of families broken bread here? Of course not. For a start, no bread, not even of the pita variety, was on the list of Ayurvedic foods for Pita personalities. Families, in any case, were not encouraged—particularly Guy's.
His former wife, Marina, and daughter, Iseult, were emphatically persona non grata in Roland Gardens. The entire point of Samantha's designer overhaul had originally been to expunge any reminder of her predecessor. Samantha had watched the council cart off Marina's squashy sofas and sheepskin rugs with a sense of immense satisfaction that had lasted until Basia had replaced them with vintage iron garden furniture painted a space-age silver and a coffee table made from a life-size elephant head in chicken wire.
Samantha's attempts to expunge Guy's family had met with mixed success in other ways as well. His maddening refusal to break off all diplomatic contact with Marina had been compounded by his insistence that Iseult be allowed to keep her old bedroom in Roland Gardens. Yet it was here that, in Samantha's eyes, Basia had scored her only real designer triumph—the complete removal of all Iseult's hideous posters from the walls, and in particular the one from the Bank of Ganja, signed by the Chief Hashier. The price sticker that remained on one of its peeling bottom corners never failed to remind Samantha that in certain contexts, £3.99 was actually an awful lot of money.
She contemplated Carinthia's bedstead again, noting jealously that it looked even bigger, bouncier, and more glamorous than that traditionally belonging to the pea-troubled Princess in the fairy tale. Christabel…Carinthia. The names were similar. Did her new role, then, mean a whole new place to live? Samantha was not a religious woman, but she believed in destiny. Particularly if that destiny moved Guy out of Marina and Iseult's clutches and into the middle of nowhere.
Meeting Guy in the bank was a perfect example. That it was fate, and not merely being "between films," that had put Samantha behind the switchboard had been obvious the minute her future husband hoved into view across the marble wastes of the mezzanine. Fate had then prompted the subsequent realization on Samantha's part that
Carinthia leads me to the kitchen, where she motions me to a roomy shepherd's chair at the deep-grooved farmhouse table where generations of families have broken bread. She crosses the delightfully uneven Elizabethan baked floor tiles [on which generations of families have broken their legs? Samantha imagined viciously] and stir s something savory and satisfying in a vast iron pot on the shining stove. Lunch is imminent…
Samantha ground her teeth, remembering without enthusiasm her own lunch of a single slice of rye bread topped with olive oil and thyme. She closed her eyes as, utterly without warning, a mighty wave of shuddering envy of society potter Carinthia D'Arblay Sidebottom crashed over her. Samantha was aware of a violent longing for an exquisite little cottage—as long as it wasn't too little—and a glamorous garden with a delicious touch of wildness and without a verdigris turtle in sight. Suddenly, Samantha felt she hadn't wanted to be anybody, not Nicole Kidman, not eve n Catherine Zeta-Jones, quite so desperately as she now wanted to be Carinthia D'Arblay Sidebottom.
She looked round Basia's minimalist kitchen with loathing. Had generations of families broken bread here? Of course not. For a start, no bread, not even of the pita variety, was on the list of Ayurvedic foods for Pita personalities. Families, in any case, were not encouraged—particularly Guy's.
His former wife, Marina, and daughter, Iseult, were emphatically persona non grata in Roland Gardens. The entire point of Samantha's designer overhaul had originally been to expunge any reminder of her predecessor. Samantha had watched the council cart off Marina's squashy sofas and sheepskin rugs with a sense of immense satisfaction that had lasted until Basia had replaced them with vintage iron garden furniture painted a space-age silver and a coffee table made from a life-size elephant head in chicken wire.
Samantha's attempts to expunge Guy's family had met with mixed success in other ways as well. His maddening refusal to break off all diplomatic contact with Marina had been compounded by his insistence that Iseult be allowed to keep her old bedroom in Roland Gardens. Yet it was here that, in Samantha's eyes, Basia had scored her only real designer triumph—the complete removal of all Iseult's hideous posters from the walls, and in particular the one from the Bank of Ganja, signed by the Chief Hashier. The price sticker that remained on one of its peeling bottom corners never failed to remind Samantha that in certain contexts, £3.99 was actually an awful lot of money.
She contemplated Carinthia's bedstead again, noting jealously that it looked even bigger, bouncier, and more glamorous than that traditionally belonging to the pea-troubled Princess in the fairy tale. Christabel…Carinthia. The names were similar. Did her new role, then, mean a whole new place to live? Samantha was not a religious woman, but she believed in destiny. Particularly if that destiny moved Guy out of Marina and Iseult's clutches and into the middle of nowhere.
Meeting Guy in the bank was a perfect example. That it was fate, and not merely being "between films," that had put Samantha behind the switchboard had been obvious the minute her future husband hoved into view across the marble wastes of the mezzanine. Fate had then prompted the subsequent realization on Samantha's part that
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