"Maclean, Alistair - 1970 - Caravan to Vaccares" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

'Call me Neil. All my friends do.'
'You make friends very easily, don't you?' she asked with inconsequential illogic.
'I'm like that,' Bowman said simply.
She wasn't listening or, if she was, she ignored him. 'Do you mean to tell me you never work? You never do anything?'
'Never.'
'You've no job? You've been trained for nothing? You can't do anything!'
'Why should I spin and toil?' Bowman said reasonably. 'My old man's made millions. Still making them, come to that. Every other generation should take it easy, don't you think—a sort of re-charging of the family batteries. Besides, I don't need a job. Far be it from me,' he finished piously, 'to deprive some poor fellow who really needs it.'
'Of all the specious arguments . , . How could I have misjudged a man like that?'
'People are always misjudging me,' Bowman said sadly.
'Not you. The Duke. His perception.' She shook her head, but in a way that looked curiously more like an exasperated affection than cold condemnation. 'You really are an idle layabout, Mr Bowman.'
'Neil.'
'Oh, you're incorrigible.' For the first time, irritation.

'And envious.' Bowman took her arm as they approached the patio again and because he wasn't smiling she made no attempt to remove it. 'Envious of you. Your spirit, 1 mean. Your year-long economy and thrift. For you two English girls to be able to struggle by here at Ј200 a week each on your typists' salaries or whatever—'
'Lila Delafont and I are down here to gather material for a book.' She tried to be stiff but it didn't become her.
'On what?' Bowman asked politely. 'Provencal cookery? Publishers don't pay that kind of speculative advance money. So who picks up the tab? Unesco? The British Council?' Bowman peered at her closely through his horn-rimmed glasses but clearly she wasn't the lip-biting kind. 'Let's all pay a silent truce to good old Daddy, shall we? A truce, my dear. This is too good to spoil. Beautiful night, beautiful food, beautiful girl.' Bowman adjusted his spectacles and surveyed the patio. 'Your girl-friend's not bad either. Who's the slim Jim with her?'
She didn't answer at once, probably because she was momentarily hypnotized by the spectacle of Le Grand Duc holding an enormous balloon glass of rose in one hand while with the other he directed the activities of a waiter who appeared to be transferring the contents of the dessert trolley on to the plate before him. Lila Delafont's mouth had fallen slightly open.
'I don't know. He says he's a friend of her father.' She looked away with some difficulty, saw and beckoned the passing restaurant manager. 'Who's the gentleman with my friend?'
'The Duc de Croytor, madam. A very famous winegrower.'
'A very famous wine-drinker, more like.' Bowman ignored Cecile's disapproving look. 'Does he come here often?'
'For the past three years at this time.'
'The food is especially good at this time?'
"The food, sir, is superb here at any time.' The Bauman-iere's manager wasn't amused. 'Monsieur le Duc comes for the annual gypsy festival at Saintes-Maries.'
Bowman peered at the Duc de Croytor again. He was spooning down his dessert with a relish matched only by his speed of operation.
'You can see why he has to have an ice-bucket,' Bowman observed. 'To cool down his cutlery. Don't see any signs of gypsy blood there.'
'Monsieur le Duc is one of the foremost folklorists in Europe,' the manager said severely, adding with a suave side-swipe: 'The study of ancient customs, Mr Bowman. For centuries, now, the gypsies have come from all over Europe, at the end of May, to worship and venerate the relics of Sara, their patron saint. Monsieur le Duc is writing a book about it.'
'This place,' Bowman said, 'is notching with the most unlikely authors you ever saw.' 'I do not understand, sir.'
'I understand all right.' The green eyes, Bowman observed, could also be very cool. "There's no need—what on earth is that?'
The at first faint then gradually swelling sound of many engines in low gear sounded like a tank regiment on the move. They glanced down towards the forecourt as the first of many gypsy caravans came grinding up the steeply winding slope towards the hotel. Once in the forecourt the leading caravans began arranging themselves in neat rows round the perimeter while others passed through the archway in the hedge towards the parking lot beyond. The racket, and the stench of diesel and petrol fumes, while not exactly indescribable or unsupportable, were in marked contrast to the peaceful luxury of the hotel and disconcerting to a degree, this borne out by the fact that Le Grand Duc had momentarily stopped eating. Bowman looked at the restaurant manager, who was gazing up at the stars and obviously communing with himself. 'Monsieur le Duc's raw material?' Bowman asked. 'Indeed, sir.'
'And now? Entertainment? Gypsy violin music? Street roulette? Shooting galleries? Candy stalls? Palm reading?' 'I'm afraid so, sir.' 'My God!'
Cecile said distinctly: 'Snob!'
'I fear, madam,' the restaurant manager said distantly, 'that my sympathies lie with Mr Bowman. But it is an ancient custom and we have no wish to offend either the
gypsies or the local people.' He looked down at the tore-court again and frowned. 'Excuse me, please.'
He hurried down the steps and made his way across the forecourt to where a group of gypsies appeared to be arguing heatedly. The main protagonists appeared to be a powerfully built hawk-faced gypsy in his middle forties and a clearly distraught and very voluble gypsy woman of the same age who seemed to be very close to tears. 'Coming?' Bowman asked Cecile. 'What? Down there?' 'Snob!'
'But you said—'
'Idle layabout I may be but Fm a profound student of human nature.' 'You mean you're nosey?' 'Yes.'
Bowman took her reluctant arm and made to move off, then stepped courteously to one side to permit the passage of a bustling Le Grand Duc, if a man of his build could be said to bustle, followed by a plainly reluctant Lila. He carried a notebook and had what looked to be a folklorist's gleam in his eye. But bent though he was on the pursuit of knowledge he hadn't forgotten to fortify himself with a large red apple at which he was munching away steadily. Le Grand Duc looked like the sort of man whe would always get his priorities right.
Bowman, a hesitant Cecile beside him, followed rather more leisurely. When they were half way down the steps a jeep was detached from the leading caravan, three men piled aboard and the jeep took off down the hill at speed. As Bowman and the girl approached the knot of people where the gypsy was vainly trying to calm the now sobbing woman, the restaurant manager broke away from them and hurried towards the steps. Bowman barred his way. 'What's up?'
'Woman says her son has disappeared. They've sent a search party back along the road.'
'Oh?' Bowman removed his glasses. 'But people don't disappear just like that.' That's what I say. That's why I'm calling the police.' He hurried on his way. Cecile, who had followed Bow-
man without any great show of enthusiasm, said: 'What's all the fuss? Why is that woman crying?'
'Her son's disappeared.'
'And?'
'That's all.'
'You mean that nothing's happened to him?'
'Not that anyone seems to know.'
'There could be a dozen reasons. Surely she doesn't have to carry on like that.'
'Gypsies,' Bowman said by way of explanation. 'Very emotional. Very attached to their offspring. Do you have any children?'
She wasn't as calmly composed as she looked. Even in the lamplight it wasn't difficult to see the red touching her cheeks. She said: 'That wasn't fair.'
Bowman blinked, looked at her and said: 'No, it wasn't. Forgive me. I didn't mean it that way. If you had kids and one was missing, would you react like that?'