The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [254]
As the three ladies finally left the shop to join their husbands for lunch, a good-looking young man in a grubby T-shirt and torn jeans, with a couple of days’ stubble on his chin, jumped out in front of them and asked, “You English?”
Deirdre stopped and stared into his deep blue eyes for a moment, but said nothing. Her companions stepped out into the cobbled road and quickened their pace, pretending it was not them to whom the stranger had spoken. Deirdre smiled at him as he stood to one side, allowing her to continue on her way. Arnold had warned her never to engage in conversation with the natives.
When they reached the restaurant at which they’d arranged to meet for lunch, the three ladies found their husbands drinking imported lager at the bar. Arnold was explaining to the major and Malcolm why he had refused to pay his subscription to the Conservative Party that year. “Not a penny will I part with,” he insisted, “while they can’t get their own house in order.” Deirdre suspected that his unwillingness to pay had rather more to do with his recent defeat when he had run for chairman of the local branch.
Arnold passed the next hour offering his views on everything from defense cuts to New Age travelers to single-parent families, all of which he was resolutely against. When the bill for lunch was finally presented, he spent some considerable time working out what each of them had eaten, and therefore how much they should contribute toward the total.
Arnold had already resigned himself to the fact that he would have to allocate part of his afternoon to bargaining on Deirdre’s behalf, now that she had finally found the dinner service she had set her heart on. Everyone else had agreed to come along and watch the born entrepreneur at work.
When Arnold entered the House of Pétros, he had to admit that Deirdre seemed to have “located the correct establishment.” He kept repeating this observation, as if to prove that he had been right all along to insist that she wait until their final port of call before the big decision was taken. He seemed blissfully unaware of how the price of pottery had increased from island to island, and Deirdre made no attempt to enlighten him. She simply guided him over to the “Delphi” service displayed on a large table in the center of the room, and prayed. They all agreed it was quite magnificent, but when Arnold was told the price, he shook his head sadly. Deirdre would have protested, but she, like so many of the bank’s customers over the years, had seen that look on her husband’s face before. She therefore resigned herself to settling for the “Pharos” set—excellent, but unquestionably second best, and far more expensive than comparable sets had been on any of the other four islands.
The three wives began selecting the pieces they would like to buy, while their husbands gravely reminded them how much they could afford. The choices having been made, Arnold spent a considerable time haggling with the shopkeeper. He finally managed to get a 20 percent discount on the total. Once the figure had been established, Arnold was dispatched to find an English bank at which he could change the necessary travelers’ checks. With passports and signed checks in hand, he left the shop to carry out his mission.
As Arnold stepped onto the sidewalk, the young man who had approached Deirdre leaped into his path and asked, “You English?”
“Naturally,” replied Arnold, sidestepping him and marching on briskly in order to avoid any further conversation with such a scruffy individual. As he had told the major over lunch, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.” It was the one snippet of Latin he could still recall from his schooldays.
When he had selected a bank, Arnold marched straight into the manager’s office and changed everyone’s checks at a minutely better rate than the one displayed on the board in the window. Pleased with his saving of fifty drachmas, he headed back to the House of Pétros.
He was displeased to find that the young man was still