The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [101]
"Mm, the civil war, you mean." He'd meant to mug up a bit on the past twenty years of Lebanese history, but Wani grew pained and evasive when he mentioned it, and now here it came. He didn't want to concur in his host's harsh judgement on his own country, it was itself a bit of a minefield.
Monique said, "Our house was knocked down, you know, by a bomb," as though not expecting to be heard.
"Oh, how terrible," said Nick gratefully, since it was another voice in the room.
"Yes," she said, "it was very terrible."
"As Antoine's mother says," said Bertrand, "our family house was virtually destroyed."
"Was it an old house?" Nick asked her.
"Yes, it was quite old. Not as old as this, of course"—and she gave a little shiver, as if Lowndes Square dated from the Middle Ages. "We have photographs, many . . ."
"Oh, I'd love to see them," said Nick, "I'm so interested in that kind of thing."
"Anyway," said Bertrand, "1969 I open the first Mira Mart, up in Finchley, up in Finchley, it's still there today, you can go and see it any time. You know what the secret of it is?"
"Um . . ."
"That's what I saw, that's what you got in London, back then—twenty years ago. You got the supermarkets and you got the old local shops, the corner shops going back hundreds of years. So what do I do, I put the two bloody things together, supermarket and corner shop, and I make the mini-mart—all the range of stuff you get in Tesco or whatever the bloody place, but still with the local feeling, comer-shop feeling." He held up his glass and drank as if to his own ingenuity. "And you know the other thing, of course?"
"Oh!—um . . ."
"The hours."
"The hours, yes . . ."
"Open early and close up late, get people before work and get people after work, not just the dear bloody housewifes going out for a packet of ciggies and a chit-chat."
Nick wasn't sure if this was Bertrand's special tone for talking to an idiot or if its simplicity reflected his own vision of affairs. He said, critically, "Some of them aren't like that, though, are they? The one in Notting Hill, for instance, that we always go to. It's quite grand"—and he shrugged in dulled respect.
"Well, now you're talking about the Food Halls! It's two different bloody things: the Mira Marts and the Mira Food Halls . . . The latter, the Food Halls, being for the bloody rich, posh areas. We got that round here. You know where that comes from."
"Harrods," said Wani.
Bertrand gave him a quick frown. "Of course it does. The mother of all bloody food halls in the whole world!"
"I love to go to Harrods Food Hall," Monique said, "and look at the big . . . homards . . ."
"The lobsters," muttered Wani, without looking at her, as though it was his accepted function to interpret for his mother.
"Oh, I know!" said Martine, with a smile of faint-hearted rebellion. Nick saw them often doing it, days probably were spent in Harrods, just round the corner but another world of possibilities, something for everyone who could afford it.
Bertrand gave them a patient five seconds, like a strict but fair-minded schoolmaster, and then said, "So now, you know, Nick, I got thirty-eight Mira Food Halls all round the country, Harrogate I got one, Altrincham I just opened one; and more than eight hundred bloody Mira Marts." He was suddenly very genial—he almost shrugged as well at the easy immensity of it. "It's a great story,