Marrying Off Mother Read Online Free

— put on a coat and tie and Monsieur Clot took off his beret. The first course, served in lovely earthenware bowls as thin, crisp and brown as autumn leaves, was a delicate chicken broth with fine fronds of onion and golden egg yolk swimming in it. This was followed by a plump trout, deboned and carefully stuffed with a mousseline of finely chopped chestnuts and fennel. Accompanying this were baby peas, sweet as sugar, and minute potatoes in a bath of mint. This had merely been the build-up to the final moment, the course we were all waiting for. Madame Clot cleared the plates away and put fresh ones, warm as newly baked loaves, in front of us. Monsieur Clot, with hushed ceremony, skilfully uncorked a Chateau Brane-Cantenac 1957, smelt the cork, slipped a few drops into a clean glass and savoured it for a moment. He reminded me, irresistibly, of Esmeralda with her cheese. He nodded his approval and then poured the wine, red as dragon’s blood, into our glasses. At that moment, as if on cue, Madame made her entrance from the kitchen bearing a platter on which reposed four rounds of fragile pastry, yellow as ripe corn. One was carefully placed on each of our plates. We were all silent, as if in church. Slowly, Monsieur Clot raised his glass, toasted first his beautiful lady and then me and Juan. We all took a sip of wine and rolled it round our mouths, coating our taste buds in preparation. The knives and forks were lifted, the fragile shell of golden pastry flaked away, like the shell from a nut, and there lay the truffle, black as jet, and from the interior of the pastry came that incredible fragrance, the scent of a million autumnal forests, rich, mouth-watering and totally unlike any other taste or smell in the world. We ate in reverent silence, for even the French cease talking to eat. When the last morsel had melted in my mouth, I raised my glass.
    â€˜Madame Clot, Monsieur Clot, Juan, may I give you a toast. To Esmeralda, the finest pig in the world, a paragon of pigs.’
    Thank you, thank you, monsieur,’ said Monsieur Clot, his voice trembling, his eyes filling with tears.
    We had sat down to eat on the stroke of twelve for, as is well known in French medical circles, if lunch is delayed beyond midday it can prove instantly fatal to the French citizen. Such bounty had been spread before us by Madame Clot that, as I was finishing the greengage souffle and cream, followed by a delectable Cantal cheese, I was not a bit surprised, on looking at my watch, to find that it was four o’clock. Refusing coffee and brandy, I said that I must go and that it had been the most memorable meal of my life. I asked and received permission to kiss Madame Clot’s damask cheeks three times (once for God, once for the Virgin Mary, once for Jesus Christ, as someone had once told me), had my hand crushed by Juan, and was enveloped in Monsieur Clot’s beard. Before I left he extracted a promise from me that, on my return, I would call in at the village and allow Madame Clot to cook me another meal, which I readily agreed to.
    It was a year later that I was travelling down to the south of France and, as I approached the Périgord region, I remembered, with a guilty feeling, Monsieur Clot and Esmeralda and my promise to visit them. So I turned my car towards Petit Monbazillac-sur-Ruisseau and soon arrived at the Three Pigeons. Jean was overjoyed to see me.
    â€˜Monsieur Durrell,’ he cried, ‘we thought you had forgotten us. How wonderful to see you again.’
    â€˜Have you got a room for a couple of nights?’ I asked.
    â€˜But certainly, monsieur,’ he said, ‘the best in the house.’
    After he had installed me in a tiny but comfortable room and I had changed, I went down to the bar for a pastis.
    â€˜Tell me, how have things gone with you and my friends since I was last here?’ I asked. ‘How are Madame and Monsieur Clot and Esmeralda?’
    Jean started and stared at