Bugatti Queen In Search of a Racing Legend

Chapter One BEGINNINGS In my end is my beginning. Mary Queen of Scots (allegedly) NICE, WINTER 1975 She had kept the gloves because they reminded her of the way in which one of her most charming lovers, Philippe de Rothschild, had introduced himself to her. She had been sitting at a cafe table in Paris, chatting to a friend, when she first noticed that a man, strongly built, well dressed, bronze-faced, had stopped as he walked past. He hadn't moved for about a minute. He was looking directly at her. She wondered if he was after an autograph; he didn't look like a journalist. Good eyes; nice mouth. She gave a wide bold smile and watched him come toward the table. He spoke her name and asked how long she had been back from her American tour, indicating familiarity with her career. She said she seemed to know his face too and burst out laughing when he identified himself. A racer himself, and of Bugattis: no wonder that he had such a familiar look. She introduced her friend, a girl she had met when they were both dancers at the casino, and gave her a quick, significant glance. Diana took the hint, remembered an appointment, smiled at them both, and moved out of the yellow shade of the awning into the hard afternoon light of the Champs-Elysees. That was when Philippe de Rothschild lifted her left hand from the table and, correctly, identified the name of her glovemaker. Turning her hand over, he undid the four tiny pearl buttons that held the molded kid tight against her wrist, smooth on her flesh as a second skin. Her bare arms were sunburnt; here, at the pulse point, the skin was white as a baby's. Smiling, he lifted her hand to his mouth and, looking into her eyes, touched the tiny area of revealed skin with his mouth and, very lightly, the tip of his tongue. It was the most delicate of gestures. She knew at once that the experience of being made love to by this man would give her pleasure. Sitting on the edge of her bed at four in the morning, she lifted the gloves to her face, as if to bring back some scent of the past. Nothing remained but the softness of the kid. As for Philippe de Rothschild, she didn't even know whether he was alive or dead. Sighing, she stretched out her toes, feeling for her slippers before she knelt to pull the precious trunk from its hiding placeshe trusted nobodybeneath the iron bed frame. Wincing at the effort, she levered back the heavy lid. There they were, her hoard of treasures, the tarnished racing cups, the silver commemorative plate from Brazil, the book of stamps collected from her travels: all were safe. She lifted the plate aside to reach the sheaves of yellow clippings. Two envelopes of photographs and a handful of letters were taken out, ready for the day's work. Sitting at the table under the window, she laid them carefully out. A cat mewed in the darkness and her head jerked up eagerly before she remembered that Minette, her companion over ten years, had been banished from this, the most desolate of her homes, by a landlord who had refused to have pets on the premises. True, he had offered a bottle of champagne in consolation when he saw her distress, but you couldn't stroke a bottle or talk to it, or please it with a scrap of fish. Beggars couldn't lay down the law; given the choice between the cat and the room, she let Minette find a new home with the tobacconist at the end of the street. Now the little minx didn't so much as open her eyes when she hobbled in to buy the week's supply of cigarettes. Faithless in the end, as all the rest had proved to be. Brushing a skin of glue over the back of the tiny black-and-white photographs with their images of better times, she began the daily task of sticking theSeymour, Miranda is the author of 'Bugatti Queen In Search of a Racing Legend', published 2004 under ISBN 9781400061686 and ISBN 1400061687.