"Archer, Jeffrey - twelve red herrings)txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Archer Jeffrey)

to talk about marriage. Mrs. Kershaw was unable to hide her disgust at
the very idea of someone like me becoming her son-inlaw, but her
opinion turned out to be irrelevant, as Rosemary remained implacable on
the subject. We were married eighteen months later.

Over two hundred guests attended the rather grand county wedding
in the parish church of St Mary's. But I confess that when I turned to
watch Rosemary progressing up the aisle, my only thoughts were of my
first wedding ceremony.

For a couple of years Rosemary made every effort to be a good
wife. She took an interest in the company, learned the names of all
the employees, even became friendly with the wives of some of the
senior executives. But, as I worked all the hours God sent, I fear I
may not always have given her as much attention as she needed. You
see, Rosemary yearned for a life that was made up of regular visits to
the Grand Theatre for Opera North, followed by dinner parties with her
county friends that would run into the early hours, while I preferred
to work at weekends, and to be tucked up in bed before eleven most
nights. For Rosemary I wasn't turning out to be the husband in the
title of the Oscar Wilde play she had recently taken me to - and it
didn't help that I had fallen asleep during the second act.

After four years without producing any offspring - not that
Rosemary wasn't very energetic in bed - we began to drift our separate
ways. If she started having affairs (and I certainly did, when I could
find the time), she was discreet about them. And then she met Jeremy
Alexander.

It must have been about six weeks after the seminar in Bristol
that I had occasion to phone Jeremy and seek his advice. I wanted to
close a deal with a French cheese company to transport its wares to
British supermarkets. The previous year I had made a large loss on a
similar enterprise with a German beer company, and I couldn't afford to
make the same mistake again.

"Send me all the details," Jeremy had said. "I'll look over the
paperwork at the weekend and call you on Monday morning." He was as
good as his word, and when he phoned me he mentioned that he had to be
in York that Thursday to brief a client, and suggested we get together
the following day to go over the contract. I agreed, and we spent most
of that Friday closeted in the Cooper's boardroom checking over every
dot and comma of the contract. It was a pleasure to watch such a
professional at work, even if Jeremy did occasionally display an
irritating habit of drumming his fingers on the table when I hadn't
immediately understood what he was getting at.

Jeremy, it turned out, had already talked to the French company's
in-house lawyer in Toulouse about any reservations he might have. He
assured me that, although Monsieur Sisley spoke no English, he had made