Black Diamond

black with only her face showing. For a moment he was reminded of an Islamic woman covered by a burka, but the flare of Pamela’s cloak and the shape of her hat made the overall impression enticingly different. Perhaps it was her proud and upright stance, perhaps the animation of her face and gestures, but he felt a distinct erotic charge as he watched. He approached them and felt himself stir as he kissed her deliciously cold cheeks. He held her a moment, savoring her warm breath against his face, before turning to greet Alphonse.
    “How was the boys’ night out?” she said, smiling. “You’re in better shape than I expected.” She had been to one of the ladies’ nights at the hunting club with him and knew how they tended to finish.
    “I felt a lot better after my run with Gigi,” he said. “Another coffee and I’ll be as good as new. Is the restaurant open, or is it just the Green exhibition?”
    “They have coffee and hot chocolate inside, and they’re serving plates of toast topped with my cheese and honey,” said Alphonse. “But it’s full of schoolkids at the moment. Let’s look around first. Here, I picked up a guide that Bill printed.”
    Armed with the map, they strolled through the gardens looking at the windmills, the arrays of solar panels and the drip-irrigation system Bill had installed to save water. Alphonse read out some figures from the guide on how much electricity the panels produced from light alone, even on a day as cloudy as this.
    “I’m impressed, but all this must have cost a fortune,” Pamela said. “I couldn’t begin to afford to do this for my
gîtes
.”
    “Bill claims that it added about fifteen percent to his building costs, and he’ll recoup that in energy savings in about five or six years,” Alphonse said. He led them around to the rear of the restaurant to an open field that was half covered in campers and trailers displaying solar panels, double and triple glazing, woodstoves, and systems to heat swimming pools.
    “What Alphonse didn’t say was that you helped pay for this,” Bruno told Pamela. “We all did. There are lots of grants and subsidies available for energy saving, and Bill used them all. I reckon he paid about half of the real cost, and taxpayers forked out the rest.”
    “But those grants would be available to me as well,” Pamela replied. “Or anybody else with the wit to apply for them.”
    “Not for the rest of the financial year,” said Bruno. “The money has run out, and there’s already a long list of applications for next year’s money.”
    They stopped at a trailer with a large tent attached, its plastic door closed but with a sign saying it was open and to come in. They pushed through into sudden heat from a blower. The tent was almost full of people enjoying the warmth and listening to a salesman talking about the merits of roof insulation.
    “Forty percent of all the energy used in Europe is used in our buildings,” he was saying. “If we adopted the current Swedish standards of roof insulation across Europe we’d save half of that, which means we’d save almost as much energy as we use in transport.”
    “Hear that?” whispered Alphonse. “That’s the message we have to get across to the voters.”
    Pamela took some brochures, and they moved on, pausing at a strange-looking windmill. It was a central shaft that held at its top what looked like a hollow barrel, but instead of the wooden staves there were three thin spirals of metal acting as propeller blades that turned steadily and quietly in the light breeze.
    “This is the future of wind power,” said Alphonse, his voice eager. “This kind of vertical windmill is quieter and more efficient than traditional propellers. It works much better in lighter winds and in stronger ones. You can attach this to chimneys and roofs in towns, and you can’t do that with the usual windmill. And it’s from your country, Pamela. I’m saving to get one for our commune.”
    Alphonse greeted the salesman, whom he evidently knew, and Pamela began asking about prices and installation costs. As it looked like it would be a long conversation, Bruno excused himself, saying he’d better check in with the schoolteachers who were escorting the children.
    He headed back toward the restaurant, but branched off to take a look at a large barn, newly restored, presumably where Bill and the staff lived. He could have kicked himself for forgetting about getting those nieces into school.