French. And please and thank you. I taught myself.’
‘Teach us,’ Julia demanded. ‘I want to learn everything.’
He smiled at her. ‘I know you do.’ Her eagerness pleased him, and at the same time, in a different recess of himself, it frightened him.
When their plates came, Mattie and Julia stared disbelievingly into the bubbling interiors of the big, amber and gold striped shells nestled in their special dishes.
‘They’re snails,’ Mattie whispered.
‘They certainly are,’ Felix agreed. .’And you will eat them. You can’t let me down now. Look, like this.’ He fitted the little silver clamp around one of his shells and winkled the snail out. It dripped hot, buttery sauce. When the snail was gone Felix tipped the juice out of the shell and mopped it up with bread from the piled-up basket.
‘I’m so hungry’,’ Julia said suddenly. ‘I’ve never been so hungry.’
Copying Felix, she extracted a snail. She opened her mouth and it slid down her throat. She blinked, and realised that it was delicious.
They devoured their snails, and emptied the bread basket. The waiters were fatherly, bringing more bread and beaming their approval, all except one who was young and hovered around Mattie’s chair.
After the escargots – ‘Escargots,’ repeated Julia – came tournedos Rossini. The thick wedges of steak with pâté and toasted bread were rich and utterly satisfying. Wine was brought in a wicker cradle, the neck of the bottle wrapped in a white napkin. Felix tasted the drop that the wine waiter poured into his glass and nodded.
‘This is Beaune,’ he told them.
The pudding was a puff of choux pastry oozing with dark chocolate. Mattie loved all sweet things and she chased the last fragments of hers around her plate, groaning with pleasure.
‘Oh, how I love food and wine.’ Looking across the table at Felix and Julia, she was suddenly struck by their likeness. Julia’s skin was white and Felix’s was milky coffee, but their faces had the same high cheekbones and strong mouths. And their expressions were the same. Appraising. Touched with arrogance, but ready to dissolve into laughter as well. ‘And I love you two,’ she whispered.
They both heard it. You too. Julia’s hand was lying loosely on the white cloth. Felix had raised his own hand, intending to cover her fingers, draw them towards him. Now, he thought. It has to be now.
But he felt the waiter behind him, leaning forwards to murmur in his ear, ‘Excusez-moi, monsieur.’
They heard ice clinking, and a frosty silver bucket materialised beside their table. In the bucket was a bottle of champagne.
Through the droplets misting the clear glass they could see the wine. Pink champagne.
‘I didn’t order …’ Felix murmured, unusually disconcerted. ‘No, monsieur. The gentleman over there ordered it. He asked me to present his compliments.’
They turned their heads, in unison.
‘Who’s that?’ Julia breathed.
Joshua Flood and Harry Gilbert always met for a drink or dinner whenever Josh passed through London. Harry was an ex-RAF pilot, ten years older than Josh. The two men had met when Harry and his air charter company pilots were flying eighteen hours a day, lifting supplies to Berlin, and Josh was a skinny American teenager who was hanging around the airfield looking for work, any work, that had anything to do with flying. Harry had given him a job loading and unloading crates, and Josh stuck to it. Harry Gilbert gave the boy his first flying lesson, and they went out and got drunk together on the day Josh got his pilot’s licence. It was an unlikely relationship, between the upper-class Englishman and the much younger American who, by his own admission, ‘came from Nowhere, Colorado, but was going plenty of places’, but it had persisted. They enjoyed one another’s company, and they were drawn together by their mutual enthusiasm for aircraft, skiing and women.
They had amused themselves over dinner at Leoni’s that evening by speculating on the threesome at the centre table. It was Mattie who had first drawn their attention.
‘Look at that hair.’
‘And the superstructure.’
‘Harry, you’re a dirty old man.’
‘Age has nothing to do with it, my boy.’
‘Anyway, the blonde’s mine. You can have the dark one.’
‘I fancy it’s an academic question. They’re having far too good a time on their own.’
‘With that panty-waist?’ Joshua’s blond eyebrows shot up into his tanned forehead.
Harry laughed. ‘Appearances can be deceptive.’
‘Not that appearance.’ Josh signalled to the waiter. ‘But there’s only one way to find out. Let’s send ’em a drink.’
The bubbles fizzed and burst on Julia’s tongue. The champagne seemed to send currents of elation through her veins. She gripped the edge of the white cloth, to anchor herself in her chair.
I’m still here, she thought. I’m still myself. That’s good. That’s all that matters. She knew that she was hurt, somewhere, but the pain, if there was going to be any, hadn’t bitten into her yet. There was only the strange, tight, bursting feeling, buried inside her. ‘We can’t just drink their champagne,’ she said aloud. ‘We’ll have to invite them to join us.’
A moment later Joshua Flood leaned between Mattie and Julia.
‘I thought you were never going to ask.’
He had green eyes, and his hair was bleached by the wind or the sun. He positioned his chair between Julia and Mattie, and his good-humoured, appraising glance slid from one to the other.
‘Thank you for the champagne,’ Julia said.
He bowed, mock-formally. ‘It was my pleasure.’ When he held out his hand, it was to Julia first.
‘I’m Joshua Flood. Josh. And this is my buddy, Harry Gilbert.’
‘We’d better have another bottle,’ Harry smiled.
Even Felix liked them. They were breezy, and funny, and attractive, especially Josh. He saw Julia looking at Josh, watching the way he put his glass to his mouth, the way he flicked his Zippo lighter to his cigarette. He was glad that his hand hadn’t reached her fingers. Not tonight.
Julia had drawn Josh closer, almost cutting him out of the circle. It wasn’t deliberate, but she couldn’t stop looking at him. Joshua caught Harry’s eye and grinned, shrugging faintly. The blonde one was sexier, but he didn’t mind. Harry didn’t mind either. With his developed, English nose for who was what he had spotted at once that these girls and their friend weren’t his own kind. They were very pretty, and they were lively and interesting, but it was only an evening’s diversion, no more than that. He glanced at Josh again. Josh had no time for the English class system, and Harry could see already that the dark girl promised more than an evening’s diversion for Joshua. Good luck to him, Harry thought
