I nodded, flicking open the wine list. Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs 2004 seemed like it might be the finest – very old and £360 a bottle. I tried not to vomit.
Bill handed me the bottle and a white napkin, and Roxy followed me with a tray of crystal champagne flutes.
‘Gentlemen,’ I said, presenting the bottle label theatrically, as champagne glasses were placed, and everyone watched on in giddy anticipation.I can do this.
But the cork was stiff.Reallystiff. I squeezed. I tried with both thumbs. I twisted it. I covered it in the napkin and pulled. It wouldn’t budge.
‘The one time you don’t want something stiff between your legs,’ I muttered to myself, as I stuck the bottle between my thighs and pulled again. It was ungraceful, but I was desperate.
‘Do you want a hand?’
The round Canadian was being kind really, but I would not be defeated. I pulled the bottle out from between my legs, lifted it to my face to inspect the cork up close. It had moved a millimetre. And then, with an almighty boom, it flew out and hit me at almost point-blank range.
‘Yes, she was hit by a cork,’ Bill is explaining now, as I press a cold flannel to my eye. The dining room is empty, and Bill, Irene and I are sitting at the bar discussing what happened. A ‘debrief’ Irene had called it.
‘She’s a good shot, if nothing else,’ Bill is saying.
‘It was stuck far more than normal.’
‘But you didn’t point it at your face?’ Irene says. ‘Not really?’
Her voice trails off and she looks across at me, her face contorted with a mixture of concern and confusion. Concern, I think, that a human being in real life – and not in a black-and-white slapstick film – had pointed a bottle of champagne at her face while trying to loosen an extremely stubborn cork. And confusion as to how a world-class sommelier had made such a schoolboy error.
‘You could have lost an eye, dear,’ she says, ‘but what was the issue with the McCluskys? He seemed very upset indeed.’
‘Well,’ Bill glances across at me, ‘I think we should speak in private.’
‘It’s okay, I’ll go,’ I say, pushing back my stool. ‘I’m really sorry again, Irene.’
‘It’s fine,’ says Irene quickly. ‘It’s really fine. Please go and rest. I think perhaps we expected too much too quickly. It’s the pressure of the relaunch and whatnot.’
‘Yes, and she’s had a lot of pressure since the moment her taxi pulled up – what, only three days ago,’ Bill agrees.
‘Sorry, Irene. I’m tired. The travel, and the new role, and a new wine list. I am feeling really like I need a moment to get my head around everything.’
Irene frowns a little more, but then her face softens. ‘Of course. You get yourself to bed and rest. You have two days off now. And we’re renovating the dining room, so everything will calm down for a couple of weeks and you’ll have plenty of time to catch up.’
I smile meekly and nod, feeling the sting of tears beginning to form as I hobble out of the restaurant and into the staffroom.
Everyone else has gone home. I inspect my face in the staff bathroom and press on the small red bump above my right eye, which has started to retract. I’m pulling on what looks like an abandoned jacket from the coat rack and preparing to limp down to the cottage, when I hear Irene and Bill’s raised voices coming from the bar.
I creep near the door and move my ear towards the gap.
‘With the other table she just didn’t do the tasting part,’ Bill is saying.
‘But it’s Mark McClusky, Bill. He’s friends with the MacDonalds. I’m mortified. I should have been here. Thank God Russell wasn’t.’
‘Look, in reality, all she forgot to do was to offer the taste.’
‘It was a vintage claret, Bill!’
I feel the heat rising up my neck. It was a stupid, stupid mistake. I may not know the wine list, or anything about wines, but I know enough to know that I’m supposed to offer a taste to the person who orders it.
‘I know, but we did a lotby the glasstonight …’
‘She’s a sommelier! Opening avintageclaret! You know what Mark is like. He’s an absolute stickler for the old ways – he doesn’t like what we’ve been trialling with the menu at all. He’ll never be back. I’ll lose this place, Bill.’
‘It won’t come to that! It was just one mistake.’
