She waves her hand away and blushes slightly. ‘I’m sure.’
‘I promise to do my very best for you, Irene,’ I say firmly. ‘We’re going to make the relaunch incredible, okay?’
She responds with a little smile, but her eyes are sad. ‘The weight of everything is not on you, pet.’
I nod and feel a renewed determination to be the best I can be. ‘We might have a theme for the Wine Society evening.’
Irene plasters on a huge smile now. ‘Oh, fabulous, darling. And what are you thinking?’
‘Okay, you have to go with me,’ I say. ‘James and I talked about it this morning and he’s on board.’
‘He is?’
‘Yes, well, we thought we could do a British-wine event. Bunting and trifle, and posh Scotch eggs and whatnot.’
‘Sounds rather English to me.’
‘Well, we could find some Scottish wines too.’
Irene frowns. ‘You must know that the first Scottish wine was a critical catastrophe. Did the breaking news “Fife will not be the next Loire Valley” not travel south of the border?’
‘Uhh,’ I stammer.
‘And now another new attempt, this time from Château Glencove. You saw the owner at the awards night didn’t you? Swanning around in his kilt, like a laird without a castle. An embarrassment to the whole industry. People need to choose that one thing they can do brilliantly and stick to it. And if you’re Scottish, that means not growing ruddy grapes.’
‘Sorry, Irene, I didn’t think,’ I begin, but she’s on a roll.
‘I don’t have a problem with doing anEnglishwine-night. I’m sure the Society will thoroughly enjoy picking as many holes in it as they can. Just don’t call it “British”. I’ll speak to Russell and let him know.’
I glance over at the big, open kitchen and watch James arrange some things along counter, or the ‘pass’, as I know now it’s called. I feel a warm flush as I remember our upcoming fishing trip/almost-date thing.
James looks across at me as if he knows I am staring and he smiles, and for a moment we’re doing that teenage grinning-thing at each other, and I forget I’m being given a talking to by his mum. My crush is evolving, and it’s been inexplicably complicated by the fact that James seems interested in me, in return.
‘Come now, time to get ready for service.’ Irene looks like she’s pretending to disapprove.
Or maybe she does disapprove, I think, remembering her words to Bill the other night.
I shuffle off to catch up with Roxy, who is reading over the menu while arranging some bottles of champagne in the antique ice-box that sits decoratively at the end of the bar.
‘Heather,’ she says anxiously, nodding at the fresh printouts sitting on the counter. ‘Are you happy with the pairings? I tweaked them a little, to keep it fresh.’
‘All looks perfect to me,’ I reply – not that I’ve had time to look. ‘And great that it’s the same menu for dinner, so we can busy ourselves getting ready for the relaunch.’
‘I see you really did have an accident …’ she says, her pretty face contorted with concern.
‘Occupational hazard.’ I wave it away. ‘Not the first time.’
She laughs. I glance around the bar area. The small temporary tables are set more modestly than the tables in the main restaurant were.
‘Six bookings today. Two for lunch and four for dinner,’ Roxy is saying, following my gaze around the room.
Great, that’s enough to learn more about serving, without being overwhelmed. And hopefully I’ll get away in time after lunch to do some more revision.
‘And Bill told me yesterday we need to stocktake. I can help with that?’ she says. ‘If you want the help, I mean.’
‘Shit! Yes,’ I reply.The damned stocktake. It’s relentless.
‘We only had a small cellar at my last place, around thirty-five wines, but I did the count and placed the orders. And of course I’ve helped out here before. But there were not as many wines to do then.’
