Then she shook her head and took a deep breath. He was just a man. Nothing special. She needed to remember that. All they’d done was spend a few hours in one another’s company. And after the way she’d treated him, he would be mad not to forget all about her and enjoy the rest of his ski trip. All she had to do was the same. No drama. Easy-peasy.
Her stomach didn’t seem to agree with her, though. It lurched as she climbed to her feet and went to join Clara. But the brightness to Clara’s expression strengthened Tania’s resolve to ignore her internal organs and concentrate on making this week as positive for her friend as possible.
‘Those look delicious, Tom,’ she said, fixing a smile on her face and ignoring the bottomless feeling her stomach was giving her.
‘Crostini and homemade salsa,’ he said, pointing to the left-hand side of the large piece of grey slate which had been crafted into a tray. ‘And this is a smoked salmon mousse.’ A small pot stood surrounded by regiments of vegetable sticks.
Tania took a stick of carrot and dipped. She tasted and nodded. ‘Very good.’ It was. Everything Tom had cooked so far had been very good. She hadn’t been serious when she thought to blame his cooking for the way her stomach felt. However, she didn’t like to tell him not to hold his breath if he was after compliments from the rest of her family. He should probably make the most of this week. He seemed to be enjoying chatting with Clara, and they were all enjoying his food. Tania felt sure whatever menus he had planned for the rest of the week, especially Christmas Day, would be excellent. But however hard he tried, the rest of her family were unlikely to offer him anything more positive than a passive-aggressive silence. Smoked salmon mousse? Her stepmother would express her feelings on that one with a single eyebrow.
At least he only had to tolerate it for a few months. Silver linings, and all that.
‘Ooh, génépi. I love that stuff,’ Rose said, plucking the bottle from the table. She didn’t notice the piece of paper and envelope that slid to the floor as she examined the label on the bottle.
‘What on earth is that?’ Madeleine said, reaching down for the folded square of cream paper lying beside the wooden bun foot of one of the sofas. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘It’s a liqueur,’ Rose said. ‘Bloody strong but a really traditional way to finish a meal in the mountains. Good for the digestion. According to the French, anyway.’
‘The French use any excuse to neck down booze, if you ask me,’ she said.
Rose laughed. ‘It’s a flower, too, which is what they use to flavour it. Where did this come from?’ she said, turning to Tania and Clara, waving the bottle in one hand. ‘And can we open it tonight?’
Madeleine retrieved the envelope, noting the tape still sticky on the upper edge. Turning it front-side up, she saw Tania’s name scrawled on it. She knew she shouldn’t look at the contents of the folded piece of paper, it was clearly from the envelope addressed to Tania. Madeleine flicked a look at the others, Rose was asking where the bottle had appeared from and Tania was skirting the question, which piqued her interest further.
It couldn’t hurt to look, could it? And then she would tuck it back into the envelope and nobody would be any the wiser.
Tilting away from the others, she unfurled the paper.
I can take a hint. Probably just as well we didn’t get a dog. But you can’t blame a guy for trying. Gull.
The words were large and uninhibited, the letters bold and intertwined, as if it had been written on impulse. But the sentiment behind the words was clear-cut, she thought. Madeleine wondered when Tania had given Gull the brush-off. She hadn’t given any indication of having done so the previous afternoon, although Madeleine supposed she could have done. Today, she’d spent the whole day with them and hadn’t used her mobile at all. She wasn’t sure when Tania would have had the opportunity to contact him.
Madeleine refolded the paper and slid it back into the envelope. Maybe that was exactly what had happened. Maybe the fact that she hadn’t been in contact was the point.
She thought back through the day, to the times when she’d been able to concentrate on anything other than staying upright, that was. They’d stopped for lunch at a different restaurant, this one called L’Avalanche. She’d hadtartiflettetoday, a dish Madeleine thought she’d never tried before– although in essence it was like something her Auntie Katie made, layers of cheesy potatoes with bacon bits. The cheese in thetartifletteshe’d had today was definitely not Cheddar, like in Auntie Katie’s version, it was something stringier. Yummy, but stringier.
Focus, Madeleine. Actually, if she thought about it, Tania had seemed very distracted at lunchtime, repeatedly checking her watch. She’d done it enough for Madeleine to notice, even though she hadn’t asked the questions that were bubbling around in her head, about whether they were boring her– too aggressive– or, should she be somewhere else? Were they keeping her from being somewhere more important? In the end, she’d decided she didn’t know Tania well enough to ask any of them, so she hadn’t.
Should Tania have been somewhere else? That had to be it. She should have been meeting Gull.
Madeleine turned back to the others. Rose and Clara were chatting, but Tania was looking straight at her, at the envelope still in her fingers. Madeleine bent and set the envelope gently on the table. If only she could learn to mind her own business. Keep. Nose. Out.
Sorry, she mouthed, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks as the blatancy of her own curiosity sank in.
Tania’s face took a downwards turn, a frown settling between her eyes. She strode over to the table and took the envelope, checking the note was inside.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’ Even as she said it, Madeleine heard how weak it sounded. She waited for Tania’s reaction, but she didn’t say anything, just shook her head. She headed for the kitchen, hovered the envelope over the top of the bin and then shook her head again and pocketed the envelope instead.
It wasn’t until the end of the meal that Madeleine plucked up enough courage to ask about Gull. Tania wouldn’t allow Rose to open the génépi he’d delivered, instead she scratched around in a drinks cabinet until she found a half-empty bottle. Tania brought that, plus a pile of tiny shot glasses, to the table.
‘Here, use this,’ Tania said, shoving everything in front of Rose and retaking her seat.
‘Are you going to see him again?’ Madeleine asked quietly, while Rose was preoccupied pouring the génépi.
Tania shook her head. ‘Doesn’t look like it.’
‘Do you mind?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s too late, either way. I have no way to contact him, even if I wanted to.’
