‘That smells amazing,’ said Michaela.
‘I hope it tastes as good,’ said Anna, putting the serving dish on one of the table mats, noticing with a sinking heart that Karel and Jakub were staring in stony silence at each other. She shot Leo an anguished look, and he followed her back into the kitchen.
‘Do you want me to remove the knives?’ he asked before adding, ‘Don’t worry. They’ll be fine.’
‘God, I hope so,’ said Anna.
Leo helped her carry out the accompanying dishes of dumplings, cranberries and whipped cream.
‘Do you think we’ve got enough?’ she asked in a whisper.
‘Anna, I promise you, we’re going to be giving Jakub and Ludmila doggy bags and still be eating beef for a week.’
She stifled a laugh. He was probably right.
Everyone sighed with appreciation as Anna and Leo sat down. ‘A toast to our hosts. Thank you very much for inviting us into your home. It is very good to be here. And to meet new friends.Na zdraví,’ said Jan raising his drink.
Glasses were tapped and Anna looked around, the candlelight casting a golden glow on everyone’s smiling faces. She felt a bud of heat flower inside her and exchanged a quick look with Leo at the opposite end of the table. He lifted his glass and gave her a luminous smile, the blue of his eyes glowing in the ambient light. Despite all the people around them, he still managed to make her feel the centre of his focus. She could have been the only person in the room. She exchanged a faint smile with him before turning to Karel on her right, who had asked her a question.
‘Sorry,’ she asked, having missed it.
‘I said, how is it working in the Šilhov brewery with Jakub here?’ He jerked a thumb towards the older man, with an open, engaging grin.
Before Anna could answer, Jakub interrupted. ‘At least she is learning how to make beer properly. The way it should be made.’
Oh no, here we go.
‘The proper way?’ asked Karel.
‘Yes,’ said Jakub. ‘You think it’s old-fashioned but these methods have been used for hundreds of years. Why change them?’
‘Because people want new and different flavours,’ said Karel, jutting out his chin. ‘And the new methods are more cost-effective, more rational, more optimal.’
‘And you would throw away hundreds of years of heritage for novelty,’ said Jakub.
‘No, we’re building on hundreds of years and improving on them.
‘They don’t need improving. They have stood the test of time.’
‘Gentlemen, you’re both right,’ interrupted Ludmila, forceful despite her quiet words. Anna could see the steel in her, which must have stood her in good stead in her ballet career. ‘And you’re both wrong.’
They stared at her like a pair of children pulled up by their mother and far too polite to embroil her in their argument.
‘What is the most important thing when you are making beer?’ Ludmila threw the question out to the whole table. ‘Michaela?’
‘The taste.’
‘Jan?’
He nodded. ‘The taste.’
As she went around each person, everyone agreed, and when she reached Karel and Jakub, she simply tilted her head.
They both responded like a pair of sulky schoolboys. ‘The taste.’
Ludmila, holding court rather beautifully, then turned to Leo at the head of the table. ‘And what is the best-tasting curry, Leo? I know they eat a lot of it in England.’
He shrugged his shoulders, giving her his sweet smile. ‘I don’t know. There are so may. It depends what you like, whether you like a creamy korma, a semi-sweet, spicy Goan curry or the clean fragrant flavours of a Thai curry.’
