‘Well, not exactly—’ I began, but Jules cut straight across me.
‘But of course,’ he said, his eyes twinkling at me. ‘Do I not know all the best chefs in the business?’
What Mandeville might have replied is impossible to say because, with one of her penetrating shrieks, Susan Mandeville suddenly flew off her perch, flapped across the room and seized my platter ofamuses bouches– what was left of them.
‘Come along now, everyone,’ she chided, in the tone of voice that you’d use with very small children. ‘It’s high time we dined.’ She turned to me. ‘Take this.’ She thrust the platter back at me in the general direction of my stomach. ‘And serve dinner.’
‘Please?’ came a quiet voice, although I don’t know whose.
‘Mother,’ interjected Mandeville, a trifle distractedly, it had to be said. ‘People are still drinking their champagne. In fact, I was just going to open another bottle.’
‘Don’t call me “mother”!’ I heard her squawk as I left the room.
In the kitchen, Nicole was stirring soup as if her lifedepended on it.
‘Have you added the strychnine?’ I said over her shoulder. She spun round, looking alarmed.
‘Pardon?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. Ignore me. I’m losing the plot. Here.’ Chucking theamuses bouchesplatter in the sink, blinis and all, I retrieved the stack of soup plates from where they were warming gently on the hob and handed it to her. ‘You take these round, and I’ll follow with the tureen.’
Everybody was obediently sitting down as I entered the dining room, quieter than proverbial church mice, Mandeville at the far head of the table with his mother on his right and the Caroline woman on his other side flanked by Jules Croisset. Blouson was entrenched at the opposite end, with Acorns facing Jules. As she was the most senior female, I started with Susan Mandeville, serving her a couple of ladles. Then, as I carefully made my way round the rest of the silent throng – they could have been at a prayer meeting – Mandeville rose to his feet, went over to the sideboard and, picking up an opened bottle of Macon Villages, began pouring it. Before he could get very far, however, a tiny sound issued from Susan Mandeville like a mini explosion. I suppose it might have been ‘Ugh!’
‘I don’t like minestrone,’ she whined, in a peculiar little girl voice quite unlike her customary strident tones.
Jules Croisset looked up from swallowing his first spoonful. ‘But, Madame,’ he said, addressing her directly, ‘this is not minestrone.’ He looked up at me. ‘Is it, Alix?’
I indicated agreement.
Then, as if to confirm this for himself, Croisset sippedanother spoonful and cried in triumph, ‘It’ssoupe au pistou!’
‘I beg your pardon!’ screeched Susan Mandeville. ‘I will not have obscene language in my house, thank you very much, even if you are French.’
A tiny silence followed, broken only by the sound of the elderly English couple noisily slurpingsoupe au pistou. Jules Croisset, his chin lowered, looked calmly across the table at Susan Mandeville.
‘Belgian, Madame,’ he corrected solemnly. ‘I am Belgian.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ This was Luc Mandeville. ‘You sound like bloody Hercule Poirot.’
Another frozen pause ensued until both men suddenly exploded into great roars of laughter. The Caroline woman joined in after a second or two, but uncertainly, as though she didn’t really get the joke. After sloshing some more soup into the elderly couple’s plates – the sad things seemed to be literally starving – I beat a hasty retreat.
‘Is she always like this?’ I said to Nicole, who was in the process of extracting squashed blinis from the sink.
Nicole rinsed her fingers under the tap. ‘Always,’ she sighed, ‘I am sorry. I forget to inform you. She only ever eat the steak.’
‘Is that who all the meat in the freezer is for?’
The French girl nodded. ‘I was commanded to make the big order, fromleboucher– the butcher, you know? He was very ’appy,’ she added, as if that helped.
‘I bet he was. There’s an entire herd of Charolais in there.’
Nicole giggled. ‘I do a steak now on the microwave defrost?’ she suggested.
‘No, there isn’t time. Nuts to the woman. No, you go and collect the soup dishes.’ Nicole quailed before my eyes. ‘No, go on, there’s a love, they won’t eat you, although I suppose there’s a risk that English couple might, and I’ll sort out the main course. It’s not done in the best of circles but I’m going to serve everything plated. I’m not risking a carving knife in that madhouse.’
She was back in two minutes. ‘Look,’ she said.
I looked. She was showing me Susan Mandeville’s soup plate. I had placed a bowl of grated parmesan on the table because some people like it withsoupe au pistoueven if a purist would foam at the mouth. It was this, the entire bowl of parmesan, that Susan Mandeville had evidently poured all over her helping of soup, not, however, then eating any of it.
