‘Everythingisin my profile,’ I pointed out, ‘which the agency sent to your mother.’
‘I’ve never had proper sight of your profile.’ He looked defensive. ‘All I got was a text from my mother ordering me to get down here as quickly as possible because she’d engaged a cook.’
‘So you were expecting some beefy matron with forearms like pork chops and calling herself “Mrs” even though she’d never been married in her life.’
He gave an uncomfortable laugh. ‘Probably.’
You’re way out of date, buster, I thought, but decided to leave it there. However, he then surprised me.
‘I certainly didn’t expectyou,’ he said with heavy emphasis on the last word.
‘Look,’ I said, flustered by the way he was studying me. ‘Do you mind very much if I serve the curry now? The rice will dry up.’ And I was by now really feeling the effect of the drink. Glancing at the bottle, I saw we were more than halfway down it.
He waved another hand, this time a careless one. ‘Sure.’
We ate largely in silence. Perhaps we both felt too much had been said. But in any case, we were both eating quite voraciously, he because he was evidently extremely hungry and for my part on account of being desperate to mop up some alcohol, especially as Mandeville had opened the second bottle of Bandol and poured us both more. Yes,I know I could have refused it, but it was one of those situations which seems by its very nature to necessitate a hell of a lot of drink, not least because Mandeville seemed incapable of telling me exactly how many guests he had invited to Christmas dinner. Instead, he kept going off into little dreams, about what I wouldn’t care to imagine, save they certainly rendered him mentally absent.
‘Oh, I’ve asked UncleHenri,’ he managed at length, as if I would know who Uncle Henry pronouncedOnriwas. ‘He’s not an uncle really but a third cousin of my father, God knows how many times removed. But we’ve always called him “uncle”, and my father was extremely fond of him. He’s in his eighties and… well… quite a character.’
That description, I knew from experience, is generally a kind way of saying someone is difficult. Great again. However, then I gleaned during further nagging that there would be Jules Croisset – I perked up a bit at that – as well as, possibly, a friend, gender unspecified, of the brilliant daughter, Emma. And, of course, there would be Bodycon Incorporated, Caroline.
‘She’s flying down from Paris,’ Mandeville informed me, as if she were a bat swooping from the roof beams.
As to what he wanted me to cook for Christmas dinner, this fairly essential consideration was also left vague.
‘Oh, turkey and all that shit, you know.’ He levered an envelope out of his back trouser pocket at this point. It contained one thousand euros, he told me, to pay for everything. I didn’t bother to protest at it being far too much, partly because it might not be and partly because I’d just remembered something vital, that being whetherthe chicken-phobic Mrs Susan Mandeville would eat turkey.
‘Ohmigod, no!’ He affected a brow-mopping gesture. ‘Thank God you said that.’ Never mind, there was steak in the freezer, I told him, tons of it. ‘Good, but it must be burnt,’ he said with emphasis. ‘My mother only eats steak if it isburnt.’
I said that would be fine. There wasn’t much else I could say. Then, declining my offer of some fruit and cheese for dessert – the unused tarte tatin from the previous evening was beyond resuscitation and I hadn’t had time to make a fresh pudding – Mandeville lumbered to his feet.
‘I’m very tired,’ he said, not quite but almost apologetically. ‘So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m turning in.’
‘Can I just ask one last question?’
He smothered a cavernous yawn. ‘Go on.’
‘You said earlier that your daughter will be arriving on Christmas Eve. Will you be requiring me to cook dinner for you that evening, then?’
For a second or two, he looked again bemused. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Right, that’s fine, of course, but how many for? You said she had invited a friend for Christmas. Will that friend be joining you for dinner? I’m afraid I do need to know how many guests I’m catering for.’
He still seemed at sea, so I tried again.
‘Okay,’ I said patiently. ‘For example, will your daughter’s mother also be joining you?’ I had put it clumsily but could think of no more diplomatic way to ask. Mandeville, I had deduced, was almost certainlydivorced, but people are pretty laid back these days about exes on the family gathering front.
‘My daughter’s mother?’ He halted en route to shuffling to the door and turned.
I nodded.
‘My wife?’
‘Yes.’
He looked at me. ‘My wife is dead,’ he said.
Chapter Nine
