Trevor looked down at his own shirt, a pale blue, perfectly ironed Oxford.
“Oh. Thanks. It’s from — ”
“No, no, do not tell me the shop. I do not want to know. I want to admire it in ignorance, Trevor, because if you tell me where you bought it I shall go there tomorrow and buy one for myself, and then there will be two of them in circulation and the magic will be broken. You must preserve my delight. Tell me instead about your father.”
Beauchamp put a piece of bread into his mouth and chewed it without tasting anything. This was, he reminded himself, a good thing. Every minute Vidal spent nattering at Trevor was a minute Beauchamp did not have to spend working out how to tell a nice man from Reading that he was not, regrettably, in a position to start something with him.
Trevor, lit up now, told Vidal about his father, a dentist who had taken up watercolours with a seriousness that was alarming the whole family. When Trevor said that his father had had ashow at the library community room last spring, Vidal pressed both hands flat to the tablecloth and said, “Trevor. Imustsee a photograph.”
Trevor produced his mobile and scrolled. Vidal leaned in, their shoulders nearly touching over the screen. Vidal made noises of appreciation over a view of the Thames at Goring, a somewhat ambitious rendering of a canal boat, and a portrait of Trevor’s sister’s dog that Trevor apologised for at length and that Vidal insisted was marvellous. It looked like a potato growing roots.
Beside Beauchamp, Hunter had gone entirely quiet. His second Guinness arrived and he took it from the waiter without acknowledging the man. He drank off the top third of it in one long swallow.
The food came, and Beauchamp was able to focus entirely on his food thanks to Vidal singlehandedly carrying the conversation with Trevor. Beauchamp ate his schnitzel in the shelter of Vidal’s monologue and did not have to say a word to anyone.
By the time the bill was settled — Hunter insisted, waving a card at the waiter with brisk impatience — Trevor had gone from the man who had clutched his teacup upon meeting them, to a man who was laughing at his own stories and shaping his hands in the air to illustrate a point about his sister’s choice of kitchen tiles.
They gathered their coats at the door. Trevor turned to Vidal, flushed with boldness of a man who had just had the best lunch of his year.
“I don’t want to be forward. But I’d love to stay in touch, if that’s all right. Could I have your number? Or an email, maybe.”
Vidal’s face softened. “Trevor. My dear Trevor.” Vidal laid his hand on Trevor’s forearm. “This has been the most delightful lunch. You have made my week, and I am not exaggerating. Ishall carry your father’s watercolours with me for many days. But I am, at present, in a rather particular situation, which means that I am unable to exchange contact details with anyone who is not already on a very short list maintained by Beauchamp here on his mobile. It is a matter of security, not of inclination, and I hope you will understand. What Icando is tell you that if you are ever in Mayfair, and you happen to find yourself walking past a particular coffee shop on Mount Street on a Saturday morning, you may very well see Beauchamp and me at the window table, and you should come and say hello.”
Trevor’s face went through a complicated series of adjustments. Disappointment, registered and absorbed, then relief at being given a graceful exit. He nodded. “Well, it’s been very lovely to meet you, Vidal.”
When the door had closed behind him, Hunter laid a hand on Beauchamp’s elbow. “Rix. A word.”
He drew Beauchamp a few paces down the pavement, past the window where Vidal had bent down to let Mercè out of her carrier for a wee against a lamp-post. Hunter kept his hand on Beauchamp’s elbow.
“That Vidal.”
“Dad — ”
“He’s a lot, Rix.”
Beauchamp looked down at his shoes.
“I know what that man is. He’s a very, very charming man, and I don’t trust him further than I could throw that cab you came in. I’ll tell you now, while Trevor is still within a hundred yards of here, that I think you ought to ring him tonight and apologise for what just happened.”
“Dad, he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He ate Trevor alive, Hendrix. He ate him alive in front of us, and he enjoyed it, and he did it so prettily that you sat there with your schnitzel and just let him get away with it.”
“He got me out of a lunch I didn’t want to be at.”
“He inserted himself into a lunch you were owed.” Hunter’s hand was still on his elbow. “A lunch I arranged for you, with a nice lad who came up from Reading for the specific purpose of meeting you. Instead Vidal made himself the centre of the table! Is that the arrangement you’ve signed up to? Is there something going on with the two of you?”
“Dad. He’s my principal. That’s all.”
“Rix.”
“Dad, that isall.”
Hunter looked at him flatly. “He’s not for you, Rix. I’m saying it, even though I know you don’t want to hear it. He’s too much. You got absolutely battered by what happened with Julian, and you don’t need to put yourself in another situation like that ever again. You need a Trevor. You need a man who has a Lego collection and who’s going to come to Oxfordshire at Christmas to eat turkey and stuffing with our family. But you’ve just sat in a restaurant and let your Trevor be walked off with by that man.”
“Dad, please.”
“All right. All right, I’ve said my piece.” Hunter turned his head to look back along the pavement to where Vidal had crouched on the kerb and was now talking to Mercè in a low consoling Catalan. “But I don’t like him, Rix. I don’t like the way he was with that boy, and I don’t like the way he was with you. I’ve been around long enough to know what happens when a man puts on the charm offensive like that.”
