‘You can almost taste the peasants’ feet,’ said Matt.
‘What are the black bits?’ she asked him, as she used her fourth piece of bread to mop up the sauce.
‘Truffles,’ said Matt. ‘Bloody bad luck for pigs, really. They rootle round for days, and the moment they find some marvellous delicacy, it’s snatched from under their nose.’
Like Nicky from me, thought Imogen wistfully.
Cable and Yvonne were talking shop.
‘They sacked her from a bikini feature because she was too fat,’ said Yvonne.
‘That pale lipstick makes her mouth look like a rubber tyre,’ said Cable.
‘It’s her own fault. She’s in Wedgies or Tramps every night, and after all the client is buying your face, not your ability to drink in the right places till four o’clock in the morning.’
‘Who are they talking about?’ muttered Imogen.
‘Obviously someone extremely successful,’ said Matt.
‘I got the Weetabix commercial,’ said Yvonne patronisingly, starting on strips of green pepper. ‘You were after it weren’t you, Cable? The producer told me you were too overtly sexy for the part.’
‘That’s obviously why he tried to take me to bed,’ snapped Cable, lighting one cigarette from another.
Nicky suddenly glanced across at Imogen, his eyes swivelling from Cable to Yvonne, then raising them to heaven. Imogen giggled with relief.
‘No more bread, Jumbo,’ said Yvonne, still chewing everything 20 times. ‘You’ve already had quite enough.’
Everyone else had finished except her. The waiters were hovering to take the plates and putting silver dishes over blue flames.
‘I should go on,’ Matt told them. ‘We can’t hang around all night.’
Imogen’s second course, boeuf bourgignon, rich, dark, aromatic and pulsating with herbs, was almost better than the first.
‘I’ve never tasted anything so heavenly in my life,’ she said to Matt.
‘Good,’ he said, filling her glass and looking across at Cable, who was picking imaginary bones out of her trout. ‘Nice change to have someone around who enjoys eating.’
‘These quenelles are very disappointing,’ grumbled Yvonne.
‘What d’you expect from upmarket fish cakes?’ said Nicky.
‘I always thought a quenelle was something the dog slept in,’ said James, and roared with laughter.
‘No more wine for you, Jumbo,’ said Yvonne sharply.
‘How long have you two been married?’ asked Matt.
‘Forty-eight weeks exactly,’ said Yvonne, with what she thought was an engaging smile. ‘We still count our marriage by weeks not months.’
‘Weekiversaries,’ said Matt drily. ‘How touching.’
Cable shot him a warning glance.
James started to tell Imogen a long complicated joke about a parrot, upon which she found it impossible to concentrate because at the same time Yvonne turned to Nicky, saying: ‘How did you and Imogen meet?’
‘In Yorkshire.’
‘Oh, I love Yorkshire, it’s so unspoilt.’
‘Like Imogen,’ said Nicky.
‘They tied a handkerchief over the parrot’s eyes,’ said James.
‘Have you been going out long?’ said Yvonne.
‘No,’ said Nicky.
‘And another one round its beak,’ said James.
‘She looks awfully young. I’m surprised her father let her go away with you.’
‘So was I.’
‘What does she do?’
‘Sits and dreams in a library.’
‘And then they both got into bed,’ said James.
‘That’s nice,’ said Yvonne. ‘She and Matt’ll be able to have a lot of good talks about books.’
‘They already have,’ said Cable. She put her hands behind her head and leant back against the wall, her breasts jutting out dramatically. The effect was not lost on a handsome Frenchman drinking brandy with a plain wife at the next table. He and Cable exchanged a long lingering eye-meet. The Frenchman dropped his eyes first, then, after a furtive glance at his wife who was still spooning sugar into her coffee, looked at Cable again. Cable smirked and looked away. Even the cook had come out of the kitchen to have a look at her and was standing open-mouthed in the doorway with a lobster in his hand.
Suddenly Imogen was brought back to reality by James roaring with laughter and saying, ‘And the parrot said Kama Sutra is a liar. Get it? Kama Sutra is a liar.’
Imogen, realising he’d reached the punchline, roared with rather forced laughter too. Matt filled up James’s glass. Yvonne glared at Matt.
‘Please don’t. I don’t want him to have any more. You won’t be jogging every day in France you know, Jumbo.’
‘Have some more,’ said Matt, ladling more beef and potatoes on to Imogen’s plate.
‘Oh I shouldn’t.’
‘You should. Do you good to have a blow out on your first night. No one else will but us,’ he went on, emptying the casserole dish on to his own plate.
Yvonne smiled at Imogen brightly.
‘I hear you work in a library.’
Oh God, thought Imogen, she’s going to bring
‘Yes,’ she muttered, with her mouth full.
‘I used to love reading,’ Yvonne went on, ‘but I don’t get the time now. I have to read a lot of papers from Central Office for James. I’ve got an aunt who reads though, four novels a day. We all call her the book worm.’
She then proceeded to launch into a long and unutterably boring description of her aunt’s reading habits and literary tastes.
‘Someone ought to put a green baize cloth over her,’ muttered Matt as he leant across to fill Imogen’s glass.
Having finally exhausted her aunt, Yvonne said, ‘You’re so lucky not having a job where you have to watch your figure.’
Imogen blushed and put down the potato she was about to eat.
‘I’d be very happy to watch Imogen’s figure all the time,’ said Matt evenly.
‘Me too,’ leered James.
The head waiter came up and put his hands on Matt’s shoulders.
‘Everything all right, Monsieur O’Connor?’
‘
‘My trout was simply delicious,’ said Cable, who’d left most of hers.
Imogen’s waistband was biting into her stomach. She wished she hadn’t eaten so much.
The restaurant was empty except for their table. Matt ordered coffee.
‘Not for me,’ said Yvonne. ‘It keeps me awake, and we’ve got a long drive tomorrow.’
‘I’d like an enormous brandy,’ said James defiantly.
‘Bravo,’ said Nicky.
‘Mustn’t squander all our money at once, Jumbo. Night, night all,’ said Yvonne, getting to her feet and dragging the reluctant James off to bed.
‘Got to get her ugly sleep,’ said Matt.
‘God, she’s a bitch,’ said Nicky.
Matt ordered Marcs all round.
‘If you go away in a party,’ he said, ‘it’s essential to have a holiday scapegoat, so that everyone can gang up and work off their spleen bitching about her. Mrs Edgworth fits the bill perfectly.’
After dinner they wandered round the village. The sky glimmered with stars now, and down by the river the
