The day was a mild one for the time of year, and as they crossed the Pont des Arts back to the Left Bank of the Seine and towards Rose’s apartment, Fen noticed the many couples strolling around together, enjoying the crisp autumn weather. The leaves of the large lime trees were just starting to turn, their fruit dangling like large fluffy cherries. Fen had a pang of grief; she would have so loved to have brought Arthur here and walked arm in arm along the river, just passing the time of day, like those couples were doing.
Rose hurried them both along. ‘No dawdling, my dears,’ she called back to them as she swept her way along the pavement like a ship in full sail.
‘What’s the hurry?’ James stopped walking and rested his hands on his hips as the three of them were nearing the end of Rose’s road. ‘It’s just there’s a rather good-looking little café there and I might stop in for a bite to eat, if you don’t mind.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You’re more than welcome to join me. It is lunchtime after all.’
When he said that, Fen became aware of her own rumbling stomach and looked towards Rose to see what she would say.
Surprisingly, to both Fen and most likely James too, Rose did an about-turn and headed into the café. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But lunch is on you, Captain. And I’m hungry.’
Ten
The café was an utter delight. Fen tucked into an entrecôte steak, glistening with a herbed butter, while Rose lived up to her promise – or threat – of being exceptionally hungry and dug into a coq au vin that looked so rich and hearty, unlike anything Fen had seen in the days of deprivation throughout the war. James had joined her in having the steak, but she could see he was also wolfishly eyeing up the steaming pot of stew in front of the older woman.
‘You think I didn’t know the best thing on the menu?’ Rose looked at them both with a definite twinkle in her eye. ‘I had to spend my ill-gotten gains from painting all those German officers on something.’
‘I’ll trust your recommendation next time,’ James said, and Fen nodded, though she couldn’t fault the juicy steak that was on the rarer side of medium. She remembered this style of cooking from her schooldays and her initial horror at seeing the bloodied juices seep out of a lightly cooked piece of red meat. She’d become not only accustomed to it, however, but realised now how much she’d missed it once they were back in England where the haut-est of cuisine had been boiled beef and cabbage in her college refectory. And then, with the outbreak of war and the years of rationing, this sort of luxury had been hard to come by at all, however it was cooked.
‘This is delicious,’ she murmured, in between mouthfuls, and wiped a piece of pan-fried potato around the garlicky juices on her plate. ‘Ma and Pa would be so jealous. Real French cooking!’
‘The best!’ Rose raised her wine glass – she had insisted on a carafe of the vin de table too – and clinked it with the others. ‘There was a silver lining to being occupied,’ Rose continued, ‘with the German army in town, they made sure that the restaurants had enough food. But it takes a local to know which cafés have true artists in the kitchen.’
‘I thought it had all been rather hard-going?’ Fen asked, before popping another piece of the succulent steak into her mouth.
‘Oh, it was and it wasn’t,’ Rose sighed and then took another sip. ‘Don’t get me wrong, the war was terrible and it destroyed many, many lives and businesses. But Paris was a bubbling crucible of opportunity, for some at least. I sold more paintings during the occupation than ever before. We,’ she gestured around the room and Fen took it to mean the whole of Paris, ‘were still the centre of the world’s art market and there were fortunes to be made. Still, thank the heavens, it’s over now.’
The three of them toasted the end of the war, and being in each other’s company, absent friends of course, and anything else they could think of until their glasses were empty and their plates cleared too. Not a scrap was left anywhere by any of them, a testament to how grateful they all were for the bounty that they’d just enjoyed.
‘You said we had work to do?’ Fen asked Rose as the waiter piled their empty plates up his arm and placed a small coffee and dessert menu in front of them.
‘Yes,’ Rose answered Fen but was looking more interested in the list of puddings in front of her. ‘Garçon!’ she called across to the waiter who had returned to the bar. ‘Three tarte Tatin please!’ She waved the small menu at him and he came and picked it up, not bothered in the slightest by Rose’s eccentric ways. ‘You’ll thank me, believe me,’ she said to Fen and James as they sat back in their chairs, already feeling more full than they had in a while.
‘We’ll need a kip after this,’ James rubbed his stomach and leaned back in his chair.
‘No time for idling, chickadees,’ Rose straightened out the place mat in front of her. ‘We do indeed have work to do. Fenella, I have a wonderful surprise for you.’
Fen couldn’t help herself and, before Rose could announce her surprise, took the opportunity to ask her about the Dutch floral still-life painting that had intrigued both her and the woman with the fox fur.
‘Ah, you spotted that,’ Rose said, a glint in her eye.
‘Yes, and, bravo really, as it’s incredibly good. I mean, I don’t think there’s chance we could ever compare them side by side, but from what I can
