Loving Amélie (26 page)

“Gosh, from the mouth of the
bride,” he replied.

She dropped her gaze for a
moment to contain her next thought; then said:

“So, she
really
wouldn’t come with you today?”

One of Rick’s daughters popped
up between them with plates of cake: not Sara’s three tiered tower of
excellence that had been sliced and served by her own confectioner from London,
but a sweeter, stickier affair that had been provided by one of the village
women for the children. They said thank you and the child skipped away, pleased
to be useful.

“She
really
wouldn’t,” he said.

They deposited their cake on a
hay bale and sat down.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be
surprised,” said Sara. She looked down at her lap: still no creases, which was
an outstanding result.

The band began to encourage the
older guests onto the dance floor with their own interpretation of
In the Mood
.
Tash had pulled off her fascinator and was dragging Ian to his feet with the
absolute enjoyment of a woman who was in love with her husband and having a
fabulous day out.

“You are pleased for me, I
hope,” said Sara, meekly; reminding him that he hadn’t said anything
particularly lovely to her all day.

“Of course!” he replied. “Just
promise me something.”

“Anything,” she said, then
checked herself with a tweak to his arm. “Bearing in mind I am a married woman
with a very bad reputation to live down…”

“Don’t make me dance with you.”

Chapter Twenty Eight

Amélie’s nanny, Judith, opened
the door of the ground floor flat at Queens Gardens with her customary good
humour:

“Hello, big guy,” she said, in
her broad north-country accent and gave him a tight hug. “She’s all ready for
you.”

Amélie squealed when she saw
her father and held up the breadstick that was in her soggy fist. She was
fastened into a pink quilted jacket and was cruising around the coffee table on
sturdy, but still unsteady, legs. Judith had fixed her soft, feathery hair into
two wispy bunches: not a look that would go down well with her mother; but both
Chris and Amé knew better than to challenge Judith’s methods.

“We’ve had shepherd’s pie and
broccoli, Dad, so we are ready for anything.”

“I’m sure I was walking at this
age,” said Chris, taking his daughter by the hand and guiding her wobbly
passage to her pushchair.

“Ah, don’t listen to everything
Jean tells you,” said Judith, who had taken care of his parents on a recent
visit. “I don’t expect her memory is what it used to be!”

“We will be a couple of hours,
Jude,” he said.

Chris wondered whether the
frustration of being stuck in a pushchair outweighed the pleasure of watching
the kite, because Amélie made growling noises at the flying frog, with her
fists held aloft as though she were preparing for combat. Or maybe she was just
filling her nappy.

She made her usual promising
attempts at talking to him: ‘mumumum’ and ‘dadaada’. There were significantly
more ‘mumumum’s today, which might have indicated that she was missing her mum,
who had joined them on the maiden flight of the frog a few days before.

He unclipped her and tried to
hold her in one arm and fly the kite with the other: but he soon realised he
was compromising the safety of both Amélie and her new toy; so called it a day,
and they headed off to Peter’s flat.

These days it wasn’t unusual
for Chris to be left in sole charge of the bistro, with the aid of their usual
staff, while Linda had periods of rest away from work and Peter took time off
to be with her. She had good days and bad days; but the chemotherapy sessions
often reduced her to a completely sick and exhausted state.

At the early stage, when her
cancer was first diagnosed, she was tended by her family doctor in Surrey under
the close supervision of her father; but, once her treatment got underway, her
care was transferred to her local hospital in London.

Today she was laid up on the
sofa under a duvet, looking drained. Amélie trailed up and down by her side,
looking like she might pull her covers off, if only she had the strength.
Similarly ineffectual, Linda merely held out her hand for the child to brush
past on her busy travels.

“We have news,” she said to her
brother-in-law.

“Make it good news, please,” he
said, sinking down next to her. “Are you signing up for the Marathon?”

“Don’t put ideas into her
head,” said Peter. The bowl of wooden fruit had been put out of reach, as
Amélie was now in the habit of launching apple bullets around the room; but he
had replaced it with some less dangerous playthings: an empty egg box, a pair
of sheepskin mittens. Everything ended up in her mouth for the time being: it
remained the ultimate destination for discovery.

“We have decided to go away,”
said Linda. She closed her eyes in the guise of sleep, but continued: “To
France.”

“You are going for the
restaurant after all?” said Chris, alarmed at this leap of faith.

“No,” said Peter, through a
smile that would always be reserved for a younger, more foolish brother. “We
are going to ski.”

Linda rallied, and sat up. Peter
brought her a glass of water; and small bottles of beer for him and Chris.

“My bones hurt, Chris,” she
said. “It’s not a good sign. The cancer may have metastasised into my bones.”

“But you haven’t finished your
treatment yet,” he protested.

“No one’s that hopeful,” said
Linda, wearily. “Of course there are good luck stories, but it’s
my
body. And
I feel so tired. But I won’t be tired next week; when I’m going to hit the
first snow of the season!”

Chris wanted to say something
encouraging, about her indomitable spirit; but it didn’t come out.

“So it’s over to you for a
while, Little Brother,” said Peter.

Linda got up when Chris was
leaving and laced her arms through his. She laid her head on his chest, in the
bright scarf that had become her trademark.

“We are buggering off,” she
said, in an affected drawl. “Like
you
did.”

Peter, thankfully, didn’t meet
his gaze.

*

“I don’t know what time Miss B
will be in tonight,” said Judith, when he arrived back with the baby. “Are you
staying for a cuppa?”

“Please,” said Chris. “And
maybe stick a brandy in it.”

“What the devil?” said the
nanny.

She placed two steaming mugs in
front of him and eyed him with fearsome directness, heightened by the gleam of
her nose ring.

“Aren’t you supposed to be
working tonight?”

“Oh God, Jude,” he said, and
spluttered anxiously through the fingers over his face. “I think she’s going to
die.”

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chris resisted the notion of
sleeping at
Skinner’s
overnight; but he worked till the early hours and was back the following
day, at five thirty.

When were the windows last
cleaned? he wondered. They looked less than sparkling, inside and out, so he
put that on his list of “outstandings” for the day.

There had always been a
backbone of reliable staff: Gaston, Alison, Neal; but since Peter’s eye had
been off the ball with Linda’s illness, there had been a noticeable ebb of
enthusiasm, as though everyone had really relied on him for their momentum and
- without him firing on all cylinders – this was depleted. They were using
a lot of agency staff, to cover for incidental absence. He suddenly thought of
the waitresses at the Hotel Bénard, who seemed wedded to the place, despite
their unconvincing attempts at disrespecting the curmudgeonly proprietor; and
he felt a stab of envy.

He would close one day a week:
never mind if Peter never did, or wouldn’t approve: he could get back on his
high horse on his return from France! A Monday, perhaps, so that he and Amélie
might be able to persuade her mother to join them for a few hours, as it was
one of her days off.

And what about the menus? Their
food was good: they had spent forever getting it absolutely right; but lately,
understandably, the standard had slipped. Maybe it was time for a rethink: with
the introduction of a few new choices. To make life a little less predictable
and, dare he say it, a little less
French
?

It made him smile to think of
putting egg and bacon pie on the menu, alongside individual rice puddings and
cornflake tart. He may even persuade his parents to eat at
Skinner’s
after years of dropping in for
coffee on their infrequent trips to London, but preferring to have dinner in an
English pub!

It was little wonder, given his
heritage, that his French teacher told him he had quite a good grasp of
vocabulary but his accent was atrocious…

He called a staff meeting when
there was a slowdown after lunch. He explained that Peter and Linda were taking
an extended break; and that he would be at the helm.

No one disliked Chris, but they
never treated him like a boss: he was more ‘one of them’. They looked at him a
little blankly.

“Will we lose our jobs?” said
Alison, who wasn’t famous for her positivity.

“Only if we’re shit,” said
Chris.

Neal guffawed.

“I have to make this place
work,” he went on. “For lots of reasons. I don’t expect you to jump through
hoops for me, but I want you to choose
Skinner’s
as the environment where you want to
work, or go somewhere else.”

“You can’t sack us!” said
Alison, and shifted gum around her mouth.

“No, but I’m hoping it won’t
come to that,” he said. “If you don’t want to be here, I’d rather you sacked
yourself.”

“I don’t mean to be funny,” she
went on, after a pause, clearly not about to be. “But
you
aren’t always here…”

“I know,” he replied. “But I
will be. From now on. “

“OK, boss,” said Neal, who
didn’t much mind where he worked, as long as it was for men like Peter or Chris
who talked smart and paid on time.

“Whatever,” the others said, or
made noises of broad agreement.

Gaston liked the sound of some
of the menu changes: he admitted he was a bit bored of the routine chef-ing;
and wondered if he might make a few suggestions of his own. Some were simply
regional variations on a theme: others were just the things he liked to eat.

“I like the way you’re
thinking,” said Chris, giving the shy young Frenchman a slap between his narrow
shoulders. He realised that the lad had a lot of respect for Peter; but had
maybe never found the courage to speak up in front of him. And it wasn’t in his
imagination that Gaston returned to his duties in the kitchen that afternoon
with livelier body language; and that he was one of the last to leave that
night.

“I think I might be able to do
this,” he said to himself, as he walked around the premises on his own. “And I
think I might enjoy it!”

He looked at the old photograph
of him and his brother near the kitchen and it occurred to him that he had a
picture of Peter and Linda somewhere at home - looking cheery outside a bar in
the Alps - that he must dig out and get framed alongside it.

He was pulling down the blinds,
wondering if he might tackle re-painting the walls of the restaurant on his
next day off, when there was a tap at the window.

Amélie was in her business
suit: a chic navy blue pinstripe, with her hair twisted into a small chignon.

“You’re too late for supper,”
he said. “And the drinks are very expensive.”

She flashed a look at him; and
held out the apron that was draped over her arm:

“I still have this,” she said.

He opened and closed his mouth.

“You were about to say
something stupid about ‘
giving it back’
or ‘
getting it dry cleaned
,’” she complained at
him. She was a little out of breath.

He didn’t deny it; and let her
in.

“You have come a long way, out
of your way,” was all he said.

“I want to help you,” she said.
Her eyes, dark and searching, ran all over his face. “I can work shifts in the
evenings, like I used to.”

“But you have your job,” he
said, simply.

“I am cutting my hours,” she
said. “I am going to teach art classes, instead.”

“I see. I’m glad.”

“And I want to help you,” she
said, again.

He closed the door behind her.

****

The End

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