Loving Amélie (6 page)

Chris watched while Sara
stripped the baby from her night things and lowered her into the bath water.
Amélie clucked and spluttered with annoyance; but was washed and wrapped up
warmly before she could give full vent to her displeasure.

“I don’t know if that makes me
feel good or bad,” he said.

Sara threw back her mane of red
curls. Her bare, white forearms were wet to the elbow:

“Make
sensible
arrangements to take care of
her,” she said.

                                                           
*

Lunch with Amélie, his
beautiful French customer, would remain the happiest most surprising day of his
life.

She had said noon; and arrived
at
Skinner’s
on the dot, where Chris had excused himself from the lunchtime shift with words
of encouragement – some of them bawdy – from Peter and Linda and
the rest of the staff.

“Hello again, Chris,” she said,
greeting him with a refined kiss on each cheek and removing a large pair of
sunglasses.

“You are punctual,” he said. “I
like that in a woman who is buying me lunch.”

“Aha!” She raised the basket
she was carrying for Chris’s attention. It was the sort of basket his mum might
have taken to the corner shop forty years ago, that hung on short handles from
the crook of the arm. He thought he spied a patterned tablecloth, and a bunch
of red and yellow tulips. “Don’t be too hasty. Reserve your judgement till
after we have eaten.”

“I should warn you that I am not
a fan of picnics without the sun,” he said, deciding his naturally dry sense of
humour could be his only armour against this intensely disarming young woman.
“And eating when the sun comes out makes me irritable.”

They locked amused eyes.

“OK. So first I must placate
you with a drink,” said Amélie.

“Definitely worth a try,” said
Chris.

She wound her arm in his and
they headed for a nearby wine bar – where they were both familiar with
the waiter – and ordered Bellinis to drink under the awning.

“To Anglo-French relations,” he
said.

She giggled: “
Entente cordiale.
”

With a couple of gulps of
 
Prosecco inside him, Chris began to
relax and take heed of the inner voice that was reminding him to savour every
moment, whatever the outcome. He was having lunch with the most beautiful woman
he had ever met; instead of wiping gravy from the rims of dinner plates with
nothing to look forward to but the leftovers. Tomorrow would be another dull
day.

“So what do you really think of
the bistro?” he asked. “How do we Englishmen shape up to the art of French
cooking?”

“Very well indeed,” said
Amélie, blowing a jet of smoke from her
Gitanes
cigarette over his head. “I was not
flattering you. That would have been pointless; unless it was part of my
cunning plan to get close to you.”

Seeing the smile behind her
eyes, Chris resisted the urge to feel too excited or flattered.

“My brother was fortunate
enough to train in France,” he explained.

“And you? Not so fortunate?”

“Well, I was fortunate enough
to be trained by
him
.”

“I see. And so you share the
same passion?”

“Well, not so much a
passion
,”
said Chris, mindful that if this were an interview he was about to nose-dive
into not getting a call-back. “I run a business with Peter, which means we
share the cooking. I leave the passion to him.”

“Ah, I understand.” Amélie
slumped back in her seat and folded her arms in a gesture of
deception
– disappointment – that made Chris’s heart sink. Then: “I have a
big sister like that. Older, prettier. Always getting the first bite of the
cherry. You have my sympathies!” She clinked her half empty glass against his.

“Thank you,” said Chris,
arrested by this glimpse of beautiful paranoia. “Although
I
was fortunate to be the pretty one.”

Amélie laughed as though she
had been waiting to laugh with such childlike abandon for a long time.

He was sitting, yet soaring.

“I’m glad I’ve amused you!”

They ordered two more drinks.
He said:

“I hope you have some very
interesting canapés in your basket, because I’m getting hungry.”

He was hoping this would bring
their flirtation closer to the conclusion he was beginning desperately to
favour: a hotel bedroom.

“I’m glad you mention it,” she
replied. She delved into her basket and brought out a sleek leather purse. She
took out a fistful of money – five ten pound notes - that she fanned out
on the table between them. “Fifty pounds. I am buying lunch.”

Chris looked pleasantly
confused:

“Are you challenging me to find
the best lunch in London for fifty quid?” he asked.

“
Non
,” she replied. “Another exercise
that I would consider pointless!”

“So?”

“So,” she said, lighting
another pungent cigarette. “Don’t you ever cook in your house, your apartment?”

Chris’s mind churned for an
appropriate response.

“Almost never,” he replied,
calling to mind – with some difficulty – the actual state in which
he had left his kitchen at 5.30 that morning. Stained coffee cups in the sink.
Stained sink. Rancid dishcloth somewhere near the sink. He recoiled from the
prospect of taking
anyone
back there, let alone this object of his desire called
Amélie Benoit.

“Well, today I am buying lunch
as promised,” Amélie said flippantly. “But a lunch that you will cook and serve
in your own kitchen. ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’, no?”

Chris looked forlornly at the
money; at her pretty cream-coloured hands.

“Fifty pounds?” he said. “Are
you serious? With wine?”

“Of course with wine! Good
wine!”

“So you mean we should go
Dutch? French-Dutch..?”

“Non,” she said again, with
delightful but determined poise. “I think you will have plenty money to buy
wine and food. I want you to cook your favourite meal from your childhood. The
meal perhaps your grandmother cooked for you when you were a little boy. It
might be a meal you don’t eat, or even talk about, today!”

She looked irrepressively
impish; and he wanted her more than ever. The waiter appeared at their table,
expecting payment for the drinks or an order for lunch.

“Amélie, I feel unprepared for
this, I’m not sure what you expect.”

“
Bon
,” she said, gathering her things
together. “Then we will both be surprised!”

Stood ready to leave, she
pinched his face between her fingers:

“Be passionate about your
cooking
today
,
if not every day. I would like to see your passion.”

She leaned into him and kissed
him hard on the mouth: a kiss that would have converted him to celibacy –
on the promise of more – for a virtual lifetime.

“Text me your address and let
me know when lunch is served.”

He watched her stride away from
the bar with a confident sway of her hips: her skirt spreading down from her
tiny waist in a wide circle of silky fabric that suggested to him an equal
refinement of soft skin beneath. The pain of sexual tension in his lower body
was almost enough to knock him back into his chair.

Chapter Six

The hiatus of a busy London day
roared in Chris’s head. Traffic horns blared; people streamed by with lunch
breaks on their minds and motivating their feet.

He sat at the table a while
longer; and recognised, without bitterness, that failure
was
an option for him. It wasn’t such a
bad life, not being an alpha male – or any other type of male that
frequented the first half of the alphabet. He didn’t have to rush around like a
hormone-enraged fool to make this woman want him. Surely he was more than half
way there already.

He should have ordered more
wine, champagne; plied her with the menu and then the suggestion of an
afternoon in bed. It would have been worth a try.

It would have failed.

He tucked the fifty pounds into
the breast pocket of his denim jacket and headed for the nearest open-air food
market, in South Kensington, forging a plan. He recoiled from the thought of
opening the door of his flat to the smell of his abandoned socks and foetid
pedal bin, so he phoned Sara.

“It doesn’t have to be a photo
shoot for
Ideal
Home
: just clean up a bit for me, and get rid of anything that might make
me look like a pervert. I’m kind of up against the clock. And open a window.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Sara
replied, cheerfully; and set about organising some industrious Eastern European
cleaners on her books to give Chris’s flat a quick once over.

His mind began to work like a
man on a mission. He marched around the market stalls that Friday lunchtime
conjuring the appetite of a boy who knew only the culinary limitations of an
upbringing in the Midlands in the 1970s. The boy he used to be. He warmed to
the task, as he began to appreciate what Amélie was striving for. A good chef
should be proud and respectful of his roots; and preserve them as the
foundation of his work! He grew excited as he began to formulate a menu: the
ingredients coming to mind as naturally as simply opening an old box from under
his bed and taking out the toys.

He bought butter, onions,
cheese. A jar of strawberry jam.

“Tidy up done,”
Sarah
texted.
“This
once, mind! You live like a pig.”

“Thanx, Sar. Owe u.”

“She’s French isn’t she? Remember that Tom
Robinson gig we went to when he sang Jacques Brel? You’ve got CD somewhere.”

“No need.
 
Making cornflake tart.”

“??”

“Have gd w/e w married man.”

Chris made a cheese sauce that the
purist would describe as
piquant
: although neither his mum nor his Granny Jean would have
used the term, of course. They would simply have said “it tastes better with a
pinch of mustard.” Powder, not paste.

He boiled two white-skinned
onions until he knew their layers would be silky sweet in texture and flavour.

He made shortcrust pastry. This
was one of his specialities, which you didn’t need a French education for! Just
quick, cool hands and ice-cold water for mixing. Plus practice: Tuesday
afternoons, usually, in the college kitchens. He baked his pastry case ‘blind’
and spread it with warmed jam. Across the top he arranged pastry twists and
sprinkled the jam with cornflakes and a little desiccated coconut.

He had chosen a red wine:
Italian, from the Puglia region. It was ripe and fruity; and recommended for
roasts and cheeses. He hoped it would hold out against the challenge of a
Cheddary sauce and a jam-based dessert.

He could almost hear the sound
of Peter’s bike clatter against the wall in the yard, agitating the bell on the
handlebars. He thought of his tea being ‘on its way’, with the remainder going
in the oven for their dad later. He was thinking of the rare occasions when his
mum was off her feet and his Granny Jean, a stout stalwart of her sex from
Warrington, was at the stove instead. (‘She has a leg on each corner’ Peter
would say, because she was bandy!) He could smell her hot cheese sauce that
would no doubt catch, and blacken the saucepan that would need an overnight
soak. He could taste nuclear jam on his tongue….

When Amelie was summoned to her
lunch appointment, she placed her tulips in a couple of milk bottles that the
cleaners must have washed up, as Chris was a stranger to the concept of a vase.

He served her a boiled onion in
a strong cheese sauce, accompanied by a small bowl of the boiling liquor,
seasoned with white pepper and a dash of balsamic vinegar. They drank the red
wine and ate slices of crumbly jam tart. He made black coffee to follow; and
had a bottle of Cava chilling in the refrigerator for what he hoped might be
‘afters’.

Amélie savoured every mouthful
with studious satisfaction.

“How did I do?” he asked
eventually.

Nodding, she said: “And there
would be no meat, or bread?”

“No meat. Maybe some bread. I
took a liberty with the balsamic, because I didn’t have any ordinary vinegar.”

“It was quite perfect,” said
Amélie, at last, meaning to infer a superlative. “I feel I am getting to know
you. I like it.”

They cleared their plates and
opened the Cava.

“Can I smoke one of your
cigarettes?” he asked.

In response, she leaned over
the display of tulips and kissed him, more gently this time. Her lips felt
swollen with red wine. He put his finger under her chin and secured her lower
lip, for a second or two, between his teeth.