He looked across at Joyce but she was reading the menu. He studied his own and saw that neither boeuf bourguignon nor raspberry tart was available. Barnaby began to feel rather resentful. They were both classic French dishes. In a French bistro you’d think they’d be on offer.
‘They don’t have steak au poivre, Tom.’ Joyce was smiling at him across the table. She had slipped her high heels off and was rubbing the soles of her feet against her calves to warm them up.
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s what we had before,’ Joyce explained to the others. ‘And apricot tart.’
‘They still have that,’ said Cully.
Barnaby said nothing. He was realising that this whole idea, put forward by Nicolas and leapt at so enthusiastically by himself, had been a mistake. Joyce had been right to hesitate, himself wrong to dissuade her. The past was indeed another country where they did things differently.
He ordered onion and cream tart with green salad, red mullet wrapped in fennel and served with tiny potatoes and mange tout, and apples with Calvados. Joyce had the same. Cully and Nicolas had mushrooms à la Grecque, pork trotters with mustard sauce, haricots verts and pommes frites followed by pears with crème Chantilly. They drank Muscadet and Sandeman claret.
It wasn’t until they were halfway through the main course and conversation had almost petered out that Barnaby realised why. Cully and Nicolas were not talking about themselves. Apart from pleasantries about the food, assurances about what a nice time they were having and some polite inquiries from Cully to her dad as to how the garden was keeping, they had said next to nothing. Barnaby decided to gee things up a bit.
‘So, Nicolas. Have you heard anything about casting yet?’
‘Yes!’ cried Nicolas. ‘I’m playing Dolabella in Antony and Cleo. Cough and a spit. I’m not even on till—’
‘Nico.’ Cully glared at him.
‘Mm? Oh, yes - sorry.’
‘What?’ said Barnaby, looking from one to the other. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We’re not talking about ourselves,’ said Cully.
‘Why on earth not?’ Joyce stared at her daughter, amazed.
‘Because it’s your special evening. Yours and Dad’s.’
‘That’s right,’ said Nicolas, rather less firmly.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Joyce. ‘If all I was going to do was sit and talk to your father all night we might as well have stayed at home.’
‘You got that, Nicolas?’ asked Barnaby. ‘So let’s hear it for Dolabella.’
‘He’s also understudying Lepidus.’ Enthusiasm warmed Cully’s voice. ‘A much bigger part with some great lines.’
‘My favourite, Tom - very apropos, actually - is “’Tis not a time for private stomaching”.’
This rather contrived witticism went down a treat. Cully laughed, Nicolas laughed. Joyce, well into her third large glass of Muscadet, laughed so much she got hiccups. Barnaby, under cover of his nicely ironed napkin, looked at his watch.
Going home in the cab, more than a little what Jax would have called ‘swacked’, Barnaby reflected on the disappointing dullness of the day. Not that it was the day’s fault. Poor old day. What was it after all but an ordinary common or garden stretch of time that had had totally unrealistic expectations placed on it? No wonder it couldn’t come up to scratch.
Barnaby sighed and heard the wife of his bosom growl softly. Ran his finger round his tight collar to loosen it and noticed Joyce had taken her shoes off. He wished he could take his shoes off. And everything else come to that. Get into his old gardening trousers and a comfortable sweater. Still, look on the bright side - it would soon be Sunday morning. He was allowed bacon and egg on Sunday.
The other three were still chatting away. Barnaby was pleased but surprised when Joyce had explained that Cully and Nicolas were coming home with them and sleeping over. They had not done that for a couple of years - the last time being when they were between flats with their stuff in storage and a six-week wait for their new place to become empty.
It was gone midnight when the cab pulled up at 17 Arbury Crescent. Twelve fifteen on Sunday, 13 September. The actual date. A second chance, as it were, to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Perhaps because of the wine, perhaps because of a sudden rush of memory, a concentrated longing to turn the moment round and maybe even transform it, possessed Barnaby. He reached out and touched his wife’s arm.
‘I just wanted to say—’
But she was talking to Nicolas. He was paying for the cab and needed extra change for the tip. Barnaby fumbled in his pocket saying, ‘I’ve got that.’