Troy had to run halfway across the Green to catch up the chief.
‘You’re a fast mover, sir.’
‘I am when I want to get away from something.’ Barnaby approached the car with feelings of relief. ‘How does she ever hear herself think?’
‘They were only being friendly.’
Barnaby gave him a look to turn the milk. They got in the car. Troy switched on the ignition and tried to think of a conciliatory remark to jolly up their homeward journey.
‘Unusual name, Evadne Pleat.’
‘You think so?’ Barnaby could afford to sound superior. He was recalling the occasion, some years back, when he and Joyce had visited her brother in America. Colin, exchange teaching in California, was living in an apartment owned by a woman called Zorrest Milchmain. You had to get up early to beat that one.
Joyce was laying the table. A pretty blue-and-yellow Provençal cloth, honeysuckle in a tall crystal vase, narrow elegant wine glasses.
Everything except the soup (carrot and coriander) was cold tonight. Joyce had popped into Fortnum’s on her way to Marylebone station and had set out wild smoked salmon, steak and chestnut pie, artichoke hearts and Greek salad.
She had been to London for lunch at the National Theatre. Nico’s audition was at eleven thirty. Joyce and Cully met him in the Lyttelton foyer. They sat for a while listening to a flute, viola and piano trio playing a Fauré romance then went up to the Olivier restaurant where Joyce had booked a table.
Everyone had a glass of champagne because, although Nicolas wouldn’t know the results of the audition for at least another week, it had still been a wonderfully exciting day. He had auditioned for Trevor Nunn on the Jean Brodie set and was high as a kite simply on the strength of having stood on the same spot and walked the same boards as the greatest theatrical names of the century: Scofield and McKellan; Gielgud, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. This was the place where Ian Holm had played King Lear. Had Joyce seen Lear? It was the most breathtaking display of bravura . . . ohhh . . . heartrending . . . you just couldn’t believe . . .
Joyce smiled, content to let him run on. That was one of the comfortable things about actors. They were so easy. You were never short of a subject for conversation.
She watched Cully kiss her husband’s cheek, raise her glass, happy and excited. But having a daughter in the business had made Joyce sharply aware of the vagaries of the artist’s life. Up one minute, down the next. And she knew Nicolas, too, quite well enough to understand that by the evening doubts would gradually be breaking the surface of all this sparkling ebullience. Even now having just said that Trevor Nunn seemed really encouraging, he added, ‘Of course, seemed . . .’
Joyce looked out of the window at the sun glittering on the river and at London’s great iron bridges and sighed with pleasure. She had the gift of always knowing she was having a wonderful time while she was actually having it, not just in retrospect like so many people. It would be such fun telling Tom. When he came into the kitchen she was still lost in reverie.
‘I say!’ He was staring at the table. ‘This looks a bit of all right. What’s that?’ He pointed to a spectacular pudding.
‘Pear Charlotte. You can just have the pears.’
‘Where d’you get all this?’
‘Fortnum’s.’ Then, when her husband looked puzzled, ‘I’ve been to London.’
‘What for?’
‘Tom, honestly.’
‘Don’t remind me.’
‘I’m not going to.’
‘There’s some Chardonnay in the hall that would go a treat with this. D’you mind, love?’
When Joyce returned from the wine rack, a bottle of Glen Carlou in her hand, Barnaby said, ‘Nico’s audition.’
‘You looked at the calendar.’
‘Has he got in?’
‘I’ll tell you all about it over supper.’ She opened the wine. ‘The Gavestons cancelled, by the way.’
‘Jolly good. So . . .’ he waved his hand at the crystal and glasses and flowers. ‘What’s all this for?’
‘It’s for us.’ Joyce gave him a glass of wine and a brisk kiss on the cheek.
‘Mm.’ Barnaby drank deep. ‘Very nice. A cheeky little number with a warm undertow and a steely backbone. Reminds me of someone not a million miles away.’ He started to sing ‘The Air That I Breathe’ quietly, under his breath. It had been their song, years ago, played at their wedding. ‘ “If I could make a wish I think I’d pass . . .” ’
Joyce passed him a napkin.
‘Remember that, darling?’
‘What?’ She had started eating.