‘Most of the members here lead highly stressed lives.’ Pierre slowed down and looked at her unruly blonde head. ‘This is their sanctuary. The last thing they need are people turning up unexpectedly because they need to discuss a work-related matter.’
‘And would you say that’s a frequent occurrence? Something that warrants an army of blonde clones baring their teeth at anyone they don’t recognise?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Pierre murmured, omitting to mention that she would probably have received less short shrift if she hadn’t been wearing an assortment of clothes that frankly bordered on the eccentric. Odd-looking flat suede boots that were thickly fur lined, thick black tights, a black poncho type coat and something very red beneath it, heaven only knew what.
They had reached the café and Georgie paused to take it in. There were cafés and then there were, obviously, cafés for the super rich in private elitist surroundings. Certainly the café at the local gym near her, which she had been to all of three times, was a lively, usually packed, ‘queue up for your mug of coffee or bottle’ of water type affair. This was in a different league altogether.#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much black leather outside a furniture shop,’ she announced, openly staring. There were only a handful of people in the vast sitting area and all of them were reading newspapers.
‘What do you want to drink? Tea? Coffee?’
‘Tea, I guess.’
‘Only healthy stuff here, I have to warn you. So think fruit teas or Darjeeling.’
A few minutes later and Georgie was sitting in front of a cup of aromatic tea, which, she suspected, would taste like dishwater.
‘Right. Now are you going to tell me the purpose of your visit here, Georgie? What did you mean that my mother is well-ish? If there’s any health problem at all, then I don’t intend to sit here and play guessing games with you about it.’ Pierre sipped some of his coffee and looked at her coolly over the rim of his cup.
Now she was divested of her artistic poncho, he could see that the glimpse of red was, in fact, a brightly patterned jumper of which red was but one of the primary colours.
‘Has someone gone mad with a paintbrush on your jumper?’ he found himself asking, and Georgie beamed and looked proudly down at herself.
‘As a matter of fact, several little people went completely mad with paintbrushes and this is the result. Christmas present from the class last year. If you look closely you’ll see that the splashes are, in fact, four-year-old renditions of themselves all overlapping one another and everyone’s written their name under their pictures. Adorable, isn’t it?’
Pierre grunted. ‘Unusual. You were telling me about my mother.’
‘She’s fine.’ Georgie tried some of the tea but after one sip she hurriedly returned the cup to its saucer.
This, strangely enough considering she had known Pierre for so many years, was the first time she was actually having a one to one conversation with him in private. Usually, on the occasions they had met in the past, they had been surrounded by mutual friends, family and acquaintances, and over the past few years even those accidental meetings had petered out. Once his father had died, Didi had lost interest in the big parties they had become famed for throwing.
Now Georgie was noticing things about him that had not been apparent. He was as arrogant as she remembered, naturally, but there was also a watchfulness about him, as if nothing, not one little stray word or movement, was going unnoticed. It made her nervous and she had to stop herself from fiddling with her cup or playing with her hair.
It was obvious from his silence that he was waiting for her to carry on. Silence, she imagined, was a quality he would have found useful.
‘After that minor stroke she had earlier in the year…Didi’s just not been the same.’
Pierre frowned. ‘The consultant informed me that she would make a full recovery and I needn’t remind you that he was the top guy in his field.’
‘She has made a full recovery…’
‘Then where are we going with this?’ Pierre glanced at his watch. As always he was running on a very tight schedule. He still had some important emails to send off the minute he returned to his apartment and tonight he was seeing Jennifer. After a fortnight of trying to work around their packed agendas, they had finally managed to fix up a dinner date in between their work commitments.
‘Sorry, am I keeping you from something?’ Georgie enquired coldly.
‘I might have been able to spare you more time, Georgie, if you had given me some advance notice…Believe it or not, I lead a pretty busy life here.’