‘Ah, oui. Merci, madame, merci beaucoup. And I completely agree with you about the manners.’ The maître d’ smiled, tilted his head at Flo and moved away. He hadn’t indiscreetly said the final sentence in English, of course; he’d still been speaking French.
And the look on Lena and Giles’s faces was gratifying.
‘Are you French?’ Lena was now staring at Flo in disbelief.
‘No.’
‘So how do you know how to speak it?’
‘I learned at school. Then learned a bit more at university.’
Lena looked as if she’d swallowed a hedgehog.
‘And what did you just say to that bloke?’
‘Nothing much, just told him everything was fine and how much we were enjoying our evening. The food’s great here. Such a brilliant chef . . .’
Giles was still watching her, clearly puzzling over where he knew her from. Flo turned back to Bridget, Annie and Mavis, and the waiter approached Lena and Giles’s table with their menus.
Only half listening, Flo heard him say to them, ‘I can recommend the mussels, which are excellent tonight and are cooked in either white wine and cream or a marinara sauce. And the soup of the day is cauliflower with toasted almonds.’
‘Ugh,’ said Lena, her mouth shrivelling in disgust. ‘That sounds awful, I can’t stand cauliflower. Cauliflower is rank.’
Such lovely diners. Honestly, this restaurant’s so lucky to have them.
Then Flo saw the expression on Giles’s pudgy face; he was frowning into his drink, lost in thought, his memory inadvertently nudged by the waiter into almost remembering what had been troubling him up until now.
‘Soup . . .’ Muttering the word, he raised his head.
‘Oh Jaaahls, don’t have the soup, just the smell of it’ll make me want to be sick!’
Almost there now. Flo readied herself. Finally Giles was staring directly at her once more, like a bull.
‘It was you,’ he said slowly. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? Who threw the soup at me.’
‘What?’ Lena put down her menu. ‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’
‘Yes.’ Flo nodded at Giles. ‘It was me.’
‘OK, I don’t know what’s going on here. When did she throw soup at you? Was this in another restaurant?’ Lena glared at Flo as if she might have had the temerity to be working as a waitress.
‘Not in a restaurant. Out in the street,’ said Giles. ‘I’d never seen her before in my life. She just turned into a complete madwoman and started yelling abuse at me. Next thing I knew, she’d ripped the lid off a can of soup and fucking chucked it all over me. Tomato, it was. My Dolce and Gabbana shirt was completely fucked. Five hundred quid, that shirt cost me.’
Flo raised her eyebrows. ‘You said four hundred last time.’
‘Are you serious?’ Her eyes out on stalks, Lena was quivering with outrage. ‘She just did that to you in the street for no reason at all? When did this happen? I hope you called the police and had her arrested.’ Shaking her head, she turned to Flo. ‘What are you, completely deranged? My God, and you’re living in our flat – it’s so unfair! If my grandmother had known what you were like, she’d never have let you move in!’
Luckily it wasn’t the kind of restaurant where all the diners suddenly fell silent; other conversations were carrying on and there was enough noise in the room to ensure they weren’t the centre of attention. Which made it possible for Flo to say evenly, ‘It happened a few weeks ago and I didn’t do it for no reason at all. There was a homeless man outside the pub and your friend here thought it would be amusing to stand in front of him burning a fifty-pound note.’
There, she’d said it. Lena deserved to know the ugly truth about her dining companion. So what if Giles was mortified at being publicly outed? He deserved it. And yes, Lena’s eyes were widening in disbelief and—
‘Bwahahahahaha, bloody funny.’ Spluttering into his drink, Giles grinned at Lena. ‘Always good for a laugh, that one. The old jokes are the best. Bloody funny . . .’
So much for being mortified. But surely by now even Lena would be ashamed of him.
Except she didn’t appear to be. The momentary flicker of dismay – a suggestion of actual humanity – had vanished, and she was now back to gazing adoringly at Giles, a smile playing on her lips. When he burst out laughing once more, she said brightly, ‘Oh, I know that one, Peregrine Hamilton-Carr did it the morning after the Blue Moon Ball . . . hilarious!’
‘I know, right?’ Giles rocked back in his chair, eyes streaming with mirth. ‘Comedy gold!’