Well . . .’
‘This is really most unlike you, Jude. Look, OK, we both know what I did, but I can assure you I’m not about to do it again.’
‘No.’
And my staying here with you – for which I am more grateful than I can say – well, it’s not going to work if you’re constantly afraid of letting me out of your sight.’
‘No. Right. I accept that.’
‘Good. Off you go.’ With a surprisingly sudden movement, Gita reached for her handbag. ‘Ooh, there is something I want you to get at the shops.’ She handed across a twenty-pound note. ‘Convert that into Chilean Chardonnay, will you? My contribution to the Woodside Cottage domestic economy.’
As she took the money, Jude grinned. ‘Thanks, Gita.’
Carole got the feeling that a lot of thought had gone into the choice of restaurant for her encounter with the Martins. It was pricey – probably Stephen’s input – but reassuringly homely. Gaby wouldn’t want her parents fazed by menus they might need to have explained to them, by flamboyant waiters or an over-trendy clientele. So she’d homed in on a restaurant that specialized in traditional English cooking for traditional English people who wouldn’t respond well to it being called traditional English cuisine. So traditionally English was the food that many of the customers were Japanese and American tourists, under the illusion that their Burberry and Dunhill disguises would let them pass for the real thing. But it was the perfect venue for those in search of such delicacies as potted shrimps, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pie and bread-and-butter pudding.
As predicted, Stephen was not there, but Gaby was already installed, sitting between her parents, when Carole was led across to the table. Marie and Howard Martin could not have been less alike. She was a tiny, birdlike woman, whose tight, greying curls accentuated her resemblance to Gaby. Thick glasses and vague, blinking eyes indicated extreme myopia.
Her husband, by contrast, was huge, not fat, but very tall with a bulky body and gunmetal hair slicked back almost in the brilliantined style of the late forties. He looked like an old black-and-white photograph of a former boxer, and when he rose to greet Carole, he towered over everyone else in the room. He was a lot older than his wife, perhaps as much as eighty, and he had bulky hearing aids in both ears. Marie herself looked so washed out it was difficult to fix her age with any certainty. Still, given the fact that Gaby must be round the thirty mark, her mother couldn’t be less than fifty. Might even be my age, thought Carole.
Howard Martin did not carry with him the assertiveness that might be assumed to go with his size. In fact, both he and his wife seemed paralytically nervous. Carole was nervous too, but she liked to think she wasn’t showing it as much as they were.
Gaby was maintaining a professional front, but she couldn’t hide her own unease. Her body language was taut and jumpy. She sat awkwardly on the edge of her seat. When she’d rung Jude she’d claimed her back was better, but Carole reckoned the problem had now returned with a vengeance.
As soon as they were all seated, Gaby suggested drinks. The situation needed an injection of some relaxant, and alcohol was traditionally the most reliable ice-breaker.
But ordering drinks did not ease the atmosphere. Marie Martin said all she really felt like was mineral water, and Howard agreed, ‘Yes, I could go along with that.’ But Gaby wasn’t satisfied. She was going to give them a slap-up lunch, whether they liked it or not. ‘No, we’ll have some wine.’
‘Well, I won’t,’ said her mother, with self-effacing firmness.
‘You prefer white, don’t you, Carole?’ asked Gaby as she perused the wine list.
‘Yes, but if I’m the only one, I’m very happy with mineral—’
‘I’m drinking too,’ Gaby announced firmly. ‘And Dad’ll probably have a glass or two when the bottle’s actually here.’
‘I might at that,’ Howard Martin conceded.
Gaby attracted a waiter’s attention with practised ease. Her job as an actors’ agent involved a lot of professional lunching, so she knew her way around restaurants. Her familiarity with the milieu seemed only to point up the discomfort of her parents. And yet why were they so ill at ease? Marie was half-French. They spent their Augusts in France. Surely they should be used to eating out? Still, Carole wasn’t about to get answers to those questions. On with the social niceties.
‘Well, I must tell both of you how delighted I am about the engagement.’
‘Oh yes, we’re very pleased too.’ Marie Martin spoke cautiously, as if in danger of using the wrong word. ‘It’s very good news.’
‘Very good news,’ her husband agreed.
And that seemed to be it. Neither had anything further to add, so Carole, forced to be more than naturally fulsome, went on, ‘No, I’m so pleased for Stephen – that he was lucky enough to meet Gaby.’
‘Yes,’ Marie agreed, and Howard nodded. Carole decided that their hesitancy had nothing to do with disapproval of the proposed union. The Martins just weren’t people who were used to expressing their emotional reactions.
‘The fourteenth of September doesn’t seem far away now, does it?’
This elicited no response, but fortunately Gaby came to the rescue. ‘No, and there’s still so much to do.’
Marie seemed to take this as a cue. Hesitantly, and blushing furiously, she began. ‘I would like to apologize, Carole, that Howard and I haven’t offered to do more in making the arrangements for the wedding.’ The way she spoke suggested that she was embarking on a prepared speech.
Carole was embarrassed at the prospect of hearing more of it. ‘Not a problem,’ she said. ‘Stephen and Gaby have explained everything to me. Quite honestly, at their age, it makes much more sense that they should do it all themselves. Then they can have exactly the kind of day they want.’
Marie seemed not to hear this, but pressed on with her text. ‘The fact is, we’re not very good at public events. We tend to keep ourselves to ourselves very much. It’s not something we’re proud of, but that’s the way we are. So we thought it better that I should explain that to you now, so’s we don’t get off on the wrong foot.’ That was the end of her speech. To emphasize the point, she said, ‘That’s all.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Carole reiterated. Making the statement had been such agony for Marie that it had been agony for her too. The conversation needed to be moved on as quickly as was humanly possible.
Gaby came to the immediate rescue with the menu, and some time was spent choosing what to eat. Her mother insisted that she ‘didn’t want much, not a big eater at lunchtime.’ This was true of Carole too, but, seeing how determined Gaby was to make the meal an event, she ordered much more lavishly than she normally would. Chef’s pâté, followed by Dover sole. Gaby ordered two courses as well, and Howard was persuaded to go for a prawn cocktail before his prime sirloin of beef. But his wife wouldn’t be shifted from her decision to have ‘just a cheese omelette – and I probably won’t eat all of that.’
The ordering had used up only a few minutes, and the lunch yawned ahead of Carole. Marie and Howard didn’t seem about to offer any further topics for discussion, and in their presence Gaby too was uncharacteristically subdued. Carole realized that, unless the meal was to pass in total silence, she was going to have to take on the role of conversational initiator.
‘Now, I’m sorry to say,’ she began boldly, ‘that I know almost nothing about you. Just that you live in Harlow . . .’
‘Yes, we do,’ Marie agreed. ‘Very nice and quiet, Harlow.’
Howard