The Love Letter (21 page)

There was a brief hush around them in the busy restaurant, broken only by a nearby diner dropping a fork with a loud clatter.

He raised a dark eyebrow, penetrating gaze not moving from her face.

If she blushed any more, the tablecloth would scorch, she realised. Her hypocrisy was tattooed across her hot face. ‘Conrad. The man I left Francis for. We’re still together. He’s very good for me.’

‘I don’t think you’d be here pouring your heart out about still loving your ex to me if that was true.’

At that moment, the paella arrived and was set down between them, swimming with saffron, garlic, snails and rabbit. Legs had to swallow hard to stop herself gagging. She’d drunk far too much wine and gorged on amuse-bouche, bread and asparagus while developing verbal diarrhoea. Her appetite for food and conversation was dwindling fast.

And now she was paranoid about the ambiguity of Byrne’s last comment. As she helped herself to a tiny ladleful of paella, she regarded him worriedly through the steam. Did he think she she was some nutty Ancient Mariner? Or did he think she was just a silly flirt, keeping her London lover amused during the week and returning to stir things up with her ex at weekends? Did he perhaps even think the fact she was sharing a table with him tonight meant she was after
him
? She deeply regretted sucking drunkenly on the asparagus spears now. He was really very annoying company, making her spill all her truths across the table like the contents of her handbag, revealing her untidy mind and intimate secrets.

He’s a food judge, she reminded herself. Aren’t they all horrible misogynists? She’d rarely managed to get through an entire A. A. Gill column without the desire to hurl china, particularly on the occasion he’d reduced Guy to tears of frustration by describing the Book Inn as a gimmicky gastropub with slush-pile credentials and pulp-fiction food. She owed it to her host tonight to up her game.

Byrne was staring moodily into the paella pot. It smelled delicious for all its witch’s brew ingredients. Worthy of several Michelin stars, Legs decided proudly. Didn’t Heston Blumenthal make snail porridge after all?

She drew breath and smiled winningly, determined to get back on course, softening him up for Guy and Nonny while making it clear that she was a committed girlfriend to Conrad.

‘I can assure you I am doing all this with my lover’s blessing,’
she said in a measured voice which she hoped sounded mature and level-headed, but to her ear was unpleasantly Theresa May.

‘You two work together in a literary agency, you say?’

He had a very sharp memory, she realised as she vaguely recalled blithering on about Conrad’s genius while waving a spear of asparagus about earlier. ‘Yes, I’m his assistant.’

‘Then the man’s no better than a pimp in my opinion.’

‘How dare you talk about Conrad like that!’ she huffed.

‘Married men who sleep with their PAs are all slimeballs. Does he get you to buy his wife’s Christmas presents?’

‘He’s separated!’

Several fellow diners were starting to look around at them again. Legs checked herself hard by cramming in a mouthful of paella. ‘Mmm – absolutely delicious. Better than any I’ve had in Spain, don’t you agree?’ She beamed across at him.

He politely tried a mouthful, nodding thoughtfully. ‘If I’d tasted the same paellas in Spain as you I might be qualified to judge.’

‘He really is terribly, terribly good,’ she gushed, conscious that Theresa May was morphing to Thatcher now. ‘I’ve never had better.’

‘Your lover?’ he was deliberately trying to wind her up.

‘No, Guy the chef.’ She licked her spoon, forgetting herself as food hedonism returned. It was absolutely delicious. She had another mouthful. If one forgot about the snail thing, it was ambrosia. ‘Guy’s brought so many visitors to the area, mostly to try his food. He’s been tipped as the next Rick Stein. Exceptional velvety depth.’ She smiled again, noticing that he was staring at her mouth. Thinking he was spellbound by her cupid lips, she pursed them winningly, only to find that she had several rice grains wedged between her teeth.

He was glowering at her again. ‘And he doesn’t mind you being in love with your ex?’

‘Guy doesn’t mind what anyone does as long as they eat, drink
and be merry here.’ She picked up her glass, smiling encouragingly as he ate the delectable paella.

He laid down his fork to focus the full kiln-mouth heat of his angry eyes upon her once more. ‘Does Conrad know you’re still in love with Francis Protheroe?’

Her smile wavered. ‘I didn’t say I was still in love with him, I said I might be. Can we not talk about Conrad any more? I want to talk about food and Farcombe and you – your interests, like your family here. Are they Irish too?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to discuss them. Besides, I asked
you
a question.’

Legs went to protest again, but didn’t quite know how to address him, so stopped short. It was only just dawning on her that she didn’t even know his first name. Having told him such intimate truths, even confessing about Heavenly Pony, it somehow seemed too late to try to find out, rather like asking a one-night stand what they were called the morning after.

She ate some more paella, grateful to feel it soak up some of the Rioja she’d swilled. He probably had no family nearby, she decided. That was just a well-worn line. He was a lonely Michelin man accustomed to getting single dining companions drunk and raiding their secrets. A lonely life on the road.

She now couldn’t remember what he had asked her, so bided her time masticating, devouring every complex corner of the flavour, increasingly convinced it was star-worthy.

‘Tell me about your boss and lover,’ he asked in that confidential, moreish voice.

‘He’s lovely.’

‘Goes with the territory – love, lover, lovely.’ He played with the assonance, exposing her banality.

‘He’s sexy, manly.’

‘Clever?’

‘Oh, yes. Hugely. He discovered Gordon Lapis.’

‘That a fact?’

‘He’s a genius.’

‘Lapis?’

‘Conrad. Well, both really, but Conrad’s easier socially. I doubt Gordon gets out much.’

‘You know Gordon Lapis well?’

She shook her head. ‘I love his books. They just lift up life when you’re reading them. But I share that intimacy with millions. And of course we all think we know him, but it’s Ptolemy we fall in love with, not Gordon.’

‘This would be Ptolemy Finch with the silent P?’

She nodded. ‘He’s such a perfect hero.’

‘Surely creation and creator are never that far apart?’

‘I’m not in a position to judge. I’ve never met Gordon. Nobody at the agency has apart from Conrad.’

Lucky old Conrad.’ He drained his wine glass and topped it up.

Legs covered her still-full glass as the wine bottle passed over. ‘Isn’t he just? I’d love to meet Gordon in person one day. Maybe he’ll come here,’ she mused idly, looking around at the dark beams and guttering candles. ‘Everybody loves it here.’

He laid down his fork, dark brows lifting.

She glanced over each shoulder and craned forwards, whispering. ‘Gordon might be speaking at the Farcombe festival this year.’

‘In disguise, I assume?’

She shook her head, eyes widening as she delighted in sharing a much more interesting secret than her ragged love-life. ‘He’s going to show his face at last.’

‘Wow.’ He reached for his wine glass and eyed her over it as he sank an inch of deep crimson Rioja, the embers igniting in the black coals of his eyes.

‘Wow indeed.’ Legs nodded eagerly, grateful they were on song at last.

‘And you like his stuff?’ he pulled a face, although whether this was a comment on the wine or the world’s bestselling author was unclear.

‘Love it.’ She smiled widely, eyes sparkling as she felt herself on safe ground at last. ‘Ptolemy Finch is such a glorious character. My nephew Nico is obsessed, and rightly so. He’s every kid in a way. He’s me and my mate Daisy at that age, and he’s
totally
Francis as a boy.’ Her eyes filled with tears as the safe ground fell away from beneath her feet. Damn that wine. She stuffed in some more paella hoping he hadn’t noticed as she rushed on: ‘I can’t wait for the next one. Conrad says it’s shit hot.’

‘Shit,’ he agreed, whirling the ladle in the delicious witches brew before helping them both to more of its steaming contents. ‘Hot.’

‘You don’t like the books?’

‘I think they’re formulaic,’ he said flatly.

‘As are Hollywood movies, soaps, magazines, newspapers. We devour formulas. This recipe is a formula.’ She waved a forkful of paella around. ‘It’s still divine. What makes it unique is the execution, not the formula. Ptolemy Finch is divine!’

‘And deserving of a fine execution.’ He refilled his wine glass.

Legs had managed to keep hers half full and again held her hand over the rim to resist more. ‘So what do you like to read?’

‘Faces.’ He stared unashamedly into hers.

Boy, was he unsettling. His expression was so critical, yet those dark eyes blazed with a lighthouse glow, steering her to safe harbour. She felt seasick.

‘Read any good ones lately?’

‘Just the usual trash.’ He drank more wine, turning the tables on their already head-spinning dinner.

Legs ran her tongue around her teeth, refusing to rise. She was almost past the finishing line. The paella dish was all but empty. He had to give the Book Inn the thumbs-up if she just stayed calm and engaged him in light, flirtatious conversation.

She tried to think up a charming, generous way to open him up and loosen his tongue. Then she remembered something that Conrad had asked her during her first job interview which had made her laugh. She’d relaxed then, in a way that he later told her
got her the job, making it hers no matter what her answer had been. ‘So tell me, er,’ she fudged past his missing Christian name, ‘if you were a biscuit, which one would it be?’

As soon as she asked it, she realised how silly it sounded. It was hard to believe she’d been so bowled over by Conrad posing it in the first place, although she supposed coming out of the mouth of a literary maverick lent it psychological gravitas and deep absurdity, whereas from her lips it was just inane.

He looked blank. ‘That’s a non sequitur.’

‘Is that a type of Italian cantucci?’ Trying to salvage the situation with a cheery joke just made it ten times worse.

He drained his glass and refilled it, clearly trying to anaesthetise himself against her one-liners with Rioja.

She reddened, mortification crawling all over her as she changed conversational tack with mounting desperation. ‘I saw you running earlier. I love a man who keeps fit. Do you do other sports?’

‘Free climbing.’

‘How thrilling. That must be so dangerous. Have you ever fallen?’

‘Never.’

‘How about in love?’

He looked at her levelly, not dignifying it with an answer.

‘With someone you shouldn’t have fallen in love with?’ she was almost singing now, Buzzcocks in her head.

‘Not lately.’

God, he was hard work.

The restaurant was crammed to the rafters. Despite being called from all sides, Nonny enveloped their table in fragranced exclusivity as she asked after the meal, patting Legs on the back before covertly signalling her with her eyes to hurry up. This was all far too subtle for squiffy Legs who raved a lot about the fantastic paella and was happy to acquiesce as Byrne asked for the pudding menu and requested more wine.

As Nonny wiggled seductively away, Legs noticed Byrne admiring her pert, tailored bottom.

‘Is there a Mrs Byrne?’ she asked, eager to charter a new course.

‘There are many, my grandmother among them.’ He drained his glass, tapping the edge of its base impatiently on the table as the full force of his eyes struck hers once more. ‘I think a marriage of true minds takes too much artificial intelligence for me.’ He fell gratefully on the arriving wine bottle and topped up his glass to the brim.

‘Maybe you’re waiting for a sublime cook?’ she suggested kindly, covering her own glass once more as he swung the bottle across to fill it.

‘I can cook for myself,’ he assured her.

‘Don’t you get lonely?’

‘I have plenty of company.’

‘Must be very forgiving company if you only cook for yourself,’ she mused. ‘Or do you have lots of friends on a diet?’

He shot her a withering look, then glanced up as Anton began to clear. ‘That was delicious. Chef is a talented man.’

‘I will pass on your compliments, sir.’

The empty paella dish and plates were spirited away by the deadpan head waiter, whose only betrayal of glee was joyfully clicking heels and sashaying his pert buttocks, which Legs admired all the way to the swinging kitchen doors, not caring that Byrne was watching her critically. Two could play at bottom-ogling, she decided. She knew that she was behaving atrociously tonight, infantile and indiscreet and self-indulgent in equal measure. He made for completely disorienting company, so full of insight and disapproval, as though he could see straight into her soul and found it wholly lacking.