Chapter 12 #4
A man at the counter turns at the sound of the doorbell and gives a shout of welcome that startles me. He takes two steps forward and drags Mac into a hug, talking all the time in rapid French while I observe them interestedly.
Mac returns the hug and then steps neatly back.
“This is Wes,” he says, pushing me forward with a hand at my back.
I smile politely at the giant of a man. He has long, messy black hair and very warm brown eyes.
“Wes can’t speak French,” Mac adds and then shrugs.
“He barely manages English if we’re being completely honest.”
“ Hey ,” I say crossly, and he laughs.
The man stares at him, looking almost surprised. Then he smiles at me, and it’s so kind that I relax. “I am Claude. Nice to meet you, Wes.” He turns back to Mac. “How are you, my friend? Are you here for a while?”
Mac shakes his head. “Just for today. You know how it is.”
Claude’s face is wry. “I do, indeed.” He gathers two menus from the counter and turns back to Mac. “You never call. You never write. I am mortified, yes?”
“Erm, no.” The giant laughs, and Mac shrugs. “I have been busy.”
“Hmm,” Claude says, shooting me a look I pretend not to see. “Well, come and sit down. You shall have the best seats in the house.” He winks at me. “He should do, seeing as he owns half the business.”
“Does he?” I turn to Mac, who immediately grimaces.
“No nosiness, please, until I have a few bottles of wine inside me. I’m begging you,” he says to Claude. “Don’t give Wes any room to ask a question, because he’ll immediately ask a thousand.”
“I’m not that bad,” I say indignantly.
Claude laughs, but I don’t miss the curious look he sends Mac and extends to me.
We end up sitting at a table looking out on the square. It glistens in the rain, the cobbles gleaming and the storm giving everything a misty, pearlescent sheen that looks almost magical. The restaurants are already filling with people, and the signs look neon against the gloomy sky.
“So pretty.” I sigh.
“Yes, you are,” Mac says, and I turn to find him watching me, his menu abandoned and his eyes dark. I flush with pleasure and then shake my head, making him smile. “Do you trust me to order for you?”
“Of course.” I look at the menu and then place it back on the table. “I’ve got a GCSE in French but can’t read or speak it.”
He blinks. “How did you pass it, then?”
“Well, I memorised a few paragraphs that have turned out to be a bit niche in social situations. If you need me to tell someone that my grandmother’s elephant is in the kitchen, I’m your man. For anything else, not so much.”
He laughs loudly, his eyes creasing in amusement.
Claude, who’s coming towards us to take our order, stops dead for a second, staring at Mac in an arrested manner.
He shoots me an inscrutable look, and I shrug.
By the time Mac sobers, Claude is at our side, and the two of them launch into very fast-paced French, pointing at items on the menu.
Claude finally leaves, and silence falls. It’s not awkward, but it’s strangely heavy. I fiddle with the napkins and my drink, taking a sip of the wine that Mac pours me. It’s heavy on my tongue, and I lick my lips.
I want to ask him many questions, but I’m unsure where to begin.
He shoots me a look as he takes a sip of wine. “Oh dear. I can almost hear your brain ticking. It’s painful.”
“Oh, shut up.” That makes him give another laugh. “I just have so many questions,” I confide, leaning closer over the table. “I know we covered lots of small bits today.”
“That process seemed to take up a large part of my life.”
“I can’t think of where to start with the bigger stuff, because I want to get them all out before you raise the drawbridge.”
“Do I do that?”
“You pull it up like a medieval knight protecting a castle.” He’d make a good knight, I muse. He has a face that belongs in a medieval drawing—withdrawn and serene.
He sits back. “Go ahead, then,” he says wearily.
“And you’ll let me ask all of them?” I check.
“Until I grow bored or die. Whichever situation blesses me first.” His mouth curves and for a moment I’m lost in how handsome he is, his hair curling in damp waves and his thin cheeks flushed with the heat, making his eyes look very blue.
“You’re so funny.” I rally. I have information to gather. “Okay.” I think hard. “You own half of this restaurant.”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“Can’t it be both? So, how do you know Claude?”
His eyes twinkle. “That’s two questions.”
“There’s a limit now?” I say crossly.
He chuckles and refills our glasses. I didn’t realise I’d drained the first one. I’m going to go carefully because the mystery that is Mac is lightening in front of my eyes. Like fog eddying and revealing vague shapes.
“Okay,” he says. “Claude has been a friend since I was a small boy. He has a lovely family who were very good to me.”
Very good to me. I consider this and the way he’s said it. As though it wasn’t a frequent thing to have good things happen to him. I open my mouth to ask about this, but immediately reconsider. I’m nosy, but I’m not cruel. If he doesn’t want to elaborate, that’s his business.
“Which university did you go to?”
He raises his eyebrows, as if he’d expected a different question. “The Sorbonne.”
“Oh my god. What did you study? Was it nice? Was it as glamorous as the films and books make it out to be?”
“You do seem to specialise in questioning in bulk.”
“I have to get them all out before you change your mind.”
He shrugs. “I studied History of Art. I suppose it was glamorous, but I didn’t notice. It was a university with all the bad and good that the word entails.”
“What did you want to do when you left university?”
He runs his finger down the wine bottle, making tracks in the condensation. His expression is very distant. “I wanted to be an artist, but I was absolutely terrible. I still loved the art world, so I considered curating at a museum or owning a gallery.”
I can see him in those jobs. He observes things carefully and has a sharp mind for detail. I’m familiar with how passionate he can be, although that’s all been in the bedroom. Still, his choice of degree is very understandable. “But instead, you run your godfather’s business?”
“Yes. I swapped art for capitalism.”
“Do you regret it?”
I hold my breath because that was a bit too personal. Is he going to shut this down? To my surprise, he just shakes his head and answers me. “No. Louis was very good to me in his own way. This is my way of paying the debt.”
I’m not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing, but just as I open my mouth to ask, he says rather diffidently, “What subject did you take at university?”
“I’m sorry. Did you just ask me a question ?” I say in mock astonishment.
“I’m just having a brief rest from your thumbscrews.”
I laugh. “I took accountancy.”
There’s a brief, stunned silence. “I beg your pardon?”
“Accountancy,” I say slowly, lingering over the consonants and talking in an overly loud voice.
“Oh, shut up.” I snort, and he shakes his head. “That is the last degree I would have expected.”
“Didn’t you notice when you cleaned away all my papers and textbooks?”
“No, I just stacked everything neatly. I was too busy being appalled at your eating habits and the fact that you had consumed enough energy drinks to power a nuclear reactor.” He takes a sip of his wine.
“So, what would you have thought I’d taken?”
“A BA in idiocy.”
“Try again.”
He shrugs. “I’m not sure. Maybe teacher training.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re very bossy but still caring.”
I sit back in my chair. “Not that caring. I couldn’t teach. No, I like figures.”
“Why?”
The waiter comes over with our first course, and my stomach rumbles. “What’s this?” I ask.
“Seared scallops with an orange beurre blanc.”
“Yummy.” The next few minutes are spent unwrapping cutlery and eating. The first bite of a scallop makes me groan. “Wow.”
“Good?” he says huskily, and when I look up, his eyes are on my mouth. I lick my lips, and he shudders before visibly calming himself. “Why accountancy?”
“Goodness, you appear to have hijacked my question session.”
“Let’s call a spade a spade. It was an interrogation.”
I laugh and then sober. “Numbers make sense. That probably sounds silly, but in a world that sometimes feels like it’s running mad, numbers have strict rules and never deviate.” I smile crookedly at him. “You didn’t expect that, did you?”
“Wes, you constantly surprise me. This was just another example.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know,” he says, staring at me.
“Anyway, I was helping my mum balance the household budget by the time I was ten. It was a natural profession for me.”
He signals the waiter for another bottle of wine. We resume eating and I look at him. “Okay, next question. When did you know you were gay?”
He considers that. “I think I always knew, but it was confirmed in my teens when I realised that what made my breath come short and me hard was other men and not girls.”
“Did your godfather mind?”
He hesitates. “No, he wasn’t bothered,” he finally says almost awkwardly.
“My mum didn’t,” I say quickly. “I was very lucky. My mum loved us fiercely, and that made no difference to her. It’s probably just as well, because I didn’t know my dad, and from what she said of him, I probably dodged a bullet.”
“You didn’t know your father?”
I sit back, smiling my thanks to the waiter as he removes our plates. “No, he ran off when I was born. He was in a band and thought we’d cramp his style. My mum sure could pick them. My brother Tyler’s dad was married. Another one who didn’t want her.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice is quiet.
I shake my head and smile determinedly at him.
“It doesn’t matter. Really. The three of us were strong together.”
“Were?”
“My mum died when I was twelve.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too. I think you’d have liked her. She was funny and kind and a bit scatty. She drew people to her wherever she went.”
“Like you.”