Chapter 21
I leave Archie to the shopping whilst I focus on readying the apartment; I figure that if I can at least control the ambience of the evening then we might all be able to get out of this relatively unscathed.
I pull the table away from the wall so that it can almost comfortably seat four people and then rummage around in the armoire for four placemats and plates that are at least roughly the same size.
The one thing this place has in abundance is wine glasses; yes, not a single two match but once I have given up on uniformity a sort of unique charm settles over the table.
I add my mint and basil plants in place of actual flowers, fold up some linen napkins and when Archie comes back into the room laden with bags from the supermarket, he looks suitably impressed.
‘Wow, Avie, looks great.’ He pecks me on the cheek.
‘I just wish you’d maybe asked me before inviting the others. I had hoped for a repeat of last night… and the night before.’
Archie starts to unload the shopping onto the counter. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think they would actually say yes, I got the distinct impression that he wasn’t my biggest fan.’
I light the candles. ‘He was in a bad mood.’ I don’t know why I’m leaping to his defence. He was in a bad mood; more than that, he had been a bit of a prick, and yet here I am, telling Archie that he’s imagining it.
‘He did invite us, didn’t he?’ Archie stares into the fridge for a little too long. ‘Well, I guess he invited you, he didn’t know I was here.’
I feel a coolness settle over me. ‘Your point?’
Archie turns round, frowning. ‘He wasn’t in a shit mood because I came, was he?’
I laugh. Well, I guess it’s more of a manic cackle.
‘Don’t be silly.’ I trim a rotting leaf from the basil.
‘Besides, he bought Inés.’ I bring the water jug over to the sink, aware of how flat my voice sounds and I hope that Archie isn’t astute enough to notice.
Florian had bought another woman, a woman who’s beautiful and lovely and uncomplicated.
And the fact he hasn’t even mentioned that he’s been seeing her, or bought her up in conversation makes me so pointlessly angry because haven’t I done exactly the same thing with Archie?
‘I guess.’ He throws an onion in the air and catches it behind his back with a slick movement.
‘Well look at you.’ I wind my arms around his neck, kiss the exposed skin around his collar. ‘What a talent.’
‘You’re a lucky girl.’
‘Hmm.’
He pretends to look a little bruised at my lack of affirmation but gets distracted by the radio that I had recently discovered doubled up as a cassette player.
‘Hey, this is a good song!’ After reminding myself how a cassette actually worked (with some help from Google) we now had three albums we could play on demand.
Two were French – Serge Gainsbourg of course, and Francois Hardy – the final, slightly more worn, tape was one I recognised from my mum’s collection, Tapestry by Carole King.
As the music had started up, I felt the whole album came back to me, song by song, until I am eight again and sitting in her car as she drives me to school, singing at the top of her lungs.
‘Maybe we should…’ He starts to sway me from side to side; I protest, try to pull away, but he clamps on to me harder until he starts to spin me around and we’re laughing, really laughing, and it feels so bloody good to not have another evening eating dinner on my own.
We are interrupted by the buzzer.
‘Just drink through the socialisation.’ Archie refills my glass and sends me off to let our guests in.
‘Hi.’ I hover awkwardly at the apartment door before Florian quickly launches into his precise greeting. I think we could be active enemies and still we would be polite enough to kiss each other’s cheeks.
‘Evening.’ He manages an emotionless smile.
‘Ava, bonsoir!’ Inés bombards me with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine.
She looks beautiful, wearing a little pinafore dress, her grown-out bob pinned back with a bow.
Her angular features making her look like something out of a 1960s fashion magazine.
Florian, in his familiar jeans and plaid jacket combination, looks so plain in comparison it’s as if they exist on entirely different planets.
‘It is so beautiful here.’ Inés parades around the space, taking in the books, the view, the table.
‘Don’t you just love exploring places you never even knew existed?
’ She smiles at Florian who nods quickly and then turns to the counter where Archie is now cooking something with a worrying number of pans.
I stall, wondering whether I need to be there to play referee or to just make sure Florian behaves, but Archie laughs.
It’s his real laugh, his shoulders sort of tremble with it, and then Florian looks a little more animated, talking in more than just monosyllables.
‘Florian says you’re only here for a month.’ Inés jolts me back into reality, her fingers brushing through the volumes on the bookshelves.
‘I was, only about a week left now.’
‘That’s a shame. It’s nice to have some younger people around the place.’
I perch on the arm of the sofa watching her take in my home. ‘Are you from here, I don’t remember you before?’
‘My grandmother lives here. She needed a bit of help and I needed a job so we kind of decided that I should come and stay with her for a while, work in a couple of the cafés, earn some money and then travel.’
‘We as in Florian?’ I gesture to him in the kitchen. He’s examining one of the little paintings on the tiling.
‘Florian?’ she asks, her face screwed up in confusion. ‘No, my parents. My family are from Bordeaux. My father’s a teacher at the university – he put me in touch with Florian as a bit of company. I help them out at the café when things are busy.’
‘So, you and Florian, you’re not…’
‘Not what?’ she asks; clearly the language barrier extends to unspoken assumptions.
‘You know… together?’
‘Me and Florian?’ She laughs at me, a loud, enthusiastic laugh. ‘God no, he’s old enough to be my dad… well almost.’
‘Sorry, I just thought, when you turned up earlier.’
‘I was as surprised as you were. He came into the bar yesterday lunchtime. He was in one of his moods.’
‘His moods?’
‘Oh you know, where he goes all quiet and serious. Something must have pissed him off, you know. Anyway, he stayed till the evening, and then before he went, he just kind of told me I was coming to the lake today. I wasn’t going to say no, it’s nice to do something different.
This place starts to feel as if the walls are closing in at times.
’ I fixate on her description of Florian and his mood, the mood that started after he walked in on me dancing in my underwear with Archie in the next room.
Inés shrugs. ‘So no, just friends, and barely that. You have nothing to worry about.’ I notice how she takes me in then, our eyes meeting as if we are sharing some secret. I wonder if Florian has told her about the other night; I don’t know why he would but still, I feel exposed.
‘Oh, I’m not worried.’ I shake my head and clutch my glass a little tighter to my chest.
‘He’s nice.’ I look as she gestures to the kitchen. The two men have found a common purpose: Archie has his back to us, tending to a frying pan on the stove, Florian now has his head down in concentration, chopping up vegetables and depositing them in a salad bowl.
‘Who?’
Inés tuts, ‘Archie!’
‘Oh, sorry! Yes, he’s great.’
Archie announces that the food is ready; he calls us to our seats and instructs me to get another bottle out for dinner. I struggle with the cork until Florian rescues it from my grasp with a shake of his head.
Florian goes to sit as far away from me as possible but Archie points at the seat opposite me instead.
‘Sit there, thought couples next to each other and all that.’ I wince at the word, watch Florian’s eyes flutter to mine for the briefest moment before fixing back onto his plate.
Archie places a platter of chicken in brandy sauce on the table, followed swiftly by potatoes, the salad and a basket of bread.
We all thank Archie for his efforts who bats them away humbly.
As we start to eat, we descend into a hungry silence, only the sounds of cutlery on plates and wine glasses refilling occupy the table. I do my best to keep my eyes on the plate, to not let them wander to the figure opposite.
‘Ava says your exhibition was good the other day,’ Archie breaks the silence; I have come to the realisation that he will always find the need to fill a gap in a conversation.
‘Yeah, there was a big crowd, makes a change. We normally have to beg people to come, that or invite the schools and then it just turns into a glorified nursery for teenagers who would rather be anywhere else.’ Florian skewers a potato onto his fork.
‘Are you working on anything else at the moment?’ The piece of chicken turns to gristle in my mouth.
I think of the sculpture sitting in Florian’s studio, think of the counter that we both sat on, think of the way his skin felt under my fingers, how cold and unyielding his lips were.
No matter how much I concentrate on chewing down the clod of chicken in my mouth, it won’t give up; it catches in my throat.
I splutter and cough until I can feel all eyes on me.
Archie pounds on my back and I grab the napkin and deposit the contents of my mouth into it.
When I look up through watery eyes, Florian shoots me an incredulous look that I know translates to something close to, ‘Wow, doing a really good job of playing it cool.’
‘Easy, babe,’ Archie laughs as he fills up my water glass but I bypass it in favour of the wine instead. I rest my cutlery on the plate and hope he doesn’t take offence that my appetite has immediately vanished.