13
Elegantly Wasted
It wasn’t a restaurant I’d been to before, or even heard of. It was an upmarket French brasserie called En Grande Tenue and the people going in and out looked moneyed and swanky.
Guarding the entrance was a doorman, but we must have looked moneyed (Nick) and swanky (me) because he nodded us through.
My heart sank when I saw we needed to go down into another basement. Did Jess choose these places on purpose? The reception area was dimly lit, the walls lined with red velvet, topped by a low ceiling. The inside of my mouth was as parched as sandpaper, but I tried to swallow the panic down.
Then Nick’s hand brushed my elbow, guiding me towards a door, and we emerged into a broad corridor, flanked by a cloakroom. It was brighter here, but reeked of incense and almost shook from the thud of music, which seemed to just be a bass-line.
The woman at the maitre d’s desk gave us a glossy smile. ‘Bonsoir madame, monsieur.’
Nick fired off some rapid French.
I blinked. My FrenchGCSEfelt like an age ago, but I remembered enough to be able to tell that Nick soundedproperlyFrench. I mean, I knew he spoke all these languages, but he sounded native, not just fluent.
He spoke again, this time more slowly. ‘Nous avons une réservation au nom de...’ He turned to me expectantly.
Sorry, was I supposed to join in?‘Erm, Simon Bax-tair.’
The hostess checked her list, then nodded and asked us to follow her. It was weird – Nick’s vowels had always suggested minor public school, but I was suddenly curious about his upbringing.
‘Where did you go to school?’ I asked, as we were led through an archway painted in gold leaf.
Nick paused momentarily, nearly causing a waiter to go into the back of him. ‘I went to an international school near Nice.’ He sounded stiff, but then he seemed to relax. ‘Lessons were in French and English – some Italian and Spanish too. I can teach you all the cool swear words if you like.’
The conversation stopped as we entered a huge dining room. Mapped around us were at least a hundred tables, all draped with white tablecloths that reached the marble floor. Piercing the din of voices was the chime of cutlery and the chink of glasses.
Even from twenty metres away, I could see Simon and Jess sitting side by side, their heads bowed deep in conversation, oblivious to the world.
Simon was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His face lit up when he spotted me and my stomach did a little flip.
‘Frixie, you made it!’
Jess was sitting next to him, still dressed in her stage gear. Another off-the-shoulder top, this time in red. When she leant forward to shake our hands, a silver pendant necklace swung against her cleavage.
I made the introductions. Neither Jess nor Simon asked any questions as to how I knew Nick or what he did for a living. They took my ‘This is Nick’ as a simple statement of fact and moved on to other things.
‘Are you okay, Jess?’ I asked, mainly because it was the polite thing to say.
‘I’m grand, petal,’ she said. She looked fine – no trace of nerves. Her eyes were a little unfocused, but that was probably down to a couple of drinks.
‘Could you not go through with the gig?’
Out of Jess’s eye-line Simon frantically started to shake his head.
It appeared that Jess’s stage fright was not something he should have shared with me.
She scrunched up her face. ‘They’d sold a grand total of seventeen tickets. I’m not going to play an empty club.’
I nodded sympathetically, hoping she hadn’t noticed my gaffe. Her tipsiness probably worked in my favour.
‘We’ve just ordered a bottle of wine,’ said Simon. He poured a glass for me, but Nick declined.
‘Nick must prefer the hard stuff,’ said Jess. ‘And I don’t blame him. Tequila would be excellent right now.’
‘I’ll stick to mineral water,’ he replied.
