“This is a gap in my provisions which I intend to address at the earliest opportunity. In the meantime…” Vidal set the honey down and turned the full beam of his attention on Beauchamp. “Your robe.”
“My — sir, no.”
“Beauchamp. Go and fetch your robe, please.”
“Sir, it’s a dressing gown. It’s not built for picnics.”
“It’s flannel. It’s the approximate shape of a small rug. Go and fetch it.”
Beauchamp took the dressing gown off the hook on the back of his door and folded it once over his arm. When he came back into the kitchen, Vidal had packed everything into a laundry hamper, and had added a bottle of Albariño and three wine glasses to the top.
“It’s nine in the morning, sir.”
“It’s nine in the morning on aSaturday, Beauchamp, which is the correct hour for wine in every serious country on earth. Come.”
He started down the corridor without waiting to see whether Beauchamp was following. Beauchamp fell in a half-step behind, his free hand near the hamper in case Vidal lost his grip.
They reached the landing. Vidal shifted the hamper into the crook of his elbow, freeing his right hand, and without breaking stride turned to the door of Connor’s flat and hammered on it with the side of his fist.
“GARDEN!”
The word rang down the stairwell and bounced back off the wrought-iron cage of the lift. Vidal was already moving again, sweeping onwards down the next flight of stairs with the hamper balanced against his ribs.
“He’ll come.” Vidal said it without turning round, his free hand trailing down the polished banister as he descended.
The ease of the gesture, and the unexamined certainty that Connor would appear, lodged itself at the back of Beauchamp’s mind and sat heavy there.
They came out onto the ground floor and into the walled garden. The sun had moved onto the flagstones, and the entiretyof the narrow lawn was lit a soft yellow-green. Vidal stopped in the middle of it, set the hamper down on the grass, and turned.
“The robe, please, Beauchamp.”
“Sir…”
“Unfold it and lay it on the grass. There. A nice flat rectangle, if you please. We shall sit on it. Mercè shall sit on it. When Connor arrives, he shall also sit on it, and the four of us shall have our picnic like civilised people, and your dressing gown shall finally serve a purpose commensurate with the generosity of its cut.”
Beauchamp sighed, then unfolded the dressing gown and laid it out on the grass. It was, he noted, large enough to accommodate one reclining Vidal and no one else.
He lowered himself onto a patch of grass at the edge of the dressing gown, one knee drawn up, and accepted the piece of bread Vidal pressed into his hand.
“Eat. No, not like that, Beauchamp, with the oil, you must drag it through the oil first, the bread is the vehicle and the oil is the cargo. There. Better.”
Beauchamp dragged the bread through the oil and ate it. It was, to his considerable irritation, the best thing he’d put in his mouth in a fortnight.
Vidal uncorked the Albariño with a twist and poured a generous measure into each glass. He pressed one into Beauchamp’s hand. “Drink. You’ve been carrying the weight of my foolishness since yesterday morning, and your shoulders are up round your ears. “Salut.”
Beauchamp considered the glass in his hand. It was his day off. Young was stationed in the hall upstairs until six. Neither of them were going anywhere but a ten-foot square of walled garden in Mayfair.Why the fuck not?
“Salut, sir.”
Beauchamp drank. It was very good wine, cold from the fridge, and it went down easily on an empty stomach. Vidal refilled his glass before he’d set it down.
“Now.” Vidal propped his chin on his hand and fixed Beauchamp under his gaze. “We must put each other at ease, Beauchamp. We are cohabiting. We are to be, for the next little while, thrown upon each other’s mercies at all hours. It will not do to carry on as though we’re strangers on a train. We must know one another.”
“Sir.”
“Vidal!”
“Sir,” Beauchamp repeated with emphasis.
