‘It just feels friendly here, doesn’t it?’ Emily remarked.
‘Yes! That’s the word I was looking for,’ Lily said. ‘As if we’re part of things, even though we’re not.’
‘Yes. Yes, exactly that.’
‘No sarcastic comments?’
‘Lily, I can’t think of one. I think maybe I’ve been cured.’
‘Well, that I can—’
‘Hey look,’ Emily interrupted. ‘It’s Monsieur le Dish.’
‘Who?’
‘Claude, you idiot, look!’ Emily pointed in the direction of the café-bar where Claude was sitting at a table on his own, sipping a coffee and reading a book. ‘We should go and say bonjour, or something.’
Claude looked up and smiled widely when he saw them both approach. ‘Bonjour!’ he said, half-standing in greeting. ‘Comment ?a va?’
‘Oui, ?a va,’ said Emily. ‘Et toi?’
‘Oui, oui, ?a va.’ He nodded, folding the corner of his page over and tucking the book away in his jacket pocket. ‘You are ’ere for a drink? You can join me if you like, I am waiting for my friend and ’e is not coming I fink.’
‘You’ve been stood up?’ Emily said, removing her jacket and hanging it on the back of a chair.
‘What is this “stood up”?’
‘Your date hasn’t arrived?’ she said, slipping into one of the chairs and giving an elaborate wink.
‘Ah, no, ’e is not a date,’ Claude said. ‘’e is just my friend, the vet. Per’aps ’e is called away, for an emergency wiv a cow?’
‘She’s just joking,’ Lily said hastily.
‘Ah, yes. The Breetish humour. I know this,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You say one thing, but it mean something else, oui?’
‘Something like that.’
Claude smiled. ‘Now I understand. It is funny, eh. That I have a date with my friend.’ He laughed, politely. ‘You make it sound like my friend, ’e is my lover, non?’
‘Coffee?’ Lily asked Emily, standing up to go to the counter inside.
‘OK. Large and black, I think, for me.’
‘No problem. And, Claude, can I get you another coffee?’ Lily asked.
He looked at his watch. ‘Ah, it eez almost twelve – midi – oui? Per’aps an apéritif?’
‘A drink? Now?’ Lily said.
‘Go on then,’ Emily interrupted. ‘What do you recommend?’
16
‘Pull over!’ Emily cried, grabbing at Lily’s arm as she drove.
Her tone was so urgent that Lily did as she was asked without question, bumping slightly up a grass verge near an old stone cottage. The minute the car came to a halt, Emily scrambled out and vomited copiously into the undergrowth.
An old man came out of the front door of the cottage and stared at the car in confusion. Lily couldn’t see his expression from where she sat and hoped that meant he couldn’t see the stream of orange-flecked liquid lurching out of her friend’s mouth and was simply wondering why a car was parked close to his drive.
‘Sorry,’ Emily slurred, climbing back into the car, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Are you all right?’ Lily said, making a face.
‘Not sure,’ her friend replied, belching slightly into her balled fist. ‘What was that drink? Eighty per cent proof or something?’
‘To be fair,’ Lily said, ‘you did have four of them.’
‘But it tasted like strawberry,’ Emily said. ‘I kind of… I don’t know. Forgot.’
Looking at her dishevelled friend, Lily couldn’t be angry. Although a few minutes ago she’d been close.
Emily wasn’t an aggressive drunk, she wasn’t one of those people who started picking arguments the minute she was a couple of units down. Instead, she simply got louder, drink by drink. And, even by her standards, she’d excelled herself this afternoon.
Things had started fairly innocuously. Once it was clear that Emily was getting a little tipsy, Lily had gone into the bar and ordered some pizza to soak up the alcohol.
‘Probably best stop now,’ she’d told her friend quietly when she’d asked her for a top up.
‘Ah come on, you only live once,’ Emily had said. ‘Plus, I’m on holiday!’ And she’d filled her little shot glass to the brim.
‘So, you two have been friends for many years?’ Claude had asked, his eyebrows raised slightly in amusement as Emily had tried unsuccessfully to spear a piece of pizza with her fork. ‘You – how you say – go back to the childhood?’