Page 17 of Kept
But I don’t say or ask any of them. My throat feels like a whole frog has lodged in it, and the tears are close; tears of frustration, anger, self-pity, self-loathing – they are all about to spill out, and I want to get the fuck out of this building before that happens.
I rise and hurry out without a backward glance.
“Oh and, Miss Bailey,” the aristocrat says to my back, just as I reach the door, “as you cannot afford to travel, obviously, might I suggest you take the time to dine at a Michelin starred restaurant before you attempt any French dish – one cannot know how to prepare a dish; what a mealshouldtaste like, if one has never sampled the cuisine.”
I say nothing, just walk out, although I wish later that I’d told her to shove her restaurant up her arse, and that the cost of one meal would likely take all my savings, and that my mother’s disheswerethe real deal – but I don’t think of it at the time. All I’m thinking of is escape.
I stumble out the great double doors, down the rows and rows of rock stairs to the street, and lean gasping against the academy’s sign before stumbling on. I only get about five metres down the sidewalk before the tears overtake me and I bawl my eyes out in the street. I’m talking loud, gut retching, can’t-even-move sobs that make me look, I’m sure, like a crazy person.
I let it all out though, just as my late father used to tell me to do, ‘let it all out – let it all go, you’ll feel better.’ I don’t though, feel better, when my sobs subside to hiccups and, wiping my still teary eyes, I hail a cab.
I don’t feel better at all.
“Where to, Miss?”
I glance at the clock, it is just about 6pm and already dark, and suddenly I decide to do something bad, something really bad, something so bad I feel guilty already, but also determined.
“Le Boufantania.”
I sit at the restaurant in the best corner table feeling under-dressed but resolute.
I’m all cried out, and I feel hollow inside – food, expensive French cuisine, is apparently what I need, so that is what I will have.
I almost gasp at the prices as I open the menu; one entrée alone would cost the equivalent of a week’s wages. But I cover the row of numbers with my right arm and concentrate on the dishes.
This restaurant is usually booked up six months in advance. But I’d taken a punt that the newly widowed Mr Boston would be a regular here and would be dining alone tonight, or at least have booked a table for himself and his mistress for a little later when it was fashionable for the elite rich to eat. And I had a hunch that if I said I was his date, I could get in, eat and get out before he arrived.
I’m not good at lying, generally, and if the reservation clerk with the heavy French accent had known me, he would have seen through me straight away. But he did not know me, and I was quite resolutely polite.
So far, so good.
Making my mind up, I signal for the waiter, who is just a few steps away, white napkin across his arm, air of unconcerned indifference; as I would expect in a five-star Michelin restaurant.
“Are you sure you do not wish to wait for your guest, Madame?”
“No. I think he is running late, a business meeting, once again, I presume. He told me to eat if he was delayed.”
“Very well, what would you like? May I suggest the chef’s special?”
“No. Thank you, I know what I want.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll have a bottle of the 1986 Toulouse sauvignon. For entrée, I would like the soupe au cresson.”
“Might I suggest, Madame,” he interrupts, “that a white hermitage or any Alsace might complement this dish more.”
“Great, but I’ll keep the bottle of sauvignon too.”
“Very well.”
I pause and frown at the menu, OK, watercress soup, what was the next most expensive dish? I peek at the prices and smirk.
“I’ll have the mouclade,” which I knew was muscles in a white wine and curry sauce, “accompanied by a muscadet” – can’t have him think I don’t know my wines, which actually I don’t really, but I’ve got a rough idea. “And thecoquilles saint-jacques au safran,” a dish I’d made myself the week before in preparation for my interview; scallops in a creamy saffron sauce with asparagus.
“Is Madame sure she wants the moucladeandthe coquilles saint-jacques au safran, both are quite large.”
“Oh, yes. When my date arrives, he will possibly just want a drink and to share the mussels. He may order, depending on the time, but I can’t be sure.”
