Julien is sitting directly opposite us, with a front and centre view of things. There is nothing like stirring a bit of jealousy to fire things up in a relationship – especially ours. It could be an over-familiar waiter in a restaurant, or the guy on the next sunlounger who Julien’s convinced has been checking me out (he’s probably right). ‘Would you want him to do this to you?’ he’d pant in my ear later, ‘or this?’
If I’m honest, sex has become, lately, a mechanism for a specific end rather than pleasure. I’ve got this app that Samira told me about, which identifies your most fertile days. And then, of course, there are certain positions that work best. I’ve explained this to Julien so many times, but he doesn’t seem to get it. I suppose he’s stopped trying, recently. So yes, we could do with things being spiced up a little.
I turn back to Doug, keeping Julien in my peripheral vision. He’s talking to the Icelandic woman, so I touch a hand against Doug’s, just for fun. I’ve had a couple of glasses too many, maybe. I feel his fingers flinch against mine.
‘Sorry,’ I say, all innocence. ‘Would you mind passing me the jus?’ I think it’s working. Certainly Julien’s looking pretty pissed off about something. To all intents and purposes he might be having a whale of a time – always so important to present the right face to the world – but I know him too well. It’s that particular tension in the side of the neck, the gritting of the teeth.
I glance over to where poor Katie, across the table from me, is seated next to the Icelandic man with the strange eyes, who seems to have taken a bit of a shine to her. It’s a bloody nightmare, them being here too. Are we going to have to share the sauna with them? Judging by the state of the clothes they’re wearing I’d have to disinfect myself afterwards.
The man, now, is leaning towards Katie as though he has never seen anything so fascinating or beautiful in his life. Clearly – judging by his partner – he has unconventional taste.
Though … there is definitely something different about Katie. She looks tired and pale, as per, but there’s that new haircut for a start. At the place she normally goes to, they style her hair à la Mrs Williams, our old school hockey teacher. You would have thought that with her corporate lawyer’s salary, she might try a bit harder sometimes. I’ve been telling her to go to Daniel Galvin for ages – I go for highlights every six weeks – so I don’t know why I feel so put out about her finally having listened to me. Perhaps because she hasn’t given me any credit for it, and I feel I deserve some. And perhaps because I had sort of imagined we might go together. Make a morning of it, the two of us.
I still remember the girl she was back then: flat-chested when everyone else was starting to develop. Lank-haired, knock-kneed, the maroon of the school uniform emphasising the sallowness of her complexion.
I have always liked a project.
Look at her now. It’s difficult to be objective, as I’ve known her so long that she’s practically a sister, but I can see how some men might find her attractive. Sure: she’ll never be pretty, but she has learned to make the best of herself. That new hair. Her teeth have been straightened and whitened. Her clothes are beautifully cut to make the most of her slight frame (I could never wear a shirt like that without my boobs creating the kind of shelf that makes you look bigger than you really are). She had her ears pinned back as a present to herself when she qualified at her law firm. She looks almost … chic. You might think she was French: the way she’s made the best of those difficult features. What’s that expression the French have for it? Jolie laide: ugly beautiful.
Katie would never be wolf-whistled at by builders or white-van men. I never understand why some people think you might be flattered by that. Look, OK, I know I’m attractive. Very attractive. There, I’ve said it. Do you hate me now? Anyway, I don’t need it confirmed by some pot-bellied construction workers who would catcall anyone with a short skirt or tight top. If anything, they cheapen it.
They wouldn’t shout at Katie, though. Well, they might shout at her to ‘Smile love!’ But they wouldn’t fancy her. They wouldn’t understand her. I’m almost envious of it. It’s something that I’ll never have, that look-twice subtlety.
Anyway. Maybe now we’re finally together, I can find out what’s been going on in her life – what it is that has prompted this mysterious change in her.
EMMA
It’s hard not to spend the whole of the meal looking around the table, checking that everyone’s enjoying themselves. I really wish I’d opted us out of this dinner when I’d booked – it seemed like a great idea at the time, but with the Icelandic couple here as well there’s an odd dynamic. And this close proximity to the other guests just emphasises the mess-up over our not having the place to ourselves. I know I should be able to let it go: que sera sera, and all that, but I so wanted it to be perfect for everyone. It doesn’t help that the other guests are so weird-looking and unkempt: I can see how unimpressed Miranda, in particular, is by them. Katie’s sitting next to the man, Ingvar – who is looking at her as though he wishes she were on the plate in front of him, not the over-scented meat.
I, meanwhile, am sitting next to Iain. He doesn’t say very much, and when he does his accent is so thick it’s hard to understand everything.
‘Do you live here too?’ I ask him.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Fort William – with my wife and kids.’
‘Ah,’ I say. ‘Have you worked here long?’
He nods. ‘Since the current owner first bought the place.’
‘What do you do?’
‘Whatever needs doing. Odd jobs, here and there: working on the pumphouse, at the moment, down by the loch. I bring the supplies in too: food, the bits for the cabins.’
‘What’s the owner like?’ I ask, intrigued. I imagine a whiskery old Scottish laird, so I’m a bit surprised when Iain says, ‘He’s all right, for an Englishman.’ I wait for him to say more, but he either doesn’t have anything to add, or is reluctant to do so.
I seem to have run out of questions, so it’s a relief when the Icelandic man asks about the deer-stalking, and the whole table’s attention is turned to that. It’s as if the idea of a hunt, a kill, has exerted a magnetic pull upon everyone’s attention.
‘We don’t hunt the deer just for the sake of it,’ the gamekeeper says. ‘We do it to keep the numbers down – otherwise they’d get out of control. So it’s necessary.’
‘But I think it’s necessary for another reason,’ the man – Ingvar – says. ‘Humans are hunters, it’s in our very DNA. We need to find an outlet for those needs. The blood lust.’ He says the last two words as though they have a particularly delicious flavour to them, and there’s a pause in which no one quite seems to know what to say, a heightening of the awkward tension that’s plagued this meal. I see Miranda raise her eyebrows. Perhaps we can all laugh about this later – it’ll become a funny anecdote. Every holiday has these moments, doesn’t it? ‘Well, I don’t know about all that,’ says Bo, spearing a piece of venison, ‘but it’s delicious. Amazing to think it came from right here.’
I’m not so sure. It’s not terrible, exactly, but I could have done so much better. The venison is overly flavoured with juniper, you can hardly taste the meat, and there isn’t nearly enough jus. The vegetables are limp: the cavolo nero a slimy over-steamed mush.
I’ll make up for it tomorrow evening. I have my wonderful feast planned: smoked salmon blinis to go with the first couple of bottles of champagne, then beef Wellington with foie gras, followed by a perfect chocolate soufflé. Soufflés, as everyone knows, are not easy. You have to be a bit obsessive about them. The separation of the eggs, the perfect beating of the whites – the timings at the end, making sure you serve them before the beautiful risen crest falls. Most people don’t have the patience for it. But that’s exactly the sort of cooking I like.
It’s a relief, to be honest, when the dessert (a rather limp raspberry pavlova) is finally cleared away.