“She isn’t,” said Pam crossly. “She’s pink, thank you very much.”

Christabel, however, was cooing loudly in Gaspard’s face. She had her father’s pale coloring and round cheeks.

Pam was waving her hand in front of her face. “I’m sorry, I don’t like smokers near the baby?”

Gaspard gave her a long look, then glanced at his hands as if he had a lit cigarette there he hadn’t known about (it was, to be fair, always possible). As he backed away, Christabel started to bawl.

“So,” said Pam fussily. “Send over the menus, please, we’ll be thirty.”

Gaspard blinked. “’Ow can I send over menus?”

“Just. Tell. Us. What. You’re. Making,” said Pam, speaking very loudly and clearly as she liked to do when speaking to foreigners. “We’d like one full turkey and all the trimmings, one vegetarian option, and one gluten-free.”

Gaspard stared at her, then looked at Flora as if to clearly say, What in the hell do you expect me to do with this woman? Flora felt caught between a hard place and, well, the Rock, she supposed.

“We’ll get you something as soon as possible,” she said to Pam, who looked skeptical as she turned around.

“Of course, obviously we’ll be expecting a big discount,” she said, “seeing as it’s for charity and you’re just basically having a test run. You should probably do it for free,” she added pointedly.

“I think for everything to be great for your charity you should buy good produce,” said Flora smoothly. Pam’s family was one of the richest on the island. “Which costs money, I’m afraid.”

“Produce, which all mysteriously comes from your farm,” said Pam.

Flora put her best smile on again and hustled her out the door.

“I am not doing turkey,” Gaspard was already threatening, within earshot.

“It’s Christmas!” said Flora. “Please! We’ll never hear the end of it. Please do turkey at Christmas.”

“Turkey is ’orrible! Is huge dry chicken! Huge dry unhappy chicken!!”

“I’m sure they’re not—”

“Do not eat unhappy animals!! Is unhappy! That is why”—he paused for emphasis—“so many fights at Christmas.”

Flora looked at him. “What are you talking about?”

“People, they are so sad, they fight at Christmas, boo-hoo. Everyone sad. Is all EastEnders .”

“That’s a fictional television show.”

“Christmas Christmas Christmas, fight fight fight.”

“You’re saying people fight at Christmas because turkeys are unhappy?”

“Exactly, yes.”

There was a pause.

“So what would you . . . ?”

“L’oie. Goose. You have goose at Christmas. Delicious goose.”

“And geese are happy?”

“You know geese?”

“I do,” said Flora, who was terrified of geese; she’d been taken to a wildlife park on the mainland as a child and one had nearly broken her arm.

“Geese, they are fierce! They are strong! They hate everyone. Cacar!! ”

“That’s not the sound a goose makes! They honk!”

“A goose, he has an ’appy life. I ’ate you, he say. Cacar! Everybody move. Happy goose.”

“Not foie gras.”

“Oui, foie gras! ’Appy, ’appy goose, something to eat, yes, please.”