Chapters (40)
- Cover
- About the Author
- PENGUIN BOOKS
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- THE BEGINNING
Downstairs again she ordered a cheese omelette and chips with green salad on the side, and a glass of house red. She wasn’t hungry any more, just tired – tired without being sleepy. There were not many guests in the dining room: by the window, an elderly woman staring spitefully at the tall glass in front of her, which was filled with scoops of variously coloured ice cream and gaily bedecked with little paper umbrellas; near the door, a portly couple and their silent, shrimp-like son; and to the side of her, two middle-aged men in cheap-looking suits who were stabbing cheese onto the point of their knives and talking rapidly, jabbing fingers to make their point.
Her meal arrived. She sprinkled oil and vinegar from their separate bottles over the lettuce, then picked up a chip and popped it into her mouth. Fat and floury. She chewed a leathery mouthful of omelette, took a small sip of the thin, sharp wine. One of the men smiled across at her and raised his own glass in greeting, and she looked away in embarrassment. She should have brought her book downstairs. She prodded her omelette once more. The elderly woman left the room, her ice cream unfinished. Then the couple, their son thinly between them. She ate a few more chips, sipped at her sour wine, stopped the waiter as he passed with his arms piled high with dishes and ordered a double espresso. One of the men wiped his mouth with his napkin and got up to leave, his chair scraping across the wooden floor. The other one remained, pouring the last inch of wine into his glass and swilling it round. He lit a cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs for several seconds.
‘Sorry,’ he said in guttural French as he let it out again. ‘Do you mind?’
Irene didn’t.
‘May I join you for coffee?’
She didn’t know how to refuse – anyway, she’d be going upstairs soon. He sat opposite her and she allowed herself to look at his face properly for the first time. She supposed that he might be good-looking in an undramatic way. Brown eyes, thick brown hair flecked with grey, a stubbly chin, crow’s feet round his eyes when he smiled; a lived-in, knocked-around face.