One by One(16)

The big glass door in the lobby is still swinging to and fro from where Topher stormed out into the snow. Where on earth is he going? He was wearing jeans and a shirt, and it’s minus eleven outside right now. There are no restaurants or bars in our little hamlet. St. Antoine 2000 is not much more than a handful of chalets. People who want to eat out in the evening have to go down to St. Antoine le Lac, which has all the shops and restaurants and cafés you could wish for. It’s an easy ski down—a long blue run right into the center of the village. But the only way back up at this time is the funicular, and that closes at 11:00 p.m.

Someone puts music on the big main speakers in the dining room, The 1975, jangly and bright, perhaps in an attempt to raise the mood. But as I begin to serve up Danny’s amuse-bouches—miniature wild mushroom gratins in little china spoons—Topher’s absence is like a twinging nerve. The gratins go down well—as Danny’s food always does—but I’m clearly not the only person stressing over Topher, and the atmosphere is strained. There is an empty space at the foot of the table where Topher should be, flanked by Inigo and Miranda, who exchange worried glances every time another course comes and goes without him reappearing.

Elliot, his back to the wall, eats with his head down, talking to no one, and spooning food into his mouth like it’s a race. “Spooning” is literal. The starter is the truffled parsnip soup, so the spoon makes sense, but when I try to clear the cutlery away for the main course, Elliot snatches the spoon back and glares at me, like he caught me trying to steal his watch. When the venison arrives he attacks it with the soup spoon, ignoring the fork and steak knife to either side of his plate. In between courses he sits with his head bowed, staring at the knots and whorls of the wooden table, blanking Tiger to his left, who chatters away to Miranda as if this is perfectly normal, and Carl to his right, who ignores him back, pointedly angling his body away from Elliot towards Ani and Eva.

Eva, at the head of the table, picks at her food, looking at her watch and out the window at the falling snow, her face showing all the anxiety I am trying to conceal. When Carl makes some innocuous remark to her, she snaps back with a viciousness that makes me wince, though he seems to accept it as par for the course.

Liz looks pale and frankly miserable, like a rabbit in the headlights, and refuses all offers of wine. At one point Rik tries to talk to her. I don’t know what he says, I don’t hear the opening, but she shakes her head violently, and when he opens his mouth again, she bursts out “Excuse me, I’m going to the loo,” pushing her chair back with a violence that makes it clatter against the tiled floor.

After she is gone Eva glares down the table at Rik, mouthing something that I can’t quite read but which I think may have been I told you so.

Even Danny’s crème br?lée fails to revive the evening, and after supper the group scatters, with pleas of headaches, early nights, and emails to send. As I pass through the lobby on my way to replenish the wood burner in the living room I notice that two more bottles are gone from the honesty bar.

The mystery of one at least is solved when I go through to the living room to find Rik and Miranda huddled in the corner of the big squashy sofa, a depleted bottle of Armagnac on the table between them, and some kind of Cuban jazz filtering out of the speaker system, presumably from either Rik’s or Miranda’s phone. Rik sees me clocking the bottle and flashes a smile.

“You don’t mind, do you? We’ll add it to the book at the end of the evening.”

“Not at all,” I say truthfully. “It’s how the system is supposed to work. Can I get you anything else? Cheese? Coffee? Petits fours? Danny makes these incredibly moreish chocolate-dipped prunes that go really well with a glass of brandy.”

Rik looks at Miranda and raises one eyebrow, in a kind of wordless exchange that speaks more about their relationship than anything physical. There is something going on here. They are more than just colleagues, whether they realize that themselves or not.

It is Rik who answers for them both.

“No, we’re fine, thanks.”

“No problem,” I say. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

I begin to stack logs into the fire, and Rik leans closer to Miranda and recommences their conversation as if I’m not there.

“Did you see the look she gave me when I brought up the shares to Liz? I had to check it hadn’t burned a hole in my shirt.”

“I know.” Miranda puts her head in her hands. “But, Rik, honestly, what were you thinking? Eva made it crystal clear—”

“I know, I know—” Rik says. He rubs his hand over his short hair, shaking his head in frustration. “But I was ticked off by Eva acting like she’s the fucking Liz whisperer. I’ve known Liz as long as she has. We got on pretty well before all this blew up.”

“What did happen?” Miranda says. “It was all before my time, I’ve never understood.”

“You’ve got to understand, it was all just running on a shoestring in those days. It was a joke, those first six months. None of us were getting paid, not that Elliot gave a shit, I don’t think he’d spend any money at all if Topher didn’t make him. He’s been like that ever since school. But the rest of us did mind. Eva was running through her modeling savings like no tomorrow. Topher had finally pissed his parents off so much they’d cut him off without a penny, and he was sofa surfing with old school friends. I was working days at KPMG and nights at Snoop, and right at the bottom of my overdraft. And Liz was just this secretary who answered an advert online and was happy to work for a shit wage. I mean, even then, she dressed like some kind of sister wife, but she was efficient, and she didn’t make a fuss about working out of a crappy rented office with no air-con in South Norwood.”