The Hike(16)

Tristan took another drink of his beer before replying. ‘It looked like a decent shortcut. We don’t want to be scrabbling around this mountain all bloody day, do we? Anyway, we’re back on track now. You can all stop stressing.’

‘I thought we were going to try and get a lift back down to the car park?’ Paul said. ‘You were in a bad way earlier, Cat. I think we should call it quits and enjoy our evening back in the village.’

‘Quits? You’re good at that, Pauly. Better at quitting than you were at your job, that’s for sure.’

Tristan’s voice was like ice. Cat’s stomach did another loop-the-loop. Why was he being so antagonistic? He needed to keep it together, like she was trying her best to do. ‘Tristan—’ she started.

Paul cut her off. ‘For god’s sake, Tristan. Give it a rest, will you? Why do you care so much that I left? Plenty more filthy lucre for you now that the team is one man down, eh? I’m perfectly happy with my decision . . .’ He let his sentence trail off. The waitress was standing by the table, three steaming dishes on a tray.

‘Tartiflette?’

Cat pointed to her place, then Tristan’s opposite, and Ginny’s next to his. She gave the waitress a ‘sorry about them’ smile. But she felt anger bubbling hard in her chest. This wasn’t meant to happen. They were all supposed to be having a good time. She was going to have to pull Tristan aside and rein him in a bit before he ruined the whole thing.

‘Steak sandwich will be here in one minute.’ The waitress scurried off again, and Cat could hear her mutter something under her breath about annoying tourists, and some swear words that Cat remembered from her time in France. The French didn’t have many swear words, but depending on the inflection, one particular word could be used in a variety of ways. She felt like swearing herself. Tristan’s needling was becoming physically painful.

She dipped her bread into the sauce in her dish, swirling it around, then blew on it before she took a bite. She recalled from past experience that the sauce had a tendency to be radioactive, and she didn’t fancy burning the roof of her mouth. She hadn’t warned the others, though, and a moment later, Tristan was cursing under his breath and downing more of his beer. She tried not to smirk at him and instead side-eyed Paul, and saw that he’d noticed too. He looked pleased. This was good. Best for Paul to believe that she was still on his side, and it stopped Tristan upsetting everyone for a minute.

The waitress reappeared and placed the steak sandwich down in front of Paul, checked if they needed more beers – which, of course, they did – then left them to it.

‘Merci bien,’ Cat said, automatically. She scooped up a forkful of potato.

Ginny looked up. ‘What’s the difference between thanks with a bien and thanks with a beaucoup? I don’t remember that from school.’

Cat shrugged. ‘The first is less formal, but they’re kind of interchangeable. To be honest I hadn’t heard the bien version until I lived in France.’

‘Oh yes, of course you lived in France. What was that though, ten years ago? More?’

‘Ten, yes. I was twenty-two. My final year at uni. I thought about trying to get a job there for a while, do you remember?’

‘I do remember. I also remember some of the stories you told me from your year there, when you weren’t such a square.’ Ginny’s eyes flashed with amusement and Cat felt the knot in her stomach pull tighter. There were many stories. And she really didn’t want them being told today.

‘I remember that bloke you were into . . .’ She looked around at Paul and Tristan, making sure she had their full attention. ‘We called him French Frank. You know, like the old currency?’ She laughed hard at her own joke. Classic Ginny that she felt the need to explain it too.

Tristan laughed loudly. ‘Did you come up with that one all by yourself, Gins? Bit intellectual for you.’

Ginny’s cheeks went red, and she crossed her arms, clearly annoyed at her big moment being ridiculed. A smattering of laughter wafted over to them from the direction of the bar, and Cat turned to look. The two men there were huddled together, looking at something on a phone.

‘Frawwnk,’ Ginny continued, trying to get everyone’s attention again. ‘Ee was very sexy, non?’ She giggled. ‘Did you ever show me a pic, Catkins? I don’t think you did . . . Thinking back, I’ve only got your word for it that he was sexy. But considering what you did, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Unless, of course, you were so blind drunk you couldn’t tell what he looked like.’ She giggled again.

Cat dropped her fork into her half-eaten lunch with a clatter. ‘Shut up, Ginny.’

‘Oooh,’ Tristan said. ‘This sounds juicy.’

Even Paul was intrigued. ‘Indeed. What exactly did you do, Cat? Something naughty by the sound of it.’

‘It was a long time ago.’ She really didn’t want Ginny saying any more about it. It was long ago, and Ginny didn’t even know the full story. She only knew the bits Cat had told her. Cat hadn’t told her sister that Frank had been her tutor. Her very married tutor. And she certainly wasn’t going to bring that up now. It had been a brief, intense fling. Too intense. And she’d broken it off before anyone got hurt, although she knew that he had ended up splitting with his wife anyway, then gone off to teach in Asia.