A Bitter Feast(78)
Ibby sat on the sofa, but she switched on the gas fire, then stood with her back against the mantel.
“I’m glad your mum is better,” he said. “Fergus said it was an infection.”
“I’m surprised he remembered. But thanks.” Shivering as the first swallow of cold gin hit her stomach, she moved directly in front of the fire.
Ibby swirled the ice in his glass, avoiding her gaze. He seemed hunched into the jacket he hadn’t removed, and Viv realized that she’d been so caught up in herself that she hadn’t realized how unhappy he looked. In spite of his grousing in the kitchen, Ibby was, she’d learned, a pretty decent guy as well as a good cook. Better than good, but she doubted he’d ever make head chef. He hadn’t the people skills needed to manage a kitchen.
“The kitchen totally sucked without you,” he said. “We were in the weeds every night. I’d forgot how it was before you came. And you were right about the blow. Fergus and Danny have been out every night. Danny had a nosebleed during dinner service yesterday.” Danny, their ma?tre d’, was Ibby’s closest friend. They’d come to O’Reilly’s together.
“Christ.” Viv took another swallow of gin, hoping the alcohol would generate some warmth from the inside. “How bad was it? Tell me Michelin didn’t come again.”
“I don’t think so. But there’s this.” Ibby pulled a folded newspaper clipping from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and stood to hand it to her. “I thought you should see it.”
It was from the Times. Viv unfolded it with trepidation. It was not, however, a bad review, but an interview. The restaurant critic had quizzed Fergus about the success of O’Reilly’s new menu, asking him what had inspired his foray into Irish-influenced fine dining. Fergus had waffled on about the glory of Irish products, missing his homeland, even adding some nonsense about his poor dead mam’s cooking. But not once had he mentioned Viv.
Melody slammed out the front door of the house. She knew she’d promised to drive Doug to the station, but he could bloody well get a taxi.
Following in Andy’s footsteps, she walked up the drive, then stood, irresolute, at its end. She didn’t want to go down to Lower Slaughter. It would be too difficult to avoid Gemma and Duncan, and what if they had seen Andy, and then she’d have to explain? So she turned right and walked uphill, towards Upper Slaughter.
The smaller of the two Slaughters, the village boasted only a church and a rather lovely country-house hotel, along with its few streets of cottages and the occasional B and B. Most of the village was hidden from the road—you could pass it without ever knowing you’d missed it.
She turned on Rose Row, which ran downhill and into the village proper. But it also led to the church, and it seemed to Melody that the churchyard in the middle of a Sunday afternoon was one place where no one was likely to bother her. She’d played hide-and-seek round the giant yew hedges as a child, and as a teenager had sneaked into the churchyard for the occasional illicit drink and a snog with one of the boys from the village. She had no idea what had happened to him—he was probably married with three kids. It was she who’d rebelled against all those expectations, and look where that had got her.
So involved was she in that morose train of thought that she was almost past the woman washing her Mercedes SUV in front of one of the cottages before she recognized her. She’d completely forgotten that Roz Dunning lived in the village.
Looking up, Roz seemed just as startled to see her. “Melody, what are you doing here?” she said, sounding unexpectedly hostile. Roz, who was always so well turned out, looked cross and thoroughly untidy in cropped yoga bottoms and a baggy jumper, her hair escaping from its ponytail in damp straggles.
“Just taking a walk,” Melody answered, making an effort to be pleasant. “Good day to do something outside, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes.” Roz pushed back a strand of hair, leaving a soapy streak on her forehead. “Must make the most of it, this time of year, mustn’t we? I’m glad the weather held for yesterday’s party.”
Roz seemed friendlier, now that she knew Melody hadn’t come to interrupt her, but Melody could have kicked herself for having introduced that staple of polite and awkward English conversation—the weather. “You’ll be going back to London today?” Roz asked, and it was only then Melody realized that with Gemma and the kids staying over, she hadn’t worked out what to do herself. As little as she’d wanted company, the thought of driving back alone today, and of the empty flat that awaited her, seemed more than she could face.
What if she stayed as well? At the moment she didn’t much care whether it would piss off her super if she didn’t come in to work in the morning.
“Um, I’m not sure. My friends are staying over another day, so I may, too.” Roz had left the door of her cottage standing open and Melody glanced in, curious in spite of herself. She knew from her mum that Roz had been widowed quite young. She and her husband had owned an accountancy firm before her husband died of a heart attack, and Roz had sold the business. She hadn’t done too badly for herself out of it, Melody thought, considering the cottage and the car.
“Well, I’d better get on, while the sun lasts.” Roz gestured at her bucket and the dripping sponge she’d set down on the car’s perfect silver paintwork.