The French Girl(36)

“Good, great.” He spreads his hands. His hair is shorter than before, and there are little flecks of gray above his ears. He’s wearing jeans and a casual shirt, like almost every other male here, though both may be more expensive than the average. “Great to be back.” He runs an appreciative eye over me. “You look well. I hear you’re doing well, too, running your own company—” Someone claps a hand on his shoulder with an accompanying bellow, and he turns away, but not without catching my gaze with his extraordinary eyes and mouthing over his shoulder, “Later.”

There’s an intimacy in that look, in the way he delivers the word—as if he were being dragged away from me. I look after him for a moment. I have no idea what to make of the entire encounter.

I blink and collect myself, turning aside to find Tom watching me, despite ostensibly being in a conversation with Alina and Lara. His face is tight. I cock my head questioningly, and his expression clears deliberately; he lifts his eyebrows—are you all right? I nod and even manage a reassuring smile, then step over to join the three of them. Tom’s eyes are Tom’s eyes, I think. And Seb’s . . . well, they are Seb’s. They are how they always were.

Shortly we sit. Caro has mustered eighteen of us: we’re a raucous party of fractured conversations and sudden hoots of laughter from different directions; though more often from Seb’s area than anywhere else. Tom and Lara have made pains to sit on either side of me; we bracket the end of the table. I have prime viewing position. Caro, flushed and buoyant with the success of the evening, has seated herself next to the guest of honor at the middle of the long table; Alina is opposite. Four bottles of wine are dispatched before the exasperated waiter manages to get a dinner order from us all.

“Okay?” Lara asks under her breath. I nod briefly. “He looks good,” she laments on my behalf.

“He always did,” I mutter back. If I was hoping to find him a far cry from his former glory, that certainly isn’t the case. I look across at Seb, trying to see what caused Tom to suggest he wasn’t in good shape. It’s true he’s bulkier than before, but it all appears solid; he’s hardly run to fat. He’s still, objectively speaking, the most attractive man in the room, but the heartbreaking, breath-stealing vitality of youth has gone; his beauty no longer burns. I watch him pour himself and Caro another glass of wine, his shirtsleeve rolled back to reveal a tanned forearm. Caro is reveling in Seb’s attention; it softens her edges, makes her almost girlish. I don’t remember her being this obvious a decade ago, or perhaps I chose not to see it. Wives and girlfriends always know . . . I glance at Alina and find her eyeing the two expressionlessly whilst not drinking her wine. Very deliberately not drinking her wine: the glass is raised to her lips, but nothing passes. Someone says something to her on her right; she turns to them, an attentive smile quickly in place. I watch as she gesticulates to make some point, then casually lifts her wineglass and pretends to drink.

I pick up my own wineglass and join the conversation around me. We eat, we drink, we laugh, we talk. The food is unmemorable, but the wine is good; Tom refills our wineglasses whenever they run dry. I’m actually having fun, though it feels desperate, reckless, like dancing while the Titanic sinks. I sneak glances at Seb and Caro and Alina. Lara and Tom sneak glances at me. Seb is performing the same function as Tom in the middle of the table, but twice as frequently, and he never misses his own glass: Seb is drinking hard while his wife isn’t drinking at all.

“A toast,” calls Caro, standing up as she taps a glass ineffectually with a spoon. The table quiets down, all except a large chap at the end who is still talking to his neighbor; I can’t quite remember either of their names, but the faces are familiar. Caro raises her voice: “Do shut up, George. Tilly has heard all your jokes three times already.” That raises chuckles from around the table. She glances down at Seb, smiling. “A toast. Raise your glasses to welcome back . . . Seb, and Alina!” There’s the merest pause after she says Seb’s name, just enough for anyone so inclined to interpret the mention of Alina as an afterthought; I am so inclined. If that’s Alina’s interpretation, there’s nothing to show it: she smiles graciously, playing her role of guest of honor perfectly.

Seb climbs to his feet. His cheeks are heavily flushed now. “Thank you all from both of us; we’re thrilled to be back. And thanks for coming tonight, and to Caro for arranging everything.” He smiles and clinks his glass against hers; Caro inclines her head in acknowledgment, the fizzing joy inside almost bursting through her eyes. “It’s great to be able to catch up with so many of you again all at once. The thing Alina and I have been most looking forward to about coming back is—”

“The beer!” shouts some wag.

“The sense of humor!” shouts another.

“The dentistry,” murmurs Tom in my ear. I giggle. Lara glances across at us. The merest frown crosses her face before she turns back; I wonder if I was too loud.

Seb laughs. “Wonderful as those are, they’re not what I was about to say. What we’ve most been looking forward to is being close to our friends. And on that note . . .” His expression turns somber. “I’d like to propose a toast to one who can never be here with us again.” The table is quiet now. “To Theo.”

“To Theo,” we all murmur before we drink. I glance at Tom; his face is starkly bleak; one could photograph him and name it A Study in Grief. As I watch he deliberately locks eyes with Seb and gives a small nod—well done—and Seb nods back, the merest movement. Theo was Tom’s friend first and foremost, I remember. They were in the same college, they both read engineering, they even shared a set of rooms in second year; if there is such a thing as the keeper of the grief, Tom has the right of that title in this group. I want to say something to him, but I’ve no idea what.