Clissard the clerk coughed and poured a glass of wine for his wife and some water for his sister-in-law.
Bruno carved the venison at the sideboard among the remnants of the hors d’oeuvre and handed the plates to Anne, who distributed them among the reluctant diners. One of them, a dentist with a thin moustache who was said to beat his wife, called out to her.
‘Mademoiselle, I distinctly asked you for half a bottle of Bordeaux when I sat down. This is not Bordeaux. Even if you cannot read, you ought to know that this is not a Bordeaux. The bottle is the wrong shape.’
Anne fetched him the wine-list and the dentist fussed over his spectacles before complaining that now the wine would not have time to breathe. ‘And the meat is getting cold,’ he added when he had finally found the vintage he had ordered.
Anne went to ask Mme Bouin for the key to the cellar. ‘I’m afraid you gave me the wrong bottle last time,’ she said.
Mme Bouin raised her head from the ledger. ‘Are you suggesting that I am incompetent, mademoiselle?’
‘What? No, no, of course not.’
Mme Bouin stood up and wrapped her cardigan around her. ‘I will fetch it myself,’ she said, and set off down the corridor. Anne stood by the counter and hummed to herself, swinging her left leg gently so the shoe grazed the floor in time to an imaginary beat.
‘You are a disgrace, mademoiselle,’ the dentist said to her when she returned to his table.
‘I’m sorry, monsieur?’
‘Your service is appalling. And as for the food. What is this muck? This “gastronomic” menu?’
‘Venison, monsieur. It’s one of the chef’s specialities.’
‘Specialities my foot! And those disgusting sardines. Has the man no idea of how to make even a simple hors d’oeuvre?’
‘Monsieur, if you want to complain I can ask the chef to –’
‘Don’t interrupt me, young woman. You’re new here, aren’t you? You’ll soon learn how I like things. I shall have to make a complaint, you know.’
‘If Monsieur would like to speak to the chef about the food –’
‘It’s the service I’m complaining about. I don’t come out to dinner to be told by the waitress she can’t be bothered to bring me my first course because there’s too much for her to carry. And then to be given the wrong wine. After all the years I’ve been coming here.’
‘I’m very sorry, monsieur, I –’
‘I don’t want to hear your excuses. Just get back to the kitchen.’
‘Yes, monsieur.’
Although she was taken aback by the dentist’s ferocity, Anne felt pleased with the way she had remained calm. She hoped that now the dentist had given her a telling-off he would feel satisfied and would not complain to Mme Bouin or even the Patron.
When she pushed open the doors of the kitchen she found Bruno drinking deeply from the dentist’s returned half-bottle which had somehow found its way on to the draining board. He put it down with a thump as she came in.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said with unusual delicacy, ‘will you take wine with me?’
‘I shouldn’t.’
‘But you will. To please me.’
She laughed, her spirits quickly restored by Bruno’s theatrical courtesy. ‘To please you.’
‘Allow me,’ he said, taking a small glass from the top of the dresser and filling it. She raised it to him. He lifted the half-bottle, drained what was left and threw it into the rubbish bin in the corner of the room.
‘Your good health, mademoiselle.’ He belched, as the air rushed back up his gullet.
‘And yours, monsieur,’ she said, quickly draining her glass.
‘And now for some cheese,’ said Bruno. ‘Go and get the plates first.’
It was a melancholy job, thought Anne, collecting the almost untouched plates of food from the dining-room. It had gone quiet again in there and on every plate that she lifted the knife and fork seemed to clink more loudly. She dreaded the dentist’s table where she tried not to catch his eye as she calmly lifted his plate.
‘A disgrace,’ he muttered again, ‘a disgrace.’
She put the plates on a trolley in the corner, and, instead of taking them through the swing doors to the kitchen, wheeled them out through the side door into the corridor and along to the backyard. She quickly scraped as much of the rejected food as she could into a dustbin, covered it with some newspaper, wiped her hands and returned to the kitchen via the dining-room where she braved the inquisitive glances of the diners.
Bruno was too busy with the cheese to notice.
‘They liked it, Bruno.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. It never fails. Where’s that boy taken the bread? Here, scab-face. Yes, yes, the secret is to get a great deal of garlic into the sauce.’
Bruno took the cheeses through himself and toured the tables with them, explaining the provenance of each. The last table was that of Clissard and his family. Bruno brandished his knife in the air and fixed Mme Clissard with his good eye. He stood behind her sister who arched her back away from his blood-spattered apron.
When Bruno returned to the kitchen, Anne described the woman’s face as she had tried to keep her black dress and bare shoulders away from his belly. Anne clasped her hand over her mouth so the sound of her laughter would not be audible in the dining-room. She didn’t hear the door from the corridor swing open and it wasn’t until she heard a familiar voice that she realised she and Bruno were not alone.
‘Mademoiselle.’
She turned to see the tall figure of Mme Bouin lit from the dingy light behind, her lips turned downwards in angular furrows.
‘Please come with me.’
Anne wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and straightened her skirt. She followed Mme Bouin to the foot of the stairs.
‘Mademoiselle, I don’t know quite what you think your function in this hotel is, but I think it is time we cleared up one or two things. I have tonight received a detailed complaint from one of the guests about your slapdash service. It seems you failed to take down his order correctly –’
‘I’m sorry, madame, it was because Pierre wasn’t here. I –’
‘Don’t interrupt me.’ Mme Bouin rapped the top of the desk with her knuckle, causing the keys to clank against her bosom. Anne noticed that her left eye seemed almost sightless now; perhaps she had a cataract. Then both eyes seemed to ignite as she leaned forward. ‘It is not only the wine, mademoiselle. I understand you wheeled the trolley full of plates backwards and forwards like a – like a gardener with a wheelbarrow. And then, with this same guest, you make impolite remarks when he addresses a civil question to you –’
‘But, madame, that’s completely –’
‘I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but, when I come to the kitchen to see you, I find you in a state of collapse against the wall and I believe, mademoiselle, you have been drinking.’
The final word was cut off with the force of a slammed door. Anne felt the tears she dreaded beginning to prick her eyes. She told herself her only chance was to keep calm.
Mme Bouin breathed in deeply. ‘Mademoiselle, from the day you arrived here you have clearly considered yourself too good for the job which was offered to you. You arrived here by the front door and strolled up to the desk as if you had booked a room. You then inform me that you are above doing kitchen tasks because of a rash on your hands. Don’t interrupt me! Tonight I hear from a client who has dined in this hotel weekly for many years that you are not only incompetent but that your pertness verges on what is . . . what is quite intolerable. I then find you in a state of collapse in the kitchen. It is not good enough. Tomorrow morning I shall go to see Monsieur the Patron and –’
‘Go to him, go to him! I don’t care. That man – the dentist – he’s a liar. He was rude to me, then he lied about it.’
‘Calm yourself, mademoiselle.’
‘I’m sorry, madame, but it isn’t fair.’
Before Mme Bouin could reply Anne ran from the stairs, down the corridor and back into the kitchen. Bruno stuck out a pudgy arm and grasped her wrist as she went through. She paused for a moment, wanting to tell him what had happened, but found the feeling of indignation so strong that she couldn’t speak. She tore herself from Bruno’s grasp and ran across the courtyard, out into the narrow street by the side of the hotel. She thought of the thwarted desire of her life, which was to be loved, and sadness mingled with the speechless anger to press her throat in a grief that was a version – old Louvet would no doubt have contended – of the same and only emotion: abandonment. She leaned against the wall of the hotel, feeling the damp, grizzled stone against her cheek. The trapped air seethed in her lungs until at last it found expression in a cry that almost bent her in half.
It was heard by a tall man, water dripping from his hat and on to his new rue de Rivoli boots, who was about to enter the bar. With one foot on the step he saw her shape from the corner of his eyes. He moved towards her.
‘Anne?’ His voice held a deep certainty beneath its note of puzzled enquiry. ‘Anne, is that you?’
She looked up and peeled her hands away from her face.
‘Oh God,’ she said, and threw herself against his chest, almost knocking him backwards.
He put his arms around her and wondered what sadness could have provoked that awful sound.