Hotel Pastis Read Free Page A

decorator’s boudoir. But then the whole house made him feel like that.
    He walked into the bathroom and met his reflection in the full-length mirror, a naked middle-aged man holding a glass. God, he looked older than forty-two. Tired eyes, deep creases either side of his mouth, a streak of grey in one of his eyebrows, silver tips beginning to show in his straight black hair. Another few years and he’d be pear-shaped if he didn’t do something more than the occasional snatched game of tennis. He sucked in his belly and pushed out his chest. Right. Hold that for the next ten years; eat less; drink less—a lot less; go to a gym. Boring. He exhaled, finished his champagne and ducked into the shower without looking at the mirror again, and spent fifteen minutes letting the water beat down on the back of his neck.
    The bedroom phone rang as he finished drying himself. “Chez Nous is open,” Ernest said. “We can eat in half an hour.”
    Simon put on old cotton trousers and a frayed silk shirt that Caroline had tried to throw away several times, and walked down to the kitchen barefoot. The tiled floor was cool and smooth, and the feel of it reminded him of holidays long ago in hot places.
    Ernest had set the table with candles and a shallow dish of white rose heads. A box of Partagas and a cigar cutter were beside Simon’s place, and the sound of a Mozart piano concerto came from the speakers recessed in the wall at the far end of the room. Simon felt clean and relaxed and hungry. He took the champagne from the fridge.
    “Ern?” He held up the bottle.
    Ernest noticed Simon’s bare feet while the glasses were being filled. “I can see we’re in a bohemian mood tonight,” he said. “Quite the beachcomber, aren’t we?”
    Simon smiled. “Caroline would have had a fit.”
    Ernest wiped his hands on his apron and picked up his glass. “The trouble is,” he said, “that your entire life is spent with sensitive flowers who have fits. The sainted executive committee, the clients, those pipsqueaks in the City, that frightful old adolescent who’s supposed to run the creative department—how he thinks nobody notices when he goes to the gents’ every half-hour and comes back with a runny nose, I don’t know, I’m sure—all of them are more trouble than they’re worth, if you ask me.” He managed to sip his champagne and look disdainful at the same time. “Which of course you didn’t.”
    Ernest put down his glass and mixed the salad dressing as though he were punishing it, beating the olive oil and vinegar until it was almost frothing. He dipped his little finger in the bowl and licked it. “Delicious.”
    “It’s business, Ern. You can’t expect to like everyone you have to work with.”
    Ernest cut the block of foie gras into thin pink slices and put them in a blackened cast-iron pan that had been warming on the hob. “Well, I’m not going to let them spoil our dinner.” He poured the dressing over the salad and tossed it with quick, deft hands, wiped his oily fingers, and moved across to peer into the pan. “It can all vanish, you know, the foie gras, if it gets too hot. It melts away.” He put the salad on two plates and, as the first tiny bubbles appeared round the edge of the foie gras, took the pan off the heat and slid the soft slices onto their lettuce beds.
    Simon took his first mouthful, the lettuce crisp and cool, the foie gras warm and rich. Across the table,Ernest was conducting an investigation of the wine with long, appreciative sniffs, his eyes half-closed.
    “Will it do?” asked Simon. “According to the books, we should be drinking Sauternes with this.”
    Ernest held the wine in his mouth for a moment before answering. “Absolute heaven,” he said. “Let’s not send it back.”
    They ate in silence until they had finished. Simon wiped his plate with a piece of bread and leaned back in his chair. “I haven’t enjoyed anything as much as that for months.” He drank some wine