Page 62 of For Love or Money
‘You should try this,’ Peter said to her now, pointing to a wedge of pale crumbly cheese threaded with blue veins. ‘It’s fantastic.’
‘No, thanks.’ Stella shook her head.
‘Don’t deny yourself on my account,’ he said. ‘I promise I won’t be jealous. I’ve had more than my fair share of this stuff in my time.’
But Stella steadfastly refused. ‘Really, I’m fine,’ she said. She knew it must be hard for Peter to deprive himself when he was surrounded by such indulgence, and she thought the least she could do was keep him company. Meals at the villa were a minefield of rich patés and fatty rillettes, oozing cheeses and buttery patisserie, and baguettes spread thickly with pale, unsalted butter – all accompanied by seemingly bottomless jugs of pastis and bottles of rosé. She had gone into Nice as soon as they’d arrived and spent the afternoon stocking up on legumes and grains, and had taken over cooking for her and Peter. While the rest of them sat around after dinner picking at cheese as they constantly topped up their glasses, she and Peter grazed on grapes and nuts, and drank sparkling mineral water, limiting themselves to the occasional single glass of wine with the meal.
‘You two are putting us all to shame,’ Michael said as he cut himself a thick wodge of brie.
‘Oh God, don’t say that,’ Peter said. ‘I have no wish to be some sort of poster child for asceticism.’
‘I don’t think you need to worry about that, you old reprobate.’ Jane laughed. ‘You have way too much ground to make up before anyone would look to you as a paragon of healthy living.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it.’
‘It’s paid off, though,’ Joy said. ‘You look really well, Peter.’
‘You do.’ Michael nodded. ‘Better than you ever looked before you had the heart attack, if you ask me.’
‘Well, that’s entirely down to Stella,’ Peter said, smiling at her. ‘I’m sure I’d have been back to my old ways long before now if it weren’t for her.’ He put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder affectionately. ‘She has the patience of a saint and takes exceptional care of me. She can even make gerbil food taste good.’
‘Well, I take my hat off to you,’ Jane said to Stella, doffing an imaginary cap. ‘Remember that time we all tried to go macrobiotic?’ she said to the others.
‘God, yes!’ Peter hooted. ‘We lasted all of about ten days.’ He turned to Stella. ‘It was the seventies. Everyone was doing it at the time. It was the clean eating of our day.’
‘I made you that awful birthday cake,’ Jane said. ‘A wholegrain brick with a few strawberries on top as a concession to the occasion.’
Peter chuckled. ‘I think we used it in the foundations of our extension in the end, didn’t we?’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t worth eating.’
‘And then Monty came over for dinner, and when he saw what we were having, he stormed off in the most frightful huff and came back with a massive Chinese for everyone, and insisted we eat that instead.’
‘We didn’t take much persuading, as I remember,’ Michael said.
‘Nothing has ever tasted as good before or since as those pork ribs.’ Peter licked his lips.
‘And that was the end of our macrobiotic phase,’ Jane said. ‘We never looked back.’
‘Good old Monty,’ Michael said. ‘I haven’t seen him in years. I wonder what he’s up to now?’
‘I bumped into him not long ago outside Leicester Square tube,’ Jane said. ‘The last time I was in London. He and Jules have split up.’
‘Oh no, when did that happen?’
And they were off again, howling over some anecdote about Jules and Monty’s riotous wedding reception. Stella had no idea who Monty was, and she tried to appear content and relaxed as they batted stories back and forth about him. But she felt out of place again, and she was relieved when Joy touched her arm and asked if she’d help her with the coffee.
She nodded gratefully, glad of the chance to escape. The others hardly seemed to notice as they got up and excused themselves, and Stella followed Joy into the cool of the kitchen.
‘I hope you’re not feeling too out of it,’ Joy said to her kindly, as she spooned coffee into the machine. ‘Honestly, sometimes when that lot get together, they forget there’s anyone else around, and that some of us haven’t been Bradshaws for the last hundred years.’
‘I’m fine,’ Stella said with a grateful smile.
‘I came late to the party, so I know what it’s like,’ Joy said. ‘When they start talking about the good old days, they get carried away, and I think they sometimes forget that we weren’t all part of it. I mean, I have no idea who this Monty character is that they’re all talking about.’
‘Oh good.’ Stella laughed. ‘I thought it was just me.’
Joy shook her head ruefully. ‘And we weren’t all macrobiotic in the seventies, were we? I wasn’t for one. Goodness—’ she put a hand to her chest ‘—you wouldn’t have even been born then, would you?’
