Excusing myself, I go through to the kitchen to fetch the canapés I made earlier, and to put the last touches to the dinner. Etiquette – Jack is pedantic about it – means I can’t be gone for long, so I quickly whisk the egg whites that are waiting in a bowl into peaks, and add them to the soufflé base I made earlier.
As I spoon the mixture into individual dishes, I glance nervously at the clock, then put the dishes into a bainmarie and place it in the oven, noting the exact time. I feel a momentary wave of panic that I might not be able to pull everything off, but reminding myself that fear is my enemy, I try to remain calm and return to the sitting room with the tray of canapés. I pass them around, accepting everybody’s compliments gratefully, because Jack will have heard them too. Sure enough, with a kiss to the top of my head, he agrees with Diane that I am indeed a superb cook, and I breathe a silent sigh of relief.
Determined to make some headway with Esther, I sit down next to her. Seeing this, Jack relieves me of the canapés.
‘You deserve a rest, darling, after all the hard work you’ve done today,’ he says, balancing the tray on his long elegant fingers.
‘It wasn’t hard work at all,’ I protest, which is a lie, and Jack knows it, because he chose the menu.
I begin to ask Esther all the right questions: if she has settled into the area, if she was sorry to leave Kent behind, if her two children have settled into their new school. For some reason, the fact that I am well informed seems to irk her, so I make a point of asking the names of her son and daughter, even though I know they are called Sebastian and Aisling. I even know their ages, seven and five, but I pretend that I don’t. Aware of Jack listening to my every word, I know he’ll wonder what I’m playing at.
‘You don’t have children, do you,’ Esther says, making it a statement rather than a question.
‘No, not yet. We thought we’d enjoy a couple of years on our own first.’
‘Why, how long have you been married?’ Her voice registers surprise.
‘A year,’ I admit.
‘It was their anniversary last week,’ Diane chips in.
‘And I’m still not ready to share my beautiful wife with anyone else,’ Jack says, refilling her glass.
I watch, momentarily distracted, as a tiny splash of champagne misses the glass and lands on the knee of his pristine chinos.
‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ Esther begins, her curiosity getting the better of her, ‘but were either of you married before?’
She sounds as if she wants the answer to be yes, as if to find a disgruntled ex-husband or wife lurking in the background would be proof that we’re less than perfect.
‘No, neither of us were,’ I say.
She glances at Jack and I know she’s wondering how someone so good-looking managed to stay unattached for so long. Sensing her eyes on him, Jack smiles good-naturedly.
‘I must admit that at forty years old, I’d begun to despair of ever finding the perfect woman. But as soon as I saw Grace, I knew she was the one I’d been waiting for.’
‘So romantic,’ sighs Diane, who already knows the story of how Jack and I met. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of women I tried to set Jack up with but no one would do until he met Grace.’
‘What about you, Grace?’ Esther asks.‘Was it love at first sight for you too?’
‘Yes,’ I say, remembering.‘It was.’
Overwhelmed by the memory, I stand up a little too quickly and Jack’s head swivels towards me. ‘The soufflés,’ I explain calmly. ‘They should be done now. Are you all ready to sit down?’
Spurred on by Diane, who tells them that soufflés wait for no one, they drain their glasses and make for the table. Esther, however, stops on the way for a closer look at Fireflies and, when Jack joins her rather than urge her to sit down, I breathe a sigh of relief that the soufflés are no way near ready. If they were, I would be near to tears with stress at the delay, especially when he starts explaining some of the different techniques I used to create the painting.
When they eventually sit down five minutes later, the soufflés are cooked to perfection. As Diane expresses her amazement, Jack smiles at me from the other end of the table and tells everyone that I am very clever indeed.
It’s during evenings like this that I’m reminded of why I fell in love with Jack. Charming, amusing and intelligent, he knows exactly what to say and how to say it. Because Esther and Rufus are newcomers, he makes sure that the conversation as we eat our soufflés is for their benefit. He prompts Diane and Adam into revealing information about themselves that will help our new friends, such as where they shop and the sports they play. Although Esther listens politely to their list of leisure activities, the names of their gardeners and babysitters, the best place to buy fish, I know that I am the one who interests her, and I know she’s going to return to the fact that Jack and I have come relatively late to marriage, hoping to find something – anything – to tell her it is not as perfect as it seems. Unfortunately for her, she’s going to be disappointed.
She waits until Jack has carved the Beef Wellington and served it with a gratin of potatoes, and carrots lightly glazed with honey.There are also tiny sugar peas, which I plunged into boiling water just before taking the beef from the oven. Diane marvels that I’ve managed to get everything ready at the same time, and admits she always chooses a main course like curry, which can be prepared earlier and heated through at the last minute. I’d like to tell her that I’d much rather do as she does, that painstaking calculations and sleepless nights are the currency I pay to serve such a perfect dinner. But the alternative – serving anything that is less than perfect – isn’t an option.
Esther looks at me from across the table. ‘So where did you and Jack meet?’
‘In Regent’s Park,’ I say.‘One Sunday afternoon.’
‘Tell her what happened,’ urges Diane, her pale skin flushed from the champagne.
I hesitate a moment, because it’s a story I have told before. But it’s one that Jack loves to hear me tell, so it’s in my interest to repeat it. Luckily, Esther comes to my rescue. Mistaking my pause for reticence, she pounces.
‘Please do,’ she urges.
‘Well, at the risk of boring those who have already heard it before,’ I begin, with an apologetic smile, ‘I was in the park with my sister Millie. We often go there on a Sunday afternoon and that Sunday there happened to be a band playing. Millie loves music and she was enjoying herself so much that she got up from her seat and began to dance in front of the bandstand. She had recently learnt to waltz and, as she danced, she stretched her arms out in front of her, as if she was dancing with someone.’ I find myself smiling at the memory and wish desperately that life was still as simple, still as innocent. ‘Although people were generally indulgent, happy to see Millie enjoying herself,’ I go on, ‘I could see that one or two were uncomfortable and I knew I should do something, call her back to her seat perhaps. But there was a part of me that was loath to because—’
‘How old is your sister?’ Esther interrupts.
‘Seventeen.’ I pause a moment, unwilling to face reality. ‘Nearly eighteen.’
Esther raises her eyebrows. ‘She’s something of an attention seeker, then.’
‘No, she’s not, it’s just that…’
‘Well, she must be. I mean, people don’t usually get up and dance in a park, do they?’ She looks around the table triumphantly and when everyone avoids her eye I can’t help feeling sorry for her.
‘Millie has Down’s syndrome.’ Jack’s voice breaks the awkward silence that has descended on the table. ‘It means she’s often wonderfully spontaneous.’
Confusion floods Esther’s face and I feel annoyed that the people who told her everything else about me didn’t mention Millie.