There was a pause.
“That’s enough,” said Flora, and Fintan, she could see, realized immediately he’d gone too far.
“Sorry, sis,” he said. Then he looked round the table, rubbing the back of his sunburned neck with his hand. “Sorry, everyone.”
The waiter brought them something he called an “amusing bouche”; with an odd kind of strangled laugh, he uncovered a large tray with four tiny little ramekins of oysters swimming in some kind of congealing jelly.
“What’s this?” said Colton, a little grumpily.
“It’s oyster surprise de la mer,” said the waiter proudly. It certainly did look surprising.
They all prodded it. Flora had grown up eating wild oysters, either straight from the shoreline, or sometimes her mother would stick them by the fire until they smoked themselves and their shells popped open, and she and her brothers scorched their fingers, but they didn’t care, as the smoky, salty deliciousness inside was too good to wait for.
This was just a lump of horrible fish jelly, surrounding another fish jelly. Fintan didn’t even pick up his fork.
“What is this?” he said. “I didn’t understand that wee guy the first time.”
“Well . . .,” Colton began, then shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
After the ramekins were removed, they all took an unenthusiastic shot at the asparagus and anchovy mousse. Conversation was definitely slowing. Fintan was blinking in disbelief.
“But why?” he kept saying, his face going pink. “Why?”
“Well,” said Colton, who looked aggrieved and not unlike a man who was not happy to have been denied a steak. “I just said I wanted to recruit the best and my people got on it and—”
“That’s what happens when you want something done?” said Fintan. “You have to get people on it?”
“Well, yeah. I’m quite busy.” Colton smirked.
“Telling people to get on things,” said Fintan.
There was a pause.
“Yeah, and . . .”
“What?”
“And now some prawn marmalade,” said the waiter. Fintan waved him away irritatedly.
“So you came here into our community and decided that someone else who wasn’t ever here should make decisions about us?”
“He’s meant to be one of the top experimental chefs in the world,” said Colton.
“Yes. Experiments in horrible things,” said Fintan. “And why does it say ‘locally sourced’? Excuse me, waiter. Why does everything here say ‘locally sourced’?”
Joel, Flora noticed, was watching all this with a wry smile of amusement. He seemed to be almost enjoying himself, for once, or engaged, at least. Why, oh why, did she find horn-rimmed glasses so incredibly attractive? Had she always thought this or was it just because he wore them? His eyelashes were so long they were brushing against the glass. She wondered briefly, taking a sip of wine, what would happen if, while Fintan and the waiter appeared to be having an argument, she simply slid her foot . . .
No. No no. No. She was at work.
She took another swig of wine.
“Um . . .” The waiter looked hot and embarrassed. It was bad enough having the boss in. “Well,” he said. “We use local salt.”
“Which salt?”
“Hebridean rock salt.”
“The Hebrides are two hundred nautical miles from here.”
The waiter coughed.
“I believe that counts, sir.”
Fintan blinked.
“So you’re telling me you just sprinkle salt on everything.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And that magically turns it into ‘locally sourced.’”
“It’s a key ingredient, sir.”
“I don’t believe ‘locally sourced’ is a legal term,” observed Joel drily.
“Hang on,” said Colton. “So I’m telling my friends and clients and customers that what we’re getting here is the very best of Scottish produce . . .”
Fintan pushed his plate away and took another swig of his wine, which he had been drinking like beer because he normally only drank beer.
“Sorry, can I have a look at the cheese board?”
The waiter’s blink rate was now through the roof.
“Um, I’ll see . . .”
“You won’t see,” said Colton. “You’ll bring it.”
The waiter disappeared, and the ma?tre d’ replaced him, looking pink and sweating in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Rogers, sir?”
“We don’t know,” said Colton. “That’s why we need the cheese board.”
A trolley was rolled in with what was clearly a selection of chilly, recently unwrapped bought-in cheeses, including a suspiciously industrial-looking white Cheddar. Fintan sniffed them in turn.
“Know your cheese?” said Colton, amused. He’d watched Fintan slugging down the wildly expensive Bordeaux he’d ordered.
“Yes,” said Fintan. He cut himself a slice of each, and chewed them slowly.
“How much does your cheese plate go for?”
“Twenty-one pounds,” said the waiter. “You get four for that.”
“You’re ripping people off,” said Fintan flatly. “This isn’t . . . this isn’t the real deal.”
“Well, there’s a lot of pasteurized cheese . . .”
“Yeah. It’s crap.”
“In the States, it’s illegal to sell unpasteurized cheese,” said Colton. “Filthy European habit.”
“How many people does cheese kill every year?” said Fintan. “I’ll tell you how many: none.”
“What about listeria?”
“Yup, that’s why we have nonety-none people hospitalized every year with listeria,” said Fintan.
“I was wrong about you,” smiled Colton. “You do know your cheese.”
Colton, Flora noticed, had angled his entire body toward Fintan, and was watching him with an air of sly amusement.
She realized suddenly that she hadn’t speculated at all on Colton’s sexuality, had assumed he’d be one of those men who trailed a flock of expensive ex-wives. She had absolutely no idea if he was married, had a girlfriend, what. She wondered if Fintan had noticed, and glanced at Joel.
To her total surprise, he caught her eye and gave her the tiniest of grins. She instantly tugged her head around and stared straight ahead.
“So you can suggest better?” Colton was saying to Fintan.
“I make better,” said Fintan. “We have better butter, better fishing, far better oysters . . . I mean, you name it. Mrs. Laird in the village, her bread is a million times better than this. Flora can outcook anything here. And we have much, much better cheese.”
Colton eyed him for a second.
“You make better?”
“Christ, yeah.”
“Show me.”
Fintan shrugged.
“I’ll send some over.”
“No. Show me now. Have you got some on your farm?”
He clicked his fingers at the ma?tre d’.
“You’ll need to send someone.”
Fintan got up to go.