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I, meanwhile, am sitting next to Iain. He doesn’t say very much, and when he does his accent is so thick it’s hard to understand everything.
‘Do you live here too?’ I ask him.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Fort William – with my wife and kids.’
‘Ah,’ I say. ‘Have you worked here long?’
He nods. ‘Since the current owner first bought the place.’
‘What do you do?’
‘Whatever needs doing. Odd jobs, here and there: working on the pumphouse, at the moment, down by the loch. I bring the supplies in too: food, the bits for the cabins.’
‘What’s the owner like?’ I ask, intrigued. I imagine a whiskery old Scottish laird, so I’m a bit surprised when Iain says, ‘He’s all right, for an Englishman.’ I wait for him to say more, but he either doesn’t have anything to add, or is reluctant to do so.
I seem to have run out of questions, so it’s a relief when the Icelandic man asks about the deer-stalking, and the whole table’s attention is turned to that. It’s as if the idea of a hunt, a kill, has exerted a magnetic pull upon everyone’s attention.
‘We don’t hunt the deer just for the sake of it,’ the gamekeeper says. ‘We do it to keep the numbers down – otherwise they’d get out of control. So it’s necessary.’
‘But I think it’s necessary for another reason,’ the man – Ingvar – says. ‘Humans are hunters, it’s in our very DNA. We need to find an outlet for those needs. The blood lust.’ He says the last two words as though they have a particularly delicious flavour to them, and there’s a pause in which no one quite seems to know what to say, a heightening of the awkward tension that’s plagued this meal. I see Miranda raise her eyebrows. Perhaps we can all laugh about this later – it’ll become a funny anecdote. Every holiday has these moments, doesn’t it? ‘Well, I don’t know about all that,’ says Bo, spearing a piece of venison, ‘but it’s delicious. Amazing to think it came from right here.’
I’m not so sure. It’s not terrible, exactly, but I could have done so much better. The venison is overly flavoured with juniper, you can hardly taste the meat, and there isn’t nearly enough jus. The vegetables are limp: the cavolo nero a slimy over-steamed mush.
I’ll make up for it tomorrow evening. I have my wonderful feast planned: smoked salmon blinis to go with the first couple of bottles of champagne, then beef Wellington with foie gras, followed by a perfect chocolate soufflé. Soufflés, as everyone knows, are not easy. You have to be a bit obsessive about them. The separation of the eggs, the perfect beating of the whites – the timings at the end, making sure you serve them before the beautiful risen crest falls. Most people don’t have the patience for it. But that’s exactly the sort of cooking I like.
It’s a relief, to be honest, when the dessert (a rather limp raspberry pavlova) is finally cleared away.
As everyone is readying to leave, Julien motions us all to sit back down. He’s had a bit too much to drink; he sways slightly as he stands.
‘Darling,’ Miranda says, in her most silken tones, ‘what are you doing?’ I wonder if she’s remembering last New Year – in the exclusive environs of Fera at Claridge’s restaurant – when he stood up out of his seat without looking, only to send a waiter’s entire tray of food crashing to the ground.
‘I want to say a few words,’ he says. ‘I want to thank Emma …’ he raises his glass at me, ‘for picking such a fantastic place—’
‘Oh,’ I say, ‘I haven’t really done anything …’
‘And I want to say how special it is to have everyone here, together. It’s nice to know that some things never change, that some friends are always there for you. It hasn’t been the easiest year—’
‘Darling,’ Miranda says again, with a laugh, ‘I think everyone gets the idea. But I absolutely agree. Here’s to old friends—’ she raises her glass. Then she remembers, and turns to me. ‘And new, of course. Cheers!’
Everyone echoes her, including Ingvar – though of course she did not mean him. But even his interjection doesn’t spoil it. The toast has rescued the atmosphere, somehow – it’s brought a sense of occasion to the meal. And I feel, again, that special little glow of pride.
About an hour after the dinner there’s a knock on his door. The dogs, Griffin and Volley, go crazy at this unexpected excitement: no one ever comes to his cottage. He checks his watch: midnight.
‘What the—’
It’s the beautiful one, the tall blonde who sat next to him at the meal. Who touched her hand to his, which was, as it happens, the first time anyone has touched his skin in a long time. She smiles, her hand lifted, as though ready to knock again. He can smell trouble coming off her.
Griffin barrels past him and leaps up at her even as Doug roars, ‘Down!’ She throws her arms up, and as she does her sweater lifts, exposing a taut sliver of stomach, the tight-furled bud of her navel. The dog’s nose leaves a wet slick across the skin.
She seems embarrassed by her reaction of fear; she bends to caress Griffin’s head, a show of bravado. ‘Pretty girl,’ she says, sounding less than completely convinced. She grins up at him, all her white teeth. Look at me, the grin says, look how relaxed I am. ‘Hi. Hope you don’t mind my interrupting you like this.’
‘What is it?’
Her smile falters. Too late, he remembers that this is a guest, that he owes her a service, even if it is ridiculously late for her to be asking anything of him. He attempts some damage limitation with the next question. ‘How can I help?’
‘I was wondering if you could help us make a fire,’ she says, ‘in the Lodge.’
He stares at her. He cannot imagine how nine people might not have the skills between them to set a fire.
‘We’ve been trying to make one,’ she says, ‘but without much luck.’ She leans one arm against the doorpost, slouching her hip. Her jumper has ridden up again. ‘We’re Londoners, you see. I know you’d make it much better than we ever could.’
‘Fine,’ he says, curtly, and then remembers again that she is a customer. A guest. ‘Of course.’
He senses that she is the sort of woman who is used to getting her way. He can feel her trying to peer into the interior of the cottage. He is not used to this: he blocks her view with his body and closes the door behind him so quickly that he only just avoids Griffin’s eager nose.
She crooks her finger at him, inviting him to follow. Just toward the Lodge, to light the bloody fire … but still. He knows what she is offering up to him. Not the act itself, perhaps, but the whisper, the hint, the wink of it.
How long has it been? A long time. More than a year – maybe a lot more.
As he follows he catches that scent of her perfume again, the church-like smokiness of it. It smells to him like trouble.
He follows her back to the Lodge. As he kneels in the grate, the big guy – Mark? – comes over and says in a man-to-man way, ‘Waste of your time, mate. She insisted on going and getting you. But I practically had it going. The wood’s just a bit damp, that’s all.’
He looks at the haphazard arrangement of logs in the grate, the twenty or so burned matches scattered around, and says nothing.
‘Want some help?’ the man asks.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Suit