Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner [10]
The dining room was in fact very pleasant, with its long windows overlooking the garden, now quite black, and the small bunches of rather homely flowers on each spotless white tablecloth. It was also deserted. A table in the corner was occupied by four men in grey suits who kept up the same absorbed monotone that she had already located in the bar. Mme de Bon-neuil, chewing steadily and without expression, had a curious way of taking her wine, in large gulps, as if rinsing her mouth out, and between courses would sit with her hands on the table, waiting for more. Edith could just see, embedded in her brownish fingers, small rings, one crested, but with the indentations worn away. The woman with the dog, a crêpe de Chine blouse hanging rather gauntly from her long neck and narrow shoulders, proved to be something of a disappointment, for she had not made the entrance that Edith had mentally written for her and was hunched in her seat, rather dishevelled about the hair, at an adjacent table, the impassive boy in the white jacket standing like a footman behind her chair. Kiki snuffled beside her, and was picked up from time to time and pressed to his mistress’s face, a face, Edith noted, which now gave minute hints of ultimate disintegration. With Kiki now on her lap, the woman’s wavering fork, used more for flourishing than for eating, contrived to create an impression of food being consumed, although Edith could see quite a lot of it sliding down towards the tablecloth; somehow it never quite fell, for Kiki would jump up and retrieve it, rather like a trained seal. Edith had the impression that Kiki was, in more ways than one, invaluable. The impassive boy’s attendance seemed to be entirely purposeless until, at a nod from the head waiter, he leaned forward and removed the half-finished bottle of Frascati and carried it, with a firm and uncompromising step, to a remote corner of the room. Seconds later, with the same firm and uncompromising step, he returned with a large ice cream, which he set before her, and resumed his position behind her chair. The woman with the dog rolled her fine hieratic eye in Edith’s direction, gave a complicated and sophisticated grimace, and returned her attention to her plate. Theatrical, thought Edith; one of those extremely tall dancers who make a go of it in foreign cabarets and then retire. But why here?
She was aware that the food was hot and excellent, and that, much to her surprise, she was enjoying it, reviving minute by minute under its influence. Slightly more alert by now, she looked round the room, but there was little to see; the grey men were still absorbed in their conversation; two young couples, from the town, obviously, having a night out, had been placed near the windows, overlooking the invisible garden. A plump elderly man, who was in fact M. Huber, had decided to keep an eye on things while having his dinner and thus combine his two favourite occupations; although finding almost everything to his taste, M. Huber did not neglect to summon nearly all the waiters to his table, where they were subjected to twinkling admonitions and then speeded on their way. Out of season, reflected Edith, and it is beginning to show. The woman with the dog got up, stumbled, her napkin falling to the floor; then, picking up Kiki, she turned a superb stare on to the boy in the white jacket who had stepped forward, and, taking a deep breath, prepared to make a dignified exit. Mme de Bonneuil, her hands on the table, gave a loud belch. M. Huber closed his eyes briefly, Edith was interested to see, but when he opened them his face creased into an expression of seraphic joy. Following his gaze, she saw the occasion for this. Across the room, in midnight blue lace, small diamonds sparkling in her ears, the glamorous lady who had demanded tea for her daughter stood hesitantly in the doorway; then, having assured herself that her presence had been noted and would indeed be welcomed, she advanced graciously to her table. Her daughter, in