of light on grass that seems to hang in a splendid long hazy moment of leisure, when you can believe that games have rules and losing doesn’t matter. Not something that Laurel often had faith in. The boys straggled across the grass, tussling with one another, their voices loud but the words lost. The boy with the bat tossing it and twirling it like the staff of the conductor of a marching band.
Back inside she checked the reservations book. The restaurant was full. A lot of regulars. Hugh Todhunter, the barrister who’s defending in a murder case that’s all over the papers every day. Marilyn Ferucci, who people are saying will be the next arts minister when the present sickly incumbent dies. She’s bringing a party of eight, the maximum allowed, and that at only one table, in the corner by the kitchen furthest from the front door, otherwise the restaurant gets too noisy, even though the dull indigo carpet is thick as the fleece of a sheep. Dr Glancy, at his usual table. Sir Billy Snape, who’s made a fortune in ice-cream, a table for two. It usually is, a different young woman each time. Sir Billy likes to tell people that he began with a barrow that he pushed himself and an oilskin bag of dry ice, moving on to a van and now his present ice-cream empire. He calls himself the emperor of ice-cream. And of course it is all a long time ago, when knighthoods could be had for money in the right place. And Queensland a good place for ice-cream.
There are a couple of people whose names she doesn’t know. Two senators, in separate parties. A name that seemed familiar, but not very, that she worked out was the new ambassador for Brazil, remembering an article in the newspaper at the weekend. Dr Prelec, the orthopaedic surgeon, a party of four and a discreet birthday dessert ordered. Marina Ravel, who owns the dress shop called Alchemy, whose designer clothes Flora often wears. Not in the restaurant, when it’s always a white tee-shirt and the regulation fine black check trousers. A spotless white tee-shirt, because she keeps a pile of them in the linen cupboard, laundered with the linen tablecloths and napkins.
Terry Feldman, the lobbyist, the third time this week. Laurel has never been sure what being a lobbyist means, but she’s noticed that he can walk round the restaurant and know everyone, with an intimacy that she is almost sure irritates people, but that somehow they value. Clay Brent, who runs a firm called Travelations; Travel with a Difference, he says with a wink and a leer like a bad actor in old-time music hall. His hands hover, never touching her, but the possibility manifest. Yet he never brings a woman who is a friend. If you could choose who you had in your restaurant, thinks Laurel, you wouldn’t have him. But of course you can’t. He is a good customer, coming often, bringing several business colleagues, usually Asian, ordering French champagne.
There’s an interesting booking, made with much fuss by a personal assistant: the Italian ambassador, the Italian minister for culture and a director of the gallery. Something afoot there.
And there’s a booking for two, in the name of C. Sturgeon. Laurel knows that Cherry Sturgeon is the alias the local restaurant critic uses, not when she writes but to book. So it’s their turn again. She closes the book, and goes to tell Flora, who won’t care but will want to know.
The light over the lake is low, with that silvery intensity that draws brightness into itself and leaves the world dim. The restaurant is shadowed, with an occasional glimmer on a glass or a piece of cutlery. It is a stage waiting to come to life when the actors step on to it.
Jerome Glancy often comes to The Point to eat. It isn’t far from his house in Barton, which is also his office; he can walk. He always sits at the same table, and mostly alone. He brings a book, and the light for just that spot is turned up a little so he can see to read, which he does while waiting for the food,
Back inside she checked the reservations book. The restaurant was full. A lot of regulars. Hugh Todhunter, the barrister who’s defending in a murder case that’s all over the papers every day. Marilyn Ferucci, who people are saying will be the next arts minister when the present sickly incumbent dies. She’s bringing a party of eight, the maximum allowed, and that at only one table, in the corner by the kitchen furthest from the front door, otherwise the restaurant gets too noisy, even though the dull indigo carpet is thick as the fleece of a sheep. Dr Glancy, at his usual table. Sir Billy Snape, who’s made a fortune in ice-cream, a table for two. It usually is, a different young woman each time. Sir Billy likes to tell people that he began with a barrow that he pushed himself and an oilskin bag of dry ice, moving on to a van and now his present ice-cream empire. He calls himself the emperor of ice-cream. And of course it is all a long time ago, when knighthoods could be had for money in the right place. And Queensland a good place for ice-cream.
There are a couple of people whose names she doesn’t know. Two senators, in separate parties. A name that seemed familiar, but not very, that she worked out was the new ambassador for Brazil, remembering an article in the newspaper at the weekend. Dr Prelec, the orthopaedic surgeon, a party of four and a discreet birthday dessert ordered. Marina Ravel, who owns the dress shop called Alchemy, whose designer clothes Flora often wears. Not in the restaurant, when it’s always a white tee-shirt and the regulation fine black check trousers. A spotless white tee-shirt, because she keeps a pile of them in the linen cupboard, laundered with the linen tablecloths and napkins.
Terry Feldman, the lobbyist, the third time this week. Laurel has never been sure what being a lobbyist means, but she’s noticed that he can walk round the restaurant and know everyone, with an intimacy that she is almost sure irritates people, but that somehow they value. Clay Brent, who runs a firm called Travelations; Travel with a Difference, he says with a wink and a leer like a bad actor in old-time music hall. His hands hover, never touching her, but the possibility manifest. Yet he never brings a woman who is a friend. If you could choose who you had in your restaurant, thinks Laurel, you wouldn’t have him. But of course you can’t. He is a good customer, coming often, bringing several business colleagues, usually Asian, ordering French champagne.
There’s an interesting booking, made with much fuss by a personal assistant: the Italian ambassador, the Italian minister for culture and a director of the gallery. Something afoot there.
And there’s a booking for two, in the name of C. Sturgeon. Laurel knows that Cherry Sturgeon is the alias the local restaurant critic uses, not when she writes but to book. So it’s their turn again. She closes the book, and goes to tell Flora, who won’t care but will want to know.
The light over the lake is low, with that silvery intensity that draws brightness into itself and leaves the world dim. The restaurant is shadowed, with an occasional glimmer on a glass or a piece of cutlery. It is a stage waiting to come to life when the actors step on to it.
Jerome Glancy often comes to The Point to eat. It isn’t far from his house in Barton, which is also his office; he can walk. He always sits at the same table, and mostly alone. He brings a book, and the light for just that spot is turned up a little so he can see to read, which he does while waiting for the food,