Page 42 of Friend of the Family

A tall grey-haired man in a white shirt approached their table to a cry of recognition from Max.

‘Charles, you old bugger! What are you doing here?’

‘Got a place over in Vaugines,’ replied the man, as Max rose to clasp his hand and air-kiss his wife.

‘Come and join us,’ he said, waving his hand extravagantly towards the table. ‘We have wine, olives and the very best company. Everyone, this is Charles, my old boss at McKinsey.’

‘Well, I don’t think anyone can ever claim to be Max’s boss, but yes, I tried.’

Amy smiled, but felt her heart sink. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to meet this friend of Max’s, but she spent half of her working life glad-handing strangers, making small talk with advertisers, agents and management, and sometimes she just wanted to switch off. She scolded herself for being so uncharitable as Charles introduced his wife, Pandora, and Daniel, le patron, brought over two more chairs.

‘So was he really that bad?’ asked David. ‘I’ve always wondered.’

‘Rotten!’ shouted Max.

Charles laughed. ‘Well, I will say our loss is retail’s gain. I do read the business pages and feel proud.’

‘Proud that you fired him?’ asked Juliet with an almost straight face.

‘I wasn’t technically fired,’ said Max. ‘It was more that I stopped going into the office.’

‘Yes, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that . . .’ smiled Charles.

Max leaned across to clap the older man on the shoulder. ‘Seriously, Charles, if you hadn’t thought I was complete crap, I’d still be stuck in middle management.’

‘I never thought you were crap, Max. Far from it. I just always knew you were destined to be your own man rather than a company one.’

Ice broken, Max poured more wine and began to regale them all with tales of his rank incompetence in the world of work: missed meetings, and, on more than one occasion, theft of office stationery. Amy laughed along, every now and then catching David’s eye and exchanging a secret shy smile. No, she could definitely get used to this kind of life, she thought.

‘So how did you all meet?’ asked Pandora, after Daniel had brought out a superb crème brûlée to round off their meal.

‘University, would you believe,’ said Juliet, looking meaningfully at Max.

‘Oxford, wasn’t it?’ said Charles.

Juliet nodded. ‘Class of 1995. Feels like two minutes ago, but it was over twenty years.’

Pandora nudged David and nodded at Amy. ‘So come on, were you two college sweethearts?’

Max put his arm around David’s shoulder. ‘True love never dies,’ he said, batting his eyelids.

‘We were housemates,’ said Juliet, taking charge. ‘Max and David were at Lincoln; I was at St Hilda’s, desperate for some male company.’

‘I assume you found it,’ said Charles, nodding genially in Peter’s direction.

‘No, I’m a Cambridge man,’ said Peter. ‘Horses brought us together.’

‘This sounds like a romantic story,’ said Pandora, clapping her hands.

‘Didn’t start that romantically, actually,’ said David. ‘It was a weekend party at an estate near Oxford and I’d taken Jules as my date.’

‘Platonic,’ said Juliet quickly. ‘Very platonic.’

‘Peter was a friend of the host,’ continued David. ‘Anyway, we’d all arranged to go for a hack at the crack of dawn, but I had a hangover, couldn’t face it, so Juliet and Peter were the only two who turned up. And then Peter saved her life.’

‘You saved her?’ gasped Pandora. ‘How?’

Peter waved his glass modestly, so Juliet sat forward.