Gentleman's Relish by Patrick Gale Page A

too principled to provide. Lara’s parents both retreated into books. She had almost finished her last one and needed to eke it out over several more nights so she joined a raggle-taggle band of children in the games chalet for ping-pong. Interestingly most had opted to stay naked though one or two, Lara included, appeared in clothes because of the cold but soon discarded them on the chalet’s old sofas and chairs so as to fit in. One boy retained just a Pacamac. More fancy dress than proper clothing, it whirled about him as he ran and began to stick weirdly to his skin where he got hot.
    Sitting out a game or two with Wolf, she found he was no less interested in Mr Johnson still but that now his thoughts had turned dark with obscure disappointment.
    â€˜That Johnson is a bad sort,’ he pronounced.
    â€˜How do you mean?’ she asked.
    â€˜He’s a pervert.’
    â€˜No!’ Lara liked Mr Johnson and his funny, pink wife.
    â€˜He stares too much. He was watching you girls in the water yesterday and he touched himself when he thought no one could see him. But I saw and that’s why he’s avoiding me.’
    â€˜No he didn’t. I expect he just had an itch. I’ve had itches. There are water fleas in the lake sometimes.’
    â€˜You’re too young, Tiger Cub. You don’t understand. He’s bad. You should be careful around him.’ Wolf looked less attractive when he frowned and she looked away and picked an oak leaf from between her toes.
    She had said hello to Mr Johnson on her way over from her parents’ cabin. He was defying the rain, heading for the woods with his binoculars slung around his neck and his bird book protected by a plastic bag. Perhaps he and his wife had had words and she wanted to be alone because of her heavy pregnancy. He looked a little sad, she thought, venturing off on his own and she would have offered to join him on his expedition only she had stupidly put clothes on and they were rapidly getting wet. When she grew up, she decided, a man like Mr Johnson would make a better companion than one like Wolf or his advertisement-shiny father.
    Bored of sitting out, Wolf initiated a game of Round the Table. Lara enjoyed this because she was fairly hopeless at ping-pong but deft at snatching up and slamming down the bat when it was her turn to hit the ball. She liked the permitted violence of it.
    The mood became wilder and wilder as more and more players were eliminated. Chubby Eric’s spectacles steamed up so much he had to beg for a pause while he rubbed them on someone’s discarded shirt and Eileen cracked a fingernail painfully when slamming down the racket and said fuck which induced near-hysteria. Lara was soon out too but didn’t mind because another round would soon be starting.
    Then Wolf, who had made it into the last four, was run out and he protested ridiculously. Everyone remembered how odd and silly he had been with all his showing off to Mr Johnson that morning and the older ones turned on him.
    â€˜Well go if you’re going,’ Eileen said and everybody laughed because her fuck had earned her new popularity. Even Lara laughed, because it was quite funny even though she didn’t care for Eileen, and Wolf saw as he left and his eyes slid over her in a dismissive way that stopped the laughter in her throat.
    When they all gathered for supper that night, Lara discovered the Johnsons had left suddenly.Spirits were high on account of the way the weather had shaken up camp routines so there was skittish socializing between tables and word soon got around that they had been asked to go . Asked to go was the phrase always used when there had been a complaint – invariably against a man – involving staring, cameras or what Lara’s mother tantalizingly called unwonted attentions.
    Wolf ate with his parents at their usual table near the door. Nobody was gossiping with them and they were talking little to