The Perfect House

Chapter 24: the dinner

The next weekend, Bobba went over with Adele to the family home and met her parents, Mr and Mrs Atwood. He gave them all some basic instruction on formal dining.

On the night of the dinner, all decked out in his best, he went off an hour early to the Atwoods to give them some more advice, and then they all headed off to the Chairman's house.

The following morning, the other three at the house were all eager to hear how it had gone, but Bobba came out of his bedroom and declared, "You lot start getting a fancy breakfast prepared. I'm going over to pick up Adele and Macy, they're going to join us this morning."

Not long after, the six of them were sitting around the dining table which was covered with a variety of dishes of food.

"Come on, you two, tell us about it," demanded an impatient Macy.

Bobba laughed, "It turned out to be a lot of fun."

Adele smiled at him and said, "Let me say first up that Roberto was amazing."

"Ah, that fool bought it on himself."

"Bloody hell, I'm going to start throwing things at you guys if you don't start telling us what happened. From the beginning, please."

"Okay, Macy, okay," Adele responded.

"We all went to the Chairman's house in a chauffeur-driven limo that my Dad had hired. Following Roberto's advice we arrived a few minutes after the appointed hour - 'very rude to arrive early' he'd said. The other guests were already there."

"In we go: introductions and then a strained effort at small talk as we all stood around sipping dry sherry aperitifs. We go to the table: Mr Baines at the head, of course; the opposition, their name was Thorn, down one side, us on the other. On either side of Baines, it was the two wives opposite each other, then the two 'candidates', me opposite the girlfriend, Judith, and Roberto opposite the son, Leonard. And at the end was Mrs Baines . . ."

"Old Frosty Features," butted in Bobba, "from the outset, she gave the impression that she was practically in pain having to suffer through this evening with a bunch of plebs."

"Anyway, the first course arrived," continued Adele smiling. "We Atwoods sat there demurely waiting to take our lead from Roberto. I don't think the Thorns were quite sure what to do, so they just sat there also."

Bobba gave a low snort, "The usual thing is for everyone to wait until the hostess makes a move. That stuck-up old bag deliberately delayed to see if anyone would make a blunder."

"Rob," Adele chided gently, "remember, we decided later that she had probably been asked to do so by her husband."

"Yeah, fair enough."

"Go on, tell them about the wine, Roberto."

"Ha. The wine they served with the first course was crap - some cheap plonk you wouldn't even cook with. I took one sip and no more."

"And you whispered to me to leave it, Rob. So I did and passed the word quietly along to Dad and Mum. We also noticed that our host and hostess merely pretended to take a sip."

"That's right. Now the second wine, that was a different story. I thought this old bastard's playing games with us. Well, I can play games too. So I tried this:

'Mr Baines, may I say that this is an excellent Sauvignon Blanc. Might I be permitted to see the bottle, please?'

'Of course, young man,' he replied giving me a very level look, and then he motioned for the server to show me the bottle.

'Ah yes, The Blue Cottage, a very reliable winery. Better known for their reds, of course, but clearly, they know how to make a decent white.'

After that, he and I exchanged a bit of chat about each of the wines as they were served. Most of them were pretty good, not premium, but still pretty good."

Adele was grinning, "I reckon that as the meal progressed, our side was ahead on points - all behaving in a genteel manner, not making any blunders, always following Roberto's lead . . . then, I think the other fellow, Thorn, must have felt something the same; probably concerned in particular that Roberto and Baines were becoming too chummy discussing the wines, and this was giving us the advantage. He started talking a real lot, didn't he, Rob?"

"He did, and that's when the fun started in earnest."