But not any more though. She couldn’t think of a single bad word to describe him. Not with his amusement at her verbal diarrhoea, and his kindness at her embarrassment.
‘Either way, I think I’d better stay off the wine.’
Sam rubbed the pads of his thumbs across her palms, making her jump. ‘I won’t let you get drunk,’ he said softly. ‘But the wine here really is good. Just have a mouthful or two.’
When their first course came out, the ‘primo’ as Alfredo described it, Cesca accepted a small glass of white wine to accompany the small plate of seafood risotto. Raising the glass to her lips, she swallowed a mouthful of the cool Frascati, letting the crisp, dry flavour cut through the richness of the food. Sam was watching her with interest. His own food was untouched.
‘Is it good?’ he asked, gesturing at the wine.
‘Delicious. Too good to be ignored, really. This must be costing a fortune.’
Sam shrugged. ‘It’s on me, you should enjoy it.’
That brought her back to earth. It must be so obvious to Sam that she’d never eaten anywhere as decadent as this before. Even on the rare occasion she allowed Hugh to treat her to lunch, they would end up in a small, reasonably priced restaurant, where she’d take great pains to choose the cheapest thing on the menu. Somehow she’d let herself be carried away by the beauty of the night, and the magnificence of the setting. The realisation she was eating a meal that would probably cost more than she earned in a month was shocking.
‘I’ll never be able to repay you. The menu didn’t even have a price on it. I’m sorry, I should have thought before we ordered.’
Sam looked affronted. ‘I told you I was taking you out for dinner, didn’t I? That means I get to pay. There’s no way I’d accept your money.’
An awkward silence followed. The risotto that had been nectar to her lips only moments ago turned to ash inside her mouth. She pushed the rice around her plate with her fork, watching it slide, torn between her sudden lack of appetite and her frugal ways. The old Cesca never would leave anything on her plate. Not when she didn’t know where her next meal was coming from.
Sam still said nothing. He finished his risotto and laid the cutlery onto the fine china, picking up his glass of water to cleanse his palate. When he leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat, Cesca found herself brought out of her thoughts.
‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was quiet. ‘I’m not used to this sort of thing. Back in London a trip out to McDonald’s would have been a treat. And even then I probably wouldn’t have been able to go Dutch.’
Sam winced. ‘What happened to you back then?’ Concern pulled at his brow. ‘The last time I saw you, you were riding high. I know I left and I . . . ’ He stumbled on his words, ‘I fucked everything up, but that doesn’t usually make someone give up on life. You were so young, you had everything in front of you.’ He looked at her, tipping his head to the side. ‘Why did you give up on writing?’
When the tears stung at her eyes, she squeezed them shut, willing the salty water to disappear. ‘I don’t know, it just felt as though I’d lost everything. And every time I tried to pull myself out of the hole I’d fallen into, it just seemed to get deeper.’
‘But the play was excellent. And so is the one you’re writing now. It’s clear you were never a one-hit wonder.’
A sharp retort lingered at the tip of her tongue. She swallowed it down, trying to ignore the bitter taste. ‘I couldn’t write any more. I tried and I tried, but I could barely type a sentence. Even those I did manage to write I ended up deleting. They were complete tripe.’ That was back in the early days, when her sisters had urged her to get back into the saddle. When hope wasn’t simply a four-letter word. ‘I stopped trying in the end. Every time I failed I just got more and more depressed, it was exhausting. And on top of that I was trying to hold down a job, and that didn’t work out any better.’
‘What sort of job did you have?’
‘How long have you got? There were too many to list.’
Sam started to laugh. ‘I’m sorry, I know it’s not funny. I just can’t imagine you flitting from job to job. Not when the girl I knew was so intent on being a playwright.’
‘That’s what my uncle Hugh says. He reckons the reason I kept getting sacked was because I was born to do one thing. As though my subconscious was sabotaging me or something.’
As they talked, the waiters cleared the table in front of them. Without a word, Cesca’s wine was taken away, to be replaced by another when their second course came out.
‘It all sounds very dramatic,’ Sam observed.
‘Well, I’m a writer. As you know, drama’s kind of my thing. And anyway, you can’t tell me that you’ve not had a similar experience, unable to play a role well because you just can’t get into it.’
He shrugged, gesturing at her wine. ‘That one’s my favourite. You should drink it all.’ Then, going back to the subject, he said, ‘Some roles are easier than others, that’s true. But I can usually find a way to climb into the skin. It’s a matter of empathy, trying to put yourself in their position. Seeing the world through their eyes for a while.’
Cesca smiled tightly. ‘I think I stopped seeing much of anything at all. The only thing I could think of was how much I’d failed and let everybody down. The producers, the actors, my godfather, my mother . . . ’ Her voice broke on her final word.
‘But you didn’t let them down. I did. I’m the one who left you all in the lurch. I’m the one who got on a plane and flew thousands of miles without looking back. It wasn’t your
fault.’
The second glass of wine was a Chianti, accompanying their secondo of succulent lamb with vegetables. When Cesca lifted the glass she could smell the aroma of cherries, and as the wine passed over her tongue it tasted heavenly. ‘This is so good,’ she told him, offering a smile as if it was an olive branch. ‘You should at least have a taste.’
‘I’m enjoying watching you.’