Using set designers, painters and dressers whom she had met working with Carlo, Annie transformed the Amadeus Centre in Maida Vale into an eighteenth-century glade inspired by her painting. Large drapes painted with dappled foliage hung from the wraparound balcony and great branches of willow, bought that morning at New Covent Garden Market, were placed in massive clay pots. The centrepiece, a large fountain, identical to the one in her painting, its edifice covered in tiny smiling putti, was carved in Styrofoam and painted in cream. A swing hung from the ceiling and the floor was covered in AstroTurf strewn with fresh petals.
Annie set up a central table shaped like a horseshoe and covered it in heavy white damask. She had hired a grand service, in the style of Louis XV, along with twenty candelabra and thirty serving dishes from a prop company. The Winklemans’ housekeeper, Primrose, and her daughter Lucinda had worked through the night sewing the heads of roses to sprigs of gypsum to make long ropes of flowers to festoon the sides and tabletops. The table’s centrepiece was made from mounds of candied fruit and edible sugared mice chased by chocolate-coloured kittens. Each place setting had eight knives and forks, three spoons and seven wine glasses, plus one golden goblet to hold water. Starched linen napkins, each four foot square, had been folded into preening swans that sat on golden plates. In front of each place setting was a hand-engraved individual place card and a menu with details of the food and wine.
In one corner of the room there was a tiny stage from which a band of musicians dressed in period costume would play madrigals. From another door, when the jacquard chicken was served, acrobats dressed as harlequins would tumble across the glade in a performance for the diners. During one of the eight puddings, a lachrymose jester, the doppelgänger for the clown in Annie’s painting, would appear with a lute and sing to the assembled guests.
Hidden from view at the back of the hall, Annie had created a makeshift kitchen. Timing was essential, and to achieve a state of perfection, there were only a few seconds spare between dishes.
While the set dressers were putting their final touches to the glade, Jesse, the army of waiters and the second sous chef arrived. Annie was grateful that Jesse behaved like any other employee. With much of the detailed preparation done a day or two before, the main issue was to get all twenty courses to the table on time, at the right temperature and served with the correct wine. While failure might not, as it had at Versailles, have fatal consequences, a botched job would spell the end of Annie’s dream. For Delores, the evening had to pass as a high point in the artistic social calendar.
Splitting her team into four groups, each assigned a separate task and area, Annie handed out printed sheets detailing the evening’s events and chores. No detail was left to chance; even bathroom breaks were scheduled.
“This evening must run like a military campaign,” Annie explained. “Please read this list carefully: you must know what to expect and what is expected from you. Jesse is my second-in-command so if I am busy please refer to him. Raoul is in charge of waiters, Amy will look after the cloakrooms, Ted is our sommelier and Riccardo is managing clearing and washing.”
Annie looked at the twenty-two expectant faces. After weeks of meticulous planning, she felt confident and calm. She had employed professionals who knew what to do and how to manage stressful situations. Her profit on the evening was shaved to a minimum: this evening was about her future rather than her bank balance.
The first to arrive was Delores dressed as Marie Antoinette. Sheathed in layers of cream lace and purple shot satin, she reminded Annie of a vast animated sea anemone shimmying across the floor.
“Oh my,” Delores said as she stepped into the bower. “I am going to cry. I must not cry. I am going to cry—what have you done, you marvellous, clever creature?”
Annie smiled and blushed root red.
Heading towards the swing, Delores looked as if she would try and nudge her bottom into the seat but to everyone’s relief she was distracted by the putti-covered fountain. Soon she went behind the scenes to inspect the food. She paid close attention to each dish. Annie insisted on introducing each member of her team.
At exactly 8 p.m. the madrigals started to play and minutes later a bugler heralded the arrival of the first guest, Mrs. Appledore, who came dressed as Madame de Pompadour in a dress copied down to the last detail from the portrait by Boucher. She had even bought a lap dog for £2,500 from Harrods’ Pet Kingdom to accompany her, but the creature had whined and puked in the car and Mrs. Appledore left the animal to its fate on the street outside. Seconds later Barty arrived dressed as an eighteenth-century courtesan in a ballgown with a five-foot span embroidered with gold and tiny pearls (he had to bribe his friend at the V&A to smuggle it out of the stores for one night). The dress had been so complicated to put on that his whole office had taken the afternoon off to fit Barty into the undergarments, wooden stays and hoops. This time he had borrowed a wig made of ropes of blond curls. Sweating slightly under the weight of the hairpiece and the thickness of his ermine-edged flowing cape, Barty went immediately to the men’s room to fix his make-up. Vlad arrived separately dressed in black leather trousers and jerkin with a crown on his head and a badge saying “Peter the Great.” Having agreed to Barty’s plan to build his baby Versailles in St. Petersburg, Barty had appointed Delores as the principal paintings advisor and, to her unmitigated delight, three significant purchases, paintings by Pater, Lancret and Boucher, had been earmarked. Thanks to the commission on these, Delores had upgraded the evening’s choice of champagne from ordinary to vintage Pol Roger, the wine to premier cru.
At 8 p.m., news reached the kitchen that Rebecca could not come—last-minute urgent business in Berlin. Instead, Memling Winkleman was bringing Carlo and Rebecca’s daughter, Grace. “Such a relief,” Delores commented. “Rebecca would not know a good time if it bit her.”
By eight thirty, most of the fifty guests had arrived. Peeking out from the kitchen area, Annie recognised Septimus Ward-Thomas, a minor royal, the ageing pop star Johnny “Lips” Duffy, and several Hello! magazine habitués. The Earl and Countess Beachendon arrived dressed as courtiers. The Emir and Sheikha of Alwabbi were the only couple not to have dressed according to the theme “Rococo.” The biggest surprise was Carlo and Rebecca’s daughter—Annie had expected a demure twenty-one-year-old; Grace was a gothic punkess with piercings covering her nose and ears, and a tattoo of a dragon, clearly visible thanks to a backless dress, running from the nape of her neck to the top of her buttocks. Delores had placed her next to Vlad.
“Are you art advisor?” Vlad asked.
“I am anything you want me to be,” Grace replied.
Memling walked in, looked around and became unsettled, though he could not quite articulate, at that moment, what was disturbing him.
The next four hours flew past for Annie as she sent each course out, one after the other—oysters, caviar, soups, quails, foie gras, jacquard chicken, onion soup with champagne, sole stuffed with crab meat, vegetables piled high, new potatoes the size of crocus bulbs mixed with quails’ eggs, pigeons dressed like baby peacocks, feathers made from herbs captured in cages of spun sugar. The pièce de résistance was a boneless turkey stuffed with a boneless goose, stuffed with a boneless chicken, a boneless partridge, a quail and finally a baby snipe. As Jesse and two others carried the bird to the table and sliced it through with a miniature saw, the table erupted into applause.
“Chef! Chef!” the whole room clamoured.
Jesse ran into the makeshift kitchen. “They are calling for you, come out and take a bow.”
“I can’t—look at me,” Annie said, knowing that her hair was protruding out of her chef’s cap and that her face would be streaked with sweat and flour.
But the clapping continued and grew louder. Wiping her hands on her apron, Annie smoothed her hair and, stepping out from behind the fountain, nervously made her way to the centre of the horseshoe table.
“Brava!” Delores struggled to her feet. “Brava!”
The other diners clapped enthusiastically.
Annie, blushing deep red, bowed. “Thank you so much—now if you don’t mind, there are still eight more courses.”
There was a collective groan.
“We can’t eat any more,” someone shouted out.
“Just a few bites!” Annie laughed, edging back towards the kitchen.
No one understood why Memling Winkleman left shortly after the Pierrot appeared, but everyone was having such a good time that they hardly noticed.
Annie had to take three more bows between courses, followed by a standing ovation at the end. Mrs. Appledore, Earl Beachendon and Johnny “Lips” asked her again to create an event for them, and the Sheikha of Alwabbi tried to hire her for the next six months.
When the guests had left, the floors had been cleaned, the tables cleared, all the plates, glasses and hired equipment packed into boxes and loaded into a van hired for the evening, ready to be returned to their owners the following morning, Jesse and Annie were finally alone. They sat side by side, cross-legged in the middle of the floor. The hall had been returned to its original state, large, slightly tatty and oddly purposeless.
“I’m glad Delores arranged a photographer,” Annie said, looking around. “It all seems like an unreal dream now.”
Taking Annie’s hand in his, Jesse kissed its palm gently. “It was extraordinary—I was honoured to be part of it.”
“You were bloody brilliant. The moment that chicken slipped off the tray—”
“And shot across the floor—”
“And threatened to knock over the fountain—”
“And you caught it like Jonny Wilkinson going for a try…”
They laughed together.
“And then Delores’s breast jumped out of its corset while she was eating another meringue,” Jesse said, laughing.
“I missed it completely. I was building a tower of profiteroles!”
“You should have seen Mrs. Appledore’s face!” Jesse said, imitating her look of total horror.
“What else, what else?” Annie pleaded. “I missed so much of the action being stuck in the kitchen,” she said.
“Vlad and Miss Winkleman left together—couldn’t keep their hands off each other all evening.”
“Rebecca will be furious—she thinks that her daughter is a Vestal Virgin,” said Annie, lying back on the floor.
Jesse’s heart skipped as he saw her hair fanned out like an auburn halo around her pale, beautiful face. In her makeshift kitchen, Annie had seemed powerful; now she looked so fragile and slight that he longed to take her in his arms and kiss away the violet smudges of tiredness under her eyes.
“Tell me more,” Annie implored.
Forcing his mind back to the dinner, Jesse said, “Earl Beachendon looked thoroughly depressed. He and his wife had got hopelessly lost in a Maida Vale housing estate. Someone snatched his phone and her bag. Hearing that Vlad was building a new museum, he cheered up somewhat.”
“Which one was his wife?”
“She looked like an animated herbaceous border.”
“Oh my, the one wearing a pair of curtains?”
“That’s her,” Jesse said and lay on his side so that he could see Annie more clearly.
Annie felt Jesse’s eyes on her but kept looking at the ceiling.
“For some reason Delores sat the Countess next to the rock star. What’s his name?”
“Johnny ‘Lips’.”
“I could not understand what the two might have in common. Thought that was a bad call,” Jesse said, and edged closer to Annie.
“And?” Annie wished Jesse would stop staring at her.
“It was a match made in heaven. They are both into breeding Arab horses and auriculas. What are the odds on that?”
“What’s an arc-u-la?” Intrigued, Annie turned to face him. His sweet-smelling breath grazed her cheek. To her surprise, she did not feel claustrophobic and enjoyed looking into his face. She noticed, for the first time, that his deep-blue eyes were flecked with tiny gold and black streaks.
“Auricula—a kind of flower—lace-makers and silk-weavers went mad for it in the eighteenth century. Later someone sent a cutting to the States and Thomas Jefferson fell in love with it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Eavesdropping on their conversation.”
“Tell me about old man Winkleman.”
“When your clown came out from behind the fountain he started to hyperventilate. Thought I might have to call an ambulance but he made his way out into the street, got into his car and was driven away.”
“I noticed the spare seat but never stopped to think whose it was. Tell me about Barty—he won best outfit of the evening.”
“He was a hoot. Gave the Sheikha and Vlad a long lecture about things that are common,” Jesse said, noticing that a sprig of thyme was caught in her hair, a tiny speck of green among the red and golden curls. He reached over and gently pulled it away and then handed the herb to her. Their fingers touched and, taking the offering, she smelt it and then crushed it between her fingers. She felt a breath on her face and, opening her eyes, looked up to see Jesse leaning over her.
“You look so beautiful,” he said. “Can I kiss you?”
Annie rolled away from him and sat up.
“I want to remember tonight for other reasons,” she said.
“Of course.” Jesse sprang up. “I am so sorry. It’s selfish of me.”
Annie also got to her feet and brushed off the dust from her trousers.
“I need to tell you a few things,” she said. “But not tonight.” Looking at her watch, she smiled at Jesse. “I am going to drive that van home and try and get a few hours’ sleep.”
Jesse smiled. “Can you drop me at a bus stop?”
“Thank you for helping tonight. I couldn’t have done it without you,” she said, holding out her hand.
Jesse took her hand. “You could and you will have to. Tonight was the start of your new life—I could see that—you looked so at home, so confident, so happy and clear.”
“Do you really think so?”
Jesse looked at this strange, fierce, yet fragile creature and longed to take her in his arms.
“I forgot what joy felt like,” Annie said, trying to find the key in the bottom of her bag. “I am beginning to understand that it was rather absent in my previous life. It probably sounds stupid but when I can persuade three different random ingredients to go together and create something delicious, I am overcome by waves of happiness.”
“It’s the same feeling when my painting springs to life, taking on some unaccountable, independent force—a dab of green, yellow and dash of scarlet meld to create a perfect leaf.”
“Do you really think I could be a chef?”
“I don’t think—I know,” Jesse said with great conviction.
Annie turned to face him, her face shining.
“Thank you, that makes me very happy.”