'Poor thing, nothing serious I hope?' Caroline asked. She did not look in the slightest as though she was suffering from the effects of a sleepless night. She had delicately applied a little eye shadow and mascara, and donned a beautifully cut jacket with fine blue and white stripes.
As I shook my head Georges hurried from the kitchen to our table carrying a glass of orange juice. I prayed he was not about to give me away. 'Zumo de naranja,' he said, putting it in front of me and departing at speed back to the kitchen without another word.
'Not that bloody half-wit with his nonsense language again,' Peter said, this time thankfully in a voice not loud enough to be heard in Paris.
'It's not nonsense,' Caroline said, 'it's Spanish for orange juice.'
'What?'
'Zumo de naranja. It's Spanish for orange juice.'
He smiled. 'How on earth could someone like him have picked that up?' The idea seemed so ludicrous to him that he began to laugh. 'Still having trouble with his own language, and they're trying to teach him Spanish!' Again he laughed, at first a little, then with abandon, his shoulders shaking and his eyes becoming moist.
While he was convulsed with amusement at his own joke Caroline said, very softly but distinctly, 'Village idiot knows more Spanish than Peter does.' She had spoken too quietly for him to make out most of her words, but he picked out his name.
'What was that?' he asked.
'I said someone Spanish must have taught him, Peter dear.'
He looked at her quizzically. 'Well, wouldn't have been an Italian, would it?' he said, and was seized by laughter again, shaking his shoulders and creasing up his face.
When the laughing fit subsided he said, 'Better stroll over to the garage and find out what progress has been made. Won't call on you for translation unless I have to, since you're under the weather. Don't worry about the bill. I'll settle up with Madame for all of us.'
When he was out of earshot I leaned across towards Caroline. 'I heard what you said.'
She turned to face me. 'And I've noticed the way you look at attractive men. Wouldn't dream of saying anything to anyone else about it of course.' She gave me a smile so brittle and so forced that it made me cringe inwardly. 'If you'll excuse me,' she said, getting up from the table.
Some hours later Peter rang me in my room to say the Porsche had been pronounced roadworthy. After checking a second time that everything was packed I picked up my bag and turned towards the door. I had been unable to think of a ruse that would enable me to say goodbye to Georges in privacy. The prospect of spending the rest of the week with Peter and Caroline was unbearable. Returning my bag to the luggage stand I went downstairs.