"Ask him whether he intends to eat."
Mr. Alder was close enough to hear his wife without the assistance of staff. Mina turned toward him anyway.
"Sir?"
"Tell her I was waiting until she'd finished criticizing the food."
"I haven't criticized the food. Ask him when I criticized the food."
Mina held the bread basket between them.
The private dining room had been set for an anniversary. Twenty-eight years, according to the florist's card. Mina had worked at the club for six months and couldn't imagine surviving another six if every shift resembled this one.
But the Alders had offered her cash to stay, and her rent went up on Monday. They owned the staff rooms as well as the club. She could almost see the money making its short journey through her purse.
The kitchen porter waved goodbye through the service hatch. Everything was prepared; Mina only had to clear, pour and bring the coffee. Her own phone was charging in her locker upstairs. The club telephone sat beside the pantry door.
"No interruptions," Mrs. Alder had told the manager before sending everyone home. "We'd like to be alone."
Now she was in the powder room, and her husband was changing something on the table.
Mina paused behind the open hatch.
His hand hovered over his wife's wine. Something small disappeared into his pocket. He stirred the glass with the handle of a spoon, glanced at the door, then wiped the spoon on his napkin.
Mina stood still.
He saw her.
"Coffee afterward. Not with dessert."
"Of course."
She went to the table and lifted his wife's glass.
"What's wrong with it?"
"Chip in the rim, sir."
There wasn't one. She kept her thumb against the rim so he couldn't see.
"Leave it."
"I couldn't, sir. She might cut herself."
He watched her carry it to the sideboard.
Mrs. Alder was coming down the short passage from the powder room. Mina intercepted her beside the coat stand.
"Please don't drink the wine."
The woman looked at the front of Mina's dress.
"Have you spilled something?"
"I saw him put something in it."
Mrs. Alder gripped Mina's arm.
"You're sure?"
"He hid it when I came through."
For the first time that evening, Mrs. Alder looked directly into her face.
"Thank you. I'll make a call. Quietly. You mustn't let him know."
"Should we leave?"
"Get the coffee. Let me deal with this."
She pressed Mina's hand between both of hers. Mina felt, absurdly, grateful.
In the pantry she filled the cups. Her hands made the saucers chatter. She could hear Mr. Alder in the passage, speaking irritably into his phone.
When she returned, Mrs. Alder was alone at the table.
She was holding something over her husband's brandy.
She saw Mina and closed her hand.
Neither spoke.
Mr. Alder came back, sat down and reached for his glass.
Mina took it before it reached his mouth.
"Don't."
His fingers remained curved around the space where it had been.
"Your wife put something in it."
The room became so quiet that Mina heard the coffee pot lid settling on its hinge.
Mrs. Alder laid her closed hand in her lap.
"Did you call anyone?" Mina asked her.
She didn't answer.
Mina set the brandy beside the wine and turned toward the pantry telephone.
Behind her, Mrs. Alder said, "She saw you too."
Mina stopped just long enough to look back.
Mr. Alder was looking at his wife.
"You were going to?"
"Were you?"
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his plate.
"I suppose we should have talked."
Mina hurried down the passage toward the pantry.
Mr. Alder reached the door before she reached the telephone. He closed it and stood with his back against it.
"Let's all calm down."
"I haven't done anything."
"We know," Mrs. Alder said from behind her.
The woman was holding the wineglass.
Mina knocked it against the doorframe. Wine splashed the wall, but the glass didn't break. She tried to get past Mr. Alder, and he caught her.
She shouted for the porter, although she'd watched him leave.
They moved her back into the dining room together.
"I stopped him," Mina said to Mrs. Alder. "I was trying to help you."
The woman couldn't get the glass steady. She looked at her husband.
"Hold her properly."
Mina fought them until the wine was in her mouth and on her dress. Some went down when she tried to breathe. They let her fall beside the table.
She crawled toward the pantry. Mr. Alder moved a chair into her way.
For a while they stood on opposite sides of her.
Then his wife said, "She'd been drinking."
"While we were eating."
"We asked her to stop."
Their voices steadied as they repeated it.
The candles burned low. Mina could see the pantry door through the gap beneath the chair. The telephone rang on the other side, and the sound brought her hand forward across the carpet.
Neither of them answered.
She tried to remember the porter's name. She'd heard it every day for six months. Her lips moved around the first letter until they stopped moving at all.
The Alders waited. Mr. Alder bent to touch her neck, then stood up too quickly and caught the table.
His wife took his arm.
In the passage, he lifted her coat from the stand and settled it over her shoulders. He couldn't manage the top button.
She held his trembling sleeve and did it for him.
