The Secret Ingredient

by Dianne Blacklock

  ‘Oh, I don’t know —’

  ‘Well I do,’ Tasha interrupted flatly. ‘You said you haven’t slept with an older man, so you can’t really make a comparison, can you? Whereas I have, so I can, you know, make a comparison.’

  Gia nodded. ‘Of course. Go ahead.’

  Tasha took a breath. ‘Younger guys don’t know the first thing about how to treat a woman,’ she said. ‘And I’m not just talking about manners and that. What Ross knows about the female anatomy would curl your toes, literally.’

  Tasha could tell from the expression on her face that Gia was impressed.

  ‘But you want to know the best part?’

  Gia was waiting.

  ‘All men lust after younger women, everyone knows that, it’s fact,’ said Tasha. ‘So in Ross’s eyes, I’m like a fantasy come to life. I’m a decade younger than the current wife, and God, a lifetime younger than the first one. Can you imagine what it’s like for him to make love to me? He just adores me, I can see it in his eyes. And I have to say, that’s a real turn-on.’

  Roseville

  ‘Dad, it’s me,’ Andie called as she let herself in through the front door. There was no reply, but she could hear the TV going. He was home. Where else would he be? He never went anywhere, except to Mass and doctors’ appointments.

  Andie came down the hall into the lounge room, where her father was manning his regular station in front of the giant flatscreen TV. Andie didn’t understand why he bought such a huge screen and still sat so close to it.

  He was struggling to get up out of his recliner. ‘Andrea,’ he puffed. ‘I wasn’t expecting you, dear.’

  She usually came Fridays, and if she wasn’t going to be able to make it, she came earlier in the week instead. But her dad was forgetting what day it was lately.

  ‘How’s my girl?’ he asked, once he had got to his feet and sidled around the chair. ‘Let me look at you.’

  She smiled at him as he held her by the shoulders and examined her face. This was his ritual every time. ‘Still as beautiful as ever,’ he declared, before wrapping her in a big hug and planting a warm kiss on her cheek.

  Andie held up the bags she was carrying. ‘I brought you some things.’

  ‘What are you doing bringing me stuff?’ he tutted, following her out to the kitchen.

  She put the bags down on the table. ‘I like to bring something when I come.’

  ‘You only have to bring yourself to make your old man happy,’ he said, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘Now, let me give you something for it,’ he added, patting his pockets for his wallet.

  ‘Dad, don’t be silly,’ Andie chided. He was always trying to give her money. ‘I brought all this from the shop.’

  ‘Still costs you something.’

  ‘It’s fine, Dad,’ she dismissed. ‘It’s just some bread —’

  ‘Oh . . . what kind of bread?’ he asked carefully.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not the same as I brought you that other time. I know you didn’t like it.’ She had found the entire loaf moulding in the bread box the following week.

  ‘Oh, it’s not that I didn’t like it, I just think it might have been stale.’

  ‘It wasn’t stale, Dad, it was sourdough. It has a different texture. You might have found it a bit too chewy.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘Anyway, this is nice and soft in the middle. And I brought you some cheese —’

  ‘You know we don’t eat the strong stuff.’

  He still dropped in and out of the plural, without even realising. It worried Andie a little, after all this time.

  ‘Yes, Dad, I know you don’t like strong cheese.’ He preferred that awful fake stuff wrapped in plastic. ‘This is a mild cheddar, and I shaved it so it’s nice and fine.’

  ‘I always seem to use more when it’s shaved,’ he remarked, shaking his head.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how much you use, Dad, I’ll bring more if you like it.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to be wasting your money on me.’

  Andie looked at him, bringing her hand up to touch his cheek. ‘It’s not a waste if it’s for you, Dad.’

  He smiled at her, patting her hand.

  ‘And lastly,’ Andie added, turning back to the bag, ‘fruit salad, fresh cut today.’ She reached in and lifted out a large container.

  ‘Oh my, all that? It’ll go off before I can eat it.’

  ‘Well, it was going to be thrown out anyway,’ she explained. ‘We make it fresh daily, so whatever’s left gets tossed if no one takes it home.’

  He looked a little doubtful. ‘We’re not big fruit eaters.’

  ‘I know you’re not,’ said Andie. ‘But you should be, it’s good for you, Dad.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have too much, though,’ he said. ‘I saw it on the telly, it can muck up your sugars.’

  If he was that worried about his sugars, he shouldn’t be eating all the packaged biscuits and snacks he was so fond of. ‘Any doctor would recommend a couple of pieces of fruit a day, Dad.’

  He still looked unconvinced.

  ‘I worry about you,’ she said. ‘Do it for me?’

  He took hold of her hand and gave it a kiss. ‘When you put it like that, how can I refuse?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Andie put the container in the fridge and looked around the kitchen, the dishes piled up on the sink, the sticky benchtops covered in crumbs. Since she had been paying for a cleaner, her father didn’t seem to bother to do much for himself. ‘Dad, how long has this been out?’ she asked, lifting the lid off a pot on the stove.

  ‘It was left over from last night,’ he said. ‘I heated up some for lunch.’

  ‘Has it been out since last night?’

  He just shrugged.

  Andie crouched down to find a container in the plastics cupboard. ‘Dad, you can’t leave meat out overnight, it’s not safe.’

  ‘Oh my dear, you worry too much, we’re not running a restaurant here.’

  Andie didn’t want to argue with him. She finally located a container and a lid that matched, and proceeded to transfer the contents of the pot. It was some kind of savoury mince; it looked okay she supposed, she hoped. He was getting worse. Andie didn’t think it was dementia as such, more that a kind of atrophy had set in. He couldn’t seem to be bothered doing anything, or going anywhere, he just sat mesmerised in front of that massive TV, day and night. Sometimes she worried that he was depressed, perhaps he just needed more outside activities to keep him interested, some company occasionally.

  She had tried to talk to Meredith about it, but her older sister acted as though she was the only woman in the history of the world who had to work and organise a family. She couldn’t possibly be expected to run around after Dad, she claimed, she had enough on her plate. ‘You have no idea what it’s like, Andrea, you only have yourself to worry about.’

  And a husband. And a business. But they obviously didn’t count in Meredith’s reckoning. Andie made the weekly trek to see her father, but from what she could make out, her sister only occasionally called in, and Philippa and Tristan rarely saw their grandfather, even though Killara was barely ten minutes from Roseville. Meredith had not ventured far from where she had grown up. Why would you live anywhere else, she maintained. The north shore had the best schools, a better class of neighbours, real estate that consistently appreciated in value. Meredith was a snob; south of the bridge might as well be another country as far as she was concerned.

  ‘Why don’t you go watch your show, Dad?’ said Andie. ‘I’ll straighten up in here.’

  ‘No, no,’ he said, shuffling over to the sink. ‘I’ll help you.’

  ‘Dad,’ she chided, ‘go and sit down.’

  He hesitated, looking at her. ‘Well, okay, but I’m going to sit down right here. I’m not watching the telly when my girl’s visiting.’

  She smiled. ‘All right, then I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’

  Andie put on the ket
tle, surveying the mess with a heavy heart. Her mother would be horrified. Maybe she should have someone take over a few afternoons a week at the shop; she could come over more often, cook him some decent meals, keep him company. She felt guilty, if he really was only in need of some company, surely it was up to family to provide it. But what if it was more serious – depression, dementia – how much longer could her father be left on his own? Sometimes Andie wondered if it was grief, but if so it was a very delayed reaction. At the time of her mother’s death he had appeared to grieve appropriately for a man of his generation, which, granted, was rather restrained. But he still had his work then, he was only in his fifties. Andie had dropped out of uni to care for her mother, but she didn’t mind, she didn’t even know what she wanted to do with her life at the time. Well, she did, she wanted to cook, but her mother said that when she got married and had a family she’d have plenty of opportunity to cook, for now she should get an education. Faye Lonergan had been very big on her girls getting an education, making up for what she’d missed out on. Her own father had died young, leaving her mother to bring up the family on her own, and Faye had no choice but to leave school as soon as she was old enough to start earning money. She had brains, but she’d never had opportunity. Her daughters were not going to be permitted to squander theirs.

  Little wonder that she had a blue fit when Andie announced she would leave uni to care for her. ‘Over my dead body,’ she had declared, which was an unfortunate choice of words.

  ‘I’m only deferring, Mum,’ Andie had insisted. ‘I’ll go back after . . . as soon as you’re better.’

  ‘I’m not going to get better,’ she’d returned. ‘And I know you, Andrea, you won’t go back without me here to push you . . .’

  And on she went. Andie knew the lecture by heart, she’d heard it so many times. A woman needs an education . . . Good looks will only get you so far . . . God knows you weren’t blessed with your sister’s brains.

  Meredith had just joined a graduate program at a major pharmaceutical company, so she couldn’t be expected to help out, her dad had to work to support them, so in the end her mother didn’t have any choice but to accept the situation. She lingered on another eight months, and was put to rest beside her son, barely a year after he was buried. But she never stopped saying until her dying breath, almost, that Andie had to return to her studies.

  So it was not without some guilt that Andie enrolled in TAFE instead, but she really did not want to go back to uni, the business degree had been her mother’s choice, not hers. Her dad quietly encouraged her. ‘If we’ve learned nothing else from these last few horrible years, it’s that life’s too short, my darling girl. You should do what makes you happy.’

  Andie placed his tea in front of him, and turned back to the sink.

  ‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ he said. ‘I’m not real good with the housework, your mother always looked after all that.’

  ‘I know, Dad. It’s okay.’ Andie looked over her shoulder. ‘Do you miss her?’

  ‘Your mother? Of course,’ he said matter-of-factly, stirring his tea.

  She leaned back against the sink, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Do you ever get sad?’

  He blinked, looking up at her. ‘It was a long time ago, Andrea.’

  ‘But still . . . losing Brendan, and then Mum, in one year. That’s a lot to cope with.’

  ‘It was a lot for you to cope with too,’ he said. ‘Your mother would have been proud of what you’ve made of your life.’

  Andie doubted that very much. ‘I don’t know, Dad. She wanted me to go to uni.’

  ‘Still . . .’ He stirred his tea. ‘She was always worried you were too soft, that you put everyone ahead of yourself. But look at you now, you own your own business. You’re successful, and you’re happy, aren’t you, dear?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That’s all she wanted, for you to be happy.’

  Andie turned back to the sink. She couldn’t remember her mother ever saying anything like that. That she was soft? Weak, maybe. But had she really thought Andie put everyone first? She tried to imagine how she would have put that to her father . . . She tried to imagine her mother being proud of her now.

  Andie finished cleaning up the kitchen, topping up her dad’s tea while he chatted away in the background. Eventually she wiped down the benches and laid the cloths over the sink.

  ‘I’ll have to get going now, Dad.’

  ‘Oh . . .’

  She couldn’t stand the look in his eyes. She was sure he was just lonely. She wished she didn’t live so far away.

  ‘You won’t stay to have some dinner?’ he said, getting to his feet.

  ‘Oh . . . um . . .’

  But he took hold of her hand and squeezed it. ‘What am I saying? The footy’s on tonight, I’ll be no company anyway.’

  ‘What if I make you some dinner before I go?’ she suggested.

  ‘No, no, thank you anyway, darling,’ he assured her. ‘I’m not hungry yet. And you need to get on the road. S’pose himself will be expecting you?’

  Her father rarely referred to Ross by name, didn’t refer to him at all if he could help it. He hadn’t even come to the wedding, said that while he wished her all the happiness in the world, he couldn’t on principle – it not being in a church and all. He had lowered his voice, as though his dead wife might hear him. ‘Your mother never would have stood for it, you know.’

  Oh, Andie knew. But they couldn’t have married in the church regardless – Ross was divorced, and he wasn’t even Catholic. Besides Andie had long since lapsed, as had Meredith, but nonetheless her sister decided she’d better show solidarity with her father and so declined to attend as well. Ross’s kids didn’t want to be a part of it, out of deference to their mother, even though she told them she didn’t expect that. There were friends who had long since turned their backs on both Andie and Ross, and others who just felt uncomfortable attending their wedding. So in the end, only Jess and Toby and Donna came, and they did their best to be happy for her. Andie tried to hide her disappointment at the time. She had always wanted a proper wedding; it didn’t have to be big, she didn’t care about that, she wouldn’t have wasted her money on anything too extravagant anyway. But the cold little ceremony – if you could call it that – at the registry office didn’t feel like a wedding. Ross tried to make it special; he booked a suite for them at the Park Hyatt, had it filled with flowers and French champagne, and she loved him for that . . . but it still didn’t feel the same.

  ‘Ross won’t be home yet,’ said Andie, as they walked up the hall. ‘He was going to the gym.’

  ‘What’s an old bloke like him doing at a gym? Having a . . . what do they call it? A midlife crisis?’

  ‘Well, if that’s what it is, he’s doing the right thing and trying to get himself fit.’

  ‘He’s probably just trying to keep up with you,’ he said, turning to look at her at the front door. ‘My beautiful girl.’

  Ross was hardly too old for the gym, but Andie wasn’t going to admit to her father that something about it didn’t sit quite right with her either. Ross had allowed his membership to lapse years ago, early in their marriage. At the time he said he wanted to get home to her, not spend another hour after he’d finished at the office, slogging it out in a room with a bunch of sweaty blokes. So why had he suddenly decided to go back to the gym now? Andie had wondered aloud. Ross had dismissed it, saying he’d been feeling a little soft, and at his age he needed to make more of an effort if he was going to keep up with her. And since he’d signed up for Dry July, he was a bit fidgety when he couldn’t have a drink after work, so the gym provided a welcome distraction. Which Andie didn’t any more, obviously.

  Dry July was a whole other thing. Ross liked a drink, but he didn’t often drink to excess. So why the need to give it up for a whole month? For a good cause, he’d insisted. Now, Ross was as benevolent as the next overpaid executive, and was more than happy to write a che
que for any number of good causes. But to go to the trouble of getting sponsors and collecting pledges? Not his style at all.

  Andie mulled it over all the way home. Jess would probably say she was being paranoid, and she had a point. But Andie couldn’t help thinking it had something to do with The Baby Issue. She was beginning to wish she’d never brought it up. Actually that was not altogether true, if she was completely honest. She had to let Ross know what she was thinking sooner or later, she had to plant the seed at least.

  They had agreed early in their relationship that there would be no children. At the time Andie wasn’t interested; Ross was all she needed. She had felt so lucky to have found someone who loved her the way he did that she had been quite happy to forego the idea of children. And really, they weren’t much more than an idea back then. She hadn’t ever had a boyfriend who had struck her as good father material, or even good husband material for that matter. And she was still quite young at the time.

  Before they got married, Ross had talked her into leaving Lemongrass; he didn’t want her showing him and his clients to their table, he wanted her at the table as his partner. Andie all but gave up on being a chef after that. Ross’s job involved such long hours they would never have any time together if she worked nights. Their relationship was more important. Sometimes it was hard for her to remember the girl she was back then. Why would it have ruined the relationship to work some nights? Why had she let herself get talked into that?

  She did try working days at a couple of different cafés; Ross wasn’t particularly thrilled, but he acknowledged that she needed something to occupy her time. She didn’t admit to him that making salads and toasted focaccias wasn’t exactly rattling her chain either.

  Until she became interested in coffee – ‘interested’ being an understatement; in fact, calling it an understatement was an understatement. Andie became completely obsessed, learning about the different beans, where they were from, which produced the best shot of espresso, the best crema. She practised until her arms ached and she could produce the perfect cup in every variation that enjoyed its fifteen minutes in the spotlight. Cappuccino, latte and espresso endured, and Andie could make them blindfolded. So obsessed did she become, she seriously considered entering a statewide barista competition, but that was when Ross put his foot down. If she won – which Andie thought was highly unlikely, Ross was just being typically biased – anyway, if she won, she’d have to go on to the national championships, which were to be held in Melbourne that year. Ross didn’t mind that so much, but if she was successful there, she’d be off overseas after that. And it was only coffee, he’d pointed out.