Love, Lies and Linguine

by Hilary Spiers

  Hester has tried to explain to Harriet the depths of her pleasure, in part as an indirect way of saying thank you. Harriet recognises the ruse and is glad of it; it is indescribably heartening to see the old Hester emerging once more. And yet . . . and yet . . . every so often Harriet will catch a look in Hester’s eye, a shadow of something she cannot quite name but that, against all reason, seems in some way to pertain to her. Once or twice she has been tempted to probe, but under the glorious Italian sun, cosseted and pampered by the attentive staff, replete with fine food and even finer wines, it seems safer not to poke the suspected hornet’s nest. If that shadow still lurks when they return home, she’ll tackle it then.

  Hester, wondering how Harriet was going to entertain herself for the week of her course, had been astonished to discover that she was going to try her hand at watercolours.

  ‘Painting? You?’

  ‘Well, thanks a bunch! Don’t you remember that picture of lilies of the valley in a brown jug that I did at school? Pa hung it in his study for years.’

  ‘Indeed he did,’ Hester had replied, thinking that no-one but their father and the cleaner had thus ever needed to look at it once it had been fulsomely praised however insincerely by both parents. She and her sister may be possessed of many talents but she does not fool herself that artistic ability ranks among them.

  ‘I am perfectly well aware that I am hopeless,’ Harriet had continued with a twinkle in her eye, ‘but it says “no experience required” and someone has to be the class dunce, so it might just as well be me. Anyway, apparently on one or two days we go tramping in the hills in pursuit of flowers and butterflies and suchlike to paint. I thought that would please you: I might shift a bit of this weight.’ And she had slapped her ample backside to emphasise the point, her weight being a perennial concern of Hester, who is forever adjusting recipes to reduce their fat or sugar content for her sister’s supposed benefit. Harriet, however, remains resolutely rotund (and, she would be the first to attest, perfectly happy about it), while Hester, an archetypal ectomorph, is as bony in her mid-sixties as she had been at fifteen.

  ‘And dare I ask how il Franco fantastico is shaping up?’ asks Harriet at the end of the second day, as she and Hester enjoy another of Alfonso’s recommendations under the pergola before dinner. She thinks how nice Hester looks in one of her knitted tops, a pale mauve mohair, complemented by the amethyst earrings their parents had given her on her twenty-first birthday, which rarely see the light of day.

  Hester frowns. ‘Well, there’s no doubting his innate genius. He has such a vivid imagination and is never afraid to experiment. You wouldn’t believe the things he can do with the most ordinary of ingredients.’

  ‘Bit like Ben, then,’ says Harriet, recalling the times their nephew had eschewed Hester’s advice and still managed to produce something delicious. The competitiveness between them affords Harriet endless amusement.

  Hester harrumphs. ‘I think the boy has many years ahead of him before he approaches the maestro. He needs to learn the basics first. He’s not even in the foothills yet.’ Despite her public scepticism, Hester is inordinately proud that she, however reluctantly at the time, had kindled in Ben that first flicker of interest in cooking. The surly teenager is transformed in the kitchen into another being altogether: eager to learn, even more eager to experiment.

  ‘I sense a “but” coming, though,’ says Harriet, draining her glass. Alfonso is an excellent sommelier; he has fathomed her particular palate and every wine he has suggested to date has been sublime. ‘About Signor Riccardi?’

  Hester nods vigorously and sits forward on her wicker chair, a certain precursor to a good old moan. ‘I have no problem with his cooking—far from it. I’ve already learnt so much. I have no quarrel either with his short temper: God knows there are one or two idiots in the group and that must be incredibly frustrating for a man of his talents. Do you know that girl Melanie had no idea how to prepare an aubergine? Can you blame the man for being so dismissive?’ Harriet, who has no idea how to handle an aubergine either, feels a sneaking sympathy for the unfortunate Melanie, whom in one brief encounter at the bar she had found to be perfectly inoffensive. ‘But my major beef is his arrogance. Don’t you dare question his instructions! Good heavens, you’d think you were gainsaying Moses on the Mount!’

  Aha, thinks Harriet, seeing where this is going, so you had the temerity to challenge the great Riccardi, did you?

  ‘He practically spat at me!’ Hester’s indignation swelling with every remembered word. ‘All I said was that Giorgio Bassanelli uses red not black pepper in his panforte. I thought he was going to explode! He slammed his fist down on the counter and swore—at least I assume he was swearing. Lionel, who speaks a fair bit of Italian, told me afterwards it was pretty salty. “That man,” he yelled—Franco, not Lionel—“he is an idiot!” I said, “That’s as may be, but he does have two Michelin stars.” Well! You should have seen his face!’

  ‘I thought he had two stars as well.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s why he was so furious. He obviously doesn’t rate Bassanelli at all. Or anyone else come to that. Riccardi thinks that just because he’s on television from time to time and runs a restaurant you have to book years in advance, he’s the bee’s knees.’

  ‘You don’t suppose it’s all part of his shtick? You know, volatile Italian with a short fuse? They all play up to the cameras, after all, these TV chefs.’

  ‘Mary Berry doesn’t play up to the cameras,’ says Hester frostily.

  ‘Ah, but she’s a woman. She doesn’t need to prove anything.’

  Hester, who does not share her sister’s feminism to such a marked degree, gives Harriet a beady look and, noting her smugly raised eyebrow, is suddenly assailed by the recollection of the letter in her handbag.

  Harriet, who has been buoyed by their badinage, sees Hester’s face harden. ‘What is it?’ She’s not at all sure she wants to know.

  ‘Nothing.’ Hester gives a tight smile. ‘Oh, I meant to say, I asked Lionel if he’d like to join us at dinner. Seems a bit mean to leave him sitting all alone.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Harriet, slightly taken aback. ‘Okay.’

  ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No, no . . . it’s just . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you felt . . .’

  ‘Oh, that! I think I was a bit hasty.’

  Oh yes? thinks Harriet. And does the dinner invitation explain the earrings?

  There is a faint blush mottling Hester’s cheeks. ‘In point of fact, he’s rather good company. He finds Franco as ridiculous as I do. OTT, you know.’

  ‘Yes. You said.’

  ‘But if you’d rather . . .’

  ‘Not at all,’ says Harriet quickly. She would hate to be thought mean-spirited. And why not get to know Lionel a little better? She had found him perfectly decent, if a little excitable, that first day. It will be a novelty: they are usually fairly antisocial on their holidays.

  Hester’s phone rings. She digs in her bag and flips her glasses up to read the screen. Her face changes. ‘Oh . . .’ She jumps up. ‘Stretch my legs,’ she says to Harriet, and hurries down the steps towards the lower terrace, waiting until she’s some way away before answering. Even then, she keeps moving until she disappears into the shrubbery. Harriet watches her go, hand shielding her eyes against the late-afternoon sun. Since when has Hester taken calls in private? She can just about make out her sister slowly wandering down the path, visible from time to time between the bushes, hunched over the phone. Harriet looks away, a sudden rush of self-pity overwhelming her, extinguishing her happiness in an instant. The fragile harmony between them has been destroyed. She feels both angry and bereft, a displaced foreigner. Right now, she would like nothing more than to be back at The Laurels. She finds her phone. Dials.

  ‘Oh! What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. Have you been running, Ben?’

  ‘No!’

  Ha
rriet holds the phone away from her ear, temporarily deafened.

  Then Ben says more quietly, ‘Sorry. I mean, no. Surprised me, that’s all.’

  ‘What have you been up to then?’

  ‘Me? Why?’

  The boy sounds awfully jumpy.

  ‘I just wondered. First exam on Monday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. Revising. Yeah. That’s what I been doing, revising.’

  ‘Good.’ The line is silent. ‘Mum and Dad all right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Is texting to blame for young people’s inability to hold a normal conversation? Harriet wonders.

  ‘And you’ve heard Daria’s wonderful news, of course?’

  This time Ben seems genuinely animated. ‘Yeah. Awesome, innit? She’s well pleased.’

  ‘We’re both so happy for her. Give her a hug from us when you see her, will you?’ Harriet regrets this as soon as she says it. They both fear Ben might be a little too fond of Daria, the age difference notwithstanding.

  ‘Yeah, ’course.’ Another pause. ‘You having a good time?’

  ‘Yes, yes, we are, thanks. It’s a fabulous hotel.’

  ‘Aunt Hester like her present?’ Harriet had consulted Ben and Daria about the course when she was havering over whether or not to book it. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Ben had said. ‘He’s, like, the main man. Go for it.’ So she had.

  ‘Yes, I think so. Riccardi seems to be a bit full of himself, though.’

  ‘If I could cook like that, I’d be full of myself.’

  ‘I suppose. She says she’s learning lots.’

  ‘Yeah? Cool. She can teach me when you get back.’

  ‘She’d like that, I’m sure.’ Harriet knows she will. ‘So, anything exciting on the horizon?’

  Silence.

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Oh, yeah . . . sorry. What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, you don’t want to spend every waking minute revising. You need to pace yourself. Take breaks. A bit of relaxation from time to time. Perhaps get together with your friends.’

  ‘Yeah . . . Yeah, I will.’

  ‘Good. Well, I’d better let you get on, then . . .’

  ‘Yeah . . . ta.’ As Ben goes to terminate the call, a thought strikes.

  ‘Oh, Ben, if you’re seeing Daria, could you double-check she turned down the heating?’

  ‘Yeah, she did. Well, I did.’

  ‘Oh, you are a good lad! Well, don’t work too hard. Bye!’

  Harriet’s good temper is restored. He may be a moody little tyke sometimes—what teenager isn’t?—but his heart is in the right place. She is confident that once he’s negotiated the rocky shallows of adolescence, he’s set fair for a promising adulthood.

  She drops her mobile back in her bag as Hester emerges from the shrubbery, her conversation over but phone still in hand, and strides up the steps towards her. With the sun behind her, her face is in shadow, but even so Harriet notes the rigid set of her mouth. There is a brief but definite hiatus when Harriet waits expectantly for Hester to make some reference to her mystery call. She doesn’t. Instead she checks her watch.

  ‘Must be about time to go in to dinner.’ Hester drains her glass and reaches for her bag.

  ‘Everything all right?’ says Harriet, unable to help herself.

  ‘What? This?’ says Hester, just a little too gaily, waggling her phone comically before thrusting it into her bag without meeting her eyes. ‘Oh, you know, just wanted to pick my brains about a recipe.’

  ‘A recipe?’

  ‘Yes . . . boeuf bourguignon. I said, that’ll cost you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who do you think? Ben, of course.’

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘Ben? Are you there?’

  Isabelle taps nervously on her son’s bedroom door. ‘Darling?’

  Ben lies on his back staring up at the ceiling, thoughts racing, stomach churning. Why would Aunt Harriet interrupt her holiday to ring him just now out of the blue? It’s not as if she had anything important to say.

  ‘Benjamin?’ croons his mother.

  No-one calls him Benjamin! Except his lamebrain mother when she’s trying to get him to do something he doesn’t want to do. As now.

  ‘Do come down, darling. Ralph is waiting.’

  Ben grunts noncommittally. At least she knows better than to open the door and violate his sanctum. Not after the last time. ‘Coupla minutes,’ he growls and listens to her pad apologetically down the hallway to the top of the stairs.

  ‘He’ll just be a little while,’ he hears her say as she descends. Below, from the sitting room, comes the low rumble of male voices—his father’s and Ralph’s—punctuated by his mother’s occasional interjection, invariably accompanied by a nervous giggle. Anyone would think they had royalty in the house instead of just Ralph Pickerlees, eldest son and Great White Hope of George’s boss, Victor.

  Ben returns to his review of the conversation with his aunt. Does she suspect something? He answers his own question with a metaphorical snort: of course not! How can she? Why would she? Chances are she was simply being an attentive aunt, reassuring herself that her favourite nephew was pursuing his studies with sufficient rigour to achieve his dreams. She, more than anyone, has always had faith in him, defended him against his detractors—notably scary Aunt Hester when she’s going off on one. Not that he hasn’t learnt how to handle the old biddy. He grins fleetingly at the memory of various battles waged and won (largely by him) in the kitchen. The memory, though, is bittersweet, accompanied as it is with his constant companion these days: guilt.

  ‘Ben!’ It’s his dad this time, summoning him from the foot of the stairs, the impatience in his voice unmistakable. Ben levers himself to his feet and shoves a stick of gum in his mouth. Time to descend into the lion’s den and get it over with.

  ‘Here he is!’ says George with forced bonhomie as Ben ambles into the sitting room. Ralph leaps to his feet, hand outstretched, his bony wrist protruding from a tweed jacket that must surely have belonged to his grandfather. Ben almost does a double-take. What is this? A Benedict-Cumberbatch-at-his-most-nerdy lookalike contest?

  Ralph blinks behind his thick lenses and says, ‘Hi, Ben,’ in a strangulated voice that sets his Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘’Kay,’ says Ben, dragging his appalled gaze away to see, to his horror, that Isabelle has baked her famous—or, rather, infamous—chocolate fudge cake: an almost impenetrable slab of dense sludge, enveloped in a granular icing of gag-inducing sweetness. Why don’t they offer the poor sod a beer?

  ‘Ralph was just telling us about his first year,’ says Isabelle brightly, using both hands to force the cake slice through her concoction as though carving a particularly unyielding cheese.

  ‘Not for me, Mum,’ says Ben quickly. ‘I’ll have mine later.’

  ‘Not long had breakfast,’ jokes George to Ralph, with a nod in his son’s direction. ‘All you youngsters are the same: you’d sleep until suppertime left to your own devices. Ha ha.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ says Ben.

  Ralph resumes his seat, while Ben perches on the arm of the sofa nearest the door in readiness for the quickest getaway he can effect.

  At George and Isabelle’s urging, their guest begins to expatiate on the joys of university life. The spellbinding lectures, the testing tutorials, the mind-expanding hours spent in the library, the midnight oil burnt so that assignments are handed in on time, the nerve-racking wait for results . . .

  ‘What’s the social life like?’ asks Ben, when a pause for breath offers him an opening.

  His parents give identical uncomfortable laughs.

  ‘Social life?’ says Ralph, trying out the unfamiliar phrase.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Ralph looks nonplussed.

  ‘I think Ben’s asking about extracurricular activities,’ says George. ‘When you let your hair down with your chums.’

  Chums! thinks Ben. As you well know, I’m asking
about bars and parties and having a good time.

  Ralph’s face clears. ‘Ah! Right. Of course.’ He beams. ‘Well, there’s the most marvellous ChemSoc. We had a Wacky Scientist bop last term. You know, people all dressed up as—’

  ‘Wacky scientists?’ suggests Ben.

  ‘Right! And you’ll never guess who most people went as!’

  ‘Einstein?’

  ‘Oh . . . yes. How did you guess? Still, some of the wigs were amazing.’

  ‘I bet,’ says George stoutly. ‘That sounds fun, doesn’t it, Ben?’

  ‘Epic,’ says Ben.

  ‘Indeed,’ says Ralph. ‘It’s not all slogging away day and night over the old books, you know. I mean, one does have a pretty lively time of it.’ He runs his finger around his collar.

  ‘Yeah?’ says Ben. ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Oh . . . well . . .’ Ralph rapidly searches his extensive database of debauchery. His eyes glitter suddenly with remembered pleasure. ‘Ah! Well, for instance, I’m not only a member of ChemSoc, but I also belong to ClassicSoc and we have some pretty amazing adventures there, I can tell you: museum visits, toga parties—that’s where everyone dresses up in—’

  ‘Togas?’

  ‘Right! Have you been to one, then?’

  Ben shakes his head.

  ‘That’s something to look forward to, eh?’ says George heartily, with a pointed look at his son. Ben stares back guilelessly.

  ‘Any tips for our boy, Ralph? About the application process? You know, personal statements and all that?’