Jude can’t argue with this. Much as she wants to. In the matter of life and death, Gertie, sadly, has the upper hand.
‘All right, then,’ Jude says, hoping she sounds significantly lighter than she feels. ‘Let’s go.’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Why can’t you come over?’
‘I’m cooking – I’ve got something in the oven.’
‘You’re always cooking.’
Leaning against her kitchen counter, phone tucked between shoulder and ear, Viola rolls her eyes. ‘Yes, Mum, it’s what I do. I’m working.’
‘Well then, you’re always working,’ Daisy says. ‘It’s not healthy.’
As opposed to what you do, Viola wants to say. Obsessing over men but never actually having real relationships is hardly healthy either now, is it? It certainly doesn’t make you happy. But Viola doesn’t want a row right now, she just wants to get on with her cooking. Unfortunately, her mother’s in one of her needier moods and won’t be relinquishing the phone anytime soon. Viola will need a better excuse than work if she stands a chance of escape.
Viola glances longingly at the oven, at the puff pastry rising, ready for the religieuse. She’s experimenting with a rather radical filling of blueberry crème, along with raspberry-infused chocolate crème with which she’ll ice the religieuse. So far, Viola’s more radical culinary experiments haven’t been proving as successful as she’d hoped. Of course, any ordinary diner tasting her food would no doubt declare it sublime, but Viola must have higher standards. Much higher. Jacques has been known to spit out food he considers to be below par. The humiliation for the poor chef involved is usually too much to bear and he usually quits, unless he’s fired first. Viola is the only female chef in the kitchen and has been since she started. If she wins this competition, Viola will not only be the only female head chef ever to have worked at La Feuille de Laurier but also the youngest. It’d be quite a coup.
‘You’re not listening to me.’
Viola snaps back. ‘I am.’
‘You’re not,’ Daisy snaps. ‘Then what did I just say?’
Viola could hazard a good guess, since it’ll no doubt be something about men or marriage, or some chap her mother met in the queue at M&S who, depending on his age, would either be perfect for either mother or daughter. By some miraculous feat of memory, Viola manages to conjure up a name, specifically of the last man she can recall her mother waxing lyrical on.
‘You were talking about Bernie,’ Viola says, in an offhand way. ‘That nice bloke you met in the … cinema.’
Viola can tell, by the split-second silence that follows that either Bernie had not been the topic of conversation or he had been, but not because he was such a nice bloke.
‘He snubbed me last Monday,’ Daisy huffs, Bernie’s shortcomings instantly replacing Viola’s own shortcomings as the subject at hand. ‘And I didn’t even want to see The Graduate, I’ve never been a fan of Dustin Hoffman, I think he’s married, so that’s—’
Viola frowns, still with a close eye on her puff pastry. ‘Dustin Hoffman?’ she asks, failing to see how his marital status is off-putting since her mother could hardly imagine that she might be able to bag a Hollywood film star.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Daisy snaps. ‘Bernie. I think Bernie’s married.’
‘Oh.’ Viola rests her hand on the oven door, ready to release her pastry. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘The problem is that men of my generation often don’t wear wedding rings,’ Daisy complains. ‘I wish they would, it’d make everything so much easier. Otherwise you can spend a full ten minutes chatting only to discover that you’ve wasted your time. I do think men ought to have the decency to mention their wives, if they have them, right upfront.’
‘Hmm,’ Viola says. ‘Right.’
‘You’re not listening again,’ Daisy snaps. ‘It’s very rude.’
‘Hold on, Mum,’ Viola says, putting the phone down on the kitchen counter as she slides the tray from the oven. She touches a tentative finger to the pastry and allows herself a small smile of satisfaction. Good. Glancing at the bowl of raspberry-infused chocolate crème, Viola dips the same finger into the crème and licks it. Delicious. A small reward for work well done. It’s only when she becomes aware of a distant, muffled noise, as if she’s left a radio on in another room, except that she doesn’t own a radio, that Viola registers the phone again and realises that her mother is still wittering away. She picks it up.
‘Sorry, Mum.’
Daisy’s voice is shrill. ‘Where were you?’
‘Just getting my pastry out of the oven, it took – I nearly dropped it, so it took a little longer to—’
‘Alright, alright,’ Daisy interrupts. ‘Can’t you just leave your pastry and pop over? You promised you would, weeks ago.’
Viola frowns. ‘I saw you last Friday.’
‘Yes, but I came to you. You never come to me.’
‘That’s not true,’ Viola objects, though it is. ‘Look, Mum, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you soon, OK? Night-night.’ And she hangs up, before her mother has another chance to object.
Chapter Eighteen
At least the kitchen is a riot of mess: exploded flour, splashed chocolate, spilt egg, scattered salt. In this aspect, if no other, Mathieu has managed to recreate that special New Year’s Eve. Indeed, their tiny Cambridge kitchen looks not unlike their tiny Parisian kitchen did all those years ago. But that is where the comparison ends.
‘It doesn’t really look like food,’ Hugo says as he pokes a critical finger into the cake mixture.
‘Yes, well, it’s not cooked yet,’ Mathieu says, a little defensively. ‘It’ll be much better when it’s out of the oven.’ But even he, in his optimism, can’t imagine that the congealed mush in the cake tin could ever possibly be transformed into something edible, no matter to what miracles of temperature it might be subjected.
‘Maybe,’ Hugo concedes, sounding far from convinced.
‘It’s only our first effort,’ Mathieu says. ‘We’ll get better. We just have to keep trying.’
‘Hmm.’
Mathieu opens the oven door, then slips the cake tin and its dubious contents inside. ‘I think it said thirty-five minutes,’ he says, fiddling with the timer. ‘OK.’
‘Maman would have made it better,’ Hugo says.
Mathieu feels his heart constrict, as if someone has reached inside his chest to squeeze it tight. ‘Yes, I know,’ he says.
‘I wish she was here to help us,’ Hugo says.
Mathieu feels the grip tighten. ‘Me too,’ he says.
Forty minutes later Mathieu and Hugo stand above their creation, poking it speculatively with little wooden cocktail sticks.
‘I think it’s cooked,’ Mathieu says. ‘They’re coming out clean, just as the book says.’
‘It doesn’t really look like the picture,’ Hugo says.
‘No, I suppose it doesn’t really,’ Mathieu admits, since this is a rather generous understatement.
‘It’s very flat,’ Hugo says. ‘I don’t think it’s supposed to be so … flat.’
They both regard it silently. And then, all of a sudden, Hugo giggles.
‘I think it’s the worse cake I’ve ever seen,’ he says, starting to laugh.
For a moment, the sound of his son’s laughter is so shocking, so glorious, so intoxicating, that Mathieu can’t speak. He wants to stop time. He wants to record it, video this moment so he can see it again whenever he wants, relive it, feel it, hear Hugo’s laughter over and over and over again. Mathieu wants to be able to bring this feeling back, wants it on a drip feed when he’s old and grey and lonely, wants it on his deathbed because it is, including his wedding day and the day Hugo was born, one of the happiest moments in Mathieu’s life.
‘It’s definitely the ugliest cake ever made,’ he says, wishing he had something wittier to say, something that would set his son off again, words that would trigger a fresh peel of laughter.
/> Silent now, Hugo bends down over the cake and whittles out a little hole with a toothpick. Then he scoops it up and puts it in his mouth. The cake is, by the expression on Hugo’s face, just about as delicious as it looks.
Hugo swallows. ‘That’s the most disgusting cake in the history of cakes,’ he says. ‘It’s worse than … cabbage.’
And then, to Mathieu’s inordinate delight, Hugo starts laughing again.
Chapter Nineteen
It takes Gertie and Jude only forty minutes to walk to Jude’s father’s house. They stop at Afternoon Tease on the way for a fortifying portion of crumpets with marmalade and milky Earl Grey tea. Jude eats as slowly as humanly possible. Then they make their way across the crisp snowy grass of the meadows, following the twists and turns of the icy River Cam through Jesus Green and Midsummer Common until they reach the dilapidated house overlooking a car park. They stand looking at the front door.
‘You have to knock,’ Gertie says. ‘He won’t know we’re here unless you knock.’
Jude nods. ‘I know, I know. I’m just, I’m just … preparing myself.’
‘For what?’
‘When did you last see him?’ Jude deflects the question.
‘A few years ago,’ Gertie says. ‘But I didn’t. Mum went in without me. She made me wait in the car. So, I didn’t get to see him. But sometimes we watched him, just like we watched you.’
‘Oh,’ Jude says. ‘Is that why you want to see him now?’
Gertie nods.
‘But you know,’ Jude ventures, ‘he might not be very happy to see us. I’ve got to warn you, he’s not a particularly … nice man.’
‘I know. But he’s still my granddad. You and him, you’re the only family I have now. So …’ Gertie shrugs.
All of a sudden, Jude understands. Her niece is establishing a backup plan. In case anything might happen to her aunt, at least she’ll have her grandfather. Jude prays that her father won’t be too awful, at least not to Gertie.
‘Perhaps,’ Jude takes a deep breath. ‘Perhaps I should go in first, to … prepare. I haven’t seen him in a long time and he might—I don’t know.’ She nods at a bench across the street. ‘Why don’t you sit there – but don’t speak to any strangers, OK? That’s very important – and I’ll come and get you in a few minutes, after I’ve spoken with Granddad.’
Gertie seems to consider this. Then she half-nods, half-shrugs, and walks across the street to sit on the bench. Jude waits, postponing the inevitable just a little longer, before she knocks. The knock is too light at first, of course, though it takes a while for Jude to admit this to herself and knock again. Then again. It’s longer still before, at last, she hears a commotion on the stairs as if someone is falling down them, swearing heavily, then stumbling along the corridor.
As she waits the seeming eternity for her father to come to the door, memories rise in Jude, snapping up from her subconscious like sharks. She’d been six years old when she first realised what was happening. She’d woken just past two o’clock in the morning. And having been instructed never, under any circumstances whatsoever, to disturb her parents during the night, she had padded downstairs with the intention of procuring a glass of milk from the fridge and, perhaps, a biscuit or two from the cupboard.
At first, she thought it was the cat, since sometimes it made strange squeaky noises. Perhaps it’d become trapped behind the sofa again. But, as she approached the living room, bare feet on scuffed, swirling orange carpet, Jude realised it was her mother. Crying. A pair of sliding frosted glass doors separated the living room from the hallway and through them she could see Mummy on the floor, curled into a ball. Above her stood Jude’s father, rhythmically kicking his wife.
Jude watched, small hands starfished on the frosted glass. What was he doing? Why didn’t he stop? Why didn’t she tell him to stop?! Jude wanted to shout out but, for some reason she couldn’t explain, she stayed silent. She watched, while her father kicked and her mother wept. Time stretched to a taut wire until, finally, it snapped and he stopped. Leaving his wife cradling her knees, stepping over her, her father walked away. For a single, terrifying moment, Jude was frozen, immobile, as her father came towards the door. At the last moment, she darted away, dashing up the stairs and disappearing just before he placed his booted foot on the first step.
The next morning, she’d watched her mother frying eggs. Her father sat at the kitchen table, scooping up eggs and gulping down coffee. Surely her mother would say something now, would admonish him, would punish him for what he’d done? But both parents remained silent as the kitchen clock ticked its way to 7.30 a.m. Jude watched them, her own egg untouched.
‘Right.’ Her father stood. ‘Time for the daily grind.’ Scraping his chair on the floor, he walked to her mother, kissing her cheek – ‘Good eggs, Judith’ – before rounding the table and bending down to plant another kiss on his daughter’s head. ‘Goodbye my girls,’ he said, picking up his builder’s belt from the counter and walking out through the doorway and into the hall.
Jude waited until she heard the front door slam shut.
‘Mum,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’
Her mother, bent over the kitchen sink, rising off the plates, didn’t reply.
‘Mummy?’ Jude spoke up. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Of course I am, Jude,’ her mother replied, without turning. ‘I’m fine.’
‘But, but …’ Jude frowned, confused. ‘I don’t understand. How can you be? You must be hurt, you must be sad, you must be—’
‘Whatever are you wittering on about, Jude?’ her mother interrupted, still focused on the dishes.
‘I saw you,’ Jude said. ‘Last night. I woke up and I came downstairs and I …’
Her mother stiffened.
‘I saw …’ Jude dropped her voice. ‘I saw Dad, I saw him hurt you.’
Her mother was silent.
‘Why didn’t you tell him to stop?’
Still, her mother said nothing.
‘Mum?’
Still, her mother didn’t turn. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, daft girl. You must have been dreaming.’
‘But—’
‘Bring your plate over, go upstairs and brush your teeth.’
‘But—’
‘Now.’
When Arthur Simms opens the door he frowns for a split second, as if he’s trying to place Jude, then his eyes soften, only to be quickly replaced by a harder look, a pulling up of the drawbridge.
Jude takes an involuntary step back, glancing over her shoulder to check on Gertie, who’s watching them both, before turning back to face her father.
‘Happy Christmas, Dad.’
‘Is it?’ He squints into the early morning light. ‘What’s the bloody time? Who visits a person this early in the morning? It’s inhumane.’
‘Good to see you too, Dad.’
Arthur Simms shrugs. With great force of will, for the sake of her niece, Jude wills herself to remain calm while striving to locate conversational pleasantries.
‘So, um,’ Jude says. ‘How have you been?’
‘As if you care,’ he says. ‘You haven’t been to see me since your mother died.’
Jude grits her teeth. ‘You haven’t visited me either.’
He turns and shuffles off along the corridor, heaving his huge frame, clad in a dirty, stained T-shirt and shabby shorts, leaving the door open. Averting her eyes from his mottled legs, pulsing with varicose veins, Jude stands at the doorstep. Her father stops at the staircase, pausing to catch his breath.
‘So then, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’ he asks, without looking back at her.
Should she mention her niece immediately? Perhaps not, given that her father already told the authorities he wouldn’t care for his granddaughter, it hardly bodes well. She’ll attempt to soften him up first, if at all possible.
‘Maybe I’ve been moved by the Christmas spirit to come and bury the hatchet,’ Jude says.
A
rthur Simms turns to regard her suspiciously, his shaggy white eyebrows low over his eyes. ‘It’s not Christmas.’
‘Two weeks isn’t so long,’ Jude persists. ‘I thought I’d get a head start.’
‘Have a lot of hatchets to bury, do you?’ he says. ‘Figures.’
‘Oh, come on, Dad. Lots of people rethink their lives at this time of year, they try to let go, to forgive, to move on, all that—’
‘—crap,’ her father finishes. ‘Well they shouldn’t bother. If they left the past alone, they wouldn’t have …’ He puts a hand to his chest, trying to catch his breath. Unable to, he stumbles to the stairs and sits on the lowest step.
‘Are you all right?’ Jude frowns. ‘You look dreadful.’
Arthur Simms struggles for breath. ‘Aw, thanks, sweetheart. You too.’
Jude sighs. ‘I bet you haven’t eaten a single vegetable since I left home.’
He shrugs.
‘I bet if I went into your kitchen I’d find nothing but takeaway boxes.’
He shrugs again, his heavy chest heaving under the drab T-shirt dotted with holes. ‘So, don’t go into the kitchen,’ he says, taking another series of shallow breaths. ‘Let’s just have our delightful family reunion right here.’
Jude grimaces. Remain calm. Remember your niece. Think of Gertie. Remain calm, for goodness’ sake, remain calm.
‘Speaking of family,’ Jude ventures, trying to sound light and bright. ‘I’ve brought someone to meet you.’
Her father frowns. ‘Who?’
‘Your granddaughter.’
‘You have a daughter?’ he asks, looking rather horrified.
‘No,’ Jude says. ‘She’s my niece. The daughter of your other daughter, Frances.’
‘Frances?’
Jude takes a deep breath. ‘Yes. I’d rather have hoped you might have mentioned her to me before she died.’
The Patron Saint of Lost Souls Page 6
