The Food of Love

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Well, I’m not saying now! Don’t want to be even meaner!’ Charlotte peeled the banana and swept from the room.

  ‘Do you know how much I love living in a house full of women?’ Lockie gave a wide false grin.

  ‘A lot.’

  ‘Yes, a lot,’ he conceded.

  ‘Surely she hasn’t got a proper boyfriend – I mean, she’s only fourteen!’ Freya folded her arms and considered this. ‘Although this would explain the sudden surge in wanting to keep fit.’ She had noticed an increase to her daughter’s workouts and a more fastidious approach to food.

  ‘And she has always been a little ahead of the pack – it was always her leading Charlotte astray when they were little, never the other way around.’

  ‘True.’ She smiled at her husband. ‘Our baby might be growing up! Who knows, she might even ditch her baggy sweats and wear something flattering,’ she offered with a combination of excitement and regret.

  ‘Yes, hurrah! Just think: only a few more years and we get the house to ourselves. I can walk around in my underpants and we get to touch the remote control.’

  ‘Yes, love. That is certainly something for me to look forward to,’ she added drily. ‘Don’t think I’ll ever be ready for them to leave home. I’m not even ready for her to start dating! Not that we know she is, not for sure.’

  ‘I think the best way to find out is to ask her directly,’ he offered, while tapping into his laptop. ‘You need to communicate with both the girls more openly. They can’t always second-guess what you’re driving at. Heck, I’ve been married to you for a hundred years and I still don’t know what you are driving at half the time.’

  ‘I can’t just blurt things out. I have to tread softly. Teenage girls are delicately packaged. I should know. I used to be one.’

  ‘You are their mum first and their friend second; you can afford to be more direct.’

  ‘I love you, Mr Braithwaite.’

  ‘The feeling, my darling, is entirely mutual.’

  Freya trod the stairs with an armful of towels, placing them in the linen press on the landing; she idled outside of Lexi’s bedroom, knocking gently as she entered.

  ‘Nearly ready?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Lexi was in her school uniform, leaning on her pillows with her phone an inch from her face, paddling her thumbs over the virtual keyboard, sending and receiving messages.

  ‘Have you got your running gear? I left it in the laundry room, all clean.’

  ‘Yep.’ Still she stared at the screen.

  ‘Right.’ Freya hovered, swallowing the feeling that she was invading her daughter’s privacy. She hated the way the girls did this: made her feel awkward and unwanted with just a few well-placed sighs and a lack of eye contact.

  ‘I just wanted to say . . .’ She ordered her thoughts.

  ‘What, Mum?’ Lexi placed her phone on her leg, still gripping it with both hands, making it clear that this was just a pause; her mother was on a timer.

  ‘You shouldn’t swear at your sister. In fact you shouldn’t swear at anyone. You don’t hear Dad and I doing it and I won’t have it.’

  ‘I know, and I don’t swear at anyone else, just her. She just makes me so . . .’ Lexi bared her teeth and emitted something close to a growl. ‘She hates me!’

  ‘What a thing to say! Of course she doesn’t hate you. She loves you! You’re her little sister.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean she likes me,’ Lexi pointed out, sounding far older than her years.

  ‘That’s true,’ Freya conceded, ‘but she does love you, even if she doesn’t always know how to show it. And showing it gets easier as you get older, you’ll see. I promise. When you are in your twenties you’ll be best friends.’ She smiled.

  Lexi shrugged, as if it were easier than disputing her mum’s claim.

  Freya watched her glance at the screen on her phone. Chat time was clearly over. ‘I know you’re busy, but you can talk to Dad and me about anything. You know that, right?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Okay.’ Freya smiled and made for the door. ‘And you can bring anyone home that you want to, anytime. Everyone is always welcome; you know that too.’

  Lexi let out a familiar long-drawn-out sigh. Freya couldn’t tell if it was in irritation or plain old boredom.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll let you get on.’

  She backed out of the room, waiting for some further interaction or acknowledgement from her daughter that never came, and swallowing the warnings that hovered in her mouth: Go slowly with this boy, Lexi, you have all the time in the world.

  She swept into the kitchen, where Lockie was packing his camera bag for the day. The table was, as ever, strewn with contact sheets, lenses, a handheld flashgun, battery packs, and miles and miles of cable. It made her smile, the chaos and the mess he created in any space, as if every day was his first on the job and he was worried about mislaying something vital or of losing the commission. The fact that he had been taking photographs since his teens was neither here nor there.

  As freelancers, she a food writer and he a photographer, she likened their careers and financial situation to a poker game; it was all about holding your nerve. The closest they had ever come to folding was a year ago, when a particularly dry spell meant they had reluctantly arranged for an estate agent to come and value their home. It was the house they had always lived in and loved, bought at a time when the area had been a little run down, only to rise over the years in both esteem and value. It was their only asset and their most treasured thing.

  This was how they lived, feast or famine, either both in demand, smiling and happy, or sniping at each other, living off their nerves, drinking coffee and hovering near the phone, willing it to ring with a job. Which it always did, eventually.

  The estate agent had been due at three o’clock on a rainy Wednesday and at a quarter to, an email arrived, booking Lockie for a fashion shoot in South Africa, all expenses paid. They had celebrated by making love on the floor behind the sofa and ignoring the rapping knuckles and the ringing phone, as the poor estate agent wondered if he had got his dates muddled. On that day, the wolf and the agent were both kept from the door.

  Their jobs were how they had met. Freya had been twenty-eight and working as a food stylist for a glossy lifestyle magazine, and he had been the photographer, arriving in the cold, cramped studio in North London with his booming voice, ready smile and floppy hair. She had liked him instantly.

  It was as they watched the fake bubbles being applied with a minute spoon to a cup of frothy coffee and an apple tart being painted with olive oil, for extra shine, that they had both collapsed in fits of giggles at the absurdity of the job.

  ‘I’m Matlock.’ He beamed, as though this name were in itself some kind of achievement. ‘Apparently it is Old English for “meeting place”.’

  He trotted out the well-rehearsed line, pre-empting the many variants of question that he had no doubt heard a thousand times before.

  She had laughed. ‘Matlock? Really? I think it should be modern English for “Did your parents hate you?”’

  He stared at her, awestruck, he told her later, not only by her high cheekbones and finely arched eyebrows that framed her almond-shaped hazel eyes, but also by her temerity.

  ‘I’ve always been called Lockie actually.’ He blushed.

  ‘Like that’s any better!’ She giggled.

  And just like that, they fell in love.

  ‘Where are you working today?’ she asked casually as she reached into the freezer for lumps of frozen spinach, which she lobbed into the blender, followed by half a banana and a whole glug of fresh pineapple juice. Finally, she grabbed an avocado from the salad crisper in the bottom of the fridge and peeled it, using a sharp knife to slice about half, and tossed that too into her breakfast concoction. The remainder was wrapped in a strip of tinfoil and popped back into the crisper.

  ‘Shoreditch. I’m taking headshots for some corporate literature. It’s going to be a lo
ng day.’

  ‘Poor baby.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll make you a nice supper.’

  ‘By “nice”, tell me you mean buttery potatoes or pastry or chips – oh, chips!’ He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, as if dreaming.

  ‘I’ll make you chips if you want, just not today.’

  She smiled at her poor deprived husband who was torn between valuing the healthy lifestyle they lived and missing the taste of the salty chips that he craved.

  ‘Chips would be good, in fact fish-and-chip-shop chips would be better. Let’s do that – I’m earning good money today,’ he added, knowing the two were directly related.

  ‘We’re having pasta – already got the meat out of the freezer. Maybe at the weekend.’ She tutted. ‘That is, if the girls haven’t pocketed your fee by then.’

  It seemed they always needed something, and as had always been the case, their needs came first.

  ‘You never did say what the Rendletons were up to,’ Lockie said. ‘If you don’t tell me, it’s going to niggle away at me all day, and many of the images I am conjuring are far from pleasant.’

  She looked down, as if sharing the admission were a little disloyal. ‘They were dancing.’

  ‘Dancing?’ He wrinkled his nose; this was apparently not what he had imagined.

  ‘Yes. They were in their bulky dressing gowns, with cord rope belts and old-fashioned slippers. He was holding her tightly, close, and they were dancing in their kitchen. And when they stopped he put his hands either side of her face and he kissed her.’ She swallowed, unable to fully express how much this had moved her. ‘It was beautiful, romantic and intense.’

  ‘But they’re so old!’ Lockie pulled a face.

  ‘It was all those things because they are old,’ she clarified. ‘It was very moving.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll dance when we are their age?’ he asked.

  ‘We hardly dance now. Apart from when you’ve had one too many glasses of Valpolicella and think you can cut some shapes.’

  ‘We could always start.’ He held a flamenco pose with his arm bent over his head.

  ‘We could, that’s a great idea. I shall put dancing on the list, next to ride motorbikes along Route 66, swim with dolphins, and streak across the pitch during a cricket match.’

  ‘You forgot about getting matching tattoos.’ He pointed at her, clearly loving their virtual bucket list.

  ‘Of course!’ She slapped her forehead. ‘How could I forget our matching tattoos?’

  ‘Who’s getting tattoos?’ Lexi queried, as she dumped her school bag on the kitchen table.

  ‘Dad and I, after learning to dance, swimming with dolphins, and eating chip-shop chips!’ Freya informed her, as she tipped a spoonful of flaxseeds into the blender.

  ‘Urgh.’ Lexi shuddered, her mouth turned down in revulsion.

  ‘What’s that face for? You used to love chips. Honestly, Lexi, you can’t be that fussy. Especially if, say, someone took you out for supper . . .’ She gently dug for information.

  ‘And by “someone” we mean a boy called Toby who is a sixth-former,’ Lockie clarified.

  ‘Da-ad!’ Lexi shouted, and ran from the kitchen, back up the stairs.

  Freya abandoned the blender; her breakfast smoothie would have to wait.

  ‘Oh, that’s brilliant, Lockie. Absolutely brilliant.’

  She trotted up the stairs after her daughter.

  Nine hours to go . . .

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  Freya jumped at the sound of her daughter’s voice. Her hand skittered on the page that lay flat on the worn pine desk. She placed the fountain pen on its side and tucked her thin grey dressing gown around her legs, clasping her hands between her thighs as if this might stop their tremor.

  ‘Sorry, Mum.’ Charlotte had obviously seen her flinch.

  She walked forward, her bare feet making no sound as she trod the carpet. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you, but obviously I did, because here I am.’ Charlotte gave a small nervous, quiet laugh and fidgeted with the multicoloured threads of the friendship bracelets that sat loosely around her slender wrist.

  ‘You’re never disturbing me.’ Freya smiled at her eldest, tall now and, at seventeen, far closer to the woman she would become than the child she was. Her clear skin, rangy limbs and long tawny hair still took Freya’s breath away.

  She swallowed, wondering how long it would last: the raw distress, the creeping silence, and this veil of hesitancy that cloaked even the most mundane of actions, making them feel awkward in their own home.

  ‘I . . . I was wondering if you might like a drink? A cup of peppermint tea?’ Charlotte asked sweetly, her head bent to hold her mother’s eyeline.

  Freya smiled at the role reversal: her child showing kindness, worrying and wanting to put things right.

  ‘A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you.’

  Tea was in fact the last thing she needed, but she understood that for her daughter, some solace might be found in the ritual.

  ‘What’s the time?’ Freya had, as was usual of late, lost all track.

  ‘It’s still early. Just after five.’

  ‘Have you slept?’

  ‘A little bit.’ She bit her lip. ‘But I saw the light on across the hall and so . . .’

  Freya nodded her understanding.

  ‘Dad’s still asleep. He needs it. He was pacing around until all hours.’ She smiled.

  ‘I’ll try not to wake him,’ Charlotte whispered.

  ‘How long do I have?’ She licked her dry lips; maybe a cup of peppermint tea was a good idea after all.

  ‘About nine hours.’ She took a deep breath.

  ‘Okay.’ Freya turned back to the desk and picked up her pen.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Charlotte whispered.

  Freya stared at the blank sheet of paper. ‘It’s really hard. I don’t know where to start.’ She reached for a tissue and dabbed at her nose.

  Charlotte turned to leave the room, then sighed, her fingers loitering on the door handle. ‘I guess . . . at the beginning?’

  Freya nodded. This was good advice, providing a moment of clarity in an otherwise cloudy muddle of thoughts. She held the pen and rubbed her tired eyes with her thumb and forefinger.

  She remembered walking across town, at the mercy of an autumn day. The pavements were hazardous with fallen, dark leaves that slid under the sole of her boot, and where litter wheeled along the kerb with a mind of its own. It was the day of her twenty-week scan.

  The sonographer had smiled. ‘You already have a girl, don’t you?’

  She nodded, picturing Charlotte at home with her dad, no doubt getting up to mischief.

  The woman smiled and whispered, ‘Do you want to know what this one is?’

  Freya beamed and she leant in close, as if they were friends, and the woman whispered, ‘It’s another little girl!’

  She recalled feeling overjoyed, but also a little scared: unable to imagine loving a baby in the same way that she loved Charlotte. She didn’t understand how it would work. Thinking it might feel different the second time around. She kept secrets throughout her pregnancy – both the fact that this baby was a girl and all that was worrying her – leaving everyone second-guessing right up until the day Lexi was born.

  ‘Oh, Lexi, that was some day!’ Freya spoke aloud. Smiling.

  This was always her immediate reaction: to smile. Her new baby was perfect, so perfect. Freya couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe that she could be that lucky all over again.

  Charlotte had been excited, jumping up and down and fidgeting. She couldn’t sit still, and Lockie was joking around, as usual, doing a bad job of keeping her calm. Freya’s mum and dad had been in the waiting room, and when they were given the nod they rushed in and just stood there, grinning at her.

  Charlotte bent over, stroking her little face with her fingertips, and Freya kept reminding, ‘Gently, darling,’ as she was too little to understand how fragile a newb
orn was. Lockie had his arm around his wife’s shoulders, like she was a prize.

  Granny and Pappy stared, and Freya saw what they saw, a lovely little family, finally complete, and she felt a surge of happiness that she didn’t know was possible. Knowing then that her worries, her fears, were unfounded, the love she’d had for Charlotte grew instantly in size and shape and magnitude, until it was big and strong enough to cover them all. It was magic.

  She looked at her baby and found it hard to think straight, bowled over, paralysed by the fact that she was so beautiful, and she was hers.

  Freya again spoke into the ether. ‘I kept repeating in my mind, “I brought this beautiful creature into the world: how is that possible?” Because you are, Lexi, you are beautiful. You are so beautiful.’

  Taking a deep breath, she rested her hand on the desk to steady the pen, before writing in her flourishing script:

  Miss Alexia Valentine Braithwaite . . .

  TWO

  ‘Darling! I love it!’ Marcia shouted down the telephone.

  As both her good friend and agent, Freya was used to Marcia’s rather brash manner, knowing it hid a heart that groaned with kindness.

  ‘Good, and finished just in the nick of time!’

  Freya glanced at the clock on the wall above the book alcove. It was a little after two. She had cut it fine, sending the piece only minutes before, jam-packed with ideas on how to make veg and protein look like fun when being served to less than keen recipients. Her particular favourite was how to make fabulous-tasting smoothies that were full of fruit and veg yet to an untrained eye might still look like a treat. She remembered Lockie’s desire for the cereal of his childhood and it made her smile.

  ‘Not at all! They said next Monday – but I know how you work best.’ She paused, and Freya heard her take a drag on her cigarette.

  ‘Marcia, that was very sneaky!’ Freya wanted to respond further, to point out how this was underhand and unethical, and how they should have a working relationship based on trust and honesty, but she knew her agent was right.