Looking For Lucy

by Julie Houston

  ‘No, with Justin.’ Peter said this without a hint of humour and I wanted to giggle. He was obviously still unable to see the funny side of his wife’s defection.

  ‘So it’s easier for me if she is away at school. And,’ he went on almost to himself, ‘Vanessa was determined that she should go away to the same school as she’d been to. Head girl, captain of the first-eleven hockey and all that…’ He turned back to Allegra and smiled. ‘Max is eight and lives with me some of the time and with his mummy the rest of the time. You’d like Max, Allegra.’

  Peter walked over to where I was just about to whisk egg whites in Kenny. ‘I hope you don’t feel I was being presumptuous in assuming that you would help me with this dinner party, Clementine? I do apologise. It was very rude of me. If you’d rather not, I can always cancel…?’

  Peter looked so anxious, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that yes, I thought he had been bloody rude in assuming I’d cook for it. And anyway, I didn’t think for one minute it would go ahead. I couldn’t see Oliver Cromwell coming all the way from North Yorkshire, and the vibes David Henderson had been sending out didn’t look promising for a cosy dinner party chez Broadbent. I supposed he was a bit like someone famous—well, he was famous in the same way that Yorkshire flaunted James Martin and Freddie Truman—and was always being sucked up to and invited here, there and everywhere. And to be quite honest, the thought of cooking for a dinner party in such a fabulous kitchen excited the hell out of me. Terrified me, but excited me as well. Wasn’t this what I wanted with my life? To cook?

  *

  ‘Clementine, I can truly say that was the most delicious lunch I’ve ever experienced,’ Peter enthused a couple of hours later as he scraped his pudding plate with his spoon in an effort to retrieve the very last morsel of meringue and cream.

  ‘It was a pleasure,’ I said. And it was. Any fears of the past, and worries about the future, were totally put to one side once I was stuck into cooking.

  ‘So, why don’t you do this professionally?’ Peter asked. ‘Why go back to university to do a hotel management course when you could have been out there, in London, in Paris for heaven’s sake, cooking wonderful food like this?’

  I raised my eyebrows towards Allegra who was toying with her pudding. Her little tummy was full from the starter and main course and I suggested she leave the food and go out into the garden again for a while.

  ‘How could I possibly work in restaurants around the world—Midhope even—when the hours are so erratic and I have a child to look after?’ I said, once Allegra was out of earshot, outside in the garden with George. ‘If I were working in a restaurant I’d not be home until after midnight. I can’t do it, much as I’d love to. So, I made the decision, once Allegra was able to go to nursery, that I’d do the next best thing and go for hotel management…’ I hesitated, thinking of the future. ‘But even then, I assume I’m going to have to do shift work—that is if I manage to find a job once I’ve finished in the summer.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that might be a problem,’ Peter frowned. He was just about to say something else when the house telephone rang and he excused himself. While he was talking, I cleared the pudding plates, filled the kettle for coffee and went out into the garden to check on Allegra. I found her sitting on a wooden bench, her back towards me, swinging her legs and stroking George, who appeared now to be her new best friend.

  ‘… And if I lived here, with you, George, I’d take you out for walks all the time,’ she was saying, unaware that I was behind her. ‘And I’d let you sleep on my bed. And I’d be a Wimbledon lady…’

  I didn’t disturb her, didn’t let her know I’d heard what she was saying, but turned around, retracing my steps back to the kitchen. Peter was just coming off the phone, his face an absolute picture.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that was Mandy Henderson, David’s wife, on the phone. She said she had her diary in front of her that minute and, if the offer was still on, they’d love to come for dinner.’ Peter looked a bit stunned. ‘She’s given me a couple of dates and, because the Westmorelands are over there for lunch at the moment, has already mentioned it to them too and checked dates with them.’ Peter hesitated. ‘Vanessa asked them over loads of times in the past, but they always appeared booked up or busy or something. This is marvellous.’ Peter giggled almost girlishly. ‘Your amazing cooking must have wafted across the fields, Clementine, and they just can’t keep away. Now,’ he went on importantly, ‘I just need to check with Neville that he and his wife might also be free on those dates.’

  ‘Neville? Who’s Neville?’ There were so many names being bandied around, I wasn’t sure who this Neville was. Was he the Westmoreland man?

  ‘Neville?’ Peter almost sucked in his teeth at my apparent lack of respect in not knowing his leader’s real name. ‘Neville Manning is Oliver Cromwell, Clementine. You remember? You met him?’

  ‘To be fair, Peter, I don’t think you introduced him as Neville. He was Oliver Cromwell from the kick-off.’

  ‘Kick-off?’ Peter looked puzzled, as if I were suddenly talking about a World Cup football game.

  ‘You know what I mean—from the start of the re-enactment whatsit, the other Sunday. Why do you want to invite him anyway?’ From what I recalled of the little man who’d held my hand for longer than was entirely necessary, I couldn’t see him having anything in common with David Henderson whom I’d liked enormously from the ten minutes or so of knowing him.

  ‘Oh, I think they will get on really well. Only the other day Neville was asking whether, as my neighbour, I had any connections with David.’

  ‘So you’re sort of parading David out to show him off to Oliver Cromwell?’

  Peter had the grace to look a little shamefaced. ‘No, really, no, Clementine. They are both businessmen and I feel they would enjoy each other’s company.’

  Or not.

  Anyway, nothing to do with me really. I was just the cook.

  ‘So, there will be you and me, Clementine,’ Peter ticked us off on his fingers, ‘David and Mandy Henderson, the Westmorelands—I can’t quite recall her name, a bit dizzy from what I remember of her—Neville and Hilary Manning of course and… that’s it.’

  Hmm, I wasn’t quite sure if it was going to be a lot of fun. I was only just thirty and all these people seemed a lot older than me. Still, I would really enjoy the cooking and that was the main thing.

  ‘I hope it’s going to be fun for you,’ Peter said anxiously as we cleared the table and stacked the dishwasher. Blimey, was the man a mind reader? ‘Is there anyone you’d like to bring along—if you can cope with catering for additional people of course?’

  ‘Actually, would you mind awfully if I ask Izzy and Declan? Allegra and I are always round at their place, so it would be lovely if I could do something for them for once.’

  Peter beamed. ‘Absolutely. I’d be really delighted to meet them. I’d like to get to know all your friends, all your family.’

  I laughed nervously. ‘Steady on, Peter, you don’t really know me yet, so how do you know you’d want to meet my family?’

  ‘I know you have your mum and dad and Allegra. Well, I’ve met Allegra now and she’s as delightful as you. She’s lovely, Clementine. And I’m sure your parents are equally pleasant?’

  Well, they’d certainly like you, Peter, I thought. ‘The first normal boyfriend you’ve ever had,’ I could hear my mum saying. ‘And knows David Henderson, too,’ she’d tell all her cronies at the golf club. ‘Drives a Porsche, you know. And very educated—into history, knows all about Oliver Cromwell and that war he was in…’

  ‘Clementine,’ Peter said, his face pink, ‘you must know how I feel about you? Surely you know that’s why I’ve been coming into The Black Swan all these months?’

  When I didn’t say anything, didn’t really know what to say, Peter put down the red striped tea towel he’d been using to wipe the beautiful stainless steel pans that I’d said were far too good to bung in the dishwasher, an
d took my hand. ‘I’ve got to say this, Clementine, before I lose my nerve. I’ve fallen in love with you.’

  Oh bugger.

  I was just about to say I was very honoured about his having fallen in love with me, but really, this was going nowhere, when Allegra ran in from the garden and, seeing Peter had hold of my hand, grabbed both our spare hands, forming a little circle through which George then forced his way as if playing a canine game of The Farmer wants a Wife. I looked at the three grinning faces, from Allegra’s delighted one, to Peter’s hopeful one and then to George’s hairy one and thought again, Oh bugger.

  *

  On the way home in the car, seeing that Allegra was asleep, exhausted after her day out, Peter turned to me and said, ‘You say I know nothing about you, Clementine. Well, tell me. Tell me about Allegra. Where is her father? Does he still have contact with you both?’

  I sighed, glancing over my shoulder to look at four-year-old Allegra. Her dark head had fallen to one side of the car seat and her mouth was open slightly in a little ‘O’ of tiredness. She’d played with George and run herself ragged in the huge expanse of garden, and the spring sunshine had brought out a smattering of freckles on her usually pale face. I felt a tightness in my chest as I gazed at her. She was the one important thing in my life; she was, quite literally, my life.

  ‘Clementine?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to pry, and tell me to shut up and mind my own business if you like, but you did say I knew nothing about you. So, tell me.’

  How could I tell this kind, if rather dull, man the circumstances of Allegra’s birth?

  ‘Clementine?’ Peter probed once more.

  ‘I used to work at La Toque Blanche in Leeds…’

  ‘Goodness, you worked at La Toque Blanche? Peter was impressed. ‘I didn’t realise you had actually trained as a chef?’

  ‘I hadn’t. Haven’t. I started as a general dogsbody, washing up, sweeping floors, a plongeur.’

  ‘Plongeur?’

  ‘Sorry, Peter, if you read George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London you’d understand the term.’

  When he looked at me blankly, not really understanding, I smiled and said, ‘Just take it from me, I was the lowest of the low, the one all the chefs shouted at when things went wrong.’ I frowned, remembering how awful it had been to start with—that I’d only taken the job to be with Ariav. ‘Then I started being allowed to help with the actual food—you know, weighing ingredients, veg preparation, that sort of thing? And then I began to look forward to going to work. It became not just a means to an end but—and I know this sounds a bit dramatic—suddenly became something I was good at.’

  Peter looked puzzled. ‘But didn’t you realise you liked cooking? Didn’t your mum let you make buns and then… and then saw that you were good at it or something?’

  ‘My mum? Make buns?’ I laughed. ‘All my mum was interested in making was her way to the top of the social ladder and pulling Dad up with her. She used to buy all her meals from Marks and Spencer when she was entertaining the golf lot or Dad’s office boss and then pass them off as her own. The bin used to be full of M&S packaging pushed down to the bottom so that no one would know it was bought stuff.’

  Peter looked a trifle uncomfortable. ‘I do have a fondness for the old M&S stuff myself…’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I smiled, ‘but I bet you don’t pass if off as your own?’

  ‘Oh no, no,’ Peter said, hastily. ‘Never that.’

  ‘I remember once asking could I make Rice Krispie buns for Comic Relief, but she said I’d get chocolate everywhere and make too much mess, and that she couldn’t see anything remotely comical about turning her kitchen upside down for Johnny Foreigner…’

  ‘You can come over and make Rice Krispie buns in my kitchen any time you want,’ Peter said indignantly. ‘Any time at all.’

  I laughed. ‘I think I’ve moved on a bit since then.’

  ‘You certainly have, Clementine,’ Peter said. ‘What you produced today was wonderful.’ Peter slowed down for traffic lights and then, as we gathered speed once more, asked, ‘So, what happened then? Did you just train on the job?’

  ‘In a word, yes. I was there quite a while, learning more and more and being given more advanced stuff to do. And then one of the main chefs was ill—got meningitis, poor thing—and I just sort of took over. I loved it.’ I smiled. ‘Eventually, I left because I had Allegra to care for…’

  Peter glanced at me from across from the driving seat. ‘All by yourself? You had no help?’

  ‘Mum and Dad have been very helpful,’ I said carefully. I really didn’t want to talk about this, especially with Allegra asleep in the back, so I tried to change the subject. ‘So you look after your kids as well without any help?’

  ‘Well, apart from Mrs Atkinson who does my cleaning and looks after Max if I’m not around, yes. Yes I do,’ Peter said importantly, pleased that we obviously shared some common ground. ‘To be honest I’m finding Sophie, my fifteen-year-old, quite challenging at the moment. I’m really rather relieved when she goes back to school…’

  Peter pulled up and parked in the same spot he’d left the car earlier that day. He switched off the engine and took both my hands. ‘I very much want to take care of you, Clementine.’ His pink complexion and fair curls had me in mind of the cherubs that used to peer down at me from the picture above our heads in the school hall and that thought, together with his earnest expression, made me want to laugh.

  ‘Oh, Peter,’ I smiled. ‘I’ve been taking care of myself—and Allegra now—for years. I’m quite used to it.’

  ‘No, but you see, Clementine,’ Peter was perspiring slightly in the warm interior of the car, ‘I want to be there for you. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this…’ He took out his ubiquitous laundered handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead.

  ‘Look, Peter, Allegra and I have had a lovely day. We really have. Let’s not rush anything here…’ I really didn’t know what else to say because we had, in all honesty, had a really super Sunday. Allegra stirred and yawned. ‘Come on, sweetie, we’re home.’ I smiled across at Peter and patted his hand. ‘And we’ll see Peter—and George—again soon. Really soon, I promise.’

  Peter beamed his cherubic smile and jumped out of the car to open my side of the door and to help Allegra out of the car seat before accompanying us both down the street.

  *

  Once I’d got Allegra bathed and into bed and given into her—very sleepy—demands for Paddington and then tucked her up with Hector elephant—now rechristened George—I spent the next couple of hours of that Sunday evening catching up with the jobs most people have to do at the end of a weekend. I made sure Allegra’s uniform, PE kit and book bag were sorted and ready for a quick getaway the next morning. I pottered, ironing a few bits and pieces; re-potting my one and only plant that had been gasping for more accommodation for weeks, and putting off until the last minute when I would have to sit down and get down to an already overdue essay.

  What I really wanted to do was curl up on the sofa with a glass of wine and Poldark on TV but, in the sure knowledge that an hour with Aidan Turner aka Ross Poldark would not give me the ‘A’ I needed to pass this particular module, I went to fire up my laptop. Ignoring the huge bunch of flowers that Peter had brought earlier and which were doing a very good job of distracting me from my essay, I silently thanked Izzy, as I did on a daily basis, for her donating her old laptop last Christmas when Declan had given her a fabulous, up to date, Mac computer. God, what would I have done without Izzy and Declan these past few years? They never probed, never really asked about Allegra’s father, but had willingly offered help and friendship for which I was eternally grateful then and now.

  Cursing, not for the first time, my lack of broadband, I put to one side the research that could only be completed once I was back in the university computer suite and began typing up the notes I’d made earlier in the week. Academic stuff—t
he essays, the research, the exams—had never really fazed me. Despite the truly awful, second-rate private all-girls school my mother had insisted upon, I came out with a very credible clutch of GCSEs and was then allowed to transfer to the excellent Midhope College to do A levels. I reckoned by that time my mother had given up all hope of moulding me into something she wanted me to be and was probably highly relieved when my father no longer had to fork out the annual school fees. More money, after all, for her to spend in M&S food hall and on her twice weekly blow dry and manicure at Bruno’s in the centre of Midhope.

  Pushing Peter’s flowers out of sight, as well as his declarations of love from my mind, I was soon engrossed in the nuances of the Management of Food and Beverage Operations.

  I didn’t realise, until I happened to glance up at the wall clock, that it was after midnight. Tired, but pleased with what I’d achieved in the last couple of hours, I pushed back my chair and went to fill the kettle.

  The noise of tap water hitting my ancient kettle initially drowned the cries. I was about to make my way up to Allegra when I realised the sound was coming from outside and not from my daughter’s bedroom. The cold night air hit me as I opened my back door and peered into the dark. It may have been a glorious day earlier, but we were still only early April and I shivered, wrapping my cardigan more closely around me.

  ‘Oh, fuck off then, you fucking pansy.’ The female voice floated from the alleyway and over my garden fence before breaking down into a mixture of curses and mutterings.

  ‘Shh,’ I warned. ‘I have a little girl asleep here. Are you OK? Do you need some help?’

  ‘Nah, I’m fine. Just get me breath back and I’ll be on me way. Bloody cold out here any road…’

  I walked down the path to where the girl was leaning against my garden gate lighting a cigarette and made a quick decision. ‘Are you on your own…?’

  The girl laughed. ‘Well, I am now, love. Hopefully won’t be for much longer, though.’

  ‘Look, I’ve just put the kettle on. Do you want a quick cup of tea to warm yourself up?’