The Art of Baking Blind

by Sarah Vaughan

  ‘I’ve been productive, haven’t I?’ Vicki is brisk. She smiles as she takes her mother’s coat, pulls out a chair and moves trays of biscuits.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘I’ll have a hot water and lemon, darling. Don’t worry. I’ve brought my own lemon. I expect you’ve used all yours making another tarte au citron.’ Her voice tinkles: as delicate and painful as a shard of glass.

  Vicki smiles sweetly. She has been in the house two minutes, she thinks, and already she is trying to make me feel inadequate. Well, not this time. She reaches for her own unwaxed organic lemon and shakes it triumphantly. Then washes it with soap, and dries it, for good measure.

  Her mother assessing her every move, she places a neat slice in a fine bone china mug, adds boiling water then supplies a silver teaspoon and small saucer for the fruit.

  ‘You didn’t pour boiling water on it?’ Frances looks pained.

  ‘Oh … I’m sorry! I’ll do you a fresh one…’

  Vicki cuts a second slice, chooses an untainted mug, pours the acceptable, just-boiled water.

  ‘Here you are … I hope this is better.’

  Frances, svelte, neat, exacting, glances at her daughter, green eyes narrowed like a newt’s.

  Does she think that was a dig? Vicki’s stomach twists with its habitual tightness. She smiles, and in that gesture tries to convey what she always feels: I only want to please you; I only want your approval. Frances, stirring her hot water, fails to notice the appeal in her eyes.

  Vicki waits and identifies, for the thousandth time, with the rebellious pupil summoned to her mother’s office. Stop being ridiculous, she tells herself. You are not in trouble. She is only your mother.

  Frances lifts the slice of lemon with a teaspoon; presses it against the side of the mug; drops it in the saucer. Then at last, she switches on a smile.

  ‘So are these for this cookery competition?’

  ‘Yes.’ Vicki is surprised but delighted that her mother is showing an interest. Frances has made a point of downplaying her achievement in getting into the competition, failing to congratulate her – or even acknowledge it.

  That failure had hurt. A recently retired head teacher, Frances understands auditions, exams, achievements. Her whole career has been predicated on them. But she only values academic success, thinks Vicki. She seems to view her daughter’s love of baking as worthless – or, rather, as an embarrassment. It is as if she believes I have chosen to shine at this just to spite her, she thinks. As if it wasn’t enough merely to scrape through my A-levels, or abandon my career to look after Alfie. As if I really wanted to annoy her by choosing to excel in the domestic sphere.

  ‘So, you wanted to ask me a favour?’ As ever, Frances comes straight to the point. Vicki imagines her chairing a staff meeting. Efficient, authoritative, intimidating.

  Her bowels melt. ‘I wanted to ask if you could help Greg to look after Alfie over the coming weekends of the competition.’

  There is a pause during which her mother takes a sip of the almost-scorching water.

  ‘I think I could do quite well, you see, but it will mean overnight stays for five weekends – and it’s a lot to ask Greg to do it all on top of the hours he’s putting in at the moment.’

  Frances allows her lip to curl while she contemplates an answer.

  ‘Isn’t that what fatherhood’s about? Not that your father stayed around long enough to find out.’ She cannot resist a dig at both men in Vicki’s life.

  ‘Well, yes, and of course he should do all the childcare each weekend without complaining – but that’s not reality, is it?’ Vicki feels a frisson of irritation. Her mother really isn’t making this easy for her.

  ‘Besides’ – she decides to appeal to her better nature – ‘I thought you might want to support me, and to spend some time with Alfie. He’s so glorious at this age and, at this rate, he’s the only grandchild you’re likely to get so it would be wonderful for you to see him a bit more…’

  She feels herself welling up, and busies herself tidying away some biscuits, placing them carefully on baking parchment, filling three tins. Surely you can see how lovely he is, she thinks; surely you can hear what I’m saying? I’m telling you that I don’t think I’m able to have another baby. That I’m infertile. Barren. I’m asking for your help.

  The memory of another old hurt emerges and she wonders if she dare allude to it. She backs away, the possibility disappearing even as it forms. It’s the nuclear option. One day I’ll be brave enough, she thinks. But not today. She slams on the tin lid. Let’s get this skirmish over first.

  Frances, meanwhile, is watching Alfie push a Playmobil ambulance around her chair and flinching as he rams it against the table legs. He’s being particularly cute today but Frances looks unconvinced that looking after him would be a bonding experience.

  She has frequently commented that children only become interesting when they reach secondary school – when they ‘become intelligent’ as she once memorably put it – or, if she is honest, when they become young adults. She has never seen the appeal of infants however endearing she knows, objectively, they are.

  Vicki knows all this but still hopes she will make an exception. Did she make one for me? she wonders. In the privacy of her own home, did she kiss the creases of my fat toddler thighs? Did she watch me as I slept, marvelling at my childish peacefulness, just as I watch little Alf? Did she bury her face in the nape of my neck and breathe in my warm, milky smell? Did she stroke my plump cheek and wonder how she had managed to produce someone so unblemished? So utterly perfect.

  She has no memory of Frances playing with her: of her entering her imaginary world and absorbing herself in her games. Nor can she remember her responding to her endless questions without irritation; her tolerating the repetition, the inanity. The teacher in her winces now at her mother’s sharpness and questions why there was little joint imaginary play; little interaction beyond drawing and reading. If she wouldn’t play with me, she thinks, why would she do it for another child?

  Of course, she knows her mother is busy. She has been retired for less than a year but shows no intention of slacking. Each week she works as a volunteer at the Bodleian Library. She swims every morning; helps run the local Oxfam; has resumed piano lessons; and is taking evening classes in Italian. She has begun an advanced IT skills course and, in September, will start a part-time MA in child development. And then there’s her travel: unconstrained by a partner, and with a carefully accrued private pension, she is planning a trip to Laos and Cambodia this summer, and to Sicily at Easter.

  And all of this is great. Of course it is. Her mother has no intention of becoming one of those grandparents conscripted to provide free childcare, their sciatica worsening as they push incarcerated toddlers around in buggies, their features clouded with exhaustion.

  And nor would Vicki want this. She accepts and applauds her mother’s full life. Frances has worked hard and it can’t have been easy bringing up a daughter on her own while scaling the career ladder. So now it’s her time to be selfish – not that Vicki would ever describe her as such. But sometimes, just sometimes, it would be nice if she were a bit more engaged with her grandchild. She doesn’t expect her to dote. She is realistic. But it would be nice if she showed some interest, any interest at all.

  Her mother takes her time to answer.

  ‘Oh, darling, I’d love to. But I just don’t think I’d have the time. I can’t really commit to that with everything else I’ve got on at the moment.’

  The lie is automatic. And, though Vicki expected this response, she still cannot hide her disappointment.

  ‘Of course. Stupid of me. Forget I asked. So sorry.’ She keeps her head down, continues to put the biscuits in their tin.

  But Frances must have heard the catch in her throat.

  ‘Well, of course, if it’s impossible for Greg to do it all, then of course you could call on me. But I can’t sign up to five weekends. And I’m sure that’s not what you
’re asking me to do, is it?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Vicki, glimpsing the chance of some support, hurries to placate her. ‘Perhaps just one of the days each weekend, or perhaps just every other…’

  ‘Every other weekend?’ Her mother’s anxiety is palpable. ‘Oh no, I don’t think I could do a full weekend. Perhaps the Saturday, if Greg could drop him off and pick him up?’

  ‘Or I could do that. Or you could stay at ours?’ Why, thinks Vicki, is she making this so hard for me?

  ‘Well, I’d rather be in my own space.’ Frances gives a sniff, taking in the clutter of toys; making it clear that, if she is going to do her daughter this favour, it will be on her turf – and on her conditions. And so it is agreed. Vicki will drop Alfie off in Oxford before hurtling back to Buckinghamshire. Frances will provide childcare on three Saturdays with Greg, who won’t relish the drive but will be relieved he’s not shouldering all the childcare, collecting him at 6 p.m.

  ‘Thank you, Mum.’ Vicki’s gratitude comes out in a rush. She bends forward to put her arms round her mother, brushes her powdery cheek with her lips, gives her a tight hug.

  Frances seems wrong-footed, her body inert, unable to relax into the embrace.

  ‘Be careful of my drink.’ She makes a show of moving the porcelain mug aside, discomfited by this sudden display of affection.

  ‘Of course.’ Vicki moves back, head down, embarrassed by the rebuff.

  But her mother isn’t finished. ‘So are you going to offer me one of these delicacies?’

  Kathleen

  The baby seems to be growing. Much to her surprise, it has been nine weeks since her last period and, warm inside her, her baby – she does not think of it as an embryo – is bedding down, relying on her for life.

  There is no sign of it. Every morning she looks at herself sideways in the mirror but her stomach is still flat, or possibly convex. The ‘doyenne of baking with the enviable figure’ still exists, much to her frustration. For, without a gently curving belly, she fears she is imagining it all.

  Dr Sharp has reassured her, however, as has James Caruthers, an eminent obstetrician whom the good doctor has referred her to in Harley Street. And, of course, she has that other tell-tale sign of pregnancy: morning sickness. Or, rather, constant sickness. Waves of nausea pick her up then spew her forth like a sailor battling the high seas in a small vessel.

  She is taking quite a battering.

  The only thing that curbs the sickness is sweet carbohydrates. Soft and undemanding. Scones and tea cakes; brioche and buns. And so she is baking. Ignoring the bile that rises as she binds the dough, imagining the relief that comes, all too briefly, when she crams the sweet bread into her mouth.

  She writes about this as well: racing through descriptions of tea breads and Shrewsbury buns as fast as she can bake them, her manuscript thickening even though her waistline remains svelte. Despite the nausea and the tiredness, she enjoys the restless creativity: she bakes, she writes – and she nourishes a baby. She exists in a productive whirl.

  ‘My bread section’s coming along well,’ she tells George at the end of another fruitful day. ‘The book’s almost half finished.’

  ‘Well, you won’t have time to write once you’ve had the baby.’ He smiles, indulgent.

  ‘Oh, I will.’ She is emphatic. ‘I can write when it’s sleeping. I can do many things – write, bake, grow children – all at once.’

  ‘Perhaps we could have a child a book?’

  He slips his arms around her waist and her smile wavers.

  ‘Let me have this one first,’ she tells him, fear crowding in, then tries to sound more optimistic. ‘But, in theory, yes. Let’s fill this great big house.’

  It is around this time that she perfects her Chelsea bun recipe. Chelsea buns for my Chelsea girl, says George, as she brings out a further batch from the oven. It is a short-lived obsession.

  She is photographed proffering them for publicity shots, she writes about them for Home Magazine – and then, quite abruptly, she goes off making them.

  She finds her appetite for them has completely stopped.

  11

  In baking, organisation and preparation are of the utmost importance. Mastering both will ensure you bake calmly and efficiently. The same may be said of life. Take the time to prepare yourself, whether for an appointment or for your husband, and you will reap the benefits.

  Saturday morning, mid-March, the day of the biscuit stage of the competition and Karen Hammond is trapped inside her Porsche Cayenne outside Bradley Hall waiting for the weather to clear.

  It is still raining; relentless driving rain that hammers down on her windscreen, impervious to the sluice of her wipers. She turns off the ignition. Better wait for it to subside. Her blow-dry will be ruined if she makes a dash for it.

  Forced to rest, Karen leans back against the warmed leather seats and takes in the mansion in front of her. She can see why it might appeal to a self-made man like George Eaden – a man keen to demonstrate his wealth with a fairytale palace with lots of phallic turrets – but she imagines Kathleen Eaden would have preferred something more intimate; a little less grandiose.

  Bored, she reaches into her glove compartment for a leaflet given to each competitor. George bought the property in 1964, some months after the Profumo affair occurred at nearby Cliveden, she reads. Perhaps he got it cheap because of that – or perhaps he was hoping for his own naked moonlit swims? She glances at his black and white photo: a broad, stolid figure, with sandy hair, a cheery smile and the look of a market trader. Yes, you’d have an eye for a bargain. Too conventional, though, for skinny dipping.

  She stretches and carries on reading about the hall’s extensive renovation. ‘When finished, it will boast a visitors’ centre detailing Eaden’s growth from humble grocer to FTSE 100 Corporation; become an elegant retreat for star employees; and house the entire Kathleen Eaden recipe archive,’ she reads.

  A photo shows the hall flanked by herbaceous borders and bathed in summer sunshine. The archetypal eccentric English stately home.

  Today, the skies are leaden; the borders barren. It is a setting fit for a Gothic novel.

  * * *

  After twenty minutes, the rain peters out and a watery sun peers through the mass of grey. Karen grabs her leather overnight holdall and decides to risk it, neat ballet pumps crunching across the gravel and dancing up the puddled stone steps to an elaborate entrance hall. From now on, the contestants will bake all weekend – and so, today, she will get to stay overnight and explore the hall. Her heart flutters, not from the exercise but from excitement. She feels refreshingly energised.

  Inside, she picks up the keys to her assigned room and climbs the stairs, pushing past the rose briars reaching for the ceiling like the thicket encasing Sleeping Beauty’s castle. On either side, black eyes – captured in oil; surrounded by gilt – watch as she dares to venture further. They really need to crack on with the refurbishment.

  Yet Karen’s room, when she flings open the heavy oak door, feels airy and contemporary: freshly painted pale grey walls; white eggshell picture rails and cornicing; a new iron bed – king-sized, she notes – a slate mohair throw; crisp white bed linen from an upmarket company.

  It is as if she has stepped into a boutique hotel – though the clean white en suite boasts no complimentary toiletries. She places her bags on the floor and sits on the mattress – firm; just the way she likes it – then allows herself to lie along the length of the bed and – insofar as she ever does this – tries to relax.

  The preparation for this moment has, she realises, been immense. Like Vicki and Jenny, she too has been seeking biscuit perfection and has been moulding warm tuiles over oranges and warm brandy snaps around wooden spoons just as The Art of Baking dictates.

  But she has also been perfecting herself. The list of beauty treatments she would usually spread over a three-week cycle has been condensed into three days. And so she has been pruned and honed, pummelled and irrigated;
stripped back and defoliated as if she were a particularly lush garden that has grown rampant and needs to be wrestled under control.

  Many of these processes are supposed to be enjoyable – pro-lift firming facials, luxury manicures, body wraps and full-body massages – and they have cost her over £600. And yet undergoing them has seemed onerous as she has counted the vacant hours away from her kitchen. There is no doubt these hours perfecting herself were necessary, just as it was necessary to have her lowlights retouched and to put in five spin classes as well as her daily gym sessions. Her children have barely seen her – though as day boarders they are not home until nine. The house has felt as calm, as empty, as whitely sterile as ever. Oliver has stayed in London all week, apparently working on some commercial take-over. God knows what she has to do to attract him these days. She doubts he even notices.

  She sighs and looks at herself in the reproduction Venetian glass mirror, taking in the fine smile lines now traced on her cheeks, the deeper crease above her eyes. So much for that anti-ageing facial. She smooths her forehead as if to erase the tell-tale signs of ageing. How much longer can she stave off the Botox? Just a matter of months.

  Perhaps that’s what Jake meant with his casual, ‘You’re fooling no one.’ You’re no longer an attractive young woman. You’re mutton dressed as lamb. Her stomach twists. She knows at heart it’s not that, or not just that, for then his contempt would be general; not so cutting; so scalpel-sharp.

  She thinks back to the conversation she had last night with her daughter, slim, studious Olivia. At fifteen, her world view is far safer than her mother’s was. She may flirt with boys on Facebook but she wouldn’t dream of touching them. Passion is something found in books and, very sensibly, she is waiting for her Heathcliff, Mr Darcy, or Edward Cullen.