The Family Gift

by Cathy Kelly

  ‘When you realised I was nearly always right,’ says Lorraine as if she can read my mind.

  Wow, you have so got to be more like her, says Mildred. You’re just a wimp, a total wimp and besides she works for you, she shouldn’t be able to talk to you like that.

  Mildred can be funny that way, one moment she’s praising somebody, the next moment she’s giving out to me because I’m not tough on them.

  With enough coffee down me and a little dish of chocolate-covered raisins in front of me to give me energy, I phone Nina. I’ve written down several possible reasons why the book is late. I can’t tell her that I’ve been broken for a while but am up and running again, with my new, quirky recipes. Honest new recipes, I think.

  ‘Hello,’ Nina says in that slightly faux posh voice she uses all the time. It doesn’t sound right to me and Lorraine insists Nina’s just normal, but is desperately trying to hide it.

  ‘Never trust people who hide where they’re from by using a fake accent’ is one of Lorraine’s mottos.

  ‘I was just going to ring you,’ I lie. I am getting good at this lying.

  ‘That’s good,’ says Nina, ‘because I was just going to ring you too. In fact, we need a meeting because I know one of the producers of your TV show. We bumped into each other and he’s saying he hasn’t heard a peep out of you in months. Which is disastrous for your career – and mine. You’re one of my top clients, obviously, and I have to look out for you—’

  I interrupt this diatribe and immediately make a mistake: I go off message. I’m looking at the bits of paper on my desk that explain how I’m trying something new and it must be right and suddenly I feel emotional, misunderstood. If only Nina knew anything about me she’d understand what’s been going on in my life and that the stress of the past four months has been intolerable.

  ‘I was mugged and I’m only just limping my way out of the anxiety and of course I had to hide it because nobody wants to hear my problems, as you always say and . . .’ Suddenly I realise that all this mental chatter isn’t mental chatter at all, and that I’m actually saying it. Out loud.

  ‘Mugged?’ gasps Nina. ‘Like mugged where? What happened? Held at knife point?’

  There’s a definite change in her accent, I notice, despite the mounting fear that I have just done the stupidest thing on the planet and actually told her.

  Lorraine is making are you nuts? faces at me but I keep going. I have to now.

  ‘It was in a parking garage, I’d done this cooking demonstration in town and I had just paid for my ticket when this guy mugged me.’

  ‘Mugged? Not just bumped into? Properly mugged? The police came?’

  ‘Thrown to the ground. Broke my collarbone, had bruises on my temple,’ I say. ‘He had a knife.’

  ‘A dangerous criminal had a knife to your throat and you never thought to tell me,’ roars Nina and the posh voice is totally gone now. This is the real Nina, I realise.

  Lorraine is looking at me with a combination of pity and I told you so written across her face.

  ‘This is . . .’

  I wait for her to say ‘terrible. No wonder you haven’t been able to work. I can’t imagine the stress you’re under.’

  And then she says: ‘Fantastic, you have no idea what this can do for your career. Oh Freya, you’re such a novice sometimes. I have no idea how you have got this far in life, because you can’t see the wood for the trees. There you are, going along with your little happy pictures and saying that blueberries and muffins are like animal poo which is ridiculous. And then, this unbelievable thing happens, this will have you on every paper, on every talk show in the country. This will give you an in into the UK because you finally have something to talk about. I mean, who wants to talk about bloody recipes? There’s got to be more of a story to you . . .’

  I tune out and look over at Lorraine who is making cutting noises with her fingers across her throat to imply that I should hang up.

  ‘You said people didn’t want to hear my problems,’ I say anxiously.

  ‘Yes but I meant small problems. This is big!’

  ‘Oh, Nina, there’s something wrong with the line,’ I say and I stab my finger on the end call button.

  There is a horrified silence in the office.

  ‘I won’t say I told you so,’ Lorraine says and she goes to the cabinet where she keeps the chocolate which we only take out in emergencies. Very expensive chocolate that costs an absolute fortune, but makes an enormous difference in food. And frankly, we’ve been going through it in the office. She breaks both of us off a few big lumps. My stash is bigger.

  ‘For the shock,’ she says and hands it to me.

  I sit back in my office chair, shaking. The phone starts ringing again frantically, then my mobile starts ringing, all Nina.

  ‘Ringing from two phones at the same time,’ I say, ‘that’s a trick for sure.’

  ‘Yeah, when she’s really excited all her alien flippers come out and she can make phone calls with them,’ Lorraine snaps. ‘You know she’s an otherworldly being and I don’t mean a nice otherworldly being. She’s one of those aliens who come here to take over the world and you just happen to be caught in the way. She has no empathy and she will walk on your grave if she thinks it will get her a sale of some sort.’

  I grin at Lorraine.

  ‘Tell me what you really think,’ I say.

  ‘Freya, if you want to go the My Secret Hell in the papers route, that’s fine but I know you and you don’t. So ring her, tell her you’ve been on to your agent and if she spills a word of this, you’ll sue her. You’re doing that big interview of hers tomorrow and if she breathes a word of it, then she is dead.’

  ‘Dead? Is that legal?’

  ‘Say it the posh way,’ Lorraine grins. ‘Say you’ll sue her clothes off her back, then.’

  ‘That’s the posh way?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right.’ I sigh. ‘I wish I hadn’t done that. But I thought if I had said what had happened, she’d understand.’

  ‘She understands cash signs,’ says Lorraine sombrely.

  The next day, I’m getting my make-up done in a proper make-up chair, with a lovely woman discussing the right sort of base for my skin and I’m only half listening.

  This means I’m stressed out of my head.

  You see, I do want to know the right foundation for my skin: I’m obsessed with it, actually. When your hair is this pale it’s very easy to look like the undead without the correct base. Finding a colour that suits is vital, so on every shoot I have ever been on my first question has been: ‘What colour base do you think will suit me?’

  We are having exactly the same conversation but my mind is almost entirely elsewhere – on Nina and her promises that we have a secret and she will go ‘to the grave, dahling’ before she tells anyone about my terrible experience.

  I feel anxious.

  I’m nearly ready to go. Nearly, in that my hair is beautifully styled and held back with little clips to give the make-up artist room to do her work. Hair first, make-up afterwards, then clothes.

  The shoot for the interview Nina has been talking about for months is taking place in an elegant country hotel with an exquisite spa, fabulous gardens, and two championship golf courses round the corner. But Nina clearly doesn’t want Lorraine here and she’s taking tiny little bitchy swipes at her. This is a clue that Nina’s angry that Lorraine knew all about my mugging – and she didn’t.

  Lorraine drove me to the shoot, which had Nina raising her eyebrows and saying. ‘I could have picked you up, darling, if I had known you wanted a taxi.’

  And suddenly I know we have a problem.

  First she has Lorraine running up and downstairs getting all the coffee orders which, with the two hair stylists, a make-up artist, someone from the magazine, a photographer and his assistant, and a s
tylist there, means a lot of up and downs because people keep changing their minds and the cappuccino with almond milk suddenly becomes a skinny flat white, if they have it. I don’t ask Lorraine to get me coffee, I can get my own coffee thank you very much.

  Then it’s the tone in Nina’s voice when she speaks to Lorraine.

  A bitchy tone.

  Then she’s insisting Lorraine sits outside while I’m being made up.

  I rise out of the chair to say something but Lorraine catches my eye and shakes her head. Lorraine is keeping everything on an even keel by not tackling Nina full on. So she’s going and getting the coffee. She’s staying in the other room. She’s not ripping Nina’s face off when Nina is incredibly rude to her. But as I look at Lorraine’s eyes this last time, I realise that something has to change.

  I call Lorraine in when Nina’s on a call. ‘She’s being a bitch and I am terrified of what she’s told the reporter,’ I say.

  ‘She doesn’t want to be sued,’ says Lorraine soothingly. ‘Let’s keep it all nice and calm so that by the time the journalist gets there you’ll be a calm, relaxed version of yourself. We’ll have beautiful pictures and you know that you’re doing what you need to do.’

  I wince.

  ‘You’re doing it, aren’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Doing what?’ I say.

  ‘Imagining how it could all work out if Nina had her way.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I sigh, ‘I don’t want to be that person, I don’t want that following me everywhere as if . . . as if I’m nothing more than a victim, because I’m not a victim.’

  That’s one thing the group has taught me, I’m not a victim. People call people like me victims of crime and I suppose we are, but I don’t want to consider myself a victim. Something bad happened to me, but I can get over it. A lot worse things have happened to other people.

  Like Ariel, who was raped. Like Eileen who lost her daughter.

  ‘Look at my parents,’ I say to Lorraine, ‘and my mother grieving every single moment of every day as she takes care of my father lovingly, wearing herself into the ground because she still wants to show him how much she loves him. These are much worse things and I don’t want my case turned into some enormous deal just because I’m famous. It shouldn’t be like that.’

  ‘Just stop going over it in your head!’ says Lorraine, ‘and if you get really stuck in the interview, just think of . . .’ she pauses. ‘I can’t think of anything,’ she says finally. ‘I’ve been trying, but if you break down and cry and say you’re working so hard on all your new recipes . . . shit, that doesn’t work either.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I say, ‘it’s a tricky one. I have to try and give people what they want: the happiness, the fun.’

  ‘Exactly,’ says Lorraine, back on track. ‘Talk about the new house and how it’s nice even though it needs a teeny bit of work. Not a lot, mind you, because you don’t want to upset the lady you bought it off and if you say it has a hideous avocado bathroom, she might not like it.’

  I turn and grin at Lorraine.

  ‘You’re a real softy at heart,’ I say. ‘Girl boss indeed! But you’re soft as butter.’

  ‘No, I am tough,’ she protests.

  ‘You’re thinking about the lady I bought the house off and you don’t want to upset her.’

  ‘You said she’d been looking after her husband who was ill, too and things had been difficult and maybe she wanted to make the house all pretty and couldn’t afford it. I don’t know,’ mutters Lorraine. ‘Just try not to hurt anyone, well that’s what my mum says.’

  ‘That’s what my mother says too.’

  We nod in agreement, thinking of strong women who hold the world up.

  ‘OK,’ I say, ‘I’m ready for this.’

  We take endless pictures.

  ‘Just one more,’ lies the photographer constantly, as I lean against the tree in the garden and try and look deliriously happy, and as if it’s not the five hundred and fiftieth picture of the day.

  ‘That’s it, that’s it. Now look off into the distance, give me that misty-eyed stare.’

  ‘Do you know,’ I say, turning to look at him, ‘that misty-eyed stare thing does not make me look nice. I look deranged. So let’s just do more smiling.’

  ‘OK,’ he says.

  I’m getting the hang of photographers, I think and I wink at Lorraine.

  Finally I’m back in my normal clothes, everyone is clearing out except Nina and Lorraine and the journalist is waiting. We’ve talked before, she’s a nice woman: Stephanie Robson, clever, one of those people who treat your words with respect and quote you accurately because she tapes everything. But she works for a tough newspaper which takes no prisoners. Neither of our jobs are easy here.

  ‘You guys don’t have to be here, do they?’ says Stephanie.

  ‘No, no,’ I say as if I’m totally relaxed. ‘I’ll tell you what, ladies, why don’t you go downstairs and grab a sandwich in the bar and I’ll be down when we are finished here.’ I smile at both of them, a slightly insincere smile because I know that Lorraine wouldn’t even want to get into the same lift as Nina. But they exit anyway and I’m left alone.

  The interview rolls along swimmingly for a while. And Stephanie asks one of those questions I always find impossible to answer.

  ‘What keeps you going, Freya?’ she says. ‘You’ve moved house, you’ve got small children, you’ve got a daughter in secondary school, you run a business, you travel. How do you manage it all?’

  This time I have practised.

  I say, ‘I’m grateful in the morning.’ I look her straight in the eye, because it’s true. And I almost hate myself for saying this, ‘I do yoga in the morning. It’s completely fabulous.’

  Well, it might be if you actually did it.

  It’s over, I think, glancing at my watch. I’ve nailed it.

  But I haven’t.

  ‘And Freya, I hate asking you about this as I know you haven’t spoken about it before, but you had a horrible experience this year, can you tell us about it?’

  Nina.

  That bitch. You should fire her. No! Kill her.

  Relax, Mildred, I sigh, thinking: if it has to happen, it’s got to happen my way.

  I get up and go to the coffee thermos that’s been there all morning and that everyone has been ignoring in favour of flat whites and Americanos. The stuff’s probably awful at this stage but I don’t care.

  ‘Want one?’ I ask Stephanie.

  She nods cautiously, probably wondering if I’m going to bail on her and not answer.

  I get us two coffees and take a deep drink of mine.

  ‘I didn’t want to talk about this and I’ll tell you why,’ I say. ‘In the past four months, since I was mugged, I’ve met people who’ve been victimised in every way and they are doing their best to get on with their lives. Compared to some of what people on this planet go through, being shoved onto the ground of a parking garage is nothing. Yes, it was horrible. Yes, I was scared.’

  Stephanie is watching me now, fascinated as her story unrolls before her.

  ‘But I kept it to myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  I smile. ‘You ask all the right questions. Because I didn’t want to make my experience on a par with what some people put up with just because I’m “famous”.’ I make air quotes with my fingers. ‘Also, if you make a career in anything that involves the media, I’ve been told . . .’ I pause. This one’s for you, Nina, I think. ‘. . . that happiness sells. I’ve been told that people don’t want to hear about problems but when I was devastated and couldn’t work, I got fed up with all the “happy” Instagram feeds and blogs. I felt so awful that I could no longer look at people who might be pretending to be happy because I had to pretend to be happy too.’

  ‘Can you tell me about the attack?’ she asks.
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br />   ‘I got shoved to the ground, got my collarbone broken when I tried to stop my fall, I got contusions, and yes, I was terrified. I think he was on drugs, No, nobody’s been caught and no, I don’t want all addicts hung, drawn or quartered. I imagine the person who mugged me was broken too. He broke me for a while but my family and some really good friends and my support group put me back together.’

  ‘And . . .’

  ‘That’s it, Stephanie,’ I say, getting up and collecting my stuff. ‘I honestly didn’t know you knew this. That’s all I’ve got to say. Don’t make the headline “My Mugging Hell – Viking Chef Flattened”. Please.’

  Suddenly, we both laugh. We know that’s pretty much exactly what it will say.

  ‘What’s next, then?’

  At the door, I turn. ‘I’m working on recipes for helping you when you’re down, for when your family is down, for life. Because it’s not all happy. Social media likes to pretend life’s fabulous, but it’s not. I hate fakery. We should try to be real, because when life’s really good, it’s marvellous.’

  I give her the beaming smile I’d given to the photographer scores of times earlier that day, but this time it’s real, and leave.

  I go downstairs to the bar where Nina is at one end, not eating a sandwich but tapping away on her laptop and Lorraine is sitting down the other end nursing a Coke and looking as if she really wishes it was a very big glass of wine. I sneak over to Lorraine.

  ‘Come with me,’ I say.

  We walk to Nina together.

  ‘You told her,’ I say.

  ‘Wha—?’ Lorraine roars.

  ‘It’s publicity gold,’ begins Nina.

  ‘You’re fired and I’m suing you,’ I say and I drag Lorraine out before she can punch Nina.

  ‘Let me go! I’m gonna get that bitch!’ she shrieks.

  ‘You can’t put the genie back in the bottle,’ I say calmly. ‘From now on, we do it our way.’

  Viking Chef Freya’s Secret Misery

  A terrifying city centre car park mugging plunged TV chef Freya Abalone into depression – and her attacker has not yet been caught.