Something in Common

by Meaney, Roisin

  Recipes make me shudder; all those ingredients and instructions and oven temperatures, as if I’m in a science lab trying to put together a more efficient version of the atom bomb. On the few occasions that I’ve attempted to follow a recipe, I’ve ended up with a dish that’s either burnt or undercooked. It doesn’t help that I have a remarkably picky seven-year-old child (although I’m willing to acknowledge the possibility that my abominable cooking skills might be somewhat to blame for her pickiness).

  These days I tend to slide a couple of fish fingers under the grill, or throw a few sausages onto the pan, and presto, dinner’s done – and, yes, yes, I know it’s not a balanced diet, and it’s lacking in this vitamin or that mineral, and my daughter wouldn’t recognise a vegetable if it hit her in the face (although ketchup is made from tomatoes, and she eats plenty of that), but, folks, it works fine for us. And guess what? I don’t even own an apron.

  Sarah read the article with growing disapproval. A child who was being brought up on fish fingers and sausages and not a single vegetable – Helen O’Dowd couldn’t seriously think a blob of ketchup counted as one. Apart from the fact that tomatoes weren’t technically vegetables, she must realise that what came out of a ketchup bottle couldn’t possibly be compared in terms of nutritional goodness to a ripe, juicy tomato.

  Of course she realised it. The woman was intelligent – she knew that she wasn’t feeding her child properly. She was well aware of the deficiencies in her daughter’s diet, and still she wasn’t prepared to do anything about it. On the contrary, she seemed almost proud that she was raising her child on convenience food which had little or no nourishment in it: how irresponsible. And boasting that she didn’t own an apron, for goodness’ sake.

  How could she say preparing a simple meal was complicated? What on earth was complicated about cutting a head of broccoli into florets and adding them to boiling water for a few minutes? Who couldn’t top and tail a handful of green beans, or slice an onion and fry it up with a few chopped mushrooms and a sprinkle of black pepper?

  It sounded like she had just one child – hardly a big family to feed. Presumably there was a husband too, if he hadn’t left her in favour of a woman who could feed him properly. Had she never roasted a chicken? Could she not even grill a chop or poach a bit of salmon for her family?

  Sarah had a good mind to send her a few easy recipes. Minimal ingredients and instructions, since she seemed to be allergic to them. Ones with vegetables in them, definitely. She thought suddenly of the vegetable croquettes she made regularly in the nursing home, an experiment one time to use up leftover vegetables. They’d gone down so well she produced them now at least once a week.

  Surely Helen O’Dowd could manage those. Really, a child could put them together, and even Martina hadn’t found fault with them. And they looked a bit like fish fingers, so they’d seem familiar to the poor malnourished little girl.

  ‘You’re daft,’ Neil said, when Sarah told him what she was planning. ‘Why would you want anything more to do with her? Didn’t she rubbish your book without even seeing it? Have you forgotten that?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten, but that’s all in the past. The point is, she needs help now, and I can give it to her.’

  He shook his head. ‘The point is, she can tell you to mind your own business – and anyway, I bet she can cook fine. She’s just making this up to be controversial: they all do that.’

  Sarah took a cookbook from the shelf and opened it. ‘You could be right, but maybe you’re not. We have no way of knowing, so I’m going to take the chance and send her a couple of simple recipes. She might be delighted.’

  ‘Delighted that you’re criticising the way she’s raising her child?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m doing at all. She’s already admitted that her daughter isn’t being fed properly, and I’m just trying to help her to fix that. How could she take that as criticism?’

  He shook his head. ‘Have it your own way – but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  He pulled off his work T-shirt and dropped it into the washing-machine. She’d take it out and transfer it to the laundry basket as soon as he went upstairs for a shower. A year of marriage had taught her, among other things, to pick her arguments carefully, and this one didn’t make the cut.

  At least she’d trained him to leave his boots outside: no more grass and earth scattered all over the kitchen floor every time he came home. She watched as he sat on a chair to pull off his socks before bundling them into the washing-machine on top of the T-shirt – like he’d done countless times, no doubt, before she’d come along. Pile clothes into the machine as they come off you, repeat till it’s full, then switch it on. No wonder all his underwear had been the same shade of mottled grey before she’d replaced it.

  ‘So,’ he said, coming up behind her, bare-chested and barefoot, wrapping his arms around her waist, ‘what’s on Helen O’Dowd’s dinner menu then?’

  He smelt strongly of sweat, hardly surprising after a day of gardening in the late-August sunshine. She didn’t mind male sweat: on the contrary, she quite liked the rough headiness of it.

  She turned pages, trying to stay focused with his body pressed against hers. ‘I’m thinking about vegetable croquettes, and maybe a chicken pie – they’re both dead easy. And I’ll tell her I have plenty more if she wants them.’

  ‘Just don’t get your hopes up,’ he said, his mouth against her ear, his breath hot. ‘Don’t expect her to shower you with gratitude.’

  Sarah smiled down at a picture of a casserole in a green dish sitting on a gingham tablecloth. ‘No, I don’t think that’ll happen.’ She was beginning to respond to his nearness, his smell, his body against hers. She was starting to feel the pleasant heat of arousal.

  ‘Have we time,’ he said, his lips against the side of her neck now, his hands pressing her pelvis into his, ‘to make a baby before dinner?’

  Make a baby: her heart flooded at the thought. Maybe we already have, she wanted to say. Maybe things have already started. But she remained silent, afraid to say it out loud, afraid to give him hope in case she was wrong. She’d wait. She’d hug it to herself until she was sure.

  She turned in his embrace and pressed her open mouth to his. She was so glad she’d stayed a virgin until marriage, shying away from other boyfriends’ straying hands, hating the idea of sex as a casual act between people who hardly knew, let alone loved, one another.

  She hadn’t been Neil’s first lover, which had secretly dismayed her, but he’d been hers. Her first and her last, however corny that might sound these days, when sex before marriage had become the norm, and fidelity seemed to be a thing of the past.

  ‘Have your shower – I’ll be right up,’ she murmured, drawing out of his embrace. Alone in the kitchen she found Easy Chicken Pie and marked the page before closing the cookbook. She turned the oven down to gas three and lowered the heat under the saucepan of potatoes. She untied her apron strings and refreshed her lipstick at the little mirror she’d hung on the back of the door.

  She left the kitchen and followed her husband upstairs. A baby already begun, maybe. A big happy family, waiting for them in the years ahead.

  Helen

  ‘What are they?’ Alice looked suspiciously at her plate.

  ‘They’re Golden Surprises. I made them.’

  Alice poked at one with her fork. ‘You always make dinner.’

  ‘No, I mean I didn’t buy them in the shop, I bought stuff and made them, all by myself.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Oh, just a few different things. Try them.’

  Alice sniffed dubiously.

  ‘You know Godmother in Wanderly Wagon?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She makes them for Rory and O’Brien.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘I read it in a magazine.’ Helen put two croquettes onto her own plate. ‘Go on, try them – they’re yummy.’

  They were yummy
. She’d eaten one while she was setting the table, and she’d had to stop herself having another. They were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and they were the first thing she’d ever cooked from scratch, and they tasted far better than she’d been expecting.

  Alice still made no move to eat. She watched Helen dunking a croquette into a dish of ketchup. ‘How did you know how to make them?’

  ‘A woman called Mrs Flannery told me,’ Helen said. ‘She’s a real cook. That’s her job.’

  ‘I don’t know her.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  Sarah Flannery’s name on the envelope had taken a few minutes to register. When it had, Helen’s heart had sunk. What did the silly creature want now? Had Helen said something nasty about another book? Had she been awfully mean to some poor theatre actor? Didn’t the woman have anything better to do than write sanctimonious letters?

  The envelope had been addressed, like the others, to the newspaper, care of Breen, and had been readdressed as usual by Catherine. Helen pulled out the notelet – yes, looked familiar, watercolour blobs of flowers in a prissy vase – and a separate sheet of paper slipped from it and fluttered to the floor. A novena prayer, maybe, to save Helen’s immortal soul.

  It wasn’t a novena prayer: it was a recipe for some kind of a chicken dish. Helen turned it over and saw Vegetable Croquettes on the reverse. Sarah Flannery was sending her recipes?

  She opened the card.

  Dear Mrs O’Dowd

  You’ll probably be surprised to hear from me again. In case you’ve forgotten, I wrote a few months ago after you’d reviewed a book called To Kill with Kindness as I thought you’d been a bit harsh, and you subsequently sent me a copy of the book.

  I hope you won’t take this amiss, but I read your piece about cooking a few days ago in which you admitted your lack of experience in producing a balanced meal, and since I cook for a living I’m taking the liberty of sending you a couple of recipes that you might like to try for your family. They’re both very easy and don’t require a lot of ingredients. I chose the Vegetable Croquettes because they look a little like fish fingers (only they’re much tastier and more nutritious) so they’ll appear familiar to your daughter, who you mentioned is a picky eater.

  The chicken pie is really simple to make too, and delicious. Strictly speaking, it’s not a pie because it doesn’t have pastry, just a top of mashed potatoes. It’s one of my husband’s favourite dishes. I do hope you don’t mind my sending these along, and if you would like any more, I’ll be happy to provide them.

  Yours sincerely

  Sarah

  PS I took your advice and tore up my half-written manuscript. I think you were right, it wouldn’t have made an interesting book at all. In future I’ll stick to cooking – at least I know I’m good at that!

  PPS I appreciated your letter of apology, and I accept it completely. It came after I’d got rid of the manuscript but, like I say, it was for the best. No hard feelings.

  She’d destroyed her manuscript.

  She accepted Helen’s apology completely.

  She’d sent Helen two recipes because Helen had written about not being able to cook.

  She’d included a recipe for Vegetable Croquettes because they looked a little like fish fingers, which Helen had mentioned in the article.

  She’d signed her letter ‘Sarah’, as if Helen was a friend.

  Was she for real? Six months ago Helen had rubbished her manuscript, which she might well have spent years working on. She’d torn it up, she’d destroyed her embryo book because of Helen – and now she was sending recipes. She was a professional cook, and presumably scandalised by Alice’s diet of sausages and fish fingers, but there wasn’t a word of criticism directed at the mother who was responsible for it.

  Helen reread the letter slowly. She turned to the recipes and scanned the croquette one.

  Peel and chop three carrots and one parsnip into small chunks, about the size of sugar cubes. Put them into a saucepan of cold water with a pinch of salt and pepper and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover the saucepan and simmer until you can easily stick a fork in, about fifteen minutes. Drain off the water and mash the vegetables until smooth. If you don’t have a potato masher use a fork.

  No ingredients list, just instructions a child could follow. Sarah Flannery was making it all very easy for the woman who couldn’t abide recipes. And she wasn’t assuming that Helen had any kind of kitchen equipment, even something as basic as a potato masher.

  When the mixture is cool enough to handle, break an egg into a cup, beat it lightly with a fork and pour it onto a dinner plate. Scatter about half a cupful of flour onto another dinner plate. Scoop out handfuls of the mixture and roll into fat sausage shapes: you should get about a dozen. Dip them one by one into the egg and then roll gently in the flour so they’re lightly coated. (It might be a bit messy at the start but you’ll get the knack as you go on!)

  Heat a dessertspoon of sunflower oil on a pan and fry the croquettes over a medium heat for a few minutes, turning carefully so that all sides become golden brown. Don’t have the pan too crowded, as you need room to turn them. Depending on the size of your pan, you might have to fry them in two batches.

  Helen hadn’t been sure whether to be amused or offended. Don’t have the pan too crowded – did Sarah Flannery think she was dealing with a complete idiot? Cooked for a living: employed, no doubt, in the kitchen of some backwater hotel. Thought she knew it all, delighted with the opportunity to lord it over the nasty woman who’d made her tear up her little book.

  No, it wasn’t that. Sarah Flannery was simply being nice. She was a good person with no ulterior motive.

  Helen turned the page over and read the chicken pie recipe. Chicken, carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, stock, a few herbs. Nothing unfamiliar, nothing that couldn’t be easily got.

  No harm in giving one of them a go. Might be a laugh, might even produce something halfway decent. Might manage not to burn the house down in the process.

  She’d try the croquettes. She remembered liking the mashed carrots and parsnips her mother used to serve with roast beef. And she did have a potato masher – inherited, like all the kitchen tools, from Cormac’s grandmother.

  She’d added the ingredients to her shopping list, and half an hour ago she’d made her first batch of eleven fat vegetable croquettes, only two of which had fallen apart in the pan.

  She pretended she wasn’t watching as Alice took a cautious bite. She said nothing as her daughter chewed and swallowed. She waited until Alice was halfway through the croquette.

  ‘You like it?’

  Alice nodded, her mouth full. Helen had just served her daughter a home-cooked meal – well, not entirely home-cooked: the chips that accompanied the croquettes had come from the takeaway on the corner. But it was a start. And it was thanks to Sarah Flannery.

  She wasn’t a friend, far from it, but she’d done Helen a kindness, with nothing at all to gain in return. She’d simply seen an opportunity to help and taken it.

  Helen couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something nice for her, just for the hell of it. Since Cormac’s death, she’d distanced herself from the people who’d known them both, not that any of them had tried too hard to keep in contact. Her school friends, such as they were, had long since drifted, and she’d forged no solid friendships during her time behind the counter at Burke’s. She had plenty of acquaintances, but no real friends to speak of.

  Then again, who’d want her as a friend? She tormented her elderly neighbour. She tore badly written books and mediocre plays to shreds. She spoke her mind, even when nobody wanted to hear it. She was mouthy and uncompromising. She drank more whiskey than was good for her whenever she got the chance, and most of the time she probably smelt like an ashtray. She could hardly blame people for steering clear.

  When she thought about it, her most significant adult relationship these days was probably with Breen, which was very sad indee
d, seeing as most of their conversations were conducted through mutually gritted teeth.

  ‘Can I have another one?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Course you can.’

  Helen transferred a croquette from the serving dish to her daughter’s plate. Tomorrow she might try the chicken thing. She liked a bit of chicken, and the mashed potato topping would make a nice change from chips.

  She liked beef too. Sarah Flannery probably had a stack of beef recipes.

  Dear Mrs Flannery

  Many thanks for the recipes you sent last week: it was a generous gesture, and quite unexpected. Miraculously, I managed to cook both dishes without any major disasters occurring. Even more amazingly, my daughter ate both without complaint, and demanded a repeat performance of the croquettes.

  Could you send one or two simple red-meat recipes when you get the chance? No rush. I’ve put my home address at the top, so you don’t have to go through the newspaper.

  Thanks again,

  Helen Fitzpatrick (O’Dowd is a pseudonym)

  PS Sorry to hear about your manuscript. Thank you for not being horrible about my part in its destruction: I had no right to write what I did, and your magnanimity is more than I deserve.

  Dear Helen

  I’m delighted the recipes were a success, and so glad I didn’t offend you. My husband was sure you’d tell me to mind my own business, and I was also afraid you’d give me a bad review if they didn’t turn out well, ha ha!

  I’m sending two more recipes. The first is a beef casserole, which you can prepare really quickly – even the day before if you prefer – and the other is simple meatballs made from minced lamb. Do let me know how you get on, and also please ask if you’d like any more – I don’t want to overwhelm you!

  All the very best, and happy cooking!

  Sarah

  Sarah

  You worry too much about giving offence: trust me, I have the hide of a rhinoceros. You’ve noticed I write the truth as I see it – this attracts all sorts of responses, ranging from the polite (yours) to the obscene (practically everyone else’s). Doesn’t cost me a thought.