A Taste for It

by Monica McInerney

  “What in God’s name was that?” Bernadette looked over. “It wasn’t a cat jumping on the roof, was it?”

  “Not unless you’ve got cats the size of tigers here,” Maura said. She looked up at the clock. Ten thirty pm.

  “All the girls are back from the pub, aren’t they?” she asked. Bernadette nodded. They had spent the morning cooking some rich, exotic desserts and the afternoon tasting the different varieties of Lorikeet Hill wines. The wine had given the girls enough of a buzz to send them off into Ennis to carry on in the pubs. Bernadette had let in the final pair, Ciara and Deirdre, just half an hour ago.

  “There it is again,” Maura whispered. The second bang was followed with heavy creaking sounds, one after the other.

  “It sounds like someone walking on the roof of the conservatory,” Maura said.

  Bernadette listened too. “I think that’s because it is someone walking on the roof of the conservatory. Whose room is directly above it?”

  Maura thought for a moment. “Selina, isn’t it?”

  Bernadette nodded, before putting her finger to her mouth and beckoning Maura to follow her. They tiptoed out into the hall and carefully opened the front door, making sure to turn the hall light off. The moon was just bright enough to shed light onto the conservatory attached to the side of the house.

  As they watched, they saw a leg emerge from Selina’s bedroom window, followed by a whole body. Then another, this one holding a large bag. The two figures tiptoed as quietly as they could across the roof of the conservatory.

  “It’s Selina – and I’d bet a million pounds that’s Carlos with the bag,” Bernadette nearly laughed. “Oh, how romantic, this is just like Romeo and Juliet.”

  “It’s not strong enough to hold them, is it?” Maura whispered in alarm.

  “So far so good,” Bernadette whispered back, “I think it’s made with an iron frame, so it should be fairly strong. Anyway, if we call out they’re liable to get a fright and lose their balance.”

  Maura and Bernadette held their breath, watching the two figures inch their way carefully across the frame of the conservatory, carefully avoiding the glass panes.

  The couple had just reached the edge, safely away from the glass, when gravity stepped in. Selina suddenly lost her balance and as they watched, so did Carlos. In perfect unison, the two of them tripped and fell the six feet onto the gravel path below.

  Maura and Bernadette ran toward the young couple, who were now slowly getting up to the sound of loud groans. “Romeo and Juliet?” Bernadette said under her breath to Maura as they came to their aid. “Abbott and Costello, more like it.”

  * * *

  The next day the girls were full of the news of Selina and Carlos’s attempted midnight flit.

  “It’s so romantic,” Siobhan breathed, as she helped Maura prepare a potato dish which they would enjoy later with their farewell lunch of barbequed steaks and chicken breasts. “Imagine Carlos hitchhiking all the way from Madrid to rescue Selina.”

  Emer scoffed. “Rescue her? From what? This is a cooking school, not a home for delinquents.”

  Maura and Bernadette exchanged a glance. Last night they hadn’t been so sure. Both Selina and Carlos had landed awkwardly, resulting in sprains and bruises. They were now, not so romantically, lying in bed in adjoining rooms waiting for their parents to come and fetch them. It wasn’t quite the ending Carlos had planned.

  “Well, back to the real world, girls,” Bernadette broke up their gossiping session. “It’s time to enjoy a true blue Aussie barbie!” She was making a very bad attempt at an Australian accent. “And if you’re all really good you can have some lamb tin for dessert.”

  Maura laughed aloud. “Lamb tin? Bernadette, that sounds disgusting. She means lamington, everyone, one of Australia’s many gifts to the world of cuisine.”

  As she spoke, Maura brought out a tray of her surprise final dessert – squares of plain cake, dipped in rich chocolate icing and then covered in coconut. Maura had many memories of them from her childhood – lamingtons were a staple food at town fetes, country shows and in school lunches. “You won’t find recipes for these in any classy Australian cookbook,” she joked, as the girls looked down in surprise, “but there’s nothing like them to finish a proper Aussie barbie.”

  Later that afternoon Maura and Bernadette sat in the now quiet kitchen, enjoying a glass of Lorikeet Hill wine. The barbeque lunch and the casual dessert had made a relaxing, informal end to the first week of classes. Maura had been buoyed by the warm comments she received from the students as they departed, each clutching a souvenir bottle of Lorikeet Hill wine and a folder filled with copies of all the recipes they had learnt during the week.

  “Well done, Maura,” Bernadette raised her glass.

  Maura clinked hers against it. “Well done and thanks, Bernadette. I really enjoyed it – we make a great team, don’t we?”

  “We sure do,” Bernadette smiled across. “We could rival those two BBC cooks. We could call ourselves ‘One Not So Much Fat as a Stone or Two Overweight Irish Lady and One Gorgeous Shapely Australian Lady’,” she added with a laugh.

  Maura laughed too. “Well, that’s catchy. Do you know, I can’t believe we spent all those months planning this, and it’s a third of the way over already.”

  “We’ll have to make sure you get to see some more of the country as well, before your month here is suddenly up,” Bernadette said, as she leaned across to refill Maura’s glass. “Is there anything you particularly want to do?”

  Maura started to answer, to talk about the tourist sights in the West of Ireland she wanted to visit. Then to her own surprise she found herself telling Bernadette all about her adoption.

  Bernadette sat quietly, taking in every word as Maura haltingly, then with more confidence explained the circumstances. With a beating heart, she said Catherine Shanley’s name, half hoping that Bernadette would know her, and the search would end there and then.

  Bernadette shook her head and Maura felt a mixture of relief and disappointment run through her.

  “Forty years ago there were hundreds of young ones leaving from this area to go to America and Australia. It wouldn’t have been an unusual occurrence. And many’s the time you would just lose touch with the one that went away. Not like these days of e-mails and Internet and express post,” Bernadette explained.

  As she took a sip of wine, Maura gathered her thoughts and tried to explain how she felt about going to Catherine Shanley’s village.

  “The thing is, I expected that once I arrived in Ireland I would get an overwhelming feeling about whether I wanted to find Catherine’s family – my family I guess – or not. But I still don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “If anything, being away from Nick and Fran, and thinking about them about to have a baby has made me think more of them as being my family. And then when I do feel curious about Catherine and her family I start to feel disrespectful to Terri. As though now she’s gone I’m trying to find my other family. I’d like to find out something about Catherine but only if I knew that what I would find out wasn’t going to upset me.” She laughed sheepishly. “That sounds cowardly, doesn’t it?”

  Bernadette didn’t answer at first. Maura liked that about her. She always considered her answers, rather than just giving quick replies.

  “No, it’s not cowardly. I think it’s very normal. It would be different if Catherine was still alive, and it would make some difference to your relationship with her if you were to see her homeplace and meet her family.

  “But the fact that you are letting the thought of it go round and round your head means you haven’t dismissed it entirely. You’ve two more weeks here yet, you don’t have to decide today. Just keep mulling it over, and if you feel the need to go there, let me know and I’ll help you all I can.”

  Maura was about to say something more when the sound of the phone rang out through the open kitchen door. Bernadette groaned. The phone had been ringing a lot the last couple of days,
as word of the restaurant nights got around. People had been keen to book a table and she had reluctantly had to tell each caller that apart from one or two seats the season was booked out.

  Maura picked up the glasses and walked into the kitchen to hear Bernadette answer the call. Her heart jumped as she overheard the conversation.

  “Dominic, hello! Yes, it’s all going absolutely great, your kitchen is a paradise,” Bernadette chatted away, breaking occasionally into a lively gust of laughter.

  Maura watched surreptitiously. Bernadette was obviously getting the charming side of Dominic. It seemed he reserved the tense mood especially for her.

  “We’re absolutely booked out tomorrow night, but of course we can make room for you. Heavens, I can hardly turn our host away, can I? And Carla too, sure. Of course there’s room for you to stay, we’ve left the whole east wing for you both. So we’ll see you tomorrow, oh, later today, terrific. See you then.”

  Maura turned smiling eyes toward Bernadette. “And I thought the food critics would make me nervous. Now those two as well. That’ll keep me on my toes.”

  “Well, as long as we keep you away from the vases of water, everything should be just fine.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  For reasons she didn’t care to examine too closely, Maura was jumpy the rest of the afternoon. There were a few delivery vans making their way up Ardmahon House’s long drive and she felt herself tense as soon as she heard the crunch of wheels turning on gravel.

  By about five thirty she had a little knot of tension in her shoulders. Once again she heard the murmur of an engine and the sound of gravel. This one was definitely not a van.

  She deliberately kept working, bent over the kitchen bench preparing vegetables for a base stock for the next night’s dinner. The rhythm of the work calmed her nerves a little and she still didn’t turn around, even as she heard the kitchen door open behind her.

  Every muscle tensed as she heard heavy footsteps come across the tiled floor toward her. She suddenly felt a pair of cool hands cover her eyes.

  A low musical voice whispered into her neck. “I couldn’t stay away from you any longer.” She jumped and spun around.

  “Cormac!” she cried aloud. “You frightened the life out of me! What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I told you, my lovely Aussie, I couldn’t stay away from you a moment longer. I thought I’d drive over to Clare, try some of this wonderful cooking I’ve been hearing about, and then show you a few of the sights.”

  Maura shook her head in exasperation. “You really should have rung, I don’t think we’ve any more places in the dining-room tomorrow night.”

  “There’s plenty of room for old friends,” Bernadette answered, coming into the kitchen in time to hear the last exchange. “Cormac, it’s good to see you again – how is the wild world of Dublin wine-selling treating you these days?”

  Maura had forgotten that Bernadette and Cormac knew each other through the Wine Society links. Bernadette obviously enjoyed Cormac’s enthusiastic sense of humour and was soon extracting the latest Dublin gossip out of him.

  Maura discovered soon enough that despite Cormac’s flowery language, she hadn’t been his only reason to travel west.

  “I’ve just stitched up a very big deal with one of the ritzy Galway hotels and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to call down to Clare and whisk you away for a night of celebrating, dining and romancing, could I now, Maura?” he said in a theatrically flirtatious voice, sweeping her into a close hug.

  Maura laughed despite herself, smiling over his shoulder at Bernadette, who was rolling her eyes at his antics.

  Just at that moment the door opened again. Dominic walked in, carrying two suitcases.

  Maura leapt out of Cormac’s arms, as embarrassed as if she was a servant caught playing up in the master’s kitchen.

  Dominic took in the situation with a quick glance, his face expressionless. As he nodded in greeting to the three of them, through the open kitchen door Maura could hear Carla’s voice shouting that she needed more help with her bags.

  “You’ve obviously done your share for today, Dominic,” Cormac said cheerfully. “I’ll take on the next shift.”

  Watching through the window, Maura saw him approach Carla with mock servility. From this distance, it looked as if Carla was accepting his help as though it was only to be expected. Maura sighed. This was all she needed. It was bad enough that he and Carla would be dining here tomorrow night, let alone being around the day before.

  As Bernadette struck up a conversation, filling Dominic in on the success of the first week of the cooking school, Maura returned to her cooking preparations, covering her nervousness with well-practised movements.

  “We made a great team, didn’t we, Maura?” Bernadette said in a pleased voice.

  Maura nodded, busying herself with the heavy stock-pot.

  “And it looks like you’ve a full house tonight and tomorrow night as well,” Dominic said, with a glance through the window at Cormac, who was still being loaded down with luggage by an imperious Carla.

  “He’s not staying here,” Maura said quickly, wanting to explain. “He’s staying with friends a few miles away.”

  “He’s very welcome to stay, Maura,” he said in a soft voice, giving her a long look. “You’re not a servant, you can invite all your boyfriends down if you want to.”

  How had he guessed that was how she had felt when he first walked in?

  “I know perfectly well I’m nobody’s servant and he’s not my boyfriend,” she said, a little sharply this time, only to be interrupted by Cormac returning to the kitchen, groaning theatrically under the weight of Carla’s baggage. He had heard her last words.

  “Ah, but it’s not for want of trying, eh, Maura?” he said with a big hopeful grin.

  Carla followed him in. She flicked a glance in Maura’s direction, but didn’t even attempt a greeting to either her or Bernadette.

  “You remember Bernadette, Carla,” Dominic prompted her like a father with a five-year-old child. “And Maura, of course.”

  Carla responded with a sullen hello, before turning her back on Dominic in a sulky movement.

  Watching her closely, Maura thought that she wasn’t looking her best. She looked very tired with dark shadows under her eyes, and seemed even thinner than usual. As Maura watched, Carla went to her pile of luggage on the floor and rummaged until she found a pack of cigarettes. She lit one up immediately, not bothering to ask for an ashtray, or to ask if anyone minded.

  Maura minded very much. This was a working kitchen. Carla’s smoking was unhygienic, let alone downright rude. She looked over at Dominic, waiting for him to ask Carla to put the cigarette out. It was his house after all. But he, Bernadette and Cormac had struck up a conversation about the house renovations and hadn’t noticed what Carla was doing.

  Maura took the matter into her own hands.

  “I’d rather you didn’t smoke in here, Carla,” she said, her tone as icy as the look Carla gave her in return. “Maybe it’s okay usually, but while I’m here this is a commercial kitchen, and I can’t allow smoking.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” Carla said rudely, insolently taking a long draw. “As if a bit of smoke will have any effect on your food. God, if anything, it might improve it.”

  With that, the American girl blew a long stream of smoke in the direction of Maura’s food preparations.

  Maura felt her temper rise. The little brat. “I’ve asked you once, Carla. Put that cigarette out please,” she said again, her voice level.

  Carla simply turned away as if bored by the conversation.

  Oh no you don’t, Maura thought. She marched up behind her, snatched the cigarette from Carla’s fingers and threw it out through the open kitchen door.

  Carla gave a loud shriek.

  Dominic and Cormac turned around in time to see Carla lift her hand as if she was going to strike Maura. “How dare you do that?” the girl shouted dramatically.
“Who the hell do you think you are? This is Dominic’s house and I’ll smoke in here if I want to.”

  Dominic’s quiet voice broke the stunned silence.

  “Maura’s right, Carla. You shouldn’t smoke in here. Come on, we’ll go upstairs and unpack. You can smoke in the living-room if you want to.”

  Carla flounced out, flashing Maura a narrow-eyed look as she went. She had obviously stayed at the house before and knew her way around, Maura realised through her outrage.

  Cormac and Bernadette laughed at the look on Maura’s face.

  “Oh, you have a wild Irish temper as well as the Irish looks,” Cormac smiled at her.

  “That girl would have made Mother Teresa see red,” she said, shaking her head in amazement. “She’s done nothing but make my life difficult since I got here.”

  “Oh, don’t mind her,” Cormac said. “She’s probably just jealous.”

  “Jealous?” Maura said. “Of what?”

  “Oh, you never know,” Cormac said teasingly. “She’s probably noticed the way Dominic watches you sometimes. You know these rich people, they get very protective of their assets.”

  Maura looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean the way Dominic watches me sometimes?”

  Cormac merely laughed at her again. “Forget it, and forget about her. She’s obviously just used to getting her own way. You’re probably the only person that’s stood up to her in her life. Now come on, finish up whatever it is you have to do here, and let’s head off for a drive. You’re not opening the restaurant here tonight, are you?”

  Maura shook her head.

  “Then it’s time you had a night off, isn’t it, Bernadette?”

  “It sure is,” Bernadette agreed. “Get her out of this kitchen, Cormac, and I’ll finish up here. Go up and get changed, Maura, and get out and see some sights before you think Ireland is nothing but the inside of off-licences and kitchens.”

  A half-hour later, calmer but still preoccupied by the skirmish with Carla, Maura climbed into Cormac’s small blue car. She noticed with relief that Dominic’s expensive car was gone.