A Taste for It

by Monica McInerney

  “Oh yes,” Jim answered. “I’ve four or five of them. That’s how I knew you were her daughter as soon as I laid eyes on you. What age are you, Maura?”

  “Twenty-eight,” Maura answered.

  “Just a few years’ difference from Catherine’s age in the photos. She had a strong face, like you do. You’ll probably get even better looking as you get older. I always thought Catherine would. Mind you, we stopped contact when she turned twenty-six, when Eileen stepped in,” he reminded her again. “I was sorry not to get any more letters – it was just when things were getting interesting for her too, by the sound of things.”

  “Did she mention my, uhm –”

  “Father?” Jim finished her question for her. “I really don’t know, love. She talked about this fellow or that fellow, but maybe she was just trying to make me jealous, eh?” he laughed for a second, before noticing the tense expression on Maura’s face. “No, she didn’t, Maura, I’m sure of it. All of that happened a few years later, going by your age. Anyway, as I said, she was too busy travelling and having adventures by the sound of things.” He patted the letters again.

  “Could I see the photos?” Maura finally asked, unable to bear it any more.

  Jim looked surprised. “See them? Lord God, you can have them. And all the letters too. It’s years since I read them, but do you know, I can still nearly remember them word for word. But you have them – you’ll enjoy reading them, I’m sure. Ah, she was great gas altogether, you’ll see for yourself.”

  Maura gently picked up the package. She didn’t want to open it here, in this little pub, with curious eyes glancing over at them. Jim seemed to understand. He patted her arm.

  “Away you go, love. Take them with you. They’re yours now.”

  “Thank you, Jim,” she said simply. She suddenly leaned forward and gave him a hug.

  He pretended to protest but she could hear the smile in his voice. “Get on with you now. And safe travelling back to Australia. Sure, maybe I’ll see you out there myself one day.” He laughed happily at his own joke.

  Outside in the cool air, Maura held the package close to her chest. Not really thinking clearly, she climbed into Bernadette’s car and drove back in the direction of Ardmahon House. Halfway there she saw a road veering to the right, into the heart of the Burren. Hardly looking behind her, she turned the wheel and drove off up the rough road, barely feeling the bumps and lurches.

  A gateway across the road suddenly halted her movement. She climbed out of the car, shivering as a wild gust of wind threw the door open wide and tossed her hair out of its loose band. Her curls flying around her face, Maura slammed the door against the wind, and pulling her coat and the package close against her body, set off walking across the rocks.

  She didn’t know where she was, or where she was going. She just knew she had to walk, had to be as alone as she could be when she read the letters and looked at the photos. The glittering, silver light seemed to suit her mood. She stumbled several times, nearly catching her foot in the tight clusters of rocks. Rounding a corner, the wind nearly forcing her up against a metre-high boulder, she caught her breath as she came across a tiny lake, just a dozen metres across. Beside it was a large group of rocks. She walked toward it, finding shelter against the wind.

  She pulled the package out from under her coat, and with shaking hands, carefully undid the tape around it.

  The photos were in a separate envelope, and she took them out, one by one, looking carefully at each of them. They were old-fashioned, the colours still bright, each print with a white border. Catherine standing on a beach, dressed in a full swimsuit, grinning at the camera. Catherine smiling at an unnamed girlfriend, standing at Sydney Harbour, the Harbour Bridge in the background. Catherine feeding a kangaroo in a wildlife park. And one photo obviously taken at the café in Darwin of Catherine proudly standing in front of a giant-sized frypan, holding a pair of kitchen tongs. In the background were two beaming young men, truck drivers perhaps, holding their knives and forks in the air, waiting for their breakfast.

  Maura laughed aloud, her eyes filling with sudden tears, as she noticed a feature of the two posed photos. Catherine had a wide-eyed look in each, as if she was willing herself not to blink. It was a look Maura recognised straight away.

  She fumbled with the envelopes containing the letters and then read each one, slowly and carefully. Catherine’s writing was fluid, with great loops and plenty of misspellings, as if she was in too much of a hurry to have time to spell correctly. She and Jim must have been great friends. The letters weren’t from a fleeing girl to the boyfriend she left behind, but from a young woman spilling over with stories to a close friend. Eileen had had nothing to worry about, Maura thought.

  Catherine was glad to be away from America – she had found it too hard and too fast and too crowded. Sydney was fun, and lively, and the most beautiful place she had ever seen. But she still wanted to see more. Darwin was hot, flat and hard work but made her feel like she was really in Australia, cooking huge steaks to serve to tanned, cheeky blokes. She joked at the accents, expressed amazement at the heat, wrote of her occasional homesickness for Ireland.

  Her reply to Jim’s letter asking her to stop writing to him because of Eileen was also in the package. Maura noticed with a fleeting grin that it had been addressed to the pub, not Jim’s home address. Catherine didn’t seem at all put out, instead teasing Jim that this was a sign of his life ahead, under Eileen’s thumb and jumping to her bidding. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you!’ she had written in her sloping handwriting.

  She wrote that she was planning to leave Darwin and try Melbourne or Adelaide as her next stop. She’d heard Irish barmaids were always in demand. And Irish nurses. That was the first hint of the new career, Maura realised. Catherine had signed off cheerily, writing that she hoped one day to return to Ireland for a visit and she would be sure to arrive at Jim’s house ‘wearing my prettiest dress and brightest lipstick, especially for Eileen!’

  By the end of the final letter, Maura could feel the tears streaming down her face. Roughly wiping them away, she started again, reading every letter once more, taking them in word by word.

  When she finished the second time, she leaned back against the grey rock behind her. They were the sort of letters she might have written to one of her friends when she first went to Sydney. They weren’t of a sad, homesick girl, fleeing a terrible past, or a terrified girl in a new country. They were from a lively, adventurous young woman, amazed to find herself on the other side of the world and determined to try everything she could.

  And maybe that’s where I came in, Maura thought to herself. Maybe Catherine met someone lovely on her travels, got swept along with the excitement and then realised she was pregnant and alone. It was too far away to come back to Ireland, and anyway, Maura could imagine very easily that an unmarried pregnant Catherine would not have been very welcome in her home village.

  And so she had given Maura up for adoption. And Terri had received her with loving arms. Maura wished now that she had found the courage, and the need, to go looking for Catherine earlier. When it wasn’t too late.

  She felt a sudden rush of anger. Why hadn’t her mother come looking for her? Was she too busy having more adventures? She looked down at Catherine’s letters and photographs, suddenly wanting to tear them up. Rip them into tiny squares. With shaking hands, she grasped the corners of the first letter, ready to tear it apart. She imagined the gusts of wind teasing the pieces out of her hand and sending them flying across the grey rock and the rippling surface of the water.

  But she couldn’t do it.

  Instead, she slid down against the stone, the letters clutched against her and buried her face in her arms.

  It was some time before she lifted her head. She breathed deeply, taking in the cool, clean air, slowly focusing on the rocks and the lake nearby. After a moment, she gently unfolded the letters, and slowly read them once again.

  They were a glimpse into
Catherine’s life. Now Maura could imagine what meeting her, having a conversation with her might have been like. Perhaps she wasn’t the ghostly figure, the sad, downtrodden old Irish lady Maura had imagined her to be. The homesick, sad nurse stuck in the regional hospital. Maybe she had been full of spark until the end. Or maybe she had become bitter. But at least now Maura had a fragment of memory to think about, a tiny sample of what Catherine had once been like.

  She knew then what she would do with the letters. They weren’t hers to throw away, or to keep. They belonged to Jim.

  Before she walked back to the car, she looked at each photo again for a long moment. Her mother at Sydney Harbour, at the wildlife park, on the beach. And the one taken in the kitchen, her mother wide-eyed, laughing into the camera, waving the cooking tongs at the photographer.

  Maura smiled slowly.

  She’d ask Jim if she could keep that one.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Maura welcomed her final group of students to the course, doing her best to ignore Carla’s sullen presence in the corner of the kitchen.

  With now practised ease Maura gave her introductory spiel on the makeup of modern Australian cuisine and how she would aim to give them all first-hand experience of it over the next few days.

  “We’ll be trying seafood, and new ways with beef and chicken, as well as some delicious desserts,” she promised, as she handed out course notes listing the recipes they would be trialling.

  “I can’t eat meat, I’m a vegetarian,” Carla’s distinctive voice came from the corner.

  Maura’s brow furrowed. “Are you, Carla? I’m sure I saw you trying some Thai chicken kebabs last week in the restaurant here?”

  Carla actually blushed slightly. “I started this morning,” she said, boldly. “Meat is murder.”

  Maura counted to ten. “That’s fine, Carla, you can just watch during that section of the class. We’ll be doing some dishes without meat later in the day. I’m sure you’ll enjoy learning how to cook those,” she said, in a tone of voice she’d only expect to use on a particularly disobedient child.

  But later in the day it seemed Carla had suddenly become allergic to eggs. And then wheat products. “She’s a medical marvel,” Maura whispered to Bernadette. “At this rate she’ll be allergic to oxygen by the end of the day.”

  “Chance would be a fine thing,” Bernadette whispered back. She was less concerned with Carla’s sudden food intolerances than the effect her disruptiveness was having on the others in the class. The younger ones seemed in awe of the American girl’s glamour and good looks, and had started to enjoy her snide remarks to Maura. Carla’s sudden commitment to vegetarianism, involving graphic descriptions of abattoir conditions and battery-hen farming, appeared to be turning the heads of one or two in particular.

  At the lunchtime break Bernadette came up with a solution. “What about I start up a different class in the corner?” she suggested. “An all-vegetarian, all-wholefood, no salt, no spices, no flavour class. I’m sure Carla will be in it, and if any of the others want to join in then they can, what do you think?”

  Maura nodded. It was worth a try. At the rate they were going, Carla would have them all marching on nearby farms with placards, demanding the immediate release of their sheep and chickens.

  She wasn’t surprised when three of the girls joined the renegade class. Maura worked on determinedly on the other side of the kitchen, instructing her group in the creation of the delicious entrées of crispy seafood rolls and Thai-style soup.

  The spicy aromas acted like an invisible lure. One by one the girls drifted across, keen to taste and try the techniques themselves. Soon there was only Carla and Bernadette on the other side of the kitchen, concocting a plain lentil salad.

  That night Maura and Bernadette were amazed to hear Carla offer to lead the group off on a tour of the local pubs.

  Bernadette shut her eyes in exhaustion as they left Ardmahon House in a pair of taxis. “She’s probably kidnapping the lot of them, brainwashing them against the evils of cooking schools,” she said with a sigh.

  “They’re not kids,” Maura replied, “We can hardly banish them all to their rooms, can we?”

  Bernadette shook her head. “Nope. Anyway, with any luck they’ll all come back roaring drunk tonight, be hungover tomorrow and then be putty in our hands.”

  “Are we supposed to keep an eye on Carla twenty-four hours a day?” Maura asked.

  “Dominic wasn’t specific,” Bernadette answered. “He just said it would be better for her to be here than in Dublin. She’s started to hang around with a pretty fast crowd there by all accounts.”

  Maura raised an eyebrow. “Should we give her a blood-test each morning, do you think? We could give Dominic a written report at the end of the week.”

  Bernadette grinned. “Now, Maura, claws back in please.”

  Maura laughed, realising she’d been caught out. “Nothing of the sort,” she fudged. It just disturbed her that Dominic could be so concerned with Carla, when it was obvious that Carla was mightily self-obsessed.

  Maura woke suddenly in the early hours of Tuesday morning, immediately alert. She checked the time on the bedside clock. 3 am. She had heard an odd noise outside and lay very still, waiting for it again. Not another Romeo and Juliet re-enactment, she hoped. Apart from Carla, this group of students seemed happily single – at least there hadn’t been any lovelorn tears so far. She waited again for the noise that had woken her. It was a motorcycle idling in the courtyard downstairs, she realised. She silently climbed out of her bed, tiptoeing across the room to her large bay window which overlooked the sweeping courtyard at the front of the house.

  There was enough moonlight to be able to see Carla as she clambered down from the back of the small motorbike, removing her helmet as she did so. As Maura watched, the rider took off his helmet as well. From the distance, she could just make out a young man, his cropped blonde hair shining white in the light. She watched as Carla leaned against him, her hand on the young man’s face. Then she moved closer and Maura held her breath as they suddenly started kissing passionately, the man’s hand confidently tracing the outlines of Carla’s body through the tight-fitting black dress she was wearing.

  Maura was shocked. This was what Carla got up to when Dominic was away? She saw the man’s hand move even further up Carla’s skirt, and the kiss turn more passionate.

  Embarrassed, Maura let the curtain drop, not wanting to see any more. She tiptoed back to her bed, climbing in under the covers again, only half-awake and dazed by what she’d seen. The saying about mice playing when the cat’s away ran through her head. She lay still, unable to stop herself from listening out for the sound of the motorbike starting up again. The sound didn’t come. Instead, a few minutes later she heard the faint sound of the front door opening downstairs and heard muffled giggles as Carla and her companion made their way slowly up the stairs.

  Maura was wide awake now, not sure if she was imagining it all. The man’s deep voice confirmed her suspicion. Carla was taking him into her room.

  The house was silent again. But Maura couldn’t sleep. She dozed fitfully, waking again just before dawn when the sound of a motorbike starting in the courtyard below woke her. She climbed out of bed and went to the window again, just in time to see the bike disappear down the tree-lined drive. She didn’t care about Carla. But she suddenly felt sorry for Dominic. Deal or no deal with Carla’s father, she knew what it felt like to be two-timed.

  That morning the students seemed a bit bleary-eyed, but nonetheless still keen to learn. There was no sign of Carla.

  Niamh, one of the Irish girls, passed on a message that Carla had a sudden migraine and probably wouldn’t be down that day. Maura felt a rush of relief.

  But Carla emerged again late that afternoon, coming into the kitchen just as Maura was introducing the desserts section of the course.

  Maura looked over at the American girl as she came in, noting the shadows under her eyes. She
smiled a welcome, determined that Carla wouldn’t unsettle her.

  Bernadette took the lead. “Hello, Carla, you’re just in time for our desserts class,” she said brightly. “Maura, what will we be enjoying today?” She motioned Maura to continue.

  Maura wrote the list of desserts up on the whiteboard:

  Wholemeal pancakes served with mandarin and passionfruit sauce

  Grilled figs and grapes in a spiced yoghurt sauce

  Peach sorbet with a side dish of fresh peaches stirfried with Tasmanian leatherwood honey and toasted almonds

  She could almost hear the students licking their lips as they read through the list.

  The kitchen was soon an aromatic mix of smells, as each student worked through the steps. Carla actually seemed interested in learning to cook the sweet dishes, and Maura watched in amazement as she ate an entire serving of the pancakes and half of the grilled figs dessert.

  After a break, Maura joined the rest of the class in the sitting-room, where they would be enjoying an informal wine-tasting session. Carla was missing again.

  “She went upstairs,” one of the students offered helpfully, when Bernadette noticed her absence. “She said she wasn’t feeling well again.”

  Bernadette looked over at Maura. “I’ll just make sure she’s okay,” Maura said, biting her lip to stop any further comment. “Bernadette, perhaps you’d start by explaining about the different sorts of glasses.”

  Bernadette nodded. She’d been expecting a showdown between Maura and Carla and this seemed as good a time as any.

  Leaving the room as Bernadette started explaining the difference between the designs of white wine and red wineglasses, Maura walked up the staircase. Carla was still staying in the east wing she shared with Dominic when he was there, a beautifully designed two-bedroom suite, with a sitting-room that looked over the fields surrounding the house.

  The door was ajar and Maura knocked softly. There was no answer and she was about to go downstairs again when she heard a retching sound coming from the bathroom, followed by the unmistakeable sound of vomiting.