The Plumberry School of Comfort Food

by Cathy Bramley

‘I’m afraid there was nothing we could do for Gloria. She suffered a pulmonary embolism. A blood clot. By the time she arrived here it had reached her lungs and it was too late. She couldn’t survive. I’m very sorry.’

  She couldn’t survive . . .

  The room began to spin and I stuck a hand out and gripped Gabe’s arm.

  ‘A blood clot?’ I stuttered.

  The doctor explained that this sometimes occurred in patients who had had leg surgery but that Gloria should have been given anti-coagulant drugs to prevent it.

  ‘But she was given medication!’ I wailed. ‘She had heparin to inject herself with.’

  ‘Inject?’ Gabe shook his head. ‘Gloria had a fear of needles; no way would she have injected herself.’

  The doctor murmured his apologies, touched our shoulders and told us where to find him if we needed him.

  I felt heavy and numb: my legs, my shoulders, my heart. This couldn’t be happening. How could she be dead?

  I burst into tears and dropped my face into my hands. When Gloria had been released from hospital last week, it had been me who’d told the nurse I’d be there for her. Me who should have been checking that she had taken her medication.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ I sobbed.

  ‘Verity?’ said the woman in navy. Her cheeks were streaked with mascara and her nose was red.

  I tried to focus through my tears and nodded.

  ‘I’m Tina, the physio who came to see Gloria today. I travelled in the ambulance with her. She was . . . poorly . . .’ She glanced at me, and I could see she didn’t want to frighten me with facts. ‘But she blamed herself for not taking the heparin and for hiding how ill she was from you. She didn’t want to be any trouble.’

  Tina told us how Gloria had been in distress when she’d arrived, short of breath, with chest pains and feeling clammy. She’d called an ambulance straight away, thinking that Gloria was having a heart attack.

  ‘I’m only sorry my appointment wasn’t earlier in the day, then perhaps she—’ Tina bowed her head and backed away, dabbing her tears with a tissue.

  My head felt like it was in a vice, too tight for my skull. I wanted to scream with frustration. She was sixty-five, I wanted to yell. She was too young to die.

  I dropped my head on Gabe’s shoulder and let my tears flow. Poor little Noah, not really understanding the situation but recognizing my sorrow, tightened his grip around my legs. Rosie picked up his dinosaurs from the floor and Tina stood and held out the envelope she’d been holding.

  ‘I’m going to leave you and your family now,’ she said. ‘But Gloria was most insistent I gave you this, Gabe, it was in her handbag. She got quite agitated about it.’

  ‘Thank you, Tina, and thanks for everything.’ Gabe took the envelope from her.

  That was how Tom found us: Gabe, Noah and I wrapped up in our grief in each other’s arms. Bound together once again by the loss of someone close. Despite the harsh words we’d had in the car, my heart swelled when I saw him.

  ‘Verity?’ he panted, pushing through the doors. ‘How is she?’

  I wriggled free from Gabe’s embrace and stepped blindly into his arms. ‘She died, Tom; Gloria died,’ I sobbed, barely able to believe my own words.

  ‘Jesus. I am so sorry.’ He hugged me to him and I leaned against him gratefully, letting my sorrow bubble to the surface.

  Tom pressed his lips to my forehead and rubbed at my tears tenderly with his thumb.

  ‘Thank you for fetching me from the restaurant,’ I murmured. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’

  ‘What happened?’

  I began to tell Tom how Tina had found her when a noise like a wounded animal cut through my words.

  I stared at Gabe.

  ‘Oh God, no.’ Gabe’s face had turned completely white. He stared at me with grief-stricken eyes. In his hand was the single sheet of paper he had taken from the envelope. ‘Verity, she knew.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’ My heart froze and fear spread through me like splinters of ice.

  ‘Gloria knew about . . .’ Gabe’s gaze flickered nervously to Noah and back to me. ‘About us.’

  ‘No,’ I gasped, pressing a hand to my mouth. My body began to shake. ‘Oh no.’

  Gabe’s shoulders sagged. He gathered Noah to him and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, rocking from side to side. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rosie’s eyes narrow, flicking from each of us in turn.

  Tom released me and took a step back. ‘You and Gabe?’

  His eyes searched mine. I wanted to tell him the truth, the whole story, but I couldn’t, not now and perhaps not ever.

  ‘It’s not what you think. Truly,’ I stammered.

  I extended a hand to him. He looked at it and swallowed hard.

  ‘I’m intruding. This is a family moment. I’m . . . I’m sorry for your loss.’

  And with that he turned and walked away, leaving a whoosh of air as he slammed through the double doors.

  ‘Tom, come back, let me explain,’ I shouted, but he carried on walking.

  If I’d had the strength, I’d have followed him but instead my knees gave way and I sank to the floor. My heart was so full of pain that I could scarcely breathe. I loved Gloria so much and the future without her seemed unthinkable. In a matter of minutes, the new life I thought I’d built for myself in Plumberry had crumbled. I’d lost Gloria, just like I’d lost Mimi two years ago, and now it looked as if I’d lost Tom too.

  Mimi, I wish you were here to help me. The promise I made to you seems to have done more harm than good. Should I continue to keep it, or share our secret with the man who has stolen my heart? What should I do?

  I dropped my head in my hands and sobbed, for Gloria, for Mimi and for what might have been with Tom. What did the future hold for any of us without the ones we loved?

  The Magic Ingredient

  Chapter 31

  It was Monday morning and fingers of golden June sunlight poked through the curtains and teased me awake. I rubbed my eyes, feeling the salt from dried tears on my lashes.

  Come on, Verity, best foot forward. Time to get up and face the day.

  Comfrey and Sage didn’t stir as I clambered out of bed. They were curled up in such tight cosy balls that I couldn’t even see which end was head and which was tail. I bent to stroke their sleek fur, biting back the temptation to lift the covers, dive back in and hide from the real world for a little longer.

  I’d feel better after a shower, I told myself firmly, and ventured into the bathroom.

  Last week had been much easier. Modern life provided the perfect coping mechanism for the days following the death of a loved one: a huge mountain of jobs to be done. I’d had experience of it before when Mimi died. But then, of course, Gabe had had Gloria to help him as well as his own parents. This time I was in the thick of it. Gabe, Mags and I, with more restrained help from Percy, Gloria’s solicitor, had formed a team of dogged ‘doers’, tackling our tasks with gusto, relieved to be occupied because it gave us an excuse not to dwell on our broken hearts too much.

  ‘Well,’ Mags would say briskly, pushing herself off the sofa, ‘I’m too busy to sit around here moping, I’ve got people to ring.’

  ‘Cremation,’ an email from Percy announced efficiently, ‘and a humanist service. Good old Gloria got it all down in writing. Such a worry for relatives if they don’t know these sorts of things.’

  ‘I’d better get on to the funeral director,’ Gabe would say, tapping his watch sharply. ‘Lots to do if we’re to have the funeral on Friday.’

  ‘Order of service,’ I’d pipe up. ‘And flowers. I’ll ask that lovely florist in Plumberry to do them. Or charity donations, what does everyone think? And catering. Leave the catering to me, I’ll speak to Tom.’

  And so it had gone on.

  But now the funeral was over and we’d spent the weekend clearing up and then collapsing with exhaustion. But now Monday had come round again and with it a heaviness in my heart
and a tremble in my breath.

  I chose a smart dress and heels, the sort of outfit I used to wear to Solomon Insurance, tugged a brush through my hair and despite my mood felt reasonably pleased with the result.

  Since coming to Plumberry, I hadn’t had that Monday-morning feeling that had often assailed me when I’d worked at Solomon’s. That slumping sensation that coincided with the early-morning alarm. For the last month I’d leapt out of bed, head full of ideas and to-do lists and body propelled by a lightness that I’d naively assumed would stay with me for ever.

  Gloria had been responsible for that new zest for life. And Gloria, unthinkably, had gone.

  The ten days since that terrible day had flashed by in a blur. I was still dizzy with shock from her death, still struggling to accept that she had truly left us. As Gabe had put it in his brave speech in the packed little crematorium chapel, she’d be reunited with her beloved daughter, catching up on all the news. She’d be in a happy place, I knew, but the aching gap left by Mimi, only so recently patched up, had opened again and I was constantly having to remind myself how to smile.

  It seemed that the whole of Plumberry had turned out to bid farewell to Gloria as well as old friends and colleagues from the newspaper in York and even far-flung acquaintances from her time at the TV studios in Nottingham.

  A lovely lady, the messages of condolence read, a much-loved face of Plumberry. We will miss her gentle ways and kind words. Stacks of cards lined the reception desk at the cookery school, closed now for a time out of respect, but also because we simply didn’t know which way to turn.

  Maybe seeing Percy today, hearing Gloria’s plans for a world without her, would help me to see a way forward, give me some stepping stones across my river of emotions.

  Gloria had been right about Percy, I’d mused, watching him gnaw through the buffet Tom and Pixie had prepared in the cookery school after the funeral. He was a lovely chap, and I’d caught him dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief several times during the course of the day, so he was obviously fond of Gloria, but he ate as if he were against the clock. I could see why that would have annoyed her, such a lover of food as she’d been. But he had been one of the few to stay and help and as the mourners had thinned out, he’d reached into his jacket pocket and handed me and Gabe an envelope each.

  ‘Gloria changed her will on . . .’ He’d stumbled over his words and pulled his handkerchief out again. ‘The day she died. This letter is simply to say that you are both beneficiaries. I’m free on Monday morning if you’d like to pop in for a chat. Together or separately, as you wish. Nicer to discuss these things face to face, I always think.’

  So that was what Gabe and I had arranged to do today at eleven o’clock, together.

  I pulled a navy jacket from the wardrobe, slung it on and left my bedroom. The dogs sprang awake and bombed past me down the stairs and I trudged after them.

  I seemed to move more slowly now, as if grief had sapped my energy; the sensation of wading through treacle with reluctant limbs felt like the norm. My world had become more muffled too, as if it had been covered with a thick layer of icing, which blocked out the outside world and its sounds and mundane concerns. Neighbours still pottered about in their gardens, the little shops on Plumberry high street were still open, cars and pedestrians went about their everyday business and the news was still full of atrocities around the globe. But my routine had ceased to exist and the notion that other people could carry on as if nothing had happened had the power to shock me on a daily basis.

  Don’t you realize? I’d wanted to shout at the window cleaner last Thursday, when he’d casually told me to ‘cheer up, it might never happen’. But I didn’t. I merely opened the door wide enough to hand him his money and murmur my thanks.

  Now it was time to snap out of it and pull my socks up; Gloria wouldn’t want me to act this way, she’d want me to plunge back into life again, to seize the day.

  I opened the back door to let out the dogs and busied myself with the kettle and a teabag while I waited for them to return. I wouldn’t bother with breakfast; I didn’t feel hungry, there was a nasty taste in my mouth, as though I was licking metal.

  I’m falling out of love with food again, I thought with a pang.

  I couldn’t have felt more bereft if one of my own parents had passed away. In fact, Mum had called last night and the sound of her voice, laced with sympathy and love, made me long to jump on a plane to Canada and escape to the mountains for a couple of weeks.

  But I couldn’t do that; there were too many loose ends in Plumberry to sort out. Not only of Gloria’s but of my own.

  I was acutely aware that Tom and I needed to talk. Properly talk. That Friday when Gloria died, Tom had broken my trust by pitching my Supper Club idea to the newspaper, but in his eyes, I’d lied too. It was obvious that he thought Gabe and I had had an affair and I hadn’t been able to set him straight. We’d discussed funeral details instead and decided on catering for the wake and arrangements for the temporary closure of the cookery school.

  His manner had been respectful and kind but it was clear he hadn’t wanted to discuss ‘us’. And at the time I’d been sort of grateful for that; my grief had been all-encompassing and I hadn’t had the strength left for anything else.

  I would put it right this week, I decided, as soon as I got the opportunity. Because even though it seemed that our blossoming romance wasn’t to be, Tom was an important part of the cookery school and at the very least we needed to be amicable.

  The dogs were still outside, so I took my tea into the garden to join them, inhaling the perfume of the lavender as the hem of my dress brushed past the purple fronds.

  ‘Morning, chuck, don’t you look a bobby dazzler.’ Mags was leaning over the garden fence, tweaking dead heads off Gloria’s roses. ‘Sleep OK?’

  My face softened at the sight of her. Not for Mags the black shades of mourning. Today’s outfit was a kaftan printed with tropical birds and turquoise hairclips; a seam of bright colour, which served to lift my mood a notch.

  ‘Not bad,’ I said, smiling. ‘Although I think I’ve been talking to myself.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Mags chuckled. ‘It’s when you start answering your own questions that you really need to worry.’

  Being in Gloria’s house without her was bittersweet. I missed her gentle presence so much that on several occasions I’d found myself straining for her voice as if I’d heard her calling my name just as she would do when she needed something fetching or carrying. Yet at the same time, there was a comfort in being in her cottage, as if the thick stone walls held echoes of her voice, the tinkle of her bangles and her gentle laugh.

  But the night-time was the worst. That was when guilt crept up on me, burning like acid in my stomach. I should have spotted the signs of her illness, I muttered, should have insisted on calling the doctor, swept away her protestations.

  And if I had, maybe Gloria would still be here.

  Comfrey and Sage jumped up excitedly at the fence, knocking each other out of the way as Mags made cooing noises and produced a packet of dog treats and I couldn’t help laughing at their antics. Sage, always the greediest, shoved his dark chocolate body in front of Comfrey and pawed at the fence.

  ‘What’s going to become of you boys, then, eh?’ she tutted, giving me a sideways glance.

  The dogs missed Gloria incredibly but in her absence they had attached themselves to me; they’d become my mini shadows, following my every move, joining me as I walked from room to room, even sitting as grim-faced sentries outside the door when I went to the loo.

  ‘I’ll adopt them,’ I said rashly. Gloria had rescued them; no way was I sending them back to be rescued again. I didn’t quite know what the future held for us over the next few months. But whatever happened, we would all stay together.

  Mags beamed. ‘That’s good of you, love. I was going to offer, but Dave’s mum’s allergic . . .’

  Her plump cheeks flushed and she dipp
ed her head coyly. My heart squeezed happily for her. Dave had been an absolute rock since Gloria died, not only taking on the job of sorting out her financial affairs, but also being a shoulder for the big-hearted Mags to lean on. She was going to miss her friend so much in the coming months; I was glad she’d got Dave, even if his mum was allergic to dogs. I wished I’d got someone to lean on. My thoughts automatically turned to Tom and I gave myself a shake. No point stirring up those feelings today.

  ‘I couldn’t bear to live without you two now anyway,’ I said, scooping them both up and kissing their silky heads, laughing as they tried to lick my face.

  So that was one decision made, only three million to go.

  ‘Right, I’d better go and get ready for the onslaught,’ said Mags with a wink, and she disappeared back inside her own house.

  She had offered to look after Noah while we were at the solicitor’s office and he and Gabe would be here any second. They had stayed over that first awful night with me at the cottage, as had Rosie, but the next day Rosie had left for Nottingham and the Greens had returned to The Neptune. They were happier in their own space, Gabe explained, and he had commandeered Gloria’s car to get around in, offering to stay close by as long as needs be.

  I settled the boys in their basket, doling a chew stick out to each of them as a consolation prize for leaving them on their own as the doorbell rang.

  My stomach churned; this was it.

  Gabe, his face etched with concern, smiled grimly and held his hand out to me.

  ‘Ready?’

  I swallowed hard and nodded. I slipped my hand into his and hoped he didn’t feel it trembling.

  She knew about us.

  The look of panic on Gabe’s face when he’d read that letter from Gloria and the look of disappointment on Tom’s had haunted my nights. The pain of that evening would be seared on to my memory banks for ever.

  I hoped whatever Percy was going to tell us today wouldn’t make matters worse. If they could get any worse, that is . . .

  Chapter 32