Got You Back

by Fallon, Jane

  He managed to find a starter of bouillabaisse and an entrée of cassoulet, which he'd always dismissed before as being a bit low-rent. There were no new desserts so he went for the tarte Tatin again, deciding he could claim to be doing a French-themed evening. He had a quick word with Guy, who owned the shop, but it was difficult to get his point across without explaining the whole charade and why it was so important to him to produce something different each time so he left it.

  By the time he got back to the cottage Katie had made the place spotless and Stanley had been banished to the spare bedroom. The warm spell wasn't showing any signs of letting up so she had pulled the table over to the open patio doors so that they could at least start the evening with cool fresh air flowing in from the back garden.

  James unpacked his goodies, checked the reheating instructions on each, then carefully hid the packaging in a plastic bag buried at the bottom of the bin. The cassoulet he transferred to a large casserole dish, and as soon as the bottom oven pinged to let him know it had reached the right temperature he put it on the middle shelf and checked his watch. He poured the bouillabaisse into a pan and left it on the side. The tarte Tatin, which he was going to serve cold with cream, he placed in the fridge.

  ‘You've just about got time to have a bath,’ Katie said, kissing him on the forehead and handing him a large glass of red wine. ‘Anything I need to do?’

  ‘All under control,’ he told her. ‘Just remind me to put the soup on at about ten past. Mmm… you smell gorgeous,’ he added, nuzzling her hair.

  Katie laughed and pushed him off. ‘Go and get ready,’ she said.

  Katie watched as James went up to the bathroom, humming to himself. After she had heard the door shut and the thunder of running water, she lifted the lid of the bin and began to rummage around among the debris.

  Sam, Katie thought, looked like a ventriloquist's dummy when she opened the front door to find her and Geoff brandishing a bottle of Merlot. She was wearing bright red lipstick that might have been applied with a paintbrush, so little notice did it take of the contours of her lips. Her short hair stood up in clumpy peaks that made her seem as if she had just received an enormous electric shock.

  Geoff was his usual dour self, dressed in the kind of hand-me-down shabby clothes that only the truly rich could get away with. On several occasions, Katie had suggested to James that they might try and socialize with people more like them, more their own age, more spiritual and less… establishment, but he had lectured her on the importance of being in with the right people and that had been that really. It wasn't that she didn't like Sam and Geoff, it was just that it was a bit like having your disapproving aunt and uncle over sometimes.

  ‘Something smells good,’ Geoff said, sniffing the air as he walked in. ‘What's he got lined up this time?’

  Katie rattled off the menu, and Sam and Geoff made approving noises. She was just offering them a drink when James burst out of the kitchen, wearing a ridiculous stripy apron and wielding a spatula. The apron, Katie noticed, had streaks of red sauce down the front, no doubt carefully placed there just minutes ago. She sometimes thought he took the whole performance too far, putting flour in his hair and smudges of balsamic on his cheeks, but it made him happy and she had never been able to see the harm in it. Now, looking at him, it struck her that he was a pathetic man, puffed up with self-importance, obsessed by appearance and status. ‘Hungry?’ he said now.

  ‘Ravenous,’ Geoff replied. ‘We've been looking forward to this for weeks.’

  The doorbell rang again, and Hugh, Alison, Richard and Simone were huddled on the doorstep where they had bumped into one another. There were air kisses and hugs all round.

  ‘Shall we have an aperitif before we eat?’ James said, with the air of someone who knew he was about to impress.

  Stephanie had not been able to get to sleep. In fact, she had given up trying and resigned herself to a night spent with her mind racing and a day feeling like shit at work tomorrow. She ran through Katie's version of events in her head again, alternately delighted and appalled. Poor James. No, fuck it, he'd asked for it.

  The six guests and James had apparently started on their favourite topic, the need to elect a ‘parish council’ for the village to lobby on affairs like unsightly planning applications and the banning of loitering by the three teenage hoodies who occasionally hurled insults at passers-by from their post on the bench by the duck pond. All three were harmless, Katie had told her. In fact, she had once been struggling home with a bag of shopping from the village store and they'd taken it in turns to carry it for her, then refused to accept a pound each for their trouble. But, Sam, Geoff, Alison, Hugh and James loved to over-dramatize the situation to one another, imagining crack being smoked and an onslaught of muggings on the horizon. Richard and Simone were slightly more forgiving, having a teenage son themselves, but the mention of a uPVC conservatory could send them both into spasms. All seven, James included, Katie told Stephanie, believed they were the chosen few to run such a council and each was secretly hoping to head it.

  ‘By the way,’ Katie had said, as an aside, ‘did you know he built the extension at the back of the surgery without planning permission? He figured no one could see it so it didn't really count. Plus he thought there was a good chance it'd be turned down. He used new brick too, in a conservation area. I bet Richard and Simone would love that.’

  Stephanie remembered James telling her about his plans for expanding the practice and the subsequent trials and tribulations he had had with the builders. She had never thought to ask him whether he'd done it by the book; she had just assumed he had. He was James, after all.

  Anyway, Katie told her, the bouillabaisse had been received with oohs and aahs, and several of the guests had gone for seconds even though two more courses were coming up.

  ‘I don't know how you have the patience,’ Alison had said, ‘shelling all those prawns and scraping beards off mussels.’

  ‘He probably buys them ready cleaned — don't you, James?’ Geoff had offered. ‘Much less hassle.’

  ‘God, no,’ James had said, puffing up with self-righteousness. ‘You can never be sure they've been washed properly. Or that they haven't forced open a few bad ones. I like to do it all myself. It's therapeutic, tell you the truth. I stick on Radio 4 and I'm happy.’

  Katie, she had told Stephanie, had felt a little jolt of excitement as she'd watched him dig his own grave.

  The cassoulet had been praised as ‘delicious’ and ‘simply stunning’. By now the conversation had moved on to the shortcomings of the village's other residents, especially those who were new money.

  ‘But James is new money,’ Stephanie had interjected at this point.

  ‘I know that now,’ Katie had said, ‘but for some reason he likes everyone to think he's not.’

  ‘So then what happened?’ Stephanie was both impatient to get to the end of the story and dreading hearing it. She could feel her heart beating up in her throat, and she couldn't imagine how Katie — who had told her she was now locked in the downstairs bathroom to make the call in private — must be feeling.

  ‘Then,’ Katie had said dramatically, ‘then it was time for dessert.’

  Katie told her how James, face now rosy with a combination of wine and pride, had announced he had prepared his famous tarte Tatin. ‘I thought about doing something new but I decided that as the whole flavour of the evening was French my old stand-by would be rather appropriate.’ He'd carried it in from the kitchen on a serving dish, as if he was presenting the world with his newborn child.

  ‘Where do you get the apples from at this time of year?’ Simone had asked. ‘I always find they're really watery and tasteless.’

  ‘Ah,’ James had said. ‘That'd be telling.’

  He'd cut the first slice and Katie had sworn she saw him blanch as he'd lifted it up and noticed what seemed to be part of a sheet of paper stuck to the bottom. He went to drop the slice on the serving plate but, as he did
so, Sam had leaned forward and whipped the paper off.

  ‘There you go,’ she'd said brightly, screwing it up and putting it by her plate. James, Katie had said, looked as if all the blood had left his body.

  ‘Looks like I've stood it on something,’ he had said, laughing nervously. ‘I'll just go into the kitchen and sort it out.’

  Katie had held her breath. There was nothing she could do. She couldn't be the one to reveal what it was that was stuck to the base of the tarte. All she could do was wait, fingers crossed. James, it had seemed, was about to get away with it. He had put down his knife and was about to lift the plate when Hugh had clumsily reached forward and grabbed a corner of the rest of the paper, which was poking out from under the tarte, and pulled it. ‘No need to bother, old man. See? I've got it.’

  ‘What is it?’ Simone had said. There had been an almost comedy moment when James had reached out his hand to take the piece of paper just as Geoff had beaten him to it.

  ‘Looks like a receipt,’ Geoff had said, and had been about to discard it when Sam — thank God for Sam and her nosiness, Katie had said — who was looking over his shoulder, had exclaimed: ‘It says “tarte Tatin” here.’

  The others had laughed, not realizing the momentousness of the discovery they were about to make. Richard had even said jokingly, ‘Don't tell me you buy the ready-made stuff when we're not here.’

  Then Sam had taken a sharp breath. ‘Gosh, James, it says “bouillabaisse” and “cassoulet” too. How funny.’

  The room, Katie had said, had gone suddenly silent.

  17

  James woke up with a head that felt as if it was full of cotton wool. He groaned, feeling the paper dryness of his mouth. He'd drunk too much. He rolled over, gingerly opening one eye, flinching as the light hit his retina. Katie must be up already. He peered at the clock beside the bed. It looked like… No, it couldn't say ten to eleven. Wasn't he meant to be at the surgery this morning?

  He became aware of a noise downstairs. The radio and something that sounded like plates being scraped. Katie must be doing the washing-up. Then a thought struck him from out of nowhere and he laid his head back on the pillow. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, fuck.

  He could remember the embarrassed silence after Sam had read out the receipt from the Joli Poulet. He'd tried to laugh it off at first, his brain scrabbling around for something — anything — he could say to cover his tracks. Then he had tried to imply that what he had bought were actually the raw materials for each dish, packaged up together for ease, so while he had told a little fib about cleaning the shellfish and picking out apples he had still cooked each dish from scratch.

  But Richard, damn him, had laughed that annoying braying laugh of his and said he had seen whole meals being sold ready-prepared in Le Joli Poulet and had James really been fooling them all along? He had had no choice but to come clean.

  His guests had been very sweet — after all, he hadn't killed anyone or done anything illegal — but it was the polite understanding of their words that had floored him. He knew they were all thinking he was a bit sad, a bit untrustworthy, that the whole thing wasn't cricket. No one was ever going to say anything damning to his face, but the minute they left he knew they would all go on somewhere else — Sam and Geoff's house maybe, that was nearby — and dissect his character over brandy. They would throw in anecdotes of times when they thought he had behaved oddly or said something embarrassing. The bond between the six of them would grow stronger as they united in laughing at him. He knew, without it ever needing to be said, that their little dinner-party circle was over. They would claim diary clashes or family commitments, and the weeks would go by until they stopped even trying to find a date. Maybe the six of them would go on meeting up regularly without him and Katie, chuckling over his ridiculousness as they ate burned duck and soapy potatoes.

  He gulped heavily from the glass of water Katie had left by the bed. He remembered now that after they had gone he and Katie had had a huge row because he had somehow felt the need to blame anyone but himself for the débâcle. Then he had downed most of a bottle of whisky before finally coming to bed in the small hours.

  He groaned audibly. He felt like the worst kind of fool.

  Why had he allowed himself to get into this position in the first place? None of the others could cook and that had never seemed to matter. He should have just owned up that first time. The minute they had started praising his food he should have said, ‘Actually, I bought it all, I'm a useless chef,’ and they would have laughed and that would have been that. But he'd enjoyed the attention. He'd always felt intimidated by ‘posh people’, as his mother would have called them. Always felt a bit resentful about his comprehensive-school background and his lack of an inheritance. Always secretly wanted to be considered one of them. As the local vet he had managed to ingratiate himself into the community, make himself feel like an integral and indispensable part of it, but he also liked to feel he was important. Forging friendships with the local bigwigs had fed his need for status. He was ridiculous.

  The first thing he had to do was to make it up with Katie. None of this was her fault and, what was more, he had put her in the awkward position of having to go along with his pretence for all these months. God, she must think he was an idiot. He slid out of bed, feeling a jolt as his feet touched the floor and he tried to stand upright. He might just have to go and be sick first.

  Ten minutes later, after he'd brushed his teeth and splashed cold water on his face, he made his way gingerly down to the kitchen where Katie was scrubbing down the granite surfaces. He felt her stiffen as he slid his arms round her from behind.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, nuzzling into her neck. ‘I shouldn't have taken it out on you.’

  ‘That's OK,’ Katie said kindly. ‘I understand.’

  Katie, bless her, had called Malcolm and told him that James would not be at work today because he was unwell.

  She had thrown away all evidence of the disastrous meal, all the leftovers and the empty bottles and the clam shells had already gone into the bin outside and been taken away by the refuse collectors. She seemed happy to pretend that nothing had happened and fussed around him as usual, making him coffee and offering him toast, which made him gag.

  James felt like he needed a debrief, though, a trawl through the evening's horrors to confront head on what the worst-case scenario might be. But that, he knew, was pointless. If he tried to talk about what had happened Katie would just insist that everything was fine and that it was unhealthy to dwell on negative things that had happened in the past, even if the past was only last night.

  Stephanie would have indulged him, he thought. Indeed, Stephanie would have been only too happy to pick over the excruciating details. Somehow they would have found something funny in the retelling — the look on Sam's face, lipstick askew, as she'd read the receipt; how slow Hugh had been to catch on, the extent to which Alison had had to spell it out to him (‘James has been buying the food all this time, dear, not cooking it himself. That was a lie’), so that eventually they would have found themselves helpless with laughter and that would have made the whole thing so much easier to bear. He thought about reminding Katie about the way Sam had tripped over the front step in her haste to get away from the source of the embarrassment and her skirt had ridden up to reveal hairy legs and alarmingly skimpy underwear, but he knew she wouldn't crack a smile. Instead she would probably say something like ‘Oh, poor Sam. Well, it's all forgotten now,’ so he decided to go back to bed instead.

  ‘That's perfect,’ Meredith announced, via her reflection in the mirror, and Stephanie wondered whether she shouldn't give up altogether. Meredith was wearing an emerald-green creation that looked like something a Disney princess might aspire to. The plunging neckline showed off her crêpy cleavage, while the low waist made her broad hips seem even more substantial. They were in the changing rooms at Selfridges, and Stephanie had only allowed her to try on the dress to prove a point about how bad it
would look.

  ‘Meredith, it really does nothing for your figure,’ she said now, as diplomatically as she could. ‘Does it?’ she added, looking piercingly at Natasha for support.

  ‘Er, no, not really,’ Natasha said. Natasha was terrified of Meredith.

  ‘This is the one I feel comfortable in, and as you have failed so far to come up with anything better, then this is the one it shall be.’

  Stephanie flinched at the insult in Meredith's comment. ‘I think you should wait. We still have a few weeks to go and we're bound to find something we can all agree on.’

  ‘And what if this one's sold out by then? What if you haven't managed to show me anything else I like and this one's no longer available?’

  Stephanie looked at the shiny pea-coloured monstrosity. It was hard to imagine there would be a rush on bright green flouncy dresses. ‘Tell you what,’ she said, ‘we'll buy this anyway and bring it back when we find something better.’

  ‘If you find something better,’ Meredith said frostily.

  ‘Yes, of course, if,’ Stephanie managed an insincere smile.

  She glanced at her watch when Meredith wasn't looking. She was both looking forward to and dreading having to go home this evening. James was due back and Stephanie would get to see how their first tiny arrow had wounded him. Of course he wouldn't be able to tell her about his trauma, but Katie had said enough for her to know that he must be feeling humiliated and more than a bit foolish. Apparently he had gone back to work yesterday and had come home fuming because Malcolm had been called out to see Richard and Simone's retriever, which had an ear infection, and Simone had told him the whole story. In turn, Malcolm had told Simon and Sally, and James had been subjected to merciless — but, Katie had said she was sure, affectionate — teasing for the rest of the day.

  ‘He's furious with Simone,’ Katie had said. ‘Which is hilarious because I think he always thought she fancied him.’