by Tess Stimson
I realized then that I didn’t actually know my mother at all.
Nor, in a very literal sense, did I ever know my father. But it’s from Roberto—Louise never did catch his last name—that I got the impossible hair and an overwhelming desire to cook almost from the moment I could pick up a spoon; it’s certainly not from my mother. It’s no wonder I’m so skinny, I was practically malnourished as a child; learning to throw a meal together was probably as much survival instinct as genetic heritage. If I’d had my way I’d have run off at the age of seven to become the culinary equivalent of the little drummer boy, working my way up through the kitchen ranks from pot-scrubber to saucier to, if I was very lucky and worked longer hours than a junior doctor, executive chef. And at least I’d have had enough to eat. But with typical parental hypocrisy—don’t do as I do, do as I tell you—Louise refused to hear of me leaving school early; she filled in the application to Edinburgh herself. Feeling it would be deeply churlish if a second generation of Sandal women turned down the chance of a university education, I did actually complete my degree; though even as my pen dutifully churned out analyses of Chaucer and Byron and Nathaniel Hawthorne, my mind dreamed of the perfect soufflé and a hollandaise that, even in the steamiest kitchen, never broke.
After three very dull years I finally marched into my mother’s womb-red healing room at the top of our house in Islington, brandishing my examination results and crying, “I’ve done it, I’ve got my First, now can I go to culinary school?”
Louise lowered herself gracefully from full plank into cobra, assumed the child’s pose, and said, her face pressed into her yoga mat, “I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to find the courage to ask.”
However, I discovered at culinary school that I was more my mother’s daughter than I had thought; thankfully not in the actual cooking, that came easily—perhaps I was a chef in a former life: Napoleon’s, maybe, or some Eastern potentate’s, I’ve often wondered—but in my response to the wretched rules and regulations that hemmed you in and pushed you down and, it seemed to me, got in the way of doing anything novel or creative. I chafed unbearably against the restrictive syllabus whose principal purpose seemed to be to show plump, unimaginative young women in Alice bands and pearls how to find their way to a suitable young man’s heart through his stomach. After two terms I quit and moved in with Kit and his latest boyfriend, a sharklike bond trader with dead eyes.
“For pity’s sake, what do you really want to do?” Kit demanded one night when the shark was working late and I was driving him potty by whining—yet again—about the curdled mess I seemed to be making of my life.
“You know what I want to do,” I said tetchily, “I’ve been telling you since nursery school. Open my own restaurant, of course.”
“You were three. I thought you’d grow up and put away childish things.”
“So were you. You didn’t.”
“Acting is different—”
“I don’t see why.”
“Put that bottom lip away and stop being such a spoiled brat. Acting is different, as you well know, because you can still have a life while you do it. Have you any idea what opening your own restaurant would really be like?” Kit demanded. “Three quarters of new restaurants fail within the first year. You’d be working at least eighty hours a week with no evenings off, no holidays, not a minute to call your own, in an industry which has the highest percentage of drug addicts next to dentists—”
“Dentists?”
He waved his hand. “Never mind that now. The other kitchen staff would hate you just for being there. Half the men in the restaurant business still think a woman’s presence in the kitchen curdles the sauce. You’d be eating sexual harassment for breakfast, lunch, and tea—”
“All right, all right,” I interrupted. “I do know, Kit. But you did ask—”
“You have a First in English and you cook like an angel. What you should be doing, my love—” Kit said, his eyes alight with an evangelical zeal I knew well enough to fear, “I can’t imagine how we haven’t thought of it before—what you should be doing, Mal darling, is writing cookery books, of course.”
When Kit gets hold of an idea, he’s like a dog with a particularly juicy marrowbone. At his insistence, and more to get him to leave me alone than anything else, I put together a slim folder of my best recipes, illustrated with glossy photographs—shot by the freelancer who succeeded the bond shark in Kit’s revolving-door bedroom—and submitted them to an agent plucked at random from the Writer’s Handbook by Kit, fully expecting rejection with a generous side helping of derision by return of post. But, unbeknownst to either of us, the agent Kit selected just happened to open my submission ten minutes after returning from lunch with a panicked publisher who had been bending her ear for two hours on the subject of the gaping hole in her upcoming list, thanks to their star cookery writer—a household name with his own TV show and flatware line—eloping to Guatemala with his sous-chef and huge advance, and without delivering his much-delayed, and increasingly urgently needed, manuscript.
Serendipity really is very much underrated. My mother always said it was better to be born lucky than clever, “although,” she’d add serenely, “it does help to be both.”
At twenty-two, I had a three-book contract, and then a small guest spot on a brand-new satellite channel followed, and when my first book reached number one on the Times best-seller list there was even talk of my own TV show. I was the Hot New Thing and everything was going absolutely swimmingly and then I met Trace and for a while nothing else mattered, it was wonderful, it was beyond imagining; and then of course it all collapsed into the darkest, most dreadful mess. It was Kit who pulled me out and told me I would get over it and forced me to get back to work when I just wanted to crawl into bed and never come out again, my heart shriveling with misery against my ribs.
And then, of course, I found Nicholas.
I hover on the restaurant threshold, shifting my bag to the other shoulder as I look for him, anticipating that familiar lurch when I spot his clean, chiseled features—even now, after twelve years—that same strange jolt of knowing I experienced the first moment I saw him, in Covent Garden: that absolutely electric certainty, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he was The One. Dear Nicholas, so tall and fine and honorable; so sexy and carnal and unaware.
It’s such a relief to be inside, out of the cold. Where is Nicholas? The train from Salisbury was freezing, and the cab from Paddington Station wasn’t much better. I can’t imagine why Louise ever left California—
A waitress thrusts a glass of white wine at me, mumbling something about my shoes. Where can Nicholas have got to? The train was a bit delayed, thankfully, or I’d never have caught it; but it wasn’t that late, he can’t have left yet. He must be here somewhere. Unless I’ve got the name of the restaurant wrong, of course. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I scrabble in my bag for the envelope I wrote the restaurant down on, scattering half the contents across the floor. The waitress is still pressing her glass of wine at me so I have no choice but to take it; still fumbling through my bag, I end up spilling most of the wine on myself. Thank God nothing shows on this dress and after three babies it’s seen far worse. For heaven’s sake, where is Nicholas? Oh, Lord, that wasn’t a clean tissue—
“Your shoes,” the girl hisses again.
I finally look down and discover that Kit has, quite deliberately, let me walk out of the house in my pink slippers. He is an absolute swine. I will hang him by the neck until he is dead and then cut him down and eviscerate him while he is still conscious before burning his intestines in front of him … or no, I will allow him to babysit Metheny at his house.
I can’t bear to let this stunning girl—clearly not a waitress after all; her shoes are far too expensive and far too high—see how mortified I am. She is so pretty and smart and clean, and I’m already well aware that she’s written me off as barely a fingertip away from senile dementia.
&nbs
p; I summon an insouciant smile. “Oh, yes. Well, at least the rain hasn’t ruined them.”
I shove the slippers nonchalantly into my bag as if I do this all the time. Which, of course, I do: not wear pink slippers to retirement parties in London—this is a landmark snafu even for me—but get caught in the crush as my two worlds, nurturing earth mother and career wife, collide.
Although there is less of the career thing now, of course, which is absolutely natural when you have three children, absolutely to be expected; somehow the book deadlines seem to slither through my fingers like egg yolks. I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be just to keep up.
Nicholas abruptly materializes, white-faced and agitated. “Malinche, where in heaven’s name have you been? It’s eight-thirty; Will’s been asking for you for the last hour! What kept you?”
“Traffic,” I say, surprised by his twitchiness. I’m not that late.
“I told you to allow—oh, never mind. Now that you’re here, you’d better come and be sociable.”
“I was, darling, I was talking to this gorgeous girl here—such a lovely suit, I hate chartreuse itself, of course, the drink I mean, but that’s simply a delicious color, especially with that corn gold hair, how clever of you—what did you say your name was?”
“Sara Kaplan,” she supplies.
She really is a very striking girl: not conventionally pretty, the nose sees to that, but she has something about her, a sensuality, an earthiness. She must be absolutely freezing in that flimsy outfit, the silly girl, but then she’s still too young, of course, to realize that when someone is as lovely and vital as she is, she really doesn’t need to wear tons of makeup and short skirts to get attention; she could turn heads if she walked in wearing a dustbin liner and a porkpie hat.
I smile. “Of course, Sara, well, Nicholas, I was being sociable—as you can see, I was talking to Sara, she very kindly got me a drink, I was just about to come and find you and Will, and then here you were—”
I can feel the tension coming off Nicholas in waves. I can’t imagine what has got him so distraught, it can’t just be me, it must be something to do with work; but it’s not like him, he’s usually so self-contained. It’s one of the things that drew me to him in the first place, his assurance, his total certainty of who and what he is—not always right, of course, but certain nonetheless. There are more layers to Nicholas than even he knows, aspects of him I had rather hoped would come to the surface as our marriage went on; but never mind that now, we are still the best of friends, of lovers, so much luckier than most couples these days.
I take his arm and guide him toward his colleagues, chatter soothingly about absolutely nothing in his ear, stroke him emotionally and mentally and even physically as we stand talking and laughing with Will, and finally he pulls me against him and I feel him relax beside me; though not quite enough to totally erase that distant stirring of alarm.
I realize that now really isn’t the time to mention that Trace is moving back to Salisbury.
4
Nicholas
I awaken from dreams of pale, long limbs and strawberry gold hair with a tumescent erection that makes my balls ache. It’s still dark outside, apart from the garish glare of multicolored Christmas lights that Evie insisted we hang along the eaves, and for which vulgar display of infectious Americana I risked life and limb atop the window cleaner’s borrowed ladder.
I brush my palm across the warm vale that dips between Mal’s shoulder and hips, cupping her buttocks lightly with my hand. My middle finger curls between her legs and strokes the soft fur around her pussy, sliding into the welcoming wetness. Mal doesn’t respond, but the change in her regular breathing tells me she’s awake.
I slide closer, penis nudging the small of her back. Gently I find her clitoris and increase the pace and pressure of my finger, reaching my other hand over her shoulder toward her breasts. Mal mumbles something indistinct and rolls onto her stomach, taking both breasts and pussy out of my reach.
“Nicholas—”
“It’s OK, don’t worry, we have time. It’s not six yet.”
Easing my way down the bed, I bury my head between her flanks and describe small circles from her coccyx down to her pussy with my tongue. Sweet, like the lavender honey she harvests from our hives in the orchard every June.
Rising up on my haunches, I replace my tongue with my rigid cock at the entrance to her behind. Mal wriggles and squirms in the bed beneath me and flips onto her back, slender legs opening in welcome as she smiles sleepily up at me. She’s always loved early-morning sex; we both have. To wake warm and aroused and melt into each other—there’s no better way to start the day. She starts to draw me in to her, but I pull back and go down on her again, opening her like a ripe fig. I can feel her impatience as she tightens her thighs. Her juices dribble down my chin as if I’ve bitten into a rich peach.
My cock throbs as I move my body over hers. It nudges at her pussy and I slide in, savoring her tight, wet grip. Her small breasts crush against my chest. I rock my hips and thrust into her, feeling the familiar heat course through my body, down my cock, sweat slicking our skin together. My feet overlap the foot of the bed and the headboard crashes timpani against the wall. Hot—want—need—want—
Sara.
Christ, I didn’t say her name aloud, did I? I glance fearfully down at my wife. Her expression is as serene and untroubled as ever. Thank God. But still.
I sag against Mal as release and shame wash over me. It wasn’t my wife’s long dark corkscrew curls I saw spread out on the pillow just now, but Sara’s cropped strawberry blond head. Even as I kiss Mal’s high little brown breasts, in my mind I am burying my head in Sara’s pink, pillowy cleavage.
I haven’t been able to get the damned woman out of my mind since she walked into my office. This has gone beyond the reflexive, cursory sexual interest of a breathing male for any attractive female who crosses his path. It’s all-consuming. Everywhere I look, I see Sara. I feel as if I’m going insane. It’s not as if I’m stuck in an unhappy marriage, looking for an affair; that’s the last thing I’d ever do. Dear God, if anyone should know firsthand the damage infidelity can cause, it’s me. Christ, I love Mal. Unreservedly. No question. I don’t even know Sara.
“That was nice,” Mal says, stroking my hair. “Again.”
“Did you—”
“No. But that doesn’t matter.”
“It does, of course it does. Let me—”
She bats my hand away. “Lovely, but let’s wait till tonight, Nicholas. The children will be up soon, we have to get going. It’s the girls’ Nativity play tonight, and I’ve still got sequins to sew on the Button Dragon and a pterodactyl’s wings to superglue.”
I take eager refuge in domesticity, hiding in its comfortable, familiar folds from other, disturbing, thoughts. “Admittedly it’s been a long time since I played Balthasar on the school stage,” I say, climbing out of bed, “but I’m fairly certain the shepherds didn’t watch their flocks all seated on the ground while a pterodactyl hovered overhead. It would have eaten the sheep for a start.” I knot the cord of my navy dressing gown at my waist in preparation for the dash down the polar corridor to the bathroom. “I’m not convinced about the Button Dragon, either.”
“Just be grateful Baby Jesus still gets a part,” Mal says, “though after the disaster last year with Chloe Washington and the three baby ferrets, I think they’re using a plastic doll in the manger.”
I muffle an expletive as I step on a piece of Lego. “I’m just grateful when we turn up at church for Harvest Festival and it hasn’t been replaced by a mosque.”
“You old fraud, you haven’t been to church for Harvest Festival since they were using plowshares instead of tractors,” Mal calls after me as I hop down the hall. “Don’t forget, the service starts at six; you promised you’d catch the early train so you could get there on time.”
I sigh as I fill the sink with icy water and dip my razor into it. I have a pile of work
on my desk so high I’m surprised it doesn’t have snow on the upper levels. Ten days before Christmas, everyone wants their divorce resolved before the country shuts down for its habitual two-week holiday, and half the clerks and barristers have gone shopping. I wish Mal realized that I want to witness my progeny tread the boards as much as she does, but someone has to keep the family in buttons and pterodactyl wings.
It’s still dark and bitterly cold when Mal drops me at the station just before seven. A biting wind skitters litter on the platform and knifes straight through my clothes. I bury my hands deeper in my overcoat pockets and stamp my feet, exhaling plumes of smoke as I wait for my train. On the opposite platform, a young woman shivers in a short denim skirt and lightweight summer jacket, her bare legs almost blue with cold. It never fails to amaze me, the level of discomfort women will endure in the name of fashion. I’m astonished Sara hasn’t caught her death, given some of the flimsy outfits in which she turns up to work, though she does always look very attractive. Very. But of course Mal has some lovely warm sweaters, extremely pretty, in fact. And jeans are so much more practical.
The seven-eight to Waterloo pulls in ten minutes late; despite the early hour, the train is dense with Christmas shoppers heading for the bright lights of Oxford Street. By the time we reach Basingstoke, daytrippers are overflowing into First Class, the disruptive invasion of crisp packets and chattering mobiles making it impossible for me to concentrate on my case notes. I work instead on my crossword until we get to Woking, at which point a handsome, well-upholstered woman in her mid-fifties—a fellow fixture of the seven-eight train—enters the carriage. She is, like me, an avid enthusiast of the Times acrostic; over the years we’ve grown quietly accustomed to exchanging newspapers shortly after she boards the train so that we may compare notes, returning them to each other five minutes before arriving at Waterloo. I assume she is also a lawyer or barrister, since I have occasionally observed her working on ribboned briefs herself; but since we have never actually spoken, I can’t be sure.
