by JP Wright
So, cantuccini or biscotti. For which I would need flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, eggs, almonds and vanilla extract. Some of which I knew Mother had; some of which I knew she had not – like whole blanched almonds; some of which she might have had but could be hidden anywhere in her kitchen. Is baking soda the same as baking powder?
I had struggled to find the recipe as it was. I knew I had seen one, once: it turned out to be on a torn-out half page of newspaper, working as a bookmark for rose ice-cream. While I was searching for that, I had come across some hazelnuts, which might do in place of almonds, I supposed. Or might just completely spoil the point of almond biscuits. They have to taste of almond, right? Or is that amaretti? There was a recipe for those too, but that wanted bitter almond essence, and we did not have that. Unless I could just give some almonds a bit of bad news then grind them up. Ha ha. How we laugh in the face of misfortune. Anyway, the recipe sounded trickier, and the name made me worry it might be poisonous. Amaretti morbidi anyone? No? Perhaps a slice of pizza in the shape of a coffin? A spaghetti noose? My mood, as you see, was dark.
In fact, it seemed the more I struggled on with the Home Ec Assignment, the more I had left to do, and a feeling of crushing doom rose up as the sun sank. A feeling of crushing doom wrapped in a sensation of creeping dread, tied with a bow of ultimate futility. The futility was from the impossibility of finishing the work I had still to do to prepare for this damn meal, let alone cooking it. Let me remind you: melon and prosciutto di parma, lasagne, cantuccini; meal plan, materials and equipment, nutritional breakdown, social and historical context; and Miss Simpleton the cow makes us wash up after. If I had not even managed the prep in two days, how was I going to manage it in one evening?
The sensation of creeping dread was remembering that I would have to tell Mother at some stage about what had happened the night before. Despite K's poking around and all the guests, it seemed no-one had stumbled on it: Father's lurking at the lodge and our plot to use the deeds for one of his shaky business deals. Add to the package a little sticky-tape of impatience: I wanted to get it over with, to confront Mother. But of course the pest was about still, so I had to hold it in.
She (the pest) had bounced in and out while I was trying to work, prattling about dinner. At the time, I could not bring myself to care very much, but by the time I had listened to the cars of the guests scrunching away down the drive, back home to their suburbs tediously free of murderous butlers, I was getting peckish. Honestly, I could not remember the last time I had sat down for a proper meal. Could it have been Friday? Not even then: Mother allows us Friday off (or, thinking about it, frosty cow, allows herself Friday off) and we get pizza on the way back from school. Of course Kitty's share is all gone by the time we get home, or at least stripped to the naked dough, and I have to guard mine like a eunuch at the gates of a cheese-smothered harem to stop the little witch picking at my pepperoni. Less like a meal, more like an evening-long fight for nutrition.
I supposed I would have to abandon my work and see whether there was something in a tin at the back of a cupboard. I found some confit duck once and felt like a prospector uncovering a delicious gold nugget; more often, it's beans and small plastic sausages. What I wanted to be doing was putting measured ingredients into boxes, and nestling those into larger boxes, all in order. I wanted to be super-organised just like Verity, but I was way off that stage. The prep seemed to be taking even longer the second time around, and I got muddled writing the same things all over again, or wondering if I had included this detail or that. There was definitely stuff I was missing out, and of the bits I remembered it was impossible to tell any more whether what I thought was right was a real fact or a made-up one. What the hell – with luck, Simpkins would not know either. I headed down to the kitchen where I found Mother, Kitty and the Wet.
The locust was more-or-less inside the new fridge, poking through the leftovers, passing bowls and plates out to Mother. Simon, still in butler costume, but whisker-less, was stirring a steaming pan, into which Mother now and then popped a handful of veg or a chicken bone, or just about anything else the tick passed out to her.
“We're having soup,” she said cheerfully, as though it were a Saturday lunchtime, “If you want carrot in it you need to peel some.”
“What kind of soup?” I asked.
“Stone soup,” spoke up Simon, not in his usual meek way. His success as a butler must have boosted his confidence, which was not what I needed. “Pull up a peeler and join in.” Which I did not, but I did pull up a bunch of herbs (thyme, marjoram, oregano? Who knows in the dark?) and throw them in. There must have been some chicken left over from lunch – unless the freak had scavenged the bones that the vultures had left: I tried not to think about it. Herbs have anti-bacterial properties, right?
Having emptied the fridge, K had to tell me all over again about the dramatic climax of the murder mystery, the bungling of the police officers, and the doubt still surrounding the damn cake. The officers, and Cook, had left pretty much on the heels of the guests, stopping only to collect their shillings, Sandy or Sergeant Able driving them in the Butler's car. I suppose they picked up their fellow actor from the hospital, but I would not bet a house on it.
Kitty's spring started to wind down at last by the time the soup was ready. Simon cut some generous hunks of the last of the bread – no more dainty sandwiches now the guests were gone – and splashed the soup into bowls. Marcus wandered in, the orangery getting chilly, and lay under the table where he belonged. Soupy, herby steam filled the kitchen. It was not a proper Sunday lunch, but it did at least smell like it, and it was hot. I could not forget about my work, though, and I could not concentrate properly on worrying about that until I had talked to Mother, so the doom and the dread spoiled my appetite and I only picked at my second piece of bread, waiting until the bug had scoffed herself sleepy and scuttled away, and Simon sloped off to tap something with his hammer.
Mother began the washing up, with some rather pointed elbow-work and clattering which I ignored while I ate an apple. “All ready for tomorrow?” she asked, grimly. She knew the answer to that.
“How could I be?” I groaned.
“Are you going up to finish it now then?”
“No.” What was the point? I was farther off finishing now than I had been on Saturday morning. Also, Mother's nosiness, or concern, was not helping, as what I really needed was an argument, then I could complain she had been too busy with the guests, and prove it by telling her that she did not even know what had been going on in her own house. That way, I figured, I could skip past the bit where I seemed to have betrayed her. Unfortunately, she seemed irritatingly calm this evening. Not one hackle raised. I tried slumping a bit lower in my chair. Nope: not a single feather ruffled.
I would have to just tell her what had happened. First, some evidence. I ran upstairs and grabbed the piles of paper on and under my bed. I only paused long enough to check whether it was a tsp or a tbsp of baking powder or soda, but by the time I got back down to the kitchen, the grasshopper was there again, bounding about in her pyjamas jabbering about tissue paper and fabric samples, “… and I need the big scissors, Mummy, the zig-zaggy ones. And I need glue, and I need a box for it all. And I need some card, the thick kind, and some coloured markers.” What the hell was she up to? Some kind of collage? All the lower school does is cutting out and sticking and splatting paint about.
“It appears you are not the only one who has neglected her prep,” Mother said, raising her eyebrows at me and setting off on Kitty's treasure hunt. Godammit! I swatted at Kitty with my fistful of paper, but the buzzing blight whizzed away in Mother's wake.
The suddenly quiet, empty kitchen at least allowed me time and space to concentrate on my ingredient list. It was long and scary. I thought I would tick off everything I definitely already had, to make it look better: I ticked off mace, and that just made it look worse. Not so much as a stick of celery; hardly a meal for a mouse. Kitty barged though with a b
ox of cloth, string and coloured paper, yelling over her shoulder “Don't worry Mummy, I'll finish it in the morning while we're waiting for Fatty.”
“Finish it tonight Tabitha dear we will have to be off early whether your sister likes it or not,” Mother called up the stairs after her. Then she turned to me. I braced myself for the confrontation, but she had a sort of ironic smile on her face that disconcerted me for a moment. “Come with me, you,” she said firmly, and strode out of the kitchen. I followed, stumbling and juggling my papers, dropping my pen. She led me to the study.
You know how criminals are often smiling when they have been arrested? I mean, you see them on the TV, being bundled into a police-car or escorted through an airport, and they are smiling and people hate that – their seeming lack of contrition. What monsters! But in fact, it is relief. Relief from the pressure of guilt, pursuit, running and hiding. Being guilty is pretty stressful. Did I smile, then, walking towards my doom? Not on your life. I may have been impatient to get the confrontation over with, but I would not feel relief from guilt, because I did not feel guilty. Trust me a little longer on this.
In the study, sickly green in the light from the desk-lamp, Mother glared at me down her nose, the haughty duchess routine, and with unnecessary theatricality flung open the unlocked door of the empty safe. I half-expect the flea to hop out screaming “Da-daa!” but instead it was Mother saying “Now, young lady. You have something you want to tell me.”
I nodded, but let her stand a while with her arm out-flung, eyebrows imperiously arched, because she does enjoy that sort of thing. A little too long, because before I could begin my confession, in shuffled the Wet.
“Simon!” exclaimed Mother, less vexed than she should have been, dropping her pose and turning to face him, but not without an emphatic eyebrow-raise in my direction that effectively trapped me there, leaning against the desk as though it had been limed.
“Ah,” replied Simon, characteristically reticent again now he was out of his butler's uniform and into the sort of striped, tied-at-the-waist pyjamas that you thought only people in cartoons wear. “Ah. Hallo Violet,” he elaborated. I smiled pleasantly enough, but did not return his greeting.
“Were you looking for me?” Mother purred, as though he was not getting right in the way of our mother-daughter thing.
“Yes. Well, in a way. Not really.” Come on, spit it out, man. “Just wondered ... just off to bed – early night last night. I mean ...” he rubbed at his face and glanced from me to Mother, then around the room, shiftily. The green light would make anyone look guilty. “I mean, late night last night – the hospital and so on – so I thought an early night. But I wondered how you get this stuff off.” He pawed at his face again.
“The gum?” mother laughed, peering and poking at his cheek, where until this evening the butlerine whiskers had clung, “just warm water and patience.”
“Right-o. I'm off to bed, then”
“We shall be staying up late, shan't we Violet?” said Mother, as if it was any of his business, “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he repeated. Jeezus. Off you go then. Do not wait up. Never mind us. Mother walked him to the door. I thought to get rid of him, but then,
“I'll help you with it,” she said, “Won't be long Violet wait here I'll be right down.” And, pausing in the doorway just to rattle her eyebrow threateningly in my direction, she slid out of the room behind the Wet.
Some day, I promised myself, I would pay her back. And Simon, and the Kitty-witch. I would have to wait for a day when I did not need Mother's help quite so badly. As it was, I was forced to wait on her. Trapped there in the study by her command, and the stack of papers I was clutching. To pass the time – how long could it take to un-glue the Wet? – I shuffled through those papers and divided them into two piles on the desk, then I carried on with my shopping list. So-and-so many grams of flour; such-and-such amount of milk. How much is a pinch? If I had it all written down, I would be half-way to Verity-style organisation. At least it diverted me from the accusing, open, empty safe. I sat at the desk, in a puddle of green light, and scribbled until Mother drifted back in. She seemed to have abandoned the duchess act for now. “So, V,” she said, “Tell me.”
I started at the beginning: coming downstairs to hear a clatter in the kitchen, getting to the open window in time to see a familiar figure in brogues and moleskins vaulting the fence. Being almost sure at once it was Father. She nodded along, as if none of this was a surprise to her, which was infuriating. I explained that I had seen him, seen some-one anyway, standing at the window of the lodge, but had managed to divert K away through the bramble patch. “She's such a little fool. She has no idea what is going on,” I complained, though that time it had been to my advantage.
“She is very bright, she just has a vivid imagination,” said Mother. Well, she has to defend her own daughter. “Do you remember how at her age you insisted on wearing my opera cape everywhere. What were you, Z-girl?” The trouble with Mothers is they know where all the bodies are buried, and if pushed, they also have access to naked baby photos.
“Jeezus, I was about eight or something.” It was X-ray girl, and it was after the time known as 'the apres-ski accident'. I had been very impressed by the x-ray of Father's broken leg. “She's an idiot,” I insisted, back onto K, “Did she tell you about trying to get us both killed by the local thugs?”
“She did mention a tussle on the green,” said Mother, “which would account for some of the day's stains.” This was news to me – but it would explain the split lip and aggressive attitude of Wayne in the woods. “None of which” added Mother, “is getting us to the midnight plot.” I had to get to the end of it.
“While you were all asleep, before you got up again to torture the drunken Butler,” I began, and Mother smiled at the memory, “I went down to the lodge.”
“In your pj's”
“Yes.” How did she know that? Grass stains. Maybe I should not have put them in the washing basket, but then when the hell had she got the chance to go through it, and who knew Mother was so cunning?
“A little silly.”
“Or courageous.” I argued.
“Reckless.”
“Brave,” I insisted. Mother chuckled. She seemed to be taking the whole thing rather lightly. I supposed she was euphoric after the success of the weekend, if success it had been. Soon she would know the truth.
“Brave like a cat burglar,” she said sarcastically. Well, she would regret soon enough her hasty judgement. I rushed ahead with my accounting.
“Bravely, I set off alone in the dark to confront a strange man who had been lurking around your house. Okay, I was pretty sure it was Father, but it might not have been, and if it was then I was there to save you the trouble, since you were so damn busy with your Paying Guests.” One back for me I think. Mother shrugged and I continued, “You know how he is. Very persuasive, especially after midnight. He just asked me to fetch some papers for him, to save you the bother of discussing it with him. I thought you would not want him turning up in the middle of your murder mystery thing.” I decided not to mention the 'all together again' part; the knight on a shining white steed part. Given subsequent events, that may just have been a trap of Father's for me, and I felt silly enough already.
“In fact,” I went on, struggling to remember that half-dreamed night, only half a day past, “I had not even to get the papers – just open the safe.” I smiled grimly. “He did not want to cause any trouble – so he said. I thought when he turned up at lunchtime that you had caught him in the act, trying to get at the safe. That might have been what he was doing in the house yesterday morning, right?” Mother nodded. “You knew he'd been here?” I asked, not a little annoyed. She nodded again.
“So you opened the safe,” she said softly, patting me on the shoulder. My turn to nod,
“I opened it.”
“With the key that hangs in my bedroom.”
Another nod and, “While you
were dragging the broken Butler out to the car.” Yes, all the pieces fit: it had been me, in the study, with the key. Now, just when I was looking at my guiltiest, came the time to play my ace. It was true that I had been taken in by Father's plan: at two a.m., hunched over a lukewarm cup of tea with the wind howling outside, it had seemed quite reasonable. I had been half asleep, half dead from cold, injured and exhausted after my journey, almost hypnotised, lulled into believing his plan would bring us to happy ever after, but as soon as I got back out into that wind and rain, I had begun to come back to myself again. By the time I was halfway back to the house, I had a new plan – a plan of my own.
“I did take the key,” I admitted, flicking through the stacks of paper on the desk, “and I did unlock the safe – exactly as instructed. What I did not do was leave the papers to be taken. Our house is safe.” And with something of an air of triumph that may have looked a little smug, I handed Mother the documents that I had found in the safe. “About now,” I smiled, “after a tedious journey in a small convertible with a leaky roof, stuck next to a nagging fat-ankled actress-slash-model, Father will be sitting alone in his little flat in London, opening up the blue folder marked 'Deeds etc', and finding inside all the information he could ever want about the calorific value of lasagne: meal plan, recipes, nutritional breakdown, the lot.” See, I told you to trust me.
Mother laughed. Properly, for the first time in ages. I did not feel quite so triumphant as I should have done – perhaps because she did not seem so surprised as she should have been; perhaps because I felt the tiniest bit sorry for Father in his dingy flat; perhaps because that old crushing doom was still there. She did hug me though, and that helped.
“I knew I could trust you,” she murmured into my hair, “And I knew that 'Belle' was not right.”
“Yep. She was the inside man, but Father did not tell me that.” And I had not caught on to her myself until I saw her mincing off across the field with my prep. tucked under her arm may she suffer from bingo wings, and I said so.
“But why put all your work into that folder?” Mother asked, holding onto my shoulders and leaning me back to stare at my face. I shrugged. I think I had half expected Father to be caught in the act of taking it, and more than half hoped that he would not go through with the plan. Even now, I cannot quite believe that he did it. Also, it was the middle of the night.
“I did it, as Cook would say, for the sake of verité. Just attention to detail,” I said modestly.
“Pretty rude of him, bringing that girl down here,” Mother said thoughtfully, “I wonder what he meant by coming back up himself at lunchtime. Perhaps he did not trust her to do the job.” I wanted to ask: do you think they are together? but it seemed unfair, though Mother did not seem very bothered. If they were, then all that stuff from Father about romancing Mother, getting the family back together, had just been a cynical manipulation of poor old me, and there was me thinking he had risked blowing the plot because he could not resist giving it one last try after all. Definitely a Bastard. At least one mystery had been cleared up.
“So,” Mother tossed the precious papers on the desk, “you must have a lot of work still to do.” She turned to leave the study.
“You aren't going to put them back in the safe?” I asked, offering the sheaf of papers again. She glanced back, chuckling again.
“The deeds, and anything else important, are all safe with Perkis, Pinkus, Pinkus, and Frogmorden. Come on back into the kitchen – we'll see what we can do about that Home Ec.” She knew she could trust me – but she had trusted me only so far. Mother can be pretty frosty. Well played, I suppose. It turns out Father was never even in the game.
Back in the kitchen. On the table were a small jar of capers, a couple of bay leaves, cloves, the remains of a bottle of red wine, and half a small bottle of sweet white wine for dipping cantuccini. She had been listening after all. I had thought that she could not have been spending all that time on Simon's face.
“It isn't Italian, but Sophie Simpkins won't know the difference,” Mother explained, sniffing the wine. “Don't worry about the written work: I'll speak to her tomorrow.” Embarrassing but useful to have a Mother who, apparently, knows everything and everyone. “Let's concentrate on the recipes. What can we prepare ahead?”
“Almost nothing. We have no ingredients,” I sighed, sitting down at the table.
“Well,” Mother said, “we can at least infuse some milk. As for the rest, we'll go shopping on the way to school. Set your alarm for six.” I sighed again. “It will be a late night and an early morning,” she went on, rubbing her hands and looking around her kitchen, keen to get cooking, “but it will be okay.”
And it was; and it was; and it was.
Afterwords
And if you want Kitty and V right in your ears, check out our audiobook.
You can keep contact with Kitty and V at www.facebook.com/tabithatickham and www.tabithatickham.com
Or email [email protected]
Or tweet @jpwrighter
About the Author
JP Wright lives in the southwest of England in a house much less grand than Garton Grange. Not only the willing amanuensis for V and Kitty, he sometimes has time to write for himself, when not working at his day job, digging, running, cycling, or being with his own beautiful and brilliant little girls.
Other works by JP Wright
The Old Dog and the Doorstep, a short intermission entertainment, intermezzo, entr’acte, or lobby play to stop a gap while we await further full-length works from the Tickham girls. Concerning the diversions of village life and the merit of observing a sound aphorism.
Kaleidoscope, an only-for-grown-ups novel. In four stories trapped in different literary periods, a young man makes repeated misguided attempts to rescue a young woman, variously assisted and obstructed by fathers, mothers, brothers and his personal demons.
