The Flavours of Love

by Dorothy Koomson

  Just think about it, will you? Think about how you’re coming across to the outside world. And if you find you don’t care that much, maybe you should think about how much you really loved him. Because, me? I would have done anything to be with him. Anything.

  A

  XVIII

  13 months before That Day (September, 2010)

  ‘And you really, really don’t mind standing there in your frilly apron making tiny little macaroons?’ I asked him.

  ‘No, course not, why would I?’ Joel looked down at his dark grey T-shirt which showed off the sleek build of his arms, and navy blue Levi’s even though he was standing in front of the floor-length bathroom mirror. ‘What’re you saying, Ffrony? Is there something wrong with men making macaroons?’

  I had my head stuck around the bathroom door to talk to him while he got ready for his first lesson at Sea Your Plate, the cookery course I’d bought him for Christmas. It was a year-long set of lessons that would help him learn about many different types of cooking and their techniques. He was so excited he’d come home early from work to get ready.

  He turned away from the mirror, treating me to a full view of him. He was dressed and ready, but had been in the bathroom working on his hair, in other words, gently oiling and twisting the ends of the black mini-dreads all over his head. My husband was a lovely man, but when it came to his hair, he had a streak of vanity a mile wide.

  ‘Oh no, no, no,’ I replied, ‘there is nothing wrong at all with men making macaroons. Just you,’ I said with a giggle. ‘You with your big hands making all those teeny tiny delicate—’

  ‘Come here,’ he said, snatching out to grab me. I was too quick, twisted my body away and ran for our bedroom at the end of the hall.

  Phoebe, who was downstairs in the living room, was probably rolling her eyes and tutting loudly, while Zane wouldn’t even raise his eyes from the book he was poring over.

  ‘I said come here,’ Joel laughed coming up behind me as I shrieked and giggled in the entrance to our bedroom. His arms linked around me and he pulled me close to him while kicking the door shut behind him. ‘Now, you were saying …?’

  ‘I was saying … something about macaroons.’

  ‘Yes, macaroons,’ he said with a huge grin. His kiss was gentle at first, a brief touching of lips before deepening and lengthening, our tongues meeting in the middle.

  ‘Macaroons,’ I said, breaking away. ‘I like that word.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I think it’ll be a good code word.’

  ‘We need code words now?’ he asked. He pressed his divine lips together to suppress a laugh.

  I ran my hands up over his chest, linked them behind his head. ‘No. Yes. Maybe. Imagine it, the next time we’re sitting in your parents’ house I can say, “These are lovely macaroons, Mrs Mackleroy, did you make them yourself?” You won’t be able to contain yourself.’

  ‘My mum’s never made macaroons in her life. I don’t think she’s even given them to us, come to think of it.’

  ‘My goodness, details, details.’

  ‘And I don’t want to think about sex when I’m around my parents.’

  ‘Well, there is that.’

  ‘Babes, you are all right with me doing this, aren’t you?’ He was serious, quiet and concerned.

  ‘Of course,’ I replied, blithely. ‘I wouldn’t have got you the lessons if I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel weird or nothing like that, though?’ he said, pushing his point, trying to uncover what was truly inside. Of course it was weird, everything was weird sometimes. But I knew he had to do this, he’d love doing it and it would take him one step closer to actually writing his cookbook. The drawers in our kitchen, the mantelpiece in our bedroom, the various surfaces around the house were filled with his sheets of paper, scrawled on with his ideas for recipes. Some of them were simply sketches of how he wanted the final dish to look. He had many, many ideas but maybe these classes would help him to focus.

  ‘Does it feel weird that my big, burly husband with the deep voice and the fine hair, and high-powered job is going to be spending the evening in a frilly apron learning to make macaroons? Nah, course not.’

  ‘I’m not making macaroons. They’re really hard to make, just so you know. They take years to perfect.’

  ‘What are you making?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject, Ffrony.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, chastised. ‘I’m more than fine with you doing this. It’ll be fun. I got you the lessons because I know how much you love to cook. And what makes you happy makes me happy, if I can say that without sounding too pathetic. You know I’m a lot better with all of that. It’s fine. It’s all fine.’

  ‘I hope so. Because if there’s any doubt at all in your mind about me doing it, I won’t,’ he said.

  ‘You better, mate, those lessons cost a fortune!’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Although you’re not allowed to fall in love with any of those domestic-goddess types on the course, OK? No matter how gorgeous or thin or clever they are, remind yourself that you’ve got a wife at home who loves you. And that she’s the very same wife who’ll go proper mental if you take up with another woman.’

  His fingers slipped into the curls at my nape as he leant forwards and kissed me. ‘So, do you think we’ve got any time to make some macaroons before I have to head off?’ he said, mischievously.

  ‘You can macaroon off,’ I said. ‘Especially with your children sitting downstairs.’

  His laugh resonated throughout the room. I closed my eyes for a second, and indulged myself in the happy moment I found myself in. I didn’t realise, of course, that this was where it all started to go wrong. I was too happy, had relaxed too much. And losing Joel was my punishment for that.

  XIX

  The number ‘1’ flashes on the LCD screen of my telephone answering system.

  I hate messages on the house phone. It’s never anything good and I won’t be able to steel myself for the voice I hear, nor the news it’ll deliver. At least on my mobile I can screen, I know who is going to be leaving me messages. After Joel died, the big faceless ‘press’ somehow found out our home number even though we’d always been ex-directory, and kept ringing. Our house was silent apart from the ringing of the phone. We would sit around not being able to speak, and then the phone would ring and I wouldn’t know whether to answer it in case it was someone who knew Joel who’d just heard the news, someone who hadn’t heard the news and needed to be told, or if it was someone wanting me to tell them about the real Joel Mack-el-roy.

  In the end I unplugged it, and only plugged it in again six months later when I’d changed our number.

  It still spikes a little anxiety, though, when I see a message on the answering system because I don’t know who it is. I push the triangle button and give myself up to the whim of whoever decided they needed to speak to me.

  ‘Hello, Saffron, Phoebe and Zane.’ My stomach flips, seconds before my heart is drenched in ice-cold water. This always happens when I hear her voice. ‘I hope you are all well,’ she says. ‘We’d like to speak to you and possibly arrange a visit in the not too distant future. It feels like we haven’t seen you all for a long time. Do please return this call at your earliest convenience. Goodbye.’

  My finger heads straight for the delete button and I take a little satisfaction in knowing that I can easily erase her voice – and therefore her unwelcome presence from my house. I can’t hate her because she’s Joel’s mother, but I can maintain my very healthy dislike for her.

  15 years before That Day (August, 1996)

  ‘It’s such a pleasure to meet you,’ I said to Mr and Mrs Mackleroy as we sat at a circular table in an upmarket Central London restaurant.

  Joel had been very specific about not going to their house for this first-time meeting. He said it was because they were extremely houseproud and rarely invited people over, especially ones they didn’t know very well, but the t
ruth was obvious: in a restaurant there was a finite time we could be together. Joel was telling me by how he arranged the meeting that his Aunty Betty – who I’d met seven months earlier after being with him for five months – was right: his parents were going to hate me.

  I concentrated on not fiddling with the white cotton napkin on my lap, with not reaching out to straighten my cutlery, nor making sure my plate was positioned equidistant to the knives and the forks on either side of my place-setting. I’d already seen the almost imperceptible synchronised hitch of their eyebrows when they arrived ten minutes early at Brown’s, a large restaurant in Covent Garden in London that I’d been to before on client dinners, and saw that we were already there. It was like they were hoping we’d be late or even on time so there’d be something to dislike me for straight away.

  Restaurants and eating out with people I didn’t know already made me nervous. Eating with people who I wanted to impress brought added, deeper angst that I couldn’t explain to Joel without unnecessarily complicating things. He wouldn’t understand that there was a catalogue of things that could go wrong constantly running through my mind: dropping food on myself, knocking a wine glass over (not that I was going to drink and give them the impression of being an alkie), pronouncing something wrong when I’d been pronouncing it perfectly for years, tripping up a waiter, eating too much so they thought I was a glutton, eating too little so they thought I was anorexic.

  I was already working at a disadvantage – I’d dieted for the last fortnight to fit into the perfect navy blue shift dress with a daisy belt I’d bought for the occasion. I hadn’t managed it – it still wouldn’t zip up smoothly, it was snug across my chest and tight enough around the hips for it to ride up the second I sat down. Instead, I’d had to settle for my pink skirt and red cardigan with my brown belt that gave me the impression of a waist. Joel had said I looked incredible, but I wasn’t sure it was going to be good enough for the potential in-laws, especially when I was starting at a loss and we were going to be spending time in my idea of Hell.

  ‘Joel talks incessantly about you,’ said the beautifully turned out Mrs Mackleroy. Her hair was straightened and set on big rollers to create large curls that framed her apple-shaped face. She had amazingly clear, coffee-brown skin and cat-like eyes. She wore no make-up except plum-coloured lipstick, and her navy blue suit, which I suspected was Chanel, fitted her curvy frame like it had been made for her. She was perfect-looking, and brilliant at avoiding any pleasantries about it being nice to meet me, too, while firmly fixing into the air above our table that most of what her son said about me was inane and unimportant – and that I was likely to live up to that reputation.

  ‘That’s cos she’s perfect,’ Joel said. He immediately slipped his hand around mine, a reminder that I was important. ‘She’s my favourite subject.’

  ‘Speaking of subjects, did you know that Joel could have read at Cambridge?’ Mr Mackleroy said. He came with a serious air sitting on his shoulders, his black hair was threaded with wiry curls of silver-grey, his mahogany-brown skin was lined but not overly so for a man of his age. He had dark, brooding eyes that I had noticed seemed to be relentlessly on the lookout for something to visually dissect to reveal its imperfections. He too wore a suit, a labelled one, but I wasn’t sure which one.

  ‘Yes, I did know that,’ I said with a bright smile and my hand tightened around Joel’s, unsure for the moment which one of us needed the comfort. It was still a sore point for them that with his opportunities, Joel opted to have a year out partying by the sea then go on to study product design at Brighton University. His parents had seen academia for their son, he hadn’t. ‘Isn’t it brilliant?’

  ‘Where did you attend university?’ Mr Mackleroy asked.

  ‘Dad,’ Joel interrupted, ‘there’s no need to go into that – we haven’t even looked at the menu properly.’

  ‘Am I to infer from the way my son has sprung to your defence that you didn’t attend university?’

  I desperately wanted to be good enough for them, I wanted them to like me because I loved their son so much it was hard to breathe sometimes. We’d talked about getting married, we’d discussed trying for a baby – I needed them to like me so they wouldn’t stand in our way. I didn’t want them to keep looking for ways to disapprove of me. If I got this out of the way, then maybe we’d have a fighting chance, Joel and I. I looked at Joel and he grinned at me, willing me on, telling me that my answer didn’t matter because he’d always love me no matter what. It did matter, though, it really did. I didn’t go to Oxford, I didn’t go to Cambridge, I was never going to be up to their standards or good enough for their son. Accepting that wasn’t easy, but it was something I had to do.

  I faced them, my judges; the people who stood between me and the man I loved. ‘Erm, no, no, I didn’t,’ I replied, unable to meet their eye.

  Dismay dawned through Joel, I could see it on his face from the corner of my eye, I could feel it in the way his hand slackened slightly around mine.

  My reply had the desired result, though: both of my potential inlaws relaxed because every single negative, stereotypical thought they’d had about me washed away their tension. I was their worst nightmare, but at least with this knowledge about me they knew how to talk to me, they accepted if I ever got ideas above my station they’d be able to bat me down with some comment about how I wouldn’t be able to understand because I hadn’t gone to university.

  ‘Please don’t do that again,’ Joel said sadly to me later. ‘I don’t care what other people think, not even them.’

  In stark contrast to his parents who were chatty and engaging, Joel had been quiet for the rest of the dinner, as had I. He’d been quiet, too, the whole train journey home, even though he held my hand. He hadn’t spoken of it until now, until we were cocooned together in his bedroom, our bodies entwined on his double bed.

  ‘But, Joel,’ I protested, ‘you saw how happy it made them to think that about me. It was easier to pretend—’

  ‘You weren’t pretending,’ he cut in sternly. ‘You lied to them. I don’t like lies, Ffrony.’

  ‘Neither do I, but Joel, if I’d told them the truth, that I’d gone to one of the top five universities in the country, they would have spent the rest of our time together trying to find ways to take me down a peg or two. Dinner would have been awful. It was easier that way.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ he replied. ‘Don’t do that.’

  His parents had been happy and relaxed, jovial and almost welcoming after my lie. In time, I was sure Joel would realise it was the only way, too. Sometimes, a lie is the only way to make things right.

  ‘I won’t do it again,’ I said. ‘Promise.’

  *

  If you truly loved him with all your heart, like I did, you wouldn’t be behaving like that. The implication of those words from the third letter mix like a poisonous dye in the stagnant water of what Mrs Mackleroy used to say about me, sometimes when I was standing right in front of her.

  I stare at the answering system. I wish there was a way I could get the recording back so I can erase it all over again.

  Sunday, 21 April

  (For today)

  Saffron.

  Why have you closed the bedroom blinds? You should leave them open. Don’t take any notice of what I say.

  I’m sorry. I get so het up, it upsets me every day that he’s not here and some days are worse than others, which is when I go on the attack. I’m sorry that I’ve lashed out at you.

  You were allowed to see him at the hospital, weren’t you? Afterwards? You were allowed to hold and touch him one last time, which must have been so comforting. You organised his funeral. You chose where he was finally laid to rest, you picked out his headstone, and you wrote those words on it. I loved him so much, at least as much as you, and I never got to do any of that.

  Do you understand why I say the things I do, sometimes? I feel I’ve missed out on so much.

  Please, you carry on livin
g your life however you want to, you are fine.

  A

  XX

  ‘I suppose we can call this our first family meeting of the year.’

  ‘It’s our first family meeting, ever,’ Phoebe helpfully points out. She’s scaled back the outward resentment of me over the past couple of days and I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t mentioned the pregnancy since I went out with Mr Bromsgrove or if she doesn’t like to talk to me like that in front of Aunty Betty, but I accept it gratefully.

  ‘All right, as I’ve been so kindly corrected by Phoebe, this is our first family meeting. I would like us to be aware that our new living arrangements mean that we all have to show each other some more consideration and stick to some basic rules.’

  ‘And you’re the one making the rules, yes?’ Aunty Betty ‘helpfully’ interjects. She is wearing her shocking pink, bobbed wig today and because of that, everything else about how she’s dressed and what colours she’s used to make up her face disappears into insignificance.

  ‘I’d say that was a distinct possibility.’

  ‘Is that a yes or no?’ Zane asks.

  Zane is fresh-faced, his plump cheeks are smooth and dewy, his liquid-mahogany eyes he inherited from his father are clear and bright. He loves having Aunty Betty here, and it’s the first time in a while that he isn’t constantly showing signs of struggling with his grief.

  ‘It’s a yes. Although why I feel guilty saying that I don’t know. It’s not as if there are any other adults in the house.’

  ‘What about Aunty Betty?’ Phoebe asks. I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to assert herself into that role.

  I regard Aunty Betty, who reclines on the sofa, an e-cigarette holder in her hand with Zane on the floor in front of her, resting his back against the brown leather sofa, and Phoebe on the floor beside her feet. ‘Your mother’s right, Sweetness, I’m not an adult,’ Aunty Betty states.

  ‘As I was saying. I’d like to set some ground rules that we can all stick with.’ Over my shoulder, behind me on the mantelpiece is a picture of Joel. I wish I could step into the picture to ask him what I should say and how I should say it. I wish I could fall into a pleasant time pothole and remember the conversation where we agreed how we’d do this. ‘I would like us all to clean up after ourselves. I know we usually do, but it’s started to slip again and I don’t have time to pick up after everyone any more.’