‘Wow, you’re pretty and kind – you’re like a hot Mother Teresa. Right, I’ve got to head off – give me your number, we’re going out this week.’
Kate pauses. Should she say she has a boyfriend? Because she doesn’t have a boyfriend, she has a situation . . . ‘Er, this might sound a bit weird, but I’m sort of on a break from a relationship at the moment.’
‘Perfect timing.’
‘Well, it’s just—’
‘Do you live with this guy?’
‘No . . .’
‘Are you currently, you know . . .’ He smiles and makes a clicking noise with his tongue.
‘That’s a rather personal question! But no, no we’re not. We’re just friends for now.’
‘Look – we’ll just go to a gallery, grab a coffee, it’s no big deal, you are allowed to talk to other men, aren’t you? He’s not the type to stab me, is he?’
Maybe with his crossword pencil, thinks Kate. ‘It’s just some art, right?’
‘Yay, that’s a yes, right? Life’s too short to say no to fun.’
Kate tries not to smile as she gives him her details. Cecily will be pleased.
And of course, secretly, Kate is too.
Chapter Twenty-five
‘I TOLD YOU SO,’ says Cecily, waving her hand in a matador flourish. ‘This man was right under your nose. You should listen to your fairy godmother.’
Kate smiles with embarrassment. ‘It’s pure fluke, Mrs Finn. No one’s ever chatted me up in a coffee shop before. The thing is, I’m flattered. And he’s very attractive, but I’m emotionally involved with Nick. It feels disloyal. And I did try to explain about Nick . . .’
‘Oy gevalt, if they put your brain in a chicken it would run straight to the butcher,’ says Cecily, bringing her fist down with a small thud, causing her tea to spill. ‘You’re going to go out with this man. You’ll have a good time, and you’re not to mention Amoeba, and then you’ll see him again and cook “Dinner for a Charming Stranger”—’
‘Hold on a minute,’ says Kate, raising her voice above Cecily’s. ‘Are you going to direct my life from here on in? Because you said you’d be dead before the end of the month, so we won’t get too far, will we?’
‘I am prepared to stick around for a few more weeks, because I cannot abide seeing an intelligent woman be so utterly stupid.’
Kate shakes her head at Cecily. ‘What?’
‘Your job, your home life, your namby-pamby boyfriend – I could hardly do a worse job of running the show.’
‘I talk to one random man in a coffee shop, big deal – that’s no justification to sit there ripping my life to shreds.’
‘Call that a life?’
Kate sighs. ‘It’s not that bad.’
‘If I had the opportunities you have . . .’
‘Then what?’
‘I’d be bold. I’d do anything, I’d do everything. Explore! You’re how old?’
‘Thirty-nine and five sixths,’ mumbles Kate.
‘Right – by the time I was forty, I’d seen thirty-seven countries. By my fiftieth birthday I’d had three distinguished careers and when I retired at sixty-eight we hiked Machu Picchu. Life is as long as it’s short.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘It means find what nourishes your soul, discover what you’re capable of – live life well.’
Kate has spent many a night lying in bed feeling like she hasn’t done anything with her life, but since she fell in love with Nick, those feelings have dissipated. She somehow saw a happy relationship as the finish line of a marathon.
‘I’ll go out with Martin once,’ says Kate, folding her arms, as if that were protection against the onslaught that is Cecily.
‘Fine – take it one step at a time if you’re the timorous type.’
‘But what if Nick turns round tomorrow and says he’s ready to commit?’
‘Never play chess with a pigeon, and certainly don’t play it twice,’ says Cecily, drawing her head back in horror.
‘Is that another metaphor, Mrs Finn?’
‘That’s surely a rhetorical question,’ says Cecily, frowning in confusion. ‘Well, I suppose either way it’s sage.’ She shrugs, reaching for another all-butter shortbread. ‘Embark on a game of skill with a flying vermin and it cannot end well.’
Kate is in no mood for metaphors and even less so for Cecily’s cryptic nonsense. ‘More tea?’ she says, reaching for the pot. ‘Remind me, Mrs Finn, what’s on the menu for “Dinner for a Charming Stranger”?’
‘Boeuf aux Champignons, then Torrone Molle for dessert – that’s a nougat you make in advance so you can spend more time on the night being seductive. I learned to make it on our honeymoon in Italy, so it was a bit of a fudge in the book, but still . . .’
‘How do you remember every menu from that book?’
‘I remember almost every significant meal of my life.’
‘Your memory is amazing. Er, what do you mean your life?’
‘ “Dinner for a Charming Stranger”? That’s the first meal I ever cooked Samuel – the beef part was. I actually made profiteroles for dessert, entirely the wrong choice, far too labour-intensive when all I wanted was to be sitting at the table listening to him talk.’
‘Hold on, I thought Samuel was your husband?’
‘My husband and my best friend.’
‘Right, yes, but hang on,’ says Kate, trying to work out the maths. ‘You were almost forty when you met him?’
Cecily frowns in irritation. ‘I never said that. I was twenty when we married. Papa would have sent me to a nunnery if I’d left it much later.’
‘The book was published in 1957, wasn’t it? I’m pretty sure you lent me a first edition? The one with the pink and yellow cover?’
‘There was only a first edition, more’s the pity, or we’d have been able to buy a second home in Capri when we lived there in the sixties.’
‘Thought for Food was published in 1957, but you were already married to Samuel by then?’
‘The wedding was more than two decades earlier. Where is your miscomprehension coming from?’
‘Well, how can the first meal you cooked for him be from a book that wasn’t published till twenty-something years after you cooked it?’
‘You’re talking about my book?’ says Cecily, giving Kate a quizzical look.
‘Now that sounds like a rhetorical question,’ says Kate in utter confusion.
‘That book is one of my books,’ says Cecily, as if she’s expecting something more from Kate.
‘Well, of course.’ Kate feels a small twitch of anxiety. This is the first time she’s seen Cecily anything less than pin-sharp. ‘Thought for Food, from right there on your shelf?’ says Kate more slowly, hoping this might aid Cecily’s comprehension.
‘Why are you speaking as though I’m the idiot in the room?’
‘What have I done now?’
‘Why do you think I lent you that book?’
‘You said choose any book. You thought a cookery book would cheer me up.’
‘You didn’t choose the book, cretin, the book chose you. I chose the book for you, I wrote the damn thing!’
‘What?’
‘I. Wrote. That. Book.’
‘But . . . No, you – but . . . what?’ says Kate, trying to read from Cecily’s incredulous expression whether Cecily is winding her up or not.
Cecily blows out a puff of air and looks to her left and right as if seeking back-up from an invisible audience. ‘One of us has had a stroke during this conversation and I’m reasonably confident it isn’t me.’
Kate’s mouth opens and her lips move but her brain hasn’t quite caught up with her.
‘Young lady, why is this so difficult for you to understand?’
‘Because I assume you’d have mentioned this fact to me earlier! Because your name is not Esther Shavin. Or is it? Were you a spy too?’
‘For goodness’ sake, it’s a
simple pseudonym. Esther was my best friend at school,’ says Cecily, waving the comment away.
‘Oh my goodness,’ says Kate, shaking her head. ‘I did wonder how you knew all the page numbers by heart.’
Cecily is now the one lost for words. ‘You actually thought I could remember every word of every book on these shelves down to the page number?’ She lets out a shriek of laughter. ‘If so, you have my full permission to sell me to the circus. You’ll make some money and I’ll get to ride an elephant before I die.’
‘So you wrote that book, and a children’s book, and several films?’
‘I told you I went to Hollywood, did you think I was fibbing?’
‘How come you went to Hollywood?’
‘Oh, they were interested in remaking one of the films I wrote, The Man Who Liked Funerals. We went out there in 1968 and I sat in endless meetings with studio executives for weeks. They were promising Peter Sellers would star, but it all fell through, these things often do. Thank goodness Samuel was by my side. Every night I’d come back to our motel room, thoroughly dejected, but he’d always make me laugh and realise how lucky I was,’ she says with a deep sigh.
‘So hold on – can we go back to Thought for Food? I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me you wrote it.’
‘I credited you with some intelligence.’
‘Or deliberately misled me . . . How many copies did you sell?’
‘I didn’t make a fortune, but enough to eat well, and for us to spend the following ten years or so in Italy.’
‘It must have been a bestseller.’
‘Not at all. But after the book was published I had the strongest hankering to go back to Italy. Samuel and I had been for our honeymoon, it was the place we’d been happiest. We went to Rome, then decided there was no reason not to stay a while, and a while turned into nearly a decade. I wrote another book there, and when money started to run out, I ended up writing screenplays. We moved cities a few times, to Genoa, Florence, Palermo . . .’
‘How utterly glamorous! And what did Samuel do?’
‘We didn’t live in high style, but it was simple and wonderful. The sunshine, those fantastic food markets, the glorious architecture. I wrote in the day and cooked at night, it was an absolute tonic. It was only when they produced my first film that we returned to England, and then there was the failed Hollywood experience. Anyway, now you know I’m the book’s author, I trust you’ll use it wisely.’
‘I’m still amazed,’ says Kate, grinning. ‘And this was your life? These menus are autobiographical?’
‘A touch of poetic licence here and there,’ says Cecily coyly, rubbing her fingers together as if sprinkling more salt into her soup.
‘Which bits are true? “Dinner for Your Son’s Fiancée” – do you have a son?’ Kate had assumed Cecily had no family, but perhaps they’re estranged, which wouldn’t be too surprising.
‘We had no children. That was a meal my mother-in-law Shindel cooked for me.’
‘Ah, so you switched the perspective around. What was on the menu again?’
‘Gooseberry fool, and a warning to maintain her standards of cooking.’
‘Mrs Finn, please tell me how you met Samuel? He sounds wonderful.’
‘Yes, yes, another time,’ says Cecily, settling herself into an incredibly long yawn. ‘I’m tired, and your foolishness exhausts me.’
‘Why are you so mean sometimes?’
‘Because I can be,’ snaps Cecily. ‘Now get one of the Filipinas to bring me a headache tablet.’ She closes her eyes and breathes out heavily through her nose.
‘Shall I see you next Sunday?’ says Kate, hovering awkwardly by her chair.
‘If you have progress, yes. Otherwise don’t waste my time.’
‘Right-oh. Well, let me know if you need me to bring you anything.’
Cecily shoos her away with an irritable flick.
Chapter Twenty-six
‘HAVE YOU BEEN OPENING my mail?’ says Kate, giving Rita her best outraged face.
Rita finishes stirring sweetener into her cappuccino and stares blankly at Kate.
‘I’ve just sent a stroppy email to that poor bookseller in Lancashire telling him the two books I ordered are late, and here’s one of them, which must have been sitting on your bedside table for weeks.’
‘People always ask questions they already know the answers to,’ says Rita, scraping a thin layer of margarine onto her toast. ‘You know I opened your mail because you’ve found the book – you’re holding it in your hand – so why ask if I’ve opened it?’
‘Is that supposed to be an apology?’
‘You’re living under my roof. You can’t expect me to put reading glasses on to examine every single piece of mail that arrives in my own letterbox. I was waiting for a book Patrick sent me, you’d had several packages, how was I to know you had more on the way? It was an accident,’ says Rita, giving the marmalade lid a sharp twist.
‘You’re the one always quoting Freud saying “There are no accidents” . . .’
Rita lets out an irritated sigh.
‘And at the point when you realised you’d opened my mail,’ says Kate, ‘a normal mother would have put the books back in the jiffy bag and put the jiffy bag in my room, rather than steal those books and “forget” she’s stolen them, and now front it out like it’s my fault.’
‘Aren’t you going to be late for work?’
‘Well?’
‘It looked like an interesting book. I noticed you’d ordered multiple copies. I didn’t think you’d miss it, and I was right.’
‘Have you ever apologised for anything in your life? Plus, I ordered two copies – where’s the other one?’
Rita tips her head back and runs a finger along her eyebrow. ‘Gerry Marks happened to pop round. She liked the look of it. I said she could borrow it. She’s always bringing me books, it’s the least I could do.’
‘Sorry, you’ve given away one of my books that you stole because you owe Gerry a favour? In what universe is this acceptable?’
‘In one where I pushed you out of my body over an excruciating twenty-hour labour. Anyway, she’ll give it back once Jeremy’s had a look. Why were you ordering so many copies?’
‘Because it happens to have been written by the old lady I visit.’
‘Oh! Really? You didn’t tell me she was a writer.’
‘Because you’ve never asked a single thing about her.’
‘Was she successful?’
‘Why?’
Rita shrugs. ‘I wonder if there might be a little windfall coming your way. Is that why you’re so attentive, round there all the time, while neglecting your own flesh and blood?’
‘I’m not going to dignify that.’
‘Oh come on, where’s your sense of humour? It’s in the book, anyway.’
‘What is?’
‘A little limerick about ingratiating yourself with a rich old relative – look it up, “Lunch for a Wealthy Benefactor” or something,’ she says, grabbing the book from Kate. ‘Where are we . . . ah, page thirty-eight, “Luncheon for a Wealthy Aunt”:
‘My aunt, she died a month ago,
And left me all her riches.
A feather bed and a wooden leg,
And a pair of calico breeches.
‘Aim: to express your pleasure at entertaining such a rare guest, and to intimate that you are unlikely to squander any monies she’d like to drop in your lap. Menu: grilled halibut . . . ’
‘Give that back,’ says Kate, grabbing the book and stroking the cover tenderly. ‘What do you mean, Gerry’s showing it to Jeremy? Why?’
‘He runs the publishing company now, they’re always looking for good ideas.’
‘Oh right – so not content with stealing my mail, you’re now planning to mug an old lady for her idea, marvellous.’
‘You know what? I think you should move in with Nick and make his life a misery instead of mine. Maybe then I can enjoy a pi
ece of toast in my own home on a Monday morning without being accused of being a criminal. Oh, and while you are still here, we’ve finalised a date for the Heathview AGM.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You’re in charge of catering. Put it in your diary, it’s the Thursday after your birthday. I’ll be back from Lanzarote the night before.’
‘Lanzarote?’
‘Breathing retreat.’
‘You’re missing my fortieth?’
‘No point buying in sandwiches for the AGM when you can do it better.’
‘I’d like my book back from Gerry, please.’
‘We’ll give you fifty quid for it.’
‘For the book?’
‘For the catering, silly.’
‘Oh, you don’t need to pay me.’
‘I want you to do a good job.’
‘You don’t need to pay me because I’m not doing it.’
‘Nothing too greasy – some elegant salmon one-bites might be nice.’
‘I am not interested.’
‘Oh fine, we’ll give you a hundred pounds and you can’t say no because you’re living here rent-free. Now hurry up and go to work before you lose your job as well as your boyfriend.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
Project: Eggcellent Easter at Fletchers
Launch/upgrade of 12 x Easter Eggs.
Pack copy to include 6 x alliterations – Sophisticated Salted Caramel, Marvellous Marmalade; 6 x rhyming adjectives – i.e., Silky Milk Chocolate IS acceptable.
If no solution can be found, the following descriptors must be used: Eggsquisite, Eggcellent, Eggceptional.
KATE ARRIVES AT WORK extra early on Tuesday, at 7 a.m., hoping to produce a dazzling response to Devron’s brief for next year’s Easter Eggs. She’s had to write the same weary puns year after year, each time worrying that she might be the one to crack, but this year it’s essential she pulls something magnificent out of the bag. She cannot be jobless this Christmas, not jobless and single and forty – just no.
After an hour she’s finished the copy for the first five eggs but is struggling with the orange and ginger one. If she was allowed a qualifier for ‘Orange’ – ‘Seville’, or ‘Bitter’ – life would be easier, but Devron thinks no one knows what ‘Seville’ refers to and that ‘Bitter’ is off-putting, so the descriptor has to start with an ‘o’. Overpriced . . . Odious . . .? She senses a solution just out of reach and closes her eyes to concentrate. She’s so close she can almost touch it when Annalex emits a loud grunt, disrupting her chain of thought.
The Woman Who Wanted More Page 13
