Kate stares down at her three scarlet nails and seven unpainted ones. She visualises the state of her bikini line – approaching that of a Greek waiter with a chromosomal abnormality.
It’s already 3.15 p.m., she still needs to buy flowers, make bread, tidy the flat and lay the table before Nick arrives at 8 p.m. She pictures the lovely, relaxing, indulgent dinner they’re going to enjoy – which will be even more enjoyable if she has good nails and a chance to do things at a reasonable pace.
Then she pictures Cecily, hunched over in her chair, in pain.
She hangs up and asks the manicurist if she can have the rest of the bottle of nail polish to go.
*
Cecily is lying in bed wearing a pink quilted house jacket, a glass of ginger beer on her side table. Her cheeks are flushed but she looks well rested. She smiles brightly when she sees the tray of soup Kate is carrying.
‘No need to bring it this afternoon, dear,’ says Cecily, her expression entirely innocent.
Kate’s smile falters. ‘Sorry?’
‘There was no hurry. I’m seeing you tomorrow, aren’t I?’
‘Right, OK, well, that wasn’t the message I received,’ says Kate, frowning.
‘Was it not?’
‘I was told it was urgent.’
‘Oh well, that’s Bernadette for you, half daft, never listens. I told you about the time I asked her to make fiskepudding and she made it with mackerel? Why not go the whole hog and make it with horse?’
‘Yes, I know about the fiskepudding and the wrong fish – and I also know you said you needed this chicken soup immediately because you were very poorly.’
‘A misunderstanding,’ says Cecily, reaching for Kate to haul her up in bed.
Kate rests the tray on the floor, then holds out her hands. Cecily grabs them tightly, her fingers pinching Kate’s as she shifts herself up in bed, then calmly smooths her bedcovers while Kate sets up the tray over her lap, placing a spoon in her outstretched hand.
‘Looks like soup,’ says Cecily, nodding appreciatively at the bowl of broth. ‘Only one carrot, though,’ she wades her spoon steadily back and forth through the noodles as if sifting for gold. ‘Could have brought it tomorrow . . .’
Kate bites her tongue in irritation, too hard, and tastes blood. ‘You know what, Mrs Finn? I think I’m going to double-check with Bernadette what you said.’
‘I wouldn’t bother, if I were you, she gets quite irritable.’
‘I will bother, because it was quite a lot of bother for me to sit in traffic on a bus full of feral teenage girls for an hour and a half, and then arrive at the deli you sent me to only to discover that it’s shut on a Saturday.’
‘Oh,’ says Cecily laughing. ‘It’s Shabbat, of course it’s shut.’
‘Of course it’s shut, so then I panicked and had to get a taxi because the Victoria line’s down, to the next-best Jewish deli that’s actually open, which is all the way back in St John’s Wood, then on the way back here in a second cab, hot soup spilled all over my lap because the idiot in the shop didn’t put the lid on the carton properly and there are far too many speed bumps in London, and so the whole enterprise has taken the best part of three hours.’ And thirty-eight pounds she could have done without spending, but she restrains herself from mentioning this.
‘This is from Harry Morgan’s?’ says Cecily, pulling a face to say that if she’d known that she wouldn’t be enjoying it half as much.
‘That’s right, Mrs Finn – miles away.’
‘That depends entirely on your starting point. In that case you definitely should have waited till tomorrow – then at least you could have bought it from the right place.’
Kate takes an extra-long deep breath and lets it out to the count of ten. ‘I thought you had terrible pains in your stomach? I thought you were faint?’
‘I did. I was. Turns out it was trapped wind, terribly painful at my age. The Parkinson’s exacerbates it, and those calcium tablets don’t help the bowels much either. You really can’t strain too hard in your nineties or you’re at risk of your tail popping out. I’m sure Rappapot strains herself deliberately down there once a week just so she can have people make an extra fuss over her bottom, attention-seeking hypochondriac.’
‘Oh good grief,’ says Kate, rubbing her hands over her face.
‘What on earth are those fingernails?’
‘I was in the middle of a manicure. For tonight.’
‘Oh. Doing anything special?’
‘You know exactly what I’m doing!’
‘Do I? Oh, right, yes, I do, don’t I? Oh well, no good deed goes unpunished,’ says Cecily, chuckling. ‘I presume you’ve done most of the prep anyway, what difference?’
‘The difference, or rather the point, is that you made a whole big deal the other day about being my friend, yet you think it’s funny to mess up what’s a big night for me. I’ve been through the wringer with Nick over the last three months, and this dinner matters a lot. And I was going to make home-made bread, and at this rate I won’t have time.’
‘Oh, don’t take it all so seriously, dear. So what if I did indulge myself? I’m bored. Bored, exhausted, full of ennui, which, as you may know, is a French word meaning—’
‘Yes, I know what ennui means.’
‘And Weltschmerz?’
‘Welsh who?’
‘A-ha! It’s a German word, meaning world-weariness, pain.’
‘Well, maybe if you ever left this room you might feel less weltschmerzy. You could easily have come to the Matisse earlier, then you wouldn’t have had to try to ruin what’s left of my love life.’
‘If every step you took felt like daggers, you wouldn’t leave your room either.’
‘Yeah, well, if you walked with a proper frame like Mrs Gaffney says you should, your joints might not feel like daggers.’
‘One of those heavy lumbersome frames? Ridiculous, I’m far too young for one of those. Now look, dear, I’m a very old lady—’
‘You just said you were too young for a frame.’
‘Humour me. I’m touched you came. The soup is fine. Not as good as mine, mind you. I used to make chicken soup all the time for Samuel, it was his favourite. I was still making it well into my eighties,’ she says, getting misty-eyed.
‘Uh-huh,’ says Kate, glancing at her watch: 6.02 p.m. The home-made bread needs two hours for the dough to rest and forty minutes to bake.
‘I always used to give him the last kneidlach, and he’d cut it in half and give me back the slightly bigger half – technically not a half, but still. Such a shame you forgot the kneidlach – I did make it clear to Bernadette. Perhaps she didn’t pass that on either.’
‘Kneidlach?’ says Kate distractedly.
‘The matzah balls, they’re the best bit,’ she says, slurping her spoon noisily. ‘If I’m being really honest, it’s not hot enough. Be a dear, would you? Go to the kitchen and reheat this till it’s piping hot,’ she says, pushing the bowl with both hands deliberately slowly towards Kate. ‘On the hob, not in a microwave, that radiation will kill me.’
If the radiation doesn’t, I will, thinks Kate.
‘When you come back, I can tell you all about the chicken soup we ate in Hawaii, quite delicious, made with pineapple, of all things! Did I tell you we went to Kauai for a whole month for my seventieth? Hanalei Bay, the most glorious place, we danced under the stars every night. The colours of the sea, what an island! Better than this miserable island, we should never have come back . . .’
‘I’m afraid Hawaii will have to wait till tomorrow,’ says Kate, checking her watch again – she won’t have time to buy flowers either, and if she doesn’t leave right now she’ll be hosting her seductive dinner in soup-soaked leggings.
‘You can’t rush off, you’ve only just got here – it’s incredibly discourteous.’
‘I need to go now.’
‘If you don’t have the decency to stay today, don’t bother coming tomorrow.’
<
br /> ‘Don’t be like that. I’ll take this to the kitchen, and I’ll see you tomorrow, OK? I’ll make sure to tell Bernadette you want it piping hot.’
‘Fresh bread wouldn’t work anyway,’ says Cecily, shoulders drooping in defeat. ‘It’s too heavy – you already have the potatoes with the chicken.’
‘I’m going to go now.’
‘You might as well surrender all your remaining dignity and beg the damn pigeon to love you.’
‘Enjoy your hot soup,’ says Kate, walking out of the room without turning back.
Kate takes the bowl to Bernadette, who promptly confirms Cecily’s order: ‘urgent and immediate soup, don’t spare the horses.’
‘Would you mind taking it in?’ says Kate. ‘I’ve had my fill of her for one day.’
Chapter Forty-one
THE BREAD HAS FALLEN by the wayside, as have the roses. Kate’s had to lay the table and tidy up in a frog-like sideways squat-waddle due to the emergency Nair smeared on her bikini line.
Was she too mean to Cecily before? Or not mean enough? Rita’s right, Kate does need to enforce better boundaries, certainly with that woman.
It’s now nearly 8 p.m. The flat looks beautiful. Kate can’t see it herself but Kate looks beautiful too, her hair loosely swept to one side, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the kitchen and residual irritation from earlier.
Nick texts to say he’s ten minutes away and she feels the same surge of excitement she feels whenever she’s about to see him. It’s not butterflies – it’s the anticipation of happiness which feels just as good as happiness – it’s the thought of being reunited with her favourite person.
The doorbell rings. Nick’s standing in his smart navy trousers and a crisp white shirt, shyly holding a bunch of pink peonies. He always has this sweet self-consciousness about him whenever he correctly pulls off anything vaguely romantic. Cara says Kate needs to train Nick, as clearly no woman ever has. This appals Kate, as it makes him sound like a dog – although Cara does treat men like basic animals and she does get results.
Nick’s eyes sparkle at the sight of her, and the couple greet each other with a kiss and a look of mutual adoration. Kate feels like she’s on a TV show – an almost-domestic goddess with three perfect scarlet fingernails and seven slightly smudgier ones, no longer smelling of prawns, opening the door for her handsome boyfriend on a perfect Saturday night. On the dining table candles are lit; the lights are dimmed. She’s doing this dinner entirely by the book.
‘Something smells amazing,’ says Nick as Kate pours him a glass of white wine and he takes a seat on the edge of Rita’s sofa. ‘I’m scared of your mum’s flat, everything’s so pristine.’
‘Expect an electric shock off that coffee table if you don’t place your glass directly in the centre of that coaster,’ says Kate, laughing as Nick flashes a grin and puts his glass straight on the table momentarily before gingerly placing it back on the coaster with a look of fear.
‘So how was night shift?’ she says, noticing the slight dark circles under his eyes. ‘Was it full on?’
‘Yeah, but fun,’ says Nick, enthusiastically. ‘We’re doing the big switchover next month so I’m working through trials with the team. The infrastructure is so old, I can’t believe they haven’t had more system crashes.’
With any other boyfriend she might feel suspicious that these regular Friday all-nighters at the office were a cover-up for something more sinister, but she’s seen for herself the way Nick’s eyes light up when he talks data – it’s the same way other men’s do when they see a pair of black lacy knickers.
‘Will you be working nights a lot between now and then?’
‘Once or twice a week – but they pay overtime, and besides, I love it.’
‘I think I might be jealous of your job.’
‘Because I spend so much time there?’
‘No, I meant I’m jealous of you. I wish I loved my job the way you love yours,’ says Kate, pouring more wine and recalling her sense of anticlimax when she’d found out she was keeping her job.
‘Fletchers pays the bills, though, doesn’t it?’ says Nick.
‘That’s about all it does. Anyway, are you hungry?’
‘Hell, yeah. What’s for dinner? That smell is making my stomach rumble.’
‘It’s a menu from the cookery book I was telling you about, the one Mrs Finn wrote. Scampi, then chicken – come, see,’ says Kate, getting up and heading to the kitchen.
‘Home-made scampi? Sounds incredible,’ he says, eagerly following her through.
‘I wish you’d been here to help undress these,’ she says, flashing him a traumatised look as she shows him the prawns. ‘Such hard work.’
‘I love doing all that. We make a perfect team in the kitchen, don’t we?’
‘We do.’
‘Cooking’s way more fun when you’re around. I really do miss you. A lot.’
‘You don’t need to miss me,’ says Kate. ‘I’m right here.’
He leans closer, then kisses her. He holds her face in his hands and their lips lock tight, a seal of intention. They stay standing in the kiss for a good five minutes before reluctantly she breaks away.
‘Give us a hand with the deep-fat frying, then,’ she says. ‘I’ve got a fear of chip-pan fire after all those TV ads in the eighties, and Mum definitely won’t forgive me if I burn the flat down. I can just hear her now. “Freud says there are no accidents”.’
Nick laughs. ‘You and your mum bicker all the time. You’ve done well to live together for so long.’
‘I didn’t have much choice!’ says Kate, cursing the fact that she can’t maintain the sweetness and light version of herself for more than five minutes. ‘Right, you heat the oil, I’ll manoeuvre these poor buggers into their oily grave. I can still see their beady eyes staring into my soul.’
*
Thought for Food was right, thinks Kate, as she lies on the sofa, Nick’s head resting in her lap; you really can get what you want with a plateful of deep-fried golden morsels. And that chicken was so tender, and the sauce the type you only ever find in a good French restaurant, so intensely flavourful. The potatoes were nothing short of a miracle. The cake was the perfect ending – light, sweet and satisfying.
Nick has been attentive beyond measure, holding her hair back while she fried the prawns, stroking her knee while they were eating. His appetite was a pleasure to behold – he ate seconds of everything. He’d jokingly tried to feed her strawberries in a Nine and a Half Weeks style, before they’d collapsed into giggles. Now they’re relaxing on the sofa with two glasses of Bourbon, just like they used to, except they’re at Rita’s, which makes it feel different and new and ever so slightly naughty.
Kate gently scratches the back of Nick’s head. He purrs like a cat with pleasure and she leans down to kiss him. Her heart aches for all the unnecessary nonsense of the last few months, but sometimes you have to go through a storm to reach the shore. Who on earth said relationships should be easy? Finding an efficient, easy-to-clean garlic crusher isn’t easy, why on earth would love be?
Nick undoes a couple of buttons in the middle of his shirt and taps his full stomach. ‘That was the perfect dinner, those potatoes!’
‘And you liked the cake? I changed her recipe slightly and she thought I shouldn’t have.’
‘Whose recipe?’
‘Mrs Finn’s.’
‘The cake was fantastic. I probably shouldn’t have had that second slice,’ he says, grabbing her hand and laying it on his belly as if to feel a baby kick.
‘I went to see her this morning.’
‘Who?’
‘Mrs Finn.’
‘I thought you normally see her on Sundays?’
‘I took her a cake. She said she had stomach ache.’
‘After your cake? You haven’t poisoned me because of France, have you? Was this your plan all along? Get me round here, you looking beautiful, then you Lucrezia Borgia me?’
‘She barel
y touched her slice – but then I get a call this afternoon telling me I have to go there with emergency first-aid soup. I race to this particular deli in Stamford Hill, then to St John’s Wood – and when, eventually, I get to her, she’s fine, even perkier than usual, enlivened! I actually think she deliberately wanted to disrupt my day.’
Nick shakes his head in confusion. ‘Why didn’t you just say no to her in the first place?’
‘I thought she was ill. Plus, if you met her, you’d understand – she’s not the type you say no to. And also she’s got no one else anymore – I feel bad for her.’
Nick shrugs. ‘But she’s not your responsibility.’
‘I guess it’s never the wrong thing to be kind, though.’ Not that Kate was particularly kind today, but she doesn’t mention that part, nor the reason why Cecily might want to sabotage Kate’s plans. ‘You never knew your grandparents, did you?’
‘Dad was estranged from his parents, and Mum’s folks died when she was still young. I think that’s what turned her to religion.’
‘Weird, isn’t it? How tragedy makes people either have more faith, or none whatsoever.’
‘I was talking about this to my shrink the other day.’
‘About religion?’
‘About Mum – he said having a parent as religious as she was is like having a parent who’s an alcoholic. They’re both addicted to something outside the family.’ His brow creases as he tries to explain the theory. ‘So she was addicted to Jesus, not vodka, but he says it amounts to the same sort of thing.’
‘Interesting. You’re still getting a lot out of therapy, then?’
‘Honestly,’ he says, beaming, ‘it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.’ He gazes at her and takes a deep, contented sigh, then grabs her hand. ‘Kate – thank you for being so patient and standing by me through all this.’ He squeezes her hand and she can see there are tears in his eyes. ‘We have such a good thing, don’t we?’
‘There was nothing ever wrong with us, Nick. I could see on holiday you were freaking out about being so close to someone. At least I think that was it, wasn’t it?’
He nods eagerly. ‘I couldn’t put it into words because I didn’t have the language, but I’ve never been as close to anyone as I am to you, and it scared me.’
The Woman Who Wanted More Page 20
