by Rosie Clarke
Peggy nodded, her cheeks wet with tears. In Gillian’s mind, she’d been attacking the woman who beat her, not the woman who had shown her kindness. She must have come looking for Peggy but was too far gone by then to know that she’d found her and when she called out, it had startled her into making that feverish attack. ‘So, we know the truth at last,’ Peggy said. ‘Now what happens?’
‘We’ve got Olive in the cells and she told us where Nate Parker has been hiding. I’ll have them both in court, Peggy, and I’ll throw the book at them – but what punishment they get will be down to the judge.’
‘Yes, I know. Let’s hope he locks them up for years,’ Peggy said. ‘And what of Mr Want?’
‘I’ve told Mr Want he is in the clear so you won’t be bothered again.’
‘Thank you,’ Peggy sighed and invited him to sit down for a cup of tea and a cake. ‘You’ve put my mind at rest, Sergeant. I couldn’t save that poor girl from those wicked people – but at least they will be punished for their crimes.’
‘If I had my way, I’d hang the lot of them!’ he said. ‘But I dare say it will be prison for a few years…’
‘The law is the law,’ Peggy said, ‘and we have to abide by it – but at least we’ve done all we could.’
Later, when Able came home, Peggy told him what had happened and he didn’t look surprised. ‘I knew Poole would dig until he got the truth, Peggy. He was determined.’ He sighed. ‘It was partly Gillian’s own fault. If we’d known the facts from the start, the police might have done something sooner. She lied about the name of the man who abused her and she should have told us the whole story. Poole would have gone after the lot of them and she might still have been alive.’
‘I think she was too frightened and too muddled in her head,’ Peggy said. ‘Perhaps even that first time when I brought her home it was too late.’
‘Yes, it probably was,’ Able agreed. ‘Anyway, it is over now, hon, and we have to look forward to the future.’
32
‘I’ll be thinking of you,’ Maureen said when she popped into Peggy’s kitchen that morning in mid-November, when the competition was due to be held at the prestigious hotel. ‘I just wish I could be there, cheering you on.’
‘Able is taking me and he’s loading the car now,’ Peggy told her and smiled. ‘He is more nervous than I am – because I don’t mind. I’m happy, Maureen, and I’m on firm ground. Whatever kind of cooker there is I can adjust, because I’ve made it in Sheila’s electric oven, my own gas oven and Rose’s range as well as Sheila’s. I know how long to time it all and the rest is like sleepwalking.’
Maureen laughed and hugged her. ‘Well, good luck, love. I know the judges won’t fail to love your apple pies and the new cake is delicious – and the jam is one of your best batches.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Peggy assured her. ‘I have everything I need in life so this competition is just fun to me.’
‘We’ll all be cheering you on,’ Maureen told her. ‘I’ll be waiting to hear what it was like when you get back.’
Peggy smiled. ‘Don’t be nervous, love. I’m not.’
It seemed that half the folk in the lanes had turned out to cheer her on as Able brought the car round and all her ready-made cakes, jams and raw ingredients were loaded into the back. He gave her a loving smile as she slid into the front seat and waved at her friends.
‘Now don’t worry about anything,’ he told her as he drove off. ‘Pearl will look after the guests and Alice will give the twins their breakfast before Maureen takes them to school.’
‘I’m not worried,’ she said. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m excited, Able. I think it will be fun to see all the marvellous things other people cook. Yes, I’m a decent plain cook, but I’ve never thought I was exceptional.’
Able laughed and shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t, but I don’t think it all hinges on the cooking, Peggy. To get as far as you have, you must have had a lot of votes for all kinds of things. Didn’t you read all that stuff they sent you?’
‘Not much,’ Peggy admitted. ‘I’ve had other things to do and think about. As far as I’m concerned, Fay’s figure-skating event next weekend is more important.’
Able nodded, concentrating on his driving for a while. Peggy’s thoughts turned to the actual cooking she was about to do and she checked off her mental list. Yes, she had all she needed, so now she was just going to enjoy herself.
The grandeur inside the Savoy Hotel caught Peggy’s breath as she saw it for only the second time. The intricate Art Nouveau chandeliers, plush furniture and shining floors, took her breath away. She went to the reception, as the letter she’d received had told her to, and was taken through the back rooms to the heart of the busy hotel. On arrival in the hotel’s kitchens, Peggy discovered that she was one of the first and was told she could choose her cooking station. She chose the one at the end of the line because it was close to the huge ovens, fridges, and sinks. Each station had its own hob, which she thought was ideal and she started to unpack her tins and jars. There were already two other competitors present, but only one came up to her and offered to shake hands.
‘Hi, I’m Laura Kennedy,’ she said. ‘I run a boarding house in Sussex – I think you’re Peggy Ronoscki, aren’t you?’
‘How did you know?’ Peggy was surprised as she shook hands.
‘I read all the stuff about the other entrants and I heard Ralph – that’s the man who welcomed you – call you Mrs Ronoscki.’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t read everything. I think my husband did, but I’ve had a lot of more important stuff to cope with…’
‘More important than this?’ Laura looked shocked. ‘It could mean so much to the winner. Whoever it is gets that money prize, which is fabulous, but the publicity is priceless. Even by getting this far, it should bring in lots of new customers. This is a countrywide event, not a small regional one.’
‘I see – well, good luck. I hope you get what you want from today. I’m here for a bit of fun and to see how the other half lives.’
‘You mean this hotel,’ Laura nodded. ‘I’d love to run a hotel one day – but, of course, I could never afford something like this.’
A murmur of excited voices announced the arrival of the other contestants and then Ralph was talking, telling them the rules and how long they would have to prepare each meal. Peggy listened in astonishment. It would take her half the time to complete her menu… but Ralph was telling them something more and she needed to listen hard to pick up what he was saying.
‘If you get your set menus into the ovens, there is another little challenge awaiting you. Head chef Rene is going to give you one of his own dishes to prepare.’
‘That wasn’t in the stuff you sent us,’ Laura objected. ‘How can we prepare for something we don’t know about?’
‘That is the whole point,’ Ralph replied with a wolfish smile. ‘As landladies, you have to be prepared for any requests.’
‘Not in my house,’ one of the other contestants said firmly. ‘I do a set menu and that’s it…’
‘It is up to you,’ Ralph smiled and Peggy decided she didn’t like him. He was enjoying throwing that at them and clearly some of them wouldn’t have time to fit in anything extra. Peggy thought it was unfair just to spring it on them. Obviously, it was a test of their skills, but they should have had warning.
They were told to start preparation and given the time the food needed to be ready to be tasted, Peggy realised there would be a gap between her preparation and cooking if she was to have the food piping hot.
‘Could I take the surprise challenge once I’ve done my preparation?’ she asked. ‘My menu won’t take half this time…’
Ralph looked surprised but agreed and said if she let him know when she was ready, he would send Rene over.
Peggy could already see the varied array of foods that were being used. It ranged from chicken, best steak, to salmon and prawns and lots of different fruits and vegetables. Surely the
se landladies never served food like this! It seemed all wrong to cook something that would never be on a guesthouse menu to Peggy. She smiled inwardly as she thought of her humble offering. Why would they pretend to be something they weren’t? She supposed it must just be the prize that had made them try. It was as well she’d stuck to what she knew her guests liked, because it would be useless to compete with food like this – Laura even had something on her station that Peggy thought was a truffle, though she’d never bought one.
Peggy’s preparation was done in half an hour. All the others were sweating over fancy pastry and special sauces. Peggy covered her pies with clean muslin and told Ralph she was ready for the surprise challenge.
He looked incredulous but, true to his word, directed her to the chef’s station. Rene welcomed her with a handshake and then told her that he wanted a scallop dish prepared with three sauces and a side salad. He showed her once what he did and how the dish was supposed to look.
Peggy smiled. It was one of Able’s favourite dishes for special occasions and she always did scallops for his birthday or their anniversary. The sauces were new to her, but she liked the taste and the method was simple enough, or so it seemed to Peggy. She prepared the sauces in advance and then cooked the scallops so that they were still soft inside and a little browned on the outside and presented the dish to match his with a tiny salad, artistically dripping the sauces over the meal.
Rene came to look and turned the dish this way and that before tasting. He smiled as he found the seafood perfectly prepared and the sauces looked and tasted more or less as his did, though one was slightly different.
‘The piquant sauce is rather sharper than mine,’ he told her, ‘but otherwise very good, Peggy. You can work as my sous-chef whenever you wish.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied and glanced at her watch. ‘It’s time for me to start cooking – it was nice to learn something new.’
Rene nodded and she went back to her station to pop her pies in the oven and prepare the soup for her starter. Some of the others were beginning to follow the chef’s instructions and make his dish now, but others were still fussing with the complicated menus they were preparing.
Peggy noticed that Laura was dithering over something she’d prepared in pastry and looked hot and bothered. It made her even more pleased that she hadn’t gone that route. She might have managed it, but she might have found it hard in the time and, besides, why pretend to be something she wasn’t? Some of the meals being cooked would never be served in Peggy’s boarding house. It just wouldn’t be viable. Her guests were looking for good, honest food at a reasonable price and that was what she gave them. Peggy could cook fancy dishes, as she’d just shown by preparing the scallops, but she wouldn’t dream of cooking beef Wellington or pheasant, as one of the landladies had, for her guests, because of the expense – it was nonsense as far as she was concerned. That kind of stuff was for big hotels not a guesthouse! She didn’t understand why they’d done it.
Seeing that Laura was getting flustered, she went over to her and asked if she could help with anything.
‘Really, you’d help me?’ Laura looked disbelieving.
‘Yes – if there’s anything I can do?’
‘Could you make my grapefruit and orange salad please. I’ll put the dressing on myself, if you could cut the slices for me…?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Peggy agreed. She peeled the oranges and grapefruit, got rid of the pith and skin and arranged them in the glass dish Laura had provided for her starter. ‘Anything else?’ she asked as Laura finished mixing her final sauce.
‘No, that was the only thing worrying me, because I normally prepare them early in the day and leave them in the fridge.’ Laura beamed at her. ‘It was really kind of you.’
Peggy shook her head and walked back to her oven just to check. Everything looked just about right with five minutes to go. Laura wasn’t going to have time to do the surprise challenge and nor were three others, all of whom looked pink-cheeked and glanced at Ralph in annoyance. It was clear they thought they’d been misinformed by the omission and were angry that they hadn’t allowed themselves time to manage the extra challenge.
When Peggy took her apple pie out of the oven, it smelled delicious. She thought it looked slightly browner on one side that it would normally be at home, but the rest of it was fine, and her shepherds’ pie was just the right shade of golden. They were given six plates each and they were told to provide a portion they would expect to serve in the guest house.
‘Well!’ a woman next to Peggy said. ‘They might have told us how many we had to provide for.’
Her dishes were fancy and the foods she’d used expensive, but when placed on six plates, the portions looked small. Peggy had cooked her usual pies which served eight people, so she had plenty and some left over. She hadn’t even considered how many judges there might be but just went ahead with her normal proportions. From the moans around her, several of the competitors were annoyed that the food had to be served to so many. It must have cost them a fortune to buy all the expensive foodstuffs they’d used and Peggy thought it foolish of them to waste their money.
The food was taken away and the women immediately started to chatter and look at each other’s stations. Some, like Peggy, had a little food left, others had nothing. Laura came over and asked to taste Peggy’s shepherd’s pie. She looked at her in surprise.
‘That’s really good,’ she said. ‘I usually find them bland, but this has something different in it?’
‘Yes,’ Peggy smiled. ‘I discovered during the war that almost anything could be made to taste better with a little time and effort.’
‘So, what happens next?’ one of the women asked as Ralph came up to them, his oily smile in place. ‘When do they announce the winner?’
‘Ah, yes, Mrs Jane Cookson. You’ll have to wait for that Mrs Cookson. The points you all earned today are only a part of your total; there are many other factors, as I’m sure you are aware.’
Jane Cookson looked annoyed. ‘After all that effort! I thought for sure we’d know today.’
‘It was all in the leaflets you were sent. We give a dinner in your honour and the prizes are announced then,’ he replied. ‘This isn’t over yet, ladies – but I can tell you that out of a score of a possible thirty points not one of you scored less than eighteen and that is a new record!’
Some of the entrants looked pleased at his words, but Jane Cookson was still annoyed. She’d complained about several things that she disliked and continued to grumble as everyone packed up their things to leave.
Peggy and Laura were amongst the last and, as they were about to leave, Rene came out from one of the man doors and walked up to them.
‘I wanted to congratulate both of you,’ he said. ‘I should be delighted to have either of you two ladies in my kitchen.’ He looked at Laura. ‘You didn’t complete my challenge, but I saw that salmon en croûte you made and it was delicious, as was your chocolate truffle mousse.’
‘Really?’ Laura looked pleased.
Peggy smiled but said nothing. It was nice to be complimented, but she would never wish to work in a place like this.
‘Well, fancy that,’ Laura said and looked pleased, ‘and I didn’t even get time to complete the surprise challenge.’
‘I thought that was a bit unfair,’ Peggy said. ‘I had prepared a simple menu and it made no difference to me, but some of you did such specialised dishes and you needed every minute of the time allowed.’
‘I timed mine to the limit,’ Laura said regretfully. ‘I would’ve liked to try that scallop dish. It’s not something I do often.’
‘It was simple really,’ Peggy told her. ‘If you have time, come and join me one day and I’ll show you what he did – though I changed one of the sauces to suit my husband’s taste. I may have lost a point doing that, but I found his sauce a little too sweet.’
‘I hope you didn’t tell him so,’ Laura said, smiling. ‘I’d love to come
and cook with you. I might give you a call and come up one day when I have time.’
‘Yes, do that,’ Peggy replied. ‘Making a new friend gives a purpose to this competition, which is otherwise a bit of nonsense really.’
‘For my business it could make a difference,’ Laura said. ‘My husband was a top chef and everyone came for his food, until he died of cancer – I made one of his dishes today, but I’m not sure he would’ve approved of the result.’
‘It looked wonderful to me,’ Peggy said. ‘If it makes a difference to your business, I hope you win.’
Laura beamed at her. ‘I’m glad we’ve met. I’ve made a friend, I think, even if this turns out to be a waste of time.’
Peggy nodded her agreement and they parted on a smile and an agreement to meet again. Peggy glanced back to see that she hadn’t left anything and then went outside, to discover Able waiting for her. He’d found a space to park and got out to open the door for her
‘How did you get on, hon?’ he asked as he took her tins and baskets.
‘It was interesting,’ Peggy said. ‘I’m glad I stuck to what I knew, Able. Some of the others were in a terrible fluff, trying to cook things that were beyond them. I was able to do the surprise challenge and some of them just couldn’t manage it in the time.’
‘So, what did they say about the results?’
‘No one has a score of less than eighteen, but we don’t know who has what – that comes at the celebration dinner later. I suppose that is intended to make a big splash so that it gets lots of publicity.’
‘Yes, I knew there was a big dinner, but I thought you might get told privately beforehand,’ Able said and grimaced. ‘It’s hard on those who really care about it – but you don’t mind so we don’t need to bother.’