Christmas Wishes at Pudding Hall

by Kate Forster

  She pulled out packages marked salmon, duck, quail and goat.

  ‘Bloody Nora,’ she said.

  ‘Who’s Nora?’ she heard a voice say and turned to see the twins behind her.

  ‘Whoever bought all this food. It’s enough for a formal dinner every night until the middle of next year.’

  ‘It wasn’t Nora, it was Peggy – she’s the housekeeper. Dad gave her a list of everything he thought we might need.’

  ‘What happens if we don’t eat it all?’ she asked. This was as much as they would order for a weekday lunch at the restaurant. How on earth would they get through it all?

  ‘They throw it out I guess,’ said one of the boys with a shrug.

  Christa closed the fridge with a sigh.

  ‘I’m Christa,’ she said.

  ‘I’m Seth,’ said one of the boys. They were blonde, thin, with dark eyes, and utterly identical except one had a small freckle on his cheekbone.

  ‘And I’m Ethan,’ said the other.

  ‘Really?’ Christa crossed her arms. ‘I went to school with twin girls who were always messing about and pretending to be the other. It’s part of your DNA to play tricks on people.’

  They laughed. ‘Nah it’s the other way around but you won’t remember anyway. Dad has never got us right.’

  Christa saw a flicker in their faces and she studied them closely.

  ‘I will try my best to remember who is who,’ she said. ‘You,’ she pointed at the one with the freckle on his cheekbone. ‘Are Seth.’

  He looked at her suspiciously. ‘How can you tell?’

  She touched his cheek. ‘Your little hallmark,’ she said. ‘Gives you away.’

  The boys seemed impressed with her deduction and they sat on the kitchen stools at the bench, their rollerblades making loud noises as they crashed against the woodwork.

  ‘We’re not really that similar,’ Seth said, as he touched the knife roll.

  She quickly moved it out of the way.

  ‘Ethan likes gaming and metal music, and I like K-pop. He likes to film things and I like to make things, like with Lego.’

  Christa nodded. ‘Good to know. And what do you like to eat for dinner?’

  ‘We like burgers.’ Seth said. ‘And pasta. And sushi. And Mexican food.’

  Christa thought for a moment.

  ‘What does your dad like to eat?’

  ‘Stuff we don’t like,’ was all Ethan said and then he made a vomit noise.

  ‘He likes pasta,’ said Seth. ‘He had the little round things, like little squashed eggs. Knocko?’ he asked.

  ‘Gnocchi?’ she asked and he nodded.

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

  Pasta was a good start she thought, as she dug through the fridge and found some wagyu beef she could mince and make burgers with and found some potatoes to make pommes frites.

  Ethan was up again and went sailing past her on his skates.

  ‘Sit down. No skating in the kitchen,’ she said firmly, and surprisingly he obliged and sat next to his brother.

  ‘Can you teach us how to cook?’ asked Seth.

  She looked around the fridge door to see if they were being silly but saw they were serious.

  ‘How old are you both?’

  ‘Ten,’ they answered in unison.

  Christa thought about it. A little company during prep could be fun and she could learn why her boss was always so angry. Besides, teaching people to cook was something she was passionate about. She never understood when people said they were terrible cooks and couldn’t cook. Anyone could cook if they followed the recipe. If they could learn to drive they could learn to cook.

  If she had her way, cooking healthy food, and learning what to buy at the supermarket and budgeting, would be taught at school.

  Those were real life skills.

  ‘Okay then,’ she said. ‘You can both be my commis cooks. You’re just old enough otherwise I would breaking the labour laws.’

  ‘What’s a commis cook?’ The boys seemed thrilled with the title.

  ‘It’s the name for the newest cooks in the kitchen. The ones who will become chefs one day if they work super hard,’ she answered.

  The back door opened and an older, stout-looking woman holding shopping bags walked into the kitchen. She wore a green woollen coat and a scowl. Her grey hair was pulled into a bun and she had a face that could have made you admit to murder, even if you were innocent.

  ‘Oh, Cook, you’re here finally,’ said the woman as though Christa was late.

  ‘Christa Playfoot – I’m the chef,’ she corrected.

  ‘Peggy Smith, housekeeper of Pudding Hall.’

  ‘Pudding Hall?’

  ‘That’s the name of the house,’ said Peggy putting the bags on the bench.

  Christa looked at the boys. ‘What a wonderful name for a house. But it’s called Pudding Hall and you don’t have a single Christmas decoration? That’s very sad.’

  The boys shrugged as though they didn’t know the answer to her question.

  ‘Why are they in here?’ asked Peggy, looking at the boys suspiciously.

  ‘They’re my apprentices,’ Christa answered, trying to get a reading on Peggy, who seemed put out to have the children in the kitchen.

  ‘We’re commi cooks,’ said Ethan.

  ‘Commis,’ said Christa laughing. The boys were delightful and funny.

  But Peggy didn’t seem to find them amusing. ‘Well don’t be messing about in here – Cook has a busy job.’

  ‘Chef,’ said Christa but Peggy ignored her and kept talking.

  ‘Mr Ferrier sent me out for more food, just in case you didn’t have what you needed.’

  ‘More?’ asked Christa thinking of the filled refrigerator.

  She sighed. ‘I don’t know what else you would need. There will be nothing left in Waitrose if I head back there again.’

  ‘We have more than enough; don’t buy any more,’ said Christa. She watched Peggy unpack the bags of shopping.

  More cheese, she noticed.

  ‘What do you do with the food that isn’t cooked?’ she asked Peggy.

  Peggy shook her head. ‘It is thrown in the rubbish. I had to dispose of a lot of fruit and vegetables as they said they would be here earlier than they were and it went off.’ Her look spoke volumes to Christa. At least they agreed on something.

  ‘What sort of things does Mr Ferrier like for dinner?’ she asked Peggy who shrugged.

  ‘No idea – they’ve eaten in York for the past few nights.’

  Christa looked to the twins who were fast becoming the fountain of knowledge for her induction at Pudding Hall.

  ‘What did your dad order for dinner?’

  ‘I don’t know. We weren’t invited,’ said the boys.

  ‘I made them shepherd’s pie and they didn’t eat it,’ said Peggy glaring at them. ‘In my day you ate what you were given and liked it.’

  ‘It was gluggy,’ said Ethan.

  ‘And smelled weird,’ added Seth.

  Peggy gave a snort. ‘Rude little beggars,’ she said and left the kitchen.

  Christa set about mincing the meat and then checked the cupboard for bread rolls for the burgers.

  There weren’t any so she started on a dough to make her own rolls.

  ‘Shepherd’s pie isn’t for everyone,’ she said. ‘Feel like burgers then? Let’s make some rolls.’

  ‘We get rolls from the supermarket,’ said Seth.

  ‘These will be better than supermarket rolls,’ said Christa with a smile. ‘Want to see how I make them?’

  ‘Yes,’ the boys shouted.

  ‘Wash your hands and then let’s get baking,’ she instructed.

  Every step of the way the boys asked her what she was doing. She let them knead the dough and then punch the air from them, which they took great pleasure in.

  And then she set them aside to rise.

  ‘Is that how bread is made?’ one of the boys asked. ‘I never knew that.
Mum doesn’t like carbs. She says they’re bad.’

  Christa shook her head. She had no idea what carbs were at ten, let alone calling them bad. She knew it as bread or potato and that was that.

  ‘How did you learn to make bread?’ asked Seth.

  ‘I was taught by a lovely Italian man who owned a bakery that I worked at when I was at school,’ she said.

  ‘Did you just make bread?’ asked Ethan, as she worked.

  ‘Nope, I made all sorts of yummy things like Italian donuts and biscotti, which is lovely with coffee.’

  ‘Why did you have a job when you were at school?’ asked Ethan. ‘Is that even allowed?’

  Christa smiled at him. ‘Yes it allowed and it’s good to work and earn your own money. The people who owned the bakery gave me a job right through school. I was very lucky. There is nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread,’ she said to the twins.

  She remembered that was the scent that stopped her on her way home from school. The smell of bread was hypnotic, causing her to stop and look at the window.

  Il Forno, the fancy gold lettering on the sign had read. A handwritten note with Help Wanted on a brown paper bag was taped to the window below the gold writing.

  ‘Have we been to a bakery?’ Seth asked Ethan.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Ethan with a frown.

  ‘What do they look like?’ asked Seth.

  Christa thought about Il Forno. ‘This was an Italian-style bakery, not an American-style, so instead of shelves, there were baskets of bread and rolls and loaves of all shapes and sizes. Some had olives in them. Some had herbs on top. And they were all delicious.’

  ‘I like olives, but Ethan hates them,’ said Seth.

  The boys played with the measuring spoons as Christa told them about the Italian croissants, different types of biscotti and panettone in the prettiest boxes she had ever seen.

  The boys listened and watched her intently as she peeled the potatoes.

  With the potatoes dried, ready to be turned into pommes frites, she looked inside the refrigerator and thought about Adam and his husband and boss’s dinner.

  She picked up a container of eggs complete with feathers attached. Real eggs, she thought.

  ‘Do you have chickens here?’ she asked the boys who were now warring with their hockey sticks.

  ‘No idea,’ they said in unison.

  Seth added, ‘We’ve only been here a few days and it’s rained every day. And Dad won’t come out walking because he’s busy with work.’ They were back to skating around the kitchen now, which was slightly dizzying for Christa as she tried to spot who was who again.

  ‘Can you stop skating please? If you’re in the kitchen you have to learn that there are hot liquids, sharp knives and people carrying things. You can’t carry on like this or I will have to let you go and find other twins who can work respectfully.’

  The boys stopped skating and came back to the bench.

  ‘Do you know any other twins?’ they asked, looking at her suspiciously.

  ‘Not yet but I can ask in town,’ she stated firmly.

  The boys looked disappointed at her lack of twin connections and she felt a little sad for them.

  ‘Let’s make pasta,’ she said brightly.

  The boys dropped their sticks with a clatter and turned their attention to her.

  ‘More carbs? Mom would die,’ Seth said. ‘She says carbs make her crazy.’

  ‘Lucky she’s not here then,’ said Christa, slightly annoyed that the children already had such a dim view of certain foods.

  ‘Do you have children?’ asked Ethan.

  ‘Nope. Go and wash your hands again at the sink behind me.’

  The boys did so.

  ‘Why not?’ they asked, wiping their hands with the tea towel she handed them.

  ‘Because I work long hours and I would want to be with them instead of being at work.’

  The boys looked at each other, as Christa tipped pasta flour in front of them in small mounds.

  ‘Make a volcano shape,’ she instructed and the boys followed her lead. ‘Now crack an egg into it.’

  ‘Can I film it?’ asked Ethan.

  ‘You can’t film and cook, so make your choice,’ she answered. ‘You don’t want flour all over your camera.’

  Her egg yolk was orange it was so fresh and perfect, and she sighed with pleasure.

  There was nothing she liked more than fresh, home-produced food.

  The twins carefully broke their eggs into the well and she instructed them to drizzle over some olive oil and salt and then showed them how to whisk the eggs with a fork, eventually adding more of the flour as they went.

  ‘Don’t worry if the eggs spills out – move it back in with your hands. It’s all part of the work. And now let’s knead the dough, like we did with the bread. This will take a while so don’t give up. The more stretchy it is, the better,’ she encouraged.

  She watched their faces as they worked, their young hands kneading the dough while she occasionally sprinkled more flour over the top.

  She enjoyed showing people what she knew, and when children were engaged, she enjoyed teaching them.

  She and Simon had decided against children during the last few years of their marriage because he had said they didn’t have time. She wasn’t sure she ever said an outright no but it became part of their narrative as a couple when asked and soon she repeated it until it became something she had believed. When she looked back on it now, she realised that Simon didn’t want her to have children because she would have taken time out from the restaurant.

  A sadness gripped her and she wondered if she had missed out on something.

  ‘I’m pulling mine like we saw in that horror movie where they pulled the man’s skin,’ said Seth, interrupting her thoughts.

  Ethan laughed and followed his lead. ‘This is his stomach as we pull the fat away.’

  Christa made a face and turned away from them. Maybe she wasn’t missing anything if that’s what boys were like.

  ‘When you have finished cooking your horror show, we’re going to use the pasta maker to roll it really thin,’ she said pulling the pasta maker from the cupboard. Honestly, this house had everything she would ever need.

  The boys looked at the contraption and nodded their approval.

  ‘I saw something like that in a video game. They put people’s hands in them to torture them and make them tell the truth.’

  ‘My God, does your dad know you watch that sort of stuff?’ she asked as she set up the pasta maker.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ethan shrugging and Christa wondered what sort of parent the man was. And then she remembered her own father, passed our drunk on the floor outside their flat, Christa trying to drag him inside even though she was only eleven. And the landlady coming upstairs to tell her that he had urinated on the landing and Christa had to clean it up. She had, telling him in the morning, and he’d promised to never do it again, which was a lie. She brought herself back to the room and away from young Christa. She didn’t often go back and look at her past because it was painful and complicated but lately the memories had been coming up more often that she liked.

  ‘Okay, no more horror movie references – now we make fettucine. Do you know what fettucine means in Italian?’

  The boys shook their heads. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Little ribbons,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that lovely?’

  ‘Like sinew and veins,’ said Seth. ‘I saw that on a medical show.’

  Christa rolled her eyes. This wasn’t going to be easy after all.

  5

  Marc Ferrier was in a revolting mood. The figures he and Adam had worked on didn’t add up and the research he was waiting for was late. And there was a stranger in the house. The new cook, whom he’d caught standing outside his study, staring in like a lunatic. He hated being around new people; he found himself often tongue tied and then saying the wrong thing. This is why he had Adam to do the legwork on these ma
tters. It was just a shame he had yelled when she arrived. He had set the tone for their professional relationship, he was afraid.

  There was a knock at the door of his study.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, and then it opened.

  Peggy stood in the doorway, reminding him of a menacing hedgehog.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked carefully. Why did she make him feel like he hadn’t done his homework?

  ‘I have concerns about the cook,’ she stated grandly.

  ‘Why? Did she ask for wallpaper in her room?’ He was only half joking. But he didn’t want to have to deal with this when he had work pressures to iron out.

  ‘She is encouraging the boys to lark about the kitchen and they’re making a mess, which I will have to clean up in the morning. They are making food and skating and generally being nuisances.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ he spat out and stormed past Peggy and down to the kitchen. He couldn’t leave those boys alone for a moment. He knew they needed to be in school but he wasn’t sure they were staying for longer than the Christmas period and a nanny or babysitter was out of the question. If he did hire one they would have terrorised them away. They knew exactly what to do to cause chaos and confusion.

  He pushed open the kitchen door and spoke firmly to the boys.

  ‘What are you two doing? Peggy said you’re in the way.’

  Christa, who was cooking, looked up at him. ‘The boys aren’t in the way. Not in the slightest bit. I invited them to learn how to make pasta.’ She smiled at him, which disarmed him. ‘We’re making fettucine, which means, boys?’

  ‘Little ribbons,’ answered the children in unison.

  Marc found himself lost for a response. The boys were sitting calmly at the bench, with the cook on the other side, and ingredients between them.

  ‘You’re here to cook, not to childmind,’ he snapped at her, unsure why this woman unnerved him. ‘Leave Christa alone. You have a room filled with video games; go and use them.’

  The boys jumped off the kitchen stools and skated away in silence, hockey sticks and camera in hand.

  Christa looked at him and at the pasta dough on the bench.