“Should be.”
“How’s Mum?”
“Fine.”
“Has she mentioned me at all?”
“Of course she mentions you.” Dad looks relieved. I leave out, “Not in a good way.”
“That bloody artist hasn’t been over again, has he?”
“What artist?”
“That one with the ponytail.”
“Keith?”
“Keith. That’s the one. He fancies her, you know.”
“Dad, Keith’s about ninety-four years old and smells of damp.”
“Well, she likes an older man.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. She’s after younger men now!”
“No she’s not. Who?”
“I’m winding you up.” I feel my knees lock. “Ah, look, there’s Dove.”
Dove is wearing neon orange shorts and a white vest top, her long blond hair sailing behind her. She’s tanned. She’s never ever had to touch exfoliator or moisturiser in her life. She wears headphone buds in each ear.
“Doveling!” Dad says.
“Hi, Daddy.” Dove for a second evolves from tomboy to ballerina as she leans into Dad’s arms and kisses him, unhooking a headphone.
“Daddy. She still calls me Daddy; you’re such a little baby.” He chuckles. He treats her like she’s still three and I’m the big crashing horrid gargoyle of a sister, too big to call Dad Daddy without it being awful and weird and people thinking I’m like his girlfriend or whatevs.
“You look pretty,” he says to her. Meanwhile I look “pink.” Dove finds a chair and sits on it cross-legged.
“It’s hot, isn’t it?” Dove says, fanning herself. “It’s going to thunderstorm tonight. I love a thunderstorm.”
“That explains my headache.” Dad rubs his head, trying to make out that he’s so spiritually synchronised with the weather. “Do you not tie your hair up or anything when you do all that running around?” He’s still on this one.
“No.”
“Doesn’t it get in your way?”
“Sometimes, but if it does I just wrap it into a bunch and bite it. Like this.” Dove gathers all her hair up, twists it and clenches her teeth around the hair, biting down like a mum cat would carry her kitten.
“You odd girl,” Dad says, picking up the apple. “So…which younger men is Mum after, then?” Jesus, DROP IT.
“Dad, look at my video!” Dove cleverly changes the subject. “Look, that’s me, look, watch…doing a front.”
“What’s a front?”
“A front flip…See?”
“I missed it. Show me again; hold it still….” Dad fumbles with his glasses. “Start it from the beginning. Go on, wheel it back.”
I watch Dove lose her patience. “OK, watch here….”
“Which one’s you?”
“That one.”
“Here?”
“No! That’s Tommy.”
“He looks like a girl. His hair is longer than yours.”
“Dad! You missed my front again.”
“It’s so shaky.”
“That’s because it’s on a GoPro, Dad, strapped to somebody’s head.”
“A go what? I don’t like the sound of this. It looks too dark.”
“It is dark, Dad. It’s a night mission.”
“A what mission?”
“Night,” Dove stresses, “MISSION.”
Dad looks frazzled. “Mission? What sort of mission? Is this legal? Do the police not…do you not wear gloves or anything?”
“No, Dad, it’s frowned upon. You can’t wear gloves because you have to get calluses, toughen up your hands for grip. You don’t wear gloves.”
“No helmet?”
“No, Dad.”
“What if you fall?”
“Yeah, sometimes you bail but…you just try again.”
“They only do low jumps, Dad,” I reassure him. “Don’t worry.”
“Low jumps! Ha! It’s not so babyish, Bluebelle.” Dove’s eyes light up. “I know someone who got concussion doing it.”
“Good grief, Dove, what does your mother say about this?”
“She knows. I’m getting a crash mat for the garden to practise on.”
“Yes, but there aren’t any crash mats out on the streets of London!” Dad tries to be cool. “Why can’t you just get one of those scooter things that commuters use to get to the office? Aren’t they cool?”
“No, Dad.”
“Huh?”
“Just. No.”
NOODLES
We wander into a vintage clothes shop on the way back from seeing Dad.
“It STINKS in here,” Dove moans. “It smells of armpit and musty mothballs and…Chinese food. Why do you come here?”
“Because the clothes are unique and special and have history. You don’t have to worry about sizes or being compared; nobody is going to point you out in the street and say that grandma from the 1950s pulled that nightie off SO much better than you. New clothes judge you whereas vintage clothes hang out with you like a friend who stands by you, whispers in your ear and keeps you company.” I flip a velvet shawl over my arms. “Plus, I don’t like being the same as everybody else.”
Dove picks up a Fez hat and tries it on, does a face at me and then puts it back. “It’s too hot in here. I’m waiting for you outside.”
“ ’K.”
I’m kind of glad anyway. I don’t need Dove pinging back out of every mirror looking so effortlessly Miami eighties beach babe and trying things on for a laugh and managing to look like she’s rolled out of some blog about how to look so absolutely great a hundred percent of the time. She would try on these vintage clothes for a joke and still look the best in the whole shop.
The music is nice and chimey. Little funny sixties melodies. My eyes are dotting about, struggling to settle. I love the clashing of prints and colours, the tumble of patterns, the out-of-place mismatching scramble of straw hats and flowery head scarves, ski suits and plimsolls, feather boas, kimonos and sparkly capes, the blend of fancy dress and genius.
“Hi.” The girl looks up at me from her box of noodles. Where’d she get noodles from in a red box like they have in American films? Do you know how desperate I am to eat noodles from a box with chopsticks? Thus why the place smells of Chinese food. She’s so cool. She has blue hair and a hoop through her nose and is wearing a butter-yellow polo-neck jumper not as a joke. Even in the summer. But she’s pale. It’s clearly her look.
We could be friends. We could have noodles in boxes and go for a drive to the countryside if she has a car. But then she ruins it. As most of my girl crushes do.
“Just to let you know…,” she begins, like she’s being helpful, “most vintage clothes come up pretty small and the sizes aren’t always what they say; they might appear bigger than they are.” I stare back, like HUH, sorry WHAT? So she adds, “Some pieces come from abroad and the sizes might be confusing. So don’t be afraid to ask for help and if you want to try anything on, just ask before you try and squeeze into something.”
Just ask. Just ask PERMISSION before you tear the seams. Before you enter, raging, like a grotesque exploding dinosaur made of hot boiling lava and ruin or eat all these bespoke “pieces,” you absolute gargantuan FREAK.
“Oh, I’m leaving,” I say. “My sister’s waiting for me. She says the shop stinks of Chinese takeaway anyway….Maybe it’s those noodles?”
I bet she wouldn’t say anything about sizes to Dove.
SHEPHERD’S PIE
“Isn’t it a bit hot for shepherd’s pie, B?” Mum peers over the pan.
“Stop being so hawky judgey, Mum. Here I am just trying to pay my way and contribute to the homestead and this is how you repay me? With extra-rude remarks?”
“Homestead,” Mum
mutters. “Idiot. It smells very nice.”
“AND guess what?”
“What?”
“Alicia has my apprenticeship letter and she’s gonna sign it.” Mum doesn’t look impressed enough, so THEN I add/lie, “And also she’s gonna apply for Planet Coffee to take me on as an apprentice.”
“Well done, that’s…good news….” She is folding washing and decides to deliberately fold up a towel at this point to hide her eyes from me. “And any news on joining the gym yet?”
“God, Mum, I do one good thing and you have to throw it back in my face.”
“No I wasn’t, but it was part of the bargain, Bluebelle.”
“Yes, I know that, thank you very much. I’m just trying to prioritise and be a successful ‘Power of Right Now’ businesswoman. Some support wouldn’t go amiss.”
I really don’t need the food to be tainted by my bad mood. I have to shake off Mum’s rudeness so it doesn’t infect the meal with all its bad feelings of bitterness and neglect. Because I am really good at making shepherd’s pie. Like, really good at it. I use proper meat from the butcher. I’m one of those people who would rather spend my money on a good bit of meat than a pair of shoes. Are there many people like us? Anyway, mincemeat, not lean, the real one. If I can’t find the best-quality meat available, then I make vegetarian shepherd’s pie. I fry up the mince with good oil, of course, in a heavy pan. When the meat turns brown I drain off all the extra fat in a sieve and rinse the pan and dry it so it’s clean. Then I pour in new oil, heat it up. When it’s hot and goes all shiny I add one diced Spanish onion, chopped celery and chopped carrot. Once the onions are as clear as glass I add the meat back in. Now I raid Dad’s cupboard and all of its treasures. I usually add Marmite, Worcester sauce, a bay leaf, a tin of Heinz baked beans, obvs, red wine if we have it, beef stock and seasoning.
I use baked potatoes to make my mash. It’s hideously smooth. I add heaps of butter, a bit of milk and an egg and salt and pepper. I whip it up so it looks like a golden cloud. When the sauce has reduced and the meat is tender I pour this into our ancient olive-green casserole dish and then top with the mash. I love to spread the mash out like I am icing a dreamy cake. I sometimes like to rake a fork over the top to make little grooves in my starchy terrain. Then I grate creamy mature Cheddar cheese all over the top of it. And it goes into the hot oven.
I love the way the warm smell of it floats through the house, bloating the kitchen with comfort. I love watching the bubbling cheese and molten brown lava spots of meaty filling popping through the white mash.
The thunder outside begins to crackle and pop. And the rain tumbles down. Mum will be grateful for the pie now the storm’s coming. Dove bounds down to let the dogs in, who immediately start catwalking the kitchen searching for odd ends of carrot tops and escape-peas.
“Oh FOR THE LOVE OF—” Mum shouts.
“What?”
“Which one of you little moos invited Dad over?”
“I didn’t,” I say.
“Well, why’s he running towards the front door, then?”
“I felt bad for him, Mum,” Dove admits. “He’s all by himself.”
“He’s not all by himself. He’s got his big fat ego to keep him company. Bloody hell, Dove.”
“Sorry, Mum.”
“It’s fine. He’s your dad, I suppose.”
“And anyway, then you two can get back together.”
“Ooooh, over a romantic sexy shepherd’s pie and a summer thunderstorm,” Mum jokes. “Go on, let the old rat in.”
Dad enters; sodden, with a soggy Guardian newspaper over his head. I bet he LOVES looking this rain-drenched, bet he thinks it gives him real hunky charm and artistic neediness.
“Hello, my darlings,” he almost sings to us in an overly good mood, and then he goes to the dogs, scruffing their ears. “Smells good, Bluebelle.” I dump the hot pan on the table.
Mum has hers with peas. Dad, the bedraggled lost property jumper of mankind, has his with buttered bread to mop because he constantly has to feel like a downtrodden, mule-riding travelling-man-with-no-money-peasant that’s turned up at an inn in the middle of the night for bread, cheese, ale, stew and a straw bed to sleep in. Which basically is an accurate representation of what he is. Dove has hers with a big splodge of ketchup.
But I like mine just exactly like this. On its own. No distractions. Just warm melty strings of chewy cheese, clinging to buttery salty mash, protecting the more-ish stew beneath.
And I pop the pan back in the oven for whoever wants seconds.
“Dunno where you keep it, Dove. It’s like you’ve got worms or something,” Dad jokes at Dove’s massive fruit-bowl-sized portion, which she hugs close to her chest as though she’s about to be mugged for it.
“It’s good,” she grunts, like an ungrateful nana over Christmas dinner.
“ ’Tis,” Dad agrees. ’Tis. We’re not in a period drama now, Dad. It’s too hot for him; I can see him tossing the hot potato around his mouth, hooting out steamy air.
“You’re a very good cook, B,” Mum chips in. She’s obviously just trying to make up for her mediumly rude and unnecessary gym comment.
Admittedly, even with the press of a storm, it’s a way-too-hot, clammy day for shepherd’s pie but you can’t rely on English weather, so you just basically have to eat whatever food you fancy whenever you fancy it. Plus, for London, summer just means overstuffed bins in local parks with half-eaten tubs of houmous frothing out of the top of them. So eat what you like. The whole time.
I am looking at Dad. We all fully know that he came not only for a hot meal but also to patch things up with Mum. Dad likes to look at Mum like she’s melting his heart right before his very eyes. I wonder if that’s how he looked at her when she was a student and he was her tutor. I can’t imagine fancying one of my teachers. Maybe it’s different when you’re nineteen and your armature dramatics teacher on your funny little course is a kind of hot teacher. Not that Dad’s hot or anything. You know what I mean.
I do quite like it when we’re eating in the quiet like this. Knowing we are all experiencing the warmth of the same hot meal. The summer rain pattering outside. That we have something in common.
A four. This is us. Complete. But he just can’t help himself, can he?
“That farty-arty Keith guy been over recently?” Dad asks Mum with an ugly jealous tone in his voice, and that’s all it takes.
Mum and Dad are at it again. Rowing. And the sink is full of a snowstorm of starchy watery clumpy potato pellets that never seem to wash away and fill me with gloom. Luckily, Planet Coffee has taught me the importance of owning a pair of “dinner lady hands” and not to be afraid of touching old food of any kind.
EGG-FRIED RICE
It doesn’t hurt to shield the ducks’ eyes from cooking eggs.
“They don’t know what they are, you idiot,” Dove moans as she thumps the wok down.
“You don’t know that,” I say, trying to wrap my fingers over their quacking heads. We have three boy ducks. However, we actually thought they were girl ducks at first and named them Mary, Kate and Ashley…(yes as in those Olsen twins, which I know is old-school but It Takes Two is probably one of my favourite I feel sick I want to watch…films), so we tried to give them boy names but we kept forgetting, so we just call them their maiden names. I would say Ashley came off the best. Mary, not so much. Anyway, they are all annoying and actually all rapists. I don’t trust a single one of them. I’ve seen them do it. Hence why we have no girl ducks but, oh no, trust me, that does not stop them. Still, doesn’t mean it makes it any easier to watch an egg being eaten.
“Anyway, they’re ducks; these are hens’ eggs,” Dove points out.
Mary isn’t even letting me cover his eyes, so I get bored of being nice anyway and sling the ducks outside.
“Eggs aren’t anyon
e’s babies, you know, BB. It’s different. They aren’t chicks.” Dove curls her body down into some odd yoga move and peels back up.
“Dove, an egg is a chicken’s period.”
“Seriously? That’s gross.”
I make pretty much the best egg-fried rice, bar the boss at Happy Garden takeaway, than any other human. I rinse and then boil the basmati rice up—small tip: do NOT use cheap rice—then leave it to chill; once cooled, refrigerate. Then, when it’s all cold I heat up sesame oil and when it starts to smoke I dump the chilled rice in until it toasts and crackles. Then I add two (OK, four) eggs…scribble the yellow around with a fork or chopstick, add lots of salt. I like the rice to catch a bit on the corners so it goes golden and crunchy. While it fries, I quickly slice two spring onions in horse-ear shapes and turn the heat off, sprinkle on top and serve with soy sauce. It’s nice to let people add their own soy. That’s how you’re meant to serve it.
“You never put peas in!” Dove moans.
“You’re not meant to,” I argue. She rolls her eyes and digs her hand into the Crunchy Nut cereal, pouring it into her mouth.
“Don’t eat that, it’s gonna be ready in literally two minutes.”
“Well, I literally can’t wait, so…”
“You won’t be hungry.”
“Trust me, I will.”
I know she will be annoying if I don’t get the peas out of the freezer and add them to the rice. I have to put the kettle on too to defrost them.
We eat the rice. It’s obviously amazing.
“Was nice having Dad over, no?”
“Yeah, I just wish he wouldn’t always make dumb comments like that to rile Mum up. I can see why she finds him so annoying.”
“Hey, do you remem—” Dove starts laughing so hard she can’t get her words out.
“What? What are you laughing at?”
“Do you remember when we used to play that game Bum Tills?”
“Oh my G—” And we are both crying with laughter. Paralysed in a shuffling squeeze, heads tipped back so that the laughter is a mouth-open silent fit.
My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant Page 8