Love, Lies and Lemon Cake

by Sue Watson

  ‘I should feel terrible,’ I said to Sue as she poured the wine back at her house. ‘I should hate myself—but I don’t; I feel delirious and free. But that makes me even worse. I am a bad person, whichever way you look at it.’

  ‘You’re not a bad person. Stop blaming yourself and putting yourself down at the first opportunity. Faye, you’re always self-defecating.’

  I wondered for a split second what I was being accused of but assumed she meant self-deprecating and nodded. We talked long into the night and Sue kept filling my glass up, offering her own brand of astrological advice and telling me it would work out.

  The following morning before work, I called Emma.

  ‘Oh, Mum, shall I come home?’ she said, sounding tearful.

  I insisted she stay in Manchester; it was important she didn’t miss lectures and I didn’t want her work to suffer because of something I’d done.

  ‘It’s all for the best,’ I said. ‘Dad and I haven’t been happy together for a long time and I know it’s the right thing for both of us, so don’t be upset.’

  ‘How will Dad cope?’ she asked. ‘You know what he’s like; he can’t even make toast.’

  ‘It won’t do him any harm to learn. He can be a domestic goddess for a change. I always washed and cleaned and cooked after a day’s work... it’s just that I did it for both of us... three of us when you lived at home. Sometimes I’d be in later than Dad and he’d still be waiting for me to make his tea and wash his bloody overalls... Now he can do it himself. I just want more now Em. I need more.’

  ‘Is Dad upset?’ she asked. ‘Is it just a trial separation?’

  My heart ached for her. I felt dreadful for robbing her of the mental security that all was well at home and added it to my rapidly growing ‘100 things I feel guilty about’ list.

  ‘Dad will be okay, Emma. I could have kept the status quo to keep him happy, but I’ve been doing that for over twenty years. It’s not a trial separation; I can’t go back to your dad. I felt like I had no future, nothing to look forward to, no one to dress up for—nothing to get excited about. One day Dad will get over this... but if I went back, I would never get over it.’

  She was sad and quiet, but seemed to understand, and was measured enough to see it from both sides and take it quite well.

  The following few days were difficult. I was happy, ready to make a new life, and had no regrets about what I’d done—but after twenty-four years with someone, it took a little while to readjust.

  Sue had been a wonderful support and had said I could stay as long as I liked in her spare room. I would pay rent, but wanted to thank her so suggested we take a lunch break at the Pizza Express across the road. I couldn’t afford anything too fancy, but wanted to make Sue feel special and appreciated.

  Before we’d even looked at the menu, we ordered a glass of wine each, some breadsticks and a bowl of olives.

  ‘I know it’s 796 calories for a whole pizza, but I’ve had enough of the Cambridge for now. Gayle Jones (spit-roast with a footballer, millionaire hubby) was telling me how this friend of hers had dieted like mad, starved herself to get into her wedding dress. She wouldn’t celebrate her sister’s twenty-first because she couldn’t go near cake, she ate celery for Christmas Dinner and even missed her own hen night...’ Sue said from behind the menu.

  ‘Then... guess what happened, Faye? This woman was walking out of the church, size ten wedding dress, confetti everywhere, and a gargoyle landed on her head and killed her!’ she slammed down her glass in a mini re-enactment.

  ‘Oh, God, that’s awful,’ I sighed, suspecting it was yet another apocryphal tale from Gayle Jones’s treasury of Z-list celebrity stories. ‘And the moral is “don’t go on a diet or... you’ll be killed by falling gargoyles”?’

  ‘No. The motto is “life is short and we have no control over our destiny...” It’s fate, all in the stars.’

  ‘Yeah, you can do all that Mystic Meg stuff, Sue, but I reckon the real message is “life’s short—eat cake.” When you think of all the Black Forest gateaux that bride could have had?’ I sighed. ‘Okay, I don’t agree, but I like your theory—it’s a good excuse to have a pudding.’ She smiled, and, as we waited for our 796 calories of pizza to arrive, we dribbled over the dessert menu.

  I lifted my head from photos of cheesecake and ice cream and my eyes met with a guy on a nearby table. He had a kind, handsome face and was so attentive to his daughter it made him even more attractive to me. ‘I bet he’s a lovely dad,’ I said to Sue, nodding discreetly whilst watching him and sucking hard on a bread stick, completely oblivious to the body language I was sending out. I found myself imagining whether he was still with the girl’s mother and what he was like... naked—and, okay... what sex would be like with him.

  Sue gave me a look. ‘You’ve been lusting after men a lot lately, haven’t you, Faye?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ I sighed, gazing at him.

  ‘I told you—it’s your age. You’ve only ever been with Craig and you’re a Leo, love... you want to roar a little and take a walk on the wild side. You’re wondering what sex would be like with another man... and you’re worried you’ll never find out,’ she said, waving her breadstick at me.

  ‘Sometimes I’m convinced you can read my mind. Forget Mystic Meg—meet Psychic Sue,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I don’t blame you. It’s a new beginning, Faye. Sow your oats; a little bit of lust never did anyone any harm.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I smiled. ‘I’m not ready for any of that yet... I’m only looking.’

  ‘No harm in looking, either,’ she said, taking a sip of wine.

  ‘I’ve been looking a lot lately,’ I giggled. ‘I play this game at the supermarket where I spot someone quite attractive and try to work out what kind of man he is from the contents of his basket.’

  ‘And have you found the perfect “supermarket man?” Sue asked with a giggle.

  ‘Almost. I’m still working on it, but Waitrose is best; I reckon they are richer and classier and probably more intellectual.’ I was probably looking for something that didn’t exist—that perfect Waitrose man—a divorced Kevin Bacon lookalike three years older than me with a love of English literature and a second home in Tuscany. Waitrose men bought salmon smoked on whisky-charred chippings, pink salt from the Himalayas and coffee from the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. They cared about the world and what they put in their mouths, their bodies, their lives... their women... and I liked that in a man. But did he really exist? And would he want me if he did?

  ‘I reckon he’s a Waitrose guy, ‘I said, watching the man on the other table. ‘An evening with “Waitrose Man” would mean good wine, great food and stratospheric sex. Just a theory based on my own recent supermarket findings,’ I added.

  Sue raised her brows and I was vaguely aware we were both now gazing at this man, observing every move, every nuance. He leaned towards his daughter... and we stopped nibbling our breadsticks; like two hamsters we waited, alert, our mouths open. His daughter leaned in and he put his arm around her in that lovely protective way dads do. Sue and I looked at each other with an ‘aw’ face... and then he reached his hand under her chin, lifted it and... gave her a great big French kiss right in the middle of Pizza Express. With tongues. At lunchtime. ‘Oh, shit... it’s not his daughter,’ I hissed, horrified and disillusioned as Sue and I choked on our breadsticks, averted our eyes and tried to stop laughing.

  ‘Well, there goes your Waitrose theory,’ she snorted. ‘She must be thirty years younger than him. So what do your “supermarket findings” say about that?’

  ‘They say that true Waitrose Man doesn’t exist. I’m destined to a loveless, sexless future because I’m too old and past it even for men my own age. Life just isn’t fair,’ I sighed, watching the very young woman virtually licking the old man’s face.

  ‘You can say that again, love,’ Sue took a big gulp of her wine. ‘She’s probably his fourth wife... she’s doubtless got the third wife’s soft furnish
ings in the back of her car now.’

  I giggled and emptied my wine glass. It tasted so good and so warming inside, I ordered us another.

  ‘A man can be with someone young enough to be his daughter—but if I went out with a younger man I’d be the talk of the salon,’ I sighed.

  ‘Talking about anyone in particular?’ She was looking at me, breadstick poised, lips pursed.

  ‘No,’ I replied, but we both knew she was referring to delicious Dan.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t blame you. It’s about time you started to have some fun,’ she said. You’re clever and funny and so attractive, and you deserve someone better than Craig. I mean, he wasn’t bad looking, but he always seemed so grumpy.’

  ‘He was.’

  We played with our wine glass stems, two women struggling through life in our own ways.

  ‘Oh, love. It’s hard being with them and hard being without them, isn’t it? You and I married too young. Bloody hell—I hadn’t a clue about anything when I first slept with Ken; I thought a clitoris was an exotic fruit!’ she laughed.

  ‘Yeah. I should have seen the writing on the wall when Craig packed a copy of Know Your Lathe, into his luggage on honeymoon,’ I smiled, remembering how he’d folded the top of the page over with more tenderness than he’d shown me in the later years of our marriage.

  Our pizzas arrived, along with our second glass of wine, and as Sue had a bit of a cold we decided it was medicinal.

  ‘Young women today get to shop around a bit, don’t they? If I had my time again I’d sleep with lots of men,’ she said, biting the end of her breadstick.

  ‘Yes, and me... and it scares me a bit to think about what lies ahead, but there’s nothing to stop either of us now, Sue,’ I said, raising my glass to hers. It wasn’t too late anymore and I could do anything I wanted in this new single life. It was so intoxicating, I wanted to laugh out loud with excitement and anticipation... and fear.

  ‘I told you, it’s our hormones,’ Sue said. ‘We’re both looking at men like we did when we were teenagers... too much cholesterol.’

  She meant testosterone, but she’d be right on both counts in my case, I thought, finishing my cheesy pizza and wishing I’d been good and had the salad.

  We ate dessert, drank coffee and walked back arm in arm with a bounce in our step, feeling so much better. Lettuce never tasted like pizza and cheesecake, and I don’t care what they say—cheesecake does taste as good as slim feels.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, I popped out for something nice to have with our afternoon coffee. Yes, I could have gone elsewhere, but I thought, as we’d had an Italian lunch, we’d keep the theme going—so I went into the deli.

  Dan was standing behind the counter chatting to some guy about the French Brie and fig jam and I stood nearby, looking around the shelves, just listening to his lovely voice. ‘There’s this really great fig jam?’ he said, ending in that high inflection of the Aussie accent. ‘When I first tasted it, with the brie, I was so excited.’

  The way he said exoided... I heard soft, sugary sand, tumbling waves and sunshine. I loved that he got excited about fig jam; it was something I could get excited about too, and I made a mental note to buy some with a slice of brie next time.

  I picked up a packet of Florentines—they would be perfect and keep Sue (and me!) on the ‘high’ we’d had since lunchtime. Sue’s company had definitely cheered me up, but just seeing Dan and listening to his lovely voice was even better than the Veneziana Romana pizza. My heart was pounding and a thrill shot through me every time I glanced at him. It occurred to me that next time I wanted a ‘sugar high’, I should just come and gaze at Dan in the deli. I’d lose twenty pounds in a fortnight, I thought, smiling secretly.

  ‘Hey, you look happier than you did the other day,’ Dan said as the customer moved away from the counter and he spotted me.

  ‘Yes—a nice lunch with some good wine and lovely company is better than Prozac,’ I said.

  Shyness, stupid teenage embarrassment and the two glasses of wine at lunchtime caused me to plonk the packet of biscuits onto the counter with a little too much enthusiasm. This caused my bag to fall off my shoulder, sweeping the bowl of olives, artisanal breads, and several more Florentine packets off the counter and crashing onto the floor. I was mortified.

  Within seconds he was on his knees wiping up the mess, no doubt wishing I’d just paid and left. I wanted to die, and with my head bowed over the Florentine shards on the olive-oiled floor, I heard Craig’s voice scolding, reminding me how clumsy I was.

  ‘I’m so sorry... I’m so stupid and clumsy. Let me pay for these,’ I muttered, wondering just how much this was all going to cost.

  ‘No, it’s no problem,’ he smiled. ‘You’re not stupid or clumsy—it’s the way I’d stacked them,’ he added, scooping up the pack and all its Florentine fragments. I was waiting for him to be angry, or irritated at least, but he was so laid-back, so easy, he just kept smiling. He was kneeling holding one of the packs of smashed biscuits, and he looked up at me as I gathered a fistful of olives.

  ‘These Florentines are made from the best Mediterranean almonds, you know?’

  I nodded at him down on the floor.

  ‘They have been finely crafted, delicately covered in Belgium’s finest chocolate and hand-packed with love,’ he said.

  I nodded again, feeling a little awkward, but I liked listening to him; it gave me an excuse to gaze into his laughing eyes.

  ‘They then endured the long journey from Rome, through Milan and Zurich, before flying first class across the Alps...’

  He was looking at me. I pulled my mouth down on either side in mock dread.

  ‘And do you know what, Faye? They stayed intact.’ My mouth stayed in the same shape as the olives now squidgy in my hand.

  ‘Hey, but two minutes with panda lady and they are totally destroyed,’ he finished, smiling at me.

  I laughed. ‘I’m not “panda lady”—do you see a panda anywhere here?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said in mock seriousness, standing up and pointing at me.

  ‘Do you know I’ve not worn that panda hat since you made fun of me... and it was warm. I liked it.’

  ‘Ah, that’s a shame because you did look cute. When you weren’t smashing stuff up and bursting into tears.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry about... all this.’

  He took a fresh pack of Florentines down from the shelf. With his back to me, I noticed how his jeans hung on narrow hips, like they were a little too big—but it looked good.

  He turned round and I offered to pay for them again but he wouldn’t hear of it. ‘I love broken biscuits,’ he said, walking behind the counter. ‘In fact I have just had an idea—I could bake a cake with those broken-hearted Florentines. If you are around tomorrow, you should come in and try it... take a piece for your broken-hearted friend.’

  ‘Oh, Sue? Yes, it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped again for poor Sue,’ I smiled, regaling him with more of Sue’s dating exploits. He laughed in all the right places, which showed he was listening. I liked Dan, and I liked making him laugh; it made me feel like I existed.

  ‘Oh, God, is that the time? I have to go... I have a “Spiteful Scarlet” at three,’ I said, and when he looked confused I promised to tell him all about ‘the Lithuanian situation’ when we next met.

  ‘Come in tomorrow—tell me all about it and you can try your broken Florentine cake,’ he said.

  I walked towards the door, but in my rush to leave while attempting to defy facial gravity, I slipped slightly on the olive slick left from my earlier disaster. I shot quickly across the floor, grasping at the basket of artisanal breads to break my fall, which sadly just came with me.

  I managed to save myself from landing on the floor but it looked weird that I’d just moved the bread display three feet while doing a strange jerking movement, which had been necessary to get my balance back. I stood back, admiring the bread basket in its new position like I’d just d
one a little product dressing on my way out. I thought I’d got away with it and hoped to God he hadn’t noticed, but as I turned to say goodbye, he was laughing. I rolled my eyes like it was all the fault of the artisanal breads.

  The delicious continental titbits that had excited me on my first visit were now a crime scene, and if I didn’t get out quickly, weighty hams may crash from their ceiling hammocks, whole trays of freshly baked croissants let loose from their moorings... and I would be on my back in the centre of this epicurean carnage.

  ‘I’ll get that cleaned up... could be a disaster,’ he chortled.

  I apologised again and reached for the door, hot and flushed with embarrassment.

  ‘So... your lunch... was it a romantic lunch by any chance?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you mean today? No it was Pizza Express with Sue.’

  ‘Oh... I ask because you seem... happy... or is that the wine?’

  ‘That’ll be the wine,’ I nodded, thinking it was probably hormones, and making my escape before I caused any more damage.

  Was it the wine, or was it being near him that made me feel so overwhelmed? He wasn’t my usual type, but that smile, his love of food and lovely voice were utterly delicious.

  ‘I’ve not tried the Pizza Express... is it good?’

  ‘Yeah... I like it.’

  ‘I should try it out while I’m here... we could go together, one lunchtime?’

  ‘Yeah...’ I probably sounded reluctant, when what I really meant was, ‘Oh, God, yes... When?’ I wasn’t sure how to handle this; it had been many years since anyone of the opposite sex had suggested lunch with me. Was it a date, did he want to spend time with me, or did he genuinely just want to see the inside of Pizza Express? I decided it was too risky to hang around and find out. I was still flushed at having smashed most of his biscuits and hurled olives around his shop. I wasn’t going to risk one of my Tourette’s-style conversations talking about going out for lunch with him. I wasn’t going to say one more word or cause one more disaster in the deli, so decided to leave on a high. ‘I must go. See you,’ I called, lifting my face up to defy gravity so my wrinkles weren’t quite so obvious.