Acquired Tastes

by Simone Mondesir

  The river meandered in a large loop, enclosing the town on three sides, so that it was almost an island and protecting it from the urban sprawl that had ruined so many other towns. The town remained an almost perfectly-preserved monument to the Victorian age where Austen or Trollope would have still felt at home.

  Its nineteenth-century founders, prosperous from the profits of iron and cotton mills, had prided themselves on their piety as well as their industry. In rendering unto God his due they had endowed the town with an extravagant number of church spires for a population that, both in size and in outlook, was determinedly moderate. These now reflected the rays of the late afternoon sun back to the heavens.

  But perhaps the true nature of its liberal-minded Victorian burghers was displayed by the cathedrals to learning which they had endowed with the profits of Empire in order that their sons and daughters would not have to go to Oxford or Cambridge, and in doing so, along with an education, acquire the dissolute habits of the upper classes.

  According to taste, the university was either a gothic masterpiece or a monstrosity. Embellished with every architectural conceit known to the Victorians, it had been built around a green which was laid out with ornamental paths connecting the different buildings. Only five years before, there had been a fiercely fought battle over whether the nineteenth-century rule that banned anyone from walking on the grass should at last be revoked. It was the only open green space in the town and many of the younger, more radical members of staff, felt that it was elitist that townspeople, students and visitors alike should not be able to enjoy it on warm summer days.

  Alicia had supported the group who came in with a late compromise suggesting that benches, designed to be in keeping with the town's heritage, should be placed at certain points, but that walking, sitting and lying on the green should still be banned.

  The Bench Compromise, as it came to be called, was accepted, but the debate about where the benches were to be situated had carried on in sub-committee after sub-committee for two years.

  The dispute about the green was not merely arcane. The university lay not only at the geographical, but also the economic, heart of the town. The desire of its Victorian benefactors to be seen as men of learning, rather than just trade, had paid off, although perhaps not in the way they had envisioned.

  By the mid-1960s, the last of the mills had closed down, and the university had become the mainstay of the town's economy. The rows of two-up, two-down terraced cottages which had once housed the families of overworked and undernourished mill workers who slept ten to a room, bathed in tin baths in the kitchen and shared a line of outside privies, now provided snug, centrally-heated, fully-fitted homes for the lower echelons of the university staff like Alicia. Senior lecturers and professors aspired to semi- and detached villas with front, as well as back, gardens. Alicia loved her tiny cottage. She lavished care and attention on it in a way she never lavished on herself, and at its heart was the kitchen, her favourite room.

  Alicia had not discovered that food and eating could be a pleasure until she had left home. Mealtimes were one of the major battlegrounds between her parents, and she dreaded them. Her father demanded that meals were on the table at a precise time - not a minute earlier and not a minute later. Her mother was not a good cook, and the approach of mealtimes would reduce her to a frenzy of clumsiness, often burning, cutting and splashing herself as she attempted to get everything ready to eat at exactly the same time, something that rarely happened.

  Alicia was required to be seated at the table when her mother served the food, and she watched in agony as her father inspected the plate that had been placed before him. Overcooked or undercooked, too hot or too cold, too much gravy or not enough, anything could provoke a rebuke. Her father had exacting standards. But perhaps the worse offence was any variation from what he considered to be a proper meal, which for dinner meant meat and two vegetables. Once, after her father had expressed enjoyment at a curry he had eaten at the Sergeants' Mess, her mother, thinking to please him, attempted to cook one too. But her father had taken one look at his plate and then hurled it across the table where it had smashed against the wall before falling to the floor.

  If they got through the initial inspection, meals were eaten in silence. Her father attacking his food as though it were the enemy and her mother picking at the meagre helpings she gave herself like a wounded bird. Not wishing to cause further offence to her mother, or to her father who abhorred waste, Alicia ate whatever was put in front of her as silently and swiftly as possible, so she could excuse herself and go to her room where she would lose herself in a novel accompanied by a packet of biscuits or two.

  But where her mother's kitchen had been a place of purgatory, Alicia's was a place of pleasure. It was always warm with the fragrance of cooking and the herbs which grew in pots on the window sill or suspended, drying, from the ceiling. The array of gleaming pots and pans and kitchen implements would have gladdened the heart of Mrs Beeton. Now she heaved a sigh of relief as she lifted her bags on to her enormous pine table and reached for the kettle.

  In anticipation of Vanessa’s visit, she had indulged in a frenzy of shopping in the local supermarket on the way home from the station, but before she could begin preparations, she was in need of a little snack. Three cups of Assam tea and two banana and chocolate hazelnut spread sandwiches later, Alicia set to work.

  By midnight, she was bleary-eyed with tiredness, but triumphant. The cottage had been cleaned from top to bottom and the bed in the guest room had been aired and plumped and spread with crisp, white cotton sheets trimmed with broderie anglaise. The sheets were scented with lavender from the home-made, cotton muslin sachets of lavender Alicia kept in all her drawers and cupboards.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, a dozen spiced wholemeal scones, a sesame seed loaf, a large Dundee fruit cake, some coconut macaroons, a lemon meringue pie and two dozen chocolate brownies, less the two she had eaten just to make sure they were up to her usual standard of moistness, lay cooling on the table.

  After a cursory wash, Alicia fell exhausted into bed but was unable to sleep for what seemed like hours. All the things she still had to do kept going round and round in her mind - she so wanted Vanessa's visit to be prefect.

  Just after five the next morning she woke with a start, suddenly aware that she had not asked Vanessa what time she was planning to arrive. Further sleep was impossible. Driven by the fear that Vanessa might arrive before everything was ready, Alicia rushed down to the kitchen and made an extra batch of dough even before she brushed her teeth. Still in her dressing-gown, she went into her tiny back garden and cut roses still wet with the morning dew, and then arranged a large bunch in the sitting room and a smaller one beside Vanessa's bed. Another inspection convinced her that no dust had managed to collect since she had whirled through the cottage armed with spray cleaner and duster barely a few hours earlier. Only then did she allow herself a bath, but with an eye on the clock, it was a hurried scrub rather than her usual leisurely soak with a book precariously held in one hand.

  As she surveyed her wardrobe for something to wear, Alicia felt anxious. During lunch the day before, she had been conscious of Vanessa looking critically at her clothes, and Vanessa was probably right, she did look a bit dowdy, but her only smart clothes were two long, flowing velvet skirts, one black and one wine red with a paisley print, which she wore with white high-necked blouses. Neither skirt was suitable for day wear. For that she had long ago settled on a uniform of twin-set and tweed skirt which she wore year round, although in summer she wore a cotton-knit twin-set, usually in beige rather than the darker browns she wore in winter. It was simple and comfortable and meant she didn’t have to think about what she was going to wear when she got up in the morning. However, today she really wanted to look nice for Vanessa's visit.

  She rummaged indecisively through her clothes, discarding one thing after another. She was just about to give up in despair when she noticed a plastic bag in the
corner of the wardrobe. It had the name of a local clothes shop printed on it. Alicia pulled it out. Inside was a pale lavender skirt which she had bought in a sale more than a year ago. It was made of a silky material and had a lovely, flowing cut. It was not at all her usual sort of skirt. She remembered that she had bought it in a mad moment and then, when she got it home she decided she would never wear it and had intended to take it back for a refund but had forgotten all about it. With a sudden sense of daring, she put it on together with one of her white evening blouses and then added a single strand of pearls.

  Surveying herself in the mirror she thought she looked quite presentable. She gave her hair a last pat and then wondered yet again whether she should call Vanessa and ask her what time she was arriving. But even as she went into the guest room and gave the early American-style quilt on the spare bed a last unnecessary tweak, Alicia could hear Vanessa's exasperated voice: 'Oh, for heaven's sake Alicia, don't fuss!'

  So she wouldn't, Alicia decided, and instead inspected the contents of her refrigerator. There was some cold pressed tongue, a joint of honey-roasted ham, some potted shrimp and a dozen free-range eggs - enough to make a snack lunch should Vanessa arrive in the morning rather than the afternoon.

  Satisfied that they wouldn't go hungry, Alicia settled down to write her paper. It wasn't easy.

  Writing about food made her hungry, and necessitated numerous trips to the fridge and the boiling of copious amounts of water for tea. She delayed having lunch until after two o’clock just in case Vanessa should arrive, so she was ravenous by the time she ate, preparing herself some poached eggs to go with two thick slices of the honey-roast ham with some potato salad on the side. Golden runny egg yoke and cold, slightly waxy cold new potatoes smothered in mayonnaise always seemed to go so well together.

  It was late afternoon, and she was munching yet another chocolate brownie and wrestling with a comparison between Trollope and Austen, when the sound of a car horn and the squeal of tyres in the road outside brought her back to the twentieth-century.

  Fearing the worst, Alicia rushed to her front door which opened directly on to the pavement in the narrow street where she lived. Her neighbour's aged, one-eared tabby cat stood in the middle of the street, its back angrily arched and fur standing on end as it hissed at an open-topped, white Golf GTi which had stopped only inches away.

  The car door flew open, and a woman wearing a silk scarf and large sunglasses which obscured most of her face, clambered out. Vanessa shook her fist at the outraged animal.

  'Bloody thing. I should have run you down!' she yelled.

  In reply, the cat spat its defiance once more, and then turned on its heel and walked away, tail whisking nonchalantly.

  'Vanessa,' Alicia called, waving her hand, 'I'm over here.'

  Vanessa turned in her direction. 'Did you see that bloody animal? It was sleeping in the middle of the road. I was quite within my rights to squash it flat.'

  'I am afraid Mrs Walmsley's cat, Marmalade, likes to sunbathe on the warm tarmac. He's getting on a bit, and I think it warms up his joints,' Alicia explained. 'People round here don't drive very fast, so he usually has time to get out of the way.'

  Vanessa reached into her car, lifted out a small over-night case, and then slammed the door. 'Well, he bloody well won't get the time if he gets in my way again,' she declared, walking over to Alicia who offered up a cheek. Vanessa kissed the air beside it.

  'You're here now, and that's all that matters,' Alicia said soothingly, taking her bag. 'Welcome to Heartlands.' She stood aside, and with a flourish ushered Vanessa into her front room.

  'Really, sweetie, you do live a little far from civilisation,' declared Vanessa collapsing into the largest armchair. 'I feel I should have taken malaria tablets before venturing up here.'

  Alicia felt a little hurt but then again, Heartlands was a long way from London and Vanessa was probably shaken up by her near miss with Marmalade. What was needed was a nice reviving cup of tea. 'Why don't I put the kettle on while you put your feet up?'

  Vanessa stretched out her feet and placed them on a tapestry foot rest Alicia had lovingly stitched. 'Is there anything I can do?' she called after Alicia, hoping there was not.

  'You just relax and recover from your journey,' Alicia called through the open door. 'I hope you're feeling hungry as I've made some tea. After that we can have a long talk. It'll be just like the old days in the dorm don’t you think?'

  Her reply was an explosive sneeze, quickly followed by several more.

  Alicia rushed through to the other room, clutching the warming teapot in her hand.

  Vanessa was convulsed with sneezing, but one hand was pointing accusingly at the large vase of roses Alicia had placed on the coffee table.

  The sneezes abated for a brief moment.

  'Get them out of here,' Vanessa gasped, 'I hate flowers.'

  Six

  Alicia steadily munched her way through two scones with clotted cream and home-made damson jam, several macaroons and a large slice of fruit cake, her eyes never leaving Vanessa's face.

  So far, Vanessa's visit was not going quite as she planned. Luckily, she kept a well-stocked medicine cabinet and had been able to administer a large dose of antihistamine to Vanessa. While this was soothing her irritated membranes, Alicia emptied the cottage of flowers and closed the windows tight against any more marauding pollen. Then she made tea, hoping that they could now have a long, leisurely girlie chat, and she would discover what was bothering Vanessa.

  But when she brought the loaded tea tray into the sitting room, a red-eyed Vanessa had waved away offers of food and instead seized hungrily on a copy of Fergus's research. She had been reading it and sipping tea for over an hour, occasionally holding out her cup for it to be refilled without saying a word.

  Alicia got up to put the kettle on again. As she waited for it to boil, she popped her head round the door to check if Vanessa was still reading.

  'Is it what you were hoping for?' Alicia asked, her anxiety overcoming her timidity at interrupting Vanessa.

  Vanessa grunted.

  'Terminal Diagnosis - A Report on the Nation's Sexual Health' by Dr Fergus Bartle Archibald, was more than she had dared hope for. She had only read the chapter summaries - she hated unnecessary detail - however its message was clear: blame society's sexual ills on what Fergus described as the bourgeois, liberal intelligentsia aka, as he put it, the Guardian-reading middle classes.

  They, rather than the Right, were responsible, because they were the only ones with the leisure to feel guilty, and guilt depended on the possession of a conscience, which according to Fergus, by definition the Right did not have.

  This guilt about their sexuality had led them to restrict definitions of normal sexual behaviour to within narrow boundaries. In doing so, they had set up a conflict between their natural instincts, as expressed in their sexual fantasies, and what was deemed socially acceptable, thus resulting in widespread and corrosive neurosis.

  According to Fergus, the only cure for this neurosis was for society to not merely enable, but to encourage everyone to fulfil their sexual fantasies.

  At last Vanessa put the manuscript down. 'This is pretty hot stuff.'

  She looked at the Dundee cake. Alicia had just helped herself to a second slice.

  'That looks yummy. I think I'll have some. Is it from Marks & Sparks? '

  Alicia gave her a large slice and a hurt look.

  Vanessa took a bite. 'I was wondering,' she asked through the crumbs, 'about Fergus and you. The sex must be pretty wild.'

  Alicia blushed and lowered her eyes. 'It's not that kind of relationship. We talk a lot and he likes to come round here for dinner. He says I'm the best cook he's ever met, like most men, he's hopeless at cooking for himself.'

  Vanessa popped the last bit of Dundee cake into her mouth and reached for a chocolate brownie. 'Well, they do say the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but it wasn't that part of his anatomy I was t
hinking about reaching. Come on, Alicia, you can tell me. We've known each other long enough, haven't we?'

  Alicia twisted a strand of hair around her finger.

  She liked Fergus a lot, well, more than that really. He made her feel sort of warm and glowy inside, just like that glass of malt whisky he talked her into drinking the other evening. She never usually drank spirits and the smell had made her nose wrinkle, but when she drank it, she felt a tingly sensation which started at the base of her stomach and then spread outwards. She felt quite lightheaded after only a few sips, and suddenly found the courage to confide in him about feeling so fat and unattractive. She had never trusted any man enough to say such things before, but somehow she felt she could trust Fergus to understand her feelings of inadequacy - after all, he was not merely a man, he was a psychologist.

  He had listened attentively with a grave expression on his face. But when she finished, he pushed his chair back from the table and waved his arms around expansively indicating her kitchen.

  'A man could enter here,' he declared, 'and seeing you, partake in such an epicurean banquet, that he might never desire another meal. Anyone who chooses to eat thin dry bread and water when there is a feast such as you to be had, deserves to be horsewhipped. When you pick a fruit, you don't pick one which is small and hard, you choose one which is round and plump with the promise of sweetness.'

  And with that he had kissed her hand.

  Just thinking about that evening still made Alicia's cheeks go quite pink. She had giggled at Fergus and his extravagant language, but later that night, as she lay alone in bed and remembered his words, a hot deep blush enveloped her body and she had eventually been forced to get up and make herself a cup of cocoa.

  'There's nothing to tell, really,' she protested. 'We're friends and colleagues, that's as far as it goes.'

  'Look, I'm not trying to get at you, Alicia, quite the opposite,' Vanessa protested. 'I just don't think you get enough sex and that isn't healthy. I remember going without sex for two whole weeks once - I nearly went crazy. I virtually raped the next available man I was so desperate.' She threw back her head and laughed. 'Poor thing, he didn't know what had hit him. I wore him completely out.' She held out her cup for another refill. 'So, come on, when am I going to meet the great lover?'