The Kitchen Front

by Jennifer Ryan

  “As it happens,” Mrs. Quince said calmly, “I have been offered a job at Rathdown Palace. I didn’t want to take it—the move would be hard on me—but the wages are good, and Lady Morton would make a very fine employer. If needs must, I will accept the position.”

  That knocked Lady Gwendoline back a little. Rathdown Palace was a grand, opulent establishment, one that she had her eye on for herself one day. How embarrassing for her, should Mrs. Quince accept a position there, having been dismissed from Fenley Hall!

  And there was Sir Strickland to consider, too. He would be incensed if she was responsible for handing their precious Mrs. Quince over to a rival great house—he was determined that Fenley Hall be the best in all respects.

  Think as she might, she couldn’t come up with any other means of coercing the cook, who remained standing, now an openly impatient look on her face.

  How mortifying that her own cook was now able to get the better of her.

  Suddenly breaking the fraught air, Mrs. Quince made a conciliatory suggestion. “I’m sure a lady like yourself has plenty of friends in high-up places. Why don’t you ask if one of them has a cook or a chef who can help you?”

  This immediately struck Lady Gwendoline as rather a good idea. Her eyes narrowed as she imagined herself telephoning Lady Morton herself, making a little small talk, letting her know that she was on the lookout for a top chef for special Ministry of Food work. “Hmm, well, perhaps that might be the best answer.”

  “Can I go then, m’lady?” Mrs. Quince was sagging in her shoes. “I need to get back to the kitchen.”

  Lady Gwendoline’s eyes fixed on the old woman. “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Quince,” she said with the formal smile of an upstanding employer. “And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your health matters, provided you don’t mention today’s meeting to anyone, including the kitchen maid.”

  Mrs. Quince gave a little bob. “Right you are, m’lady,” she said and limped back across the long room to the door.

  Lady Gwendoline watched her leave, smarting briefly at the woman’s impudence, before reaching for her notebook. “Now where did I put Lady Morton’s telephone number?”

  She would find herself a chef who would win this contest for her once and for all.

  Audrey

  Audrey was with the hens, collecting eggs, when the package arrived. She had picked the last of the roses from the remaining bushes, and they lay, pink and red, on the ground beside her, as if marking the end of an era. As the hens pecked around her, Audrey mopped her brow.

  “Why aren’t there as many eggs as usual?” she muttered. Had something happened to disturb them? They say that hens are deeply affected by unhappiness, by stress. It struck her that maybe her own emotions were upsetting them. Had they realized the precariousness of the Landon family’s finances, knowing that perhaps they’d all be evicted, hens, pig, and bees included, within a month should Audrey’s pie and cake sales slide?

  “Oh, why are you holding back your eggs this week, hens? When I need them more than ever.”

  Squiggle-beaked Gertrude was pecking furiously at the ground beside her. “Not that you ever lay any eggs, Gertrude.” She let out a sigh. “Could you try a little harder, squeeze one out to help with the cakes for the café in Middleton?”

  She began cleaning their coop, relocating Cyril the hedgehog, who she found in their wooden hut, and spreading out new straw. The boys were out, the younger two with neighborhood friends and Alexander helping in the village shop for some extra pennies. She was enjoying the peace and quiet. The next round of the contest was just around the corner. Her mind was busy thinking through different main courses.

  What dish would display her knowledge, her skills, her feeling for food?

  The lad from the post office was already at the gate by the side of the house, letting himself in. He was wearing the same too-short trousers and a shirt that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a while. Audrey knew that her own boys’ clothes were the same. Clothes rationing had made it almost impossible to get hold of even secondhand clothes. Fuel and soap rations meant that clothes went unwashed for as long as possible. It was a relief for Audrey as well as plenty of other mothers that folks had stopped wagging fingers at one another or whispering behind their hands. Dirt was an acceptable part of life.

  “Got a parcel for you, Mrs. Landon,” he called, making his way up the path between the vegetables.

  Audrey wiped her hands on her trousers and opened the mesh wire door of the coop as he passed it over to her and ambled back to the gate.

  A stamp on the box informed her that it was from the Royal Air Force.

  Her hands began to shake.

  “It’ll be the things found on Matthew’s body,” she murmured, backing into the chicken coop and sitting haphazardly on the grubby floor. She didn’t care.

  Suddenly nothing seemed to matter.

  Her fingers trembled as she untied it, unwrapped it, and opened it.

  The first thing she saw was his wallet, the old black leather pouch so familiar, yet almost from a different era now. It looked older, a touch of mildew on the side as if it had spent a while out in the cold.

  She looked at the wallet for telltale signs of what it—and its owner—had been through. It had been emptied of money, of course. She imagined a German man watching the plane come down, racing to the field to take whatever loot he could. Or was it a woman, a housewife like herself with a husband at war, going through a dead man’s pockets to find some way to contact her—to let her know what had befallen her husband, a gesture she herself would do for another?

  Tucked inside was a photograph, tatty around the edges and already yellowing. It was her own face, but younger, brighter than it was now. Her eyes squinted in the sunshine and her hair trailed in the wind as she smiled. She remembered that day. Matthew had taken them on an adventure to the top of a nearby hill, through woodland, scrubland, and finally up a steep, rocky summit. The boys complained at the beginning, but by the end they were euphoric with fresh air and the blood pumping through their veins. The views from the top gave a heady awe: How alive they’d all been!

  And here she was now, in the chicken coop, wondering how she could have descended so quickly, hectically from peak to trough. Life had become just another thing she had to get through.

  She slipped her hand into the parcel to take out the smaller items: a small copper disk with his name and number, a pen, a belt buckle. Then her breath caught.

  Between the items was a short strip of ribbon, gold and green and rather frayed. Tears brimming over her eyes, she cupped it in her hands and brought it to her face, feeling sobs well up inside her.

  “This is the ribbon I wore in my hair when we first met,” she told Gertrude, who had come to stand beside her, her skewed beak lob-sided yet familiar. The ribbon was grayed by wear or weather, but she’d recognize it anywhere. “He kept it,” she cried. “He kept it for all those years, took it with him wherever he went.”

  She bent her head into her hands and cried. She didn’t want his things, the photograph of her, her own ribbon.

  She wanted him, his tangible self, to hug, to hold, to kiss, to breathe in. To love.

  How could someone simply be dead? How did his blood stop pumping, his lungs stop breathing, his heart—his heart…

  Her whole being went numb, collapsed against the chicken wire at the side of the coop, Gertrude nuzzling into her.

  Her gaze fell on the back door, and she imagined him coming out of the kitchen, pipe in hand, calling for her to come inside for tea.

  Can this be real? she thought desperately.

  She watched as he walked up the path, his legs in their woolen trousers brushing past the fernlike carrot tops that looped in the way. His eyes watched her steadfastly. He didn’t look down for one moment. Only at her.

  “Why are you so sad
?” he said warmly, half cajoling, half serious. “Come on now, my precious. It’s not like you to miss out on a nice hot cup of tea.”

  But she couldn’t move. Her arms, her legs, were too heavy to lift. All she could do was keep her eyes open, watching, yearning—dreaming.

  The closer he came, the farther he seemed, once again his trousered legs brushing past the carrots, his eyes unfalteringly on hers. His soft lips parted, smiling slightly, the sunshine bright on his soft face.

  “Why don’t you come inside with me? You’re always here in the garden. You need to take a break, darling. Come and see what I’ve just painted.”

  Mesmerized, she watched, unable to speak, unable to move, as he gradually dissolved into thin air. One moment he was there, the next he was gone.

  But where? Where could he be?

  The question went around and around in her mind, like a Ferris wheel that stopped every few minutes, reminding her that it was a dream.

  Or was it?

  And this was how Zelda found her, later that afternoon when she arrived home early from work.

  Audrey was slouched on the ground, her back against the chicken wire on the far side of the coop, Gertrude in her arms. Her eyes gazed blankly in front of her, not seeming to register that anyone was there.

  Hastily entering the coop, Zelda pulled her up, gathering up the package and its contents, as well as the roses.

  “Come on now, Audrey,” she said gently. “Let’s go into the house, shall we?”

  With her arm linked through Audrey’s, Zelda led her slowly through the vegetables to the back door. Once inside the kitchen, she sat her down, laying the roses and package beside her, and put on the kettle. The boys were still out, and the room was silent save the gentle rumbling of the water beginning to boil.

  A cooling rack still held half a dozen fruit scones that had been made for the Stricklands that morning. Zelda took two plates and popped one on each, bringing them over to the table.

  The two women sat, one numbed by the abject pain of existence, the other holding her hand across the table.

  “What happened?”

  As if she were a machine, Audrey replied, “I had just finished picking the last of the roses and collecting the eggs, but the hens weren’t laying. Then the delivery lad came…”

  Zelda broke open the fluffy scone for Audrey, foregoing butter—there was probably none left anyway—and going straight for the jam.

  “The jam’s lovely, thick and tart with rose hips. I think you should try some.” She pushed the plate toward Audrey, brought her hand to it, then gave up and picked up a half herself. “It’s full of vitamin C, according to the Ministry of Food leaflets.”

  Mechanically, Audrey took a bite, slowly chewing. “A little too tart perhaps,” she murmured, in a daze. But she carried on eating while Zelda warmed and then filled the teapot and brought it to the table with some cups.

  She poured the tea, pulling a drab hand-knitted tea cozy over the teapot.

  “This is pretty,” Zelda said, trying to lighten the mood. “Did you make it yourself?”

  “It isn’t pretty. I only had dark green and dirty orange wool. I unraveled some of Matthew’s old socks.”

  She felt the words stumble out of her. How could he be dead? How could a man with socks that could be unraveled to make tea cozies really be dead?

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have unraveled them.” She began to cry, taking the tea cozy off the teapot and hugging it close to her chest. “He wore them,” was all that she could say through her tears.

  Zelda brought her chair around the table and put her arm around Audrey’s shoulders, and there they sat, until the two younger boys crashed in an hour later.

  “What’s for supper?”

  “Ben punched me and didn’t say sorry.”

  “Can we get a tortoise? Bickie Sanderson’s got one, and it might have babies.”

  “Cyril might have hedgehog babies, too,” Christopher said. “Can you imagine giving birth to prickly babies?”

  Audrey looked at her children and felt a shiver of panic. She could barely cope with herself, let alone them.

  Zelda shuffled uncomfortably, then said with forced cheerfulness, “I’m making supper tonight, boys. It’ll be—” Her eyes flitted around the kitchen, settling on the box of dried egg powder. “It’s going to be farmhouse scramble, my favorite.”

  “What’s farmhouse scramble?”

  “It’s delicious! Lots of nice vegetables—beans and onions and potatoes—all fried up with eggs. You’ll love it. Now could you all go into the garden and do your share of the weeding? Your mum’s had a hard day, so why don’t we give her the evening off?”

  The boys, thankfully, rushed through the kitchen to the back door and went to do their daily garden work. Zelda began washing and peeling carrots and potatoes.

  Audrey sat for a while, listening to Zelda hum “There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover.”

  “Thank you, Zelda, for dealing with them,” she said.

  “They’re nice boys, really they are,” Zelda replied, as if surprising herself with the sentiment. “You’re a good mother.”

  Audrey, still half in a daze, watched her at the sink. “You’d make a good mother, too.”

  Silence.

  “You don’t need to give the baby away, you know.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  There was another long pause while Audrey thought about Matthew’s death—how the boys were her only source of joy. How they’d kept her going.

  “Being part of a family is a wonderful thing.” She began to pick up Matthew’s belongings from the package, turning them over in her hands, memories of him, the dearest husband she could ever have had, passing vividly through her mind like an old film reel. “What about the father of the baby? What does he think?”

  Zelda continued cooking in silence for a moment, and then said bitterly, “He’s a handsome chef who gave me fake pearls. If you must know, he left me before I even knew I was pregnant.”

  “Maybe you’ve got him wrong. Fake pearls only mean that he doesn’t have the money for real ones. Maybe if he knows about the baby, he’ll want to marry you.”

  “He’s not that kind of man.” She was pushing the vegetables around the pan so furiously they barely had enough time in one place to cook. “After what happened, I—I just don’t want to know.”

  “But what do you have to lose?”

  Zelda spun around. “He was using me, Audrey. He said that he loved me, came over to stay whenever he liked, and had an affair with his sous-chef—if not other women, too. He wouldn’t get me one little job to help me stay in London. Why would he help me raise a blooming child?”

  There was a pause. Audrey knew what love was. Her fingers reached for the ribbon, feeling it for Matthew’s presence. “Did you love him?”

  “Of course I didn’t.” The answer came too fast, too abruptly to be true, Zelda focusing on her cooking. “I’d never do anything as stupid as that.”

  “Love isn’t stupid, Zelda?”

  “It is if the man’s an imbecile.”

  Audrey pushed back an urge to put an arm around Zelda’s shoulders. It was clear that this man wounded Zelda’s heart—not just her pride. Gently, she asked, “What are you going to do, then?”

  Zelda focused on peeling and chopping potatoes. “Well, I thought I would have the baby here in the countryside, have it adopted, and then I can go back to my London life—my career. No one will know any different. I’ve never wanted children.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t know where I’d be without my boys.” The back door was open, and that everyday small elation of seeing them there, playing and weeding, surged through her.

  “Look, babies might be your cup of tea, but they’re most definitely not mine. I’m a chef. A woma
n who needs freedom, her own life.”

  “You’re right!” Audrey looked at Matthew’s wallet, turning it over in her hands. “Men can have freedom and children, can’t they? They can be artists or pilots and be fathers, too. It’s women that have to make the choice between two of the most basic desires: a career or a family.”

  Zelda dumped the chopped potatoes noisily into a pan. “But I don’t need a family. What I need is to have my life back.”

  “But don’t you want to be part of something greater than yourself? I wouldn’t give this up for the world. I know that Matthew’s gone and times are heartbreakingly hard, but can’t you see that’s why it’s so utterly worthwhile.”

  “I’m completely fine on my own,” Zelda said indignantly. “I’ve never had to rely on anyone.”

  “Perhaps that’s because you’ve never had someone you can trust, someone to help you. Just because you’ve never had a proper family, it doesn’t make it wrong to feel kinship with another person.” She frowned. “Zelda, what were your parents like?”

  “Well, my mother was despicable. What if I turned out like her, eh?” Zelda’s voice was starting to sound more cockney. “I was the eldest of four—five if you include little Mabel who got ill and died before she was two. I was the one who found her, cold and stiff in the pram where she slept—she’d had a fever, some kind of infection, I think. Our mother was never there—always out in her fancy clothes—and we were left in the squalor, starving. I had to steal food from shops, going farther afield after I was caught and banned from the ones nearby.” She looked around at Audrey. “Don’t tell me about babies—I had to look after my siblings till she sent me away to work.”

  “What about your father?”

  She shrugged. “I never knew who he was. I’m not even sure if my mother knew herself.” She began chopping up a few sprigs of parsley, now slower, more considered. “You see, I don’t want that for any child.” She glanced at her belly, now bulging beneath her apron. “Which is why this little one deserves a respectable home with two married parents, where people don’t call him or her names.”