A Nice Cup of Tea

by Celia Imrie

  He put the phone down.

  Sally wondered whether, last night when she was drunk, William had installed CCTV. How otherwise could he know she was still in bed?

  She groaned and slumped through to the bathroom. She looked a sight. She pulled on some clothes, quickly brushed her teeth and washed her face, then went down to get the boat key and her safety kit.

  The streets were busy this morning. Most of the people shoving up the hill, which she was trying to get down, were definitely Brits. Salmon-pink faces, wobbly arms, midriffs bulging out of their embarrassing T-shirts, bearing utterly unfunny slogans like ‘I’m With Stupid ’ and ‘Keep Calm Woman and Pour the Tea’.

  Sally growled to herself as she pushed through the thrusting, chattering throng. She knew when crowds were this thick it meant that a cruise ship had come in along the coast. Hopefully some of them would take lunch at La Mosaïque.

  At the bottom of the hill she found the quay also bustling with slow-moving tourists.

  Tugging the collar of her waterproof jacket up, she scuttled along at the water’s edge. The last thing she needed now was one of them recognising her, and telling her how much older she looked than when she was on telly twenty years ago.

  She shoved through the doors of La Mosaïque to find Carol, holding out a large cardboard box and tapping her watch. ‘The ship’s name is on the box. Presumably you know how to find an address which is just “somewhere out here on the water”?’

  ‘No more details?’

  ‘It’s a 52-footer,’ Carol read from her notes. ‘Which probably means more to you than me.’

  Sally grabbed the box and peered at Carol’s felt-tip-marker writing. ‘“The Bitch Got The House”?’

  ‘Apparently that’s the name of their yacht.’

  ‘What kind of a name is that?’

  Carol shrugged. ‘Ours not to question why . . .’

  ‘And they didn’t tell you anything other than the boat was on the water?’

  Carol proffered Sally her notebook.

  Laying down her safety kit, Sally flicked through the scrawled pages.

  ‘It’s a Sunseeker, 52 foot?’ Sally rolled her eyes. ‘Well, that narrows it down a bit. Did they even say they were off Bellevue-sur-Mer? They’re not at Villefranche, Èze or Cap-Ferrat, perhaps? The Côte d’Azur is a huge stretch of water.’

  ‘Stop fussing, woman.’ Carol thrust the box at Sally. ‘I’ll get hold of them again and then phone you with the details.’

  Sally stood, waiting.

  ‘No, Sally. I mean you go, now. I will phone you with further info.’

  Sally did not like the way Carol was talking at her as though she was simple.

  ‘Come on, Sally. Vamoose! We want to start this business with a good reputation.’

  Suppressing her desire to reply, Sally turned on her heels and went out again into the open. She nimbly steered the picnic box through the pressing crowds, then took the steps down to the quay where her little fishing boat was moored.

  This Shore to Ship was such a stupid idea she regretted being the twit who’d thought it up. She also realised that she was going to have to look slippy, because, if it didn’t work, she would be the one to take all the blame.

  Jumping aboard her boat, Sally stowed the box in the wheelhouse where there would be no spray. It was only then that she realised she had not picked up the safety kit.

  Ah well. She’d never ever needed it before. Fingers crossed that she wouldn’t need it this time.

  To Theresa, getting in an hour earlier and making up a box of picnic fayre had not been too much of a strain.

  She was now busily peeling potatoes, while singing along to the radio.

  They had a pretty full house for lunch, which was probably due to the cruise ship which had moored just up the coast for the day. On the other hand, tonight’s dinner bookings amounted to one table for three.

  She hoped that the adverts going in the local papers and on the radio stations would bring in a few home deliveries.

  Potatoes finished, she cleared away the peelings and went to the store cupboard for flour.

  Theresa loved pottering around in this kitchen. But pottering, of course, was not the ideal state to be in. If she were racing about, wiping sweat from her brow, it would be preferable because then they would be earning money rather than propping up the place while it descended into ruin.

  Opening the fridge, she took out a slab of butter, and laid it on the stainless-steel top, to soften up. She realised she should have done this before the potatoes, but frankly, since the disappointment of the auction, she had not been thinking efficiently.

  She moved across to the vegetable racks and pulled out a handful of carrots and placed them in the sink. She knew she’d also want red peppers later, so she went to the salad rack. Lying across the lettuces was a red rose. How lovely! Someone had sent her a pretty flower to cheer her day. She filled a jug of water and put the rose in. Unfortunately the neck was too wide so it kept flopping out.

  What a gorgeous little token to brighten a dull day. As she set to work on the carrots, she wondered who might have left it. She wondered whether it was the actual vegetable-delivery guy, or perhaps the driver. How romantic! Maybe it was one of the team at La Mosaïque.

  No doubt whoever had left her the sweet gift would own up later on and it would be a terrible disappointment. She sighed and glanced up at the wall clock. Half eleven! She was well behind.

  Snatching the rose from the jug, Theresa dropped it into a glass of water. Tonight she’d take it home, put it in a slim tall vase and leave it on her windowsill.

  Then she turned up the radio, picked a good sharp knife and started chopping.

  Sally navigated through rather choppy waters, squinting at all the motor yachts anchored in the bay. She hadn’t realised how many had clever-clever long names. She had thought that the particular name she was headed for would be easy to spot due to its length, but not when you had others called Three Sheets to the Wind, Stocks and Blondes and Eat, Drink and Remarry. She sensed a fair amount of bitterness in boat naming.

  Sally was also amazed at the number of British ensigns dangling from the stern staffs. Many of these boats seemed to be registered in every conceivable tax haven, from Jersey, Guernsey and Bermuda to the Cayman Islands.

  So many loaded people.

  And if the Picasso had sold as intended, she might have been one of them. Sally gathered control of herself. Even if the mosaic had made what she considered to be mega-bucks, she still wouldn’t have arrived at anywhere near the level of wealth of these people. And presumably they had something more up their sleeves than just striking it lucky. If they had worked for their money, there must be some feeling of fulfilment, something which in her own mind she lacked.

  As she left the waters of Bellevue-sur-Mer and pulled out into the open sea, she turned the wheel of the helm and pushed the throttle forward.

  Where was this ruddy boat?

  Her phone rang.

  Carol.

  ‘You were right. They’re not at Bellevue-sur-Mer. They’re actually at the end of the Rade at Villefranche.’

  Sally sighed.

  Carol continued: ‘To be fair, they admitted to me that they didn’t actually know where they were but described their surroundings, saying it was a big bay, with hills either side and that they could see “a kind of polygon-shaped white lighthouse” nearby at the end of the land . . .’

  ‘Cap-Ferrat,’ snapped Sally. ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘Good.’ Carol hung up.

  Sally slipped her phone back into her pocket. Carol didn’t need to be quite so brusque. Sally felt utterly disgruntled.

  Why had she got involved in the stupid restaurant in the first place? It really wasn’t her thing at all. She must have been having a mental fit that day. Her friendships with the others had been so much easier before. Now practically everything made her feel guilty.

  Sally steered the boat towards the lighthouse, all t
he while thinking of the fuel she was getting through. This Shore-to-Ship idea was going to cost them so much more in gas than they could ever make in profit from a few sandwiches. She couldn’t see how they could make it work if she had to race miles and miles around the Med …

  As the boat hurtled through a wave, spray drenched the windscreen. Sally laughed. Really, she was relieved to be out at sea in the boat rather than hovering around the restaurant surrounded by all that disappointment, tension and fear.

  Perhaps, for the moment, she wouldn’t say anything.

  She could see a yacht ahead.

  Bare, white, oiled bodies sprawling on the foredeck. They must be mad. The sun might be shining, but it wasn’t that hot.

  Sally threw the fenders over the side, pulled in towards the stern of The Bitch Got The House and gave a shout.

  ‘Hi there! La Mosaïque! Your luncheon order.’

  A plump dark-haired man in nothing but a pair of white shorts leaned over the side. Sally noticed his greying temples. ‘I’ll send the boy down.’ Even if he hadn’t spoken Sally knew as soon as she set eyes on him that he must be English. No one else would dress like that at the end of March. It was sunny but cold.

  A teenaged boy slouched down the steps and took the box from Sally. She went back into the wheelhouse, ready to move off. But the dark-haired man called down: ‘Before you go I’ll have to check it. I know all about you fly-by-night outfits.’

  Sally gritted her teeth.

  She was really not in the mood for this.

  With no sense of haste, the man lay back down on his lounger and waited till the boy arrived at his side with her box. Sally could hear female giggles; presumably the girlfriends she’d seen earlier on the deck, now out of her sightline.

  Slowly the man untied the pink ribbon.

  Sally could hear the females whispering to him.

  ‘Apparently this is not what my, er, pretty friends ordered.’ The man stood, hands on hips.

  Sally took the receipt from her pocket and read it aloud.

  ‘Two portions of hake, green beans, peas and, um, toast.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said the man, gripping the starboard guard-rail and leaning down. ‘No. No. This will not do.’

  One of the women appeared behind him – a young blonde with unnaturally large lips and breasts, wearing a bikini so skimpy it was barely more than two pieces of string. Sally could see goose-pimples rising on the flesh of her arms. How mad to wear swimwear, simply because the sun was out and they were on a yacht! Hadn’t they noticed that on every passing yacht the crew were fully clothed?

  ‘Tell her, Snooky.’

  ‘It’s OK. I have this under control. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.’

  The girl took a step forward, looking down at Sally in every possible way. Another surgically enhanced girl moved into the picture. They both snuggled up to ‘Snooky’. Sally barely managed to disguise her revulsion as they started stroking ‘Snooky’s’ impenetrably dark, hairy chest.

  ‘I’m just the delivery service.’ She couldn’t help thinking that the man’s chest looked like a dirty doormat. ‘I have brought you what you ordered.’

  ‘Now look here, you old bint. You people might want to work up all this healthy-eating malarkey, but when a customer orders baked beans, toast and chips, that’s what the customer wants, and it is your bloody duty to provide it. Not this pretentious rubbish. We don’t want it. I want my money back.’

  He tipped the box upside down, emptying the contents into the water. A large hunk of lightly grilled white fish and a single haricot landed on Sally’s windscreen.

  ‘Come on. Cough up.’ ‘Snooky’ thrust out his hand. ‘I’ll send the boy down for the cash.’

  The teenager slouched on to the bathing platform. At least he was more suitably dressed, in a T-shirt and jeans. He bent down and whispered to Sally. ‘Wish I’d never agreed to come on this ship. He’s a pig.’ He held out his hand. ‘And those girls are more my age than his. Except they’re so boring.’

  Sally had no cash on her other than the contents of her purse, a few coins and a five-euro note, and she wasn’t giving that up to Snooky.

  She mimed putting money into the boy’s palm and muttered, ‘Tell him it will be credited back to the card he used.’

  The boy leaned forward and said conspiratorially, ‘Thanks, Theresa.’

  ‘Sally,’ said Sally, dashing back into the wheelhouse. ‘You must have spoken to Theresa earlier.’

  She started up the engine.

  How odd of the boy to think that the same person who must have taken the call also made the delivery.

  As she pulled away she glanced back at the gin palace. The boy gave her a furtive wave. The little boat swerved, and she could hear the two girls screaming abuse after her. But she pushed the throttle and manoeuvred the boat past the rocky shore, whizzing around the headland and away.

  PART TWO

  TARTE TROPÉZIENNE

  St-Tropez Tart, a Provençal classic, is sold in all patisseries in France. It was created in 1955 and named by Brigitte Bardot to celebrate her home town. Serves 8.

  For the cream

  500ml semi-skimmed milk

  1 vanilla pod, split in two

  3 eggs

  100g icing sugar

  50g plain flour

  200ml double cream, whipped

  4 drops orange-blossom oil

  2 pinches salt

  For the brioche

  5g dried yeast paste

  50ml water

  250g plain flour

  salt, to taste

  30g icing sugar

  3 eggs

  125g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and at room temperature

  zest of 1 lemon

  15g sugar crystals

  50g unsalted butter, cubed

  Decoration

  50g icing sugar, sieved

  First make the cream filling. Boil the milk with the vanilla pod, then vigorously whip the eggs with the icing sugar until it resembles a thick cream. Fold in the flour. Pour in the boiling milk and mix well. Put it back on the heat for about 3 minutes, or until thickened. Once the cream mixture is cooked, pour it into a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to cool (as quickly as possible). When cool, whip using an electric mixer. Add a third of the double cream to the mixing bowl, still beating vigorously. Then gently stir in the remaining cream, orange-blossom oil and salt.

  Next make the brioche. Dilute the yeast in lukewarm water. Mix the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor. Add the eggs and the diluted yeast to the mixture and blend using a dough hook until slightly sticky. After 8 to 10 minutes’ low-speed kneading, the dough should be smooth and elastic. Then add 125g of butter and continue to knead gently until it is completely incorporated. Stir the lemon zest into the dough, then cover with a cloth and leave at room temperature to rise for approximately 1 hour (or until it has doubled in volume). Preheat the oven to 200°C. When risen, knead the dough by hand until it returns to its original size. Leave it to rest in the refrigerator for a minimum of 15 minutes. Spread the brioche mix into a 20cm-diameter greased cake tin. Leave to rise until once more doubled in size. Sprinkle the top with the sugar crystals and butter cubes. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Take it out and let it cool, then cut into two through the centre to make a sandwich.

  To assemble the tart, use an icing bag to squeeze the cream over the lower part of the brioche. The filling should be at least as thick as each of the two slices of brioche. Put the upper part of the brioche on top of the cream. Sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.

  FIVE

  Theresa found lunch service utterly depressing. Cruise days were always terrible. The customers were so used to the fine dining on board that all they wanted onshore was fry-ups.

  Three tables had sent their panisse chips back, mistaking them for simple potato chips, rather than the delicious Niçoise speciality made from chickpeas.

  How to start explaining?


  It had certainly not been their plan to run a greasy spoon. And even if they did change the menu to cater for these people, where would that leave them on ordinary days when there was no huge white whale of a ship in the nearby harbour?

  The locals wanted good food, well prepared.

  She thought of Marcel, who ran the brasserie next door. After the service was over this afternoon, she would go there for a glass of wine and have a chat with him. He must have similar problems. It would be interesting to hear how he dealt with it.

  Theresa found herself trying to compose a reply to another table which had just sent four tartes tatin back, wondering why their apple pie had arrived served upside down, when Sally burst into the kitchen through the back door.

  ‘I hate being insulted by people. Did you not listen to the order?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sally,’ Theresa put the ice cream back into the freezer and dropped the scoop into the hot-water jug, ‘but I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘The Ship-to-Shore or whatever it’s called.’

  ‘Hake, beans, toast and peas?’

  ‘Exactly. Or as they would have had it: baked beans on toast and toasted cheese.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘If they wanted that why did they phone us?’

  ‘You tell me. You spoke to them.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Carol took the call. As usual. I don’t do the phone.’

  ‘Whatever!’ Sally turned on her heels and slammed through into the restaurant.

  The next half hour continued in similar vein. Theresa was very happy when the last order was called. She wiped down the tops and left through the restaurant. Carol and Benjamin were laying up for dinner, and William was at the desk totting up. No sign of Sally.

  ‘Shore to Ship not such a success, apparently,’ said William. ‘But she’s out now in the van, doing a home delivery to a local couple, so that should be all right. Carol clearly didn’t understand their Essex accents.’

  Theresa didn’t want to get involved in another dispute, so she passed quickly out into the open air.