Look At Me Now

by Simone Goodman

  Faith and I don our aprons: a black lacy number for her while mine is a white cotton pinafore. Poppy escorts Toby out the false door. Plonked on to the red velvet sofa and cocooned in headphones, he’s right there beside us, but he won’t hear a word we’re saying. A selection of men’s magazines fan over an end table. Toby flicks open an FHM and when his eyes widen, Pugsy zooms in. Toby grins cheekily to camera. I know from experience it’ll take us over an hour to produce content that the editors will trim to twenty-two minutes of showtime in post-production.

  Over here in the kitchen, we begin to prepare the meal. Under guidance, Faith skins the pumpkin, cuts it into small cubes of orange flesh and puts it on to steam. Softening the gnocchi in a separate pot of boiling water, she and Poppy have fun scooping it out the moment it floats to the top. Without causing her eyes to water, but with knife skills that strike fear in me she’ll lose a finger, Faith finely dices the onion and garlic. In a little oil, she sautés them until they are clear. On my instruction, she pours in the cream.

  The sauce thickening, I take over. Poppy redirects Faith to a handful of wild rocket and a sharp, curved herb cutter.

  ‘Careful,’ I warn.

  ‘I’m always careful.’ Faith looks dreamily over at Toby, currently air-drumming to whatever music he’s listening to, his green eyes closed. ‘Rumours are true…’

  Poppy giggles softly.

  ‘You’re alluding to rumours about handsomely endowed black men?’ I finish.

  Unexpectedly, Faith heads to the refrigerator. She returns to the bench wielding an exceptionally elongated purple aubergine that looks distinctly like what (I imagine) a black man’s very ample penis might look like, if it were a vegetable.

  ‘Good Lord!’ I say.

  ‘More like thank the Lord.’ Faith passes me her phallic vegetable, which I drop immediately onto the bench.

  Faith glides back over and returns with a medium-sized courgette, a spindly-looking carrot and an uncooked, pork chipolata sausage. She lays them beside the aubergine – all we need here is a bendy banana. ‘What tickles your fancy?’ Faith looks like she’s about to eat me. All for show. Such a pro. Meanwhile, I’m standing here like the stupefied new recruit.

  Poppy clamps her hand over her open mouth.

  I smile through gritted teeth. ‘Faith, please remove these vegetables from my bench at once.’

  As requested, she scoops up every last vegetable from the bench top, leaving the tiny sausage in front of me.

  ‘Men, you may sleep easy,’ she purrs sexily.

  Pugsy pans in with his camera from me to the sausage and then back on me, up close. I blink. Frozen. The cream bubbles in the pan. Pugsy zooms in on the bubbling and back on me.

  Behind the monitor, Robin looks as awkward as I feel. Joanna can barely stay seated. She motions for me to get on with things. Robin also gestures, but nobody says stop. Joanna almost flips in her seat!

  It’s Harry who thaws me. Leaning forward in his foldaway chair, his warm eyes encourage me – Come on Gracie, you got this.

  Trying to appear, I don’t know, sexily coy, but inwardly cringing, I announce, ‘Faith, you do realise the metabolic advantage of meat over vegetables? You may be surprised,’ I look scornfully at her oversized purple aubergine, ‘but sustenance isn’t all about size. It’s about density.’

  I pierce the chipolata with my fork and brandish it in front of Pugsy’s camera lens.

  ‘Gracie on fire!’ Faith yelps.

  ‘Sizzlingy. Like a good pork banger.’ I drop the baby sausage into the hot pan. ‘Pass me the pasta. This sauce is getting sticky. Let’s keep cooking!’^p

  Joanna’s grin stretches from ear to ear.

  Faith slips in a few more racy innuendos. We finish plating the meal and Poppy leads Toby through to the kitchen, where the four of us banter over morsels of what turns out to be a strange but delicious concoction of pumpkin gnocchi with a creamy garlic and chipolata sausage sauce.

  Harry winks.

  Finally, I hear it.

  ‘Cut!’

  11

  Joanna throws a party for cast and crew at Soho House after we wrap. It’s my first visit to the iconic celebrity haunt. Harry, sitting next to me, is chuckling at my star-studded excitement.

  Let me be clear: Soho House rules hold members’ privacy sacred, and I’m not so audacious to ask for an autograph or take a picture anyway. But I’m keen to catch a glimpse of someone really famous – by all accounts, Prince Harry and Meghan had their first date here. By his interaction so far, Harry Hipgrave is acquainted with half the people in here, most of them bookers, agents and media people: the power players behind the famous fames. When he points out a hot young stud from Love Island and some prima donnas from TOWIE, I haven’t a clue who any of them are. The celebrity-watching a wash, the banter a hit, it’s an excellent night out. Champagne goes down a treat, and I don’t overindulge. Poppy is bubbly, as ever, and Faith is on fire when she perches herself at the bar, all be she shoots down the advances of the Love Island hottie. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was wishing Toby hadn’t had to catch a flight directly after the show.

  The next morning, Harry texts me a picture of the Spice Girls, minus Victoria, papped arriving minutes after we’d left.

  Damn, I recognise them!

  I text back.

  I’ll take you to Groucho next time. You may even win Guess Who?

  Harry replies.

  At work later, and the following day, I’m preoccupied with the animation team, who are sketching us for the opening credits. With the first episode under our belt, Eat Me goes to air in just over two weeks!

  More than usual, Jordan is conspicuous by his absence. Not only have we not spoken, but he’s pulled a few all-nighters at his office. When I get in around 6 p.m. on Friday night, he’s home, haggard on the sofa, the television blaring. By the time I’ve been to the loo and popped back into the front room, he’s fast asleep. I shut down the television, place a blanket over his body and leave him to it. Saturday morning, I wake to an empty flat and a note saying he’s on site all day somewhere south of Tooting for a client ad shoot.

  And so the weekend whizzes in. Tonight, it’s time for Beryl’s murder mystery dinner party with my mother. I pack a small overnight bag and, after scrubbing the bathroom and vacuuming the floors of the flat, I head off to my parents.

  I leave home just before 1 p.m. My travel plans will see me catch the Bakerloo Line from Warwick Avenue Tube station, change to the Jubilee Line at Baker Street, alight at London Bridge, then board a Southern Rail train that shuttles me to Redhill. According to the online journey planner that I check dutifully for unexpected diversions, the entire trip should take me the usual one hour and twelve minutes. Instead, I cop electrical delays at Baker Street and Southern cancels two trains in a row until ‘unplanned engineering work’ forces us onto a replacement bus service.

  Three hours of stop-start travel under my belt, I arrive at the little house I grew up in. My mother opens the front door.

  ‘I was about to send your father to look for you.’

  It amazes me, her steadfast refusal to call my mobile phone. Apparently, even under circumstances in which she’d send my father out on a search party. However, I’m in no mood to spark a lecture about all the possible causes of brain cancer.

  ‘Come in, it’s freezing out here.’ The door closes behind us.

  ‘Sorry, Mummy, I should have called. I’ve had a nightmare journey. I need a cup of tea.’

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ She rushes off into the kitchen.

  I find Daddy dozing in his wing-chair. He startles when I kiss his cheek.

  ‘Hello, Daddy.’ He blinks his eyes several times and, half-asleep, places his hands on the arms of his chair, preparing to move. ‘Don’t rush. I’ll drop my bags and be back in a tick.’

  Upstairs, in my bedroom, is the same single bed with the same lumpy mattress I slept in since I turned ten. The painted white dressing table still h
olds the precious ceramic animals – miniature porcelain dogs, horses and cats I collected as a child. The bookshelf under the window is stacked with the classics from my youth, E.B. White to Lewis Carroll, Charlotte’s Web to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My favourite teddy, Freddie the bear, reclines against my pillow. A lot of happy memories of my childhood are in this room. Though I don’t do it as often as my mother would like, I love coming home.

  I dump my overnight bag on the bed and cross the landing to the bathroom. I scrub my hands clean of travel grime, relieve my bladder and wash my hands again. The room smells of lavender. My mother places bowls of potpourri all over the house.

  As I descend down the stairs, the aroma of boiled ham replaces the floral perfume. In the cosy kitchen at the back of the house, my mother prepares my father’s early supper.

  ‘Derek, are you sure I can’t cook you any vegetables?’ she says, as Daddy shuffles into the kitchen after me. ‘I can boil some peas in a jiff. They’ll be lovely with this parsley sauce.’

  ‘You can cook them, Mavis. But I won’t eat them.’ For as long as I can remember, my mother has battled to feed my father greens, my father resisting her every effort. ‘Tell your mother I’m happy with ham and potatoes, will you, love?’ he grumbles good-naturedly.

  I kiss his cheek again. His skin is soft, sun-spotted and crinkly. He smells of Imperial Leather soap and Old Spice cologne.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t eat with me, Grace? Not sure if you remember, but Beryl isn’t the best of cooks. Not like your mother.’ Daddy winks at me.

  ‘Oh, go on, flattery will get you everywhere. You can have your ham and potatoes. Honestly, Derek, you don’t set a good example for our only child.’

  My mother fusses with a table setting for one and, after the kettle boils, bustles about making my cup of tea. She doesn’t allow me to do anything in her kitchen, though she taught me everything she knew when I was younger. My mother is the reason I pursued a culinary career. When I come home now, it’s nice to be looked after.

  ‘Mummy, I eat my vegetables,’ I laugh. ‘Look at me, I eat everything.’

  ‘You’re a beautiful girl, Grace,’ my father says. ‘Just like your granny, God rest her soul.’ I inherited my womanly curves from my paternal genes. Eighty years in, my mother retains her willowy thin figure. ‘How’s work?’

  ‘Work’s great, Daddy. The new show is… a lot of fun.’ Now we’ve shot the first episode, I’m nervous how my parents will react. A matter for consideration in a few weeks’ time, once it hits the telly.

  ‘I told your father the new set is something else. They must have spent a fortune.’ When she was on set, I’d mentioned the basic premise of the show to my mother, who I’m sure relayed it to my father. But, at that point, I wasn’t to know I’d be asked by Faith, on camera, what sort of stonking big vegetable or little sausage winky I fancied for myself.

  ‘Yes, it’s all quite extravagant, for a bit of fun. What I mean is, the show itself is nothing to take too seriously. Apart, of course, from the money they’ve invested.’

  My mother says, ‘That’s television for you.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy. Spot on.’

  ‘And how’s the flat?’ my father asks. ‘How are things with Harry?’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Your fella.’

  ‘Daddy, Harry is my agent.’

  Confused, my father turns to my mother.

  ‘He means Jordan.’

  ‘Jordan…’ my father repeats. They’ve only met twice. I understand the oversight. ‘Well, who’s Harry?’

  ‘Harry is the lovely gentleman I met at the studio,’ my mother says. My father both shakes and nods his head, not seeming much the wiser, not looking bothered either way. ‘You are aware he’s not married, Grace.’

  ‘Who, Harry?’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘Mummy, what do you mean, “Harry’s not married”? Did you ask him?’ I’ve figured, given he hasn’t mentioned anyone special, and by the way he openly flirts with everyone from the waitress to my mother – he does remind me of Faith – that Harry is single. But oh my God: what is my mother doing asking if he’s married? Harry will presume she’s trying to set me up with him. Which wouldn’t be the first time my mother has, lovingly, and with the best of intentions, tried to help my love life. Which always makes me look desperate. Oh heck. ‘Mummy, what have you done?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything. I’m just saying… that dapper young man, who seems quite intent on watching out for you, dear, isn’t attached.’

  ‘I’m not letting you near him again,’ I say. For good measure, and because I’m embarrassed that I’ve enjoyed Harry’s attentiveness, and I maybe have flirted with him a bit, now that I contemplate it, I add, ‘Anyway, I have a boyfriend.’

  ‘Yes, dear. How is Jordan? We never see him.’

  ‘He’s fine. Just busy with work.’

  My father gives me a glance, a shrug, a smile. My mother continues pottering around the kitchen, with a beatific grin on her face. ‘What outfit have you bought for me to wear tonight?’ I’m served a properly drawn, overly sweet and utterly delicious cup of tea. I don’t usually take sugar, so the sweetness is a treat. My mother makes my tea exactly as she did when, aged five, I’d race in from school to a milky, two-lumps-of-sugar cup of Earl Grey and a generous wedge of the most delicious home-made cake on earth. My mother’s tea is so comforting, I’ve never thought to inform her of my adult habits.

  Vis-à-vis my outfit for this evening, she reminds me I’m going as Satine Featherbag, seductress of the local shoe factory owner, Billy Bragalot. I shudder to consider what get-up is in store for me. My saving grace will be that the other attendees are all octogenarians. The worst I’ll contend with is the endless questions about why a lovely, talented girl like me still isn’t hitched.

  ‘Come with me,’ my mother says. ‘Derek, here’s your dinner. I’ll fix your pudding in a bit. I’ll just sort Grace with her new clothes.’

  I follow her to the box room at the top of the stairs, where she keeps her sewing machine, winter coats, piles of her old school papers and dressing-up clothes for murder mystery parties. Plucked from the portable rail, my mother passes me a burgundy satin bridesmaid’s dress, in a size 18, a fox-fur stole, with a real fox’s head, real claws and plastic brown eyes, and a tangled pearl necklace and some clip-on glass earrings. ‘I got it all from the charity shop,’ my mother beams.

  I get out of my jeans and sweater and into the bridesmaid dress. Several sizes too large for me, my mother pads it out with a flannel sheet underneath and pins it together with a new seam down the back. I refuse to wear the fox stole. My mother, playing the role of Lady Emily Whitstable, great aunt of Satine Featherbag, is wearing it instead, teamed with a frayed, golden threaded 1920’s flapper-dress. I put on the jewellery.

  ‘Ooh, I almost forgot!’ Mother hands me a black feather boa and a matching clutch purse. ‘Satine Featherbag!’ she cries.

  ‘We won’t be staying late, will we Mummy,’ I ask.

  After my father is served his treacle pudding, we take a taxi to Beryl’s, leaving him to the gas fire and his wing-chair.

  Ten minutes out of town, Beryl’s house is a big old pile of Edwardian red brick, with double sash windows and grandiose front doors. It boasts no less than six bedrooms, if only one bathroom and a downstairs lavatory, formal reception rooms and a proper library. Her husband, Gerald, had been a top lawyer in the City, from a long lineage of top lawyers. They never had children. I don’t know whether because they couldn’t or because Beryl isn’t the sort to strike as particularly maternal. It’s not really the thing to ask. The dining room features an open fireplace, a chandelier, centuries-old family portraits on the walls and a table seating for twelve. Everything in Beryl’s home is opulent – all of it, past its prime. We settle in the dining room on cracked leather chairs at the table marked with the dents and watermarks from decades of good cheer. Outside, under garden lights, the pond is filled w
ith leaves. My mother is forever worrying about the air quality inside Beryl’s mouldy old conservatory, positioned directly off the kitchen, with its toxic fumes.

  Tonight, six places are set at the table for twelve and everyone here is female. I see why my father made his excuses to stay home. In my memories, the hearth in this room was always roaring with flames. Tonight, it isn’t lit. I suppose it was Gerald’s job, to chop the wood and prepare the kindling and stoke the fire. Instead, a small electric fan heater is plugged in at the wall. The room, spacious and draughty at the windows and between the floorboards, is cold. Leaving my parent’s house, I felt fat and absurd, swathed in a size 18 dress my mother padded out with a flannel sheet underneath. Now, I’m grateful for the layers of warmth.

  Standing across the room is Miss Cochran – Sally, as she insists I call her these days – my mother’s best friend and my old primary school teacher. It’s apparent she’s playing the part of Billy Bragalot, the footwear entrepreneur with whom I’m having an affair for the purpose of party proceedings. Sally is dressed in a gentleman’s morning suit and a stick-on black moustache. I give her a warm hug hello.

  Our host, Beryl, clad in a short, and somewhat raunchy, maid’s outfit, is playing the part of Betsy the house servant. ‘The maid with a perpetually sunny disposition,’ Beryl says, without a hint of irony as she pours us each half a glass of white wine. ‘Only one more bottle between us, so mustn’t glug!’ A tray of cocktail onions and bits of cheese and ham on toothpicks is on the table.

  Sitting opposite me in an old wedding dress that’s yellowed, Miss Haversham style, is June Whitbury, who owns the flat I live in. She’s playing the long-suffering wife of my dear cheating Billy Bragalot.

  Sweet old Angela Williams, a good few years older than the others, is wearing her usual attire of a white shirt and a plaid skirt, tarted up with the addition of a red carnation pinned to her chest and scarlet lipstick. ‘I’m the sexy secretary,’ she says, taking her seat next to June. ‘This is a bit of fun!’