The Food of Love

by Amanda Prowse

  After Toby had slipped out of the front door without a goodbye, Freya sipped her glass of red and lay with her legs stretched out on the rug, the cat resting on her feet. Lockie took the seat next to her, placing the tray across his lap. On it sat a snack of mammoth proportions: a wheel of Brie, a variety of crackers, a bunch of red grapes and a jar of her leftover home-made apple-and-tomato winter chutney from the larder.

  ‘Ooh, cheese-fest! A great idea!’ She beamed.

  It felt like a long time since supper. She sat up straight, dislodging Brewster in the process, who rolled on to the floor in a rather ungainly fashion.

  ‘I got a call from school today,’ she whispered, twisting her body to face Lockie.

  ‘What did they want?’ He too kept his voice low, taking her lead.

  ‘It was Miss Burke, Lexi’s tutor. She’s asked me to go in.’

  ‘Is she struggling again, the poor love?’ He looked worried. ‘We can go back to her private tutor sessions if it will help.’

  Lexi was severely dyslexic. Her academic life felt like a rollercoaster ride with dips and rises depending on the topic being taught and very often who was teaching her.

  Freya squeezed his leg, her kind man, knowing that if that was what it took, they’d find the money somehow. ‘She didn’t say, but I’m seeing her tomorrow. Do you think it might have something to do with Toby?’

  ‘In what way?’ Lockie cut a wedge of cheese and placed the generous chunk on a cracker, before garnishing it with a red grape and passing it to his wife.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.

  Lexi ran down the stairs, halting their discussion as she scooted across the floor and plucked the grape from her mum’s food.

  ‘Oi! We have a grape thief in our midst!’ Lockie shouted.

  ‘Ooh, can I have some?’ Charlotte arrived, as if lured by the scent of creamy Brie.

  The girls hovered on the arms of the sofa. Freya was delighted that there was no ribbing, indeed no mention, of Lexi’s visitor, as even the thought of having to referee between the girls at this time of night made her feel tired.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Lockie mumbled through a mouthful of crackers and cheese. ‘How my offspring only find me remotely interesting when I am in possession of cheese, chocolate or money?’

  ‘That’s not true, Dad!’ Charlotte chipped in, balancing a dollop of Brie and a grape on her finger. ‘We also find you interesting when we need a lift or can’t get the top off a jar.’

  ‘Good to know I have my uses.’

  ‘Or when we need something reached from a high shelf,’ Lexi added.

  ‘No!’ Charlotte scoffed. ‘Mum’s taller, she’s better for that.’

  ‘And just like that I am put back in my place!’ Lockie sighed.

  ‘You need to do some practice,’ Freya reminded her eldest, aware that she hadn’t heard the cello being played for some time.

  ‘I’ll do it now.’ She sloped off the sofa. ‘I’ve got orchestra tomorrow lunchtime, worst luck.’

  Freya winked at her, happy when she didn’t have to nag.

  ‘I’ll swap,’ Lockie moaned. ‘I’m seeing the osteopath tomorrow lunchtime.’

  ‘Do you want me to take you in?’ Freya asked, as Lexi picked up the cat and snuggled him against her chest.

  ‘Thanks, love, but no. I’m fitting it into an already . . . crackers day.’ He held up a piece of cheese. ‘No pun intended. I’m working in the morning and then going to the camera exchange when I’m done, to see if I can trade a couple of lenses.’

  ‘Did you have a nice time with Toby?’ Freya watched Lexi’s expression, seeking out signs of joy or secrecy.

  ‘Yep,’ came the rather muted reply.

  Freya did, however, note the blush to her daughter’s cheek.

  ‘Do you think Brewster ever wishes he could sit with other cats and live with them, instead of being with humans who don’t speak his language?’ Lexi asked, as she stared at their beloved cat.

  ‘I think he’s probably just happy to be in a safe, warm place where he is loved,’ Lockie reasoned. ‘Plus he could always go out and chat to his cat friends, if he really wanted to.’

  ‘But it’s not the same, is it, Dad, when you are the only one that’s different, the only one who thinks how you do?’

  Charlotte laughed and Brewster miaowed, as if on cue.

  Freya watched as her baby girl closed her eyes and held the cat tight, rocking him gently. She noted her dreamlike aloofness and wondered if she were already lost to this boy, even now feeling the first pull of love.

  Eight hours, thirty minutes . . .

  Freya narrowed her eyes, as the four words on the sheet blurred beneath her stare.

  Miss Alexia Valentine Braithwaite . . .

  She put the pen down once again, as if thwarted, and sat back in the chair. Birds had begun to chirp their morning song, the sound itself ordinarily uplifting, sweet and pure, but not this morning. Today it heralded the start of a day that she hoped would not arrive.

  She closed her eyes for a second and pictured a particular moment, all those years ago, when they had been staying in Hugh’s villa in Florida. It had been the middle of the night. Freya had gone to check on the girls and her heart leapt to find Lexi’s bed empty. Frantically she scanned the room and bathroom, before running across the landing and down the elaborate staircase, into the square hallway and through the vast kitchen, past the slumbering appliances. Finally, twisting the black wrought-iron handle, she found herself in the ornate paved courtyard at the centre of the villa.

  And there, with a huge sense of relief, she found her daughter, lying on the padded silk counterpane that lived on the chest at the foot of her bed.

  ‘Lexi! There you are!’ she whispered, through the half-light.

  ‘I was too hot,’ the seven-year-old stated matter-of-factly, as she rubbed her long fringe that was plastered to her sticky forehead. Her cotton nightie clung to her chubby frame.

  ‘Oh, honey . . .’ Freya considered the best course of action. ‘This is quite an adventure.’ She decided against reprimanding her, unwilling to spoil the magical atmosphere.

  ‘I like it out here, Mum,’ Lexi whispered.

  ‘You do?’ She smiled.

  ‘We’re up in the middle of the night!’ Lexi looked up. ‘I think we can see the whole wide world from here.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Freya agreed as she lay by her side and pulled her child towards her. A gentle breeze flitted over them, lifting the damp hair that hung in tendrils against their clammy faces and sent their skin delightfully goosebumpy.

  ‘That feels lovely.’ Lexi sighed.

  The sound of a guitar drifted on the breeze, and the two lay in silent reverence.

  ‘I don’t think we have ever been outside this late before, do you?’ Freya whispered.

  Lexi shook her head. They stared up at the vast inky-blue sky, punctuated by a million stars and a big, big moon that hung tantalisingly close.

  It was stunning.

  ‘Look at all those stars, Lexi, so far away. And yet so big, so bright, it feels like you can touch them.’

  The little girl reached out and closed one eye. ‘I’d like to put one in my pocket.’

  ‘That would be amazing, wouldn’t it? I think it’s incredible that astronauts fly rockets up into space. They launch not too far from here, you know. They just pack a little bag and off they go, to visit the man in the moon and drive around the stars, as if they are on a space motorway.’

  ‘I think I’d like to be an astronaut.’ The little girl stared upward, captivated by the moving celestial display.

  ‘You can be anything you want to, Lexi.’ Freya took every opportunity to reinforce this, not wanting her recent diagnosis of dyslexia to be a barrier to her dreams.

  ‘I’d like to be an astronaut more than anything in the world!’ She paused. ‘But I don’t know how to do it.’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s the lucky thing. I’m your mum and I wil
l help you achieve your goals. I’ll help you in any way I can to do whatever you want to do. Always.’

  Lexi beamed as if this were good to know. ‘I might miss you, though, if I went up into space,’ she whispered.

  ‘Well, that’s easy.’ Freya pulled her close. ‘No matter how far away you go from me, no matter how old you are, you have to remember that we are all made of stardust. Mothers and daughters are from the same batch, and when you are sad, I’m sad, and when you are happy, my heart sings! And no matter where you are, this will always, always be the case, which means there is never any need to miss me or for me to miss you, not really, because we are part of each other.’

  ‘Is Charlotte made from the same batch too?’ She wrinkled her podgy little nose.

  ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘If you went away, Mum, I would write you a note or one of my stories, like I do for Daddy to take with him on his trips, and you could read it and you wouldn’t feel so sad. And if I went away, you could write me a note or a story to take with me, and I would read it and I wouldn’t feel so sad.’

  ‘That’s a brilliant idea.’ She bent her head and kissed her little girl’s scalp.

  ‘What’s on the other side of space, Mummy?’

  ‘Where do you mean?’

  Lexi sat up, as if this required greater attention. She turned to her mum, pointing upwards. Freya looked at her little girl, who sat on the floor with the stars and moon looming over her head like a halo.

  ‘I mean that if you drove on the space motorway, and went all the way past the stars, what is on the other side of the black sky that we can see?’

  Freya smiled at her clever girl. ‘I don’t know, my darling. What do you think?’

  ‘I think Heaven.’ She smiled at her mum, who couldn’t help the stutter of a sob that built in her throat, overcome by the beauty of the moment, as she nodded at her daughter.

  ‘I think you might be right.’

  ‘Mum?’ The voice shouted, jolting her from her memories.

  ‘Yes?’ Freya jerked her head towards the sound.

  ‘Sorry, were you asleep?’ Charlotte whispered.

  Freya stared at her daughter. ‘I don’t know.’

  It was a strange thing to confess: that you no longer knew the difference between your sleeping and waking states. It was as odd as it was frightening. Her tears came in great gulping sobs that folded her frame. She could still feel Lexi’s chubby, childish shape nestled against her like a warm, comfortable cushion. It was overwhelming.

  Charlotte walked closer to the desk and placed her hand on her mum’s shoulder, staring at her sister’s name, written on the otherwise blank sheet. ‘It’s not going so well, I see.’ Her eyes crinkled into a smile of reassurance.

  ‘Weren’t you just here a minute ago?’ Freya sniffed, having also lost her ability to judge time.

  ‘About half an hour ago. I delivered your cup of tea.’

  She nodded. ‘So you did.’ She blotted at her face with a tissue.

  They both stared at the cup of peppermint tea, now cold and dark with an oily top to it.

  Charlotte leant on the desktop. ‘Would you like me to have a go?’

  ‘What?’ Freya knitted her brows.

  ‘I could try if you like.’ She pointed at the sheet of paper.

  Tipping her head back, Freya felt the crunch at the top of her spine. She was tired.

  ‘We could both do a bit. You’ve started, and that’s great, but I could have a go, and then you can take over.’

  Charlotte was doing it again, using her mothering tone to coax and encourage.

  Freya nodded. Bracing herself against the chair to stand, she wrapped her thin cotton dressing gown around her form before walking across her study and sitting again on the ancient plum-coloured velvet sofa that sagged in the middle and lived beneath the window. It was a journey of a few steps, but from the way she sighed, folding her legs slowly on to the cushion and letting her head rest on the sofa arm, any observer would guess that she had crossed oceans.

  Charlotte lifted the pale-pink mohair blanket from the hamper and gently tucked it over her mum’s legs. Freya’s eyelids fluttered in the first throes of sleep.

  Charlotte took up the seat at the desk and, leaning forward, lifted her mother’s pen. There are some things that are inseparable, she began.

  I can’t think of clouds without also picturing the sky, the ocean and fish, and I can’t think of me without thinking of you . . .

  THREE

  Arriving at the school a little early, Freya sat in the car park, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel of their knackered old Saab estate car. Lockie was convinced that if they kept it for long enough, it would eventually be considered vintage. These days, however, it was more of an embarrassment for her kids; not that she cared.

  She looked at her watch: three-fifteen. She couldn’t wait any longer.

  Freya tousled her hair around her face and applied some lip balm with her little finger before spritzing her perfume around her neck. She was wearing one of Lockie’s checked shirts, with most of the buttons undone, over a white T-shirt and her straight-legged jeans. It was the one advantage to being taller than her husband: his jackets and shirts fitted her rather nicely. Freya looked down at her scuffed Timberland boots and wondered if she should have maybe dressed up a little? That was the trouble with freelancing from home: her wardrobe consisted mainly of jeans and borrowed tops or pyjamas.

  Slinging her trusty khaki canvas rucksack over her shoulder, she trod the wide steps to the front of the unimpressive seventies building. The orange bricks and large double-glazed windows resembled an office block more than a place of learning. An elaborate, incongruent school crest with scrolls and swirls picked out in gold was fixed to the wall above the entrance. It was a clear attempt that tried and failed to compensate for the municipal look and feel of the place. She spoke through the hatch to the rather scary-looking security guard behind the sliding window of the reception. The very sight of him was enough to send a shiver of fear along her limbs. What dangers were her kids exposed to here that they needed a beefy security guard?

  ‘I’ve come to meet with Miss Burke, my daughter’s tutor,’ she gabbled. ‘I’m a bit early.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Alexia Braithwaite.’ She smiled.

  ‘And your child’s name?’ the burly man asked without looking up.

  ‘Alexia Braithwaite.’ She sighed, feeling like she had messed up the system. ‘Sorry, mine’s Freya.’

  ‘Take a seat.’ Unamused or uncaring, he pointed over her shoulder.

  She took a seat on the squeaky faux-black-leather sofa in the corner. It was a little before three-thirty that Miss Burke appeared, looking hurried and more than a little flustered.

  ‘Thanks for coming in.’ She narrowed her eyes as she turned to walk away, as if time were of the essence. ‘This way . . .’ She pointed along a corridor, accessed by sweeping her key card along a strip of plastic. ‘We can talk in private.’

  ‘Okay.’ Freya’s voice warbled; she was nervous after her wait.

  She tripped behind the short, wide woman, who moved at a surprising pace. It felt churlish to engage in small talk when Miss Burke might be about to reveal all manner of shenanigans or misadventure. The silence, however, in which they walked, with the tutor just slightly ahead, was excruciating.

  Freya felt her heart rate increase.

  Miss Burke entered a bland square office with closed grey vertical blinds and a large map of the world on one wall. A clock ticked loudly. The woman took a seat behind the empty desk and opened her palm, indicating a chair on the other side of the varnished blond wood.

  Freya sat down and placed her rucksack on her lap: protection, of sorts, from any verbal blows the teacher might deliver.

  Miss Burke pushed her flicked-up fringe from her face and knitted her fingers on the desktop. She took a deep breath, as one who was used to giving long speeches might do.

  ‘Do you have a
ny thoughts about why I might want to see you today?’ Her tone was soft, her head cocked to one side, as if Freya might need encouragement or coaxing to confess. The woman was clearly not used to addressing grown-ups.

  ‘Is it something to do with Toby?’ Freya offered confidently.

  Miss Burke’s head jerked slightly. ‘Toby?’

  She instantly regretted the suggestion; judging from the woman’s expression, this was wide of the mark.

  ‘Yes, it’s probably a stupid idea . . . It’s just that Lexi has this new friend, who we met briefly yesterday and, my eldest, Charlotte—’

  ‘Yes, I know Charlotte.’

  ‘Well, she and Lexi were rowing a bit about it in the morning, nothing terrible, you know, just the usual . . . shouting and a bit of door slamming and maybe a swear word . . .’ She swallowed, aware that nerves and being in a school situation were making her blab. ‘And Charlotte said something unflattering about Toby, and it was all a bit of nonsense really. Anyway, he seemed quite pleasant, bit ordinary, bit odd, but nice and they watched TV and that was that, really.’

  She bit the inside of her cheek, as if this might halt further rambling.

  Miss Burke looked a little confused; her eyes darted to the map on the wall and back again.

  ‘No, it’s not about Toby . . . Do you mean Toby Proudfoot?’ It had obviously ignited her interest.

  Freya shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Are there many?’

  ‘A couple, yes.’ Miss Burke shook her head, as if to get things back on track. ‘The thing is, Mrs Braithwaite, I’m a little worried about Lexi.’

  Freya felt her stomach sink.

  ‘Oh? Is she behind in her work? She tries very, very hard and puts the hours in. I mean, I’m sure all parents say that, but she really does, she finds coursework and essays so difficult, because of her dyslexia. I watch her struggle and it’s heartbreaking. Mrs White, her special needs coordinator, says she’s doing really well. But if she needs extra . . .’