A Taste of Love

by Willis, Susan

  ‘That’s a lovely area near the town centre,’ Helen replied.

  ‘Yeah, it looks to be. I chose to be near the park because I love running and wasn’t too sure about the rest of the area in Acton,’ he said as he poured boiling water into the cafetière and milk into mugs.

  She smiled as she cautioned, ‘Try to stay away from East Acton as it’s a bit seedy and run down. I know I wouldn’t want to run around those streets on a night-time…’

  Enjoying their conversation she opened two packets of crisps, tipped them into a bowl and explained where the high street was, the shops they had and the location of a good gym.

  ‘Is that the gym where you work out? You must do something to keep this amazing figure.’

  In the past when dressed in her old sloppy clothes she would have felt self-conscious at such a compliment. But now with her new fitted style she felt on cloud nine and decided to have some fun. As she remembered Karen’s words, she pulled her shoulders back and smiled confidently at him. ‘Oh I don’t go to the gym but I do love walking and try to keep fit in other ways,’ she teased.

  He grinned playfully back at her just as Tom and Annette appeared in the kitchen. Carrying the lunch and coffee they all made their way into a room adjoining the back of the kitchen which was where they usually held taste panels and customer presentations. It was a small room with only one square window which Helen threw open to freshen the stale air then they settled themselves around the round pine table in the middle of the room. Tom and Richard introduced themselves and chatted briefly about how important packaging considerations were going to be over the next six months.

  General conversation followed as they ate and Richard commented upon the posters and photographs of Sushi products that were hanging on the walls. ‘I’ve never worked with Sushi before,’ Richard said. ‘But I do have a fish background, which should help me pick it up quickly…’

  Helen smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry about that. Sushi is a relatively new food line so there aren’t many people in the food industry with much Sushi experience. None of us had when we started but you’ll learn as you go along.’

  Annette explained that they had a business meeting scheduled for Wednesday at their most prominent retailer’s head office. ‘It might be a good idea for you to come along and do a meet-and-greet session.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Richard agreed. ‘It’ll give me a chance to meet their buyers and strike up a relationship with them even though I don’t know their product range as yet.’

  Helen offered. ‘I’ll be collecting Sushi packs from the factory tomorrow to take along with us to the meeting, so if you want to tag along with me I could give you a quick heads-up on the basic rolls and selections. And a little background history of Sushi.’

  Richard smiled gratefully and nodded. ‘Brilliant – then at least I’ll have a rough idea when we’re all talking about their products on Wednesday.’

  *

  The next morning, with them all dressed in white factory coats and mop caps, Richard stood next to Helen at the hand-wash trough in the entrance to the production area. ‘Did you have a good evening?’ he asked, smiling at her.

  ‘I did actually – I joined a salsa dancing group and it was great fun,’ she said. ‘It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but never seemed to get around to …’

  They dried their hands in the high-powered Dyson machine then proceeded into the production area chatting and laughing at Helen’s description of how she kept turning the wrong way and losing her partner in the middle of each dance.

  The shift manager hurried across to greet them and she introduced Richard, explaining how she wanted to show him the area and collect sample packs to take out to the customer. ‘I thought I’d start in raw material intake and then walk around the prep and chill areas. Is that okay?’ Helen asked, to which the busy manager agreed.

  Richard was impressed with the high standards of cleanliness and precision in the process areas and how fresh the vegetables, fish and meat were. She then guided him through into the assembly areas where the long Sushi rolls were cut and packed into individual black trays. Explaining and talking about the products was an easy task for her because she knew the area very well, and revelled in Richard’s praise.

  As he left the room with their samples Richard held open the clear, plastic flap-curtain and placed his hand upon the small of her back to guide her through carrying the packs. It was, she knew, meant only as a friendly and helpful gesture, but even through the cold, less than five degrees atmosphere in the corridor she felt a warm glow spread throughout her body. She wondered if he felt the same attraction or whether he was just being pleasant and hoping to make good first impressions with everyone.

  Back in the kitchen she placed the twelve packs of Sushi on the bench and put a second set of packs in the fridge for the following day. He dragged two stools up to the island and they sat side by side while she arranged the packs into columns according to price.

  ‘I sometimes think this is the easiest way to remember the lines,’ she said. ‘Because we start at the snack entry, containing four small Maki rolls, which only have one ingredient within the rice and seaweed casing. And don’t worry about the Japanese names for now. Once you’ve been talking about them for a few weeks it will all fit into place.’

  Richard nodded. ‘Can we taste some of them?’ he asked, opening one of the packs. Helen smiled in agreement. He ate the Smoked Salmon Maki roll. ‘Wow, that’s good,’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m not too keen on rice so didn’t think I’d enjoy it. But it tastes different somehow.’

  She grinned. ‘Yeah, the rice is sticky with vinegar which gives it an entirely different flavour to say, the likes of basmati rice…’

  They looked through the medium and large sized packs with Richard jotting down details while she talked and relaxed in his company. He was, she decided, one of the nicest men she’d ever met and who for some reason she found very easy to talk with. And although he spoke quietly, she could tell he had hidden depths, was passionate about the job, and was interested in her as a friend and not just a work colleague.

  With Annette in the front passenger seat of Richard’s company car and Helen and Tom comfortably sitting on the back seat they travelled back from the retailer’s meeting to the factory.

  ‘That all went very well,’ Annette said. ‘And to sum up, everyone agreed the current packs look slightly tired, and that we need to refresh the current range with different packaging, and then slot in a few with different Sushi ideas to re-launch for summer.’

  Helen nodded, smiling to herself. That conclusion, she thought, just about summed up how she’d felt since Christmas, ready to go on the inside but needing to improve her outer appearance. She looked at the back of Richard’s light brown hair shaped into his long neck and saw him raising an eyebrow at her in the wing mirror.

  She smiled at him deciding her own refresh had made her feel at least ten years younger. ‘I’ve got quite a few ideas buzzing around in my head at the moment,’ she said. ‘But I do need to go into the City and peruse the Sushi cafés at lunchtime, and there are a couple of new Japanese restaurants that have opened. So we should go in one night and check out the menus to see if they have any new concepts I can copy…’

  Tom groaned. ‘Oh no. Can I be excused from that trip because I did go last time and it’s such a busman’s holiday having to eat Sushi for dinner when we eat it all day at work?’

  Annette agreed and Richard said, ‘OK. It looks like it’s me and you then, Helen.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘Helen, it’s me,’ Karen sobbed. ‘Th-they’ve found something on the mammogram!’

  When Helen saw Karen’s number while she was driving home, she’d quickly pulled into a lay-by to take the call and cursed herself for not having her hands-free set. ‘OK, sweetheart, take a deep breath,’ she soothed. ‘Where are you now?’ She heard Karen breathe in deeply and then start to cough and splutter – she could tell she was overwr
ought.

  ‘I’m sitting outside Dad’s house in the car. I-I didn’t know where else to go…’

  Helen squeezed her eyes tight shut and lay back against the neck rest. She shook her head trying to stop the horrid old memories crowding into her mind. Surely, it couldn’t happen again, and not to her beautiful sister?

  Stay focused and concentrate on Karen, she willed herself, then sitting up straight she turned on the ignition. She made her voice sound calm and steady. ‘OK. It’s going to be all right, Karen. We’ll sort this out together. You just stay exactly where you are and I’ll be there in a jiffy.’

  She swung the car round and headed to her father’s small house on Highfield Road. Karen was sitting in her cream Mini parked outside the house and Helen could tell her father wasn’t at home. He’d most likely still be at his bridge club, she thought, as she jumped out of her car and ran to the passenger side of the Mini. She opened the car door and gasped in shock at the sight of her sister. Karen was dressed in blue jeans with a zipped denim-look jacket and was totally devoid of any make-up. Tears poured down her cheeks and Helen could tell she’d given up wiping them away and was letting them run off her face to drip down onto the blue zip. Helen sat on the seat and whispered her name, ‘Karen?’

  She didn’t answer but looked at her with eyes that were red and glazed. They seemed empty and filled with such sadness that Helen caught her breath.

  Manoeuvring herself in the seat Helen awkwardly managed to get her arm around her sister. ‘Do you want to go into Dads? I’ve got my spare key – we can make some coffee.’

  Karen shook her head. ‘No. I don’t want to go in; it’ll only remind me…’

  Helen was frightened – she’d never seen her sister in such a mess. ‘My house then? I can drive us over and we can pick your car up later.’

  ‘No,’ she sniffed, staring down at her hands. ‘I-I don’t know where I want to be or what to do. I came here because it seemed the only place to come but then I knew if I went inside to the kitchen all Mum’s memories would come flooding back.’

  Helen spotted a rug on the back seat– she reached for it then eased Karen’s drooping shoulders forward and draped it around her, tucking it under the front of the jacket. Then she took a tissue from her bag, gently turned Karen’s face towards her and wiped her wet cheeks. ‘Can you tell me a little about what’s happened? You mentioned a mammogram on the phone.’

  Karen lifted her shoulders and clutched Helen’s hand. Nodding, she croaked, ‘I didn’t want to tell you because you’ve had such a rotten time with Rob and I was determined to do this by myself. I was so convinced it was nothing to worry about that I haven’t even told Greg, yet.’

  Helen nodded understandingly. ‘Go, on. Tell me what you know.’

  ‘I found a small thing – I’m not calling it a lump, because it’s not. It just feels like a small, hard pea in this one,’ – she touched her left breast – ‘I went to the GP and she told me it felt like a cyst and she wasn’t concerned but because of Mum and our family history she was going to send me for a mammogram, which I had two weeks ago. And now I’ve got a letter calling me back for an assessment tomorrow. ‘

  ‘And that’s it so far?’ Helen asked, raising an eyebrow suspiciously. ‘Honestly? You’re not keeping anything back from me?’

  Karen’s voice broke and she sobbed, ‘Yes, that’s it. But I-I’m bound to be like Mum and have it – aren’t I?’

  ‘There’s nothing concrete to say that you’ll be like Mum,’ she said, deliberately avoiding the word. ‘Women get called back from mammograms for all kind of things. Sometimes it’s just because they want to get a better picture, or, if this is a cyst, they might just want to check it out and give you some antibiotics.’

  Karen’s small blotchy face brightened. ‘Oh, do you think so? But what if it’s not?’ she asked. ‘Helen, we are going to have to say the dreaded words – breast cancer – at some stage.’

  ‘I’m not, and neither are you. We’re not saying those words till we know something definite and we see it written in black and white,’ Helen said determinedly.

  Suddenly, the sound of a man’s whistle broke the silence between them and they both looked at each other knowing their father wasn’t too far away. It was the usual tuneless noise that they’d listened to all their lives and the whistle they’d recognise anywhere.

  ‘It’s Dad,’ Helen said. ‘If you really don’t want to go in then you’ll have to think of an excuse pretty quickly and I’ll have to lie to him, which I’m not very good at!’

  Karen grinned. ‘I’ll be okay now. I’ll have to tell him at some stage so we might as well go in…’

  *

  Charles Robinson was seventy, six foot three, with bushy grey hair and still walked proudly with the swagger of his youth. He’d spent the best part of his working life as a manager in a huge laundry in Acton. In the early days of the fifties Acton town had nearly 170 laundries and had been known as “Soap Sud City” because of the soft water – the laundries had served all the hotels and the rich living in London’s West End.

  As the girls climbed out of the Mini he waved to them and Helen could tell at a distance that he sensed trouble as he quickened his pace until he reached them.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, looking from Helen to Karen.

  Helen put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t panic. We’re all right – it’s just Karen’s had a bit of a shock and some sad news so we thought we’d just call around and have a cup of tea with you.’

  Charles was staring at Karen’s face and he gently put out his large hands and cupped her cheeks. ‘Come on,’ he reassured her. ‘Let’s get you inside. I’ve got a bottle of brandy in the cupboard…’

  Settled in his small cosy lounge with tea and glasses of brandy Karen sat next to him on the old Chesterfield settee with his arms hugging her tight – she looked about twelve years old. Helen sat in the armchair opposite t them, in front of the gas fire, sipping her tea and looking around the room, which was scattered with photographs of the girls at various stages in their childhood. Framed posters from theatre plays with Karen in costume adorned the chimney breast and her qualifications from stage school stood on the mantelpiece. Karen was quietly telling Charles the events when the telephone in the hall rang and Helen jumped up to answer it. She told the salesman that her father wasn’t interested in double glazing and ended the call but couldn’t stop herself from glancing into the kitchen.

  The room had changed substantially over the years and the old two-bar electric fire, where they’d found their mother lying dead with her hair singed onto one of the elements, had long since gone. But she could remember the scene as if it was last week. In fact, Helen thought, it was hard to remember her mother in any other place than sitting in an old wooden chair staring into the fireplace and rocking herself backwards and forwards. She’d sat in the same position like a zombie for hour upon hour, day after day for most of Helen’s schooldays – not eating, drinking, talking or moving. Although Karen, being four years older, always claimed she could remember her before that in normal happy situations.

  Most of the time she’d been heavily sedated on tranquillisers and antidepressants. It had been on a normal Friday morning, after Charles had gone to work and they’d gone to school, that she’d swallowed a whole bottle of the pills and had lain dead on the floor with her beautiful black hair fanned out on the hearth.

  Shaking the memories from her mind Helen went back into the lounge just in time to hear Charles reassuring Karen.

  ‘But just because your mum and aunt had breast cancer it doesn’t mean to say you’ll have it, sweetheart,’ he said, looking up at Helen for confirmation. She nodded in agreement. ‘I mean, in those days there wasn’t much that could be done about it and they automatically took the breast off. And of course we didn’t even know that the doctor had found a lump in your mum’s chest before she took her life...’

  He looked across the room towards the main photograph in
a silver frame on the coffee table. It was of his stunningly beautiful, thirty-five-year-old wife taken just before she died. Half Italian, with huge oval, brown eyes and her long black hair flowing around the same face as Karen’s and Rachel’s, he sighed with her memory. Helen could see his eyes water, which meant he was going to relate the same story that they’d heard many times before.

  ‘And I still say if the doctor had told me about the lump I would have watched her more closely because I knew the thought of surgery would have terrified her. She’d seen her own mother go through the operation in Milan and had never been the same,’ he said, slowly shaking his head.

  Quietly, Helen said, ‘Yes, Dad. But the post-mortem did say that the cancer had spread all through her body and it wouldn’t have mattered whether the doctor told you or not because he hadn’t planned to send her for a mastectomy. And it was documented that she wouldn’t have survived an operation in her mental state…’ Helen knew that as hard as it was, her father would never accept the fact that her mother had been classed as mentally unbalanced, even though he’d read the documents over and over again. This was mainly due to his guilt because she had died alone. She carried on, ‘Anyway, Dad, none of that is going to happen to Karen because she has us and Greg, and is surrounded with people who love her. And whatever happens tomorrow, we’ll hit it head-on and get through it together.’

  Charles shook himself from his reverie and put his arms back round Karen. ‘Of course we will. And I know, deep inside here’– he stroked his broad chest – ‘that she is going to be clear and all this worry will be for nothing.’

  ‘Right, I’m just going to ring work and ask for tomorrow off so I can come to the hospital with you,’ Helen said. Then without waiting for a reply she walked through the hall, out of the back door and into the garden to get a good signal on her mobile.