by Clare Chase
‘Have you got any photographs of yourself down here?’ I asked, trying to get back into friendly mode.
‘Certainly not,’ Alicia said. ‘I like to keep this part of my operation private.’
‘You did say I could do a piece on you, Alicia, and whichever magazine I approach they will want some pictures. Showing you on home turf would be something new.’ I took a seat on one of the high stools by the island unit. ‘I’ll bring down my equipment in the next day or two and take a few shots.’
Alicia looked as though she was about to say something aggressive, so I quickly turned on the voice recorder, and she shut her mouth again.
‘So what were your earliest childhood experiences of cooking?’
The aggressive look was back again; jaw clenched, chin jutting out. ‘I didn’t start cooking properly until I was twenty,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I read that in the interview you did for Good Food. But I want to know about your experience of cooking informally, before that.’
She was looking at the floor now, which wasn’t like her.
‘Or, if you like, you can tell me about your early experiences of food. I mean, something must have turned you on to cooking in the first place. Did you have interesting meals when you were little?’
She got up and walked towards one of the tall windows that faced onto the street.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘I normally like to talk about my training, and the people I’ve cooked for.’
‘They may be famous but they’re not that fascinating. I’m more interested in you.’
‘You’re my cousin. No one else will want to know about my childhood.’ She was still looking outside, her jaw taut.
‘I think you’re wrong. Go on, Alicia. You were the one who suggested I interview you. I’d like to come up with something fresh, something that no one’s read before. An editor can decide if I’m right about what’s interesting, and if I’m wrong, you can say I told you so.’ I paused for a moment, but couldn’t resist it: ‘And I know how much you like doing that.’
She turned and, to my surprise, gave me a half smile. It was such a rarity that I felt a sudden rush of fondness for her.
She sighed and walked back to the seat opposite me, next to the recorder. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I did have nice food when I was a child. We had plenty of money and a very good cook, Mrs Wallis. Shirley. I liked her and we kept in touch until she died.’
‘And were you allowed to hang around in the kitchen?’ I said. ‘Did Mrs Wallis show you how she made things?’
Alicia leant forward on one elbow and rested her head in her upturned hand. ‘I don’t know whether I want to go into all this,’ she said and I realised that the questions I’d thought were so innocuous had struck a raw nerve. ‘It’s personal.’
‘Do you want me to turn the machine off?’ I asked, reaching for the recorder.
She hesitated. ‘Just for a moment, please, whilst I think.’
I clicked the stop-recording icon.
‘If I don’t talk to you, I’m being a coward,’ she said. ‘But if I do I’m gushing out a load of personal stuff that’s no one’s business but my own.’
‘We can do whatever you want,’ I said. ‘Would you like me to get you some water while you think it through?’ I tried not to look at my watch and pushed thoughts of Radley from my mind.
She looked up at me. ‘I think it might help your career as a writer if I go ahead and answer.’
She’d activated my irritant sensor again.
‘Put the machine back on,’ she said and I did, with a sharp tap to select the record icon.
‘So I was asking about you watching Mrs Wallis cooking for your family,’ I prompted.
Alicia nodded. ‘I did watch, and gradually she started to let me do things for her too. I had a go at icing cakes, and whipping cream – that kind of thing.’
‘So that was when you started to enjoy cookery?’
She nodded. ‘And then, as time went on, Mrs Wallis let me have a go at more complicated things. By the time I was six I was doing some dishes almost unaided – although obviously I wasn’t allowed to use sharp knives or turn on the gas by myself or anything like that.’
‘Sounds like good training though.’
‘It was excellent. I loved Mrs Wallis, and I loved cooking.’
‘But something went wrong?’
She nodded. ‘One day we had a fruit tart as part of our dinner. I’d made the pastry, prepared the filling, and then decorated the whole thing with whipped cream. My mother called Mrs Wallis through especially to say how good it was.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘Well, Mrs Wallis had been dying to tell my parents how promising my cooking was for ages. I think she was embarrassed that I’d been doing so much of it without her ever having consulted my mother.’
‘So I’m guessing that seemed like the ideal moment to bring the subject up?’
She nodded. ‘And, instead of being pleased or impressed, my mother was absolutely livid. She yelled at Mrs Wallis for not doing her job properly, for taking on the role of my teacher or governess, when that was the responsibility of others. She said that Mrs Wallis had ideas above her station, and that she had no business letting me even sit in the kitchen without her permission.’ She blinked as she looked up. ‘Mrs Wallis was in tears, standing there at the dinner table. I’ve never forgotten it. My mother threatened to sack her, and I just sat there and didn’t defend her at all.’
She paused then, and went to get herself the glass of water I’d suggested earlier.
‘I was forbidden from going into the kitchen again. Do you know,’ she said, suddenly looking up at me, her voice bitter, ‘I think my mother was jealous of Mrs Wallis? She could never be bothered to spend time with me herself, so we weren’t close, but she couldn’t bear anyone else filling the gap.’ She sipped her water and when she spoke again her voice was steadier. ‘A real bitch in the manger, that’s what she was.’
‘So what happened next?’
‘A funny thing. An older cousin of mine used to come visiting quite often, and more than once I saw him sneaking into the kitchen. He was funny and quite kind to me. He used to put his finger up to his lips if he saw me watch him go in.’
‘Don’t tell me he was into cooking too?’
She shook her head. ‘He was into Daphne, the girl who used to help Mrs Wallis.’
‘Ah. I see.’
‘Anyway, I don’t know what they talked about on his visits, but when I went away to school things changed. During the first set of holidays, I was invited to stay with his younger sister and their parents down near Winchester. They didn’t have a cook, or anything like that, and his mother had us in the kitchen, baking and doing all sorts of things. When I first turned up I remember her saying she’d heard I liked cooking, and that was what made me wonder. They did a lot of entertaining, so I got plenty of opportunities to practise.’
After another half hour or so we’d finished and I thanked her.
She smiled. ‘I want to help you get a good story if I can,’ she said. ‘I almost had the career I adored taken away from me. That mustn’t happen to you; I want you to be able to carry on doing the job you love.’
It was very kindly meant, of course, though verging on the schmaltzy. It did explain why she was always such a nag though.
Chapter Nine
I dashed up the stairs two at a time to get ready for my meeting with Radley Summers. Within moments I was slinging on what I’d already decided to wear: green suit, matching court shoes (with the obligatory height-enhancing qualities) and an arty necklace I hoped would appeal to gallery types.
There was a healthy stream of people filing through the gallery foyer when I arrived: a couple arm in arm, making me think wistfully of Darrick for a moment, and then a gang of students, loud, cocky and clever, reminding me of bygone university days.
I stood at the front desk while the receptionist dealt with a couple of queries, enjoying the wa
rmth and bright lights. It was good to escape from the grey day outside, where the Thames was the colour of clay. I spent my time browsing the leaflets on display. There was one about some public art in North London, and another about a poetry and short story competition. Then my eye was caught by one advertising a new gallery devoted to textile design. The pictures inside showed pieces that were awash with colour: vivid blues, greens, purples and oranges. Nets overlaid silk, filigrees of threads danced over the fabric. I tucked the leaflet in my pocket and looked up as the receptionist turned her attention to me.
Radley’s office was on the fourth floor. The woman on the front desk gave me directions and I took the lift up, emerging on a corridor that smelled of new carpet.
I knew I was meant to turn right, but at that moment I noticed an office diagonally opposite on the left, with Seb’s name on the door. Its walls were glass, but covered by blinds that had been adjusted so no one could look in. I hadn’t actually seen him for months, and found myself hovering for a moment. But then a well-dressed man I’d spotted in the foyer appeared, approaching quickly. He must have come up via the stairs whilst I’d been in the lift. He shoved the handle of Seb’s office door down without knocking, and I hastily turned to go on my way. Presumably I would see Seb again one day. Now wasn’t the moment.
The corridor I walked along was lined with photographs of Seb with some of his discoveries: Seb and William Vagas, Seb and Valerie Turland, Seb and Fiona Webster, and so it went on. Another man appeared in several of them: he always seemed to be wearing a long, dark coat, wherever the shots were taken. It made him look like the character in a movie that you know is meant to be mysterious. Occasionally the photographs showed larger groups – other members of Seb’s team, or a gang at a private view – but most were intimate close-ups of artist, gallery manager and the man in the long coat. I wondered who he was.
‘Sir Anthony Peake,’ said Radley, when I’d found her room and asked. ‘He owns this building and he’s also the Chair of our Board.’
‘I wondered about the coat.’
‘He enjoys meeting all the young starlets,’ Radley said, ‘but he doesn’t really like to get his hands dirty. We think that’s the explanation behind the coat. He only stays long enough to say hello, drink the champagne and get his picture taken. After that he’s off again. I imagine he doesn’t feel removing his outdoor layer is worth the effort.’
I was slightly worried about the way Radley was looking at me. When I’d first gone into her office I’d thought she seemed on the frosty side, so I’d asked straight away about the man in the photos to break the ice. Now she’d told me, but her tone was irritable, and I could tell I was going to be the one driving the conversation. It bothered me that I couldn’t guess why.
‘You got the draft copy for The Enquirer okay?’ I asked, tentatively checking for possible causes of friction.
She nodded. ‘Looks good.’ She sounded grudging.
‘I’ll get it off to them later today,’ I said. ‘And then there’s the copy for Epic. I’ll have a draft of that with you early next week.’
She bent her head forward in acknowledgement. ‘I think Seb would like you to come back and write about some of our other upcoming artists.’
Of course, it was half what I’d wanted to hear, but at the same time it was putting me in the gallery’s pocket. I was becoming more and more like a PR person, getting them publicity through my stories, rather than writing proper independent reviews. It felt wrong, but, then again, I didn’t really have the luxury of turning down that kind of offer at the moment.
‘I’ll have to write honestly about what I see,’ I said, feeling that I should set the right tone. ‘Otherwise the papers won’t want my work.’
Radley raised her eyebrows. ‘Of course.’
I was about to come out with it and ask if I’d done something to offend her when she said: ‘I saw you coming out of The Old Faithful the other day.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘I go past every day to get my sandwiches from Valerie’s in Tanner’s Yard.’
‘You must have been having a late lunch.’
‘I’ve been rather busy recently. I’d love to be able to keep the hours you do. You looked as though you were having a nice time.’
I sighed. ‘Yes, it turns out your mystery man from the gallery is quite all right. He tracked me down and he was perfectly open about the fact that he’d come to the exhibition under false pretences.’
‘Oh well, that’s just great then. No problem at all.’ She sat back in her chair and folded her arms.
‘Sorry.’ I suddenly realised it was still a bit of a cheek as far as she was concerned, and had probably caused her and Seb a certain amount of worry and inconvenience. ‘It was wrong of him, obviously. But you see I’d started to wonder if he was up to something really dodgy, and it seems it was all a bit more low-key than that.’
‘So what did he tell you then?’
I sat back in my chair, glancing for a moment out of Radley’s window. I wished I was out there. ‘That he’s a reporter and his real name is Darrick Farron. He was chasing some story about one of your rich art collectors. He wouldn’t tell me which one, but I was pleased it was nothing directly to do with the gallery.’
‘And were you planning to tell us what you’d found out at any stage? I must admit I expected a call from you, once I saw you’d obviously got to the bottom of the mystery.’
Now she mentioned it, perhaps it did seem like an oversight. I started to feel belated guilt, but it simply hadn’t crossed my mind.
‘And how did he explain the photograph he took of you?’ Radley said.
This was getting worse. ‘I didn’t actually ask him about that,’ I said. I could feel a red blush creeping up my neck.
Radley rested her elbows on the desk and put her head in her hands. ‘For God’s sake, Anna,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t that seem like rather a glaring omission from your conversation?’
I carried on saying nothing. It was a bit like being back in the headmaster’s office at school. Eventually I said: ‘To be honest, I just kept thinking you must have been mistaken. I mean it was such a peculiar thing. Like something out of a second-rate spy movie.’
I could instantly tell I shouldn’t have let the phrase “second-rate” slip out in connection with anything she’d thought or done, even at one step removed.
‘How could I have been mistaken?’ she said. ‘I wonder if you didn’t ask because you didn’t really want to know.’ She stood up and walked over to the window for a moment, looking down at the square. ‘Look, Anna,’ she said. ‘We get paid quite a bit of attention. There’s a lot of money sloshing around in this business, and that makes some people, jealous people maybe, keen to do anything they can to put a spanner in the works.’
‘And you think that’s what he’s out to do?’
She turned to look at me. ‘He says he’s a journalist and he took your photo. Well, what if he wants to smear the coverage we’re getting for the Shakespeare exhibition? He might use your picture then, mightn’t he? Perhaps he’s preparing his own article right now, pointing out that one of our glowing reviews was organised by me, and written by an old university friend of Seb’s.’
It was an unpleasant thought, and enough to shake me, but I wasn’t really convinced. ‘It wouldn’t make much of a story,’ I said.
She walked back to her chair and sat down. ‘Maybe not. Perhaps only a paragraph in a gossip column where they like to slag off successful people. Doesn’t mean to say that’s not what he was up to. It’s instinct with people like that. They have a spare evening and they use it to get a story, some extra cash and a kick out of causing trouble.’
She pressed the button on an intercom on her desk. ‘Elsie, bring some coffee for me and Anna Morris will you?’ She looked up at me again. ‘You say he tracked you down. If that’s the case, and my theory’s right, then he’s after something extra.’
I thought of wha
t I had hoped Darrick had been after and looked down at the desk.
‘What did he ask you when you had lunch together, can you remember?’
‘He didn’t spend the whole time firing questions at me. We talked about writing a bit, and the pub, and I explained how I knew Seb, and about the rest of our gang. I was telling him how I’d been interviewing them all in turn because they’d done so well.’
‘So let me get this straight. You knew this guy was a journalist, and that he was dishonest enough to have blagged his way into the gallery of one of your oldest friends. And, that being the case, you decided to spend your entire time with him passing on a whole load of personal details about that very same friend and some of his contacts.’
I could feel my heart racing, adrenaline arriving ready to fuel my reply. It was probably just as well that the coffee turned up then, and meant I could take a deep breath before I began.
Once we were alone again, I was reasonably measured. ‘I can assure you, Radley, that you’re worrying unnecessarily. I didn’t say anything that hasn’t been written already in umpteen different magazine profiles, to say nothing of Seb’s biography. You may know I was asked to contribute to that at the time, with Seb’s blessing. In fact, I probably told Darrick pretty much what I told the author of the biography.’
Seb hadn’t shied away from us mentioning Julia, or relating the awful events that had unfolded. He’d said not talking about it fully would be like denying her existence. He’d wanted his love for her and the tragedy of her loss to be known and for people to appreciate what she’d had to go through. It seemed to be part of the grieving process for him.
‘You might at least have contacted him to let him know what had gone on,’ Radley said, breaking in on my thoughts.
‘What was there to tell, given what I’ve just said? And in any case, I’ve hardly seen Seb for over two years now. He hasn’t exactly given me the impression that he wants a blow-by-blow account of my everyday life.’