A La Carte

by Jeffrey Archer

  ‘It tasted great. I don’t know how to describe it.’ Aengus was a loyal, proud friend. Rona looked at him in a mixture of rage and scorn.

  Before either of them could say ‘Yummy’ again, Rona broke in. ‘Aengus loves his food, surest way to his heart, Finn. It must have been some pie. How did you get those pecan nuts I tried everywhere?’

  Finn had all the confidence of a Queen for a Day. ‘Just lucky I suppose,’ she said. She spoke to Rona. But her words had a meaning for Aengus.

  Rona felt she was in charge of the situation; all she must remember was not to try to score cheap points too soon. Don’t win any minor battles and lose the war. There would be no silly games proving how little Finn knew about cooking. That might easily make Aengus feel protective. No, indeed, much more subtle methods were called for.

  Next evening, Finn called in and Aengus was not there. Rona realised that they must have met during the afternoon, a lovers’ snatched hour. Where could they have gone? They wouldn’t have dared go to a hotel. The car was too uncomfortable. She mustn’t guess because going down that road meant breaking Rule One, it meant making an image of the two of them together. Yet she knew that they had been together. She had needed to ring Aengus and he was out on a call. She rang Finn’s office and heard the same message.

  Never mind. She was launched on the slow process of breaking up this romance, of ending this affair. She must just get on with it as methodically as she would have approached any other job.

  They talked of cooking, the small, freckled, determined Rona and the wild, laughing, abandoned-looking Finn. On and on she prattled, the seemingly innocent deceived wife telling all her husband’s favourite dishes, and how he liked them made.

  ‘He’s such a baby,’ Rona said affectionately. ‘He hates to hear how things are made and what goes into them. Just loves the effect, he said. I’ve long stopped trying to get him to take an interest in ingredients.’

  She saw her rival sipping a glass of cold white wine, lips pursed around the glass. For a moment a wild feeling of rage came over Rona. She would like to have smashed the glass from Finn’s hand, she would like to have taken a ladle of some scalding liquid and poured it on the tanned shoulders in their skimpy top. But she told herself in that slow measured voice that spoke in her head that this was not the way she could win the war.

  Bit by bit, with contempt for Finn, she taught her rival the fine arts of cooking. She never pretended she was teaching her, of course, it was all in the way you said it. ‘How do you make a roux, Finn? With cornflour, is it?’ she looked interested and helpful and before Finn could stammer anything, Rona had it made.

  Whenever she was sure that Finn actually could make something she encouraged her to do it. ‘Shall I make a raspberry coulis, do you think? Aengus does so love it and it’s terribly simple …listen could you just do one for me … super.’

  As the weeks went on she knew that Finn was making mouthwatering little delicacies for Aengus to be served … it didn’t matter when they were served. Don’t think about those cheese straws that Aengus would love if served fresh and with an ice-cold champagne. In bed. Don’t think of them together. Keep on and on.

  Rona knew that Finn was uneasy about how generous the wronged wife was being. Sometimes she saw a look of contrition on the dark, gypsy-like face. But it was easy to change her mood. Together the two women planned wonderful meals for the unworthy Aengus, but it was never acknowledged that Finn had served him any of the recipes that she learned eagerly, knowing how much he loved good food.

  The lovers had planned a weekend away. Aengus called it a conference. Finn called it seeing about schools for the boys. Rona realised it was one of those idyllic cottages where she would love to have spent a happy relaxing weekend with Aengus. No children, just the two of them. But now it would be Aengus and Finn. Even their names sounded good together, she thought, with a suspicion of a tear. But she would not fall at the last fence.

  Finn was bubbling with enthusiasm. ‘I feel much more confident about cooking since I met you, Rona,’ she said in a burst of gratitude.

  ‘No, no,’ she protested, ‘You were always very good. Look at that wonderful duxelle you taught me.’

  ‘Surely you taught it to me?’ Finn was confused.

  ‘No, we were discussing it, you know, how the mushrooms and the onions are chopped so finely … all that.’

  ‘But you said it was something Aengus loved?’

  It is, he often orders a chicken duxelle in a restaurant but I never managed to make … ’

  ‘So you never made it for him?’ The gypsy eyes were bright.

  ‘Never.’ Rona sounded apologetic almost. But her heart was soaring. The trap had been set.

  She held him to her tenderly, the lying husband who was going away to a rented cottage with a gypsy and not to the conference that he had told his wife he was heading for.

  She held him in the knowledge that he would be very ill. His allergy to mushrooms was real and had never been mentioned to Finn. Lovers don’t talk of allergies which bring on vomiting and diarrhoea. Lovers’ wives certainly don’t warn faithless Finns.

  If she had given him something that looked like a mushroom, Aengus would have refused it. He would never spot it until it was too late, hidden in a duxelle.

  He wouldn’t leave this new love just because she had prepared food which made him vomit. Aengus wasn’t that kind of man.

  But the golden edge would have been taken off the affair. The aura of romance would have blown away. Aengus would return to his wife again. To Rona who would welcome him back without ever pretending he had gone.

  She smiled to herself, a tired smile. She could do it the next time and the next time. For years to come maybe. Or until she lost interest and didn’t care enough any more. Whichever came first.

  THE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM IN THE SPRING

  Julian Symons

  The outsider, Bertie Mays was fond of saying, sees most of the game. In the affair of the Purchases and the visiting cousin from South Africa he saw quite literally all of it. And the end was enigmatic and a little frightening, at least as seen through Bertie’s eyes. It left him with the question whether there had been a game at all.

  Bertie had retired early from his unimportant and uninteresting job in the Ministry of Welfare. He had-a private income, he was unmarried, and his only extravagance was a passion for travel, so why go on working? Bertie gave up his London flat and settled down in the cottage in the Sussex countryside which he had bought years earlier as a weekend place. It was quite big enough for a bachelor, and Mrs Last from the village came in two days a week to clean the place. Bertie himself was an excellent cook.

  It was a fine day in June when he called next door to offer Sylvia Purchase a lift to the tea party at the Hall. She was certain to have been asked, and he knew that she would need a lift because he had seen her husband Jimmy putting a case into the boot of their ancient Morris. Jimmy was some sort of freelance journalist, and often went on trips, leaving Sylvia on her own. Bertie, who was flirtatious by nature, had asked if she would like him to keep her company, but she did not seem responsive to the suggestion. Linton House, which the Purchases had rented furnished a few months earlier, was a rambling old place with oak beams and low ceilings. There was an attractive garden, some of which lay between the house and Bertie’s cottage, and by jumping over the fence between them Bertie could walk across this garden. He did so that afternoon, taking a quick peek into the sitting-room as he went by. He could never resist such peeks, because he always longed to know what people might be doing when they thought that nobody was watching. On this occasion the sitting-room was empty. He found Sylvia in the kitchen, washing dishes in a half-hearted way.

  ‘Sylvia, you’re not ready.’ She had on a dirty old cardigan with the buttons done up wrongly. Bertie himself was, as always, dressed very suitably for the occasion in a double-breasted blue blazer with brass buttons, fawn trousers and a neat bow tie. He always wore bow ties, which
he felt gave a touch of distinction and individuality.

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘Has the Lady of the Manor not bidden you to tea?’ That was his name for Lady Hussey up at the Hall.

  She clapped hand to forehead, leaving a slight smudge.

  ‘I’d forgotten all about it. Don’t think I’ll go, can’t stand those bun fights.’

  ‘But I have called specially to collect you. Let me be your chauffeur. Your carriage awaits.’ Bertie made a sketch of a bow, and Sylvia laughed. She was a blonde in her early thirties, attractive in a slapdash sort of way.

  ‘Bertie, you are a fool. All right, give me five minutes.’

  The women may call Bertie Mays a fool, Bertie thought, but how they adore him.

  ‘Oh,’ Sylvia said. She was looking behind Bertie, and when he turned he saw a man standing in the shadow of the door. At first glance he thought it was Jimmy, for the man was large and square like Jimmy, and had the same gingery fair colouring. But the resemblance went no further, for as the man stepped forward he saw that their features were not similar.

  This is my cousin Alfred Wallington. He’s paying us a visit from South Africa. Our next-door neighbour, Bertie Mays.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Bertie’s hand was firmly gripped.

  The two men went into the sitting-room, and Bertie asked whether this was Mr Wallington’s first visit.

  ‘By no means. I know England pretty well. The south, anyway.’

  ‘Ah, business doesn’t take you up north?’ Bertie thought of himself as a tactful but expert interrogator, and the question should have brought a response telling him Mr Wallington’s occupation. In fact, however, the other man merely said that was so.

  ‘In the course of my work I used to correspond with several firms in Cape Town,’ Bertie said untruthfully. Wellington did not comment. ‘Is your home near there?’ ‘No.’

  The negative was so firm that it gave no room for further conversational manoeuvre. Bertie felt slightly cheated. If the man did not want to say where he lived in South Africa of course he was free to say nothing, but there was a certain finesse to be observed in such matters, and a crude ‘no’ was not at all the thing. He was able to establish at least that this was the first time Wallington had visited Linton House.

  On the way up to the Hall he said to Sylvia that her cousin seemed a dour fellow.

  ‘Alf?’ Bertie winced at the abbreviation. ‘He’s all right when you get to know him.’

  ‘He said he was often in the south. What’s his particular sphere of interest?’

  ‘I don’t know, I believe he’s got some sort of export business around Durban. By the way, Bertie, how did you know Jimmy was away?’

  ‘I saw him waving goodbye to you.’ It would hardly do to say that he had been peeping through the curtains.

  ‘Did you now? I was in bed when he went. You’re a bit of a fibber, I’m afraid, Bertie.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t remember how I knew.’ Really, it was too much to be taken up on every little point.

  When they drove into the great courtyard and Sylvia got out of the car, however, he reflected that she looked very slenderly elegant, and that he was pleased to be with her. Bertie liked pretty women and they were safe with him, although he would not have thought of it that way.

  He might have said, rather, that he would never have compromised a lady, with the implication that all sorts of things might be said and done providing that they stayed within the limits of discretion. It occurred to him that Sylvia was hardly staying within those limits when she allowed herself to be alone at Linton House with her South African cousin. Call me old-fashioned, Bertie said to himself, but I don’t like it.

  The Hall was a nineteenth-century manor house and by no means, as Bertie had often said, an architectural gem, but the lawns at the back where tea was served were undoubtedly fine. Sir Reginald Hussey was a building contractor who had been knighted for some dubious service to the export drive. He was in demand for opening fêtes and fund-raising enterprises, and the Husseys entertained a selection of local people to parties of one kind or another half-a-dozen times a year. The parties were always done in style, and this afternoon there were maids in white caps and aprons, and a kind of major-domo who wore a frock coat and white gloves. Sir Reginald was not in evidence, but Lady Hussey presided in a regal manner.

  Of course Bertie knew that it was all ridiculously vulgar and ostentatious, but still he enjoyed himself. He kissed Lady Hussey’s hand and said that the scene was quite entrancing, like a Victorian period picture, and he had an interesting chat with Lucy Broadhinton, who was the widow of an Admiral. Lucy was the president and Bertie the secretary of the local historical society, and they were great friends. She told him now in the strictest secrecy about the outrageous affair Mrs Monro was having with somebody who must be nameless, although from the details given Bertie was quite able to guess his identity. There were other titbits too, like the story of the scandalous misuse of the Church Fund restoration money. It was an enjoyable afternoon, and he fairly chortled about it on the way home.

  ‘They’re such snobby affairs,’ Sylvia said. ‘I don’t know why I went.’

  ‘You seemed to be having a good time. I was quite jealous.’

  Sylvia had been at the centre of a very animated circle of three or four young men. Her laughter at their jokes had positively rung out across the lawns, and Bertie had seen Lady Hussey give more than one disapproving glance in the direction of the little group. There was something undeniably attractive about Sylvia’s gaiety and about the way in which she threw back her head when laughing, but her activities had a recklessness about them which was not proper for a lady. He tried to convey something of this as he drove back, but was not sure that she understood what he meant. He also broached delicately the impropriety of her being alone in the house with her cousin by asking when Jimmy would be coming back. In a day or two, she said casually. He refused her invitation to come in for a drink. He had no particular wish to see Alf Wallington again.

  On the following night at about midnight, when Bertie was in bed reading, he heard a car draw up next door. Doors were closed, there was the sound of voices. Just to confirm that Jimmy was back, Bertie got out of bed and lifted an edge of the curtain. A man and a woman were coming out of the garage. The woman was Sylvia. The man had his arm round her, and as Bertie watched bent down and kissed her neck. Then they moved towards the front door, and the man laughed and said something. From his general build he might, seen in the dim light, have been Jimmy, but the voice had the distinctive South African accent of Wallington.

  Bertie drew away from the window as though he had been scalded.

  It was a feeling of moral responsibility that took him round to Linton House on the following day. To his surprise Jimmy Purchase opened the door.

  ‘I – ah – though you were away.’

  ‘Got back last night. What can I do for you?’

  Bertie said that he would like to borrow the electric hedge-clippers, which he knew were in the garden shed. Jimmy led the way there and handed them over. Bertie said that he had heard the car coming back at about midnight.

  ‘Yeah.’ Jimmy had a deplorably Cockney voice, not at all out of the top drawer. ‘That was Sylvia and Alf. He took her to a dance over at Ladersham. I was too fagged out, just wanted to get my head down.’

  ‘Her cousin from South Africa?’

  ‘Yeah, right, from the Cape. He’s staying here for a bit. Plenty of room.’

  Was he from the Cape or from Durban? Bertie did not fail to notice the discrepancy.

  Bertie’s bump of curiosity was even stronger than his sense of propriety. It became important, even vital, that he should know just what was going on next door. When he returned the hedge-cutters he asked them all to dinner, together with Lucy Broadhinton to make up the number. He took pains in preparing a delicious cold meal. The salmon was cooked to perfection, and the hollandaise sauce had just the right hint of something tart
beneath its blandness.

  The evening was not a success. Lucy had a long dress and Bertie wore a very smart velvet jacket, but Sylvia was dressed in sky-blue trousers and a vivid shirt, and the two men wore open-necked shirts and had a distinctly unkempt appearance. They had obviously been drinking before they arrived. Wallington tossed town Bertie’s expensive hock as though it were water, and then said that South African wine had more flavour than that German stuff.

  ‘You’re from Durban, I believe, Mr Wallington.’ Lucy fixed him with her Admiral’s lady glance. ‘My husband and I were there in the sixties, and thought it delightful. Do you happen to know the Morrows or the Page- Manleys? Mary Page-Manley gave such delightful parties.’

  Wallington looked at her from under heavy brows. “Don’t know them.’

  ‘You have an export business in Durban?’

  That’s right.’

  There was an awkward pause. Then Sylvia said, ‘Alf’s trying to persuade us to pay him a visit out there.’

  ‘I’d like you to come out. Don’t mind about him.’ Wallington jerked his thumb at Jimmy. ‘Believe me, we’d have a good time.’

  ‘I do believe you, Alf.’ She gave her head-back laugh, showing the fine column of her neck. ‘It’s something we’ve forgotten here, how to have a good time.’

  Jimmy Purchase had been silent during dinner. Now he said, ‘People here just don’t have the money. Like the song says, it’s money makes the world go round.’

  ‘The trouble in Britain is that too much money has got into the wrong hands.’ Lucy looked round the table. Nobody seemed inclined to argue the point. ‘There are too many grubby little people with sticky fingers.’

  ‘I wish some of the green stuff would stick to my fingers,’ Jimmy said, and hiccupped. Bertie realised with horror that he was drunk. ‘We’re broke, Sylvie, old girl.’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’ And he actually began to empty out his pockets. What appalling creatures the two men were, each as bad as the other, Bertie longed for the evening to end, and was delighted when Lucy rose to make a stately departure. He whispered an apology in the hall, but she told him not to be foolish, it had been fascinating.