Chocolate Mousse and Two Spoons

by Lorraine Jenkin

  Chapter 4

  Stewed Coffee

  As Lettie’s first day back at work after the “incident”, as she now referred to it, drew to a close, she sat at the window table with Jill Jarvis, the co-owner of the Sea View. This was a ritual as the staff counted their tips, usually lamenting Lettie’s superior haul, and one by one they would disappear, the younger ones changing first to minimise the chances of being spotted in anything as socially disastrous as a blouse that didn’t show off any of their piercings.

  All day Lettie had felt a mixture of tiredness and anxiety tinged with excitement. She felt the urge to get through the next couple of weeks as quickly as possible. Telling people that she and Alan were no longer together was awkward and raised questions that she didn’t want to answer. She could see why people took out advertisements in papers to announce their announcements – although if the usual typos in the local rag were anything to go by, she and Alan would soon be announcing that they were splatting dup.

  She wanted the first chance meeting to be over with, the uncomfortable first chat with Alan’s mum Clara, who she had always got on with but Alan always rushed her past. She wanted people to look after her, but she hated them asking whether she was OK yet and then telling her about when they split up with a previous partner. And she hated the gossip, the small town tittle-tattle that made up what it didn’t know and then passed it on with a blob of relish.

  Lettie felt the urge to restyle her hair, go shopping for clothes or buy a new duvet. She had plans to increase her drawing and painting, to perhaps try selling them further afield. She felt that life needed to change; she wasn’t allowed to slip back into old ways.

  Jill took an unusual step and put on a fresh pot of coffee, rather than expecting the dregs left over from the day to be drained. She then reached into her bag and took out her tobacco and rolling papers. “Ah, Malcolm must be at the Cash & Carry?” smiled Lettie and received a shrug from a modern woman, to whom it is of no concern whether her husband sees her smoke or not. Despite her intelligence, Jill truly believed that her husky voice, the bleeding of her lipstick into the lines around her mouth and the lingering smell of smoke in her hair was no indication whatsoever of the occasional relapse in the habit she had apparently given up ten years before.

  Lettie took a breath and quite looked forward to having a conversation with Jill that didn’t involve how great it was to finish work by six p.m. and how it was simply the best thing that they had ever done to downsize and quit the City. Lettie had felt in the few months that she had known Jill, a growing desire to get her drunk to find out what she might really be like if she could allow herself to forget that she used to be an advertising executive and Malcolm a stockbroker – both working twenty-five hour days, earning seven figure salaries, plus bonuses and a corporate masseur. But, in fairness, Jill and Malcolm Jarvis had turned the business around; rather than the dismal and inefficiently twee restaurant that it had been for the last ten years, it now had a clean and contrived tweeness that the customers seemed to enjoy. It was the difference between old books on the high shelves that were old simply because they had been there a long time, and new books on the high shelves that were bought because they looked old.

  Jill held her cigarette up to the window, as if in wonder that the miserably thin creation could afford such enjoyment and indulgence. Lettie mirrored the actions with her cup of coffee, holding it up to smell, savour and cherish before slurping it down with a hunger that would keep her awake for hours.

  Jill had been confided in by Alex at Lettie’s request in order for her to have a couple of days off and to explain the need to be aware of any potential appearances by Alan. Jill hadn’t intruded by asking Lettie for details, but had given the situation a great deal of thought as she cared for Lettie both as an employee and also as a friend.

  “You know what you should do, don’t you,” said Jill, whilst expelling the smoke from her lungs in a kind of in-the-City-we-don’t-have-time-to-talk-and-exhale-separately way. It was a statement, rather than a question.

  “Oh, right?” Lettie’s was a question.

  “Personal ads…” Jill saw Lettie’s eyebrows rise over the rim of her coffee cup. “Yup; they are the modern woman’s equivalent of the square dance. In the City loads of people do it. People don’t have time to find a partner any other way. It’s too cut and thrust, too ambitious for flirting over the photocopier. Get it wrong and you could lose a promotion.”

  Jill saw Lettie return to the marvels of her coffee. “No, I’m serious. Let’s face it, Lyme Regis, beautiful as it is, is a complete eligible-cock desert.” Ah, now she knew she’d hit the nail on the head as she heard Lettie’s guffaw and then watched the Douwe Egbert’s coming out of her nose. “So, what are your chances of finding Mr Right tucked away in a beach shack serving tutti-frutti ice cream to tourists?”

  Lettie took a gulp at her cup. “Zilch.”

  “Exactly.”

  The women settled into their own reveries, gazing at the tables which, when stripped of their lace doilies laid on period floral, were exposed as the graffitied card tables that they once were. Lettie was rudely awoken from her thoughts as Jill made a grab for her coffee cup and drained the remainder of the contents, tipped her ashtray onto the freshly vacuumed carpet under the table and muttered, “Shit, he’s back early; can you smell it on my breath?”

  Lettie, missing her cup of solace and finding that the blast of cigarette breath was not a good replacement, declined to answer and instead, got up and opened the door for Malcolm who was trying to drag in his plastic cartons filled with frozen slop before he was spotted by tomorrow’s consumers of his “fine home-made fayre”…

  Chapter 5

  Preparing the Hors d’oeuvres

  Rizzo sat down at his desk for the tenth time that day in order to Make-A-Start. He’d thought about his chosen thesis a great deal, both the ethics and the practicalities, and had reassured himself that what he was intending to do was a valuable research project that would be beneficial to man – and, more importantly, Riser-kind.

  Being Rizzo, he had researched more about the subject of writing a thesis far more than he had the actual topic of his research and therefore he was sat in a lit and well-ventilated room, free from the clutter that would distract his thought processes. It had taken him a morning to tidy his room to meet this criterion and another two hours to free the sash windows from the excessive dried paint and goo that had prevented them from opening more than three inches. He sat in comfortable slacks and wore a T-shirt of soft fabric that allowed him free movement.

  His window overlooked the river and the small garden to the rear of the house. He could hear the water trickling merrily by on the last few hundred yards until it hit the sea – the watery equivalent of a village kid going to a city university. Lettie had taken a great deal of care in the décor and furnishings of her two letting rooms and the dark oak furniture was nicely complimented by the citrus walls and the hemp rug that quietened the varnished floor boards.

  To the layman, the collection of stones casually stacked in the corner of Rizzo’s room was just a pile of rubble, but to a fossiler of his prowess they were an exciting collection of finds documenting a millennium of history. In the eyes of a really experienced fossiler, however, they would unfortunately revert back to the pile of rubble.

  The racks of bookshelves, that he had insisted he needed, were magnificent and filled with expensive textbooks that would silence anyone who scorned at the difficulties of further education. However, despite having the financial means to simply buy the whole reading list, they were as notionally uncut as any gentleman’s collection of first editions. Once more, intentions were good.

  He didn’t really fancy the bottle of water that would keep him hydrated and was sick of the coffee that would allow him to work through to the small hours should he wish to do so. Flourishing the rather nice fountain pen that he’d bought himself in favour of the laptop that, although quicker, didn’t seem to be
as symbolic, Rizzo slumped his shoulders and began to write.

  Introduction, Method, Results, Discussions. The regime had been drummed into his mind since Year One Science, but possibly only on paper. It was not unknown to start with the results, followed by the discussion and then working backwards, but this time he was determined to do it properly. His hypothesis:

  “To determine whether a belated positive influence in a subject’s existence can affect their character and opinion of self.”

  Introduction:

  The Subject is a thirty-year-old white female. From a large family, unintentional neglect of emotions and general indifferent treatment during childhood and adolescence has led to a complete lack of confidence in self and this has capitulated into adulthood. A lack of positive indulgence has resulted in a poor self-esteem and body image. Resulting physical traits are highly apparent – stooping, rounded shoulders, weight gain and subsequent body fat retention, bitten nails and fingers, with tension present throughout the whole body.

  The Subject is successful in her career and is obviously intelligent and professional. Her office apparel is responsible for a great deal of her ability as her persona is noted to change as she dons it. Similarly, as she changes into her leisurewear, the above physical characteristics return and the body exudes an apology for the human form. An awareness of the feminine sexuality is lacking at all times.

  The experiment will test the theory of the power of a positive influence on the subject and the effect that this has on the projection of self-image. This is considered to be a study of extreme benefit due to the large number of the population that suffer from low self-esteem and the effects that such circumstances inflict.

  I have discussed the thesis at length with the Subject and Appendix One contains her signed consent.

  Method:

  The method is based upon the “drip drip” effect whereby occasional comments, involvement and acknowledgement are dropped into conversation, both routine, structured and occasional unstructured. The method is intended to provide a recognition of positive attributes that the subject has never had attention drawn to and could be completely unaware of.

  Here Rizzo drew a breath and started checking his fountain pen. Surely the cartridge would need refilling after that literary assault, possibly needing flushing through with water too? He checked his timetable; this afternoon had been completely blocked out for working on the thesis. However, that was probably a mistake, as one needed regular study breaks in order to retain the freshness that was required.

  He looked at his watch and then at the tide timetable pinned to the corkboard on the wall in front of him and realised that the tide was nearly at its ebb. Clicking the lid onto his now-christened fountain pen, he stood up, grabbed his jacket and canvas fossiling rucksack from the back of his door and headed out to the beach, stopping only to say, “Oh, I like your hair – what have you done different to it today?” to a mystified Lisa.

  Chapter 6

  “Er, this is not what I ordered, waiter…”

  The evening was one of Lyme Regis’ best sort, and the world and her husband were promenading along the promenade. The tide was in and local kids were hurling themselves off the thick sea wall that protected Cobb Gate at the bottom of the steep Broad Street. They did all the dives that Lettie and her friends had done twenty years ago. They knew exactly where to hurl themselves to avoid the rocks and knew how little sea wall must be showing above the water to ensure the tide was high enough to do so – essential life skills that had been handed down from generation to generation. Crowds gathered round cheering as the boys in their cut-off jeans and girls with T-shirts as safety nets over their bikinis, dived, backflipped and bellyflopped in.

  Lettie sat on the stone jetty that slid down into the sea, enjoying the spectacle of the clowns, but far enough away from the smell of expensive ice creams to avoid the comments that would interrupt the task in hand. She bunched up her skirt and clamped it between her knees, feeling that the swimmers in front of her would be more likely to come back to the beach before they were exhausted if they didn’t have her nether regions to behold every time they looked landwards. She wriggled her toenails in front of her and stroked Molly, who lay drying at her side.

  It was a ritual of theirs before and after work to walk along the beach or the promenade, depending on the weather and the tides and, if it were calm, Molly would fetch the sticks that Lettie would throw. Unfortunately, Molly couldn’t be a true terrier because on (summer) occasion, Lettie would find herself wading into the sea to fetch a precious stick. Molly had once misjudged a crashing wave and been tumbled onto the beach. She had never trusted waves again, be they the seventh or the pitiful first. Occasionally, Lettie would watch a bigger dog diving through the breakers to fetch its beloved owner’s sticks and wish that she had a “proper dog”, but on the whole, Molly and Lettie suited each other and enjoyed their walks together.

  Lettie would often sit on this jetty and would shuffle back and forth as the tide ebbed and flowed. The majority of the time, she would be painting the beautiful scene in front of her of the substantial Cobb, the picturesque harbour which had nurtured its flock for so many centuries – although these days its contents were more likely to be made of fibre glass and be owned by someone from out of town, than to be wooden and used for fishing.

  Even those boats that had started out that way were now fitted with toilets and health and safety regalia as their owners had found it far more profitable to take tourists for sightseeing trips around Lyme Bay than they had scraping a hard living catching fish. Their Guernseys, caps and strong local accents could then be put away with their boats at the end of the season and their owners could winter in Spain, maintaining the element-ravaged look for the early spring tourists.

  Lettie knew and enjoyed the company of the fishermen she greeted on her daily walks. She knew most of them by name, not the ones given them at birth, but the ones they had been given by those who had worked their apprenticeships in the Cobb-side chip shop. Strong Tea, No Sugar sailed the Sally-Ann for hour trips round the bay, whilst Sweet, Sweet Coffee took luckier folk out for three hours of mackerel fishing and a shoal of stories about tides, storms and landslips that got bigger and bigger as the years went by and the globetrotting tourists got harder to please.

  Although this was her favourite view, and one that sold well, Lettie was still unable to paint it from memory and always had to sit on her jetty to do so. She did wonder whether, rather like the jagged piece of rock covered in seaweed and the backings of sanitary towels named “Lucy’s Ledge”, after a girl who sat there many years ago, her favourite spot may, one day, be named after her. She just wasn’t sure what term she would prefer – Lettie’s Jetty only marginally beat Lettie’s Groyne – especially if the namer’s spelling wasn’t particularly hot …

  But, today, Lettie was not painting, but writing. Or rather, composing. This was not her forte, but she agreed with Alex’s suggestion that it might be better to write it all down in a letter to Alan, rather than trying to remember all she wanted to shout at him as he tried to kick her door in and break her new locks.

  As she tried to think of what to write, she thought back to the time when she had met Alan, wondering how on earth it had been able to go so horribly wrong.

  Being a few years older than her, Alan had been in the sixth form when she’d been a timid fourteen-year-old ball of lust and needless to say, contact hadn’t been promising. As adults, they had nodded hello to one another when they passed each other in the street but this was a courtesy greeting from recognition, rather than any pre-emptive desire to stop and chat.

  Alan had worked away from town, rising steadily through the ranks to the position of Salesman Least Likely to Take No for an Answer. He would return home periodically as his various loves wised up and Mother was always there to lick his wounds and show him the submissive nature of a good woman. Rizzo would have been pleasantly surprised to know that he had summed up the situation corr
ectly: Alfred had a vicious temper and had hit Clara intermittently for many years. Even now, despite being practically housebound with chronic asthma, he still ruled with an iron rod that Clara kept polished for him under the stairs.

  Lettie remembered well the night that “things” had started. She had been having a particularly lean time in the larder of love, had got out of the habit of trying and was sick of being the subject of someone else’s holiday romance. These were affairs that unerringly followed the same pattern of flirtation, collection from work, introduction to local friends, walk to favourite cliff-top spot. Here they would typically culminate in wild abandoned consummation, usually next to a campfire. Awkward farewells and lavish promises of lifelong friendships preceded a couple of dirty postcards, and then silence. However, in their favour, recovery time was usually quick and she had managed to pack a fair few of these into a season when at her peak.

  As she had neared her thirties, she had felt that such delving and fumbling was unsophisticated. She had tired of the repetitive conversations, wishing instead that she could hold up flashcards to inform of her favourite tales, her history and life dreams and all the other discussions that lovers have to endure to gain access to fourth base.

  On that night, she had been to Alex and Rich’s house for tea to celebrate the opening of the florists and they had been so full of hopes and plans and general family love that she had left feeling quite flat. She’d returned to her cottage, which at that time had been bare and bleak and a shrine to the previous owners’ nineteen seventies flurry of decoration, and she’d lain back on her bed and contemplated singledom.