The Bluebird Café

by Rebecca Smith

  ‘I liked him. He was really interested in the goldfinches.’

  ‘He’s a nutter. Anyone can see that. He lives in that dreadful hotel!’

  ‘I thought this was a café for everybody. Why shouldn’t he come here? I thought you wanted some more business.’

  ‘He didn’t pay.’

  ‘A loss leader, Lucy,’ said Paul. ‘Like the cheap bread in supermarkets.’ Paul hated conflict. He tried to make her smile. ‘He wasn’t that crazy, and he ate loads, he really liked your cooking. Anyway, he probably won’t come back.’

  ‘Good,’ said Lucy.

  ‘But he might bring his friends,’ said Paul.

  ‘Great. All stinking of bins and damp.’

  But Gilbert never did get into the habit of paying. He looked on Paul and Lucy as his new-found friends. He would come to the café every day after his rounds and talk to them while they worked. Then he’d look mournfully at the food. In the end they’d offer him something. He’d eat a great deal and then say, ‘You really must let me give you something for this,’ and before they could reply he’d slide 50p or occasionally a pound coin across the counter at them. If it was Lucy she’d say, ‘Oh, thank you, Gilbert,’ and put it in her pocket, as though it wasn’t worth putting in the till. If it was Paul he’d put it in the Cats’ Protection League collection tin. Abigail refused to talk to him. She stayed in the kitchen when he was there. She thought he was creepy and shouted, ‘It’s him! It’s him!’ at every police photofit she saw in the papers. Gilbert would sit in the café for hours. He’d look longingly at cakes and the urn, and tap his fingers against his mug when it was empty. He often told them that he was so pleased to have them as friends. He tried to help. He cleared tables and wiped them in great soapy swirls so that they’d need rinsing and drying afterwards. They couldn’t tell him to leave. There was nothing they could do.

  Chapter 15

  Sometimes at night Lucy turned into a Chagall woman. She flew around the flat, downstairs into the café, and around the kitchen. She could see the dirty tops of the cupboards and dust on the door frames. She circled the paper-moon lampshades and floated above tables. Sometimes Fennel caught a claw in Lucy’s nightdress and jumped up for a ride. The ceiling was covered by a thin film of oil and cigarette tar. Paul’s huge workman’s boots were by the back door, their tongues lolling out in repose: dried mud was flaking and chunking on to the mat.

  Sometimes Lucy wanted to fly out through the top half of a sash window, out into the beautiful night; but somehow she didn’t, and she always woke up back in bed. Often when she woke she was thinking about the pond.

  The pond embodied everything that Lucy thought was wrong with her life. When the environmental health officer gave them their first certificate he tut-tutted at it. It was too near the kitchen window, he said. Paul couldn’t understand what the problem was. What were they worried about? Malaria?

  ‘Oh, stagnant water, diseases, you know …’ Lucy explained.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Paul. But they were told that if they wanted to put tables outside, the pond would have to go, and that new European legislation was coming in which governed the proximity of ponds to food preparation areas. (This was according to Paul’s dad who was an expert on new European legislation that was coming in.)

  ‘Safer for frogs in France,’ Lucy said.

  The pond would have dried up each summer, but Mr Snooke had ensured its survival by tipping saucepans of water into it. The water had sloshed down the front of his trousers and he’d heard the neighbours laughing at him. He had trudged backwards and forwards between the pond and the kitchen with his unwashed pale blue enamel pan, a hopeless contestant in a qualifying heat of a regional It’s a Knockout that would never be screened. It hadn’t occurred to him that the pondlife might not appreciate the fragments of coley and boil-in-the-bag cod in butter sauce which had burst from their plastic and were tipped into the pond with the tepid tap water.

  Paul, of course, knew that it was wrong to put tap water into a pond and resolved to buy a butt to collect rainwater. He had seen one with a special attachment to connect it with a down-pipe. £49.95 seemed a bit steep though, when the café was barely breaking even, but meanwhile, the dry weather continued and the pond was getting shallower and shallower.

  ‘What if we put Highland Spring into it?’ Lucy asked.

  And then the last of the fish was discovered slashed and floating. The claw of suspicion pointed to Fennel.

  The pond dried, the liner cracked. The frogs seemed to have hopped away and the irises wilted and died.

  ‘Brown flags of our indecision and failure,’ Lucy told Paul.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, and looked away.

  ‘At least we can fill it in now,’ she added.

  ‘But in the spring the frogs will come back here to spawn and find it gone.’

  ‘It must happen in nature.’

  ‘Lucy!’

  Lucy caught herself thinking, Perhaps we’ll have moved by the spring.

  Chapter 16

  Paul used the Thompson and Morgan seed catalogue to get to sleep. A soft lawn of tranquillity grew from the shiny pages and enfolded him. As he read from abutilon to zinnia, from artichokes to zucchini, he saw the Bluebird’s garden, and Giverny came to Southampton. He saw Lucy and himself sitting in faded green deckchairs drinking Pimms, or homemade lemonade, or pastis; ginger beer perhaps. There were sections on Chinese vegetables and herbs, pages and pages of tomatoes, gluts of cucumbers, more than a hill of beans. He was wearing a white cotton hat and listening to the cricket. A butterfly settled for a moment on Lucy’s hot, tanned arm. Her skin smelled like snapdragons, like popcorn. Fennel stretched out on the tiles. He added ‘nepeta’ to his mental order form.

  The Bluebird’s garden had a fine crop of willowherb. Anonymous enemies threw used condoms over the wall. Paul sometimes found dirty nappies – disposable, ha! – and had to put them in carrier bags and dump them in their trade waste bin. In the flower beds were lumps of strange concretey stuff and broken bricks, but they had the original terracotta rope border edges. Nasturtiums thrived in the dusty earth. He was growing basil, parsley, chives, sweet marjoram, apple mint and lemon thyme for the café. He wouldn’t mention the condoms or the nappies. There was a successful crop of purple sage, but Lucy wasn’t sure what to do with it all.

  Green fingers ran in Paul’s family. Maggie Cloud’s father was a champion pumpkin grower. Paul’s earliest memories were of the pumpkins; being weighed in the balance against the year’s finest (the pumpkin always winning), riding in the wheelbarrow, the terrible time when he’d thought that pumpkins bounced like space-hoppers, afternoons watering and weeding. Grandpa’s name was engraved on the Pumpkin Trophy for twenty-two years in a neatly hoed row. When he died the village horticultural society brought wreaths of fruit and vegetables, as well as flowers.

  The pumpkin-coloured banner outside the Sikh temple made Paul think of his grandfather. Perhaps they could have a PumpkinFest at the café. They could host an exhibition about The Role of the Pumpkin in Art, Architecture and Culture. He thought of banners, minarets, Hallowe’en, drinking vessels … he must discuss it with Lucy.

  It was a Bank Holiday Monday and the café was closed. Paul was in the garden, sitting in a plastic chair which had once been white, but which Lucy had painted blue with paint that cost more than the chair itself. She had seen it done on Home Front in the Garden. He was listening to the cricket but every so often his ears flipped channels and he heard the sounds of B. J. Coles Funfair music thumping across from the Common. He hoped that the Badger Centre creatures wouldn’t be upset. Fennel jumped up on to his lap and butted him with her warm, furry, precious head. Paul was having an almost perfect afternoon. Upstairs Fred and Ginger had been dancing cheek to cheek. Now they were in a snowstorm. Lucy was lying on the sofa and thinking, ‘Huh. This is a fine romance.’

  And when the credits rolled, she vowed to make a bit more effort with Paul, to let him know that she loved h
im, to put some romance back into their relationship.

  ‘Tulle, sequins and silhouettes are required,’ she told herself. Perhaps she did need some more clothes. She wished that Paul liked to dance. She switched off the TV and went out into the garden.

  ‘Paul,’ she said. He held up a hand, gesturing silence.

  ‘He runs up … blah blah blah … bowls … and he’s out!’ said the radio.

  ‘Yes!’ shouted Paul.

  ‘Paul …’ said Lucy.

  ‘Bowled,’ he told her, ‘fifty-three for four. What?’

  ‘I thought we might go out somewhere; the cinema, or out to dinner.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘After the cricket. You can choose where.’

  ‘Decide where, you mean. Sort it all out …’ she snapped, thinking that he couldn’t be bothered. ‘Aren’t you interested? I want to go somewhere lovely, get dressed up.’

  ‘Fine with me,’ he said, and reached to turn the radio up.

  Paul had been in the bath for fifty-four minutes. His watch was propped on top of the loo, but without his glasses he couldn’t see its misted-over face. He had been doing the crossword but it was now too damp to be safely written on. He had two clues to go. He thought that he might even send it in, but he didn’t want a leatherbound dictionary. He already had Chambers, the first shot in an exchange of fat reference books. The progress of their relationship was plotted in non-fiction along the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Chambers, Roget’s Thesaurus, The Times Atlas of the World, Atlas of the Stars, The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, and its brother, Modern Quotations. British Flora and Fauna. Claudia Roden’s The Food of Italy, which was given special status.

  Paul was thinking about Lucy and about their sex life. It had its moments but they never seemed to be able to sustain the good phases for more than a week or so. Peaks and troughs. They never seemed to talk about it. He wouldn’t have minded, but Lucy would probably have been embarrassed.

  Lucy wouldn’t have expected Paul to want to talk about it. He was such a shrugger. She would also have been worried about saying something hurtful. She knew that she did have a problem with sex. She often seemed to lose the thread. She was easily distracted; a creak too many of the springs, a glimpse of something over Paul’s shoulder, new ideas about other things swimming into her mind. Paul didn’t know that some of her best recipes had come to her during their lovemaking. Worst of all, funny things often occurred to her. A few giggles could be disguised, but Paul didn’t know that Lucy often had to suppress the urge to shout: ‘Stop! Stop! From here you look like Michael Portillo!’

  Chapter 17

  ‘It’s her. From the News,’ Lucy hissed at Paul.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Her. In the pinky-red jacket and red glasses. She’s from the News. She might be reviewing us. I recognise the glasses from her picture. I thought they were just using an old photo. She’s called Sue Sholing, except she spells it S O O.’

  ‘Like in Sooty,’ said Paul, and they sniggered.

  ‘What did they order?’

  Paul was being the waiter that day.

  ‘Chef’s salad, fries, aubergine ravioli,’ he said, consulting the pad.

  ‘That should be all right then, I’ll make them extra large ones. Do you mind if I use those artichoke hearts your mum brought us, that jar from France?’

  This was a big sacrifice. Artichokes, hearts of palm and leeks and those French carottes râpées were Lucy’s favourite foods.

  ‘I don’t mind. Thought we’d eaten them already,’ said Paul.

  The woman with the tight grey curls was Soo Sholing’s mum. She was proud of her daughter and chuffed to be the My Companion in the review. She couldn’t wait to show it to her friends, and she’d been thinking of lots of comments to make for Susan (as she still thought of her) to put in the paper. Things like ‘a little dry’, and ‘slow on the palate’, and ‘over-seasoned’. Her friends must be thinking that Susan would end up as famous as that Jilly Goolden on Food and Drink. But anyone else who took a good look at the pair of them tucking into their lunch, dabbing at greasy pink lips with Lucy’s soft blue napkins, gripping their knives and forks with big, veiny, manicured hands, sniffing at the sauce with identical turned-up noses about which they were similarly vain, could see that Soo was turning into her mother, and that all the fuchsia-coloured jackets in the world couldn’t save her.

  ‘Do you think she’ll write something horrible?’ Lucy asked Paul.

  ‘I don’t like her jacket … but I suppose she might still be nice,’ said Paul.

  ‘I think she’s a big cheese on the News. I’ll talk to her when she asks for the bill.’

  Half an hour later: ‘Compliments of the house,’ said Lucy, putting down a wooden disc tray bearing two pretty blue-and-white cups of coffee and a jug of cream and Lucy’s own sugar bowl with its pattern of daisies. She’d decided against using her granny’s sugar tongs, Soo Sholing might be light-fingered. Lucy remembered her granny telling her that if a member of the royal family admired anything the owner was expected to give it to them. Perhaps this rule applied to restaurant critics from provincial newspapers too. Lucy didn’t want to chance it.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Soo.

  ‘I did recognise you,’ said Lucy. ‘I’m Lucy, the chef.’

  ‘It’s a very nice café, Lucy. Very homely.’

  Lucy had always thought that ‘homely’ was an insult. Anne of Green Gables had always hated being called ‘homely’. Perhaps it was a compliment for cafés.

  ‘The rolls were lovely.’

  ‘Oh. Thank you. My own recipe. The herbs are homegrown.’

  ‘Very nice ravioli,’ Soo’s mum said. ‘A lovely finish on the palate.’

  ‘Thank you. My own recipe too.’

  ‘You should write them down,’ said Soo.

  ‘I do. I have. I’ve got a bulging notebook. I love inventing things, changing them, adapting them. I always have.’

  ‘Have you been cooking for a long time?’ Soo asked, reaching for her notebook.

  ‘Ever since I could hold a wooden spoon.’ Lucy had been planning that line for a long time. It had been destined for the Independent on Sunday. ‘I taught myself, well, with my mum’s help, but I haven’t been to catering college or anything. I came to Southampton to study English, and I just stayed here and opened the Bluebird.’

  ‘Can I take a menu?’ Soo asked.

  ‘Please do, and come back soon.’

  ‘I will,’ said Soo, although she didn’t really look the Bluebird type.

  ‘Yes, we will,’ said Soo’s mum. Lucy guided them towards the door.

  ‘I wouldn’t usually say this,’ said Soo, ‘but you could try sending me a recipe or two for the Women’s Page. I don’t promise to use it, but we might. Put in some background. You said you did English. You know, when you first made the dish, where to shop, calories and so on …’

  ‘Oh, I’d love to!’ Lucy gushed.

  ‘Well, here’s my card.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘This could really be something,’ Lucy told Paul and Abigail. ‘I might even get my own Cook’s Column. I’ll be a celebrity chef.’

  ‘Well, Delia Smith started out in Swap Shop,’ said Abigail.

  The next week the Bluebird was reviewed in the News.

  The Bluebird Café, 105 Bevois Valley Road

  Lucy Brookes, the charming young proprietress of the Bluebird Café, says she has been cooking ever since she could hold a wooden spoon. The menu, prettily illustrated with birds and flowers, features many of her own creations. Lucy came to Southampton as a student and liked it so much that she stayed! Situated in what some people might call one of the city’s seedier districts, the Bluebird is a little oasis of sophisticated home cooking at reasonable prices. Meateaters beware though, it’s all vegetarian! There are about a dozen tables painted in pastel shades with old-fashioned chairs and a mural of birds and clouds. Portions are generous.

  We enjoyed the complimenta
ry rolls, which were freshly baked that day and flavoured with home-grown herbs, and the big helping of good old-fashioned thick-cut fries. My companion’s aubergine ravioli were pretty parcels, fragrant with basil and that sort of thing, swimming in a classic Italian tomato sauce with a generous sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. I munched my way through the chef’s salad, and was impressed by the generous quantities of pricier ingredients such as artichoke hearts, asparagus points, olives, and by the many brightly coloured leaves.

  My blackcurrant sorbet was delicious, velvety and smooth, and my companion’s Inca pie was chocolate heaven. It certainly filled her up! Our bill with a bottle of mineral water came to £15.95. A real treat and quite a bargain too.

  The Bluebird Café is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday to Saturday.

  ‘It’s a rave! Look, Paul!’ Lucy waved it at him. She made copies to send to her relatives and to her friend Vicks and other people she wanted to impress.

  ‘Do you think it would be tacky to put copies inside Christmas cards?’ she asked Paul.

  ‘Yes.’

  They framed a copy and put it up in the window. Business did pick up.

  ‘Southampton News readers can be your new target diners,’ sniggered Abigail. ‘You can be a stop-off on the coach excursions.’

  Lucy stayed up late that night, looking through her recipe notebooks, writing her first column for Soo Sholing’s Women’s Page.

  Chapter 18

  ‘I’m just nipping to Vir and Vir for some Felix,’ said Lucy.

  ‘OK.’

  John Vir was alone in the shop. He was bent over a huge box of packets of nuts. Lucy saw the Cash and Carry price on the outside.

  ‘Wow! Where’d you get it that cheap?’

  ‘Cash and Carry, near Basingstoke.’

  ‘That’s loads cheaper than the Wholefood Co-op we use.’

  ‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?’ said John Vir.

  ‘I don’t use cashew nuts much because of the prices.’