by Claire Sandy
‘Hey! That’s ours!’ Iris was outraged.
It was time for Marie to unleash her sternest look. The biggie. The one she rarely used, under wraps since a tiny Angus had shouted ‘Tits’ in front of his grandparents. It worked. It always worked; it was the atomic bomb of maternal looks.
‘Sorry!’ said Angus. He turned to Lynda, shame-faced. ‘Sorry, Lynda. Aileen.’
‘I don’t give a fuck, Angus love,’ said Aileen kindly.
‘But she is, Mum,’ said Angus, a glower ageing his features. ‘Chloe is . . . that thing I said.’
It regularly slipped Marie’s mind that she didn’t have a lifestyle, just a life, and she fell anew for the big fat lies peddled by glossy magazines. She’d got through a strenuous afternoon of drilling into teeth by imagining an al-fresco feast with her loving family. There was a bowl of blowsy peonies in her fantasy, and a trailing lace cloth. Her family had been replaced by models, their personalities rinsed clean of kinks.
It wasn’t like that at 8 p.m., with Rose screaming if a wasp entered British air space, and Iris mulishly insisting she’d gone off chicken. Angus winced as if his family’s conversation hurt his ears, and when Marie had rooted out her only lace tablecloth, she’d discovered that Prinny had thrown up onto it a mutilated Star Wars action figure.
‘You do like chicken, darling,’ said Marie patiently. ‘You had it yesterday and asked for seconds. Have some Greek salad, or have you gone off that as well?’
‘I love Greek salad,’ said Iris, insulted that her mother should imply otherwise. ‘But Daddy took all the feta.’
‘And Daddy’s keeping it,’ said Daddy. The family knew better than to come between him and his feta. ‘Isn’t Lucy joining us?’
‘I didn’t mention it to her,’ said Marie, hoping Robert was too bewitched by the nearness of the cheese to catch the twitchy look his question had provoked. ‘She doesn’t come over every night.’ She added, more slowly, knowing it to be beneath her, ‘She doesn’t live here.’
‘She might as well,’ said Angus genially.
The horrible thing about the scenario Marie had pieced together was that she didn’t really blame her husband.
For months, until recently, Marie had been tense, preoccupied, ever-ready with a sarky barb. Whereas Lucy was soft, sympathetic, forgiving; she was a totally feminine being. If Robert and Lucy had bonded over fear of the future, over feelings of loss, over insidious sensations of worthlessness, then she understood. She didn’t like it – in fact, it made her heart feel as if it was deep-frozen – but she understood.
‘Where’s the salt?’ Marie studied the spread, before jumping up to get it.
‘While you’re there,’ shouted Rose, ‘bring me a knife, Mum!’
‘Please!’ Marie yelled, yanking at the cutlery drawer.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ she murmured, mourning her Provençal-style dinner that never was. Robert had been tasked with laying the table, but he had saved her neither time nor trouble. Every other minute she’d had to dash back into the house for glasses, plates, cutlery and other esoteric equipment that he’d left off. ‘Right.’ She plonked the knife and the salt down on the clothless table. ‘I’m not getting up from my seat again, for any reason.’
‘WAAAAASP!’ shrieked Rose.
‘I bet this chicken had a name,’ said Iris.
The abandoned table was as messy as if the children had danced on it, rather than just eaten dinner.
Robert stacked one plate on top of another, then paused, looking expectantly at Marie. ‘This is where you say Leave it, I’ll do it – you never do it properly anyway.’
‘Not tonight, mate.’ Marie sat back, her bones aching; the emergency gin hadn’t worked. Maybe it wasn’t ginny enough. She topped up her glass. ‘You’re a house-husband now. You can’t expect me to work all day, then come home and clear up.’ She sipped her gin. No need to dig deeper and mention that she’d shopped for dinner on the way home, cooked it and served it. ‘Plus I bought it, cooked it, served it.’ Oh. Apparently there was a need to mention it.
Why doesn’t he ask me what’s the matter? thought Marie mutinously. She had questions of her own, but was afraid to put them to him.
‘Actually,’ began Robert, lifting the plates in a way that made Marie itch to stop him, ‘there’s something we need to discuss.’
‘What?’ Marie clutched her glass harder. ‘What, Robert?’ Life was ambushing her. Yesterday a perfect evening needed only her kids on the premises, her husband within touching distance and her best friend to hand. Tonight she was fearful of hearing that friend’s name in his next sentence.
‘It’s probably best,’ said Robert gravely, balancing a jug precariously on top of his pile, ‘if I call Lucy over and we break it to you together.’
Three minutes after Robert’s text, Lucy was in the Dunwoody garden, sipping a cold drink, with Prinny and Cookie at her feet and Robert opposite her. Marie watched them. She had often watched them, but never before had she watched them for clues.
‘Chloe’s welcome, too.’ Marie joined them with the cafetiere. She needed a clear head for this. ‘Angus is safely in his room, working furiously on something. The zombie film, probably.’
‘Chloe went to bed.’ Lucy hesitated, bent down to dissuade Cookie from licking Prinny’s face and said, ‘We’ve had a long day. She made a big decision, made some calls . . .’
‘You mean . . .’
‘Yup.’
‘Ohmygod,’ said Marie, briefly distracted from her own unfolding drama. ‘So she’s really going to . . . ?’
Robert looked from one to another. ‘Please end a sentence, girls, or I’ll never catch on.’
‘Yup,’ repeated Lucy.
‘Yup what?’ asked Robert impatiently.
‘Next month some time, she’ll . . .’ Lucy spread her hands out, the international gesture for you know what.
‘She’ll bloody what?’ Robert was almost shouting. ‘Turn into a man? Cover herself in marmalade?’
Marie didn’t laugh at that. She couldn’t find Robert amusing right now. ‘You’ll find out,’ she said briskly. ‘I’m the one who needs to be brought up to speed, aren’t I?’
‘Before Robert says a thing,’ Lucy butted in as Robert’s lips framed a word, ‘I just want to say . . .’ She leaned forward, focusing on Marie. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘We both are,’ said Robert.
Marie listened for a good ten minutes. She knew all. She was stunned.
‘Why,’ she asked, ‘did you say sorry?’
‘For keeping it from you,’ said Lucy.
‘Felt all wrong,’ said Robert.
‘Like we were – I don’t know – having an affair or something!’ Lucy snorted at the ridiculousness of this and so did Marie, deftly filing away all her suspicions and misgivings.
‘As if!’ laughed Robert, spoiling it a little with: ‘She’d kill me.’
The idea that had been proving, along with the loaves, was a risky one. It was also glorious and had ignited Marie’s imagination. Robert and Lucy had stood up, sat down, banged the table and all but turned cartwheels as they’d explained it. Marie had instantly visualised their concept. The shop opposite Smile!, charmingly refurbished, no longer a fly-blown dental bordello, but a funky, welcoming parlour. Robert had sketched it for her, down to the (rather badly drawn) little round tables with dainty chairs. The walls would be panelled, Lucy had said, and painted the palest pistachio. A marble-topped counter along one side would groan under the weight of the cakes sitting proudly beneath glass domes, begging to be eaten. All kinds. All sizes. All denominations. The sandwich fillings in a chilled trough would range from the standard to the what now? Shelves would buckle beneath pyramids of freshly baked breads and rolls and pastries. And standing behind the counter, pleased as Punch in their pistachio aprons with chocolate piping, would be Master Baker Robert Dunwoody and Patissière Lucy Gray.
In just forty-eight hours Robert had already booked h
imself on a Small Business Start-Up course, and his negotiations with the disgruntled landlord who had been left in the lurch by Klay had resulted in a bargain price for the lease. They’d canvassed people in the street, and most had shared Lynda’s heartfelt opinion that the high street was crying out for a decent sandwich shop. Lucy had asked for three estimates from local tradesmen for the panelling and had found cut-price marble online.
‘All this behind my back?’ Marie wasn’t annoyed. She was impressed.
‘We wanted to bring it to you as a fait accompli,’ said Lucy.
‘Lay it at your feet,’ said Robert.
‘So?’ Lucy slapped her knees. ‘Do you like it?’
‘I love it,’ said Marie.
She did. She loved it all. A family business of usefulness and beauty that also meant free baguettes in the middle of her working day. She loved the thought of looking out of Smile!’s window and seeing a pistachio palace devoted to the glory of cake, which was not only filling tummies but paying bills. ‘I really love it.’
But the bit she loved the best? The restoration of balance. The lovely shimmering threads that bound them all together were strong again.
‘You have to name it,’ said Robert.
‘Me?’ Marie was startled. And touched.
‘Yes. First thing that comes into your head!’ Lucy clapped once.
‘Life Is Sweet,’ said Marie.
‘Life Is Sweet!’ yelled Robert, delighted.
‘Life Is Sweet,’ repeated Marie, her whole body a-wiggle. ‘Because it bloody well is!’
It was at that moment that Marie realised she’d done it again. She’d signed the slip a month ago, but now it was only a few days till the end-of-term fete. As Robert and Lucy hugged, and Lucy cried, and the dogs bounced and the twins appeared at their bedroom window, Marie thought What the blue blazes am I going to bake for this year’s show-stopper?
Later, alone with her cookbook, Marie turned the pages slowly. She fought a growing sense of dread, a stealthy unease sauntering up behind her, whistling, ready to slip a hood over her head and bundle her into a waiting van.
You’ll know it when you see it, she told herself.
The vivid photographs of Mary’s cakes blurred before her eyes as she flicked faster through the book. Sugared Pretzels? Tricky to make, but unimpressive to look at. Gateau Saint-Honoré? Wouldn’t survive a ride in a car. Marbled Chocolate Ring? Not challenging enough.
Somewhere in here was the cake, the one that met all her criteria. It had to be challenging to make, awe-inspiring to behold, exquisite to eat. No room here for modesty. Marie wanted to show the world that she’d changed since the debacle of the battered Mr Kipling French Fancies. She needed everybody to know how far she’d come. She’d altered, deep down in her DNA. She’d become a baker. She was a member of that magical club. Her life was enriched – the colour turned up to the max.
Banana and Honey Teabread? Too homely. Raspberry Meringue Roulade? She was sick of meringue. Nusskuchen? Best not to cook something she couldn’t pronounce with confidence.
Inspiration hit. In fact, it flattened her.
The kitchen was dark. Every Dunwoody was asleep. Even Prinny snored, more bathmat-like than ever, stretched out beneath the table. On top of the table, their gorgeous reds dulled by the night, sat a bunch of red roses, hand-tied, with a note attached.
M
You were right. The Earth revolves around the Sun.
Which makes you the Sun.
And me the Earth.
R
JULY
School Fete
Show-Stopper
Dear Iris and Rose’s mum
Thank you so much for agreeing to bake the show-stopper for the school fete. Every penny made by the fete will go to the PSA and will directly benefit our pupils.
Best regards
The PSA
P.S. I hope you don’t mind me adding that we do expect the show-stopper to be home-made – i.e. not bought in a shop.
It was a secret.
Marie was not great with secrets. The twins, on the other hand, were expert secret-keepers, but even better at winkling them out. So, in order to keep the exact nature of the show-stopper under wraps, Marie kept the kitchen door firmly shut. Access to the garden (and therefore the glass patio doors) was denied. Wandering through the front garden to peer through the kitchen window was punishable by . . . Well, Marie hadn’t got that far, but the punishment would be unthinkable, she implied.
Up in his room Angus was unaware of the police cordon thrown around the kitchen. Downstairs, the other Dunwoody male took it badly.
‘Stop being all huffy,’ Marie told her husband, handing him out a tray of tea and ginger biscuits at the border, or, as they generally called it, the kitchen door.
‘I’m not,’ said Robert huffily.
‘You are, Dad,’ said Iris from the sitting-room sofa, where she’d paused the interminable mermaid film to which they were subjecting their father.
‘Come back, Dad,’ whined Rose. ‘So I can lie on you.’
Settling himself huffily down, Robert acquiesced as the twins sprawled over him like tired Labradors. ‘You haven’t kept anything from me since we married.’
‘Except,’ Marie shouted through the now-closed kitchen door, ‘my long affair with Russell Crowe.’
‘I know about that!’ shouted Robert. Huffily.
This time last year Marie had been . . . She wondered what on Earth she had done with her time before she discovered the joys and woes of baking? She’d probably been on the sofa, glugging wine, critiquing newsreaders’ dress sense, trying to engage Robert in footsie, happily unaware that she was expected to supply a fuck-off-fabulous gateau the next morning.
This year was very different. Marie looked around her, content with her massed armies of spatulas, palette knives, bowls. Mary’s recipe lay on the worktop. The oven was on. She cracked her knuckles. Bring it on! she told nobody in particular.
Weighing. Sifting. Beating. The rituals began. Marie was in her comfort zone. The show-stopper was her Holy Grail, her Strictly Come Dancing glitterball, her Olympic gold.
It was Marie and Mary – alone together, the way they both preferred. When inspiration had struck for this latest, most important cake of all, Marie had assumed that Mary wouldn’t deliver a recipe for such a left-field idea, but a quick Internet search told her she’d underestimated her guru. Sage old dame that she was, Mary was there ahead of her: as if she’d known all along where this year of cakey self-improvement would lead.
Marie imagined Mary’s purred approval as her apprentice sidestepped the old pitfalls. Tonight there was no cockeyed optimism; Marie didn’t expect to finish in a couple of hours. She didn’t rush, she didn’t get sidetracked, she stuck to her plan.
Batter dropped from the bowl. The oven closed on its charges, Marie peering in at them through the glass with the same tender scrutiny as when she checked on the sleeping twins. She wiped down her surfaces (a phrase she remembered from Home Economics) and dosed herself with hot, sugary tea.
The icing was a tricky customer: Marie had had triumphs with it; and it had brought her, gibbering, to her knees. Tonight she added water, drip by careful drip, and some lemon juice too. When she was satisfied with the texture she divided the mixture into three, and tinted them all differently. The colour had to be perfect, with not a streak in sight. This was a show-stopper, after all.
Brought to the border, the twins hugged their mother and she drank deep of their pyjamas’ fabric-conditioner perfume. ‘Night-night!’ She kissed each nose in turn, and then kissed each nose again, because nose-kissing is very moreish. ‘Robert,’ she said over their mussed heads, ‘why don’t you go up as well? You look shattered.’
‘I might,’ said Robert. ‘Especially as my own wife is denying me access to my own kitchen.’
‘Bring out the violins, whydontcha?’ Marie kissed him too. His bristles tickled her and she lingered a while. ‘Now sod off!’ she said.
<
br /> Robert had been a blur the past few days, hardly pausing to eat. He’d wielded a pickaxe at the new premises, tearing down Klay’s tasteless decor; he’d briefed a designer for the new logo; he’d carried on a genteel civil war with Lucy about whether or not to gild the edges of the new shelves; he’d requisitioned his wife’s bottom to test various chairs. As soon as he’d toppled onto the mattress at night he’d lapsed into sleep so deep it was a coma. When Marie awoke in the mornings her husband was missing, only a dent in the pillow to prove he’d been there at all. But it was a happy dent, at least.
Beyond the kitchen window, Caraway Close ticked over. Erika, watering her geraniums, waved coyly at Johann and Graham’s Smart car as it reversed and then whizzed off, to somewhere ritzy by the cut of their jib. Mind you, thought Marie, their jib is always pretty ritzy. Across the way she saw Lucy in her kitchen and moved her hand towards her mobile to invite her over, but decided against it. This time of the evening had once been dangerous – the time when Lucy’s mood dipped and her optimism slipped out the back way – but now Lucy’s head was bent over her online book-keeping course.
The same rigorous focus that Lucy brought to housekeeping, cooking or tending Tod’s tie drawer was now fixed on the cafe. Her strong opinions had surprised Robert, and delighted him; no Tod-style tyrant, he valued Lucy’s input. As he’d told her, ‘I don’t want a silent partner. I want a gobby one. Like my dear lady wife.’ Even he, however, seemed taken aback at how vehement Lucy could be, once she shrugged off the diffidence that Tod had demanded of her.
The house across the way was looking rather tossed (although still ten times tidier than Marie’s), and the PSA had reached for smelling salts on hearing that Lucy was unable to contribute to the baked-goods stall this year. Lucy seemed to relish being too busy with work to perform her usual RoboMum duties, and even mused that she might cold-shoulder the fete completely. Chloe’s obvious disappointment, although carefully cloaked, made her stepmother turn a fetching pink and reconsider immediately. As she later told Marie over one of Robert’s still-warm caramel-banana shortbreads, to be promoted from ‘barely tolerated’ to ‘necessary’ was an emotional milestone.