The Art of Baking Blind

by Sarah Vaughan

  Her prose sparkles, as bright as beads of caster sugar, as brittle as spun caramel. And yet she feels it is soulless. She knows she is writing entirely from the head.

  If she can dazzle in print, in life she is increasingly sombre; retreating into herself and away from George.

  She flinches from his touch now. There can be no habitual abortion, as James Caruthers insists on referring to it, if there is no sexual intercourse. And yet intercourse is required if she is to chance another pregnancy. Intercourse and a massive leap of faith.

  In September she decamps to Bradley Hall, and the move to the countryside, and her once vulgar house, seems to free her. The estate is fecund. Trees drip fruit; the kitchen garden provides limitless squash, plums and pears.

  Even the grass yields treasures: wild mushrooms, dark-gilled and dewy, and conkers, fat and burnished; shiny like chestnut leather. She caresses them like prayer beads as she picks up apples and roots out acorns; feet scuffing through leaves as she circles the grounds.

  With Mrs Jennings struggling to cope with this autumn bounty, it seems almost immoral not to return to the kitchen. The cook smiles and George breathes a deep sigh of relief.

  One Saturday, he slaps a brace of rabbits on the scullery table.

  ‘And what am I supposed to do with these?’ She strokes the short brown fur and the softer white belly, and thinks of Peter Rabbit.

  ‘Make a pie,’ George, flushed at playing the country landowner, challenges her.

  And so she does, creating the most flavoursome concoction of bacon, shallots, carrots, thyme and rabbit, simmered in stock and cider and finished with cream.

  She serves it with purple sprouting broccoli from the garden, and finds, at the end of the meal, that not only has she cleared her plate for the first time since March, when she lost her baby, but that she is smiling.

  ‘Kathleen?’ George looks as if he is wondering if he can smile too.

  ‘George?’ And for the first time in months there is a hint of humour in her voice, the suggestion, however tentative, of a tease.

  For a moment, she is the Kathleen who spied him at the Carltons’ dinner dance and went after him: this older man, who offered both the chance of rebellion – with his humble roots initially scandalising her mother – and the ultimate stability.

  She looks at him – this man who has been unable to ease or even understand the full extent of her sorrow but who is nevertheless her rock: the person she relies on – and burrows herself deep into his arms.

  25

  I am a firm believer in the importance of breakfast. Not a fry-up or even going to work on an egg, but a slice of home-made toast spread with blackcurrant jam and a cup of Earl Grey. This is my minimum requirement, without which I am liable to be crotchety. However modest, a breakfast balances your blood sugars and sets you up for the day.

  Eight hours later, the morning of the Paris marathon and Jenny is perched on the edge of her bed, brow furrowed in concentration, as she struggles to construct the right text. Her fingers fumble on the screen as she tries to get the balance right: to send a message to Nigel that is supportive but in no way imposes expectations. She ends up being girlish. ‘The very best of luck! Thinking of you, my darling!’ She cringes the moment she sends it. Why be so effusive? Why call him darling? She no longer thinks of him as her darling.

  When no reply is forthcoming – she hadn’t expected one, but still she hoped for it – she sends one to Emma, pulling the umbilical cord tight: ‘Thinking of Dad and wishing him all the best. Please give him a hug from me – and one to you of course!’

  Emma responds quickly. ‘Huge excitement here. He’s very pepped up and hoping for a good personal best. Hope the baking competition’s going well. Thinking of you too! Xxx’

  All is well in the world. Jenny allows herself a small smile, gratified that her daughter is acknowledging the importance of this competition to her. Then a second message pings, and her happiness dissolves like sugar gently heated with water.

  ‘Just seen Gabby Arkwright. Very over-friendly. Going to watch with me as Peter’s running too.’

  A chill runs through her as she tries to decode the message and Emma’s reason for sending it. Is she being naive? Is Gabby’s husband really in Paris? Why hadn’t Nigel mentioned this? She does not need to ask.

  ‘How nice. Please call me if you have a minute,’ she texts, then tries Emma’s number, as frenzied as a jilted lover. It rings out: an unfamiliar, nasal French beep. She leaves a message: her voice shaking with false cheeriness; the words – ‘Em, when you have a minute, please could you call?’ – conveying nothing, and everything.

  She is too jittery to eat much breakfast. A pot of Earl Grey is swapped for a black coffee; a sliver of cold toast smeared with butter and blackcurrant jam is discarded. Food, for so long a great comfort, provides no succour today.

  ‘Jenny? Do you mind if I join you?’ Smiling from the next table, Vicki looks as if she wants to intervene. She picks up her cup of white coffee and hovers, as if reluctant to pull out a chair until she is sure it is OK.

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Jenny tells herself to pull herself together; to welcome the intrusion. She forces a smile. ‘How are you this morning?’

  ‘Oh, I’m good, thank you – and you?’

  ‘Me?’ She gives the automatic answer: ‘Oh, I’m fine.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, not really.’ She grimaces at trying to fool her. Vicki’s kindness makes her falter. ‘Not really at all.’

  ‘Can I get you something nicer to eat?’

  Jenny demurs, and Vicki bustles about, selecting the choicest morsels from the buffet: a couple of warm pains aux raisins, some fresh granary bread and a cold pat of butter, christened with a pearl of water; a bowl of Greek yoghurt; a bunch of red grapes.

  ‘I’m not really hungry.’

  ‘I can see that,’ says Vicki. She butters the thick bread and spreads jam; cuts it into four triangles; gestures that she should take one, treating her, Jenny can’t help thinking, much as she might her little one – what was he called: Alfie? ‘But I always think that, if you’re feeling a bit down, you need to eat.’

  Jenny forces herself to take a mouthful, then a second. The bread, coating the roof of her mouth, tastes of nothing. The jam is good, though: fat apricot halves coated in a thick golden syrup that gleams.

  ‘Better than the blackcurrant,’ Vicki says, nodding at the discarded dry toast. ‘Oh, wait just a minute and I’ll tidy that away.’

  She bobs up again, removing all evidence of the rejected breakfast, and returns with a bowl of berries.

  ‘Have you tried this compote? Here, have a bit with some Greek yoghurt … You’re sure? Oh, well, I might have to sample it.’ Vicki winks as she plunges her spoon into the blackberries, deep juice spilling over the mounds of whiteness. For a moment, they eat.

  Is she going to question me, wonders Jenny, and, if so, can I be honest? For a moment, she considers confiding in her about Gabby and Nigel – and just as quickly dismisses the idea. This lovely young woman has probably only been married for what, five years? Long enough to know that it’s not all hearts and flowers but not long enough, she hopes, to understand that a husband might stray.

  ‘So … Is there anything I can help with? Anything you’d like to talk about?’

  Vicki looks embarrassed to be asking and Jenny suspects she is rarely this direct.

  The younger woman shrugs. ‘It’s all right. You can tell me to mind my own business. I just thought you looked as if you could do with offloading a bit.’

  ‘Am I really that transparent?’ Despite herself, Jenny smiles.

  Vicki nods.

  ‘Gosh … How embarrassing. My girls always say they can read me.’

  Vicki smiles once more, sips her coffee, and quietly waits.

  Unable to articulate the real cause of her anxiety, Jenny reaches for a more general sense of unease. ‘Well, I suppose that – as usual – I’m just feeling guilty. My hus
band’s in Paris, running the marathon this weekend, and I feel I should be there to support him. It feels hugely self-indulgent to be here, making pastry, when he’s got that going on.’

  ‘What about him? Why isn’t he here to support you?’

  ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t really work like that…’ Her voice trails away, incapable of explaining the balance of power wrought over a quarter of a century of marriage and now firmly tipped in Nigel’s favour. She takes another bite of bread to avoid having to talk.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying’ – Vicki watches her carefully – ‘I don’t think you’ve anything to feel guilty about. I know it’s something we’re good at: I feel guilty every minute I’m not with Alfie, every time I dump him on my friend Ali, or my mum, or Greg, and yet I know it’s a complete waste of time.

  ‘You’re fantastic at baking. Head and shoulders above the rest of us, though I hate to admit that! And you deserve to be here, showing off what you can do every bit as much as your husband deserves to be running a marathon. Perhaps you’ve even more reason. He’s not going to win it, is he?’ She looks at Jenny for confirmation.

  Jenny shakes her head, emphatic.

  ‘Well, then. Unless Karen or I improve immensely, you could – you should – win this. And, then, he should be cheering you on – supporting you in that way.’

  ‘Oh – I’m not sure that’s going to happen.’ Jenny’s face clouds over and, for one dreadful moment, she thinks she is going to start crying.

  ‘Well, he should be,’ Vicki says staunchly. ‘Please don’t cry. What I’m trying to say is that you could win this hands down. You have real talent and you deserve to shine every bit as much as Claire, or Karen or me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jenny manages to utter. ‘But I’m not sure that’s true.’

  ‘It is!’ Vicki’s voice rises in frustration. ‘Of course it is. But you won’t win this if you don’t recognise that and if you persist in this … it’s more than self-deprecation … this self-doubt. You have to believe in yourself. Believe you can do this.’

  She pauses. ‘Pep talk over. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be sharp. I just think you’re fantastic – we all do – and it’s about time you realised it.’

  She gulps her coffee and puts the cup back on the saucer with a decisive chink. For a moment, Jenny thinks she has offended her.

  ‘I wish I shared your confidence.’

  To her shock, she sounds almost bolshie. She looks at Vicki, alarmed: she has just complimented her and she has dismissed it.

  ‘Well, you should. You’re the best,’ Vicki says simply.

  Her eyes are still on her face and Jenny thinks: I wouldn’t want to be in her bad books as one of her pupils. For all her warmth, there is a steeliness about her: she is someone with resilience and strength.

  Vicki seems to be reading her mind, for she reaches a hand out across the tablecloth. Surprised, Jenny takes the warm fingers and squeezes them, grateful that the whole, uncomfortable conversation can be swept away.

  But Vicki isn’t finished.

  ‘Jenny … I don’t know if your husband appreciates how fantastic you are. But you look a little bit … cowed, if I can say that? And, here, among us, there’s really no need.’

  Jenny looks down at her plate and focuses on the floral pattern, willing the welling tears to disperse; embarrassed to admit that Nigel is less than supportive.

  ‘Thank you,’ she hears herself choke.

  ‘Jenny…’

  ‘Thank you,’ she repeats, and manages a watery smile. ‘You’ve been very kind.’

  ‘It’s not about being kind.’ Vicki sounds frustrated again. ‘Look, I don’t want to intrude – or upset you. And I won’t go on about this again but please hear what I’m saying.’ Her voice softens and she sounds contrite. ‘That you shine. That none of us can match you.’

  Jenny looks at her and smiles with just a hint of conviction. ‘Yes, I can see that … Thank you, yes.’

  * * *

  ‘Mike.’

  Claire is skulking in the entrance hall waiting to buttonhole the only man in the competition as he walks back from breakfast.

  ‘Claire?’ His face lightens. ‘What’s with the cloak and dagger stuff?’

  She pulls him into the lounge, checking as she does so that no one notices them.

  ‘Come in a bit further. No, don’t close the door! That will look suspicious.’

  ‘Claire.’ He takes hold of her shoulders. ‘What’s going on?’

  She takes a breath, perches her bottom on the back of a sofa and lets the words flood out of her. Guilt, anxiety, shame: a jumble of emotions cascades so that he can make little sense of it all.

  ‘Whoa. Slow down. Start from the beginning.’ He puts a large hand to the side of each of her upper arms, pats her ineffectually then looks embarrassed by what he is doing.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to … You just need to start slowly, and calm down.’

  And so the story comes out. How she popped into the toilet after their drink the previous night and heard someone retching when she entered.

  ‘It was Karen. She said it was food poisoning.’

  ‘And you don’t think it was?’

  She shakes her head. ‘She was so defensive – like she was hiding something.’ She spits out her fear. ‘There was this girl at school. Used to stick her fingers down her throat the whole time…’

  ‘Bulimia.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what it’s called. I think that’s what Karen was doing.’

  Her slight shoulders hunker around her and her head dips as if she wishes she could roll into the foetal position. When she looks up, her face is bleak with anxiety.

  ‘I feel so guilty even telling you this. Like I’m betraying her or something because she clearly didn’t want me to know about it. But I needed to confide in someone because the stupid thing is, I was so jealous of her.’

  Her shoulders hunch further.

  ‘She seemed so glamorous and confident and everything. But I’ve just been a bitch, haven’t I? All this time I’ve been … I don’t know, in awe of her. And it turns out she was even more fucked up than the rest of us put together.’

  He wants to put his arms around her, to give her a bear hug of reassurance as he would one of his children. But she is not his child and his feelings aren’t purely protective, if he is honest. He contents himself with sitting alongside her, putting an arm around her slight shoulders. She is so attractive, he thinks with a jolt, as he takes in the curve of her cheekbone, the faint lines creasing from her eyes, her wide mouth, now pinched with anxiety. Her hair smells of citrus shampoo.

  ‘First of all,’ he begins, ‘there’s nothing for you to feel guilty about. If Karen has had a bulimic episode then it’s probably occurred before. It’ll be ingrained – a problem that’s perhaps been going on for years. There’s nothing you could have done to predict it – or to prevent it. I’m afraid you’re not that powerful.’

  She half laughs but the sound catches in her throat.

  ‘Second, you being a bit envious of her – though God knows why you would be – bears no relevance to this. I bet she wasn’t even aware you felt like that. And, even if she was, it won’t have offended her. She may even have been flattered.’

  The half-laugh comes again – and with it a look of tentative relief.

  ‘Thank you.’ She wipes away a tear with the back of her hand; sniffs to stop a bubble of snot.

  ‘Here.’

  He passes her a clean tissue.

  ‘Thanks.’ She blows her nose loudly then tries a joke. ‘You’re just as prepared as any mum.’

  ‘I’m getting there. Done the poo on my arm bit; now I’m doing the girlie pep talks. Going to be completely unsexed at this rate.’

  ‘Really?’ She laughs despite herself, more at the reference to the poo than his neutering though, of course, he doesn’t know this. He blushes and withdraws his arm from her shoulders, suddenly self-conscious.

  They sit in
awkward silence, his hip almost touching hers, the distance between them a centimetre. She must think I’m so straight, so sensible, he thinks.

  ‘Well, thank you for making me feel a bit less of a bitch – though I still do, of course. Mostly, I just feel so terribly sad for her: that she feels like that. I won’t be able to see her in the same way.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s a good thing.’ Mike relaxes into the space next to her, the edge of his trousers touching her thigh now. ‘Few of us are as straightforward as we first appear.’

  26

  The perfect French baguette should have a crisp crust and an airy crumb. It should give a satisfying crunch and then melt into nothingness. Serve warm, if possible, and fresh. This bread is deceptive: outwardly strong yet, inside, as soft as air.

  Paris, Avenue Foch. A glorious spring morning, sun searing through skies of cerulean blue.

  The marathon has been going for nearly four hours now and Emma is getting impatient as she is jostled on either side of her spot near the finishing line. Excitement at the thought of seeing her father streak past has long since been tempered by boredom at standing in the same position. The woman to her left – chic, French, impervious – steps on her foot: ‘Pardon, désolée…’ Her eyes behind her shades are vacant. Someone behind her shoves, repeatedly. She has drunk so much water she is now bursting for the loo.

  She knows she should be feeling heady on the atmosphere but there is only so much hysteria she can manufacture after being rammed in the same position for hours. Her sporadic cheers – for the first woman to cross the line; for an elderly albeit clearly fit competitor – feel self-conscious. Perhaps she is too British for this, too inhibited, or too lonely. She needs a group of friends – and, ideally, some alcohol – to get in a suitably celebratory mood.

  Besides, her excitement is tempered by an unfamiliar sense of guilt: guilt at giving her mother a hard time for not attending, and guilt at standing here, nuzzled against Gabby Arkwright. For Emma, though lonely, is not alone. Gabby, who it transpired is staying in the same hotel as her and Nigel, has attached herself to Emma like a new, inappropriately old, best friend, drawing on fifteen-year-old memories of the days when Emma would play with her hideous son, Robert.