She begins the meringue, whisking egg whites and sugar with a cold, focused fury – yet still careful the gently simmering water doesn’t touch the bowl and cook the eggs. The mixture gleams, glossily, like ice crystals sparkling on snow. She sets it aside and tops the fruit with ice cream then smothers each concoction with a sweet duvet of meringue. Three minutes in the oven, and she has six tiny Mont Blancs: dainty, golden and apparently symmetrical. She places them on duck-egg porcelain and, just for a moment, admires them: these works of art, too cute to eat.
Oh, but they’re not though, are they? She takes a knife and thinks, as she grips it, of her brother. Her kids don’t know they have an Uncle Steven. Well, she wants no connection. Imagine if he came across her beautiful, innocent Livy? She feels sick at the very idea.
And what about Jake? The same age as Steven when he started hawking her around, but a different class, a different generation. A different person – even if she no longer knows what sort of person that is. She must change that. She won’t be a Pamela, choosing not to see what was in front of her. She will brave his hostility in a minute, and go and check up on him.
But first she will cut this baked alaska. The knife pushes to reveal a scoop of vanilla-flecked ice cream, the centre still resolutely cold. She probes further and a jumble of magenta fruits spill out, yielding their vibrant juices.
* * *
‘Jake?’
‘What?’
His tone, when she reaches his attic room, is less belligerent than weary – as if he cannot bring himself to speak to his mother: the habitual way in which he has communicated with her this year.
‘Can I come in?’ Karen is hesitant, poised at the door of his bedroom, wary of intruding into his space and of his mood if she enters.
There is a pause, then a sigh.
‘If you have to.’
His rudeness riles her. Not for the first time, she considers the point of his expensive education – though she knows this contempt is reserved for her, and his friends’ mothers reap the benefits of the extortionate school fees. She opens the door to his vast attic room, walls plastered with semi-naked female celebrities juxtaposed with motorbikes. Two blades – he is captain of his school’s rowing eight – scull the ceiling. His duvet is rumpled on his bed; joggers strewn across an armchair. In one corner, a jumble of boxer shorts breed.
‘That’s hardly very welcoming.’ Her tone is tart as she addresses her first-born, who is lolling in the chair by his desk, long limbs stretched out, watching her with ill-disguised antipathy.
‘Sorry, Ma.’ The apology is ironic. A lazy smile plays on his lips. She wants to smack him.
‘I just came to say I’m going to the gym. Olivia’s revising at Anna’s for the day and it would be a good idea if you did some work too.’ She looks pointedly at the unopened arch-lever files on his desk. ‘Your mocks are what – two weeks away?’
He gives a snort.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He shrugs.
‘Jake?’
He remains silent but begins to kick at the corner of a rug, his size eleven foot, snug in rugby socks, ruffling it up then flattening it in an irritating tic.
She knows she should ignore such obviously adolescent behaviour but he has got under her skin.
‘I asked what you were getting at, Jake?’
He looks at her full on, as if assessing how far he should go to hurt her. You’re fooling no one, Ma. Perhaps now, finally, she will get to the bottom of what he meant?
‘I just don’t think you should lecture me when you never did A-levels – or even O-levels, was it?’ he taunts her. ‘And I don’t think you should lecture me when you obviously don’t give a shit.’
‘Jake.’ Her response is an automatic reaction to his swearing, to the charge – easily, lazily denied – that she doesn’t care. She breathes a little more easily. This isn’t the cause of his contempt. But still, it rankles. A knot of anger burns inside her and, inwardly, she counts to five.
‘I do “give a shit”, Jake, which is why I’ve asked you to do some work. And if I’m lecturing you it’s precisely because I don’t want you to squander the chances I never had at your age.’
She hears herself metamorphose into the cliché of a haranguing parent, and, momentarily, gives in.
‘You don’t have a clue what my childhood was like, or why I didn’t get any O-levels – or even CSEs – as you so kindly point out. You’ve never asked and I’ve never wanted to tell you. And that’s the way it’s going to remain. But don’t you mock me for it and don’t you mirror it. Don’t take all this’ – she gestures around the room – ‘for granted. You have a far better life. And I am so bloody determined you are not going to repeat my mistakes.’
She goes to leave the room, furious at herself for losing control of her emotions and for her failure to get at the root of the problem.
‘This isn’t really about that, though, is it, Jake?’ She gives a bark of a laugh and, with her challenge, opens the door to an honest conversation. ‘This isn’t the reason you’re so angry … or so contemptuous of me.’
He shakes his head in studied bemusement. ‘Chill, Ma. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘About that dig. You’re fooling no one, Ma. What did you mean by it?’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he repeats. His face is blank, as if he has no recollection.
Did she imagine it? Perhaps she is crediting him with too much intuition? She is either being paranoid – or he is lying. His face remains a picture of innocence. He was never good at lying, even as a little boy, his mouth twitching in an instant give-away.
She feels in the wrong.
‘OK, sorry. Sorry, Jake. Forget it. Forget it.’
She smiles at him, incapable of crossing the rift that is growing ever deeper between them. Standing in his doorway, poised in indecision, she wonders if she can attempt to breach it – or if she should fade away.
She takes the coward’s route and makes her excuses – to his relief and her dissatisfaction. ‘Just try to do some work, all right? I need to go. I’ve got to get to the gym.’
As she turns from the room, she could swear she hears him mutter: ‘No shame … she’s just no shame.’
* * *
In the changing room, she takes her time adjusting her hair in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, eyes, apparently fixed on herself, busy spying. She is no voyeur but she charts the rise and fall in weight of her fellow gym bunnies just as assiduously as they do themselves. She may not know their names but she knows who has the baggiest stomach and who the breasts that flap like empty pockets. She can guess who starves herself and who overeats. She doubts that anyone else makes themselves sick.
In the spin class, she sits at the back, still assessing the other women and comparing herself to them. On a good day, she would perch at the front, vying for the attention of Ben, the muscular instructor. Today is not a good day. The class begins kindly: a light dance track with a strong beat that leads her to a light sprint. But within five minutes she is out of her seat for a ten-second sprint that sees her heart-rate soar to 85per cent of its maximum and her heart pound against her ribcage.
She sits back down, legs pedalling relentlessly; adds resistance and begins to climb to a rockier track, the beat slow and heavy. She ratchets up the levels until her glutes ache and her legs feel leaden. Next to her, a woman is pedalling faster; she glances over to double-check: her classmate’s level of resistance is far weaker.
‘You’re at the top, now sprint down,’ commands Ben, and she covers three kilometres in three minutes as a frenetic dance track takes over. Head down, legs powering, she imagines herself screeching down mountain roads, or climaxing.
For forty-five minutes, or twenty-one kilometres, she pushes herself in this way: rising and falling, climbing and sprinting; grunting with effort and then with pleasure. Her face glows, droplets of sweat beading on a florid forehead. Damp blooms at her
crotch and on the underarms of her Lycra sports top. Nobody said it was glamorous but it is the most efficient way she knows of burning calories.
Later, she pounds up the pool, pushing her body to her standard hundred lengths in groups of eight: backstroke; breaststroke; front crawl once again. She completes eight lengths of sprints, her body surging through the water like an underwater missile, arms rising and falling in a steady rhythm, head twisting to alternate sides. A textbook illustration of apparently effortless swimming; an example of fused elegance and power. Then it’s four lengths with a float between her legs; four with a float at her arms; eight with paddles and flippers; a further eight sprints and back to sets of eight once again. Up and down the pool she goes; searing through the water, performing a tumble turn at each end. She thinks in terms of two hundred metres, and in terms of time. Always time. Time and, therefore, calories.
One hundred lengths in, she allows herself to stop. Checks the wall clock and her stopwatch. Thirty-four minutes thirty-two seconds. Two point five kilometres in thirty-four minutes thirty-two seconds. To her surprise, she has achieved a personal best. She allows herself to assess her fellow swimmers: the postnatal mothers desperate to lose their baby fat pushing themselves to try the crawl in the middle lane; the octogenarian gentleman attempting a serene breaststroke at a walking pace; the women her age managing to swim lengths of breaststroke while chatting, and without getting their hair wet.
The ladies of the gym swimming club are vying with one another in their matching red swimsuits and silver swim hats. She gives one a nod of acknowledgement, taking in her increasingly honed arms and well-toned legs as she walks to the pool. She has lost a lot of weight recently. The speculation is automatic: how much has she lost and what does she weigh now? What is her BMI? What is her personal best?
As she leaves to plunge into the jacuzzi, her attention is caught not by another woman’s physique but by an incongruous couple: the woman, perhaps in her late sixties, the man in his mid-forties – perhaps even her age. They are holding hands, but it is clear they are not lovers. Rather she is leading him, coaxing this soft-bodied bear of a man into the shallow end with an assiduousness born of years of attention. He gives a grunt of surprise, then a yelp which shocks as it reverberates around the pool, the sound amplified by the water. The breaststroke swimmers turn, their equanimity ruffled; even the octogenarian glances their way. The woman – small, bird-like – is unperturbed, easing her charge on to a giant float then towing him around the pool. ‘It’s OK,’ she reassures him. ‘It’s OK.’
Karen takes in her face, worn with years of anxiety but still capable of experiencing the joy of others. She is looking at the man carefully, assessing if the water is too cold for him, trying to elicit a smile.
The man gives another grunt. Less fearful, but still vulnerable. He clings to the float, shoulders tight with tension.
The woman smiles, and coos at him. ‘It’s OK. It’s OK.’
He relaxes into the water, his white legs trailing behind him. He gives another yelp – of excitement this time.
The woman smiles, relief erasing her wrinkles; her burden briefly eased. She is, of course, the man’s mother.
30
Your little ones will love to shape gingerbread or butter biscuits with you, creating plump teddy bears, stars or hearts. Should you feel inclined to rush their work, then stop. The closeness of that early baking will stand you in good stead in later years.
‘Alfie?’
Vicki watches her little boy for a good two minutes before she disturbs him – so ensconced is he in his imaginary world.
Lying on his tummy, he lines all his vehicles up in size order and by colour. A rainbow of Matchbox cars snakes around the rug and disappears under the sofa. By his side are the chunkier dumper trucks: the cars his small hands would have curled around only a year ago but which are now deemed way too babyish for this more dexterous three-year-old.
‘Now the people,’ he chunters under his breath as he lines up the plastic Happy Land figures: children woefully out of proportion for his vehicles, though, this time, he doesn’t seem to mind.
Is there something OCD about this behaviour? Should she worry he is somewhere on the autistic spectrum? Oh, don’t be ridiculous. She thinks back to the reassurance provided by his nursery, where he now spends three hours each morning, freeing up her time for baking. He is bright, ordered, methodical. And he is just being a boy.
She kneels down next to him then lowers herself to his level. The world looks different from this angle: the fabric at the bottom of the sofa pilled; the odd tendril of fluff swirling like tumbleweed across the floor. She must hoover, she thinks automatically then stops herself. Today, she has promised, she is not going to worry about domestic things but will be guided by whatever Alfie wants to do.
‘So – do you feel like doing some baking?’ She watches as he straightens the line of red cars which stretches longer than all the others. Then comes the white and then the green.
‘Why aren’t there many yellow cars?’ He looks perturbed as he neatens the lone yellow one.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it. Perhaps people don’t like their cars to be yellow?’ The tiny vehicle is a particularly putrid shade.
‘When I grow up, I’m going to have a yellow car.’
He continues to play and she watches his delicate features: that creamy complexion unmarred by a line, or even a freckle. How long can he remain in this state of perfection, without even the smallest of scars?
‘Why you looking at me?’
He frowns, hazel eyes wide open, then presses his face close to hers so that she feels as if she is being subsumed by him. He blows a raspberry on her cheek.
‘Don’t do that!’
He bursts into giggles, delighted at the effect.
‘Daddy taught me!’
‘Yes, well … You can only do it if I can retaliate.’
‘What’s re…’
‘Retaliate. Do it back. This.’ And she grabs him around the waist, pulls up his Thomas the Tank Engine top and blows a loud, wet kiss on his belly.
‘Mummy!’
He is delighted.
‘Me do it back!’ And he pushes her over and blows an even more enthusiastic one on her stomach. His breath is warm and the kiss wet with saliva.
‘Enough. I give up.’ She wraps her arms around him and laughs into his hair, slightly self-conscious yet relieved she can still provoke such delight merely by playing with her child. After a day ‘sorting’ puddings, as Greg put it, she feels calmer. More in control. And invigorated: as if she is more than capable of coping with – no, enjoying – her three-year-old. A day off has lent her perspective: made her miss him and realise how much she should cherish their time together.
‘Do Lego now?’ Alfie’s eyes gleam as if he has realised that she is determined to make up for her irritability at the weekend and to give him enough attention. Or maybe not enough, for it can never really be enough.
Her heart sinks. She can pretend to match his enthusiasm for Lego for a few minutes but his capacity to play with it seems almost limitless.
‘Lego then baking?’ he bargains shrewdly, and she finds herself taken aback. Is he just mirroring what she often says or has he guessed that she lacks his relish for his favourite toy?
‘That sounds like a good deal.’ She smiles. ‘Lego then baking. How about I help you make the fire engine and then you help me make gingerbread men – or would you prefer cupcakes?’
‘Gingerbread men.’ He is emphatic. It is the option he goes for, without fail.
‘How did I guess?’
‘Always gingerbread.’
‘Always gingerbread,’ she agrees.
‘Gingerbread after Lego,’ he reiterates.
‘Yes, after Lego.’ She rolls her eyes and is rewarded by him imitating her action, accompanied by a cascade of giggles.
* * *
Later, after she has made the Lego fire engine for h
im – a vehicle that requires him to be aged five to twelve according to the instructions, but which she still finds tricky – she finally manages to lure him into the kitchen. Rain splatters against the skylight and the French windows, making it feel even toastier than usual, and secure.
Though she knows the recipe by heart, she brings out The Art of Baking, and shows Alfie the photo of Kathleen proudly displaying a plate of cooked gingerbread men and women.
‘They’re too big,’ he tells her.
‘Too big?’
‘Yes. They’re grown-ups. I want to do babies.’ And he runs to the drawer and rummages for the boy and girl biscuit cutters.
And so they make a wealth of biscuits, the smaller cutters doubling their numbers, and the remaining scraps re-rolled to make baby hearts and stars. Some of the dough seems to get eaten, Alfie squishing it into his mouth before she can stop him.
‘No. No more – you might get tummy ache,’ she remonstrates, worrying vaguely about the raw egg binding it.
He pops in another scrap and laughs, dough seeping between his teeth. ‘Mummy. It’s the best bit,’ he tells her seriously, then beams, mouth wide open. ‘It’s deeeeelicious.’
Watching him like this, she wonders if it is possible to love him more. Certainly, today he has been at his most golden: ever loving, sparky, interesting but also, oddly, more compliant. Must be because she’s given him her undivided attention, she thinks with a pang of guilt; or perhaps Kathleen Eaden was right and it’s because they’re baking? Doing something both of them love – she even more than him, if she’s honest – which allows them to chat, and eat and investigate. To exist in their own happy bubble while the rest of life chugs on, oblivious.
The Art of Baking Blind Page 22