by Katie Fforde
‘I want to know if you’re doing something amazing, in which case we’ll finish the wine and then I’ll go back and write my resignation letter.’
‘Oh my God! Why?’ Andi had an amazing job as cook to an A-lister, who, while she could be tricky – very tricky sometimes – paid well and wasn’t around a lot. It was a dream job.
‘Because I really want to be at home for Christmas and she really wants me to cook for her and her friends.’ Andi sighed, looking worried and suddenly a bit close to tears.
‘Oh, love,’ said Jo. ‘Tell me.’
‘My sister’s just had a baby, as you know, and all my family are going to be down in Cornwall with her, and I really want to be there too!’
‘And Caroline won’t give you the time off? You explained?’
Andi nodded. ‘She said, “Andi …”’ – she could do a pretty good imitation of her boss’s crisp tones – ‘“I ask very little of you. You get very well paid and I’m rarely here. When I do want you, I expect you to be here, doing your job.” So that was me told.’ She paused. ‘Although Caroline has had quite a lot of dinner parties recently, which makes it feel even more unfair.’
Jo sighed in sympathy. ‘I see.’
‘So, what are you doing?’ Andi went on. ‘If it’s skiing with a wonderful new boyfriend, tell me now and I’ll write my letter and brush up my CV. I won’t get a reference, so I’d better make it good.’
As she was a trained chef herself (although not currently working as one), Jo knew what her friend was going to ask. She put Andi out of her misery. ‘Actually, I’d quite like something to do. Unlike you, I don’t really want to spend Christmas with my family.’
‘Why not?’ Andi obviously found this hard to understand.
‘Because – my mother would say – I lack family feeling, and I’d rather look after smelly old dogs than spend time with them.’
Andi bit back a giggle. ‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘And while we don’t get on brilliantly – unlike you – that isn’t always true, but it is true this year.’
‘Why? Has there been a row?’
‘Yes, but only after I said I wouldn’t spend Christmas with them.’
‘But why did you do that?’
‘Because they’re all going to New Zealand for Christmas, to spend time with my aunt. And while my mother’s family feeling is obviously massive, it doesn’t run to helping me out with the fare – not even a contribution – so I said I couldn’t afford it and now they all hate me.’
Andi giggled and added more wine to the glasses. ‘So you’ll stand in for me then? Yippee! And when your charity next needs catering done for an event, or cakes for a raffle, or anything that involves food, you can ask me.’
‘I’m more than happy to cook, but is Caroline OK with this?’
Andi bit her lip and shook her head. ‘Jo, Caroline doesn’t know and she mustn’t find out.’
Jo froze. ‘What?’
‘You did hear right. She mustn’t find out. Not only must you do the cooking, but you also have to pretend you’re me.’
‘Andi, I’d do anything for you, you know I would, but I really don’t think I can do this.’
‘Please, Jo! If you don’t, I’ll lose my job for sure, and it’s really well paid. I wouldn’t mind so much, but I’m finally managing to pay Mum back the money she lent me ages ago. Really, I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t desperate.’
Jo gulped, a light sweat breaking out over her forehead as she realised what Andi was asking. ‘But, Andi, we don’t look anything like each other. The moment she sets eyes on me—’
Andi took a breath. ‘It’s OK. I’ve thought about this a lot, as you can imagine. For a start, you’ll be wearing your chef’s gear, including a cap. Secondly, she doesn’t want all that much served. She’ll get one of the men to carve, so all you have to do is rush in with dishes, with your head turned away.’
‘Rush in with a turkey weighing about five stone on a platter – that’ll be easy. Not.’
‘No,’ Andi protested. ‘A three-bird roast—’
‘That doesn’t really make it any easier.’
‘Listen, she never seems to look at people she doesn’t think are important. I’m sure it’ll be fine.’
Jo gave up trying to make her friend see sense. ‘Well, it’s your job on the line and not mine. I’ll give it my best shot.’
Andi hugged Jo so hard it hurt.
Cooking for Caroline wouldn’t have been a problem on its own, but not letting her know it wasn’t her usual cook at the wheel, so to speak, was going to be harder. But, as Caroline insisted on Andi wearing chef’s whites and a cap, Andi had continued to assure Jo that the chances of Caroline noticing were minimal.
‘It is a shame you’ve just had your hair cut,’ said Andi. ‘Although it does really suit you. Caroline is used to my frizzy mass billowing out from under my hat.’
‘Well, maybe she’ll think you’ve had your hair cut,’ said Jo. ‘In fact you’d better cut it or, when you come back, she’s going to wonder.’
‘I’m sure she won’t notice. Honestly, when she’s with her fancy friends she’d notice me more if I was a speck of dirt on the heel of her shoe! And she’ll be with her fancy friends.’ Andi indicated they’d be very fancy indeed, and Jo began to hope for major A-listers: maybe the Beckhams; or possibly minor royals not invited to Sandringham.
‘So, who’s coming?’
‘I don’t actually know, but it’ll be people you can brag about cooking for – promise! And, of course, I’ll give you my wages. At the very least.’ Andi paused. ‘It’s up to you if you want to give the money to your charity. I know what you’re like.’
Jo laughed. ‘Well, I may not give it all to them. There are plenty of things I need, too.’
‘Good for you; you will have really earned it.’
When she’d arrived at Caroline’s on Christmas Day and taken in how much was involved, Jo had begun to think that Andi was right. This was a bit more than just an enlarged Sunday lunch.
Having put the oven on, so that she could get the promised three-bird roast in as soon as possible, Jo went out to the garage, where the spare fridges and freezers were. She was a bit surprised to discover there was a need for them, given the size of the one in the kitchen, but Andi had said that was where the langoustines were, and Jo wanted to get as much prep as possible done before Caroline was likely to emerge. Andi had assured her this wouldn’t be until two minutes before the guests were due to arrive, as Caroline’s make-up – which she referred to as ‘maquillage’ and was applied with a brush with only about two hairs in it – took so long. It was effective, though. Caroline was a gossip-mag regular (never knowingly under-papped) and this made her a very tricksy employer. According to Andi, she was all charm and expensive gifts one minute and ice-cold tyrant the next. It was the ‘ice-cold tyrant’ bit that Jo was dreading. She really didn’t want to lose Andi her job.
She had three polystyrene boxes and two bags of moules under her chin and was just swinging her hip in the direction of the door, in order to shut it, when she became aware of a car that hadn’t been there before, and a man getting out of it.
She raised the boxes in front of her face – it would be just too unfair if her cover was blown by nine o’clock in the morning. The mussels slipped a bit.
‘Can I give you a hand with those?’ said the man.
Just for a second, Jo considered trying to stay hidden behind the boxes but decided that was silly. ‘I’m OK, thanks,’ she said.
‘No, you’re not; those mussels will be on the floor in a minute.’ He took hold of them.
‘Thank you very much,’ said Jo. ‘Er – if you don’t mind my asking, who are you?’ He was helpful and quite nice-looking and she hoped Andi had forgotten to tell her there were waiting staff to assist her. It would make her life so much easier.
‘I’m one of Miss Calander’s guests,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’
This was a bit heart-
sinking. Why was he here so early? No one was due to turn up until after midday. ‘Oh, I’m the cook.’ She smiled brightly.
‘No, you’re not,’ he said. ‘I know Andi.’
Jo’s optimism vanished. ‘Oh, well, she’s not here. And, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d better get this lot into the kitchen. So if you could put the mussels back on the boxes?’
He took no notice. ‘I’ll take them.’
She followed him across the yard and through the back door. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I know it sounds crazy, but would you mind not telling Miss Calander that I’m not Andi? I mean, that Andi’s not here?’
He put the bags of mussels on the island – big enough to rival actual islands, Jo was convinced – and walked across to the coffee machine. Watching him switch it on, find capsules and cups, she realised he was very familiar with the kitchen. He was probably one of Caroline’s toy boys – she had a reputation as a cougar; although, to be fair, she had a reputation as a woman who attracted older men, too.
‘You mean, Andi’s gone home for Christmas without permission?’
Jo nodded. She could have said that Andi had been called home for a family emergency, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble.
‘Let me guess: Andi asked permission and Caroline went ballistic?’
‘Yup. Andi had thought Caroline was spending Christmas on someone’s yacht, but no.’ Jo decided it was better to shut up now. This man was one of Caroline’s guests and it wasn’t a good idea to slag off his hostess, however much the hostess deserved it.
‘I can imagine the conversation. “I pay you to do sweet FA most of the time, so when I want you here for Christmas, I expect you to be here. So bloody inconsiderate!”’
Jo suppressed a giggle. ‘That was pretty much how it went, though I only got the expurgated version.’ Then she realised this man could lose Andi her job and it stopped being funny.
‘And you stepped in?’
She nodded. He didn’t look disapproving; in fact he looked quite nice, if you liked very well-groomed men. Jo’s job as a receptionist for a guest house that catered to walkers and backpackers, and her hobby – passion really – as a volunteer in an animal shelter, meant men in suits didn’t really feature in her life.
‘How do you like your coffee?’ he asked.
It was a nice suit, she realised, in a very pale grey, and he was wearing a pale pink tie. ‘Oh, I’ll have a latte, please. But I should be making it for you – you’re the guest; not that I’ve had time to work out how to use the machine yet. And why aren’t you wearing a Christmas jumper?’
He laughed. ‘I’m hoping someone will give me one later. But, as I’ve invaded your space, the least I can do is make coffee. I’m Matthew Farley, by the way.’
‘Jo White.’
He handed her a tall mug full of foamy milk, just how she liked it.
‘So, are your family all wondering why you’re cooking for a superstar when you should be at home with them at Christmas?’
‘Well, my mother did tell me off for having no family feeling, and asked if I didn’t want everyone to be together at this special time, yes.’ She paused.
‘Go on.’
‘But as her “family feeling” didn’t include helping me out – or even offering to help out – with the fare to visit my aunt, I decided it was fine to help Andi out instead. My aunt, where they are all having Christmas, lives in New Zealand,’ she added.
‘And you’re not going to your boyfriend’s family instead?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m single.’
‘So how do you and Andi know each other?’
‘Catering college.’ She frowned. ‘Do you think we’ll get away with it? We don’t look all that much like each other, but when I put my chef’s cap on, maybe Miss Calander won’t notice? I’m not doing much serving, apparently.’
He sipped his coffee, looking at her. ‘She may well not notice, but you do have very short hair and, unless I’ve got her muddled up, I thought Caroline’s cook had billowing curls.’
‘I know,’ Jo said. ‘I only had mine cut on a whim, and if I’d known … but of course I couldn’t have known!’
‘And Caroline won’t be thinking about the staff.’
‘So what will she be thinking about?’
He shrugged. ‘Well, there’s the man she wants to put up money for her new business – she’ll be wanting to make sure he’s well and truly wooed. And she’ll be looking at me and thinking that I’ll finally succumb to her invitation to join her between her silk sheets.’
‘Does she really have silk sheets? I’d worry that I’d slip out of them.’
He laughed. ‘To be honest, I don’t know. I only know that whatever kind of sheets she has, they’ll be expensive; and I don’t want to sample them unless they’re on the spare bed.’
‘So why are you here then? If she wants you, and you don’t want her?’
‘It’s complicated, but basically she’s my mother’s best friend – although my mother is a bit older – and I thought I’d be safe.’
‘Because? She knew you in nappies?’ Jo had taken the top off the box of langoustines. They were huge: too big for canapés really, but as Christmas dinner was going to be served at three, the guests would need to mop up the alcohol with something.
‘I was a teenager when my mother and Caroline met. No, it was because I was bringing my girlfriend with me.’
Jo looked at him with sympathy. ‘And she couldn’t get away at the last moment? Oh, shame!’
He didn’t reply immediately. ‘Actually, it’s a bloody disaster.’
‘Come on,’ Jo said bracingly. ‘There are lots of days at Christmas when you can see each other.’ He looked more annoyed than upset, she felt, but she didn’t know him; he might be really disappointed.
‘Well, we won’t be seeing each other on any of those days – we’ve split up.’
‘Oh, I am sorry. Extra-sad for that to happen at Christmas.’ She gave him a penetrating glance, before going back to pulling the heads off the giant prawns.
‘I’m not sad at all, to be honest, but I did hope we could hold it together until today was over.’
‘But you couldn’t?’
‘Obviously not. And it’s left me in serious trouble with Caroline.’
‘Really?’ This sounded extremely unlikely. ‘Why?’
‘I thought I said. She – Caroline – told me that if I turned up on Christmas Day without this girlfriend she’d heard so much about, she wouldn’t believe I’d ever had a girlfriend and … well, I won’t go into details, but believe me, it’ll all be extremely awkward and upsetting.’
‘She’d cut you out of her will?’
He made a face and nodded. ‘That would be the least of it!’
Jo smiled into the langoustines. ‘Poor you. My heart bleeds.’
She heard him chuckle. ‘It would if you knew quite how awkward it will be for me. Caroline won’t like being turned down. It will be very hard for us to be friends afterwards. My mother won’t speak to me, either, even if I could bring myself to explain why I’d so mortally offended someone I’ve known half my life.’
‘Oh dear, I actually am sorry for you now.’ She smiled, a little ruefully. ‘I’m often at odds with my mother and it isn’t fun.’
‘So why do you and your mother fall out?’
‘She’s never approved of the choices I’ve made. She wanted me to go to university and get a “proper job”, but I wanted to cook; and recently my jobs haven’t been “proper”. She also wanted me to join the family in NZ for Christmas, but I told you that.’
‘My mother can be tricky, too. Although she’s older than Caroline, they’ve always been close and she’d be devastated if there was a falling-out. Not entirely unconnected with the fact that Caroline is famous and gets all sorts of nice little gifts – tickets to West End shows, free meals in top restaurants and weekend trips to spas, et cetera – that she sometimes passes on to my mama.’
‘Oh, wel
l, let’s hope they get over it and forgive us.’ She looked at him. ‘I should cook now. Andi’s prepared a lot already, but there are some things I have to do.’
The three-bird roast, which she’d taken out of the fridge the moment she arrived so that it wouldn’t be too chilly when she came to cook it, she had seasoned and added an extra layer of butter to. She reckoned it would take about four hours to cook, so she was planning to get it into the oven as soon as it came up to temperature. It could rest for as long as she needed it to, leaving her time – and oven space – for other things.
‘I’ve had an idea.’
Matthew’s voice broke into her calculations. He was staring at her intently and she realised she found it very unnerving.
She decided to treat it lightly. She gestured to the oven. ‘Ooh, we had one of those once, but the handle fell off,’ she said, to stop him making her feel as if she was a laboratory experiment.
‘Seriously! You could help me out. It could help you, too.’
She shot him a disbelieving glance. ‘Really? Well, if you want a dinner party, picnic, banquet or anything along those lines, I’m your girl.’
‘Actually I’m more interested in your gift for subterfuge.’
‘Subterfuge?’ Jo almost wasn’t sure what he meant – it sounded nothing to do with her.
‘Yes. Pretending to be someone else. Pretending you’re Andi. If you can do that—’
She interrupted him. ‘Hang on. We don’t know I can do that yet.’ The thought of it suddenly gave her a pang of anxiety. It wasn’t just the thought of Andi losing her very good job, it was the embarrassment that being found out would create. ‘Oh God! What have I let myself in for?’
‘I think you’ll be fine,’ he said soothingly. ‘You’re more or less the same build as Andi and with your chef’s cap on, to hide your hair, no one will notice. Or at least no one will notice unless they’re looking, and Caroline won’t look.’
‘Thank you. That’s what Andi and I thought.’ She sensed there was something else coming and waited, wondering if it was too soon to start making blinis. The batter was done already – she only had to cook them.