by Prue Leith
It worked well. It was a glorious clear morning with a hard enough frost to keep the mud at bay and the girls came in glowing from two hours of hard riding.
Oliver produced roast beef à la Kate for six (Ruth’s parents were there) and it worked a treat. He’d made a mock Christmas pudding with good quality bought vanilla ice-cream, mixed with mincemeat and flavoured with brandy, turned out from a pudding dish and topped with holly.
No one quarrelled, Ruth was friendly and the boyfriend, Ben, had obviously been banished for the day. The girls were delighted with their presents – a replacement kite for Andrea, sequinned top for Mattie. Even Ruth’s parents, whom he’d feared might be hostile, were civil. No one mentioned separation or divorce.
But at six p.m. Oliver left with relief, glad to have survived the day. Even, he admitted, to have enjoyed it. Maybe, he thought, we will manage this divorce with consideration and good sense, stay friends and love our children.
Over the holiday period he did a good deal of reading, worked on his Civitas book, and saw the girls often. But he found himself thinking a lot about Kate, and in the end he rang her.
‘What are you doing on New Year’s Eve?’ he said without preamble. ‘How about a date?’
She didn’t answer, but he could hear her breathing. ‘Kate?’
‘I’m here. Hello, Oliver.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think that would be lovely. But aren’t you at home with the girls?’
‘No, they’re all going to a big bash at Ruth’s father’s place, and frankly, I couldn’t stand it. Ruth concurs: better I’m not there.’
‘I would need to check with Talika about having Toby. It might be too much for her with New Year frolics in the restaurant below, and a baby to look after.’
But it was fine. Oliver managed to book at the fashionable Boca di Lupo in Covent Garden after a cancellation. The menu was full of the sort of traditional Italian food he knew Kate loved.
She looked unbelievably glamorous. Her dress was a sort of crushed purple velvet with a low round neckline that revealed the soft swell of her breasts and the very edge of a lacy black bra. She was perhaps over-dressed for the informality of the place but he was flattered at the trouble she’d taken. She was wearing more make-up than usual; her hair was obviously professionally done, scraped back from her face and piled on top of her head with a few escaped curls brushing her left cheek. Her nails were bright with polish. Oliver felt stunned by her beauty.
‘Kate, you look wonderful.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled, but looked embarrassed. ‘Well, have to make an effort. It is New Year.’
‘And here was I thinking it was all for me.’ As he said it, he thought, why am I flirting?
‘It’s just that you’re so used to seeing me in chefs’ whites.’ She looked so sophisticated, but seemed self-conscious and nervous, not the Kate he knew.
He wanted to reassure her, as he might Mattie in circumstances too grown-up for her. ‘Believe me, Kate, you are a beautiful woman, always. But such glamour is disconcerting, I admit.’
She looked at him, her eyes somehow smiling and troubled at the same time. ‘Let’s look at the menu,’ he said.
Watching her dithering over ox cheeks or pork belly was a delight. But the place was too noisy to talk without shouting, and once the ordering was over conversation was difficult.
He didn’t feel right either. Up till now he had been able to tell himself he was behaving like a mate, or a family friend, a recently separated man who needed a bit of female company and succour. Tonight felt too much like a date, with the expectations that dates carried.
Maybe Kate hoped for more than friendship from him. Neither of them had ever mentioned her bitter admission to that journalist that she’d fallen for him. That love, if it had ever been love, had been killed by his behaviour, he knew. She’d obviously forgiven him but was she now just a good friend? And is that what he wanted?
He was attracted to her, no doubt of that, but it was only a few months since his separation. He must not get into an emotional entanglement now. Perhaps he was using Kate, as he’d always used her, regardless of the effect on her. He needed her to listen to his troubles, to soothe his anxieties, to provide good sense and a bit of laughter. He mustn’t hurt her again. Must not get in too deep …
The effect of good food and wine had relaxed the atmosphere by the time he paid the bill, and when he insisted on accompanying her home in a taxi, she was her old feisty self.
‘Oliver, don’t be daft, I’ll go on the tube.’
‘No you won’t. I will escort you home like an old-fashioned gent,’ he said.
‘It’s right across town! A round trip will cost a fortune.’ She was right. The taxi meter clocked up inexorably: twenty-three pounds by the time they got to Ealing, and the return journey all the way to Lambeth would be even longer.
So this is what it’s like without an official car and a driver, he thought. But, hell, it’s worth it. Kate’s hair, always unruly, had resisted the hairdresser’s combs and some escaped curls lay on her cheeks and neck. He could smell her perfume – unfamiliar but delicious. He was tempted to put an arm round her, but resisted.
She confessed what an immense relief it had proved to be when Chris went back to Australia. ‘I was mad,’ she said. ‘I spent seven years hoping never to see him again and then fell straight back into his orbit the minute he arrived.’
But when they were on her doorstep, some of her stiffness returned. Her goodbye kiss, on his cheek, was quick and final. She seemed to scuttle inside.
Well, he thought, as he returned to the taxi, we are both damaged goods. And do either of us know what we want, never mind how to get it?
Over the next week, Oliver often thought of ringing Kate, but didn’t, but then the perfect opportunity arose. He had agreed to visit a secondary school in his constituency the day before term started, when they were having a big ‘Adventure Day’ for Year Sixes from surrounding primary schools and the local press were to cover it. The idea was to raise the profile of the school, and woo families whose children were due to go to big school in October. Oliver was to hand out certificates to children who had taken part in the day.
Oliver’s constituency chairman briefed him the week before. ‘The Head wants you to know of a slight hitch, in case you get complaints from the kids or parents. She’s got Year Sixes coming from six different primaries and they’d lined up different activities for them to choose from, you know the sort of thing – making a rocket in science, visiting a farm, photography, cooking, five-a-side, steel band, etc. The most popular choice, can you believe it, was cooking. The TV-chef effect, I guess. Anyhow, now she’s lost her food teacher and has no one to lead the class. So no cooking. Just so you know.’
Oliver said nothing at the time, but later he picked up the phone to Kate.
‘You wouldn’t like to do me a favour in my constituency?’ He explained the problem. ‘I think they have teaching assistants and it will be well organised – I know the school. But they don’t have anyone with the personality and ability to control twenty excited ten-year-olds.’
Kate said she’d love to if her own Headteacher at St Thomas’s would let her off. ‘It’s the day before the term starts and the staff are all in getting their classrooms ready. And I’ve only just joined the staff. But maybe if I do my stuff before … Anyway, I’ll ask.’
She rang back to say that Judy, her Head at St Thomas’s, was easy about it. She’d asked Elizabeth, Kate’s immediate boss, who’d said it would be good professional development for her.
Oliver found himself excited at the prospect of seeing Kate again. He usually did a school visit in an hour but he’d blocked off the whole morning so he could observe her lesson. But first he had to glad-hand a line-up of teachers and parents, and then endure the inevitable, and seemingly interminable, tour of the school, conducted by a sixth-form boy and girl who had given up their last day of holiday to do it.
When they got to the food rooms an hour later, Kate was just starting her induction. Oliver’s heart missed a beat. She looked so ridiculously young: no make-up, her round cheeks pink, her chef’s jacket immaculate, her apron doubled at her waist, a teatowel tucked into her apron strings. She came across to them quickly, and shook his hand formally.
Then she turned to the class and raised her hand. The children shushed. ‘This gentleman is Mr Oliver Stapler, and he is your MP,’ she said. ‘Does anyone know what an MP is?’
Several children chorused, ‘Member of Parliament.’
‘Excellent. Shall we ask him to tell us a bit about what he does as an MP?’
Oliver gave the children a few minutes on the duties of political representation and then said, ‘But, Ms McKinnon, I’m sure cooking is much more interesting. Can we watch for a bit?’
Kate was halfway through the standard Health and Safety preamble, warning the children to wash their hands between tasks, not to run, push or shove, that knives were sharp, hobs and ovens hot, to ask if unsure, etc, etc, when Oliver noticed one little boy with his name sticker – labelled KYLE and meant for his apron – stuck across his brow. Small and slight, he was standing directly under Kate’s chin, his face tipped up, pulling faces. Little monster, thought Oliver, he’s going to be trouble. Indeed Kyle then raised his arm and started to click his fingers at Kate’s face while chanting, ‘Boring, boring, boring …’
Oliver stood transfixed while the child continued his mantra, his clicking fingers getting closer and closer to Kate’s nose. Poor Kate, what would she do? She could not, he realised, take the little devil’s arm and force it down to his side and tell him to belt up – his parents would probably do her for assault. If she took a pace back she’d have lost and the monster would have won. There were twenty-odd children in the room and if she lost control it would be bedlam. If she stood her ground and he tweaked her nose, it would hurt like hell.
Then the child paused to draw breath, and Kate said, quick as a flash, ‘Now, Kyle, I agree this bit might not be fascinating, but if you will just be quiet I will be able to get it over with and we can all get on with the exciting part – the cooking. OK?’
Kyle thought about it for a second, his eyes narrowed in his pinched young face. Then he resumed his finger-clicking chant.
‘Boring, boring, boring.’
Oliver’s instinct was to wade in there and get the little sod’s arm up behind his back and march him out the door.
Suddenly a chubby girl, a lot larger than most of the class, took a swing at Kyle, punching him hard in the ear. ‘Shut your face, Kyle,’ she said.
Oliver could have kissed her. Kate immediately held her hand up and said with great emphasis, but without shouting, ‘Quiet everyone, please. Not a word.’ The children stood in shocked silence, the only sound Kyle’s whimpering, ‘Oh Miss, it hurts, Miss. She hit …’
‘Shush, Kyle, and take your hand away. Let me look … Yes, well, your ear is a bit red, but it’s not bleeding. You sit over here.’ She led him to the teacher’s desk at one end of the room. ‘Just sit quietly and I’ll see you in a minute.’ Then she turned to his assailant.
‘Michelle.’ Kate peered at the girl’s name sticker. ‘It is Michelle, isn’t it? I’m quite sure you know that hitting people is wrong. You will have to leave the class.’ Kate turned towards Oliver and he thought for a second she was going to appeal to him for help, but she said to his student guides, ‘Would you two be good enough to take Michelle to the Head’s study? She probably won’t be in it, but I am sure her secretary will be. Explain what happened and ask her, or any teacher you know, to take charge of her. OK?’ Then she said to Oliver, ‘Are you happy to stay in our cooking lesson, Mr Stapler, until these young people get back and rescue you? Or are you meant to be somewhere else by now?’
‘No, this is the end of the morning tour, Ms McKinnon, so if you don’t mind, I will watch the rest of the lesson.’ Oliver smiled inwardly, thinking how well they were both playing their parts.
He watched the lesson with fascination. Kate divided the class into four groups, each group clustered round a table of prepared ingredients, and each with a grown-up (teaching assistant or parent volunteer) to help. One group made fresh pasta, first rolling the dough by hand then feeding it repeatedly into a small but sturdy little machine that rolled it thinner and thinner. Then they cut it into tagliatelli. The children draped the ribbons of pasta over rolling pins to dry and then chopped and ground pinenuts, basil, parmesan and garlic for pesto. It smelt delicious.
The second group made dough for pizza, rolled it out, and added toppings of their own devising. They favoured cheese and tomato, but Kate managed to persuade a couple of them to risk a few olives, anchovies or spicy sausage.
One group watched Kate fillet and skin a large trout then each child wrapped a piece of fish with a dab of butter and some tarragon leaves in puff pastry. The final team made a chicken stir fry, starting with a whole raw chicken. Oliver wondered why Kate had not specified fillets of fish and chicken breasts. So much quicker and less messy than the whole animal. But as the lesson progressed he realised that Kate wanted the children to understand where chicken nuggets and fish fingers came from.
Oliver kept half an eye on Kyle. Kate, he noticed, once she was satisfied that no damage had been done to the boy, studiously ignored him. After a bit more unproductive muttering and rubbing of his ear, he left his chair and wandered round the classroom, grimacing and making sick noises. ‘Yuk’, ‘Urggh’, ‘That’s gross’. Oliver thought Kate should fling him out of the class: he was getting in the way, and contributing nothing. But apart from a sharp reprimand about his language when he declared, ‘Only my Nan eats that fish crap. It’s shit, that is …’ she left him to his own devices.
And then, about halfway through the class, when it was obvious how absorbed and happy his classmates were, Kyle suddenly approached Kate. ‘I’m sorry, Miss. Can I make a pizza?’
Kate smile was genuine. ‘I’m afraid the pizza ingredients are all used up, Kyle. But you can make a fish parcel. Why not?’
Kyle looked doubtful. ‘But it’s horrible, Miss, fish is.’
‘Does your Nan think so?’
‘Nah. But she’s old, Miss. She’s …’
‘Does she live with you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is she good to you? Do you like her?’
‘She’s all right. S’pose.’
Oliver wondered what on earth Kyle’s relationship with his grandmother had to do with anything, but by now he’d realised that there would be a purpose to Kate’s questioning.
‘Well, what about making her a little fish parcel for her supper? Wouldn’t that give her a buzz? To think you could do anything like that. Make something like a proper chef?’
Kyle turned out to be rather good at it, though he did try to resist including the tarragon, ‘Urggh, Miss, I hate green stuff. It’s cr—’
‘No swearing, Kyle. Does your Nan hate green things too?’
‘Well …’
‘This is for your Nan, isn’t it? I think we’ll include the tarragon.’ Kate’s voice was kind, but firm.
Kyle made a neat little parcel, decorated on the top with his pastry fish, complete with scales marked with the tip of a knife, and a large eye, carefully cut out of the pastry with scissors. Oliver was amused to see that when he painted the parcel carefully with egg yolk, he stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, a cartoon image of concentration.
When they were waiting for the last of the pizzas (charred round the edges and dripping with c
heese) and little trout parcels, brown and crisp, to emerge from the oven, Kyle resumed what was obviously his default persona.
‘It’s not proper food, this shit,’ he said to the others. ‘Why can’t we make real stuff, like sausages and chips, and burgers and pot noodles? Something what’s nice to eat.’ Pointing at the wok full of chicken with broccoli and mange tout, he said, ‘You aren’t going to eat those vegetable things, are you? They’re gross, they are.’
Once again Kate took no notice. But when Kyle’s parcel came out of the oven, she held it over the bin, and called across to Kyle, ‘Kyle, I’m binning this, am I? I think you said it was rubbish. So I guess you don’t want—’
Kyle’s face clouded with alarm. He hurried across the room. ‘No, Miss, no. I said I’d give it to my Nan. She eats that cr—’
‘That what, Kyle?’
‘That food.’
So Kyle’s fish parcel went into a little cake box like the others.
Oliver was enjoying himself. When the children were released, each proudly and excitedly clutching their creations, he helped Kate and the assistants clear up. He was impressed that Kate had them wiping out the ovens, mopping the floor and polishing the taps before she thanked them and let them go.
She tied up the rubbish bags, handed the recycling one to Oliver and took the composting one herself.
‘Let’s get rid of these and go and find some lunch,’ she said. ‘And then it will be my turn to watch you perform, doing your VIP bit. I wish the press had been here to see you wiping down tables. It would make a much better story.’
As they walked down the corridor, rubbish sacks in hand, Oliver whispered in her ear, ‘Kate, look over there …’
Kyle stood, on his own and facing the wall, scoffing his fish parcel.
Oliver looked into Kate’s face, expecting to see triumph there. But her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head, ‘Poor little chap. What chance has he got?’
Oliver suddenly knew, with the full force of belated realisation, that he loved Kate. The knowledge silenced him completely.