A Taste for It

by Monica McInerney

  But the main problem was that she seemed to have a reflex reaction to the sound of the camera shutter. Every time it clicked, she shut her eyes, unless she really concentrated. It meant that photos of her either featured her with eyes tightly shut, or wide open and staring glassily. Only occasionally did a half-decent one make it through.

  Gary had now switched from cub reporter to high fashion photographer and was wandering around the café trying to find the ideal backdrop.

  “What about in front of the photos in the reception?” he asked. “They looked interesting.”

  “Sure,” Maura said, leading him to the wall in the reception area that was covered in all sizes and styles of framed photographs.

  She briefly took him through each one. They had been taken over the past four years and showed the transformation of the ramshackle old house to the ivy-covered winery and café it was today.

  “Is that you?” Gary remarked, pointing to one of Maura standing next to Nick in front of the verandah. “Had you been sick? You look terrible.”

  Wait till your photos come out, she thought, quite taken aback at his comment. She looked at the photo in question. It had been taken just after she arrived back from Sydney. The last stressful months with Richard had certainly taken their toll on her. She did look terrible. But at least her eyes were open. She waved his comment away, though. “No, just too long living in Sydney, breathing in all that smog, you know the story, the stress of the rat-race.”

  “And is that your mother?” he asked, pointing to another photo of Nick and Maura standing with their arms around a small, fair-haired woman. Maura nodded. “You don’t really look like your brother or mother, do you?” he asked. “Does she work here too?”

  Where exactly had he studied? Maura asked herself. The Melbourne School of Insolence?

  “No, we don’t look alike,” she answered in a steady voice. “That’s because I was adopted. And no, my mother Terri doesn’t work here. She passed away nearly six years ago. And her husband left us more than twenty-five years ago, in case you were going to ask about that.”

  He had the grace to look a little embarrassed. “Oh, sorry.”

  Maura softened at the sight of his unease. “You weren’t to know. Terri had cancer. By the time we found out, it was too late to do anything.”

  By his sudden silence Maura guessed that Gary was too uncomfortable to ask any more questions. Blinking away the ripple of grief the memory of Terri’s death always gave her, Maura turned back to him and changed the subject.

  “Now, what about this photo of yours? I’ve got nearly a full house in for lunch today, so I’d better get a move on.”

  Gary lined up his camera and moved Maura to the left and the right until he seemed happy with the background.

  Click. Her eyes shut tight. Great, she thought. One more to add to the collection.

  Chapter Three

  Sitting at her desk, the phone tucked under her chin, Maura looked up and smiled at Gemma as she refilled her champagne glass. “I won’t be long,” she mouthed.

  “That all sounds fantastic,” she continued her conversation with Bernadette in County Clare, who had just outlined the last of the arrangements for the cooking school. “I honestly didn’t think there’d be such a response, especially for three sets of classes.”

  “Oh, it’s my flowery descriptions in the brochure, pet – wait until you try to live up to them – Flavours of the outback, a melting pot of the best of Asian and European ingredients cooked with Australian pizzazz . . . and that’s just the introduction. And the dinner bookings are coming along well, too. It’s just a shame you can’t import some of that good weather with you as well, so we could have the whole authentic Australian experience.”

  Maura looked out of her open office window. It had been a beautiful February day with bright blue skies and now, at almost seven pm, the air was still warm. She could see Nick, Fran and Gemma out in the garden, preparing for her farewell dinner tonight.

  Gemma had arrived the night before, having taken a month’s break from the corporate catering business she had set up to serve the head offices of Sydney. Maura smiled as she saw her, dressed in faded blue jeans and a light t-shirt, laughing and talking with Nick and Fran as they stood around the ground-level old stone barbeque. She described the scene to Bernadette.

  “A barbeque, you lucky things. We can hardly walk outside, let alone eat. The weather has been monstrous,” Bernadette groaned. “There were rumours there could be at least a glimpse of blue sky during your visit, but I’ve just heard the forecast and we’ve a few wild days of storms ahead of us. Hopefully, you’ll miss the worst of it while you’re flying.”

  “The weather’s the last thing on my mind,” Maura said. “I’ve been too busy trying to track down huge quantities of bush-pepper and wattle seed and sun-dried bush tomatoes. Why worry about a little thing like the weather!” She looked down at her watch. “Bernadette, you’d better go, this will cost you a fortune!” Their final phone call was supposed to have been a five-minute checklist, but had stretched out for nearly thirty minutes as invariably happened when she and Bernadette got on the phone to one another. There always seemed to be more to talk about than just food or wine.

  As Gemma came up to the window and waved the wine bottle in her direction, Maura hurriedly said her goodbyes. She hung up, still smiling. Here she was in Clare, South Australia, on a Friday evening and she’d be in Dublin in time for a drink with Bernadette on Sunday night. After months of planning, the trip suddenly seemed very real.

  She joined the others in the garden, enjoying the smell of the charcoal from the barbeque. Gemma had insisted on taking charge of Maura’s farewell dinner, as well as looking after the kitchen for the lunch crowd that day.

  “I’m not going to have you around for a month, so I may as well get used to it. You go off and finish your packing, or file your nails or whatever it is you highflying businesswomen do at times like this,” she had teased. Maura had taken her up on the offer. Gemma had been to Lorikeet Hill several times before and managed with ease in the kitchen, as Maura had known she would. They had trained together, worked together and knew each other’s methods very well.

  Gemma also knew how to cook a great barbeque. She had prepared her own speciality, Scotch fillet thickly coated with her home-made thick pesto-style crust, a delicious mix of fresh basil, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, farm butter, garlic and olive oil. The meat was cooking over the embers, the pesto topping crisping nicely. The tree-trunk beside the barbeque served conveniently as a table and held foil-covered baked potatoes and a huge bowl of salad greens, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, herbs and feta cheese, all produced in the Clare Valley.

  Nick gently eased out the cork from a bottle of Lorikeet Hill’s premium wine, a rich, full-bodied Shiraz, and with great ceremony presented each of them with a glass. It was their most expensive wine, made in only a small quantity each year from a very small vineyard of Shiraz grapes that adjoined the Lorikeet Hill property.

  Taking a sip, Maura looked around her with pleasure. This was her favourite part of the day, when the sun was almost set, the vines bathed in a warm glow. It had been a long hot summer and it looked like it would go on for some weeks yet. After a very dry season, with near-drought conditions, the grapevines were the only spot of green on the countryside, standing out against the dry, brown paddocks.

  Gemma interrupted her day dreaming. “Right, you three, dinner is served. And my talents tonight do not extend to waitressing, so you’d better come help yourselves.”

  They filled up their plates, Nick solicitously taking care of Fran. Maura was pleased to see her looking so well and relaxed.

  She caught Maura’s eye and lifted her glass in a toast. “I promised myself one glass of wine this pregnancy and it’s in your honour. Here’s to a wonderful trip,” she said, smiling.

  Nick and Gemma echoed the toast, and then settled themselves down on an old garden bench to enjoy the meal.

  “So
, are you and Bernadette all organised, Morey?” Gemma asked, as she passed around the salad bowl.

  “As much as we’ll ever be,” Maura replied with a grin. “It sounds like Bernadette’s got all the cooking side of things sorted out. And she’s raring to go on the wine side too. She said she’s had her car especially polished, so we look the part arriving at all the bottle-shops and public talks.”

  “You’re a very generous brother, Nick,” Gemma looked over at Nick with a cheeky expression. “Passing up a chance like this to spread your knowledge around the world.”

  “I’m sure Maura will manage to uphold the tradition and the glory of the Carmody name,” Nick said mock-seriously. “Of course, she’s blatantly ignored all my suggestions for her talk presentations. Really, these young upstarts, you give them a whiff of power and they run off with it.”

  Fran picked up the tale. “It really is a shame. We had pictured Maura arriving into each talk, the strains of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ echoing around her . . .”

  “From a cleverly concealed speaker in her hat . . .” Nick interrupted.

  “Modelled from papier mâché into the shape of a kangaroo,” Fran added.

  “Then she would show a compilation videotape of highlights from Neighbours, Home and Away and the Foster’s beer commercials to really grab everyone’s attention,” Nick continued.

  “Give everyone a free bottle of Lorikeet Hill Riesling, and a stubby holder . . .”

  “Then ride out on the back of a specially imported merino sheep,” Nick added, waving his arm with a flourish.

  Gemma shook her head from side to side, laughing at them. “And she didn’t take you up on your suggestions? Heavens, I can’t imagine why.”

  “See what I’ve been up against, Gem?” Maura joined in. “Where is their sense of occasion, sense of purpose? I am going to Ireland as a cultural representative of Australia. This isn’t a wine trip, this is a diplomatic mission.”

  “And maybe even more than that,” Nick added, with a challenging look at Maura. “A family reunion perhaps . . .?”

  She quickly looked over at him, and shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about that tonight, even though both Fran and Gemma knew all the details of her adoption. She covered the moment by standing up quickly and opening another bottle of wine, against her own better judgment, but with full support from Gemma.

  Nick tried to bring the subject up again later in the evening, as she walked him and Fran to their car. “I’m not pressuring you, Morey. I guess I just want to make sure you won’t turn down the opportunity if it comes up. And you’ll be so close . . .”

  “And so busy selling your wine. Please, Nick, leave it for tonight. Maybe we’ll talk about it on the trip to the airport tomorrow.”

  But maybe we won’t, she thought, giving him a hug to soften her words. Right now that whole question was just too hard to think about.

  Maura waved as their car drove down the dirt road heading further into the surrounding hills. Nick and Fran’s old stone house was about ten minutes’ drive away, high on a hill with beautiful views of the valley around them. As she walked back down the driveway towards Gemma and the barbeque, she watched as their car lights dipped and shone, before finally disappearing.

  Gemma had busied herself adding some logs to the barbeque coals to get the flames going again. It was warm enough to sit outside without a fire, but the flames added to the atmosphere, their colours flickering and reflecting off the white walls of Maura’s cottage.

  She looked up as Maura pulled her chair closer to the fire. “How did you go with selling your travel story, by the way? I meant to ask you last night.”

  Maura brightened. “Oh, it was a brainwave of yours, thanks very much. They agreed – they’d like a four-thousand-word article, with photographs if I take any that are good enough.”

  Gemma had suggested Maura contact one of Australia’s bestselling travel and lifestyle magazines and offer to write an article about her Irish trip. To her pleasure, the features editor had readily agreed.

  “That’s good,” Gemma nodded, opening another bottle of red wine, despite Maura’s raised eyebrows. Gemma gave her an innocent look. “How can you expect to go overseas and sell the pleasures of Clare Valley wine if you haven’t got up-to-the-minute experience?”

  “You are a bad influence,” Maura said severely, as she held out her glass to be refilled.

  “That article will be great coverage for you,” Gemma said sagely. She was a canny operator herself, having achieved lots of publicity for her restaurant in Sydney, before the critic’s review had turned it all upside-down.

  “If it means even a dozen extra customers and wine buyers, I’ll be happy,” Maura said.

  Gemma picked up the worried tone in Maura’s voice. “Are things bad?” she asked in surprise. “The bookings register looks great – you’ve got a full house for most of the next month. And Nick said the wine sales are on the up too.”

  “It’s going okay, we’re covering our costs, but we’re at the stage where we really need to do some serious rebuilding. Nick’s just about run out of room in the winery. And the kitchen’s serviceable, but the stove’s not going to last that much longer.” She sipped her wine. “That’s why this trip is such a bonus, the export sales could be just the boost we need. Nick doesn’t talk about it much, but I know he’s a bit worried, especially with the baby about to arrive.”

  “Well, it will be a success, won’t it?” Gemma said in a determined voice.

  “It sure will be,” Maura answered. They clinked their glasses to mark the moment.

  They were both silent in their thoughts for a few minutes, looking into the flames of the campfire. When Gemma spoke, her voice was soft in the darkness.

  “I’ve heard some news about Richard, if you’re interested?” she said.

  Maura looked up, expecting to feel the usual rush of hurt at the mention of her ex-boyfriend’s name. “Do you know, I hardly ever think about him any more,” she said in surprise.

  “Well, hallelujah for that! It’s a shame you couldn’t have got all memory of that ratbag surgically removed from your brain.”

  Maura laughed. “Gemma, you’re terrible.”

  “No I’m not, I can remember the state he left you in. That’s why it’s so good to see you like this again, believing in yourself.”

  Gemma had been with Maura through the thick and thin of her relationship with Richard. They actually owed their own friendship to him – they had first met when they began work as apprentices in Richard’s first restaurant in Sydney. He had already been making a name for himself then, five years ago, as much for his arrogant behaviour as his innovative approach to cooking.

  He and Gemma hadn’t hit it off though, and she had left after a month. Maura had been in his thrall by that stage, and their professional relationship had developed into a personal one. She’d even moved in with him.

  Looking back, she saw pitfall after pitfall, but at the time it had all seemed exciting. The long hours they worked ensured it wasn’t a normal relationship anyway, and their busy working lives had helped paper over the cracks for the first year or so.

  But a combination of her finding her own feet and his increasing notoriety had caused the cracks to widen. At home they’d argued more than they’d talked, with Richard choosing to spend any free hours sitting in front of the television.

  “I used to get so wild with him,” Gemma said now. “The way he used to talk to you, and talk to all his people if it came to that.”

  Maura remembered one night in particular. The tension between them at home had spread into the restaurant kitchen. He had started to find fault with her and tell her off in front of the other staff in the kitchen. “Stop talking to me like that,” she had shouted at him. “You make me look stupid in front of everyone else.”

  She could still remember the look he had given her. “I don’t make you look stupid. You and your cooking make you look stupid.”

  The final straw
had come the night she had returned from a week’s holiday in Clare. She had always known that the easy charm and boyish looks that had attracted her also attracted other women. What she hadn’t known was that Richard had been reciprocating their affection. Unpacking in their bathroom, she had found a bottle of perfume that didn’t belong to her.

  She had confronted him but he had just laughed it away and gone back to watching his television programme. When she had persisted in seeking an explanation, the mood had suddenly turned ugly.

  “Oh for God’s sake, Maura, you’re turning into a fishwife before my eyes,” he had taunted her. “Get used to it, it’s not my fault I get bored with you.”

  She had gasped at that. “So you admit it – you’ve been sleeping with someone else, here in our bed?”

  “Actually, it’s my bed, if I remember rightly,” he had answered, hardly looking up from the television. “Remember, you moved in with me? Your country-bumpkin side is showing through, Morey,” he’d mocked her with her pet name. “You’re in the big city now – you don’t have to be so straight.”

  “I’m not being straight, I’m being honest. I would never do this to you.” Her mind was a-tumble. She couldn’t believe he was sitting there so calmly while admitting he’d been unfaithful to her. She had suddenly realised it mustn’t have been the first time.

  He was still talking. “Ah, but you don’t get the opportunity like I do, do you? How can you say for sure you wouldn’t do it, especially if it was handed to you on a platter? Pardon the pun.” She heard rather than saw his smirk.

  The fight had escalated into a full-scale shouting match. With tears streaming from her eyes, she had hurriedly repacked the suitcases she had only minutes previously emptied, and dragged them toward the door.

  Richard’s parting words had echoed in her mind for a long time after the door had slammed between them:

  “You’ll regret this, you’re useless without me, Maura, don’t you know that? You haven’t got any talent, you’ve always ridden on my coat-tails.”