Turning Up the Heat

by Ashley Lister

  Trudy kissed her on the cheek, embraced her lightly and told Charlotte she was an absolute genius.

  Charlotte smiled and tried to brush the praise aside. The cheerfulness suddenly faded from her eyes. Her mouth opened and closed as though she wanted to say something else but wasn’t sure which words would best serve her. She had looked comfortable when she was alone in the office. She had looked cheerful when she gave the news about winning one small battle against Donny. But now she looked like someone fearing a reprimand.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Trudy asked.

  ‘Did I ever get round to apologising to you?’

  ‘Apologising? What for?’

  Charlotte blushed. Her knuckles whitened as she clutched her whisky glass tighter. ‘For some of the things I said about you and Bill. Back when you and he first became an item.’

  ‘I don’t remember anything like that,’ Trudy assured her.

  Charlotte missed the inflection in Trudy’s voice. She was studying the floor and shaking her head despondently.

  ‘I was hateful,’ she explained. ‘I made a big deal about the age difference between you two. I said a lot of horrible things, as though it was my business – as though age differences matter when two people are in love.’

  She held her glass of Chivas Regal in a trembling fist, sipping the contents unhappily between statements. She was clearly reluctant to make eye contact with Trudy.

  ‘I think I was channelling Donny’s stupid bigotries at the time,’ she explained. ‘And I’m not saying that to try and excuse myself. I said those things, so I have to take full responsibility, which is why I’m apologising. But I’m just saying that to –’

  ‘I don’t remember you saying anything like that,’ Trudy repeated firmly.

  Charlotte finally glanced up at her face.

  Her features were suddenly smoothed by relief. She looked ready to step forward and offer her arms in an embrace.

  Trudy’s phone chose that moment to ring.

  Ordinarily Trudy would have ignored it. Friendship and hugging always struck her as more important than phone calls. She was on the verge of saying as much when Charlotte’s phone also began to trill softly.

  Charlotte glanced at the screen and smiled a bashful apology as she brandished the mobile. ‘It’s him,’ she explained. ‘I’d like to say hi, if you don’t mind.’

  Trudy grinned and reached for her own phone. She was still desperate to know more about Charlotte’s boyfriend but she wasn’t going to push.

  ‘Give him my best wishes.’

  Trudy glanced at the caller display on her phone and her heartbeat quickened. Lowering her voice to a seductive drawl she purred into the receiver, ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Mr Hart? I thought you were at an awards ceremony?’

  ‘I just wanted to share my news with you.’

  The lazy drawl of Bill’s Northern accent always made her pulse race. She pressed her thighs tight together. ‘News? What news?’

  ‘Apparently, I’m the nation’s favourite celebrity chef.’

  ‘Oh, my God! You won? That’s amazing.’

  ‘Weren’t you watching the show? It’s on live.’

  She laughed. ‘Of course I wasn’t watching the show. I’m running your restaurant this evening. And you never told me it was being televised.’

  ‘Aren’t I a pillock?’ he muttered. His self-chastisement didn’t last long. ‘I’ll get Harvey to courier a copy of the show across for you. He’s recording it.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘It seems everyone in the country loves you.’

  There was a pause on the line before he said, ‘I only care about one person in the country loving me.’

  The words sparked a thrill in the centre of her loins. She congratulated him again, told him she loved him and then severed the connection. She wanted to share the news with Charlotte but her friend was sitting back on the office couch, immersed in a syrupy exchange of affection with her new mystery man.

  And, Trudy figured, while it would be great to spend the whole night chatting with Charlotte and sharing good news, Trudy knew she had a job to do in Boui-Boui.

  She stepped out of the office and into the kitchen. Another load of plates were waiting for her attention and she could see that one of them looked like a watery Champagne Velouté.

  * * *

  Four hours later the restaurant was empty and Charlotte, Imogen and Trudy had gathered around table thirteen to share slices of Charlotte’s legendary late-night Margherita. The pizza had been Charlotte’s speciality dish when they were living together at Eldorado. With a dough rolled in ground polenta the base was crunchy and textured. The topping was rich with the traditional flavours of fresh basil, ripe plum tomatoes and shreds of mozzarella straight from the Boui-Boui pantry. Charlotte added twists of oregano and pepper to give extra seasoning.

  She’d also taken a moment to use her tablet to find Bill’s awards ceremony online. As they tucked into the pizza, the three of them studied the small screen and watched Bill’s victory.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Charlotte exclaimed. ‘He’s up against Kelly White and Carlos Fielding from Master Baker.’

  ‘He’s never going to win against Kelly White,’ Imogen announced. ‘Kelly White would get my vote every time.’

  ‘We know that he wins,’ Trudy reminded Imogen. ‘I told you that at the start of the evening, didn’t I?’

  ‘Then it must be a fix,’ Imogen decided.

  Charlotte considered this response and shrugged.

  Trudy simply shook her head.

  They made eye contact and then looked away before either of them started giggling.

  Bill, on screen, looked immaculate in a tuxedo. He went up to the stage and collected a tall golden trophy. A clamour of enthusiastic applause roared from the tablet’s speakers. An unseen announcer described him as ‘Big Bill Hart – the Nation’s Favourite Chef’.

  ‘Big Bill?’ repeated Charlotte. ‘Is there something you haven’t told us, hon?’

  Trudy fixed her friend with a withering flare. ‘There’s quite a few things I haven’t told you,’ she agreed. ‘And there’s plenty more I won’t be telling you while Bill’s daughter’s eating a pizza with us.’

  Charlotte laughed and apologised. She adjusted the playback so they could watch Bill collect his trophy for a second time.

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been funny if he’d tripped as he was walking up to the stage?’ asked Imogen. She looked as though she’d enjoyed the challenge of a full day at Finlay West’s shop and a long evening at Boui-Boui. Even though she had clearly been working hard her eyes were bright and her smile was sharp and alert. ‘It would have been hilarious if he’d tripped and fallen flat on his backside.’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that would have been funny. I think it would have been embarrassing and unpleasant.’

  Imogen shrugged.

  ‘Are you ever going to make peace with your father?’ Trudy asked.

  Imogen took a mouthful of pizza. When she’d chewed and swallowed she eventually said, ‘We might make peace. He needs to make the first move.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit of a childish attitude?’ asked Charlotte.

  Imogen raised an eyebrow. She squared her shoulders defensively. ‘Childish? Maybe. But if one of us is going to act childish in this relationship, I think it should be me rather than him.’ She snatched another slice of pizza from the plate and added, ‘Besides, when it comes to being childish, you’re the one who has a secret boyfriend. What puts you in a position to call anyone childish?’

  ‘He’s not a secret. I just don’t like talking about him.’

  ‘I notice you won’t tell anyone his name.’

  Charlotte glanced at Trudy and sighed. She nodded in Imogen’s direction and said, ‘Feisty little bugger you’ve got working for you here.’ To Imogen she said, ‘I thought you wanted me to give you a lift home. Shouldn’t you be falling over yourself to be nice to m
e, rather than insulting me like that?’

  Trudy grinned watching them. She wanted to say that she thought Imogen had made a valid point but she could see no purpose in stirring animosity between the pair.

  Her phone rang and she fumbled in her pocket to find it.

  ‘You don’t have to give me a lift,’ she heard Imogen tell Charlotte. ‘I made so much in tips this evening I could hire a limo to get me back home. Do you want me to loan you a few quid so you can buy a boyfriend with a name?’

  Trudy glanced at the caller display on her phone and answered it. ‘Harvey,’ she said cheerfully. ‘This is late, isn’t it?’

  ‘I knew you’d be awake,’ Harvey told her.

  Behind him she could hear the babble of a party. She suspected the awards ceremony was still going on. It sounded like a chaotic buzz of shouting and clinking glasses. She wished she could be there at Bill’s side.

  ‘I’m just calling because I wanted to make sure you’ll be free tomorrow lunchtime for the radio show.’

  ‘What radio show?’

  ‘The one we discussed yesterday.’

  She mentally backtracked, trying to recall what Harvey had said about a radio show. When she did remember she shook her head in denial. ‘You only said the radio show was a possibility yesterday. You didn’t say it was definitely happening.’

  ‘Well, this call is just to confirm that it’s definitely happening,’ Harvey said patiently. ‘It’s definitely happening tomorrow lunchtime. They’re expecting one recipe and maybe a twenty-minute phone-in session where you help people with baking problems.’

  Trudy felt her stomach fold.

  ‘You’ll be live on air for an hour or so with a guy called Kevin. He’s one of the most competent pros in the business, so it won’t be too great an ordeal.’

  She swallowed and wondered how she could tell him that she was scared and probably incapable of sounding coherent on a radio programme. Charlotte’s Margherita, which had seemed so delicious a few moments earlier, now sat heavy in her stomach. Combined with the remnants of her late-night whisky the taste that lingered in her mouth was acidic, oily and overpowering.

  Harvey was still talking.

  ‘The editor got a lot of positive feedback for your article. He wants you to make that a weekly column. They’ll expect the next piece of copy by Thursday. Same word count and a similar angle.’

  Word count? Angle? She wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  Now she was shaking her head more furiously. From the corner of her eye she noticed that Charlotte and Imogen were both watching her studiously. Charlotte had raised an eyebrow to express curious concern. Imogen was studying her warily. Trudy recognised it as the way Bill glowered whenever he was confused or anxious about a situation.

  ‘I’m not sure I have time for all these developments, Harvey.’ She hated saying the words because it sounded like she was ungrateful for all the hard work he had invested in finding opportunities for her. ‘But I’ve got so many things to –’

  ‘This isn’t just useful for your career,’ Harvey said carefully. ‘This is all good publicity for Sweet Temptation.’ There was a pause on the line where she could hear the background chatter of the crowd behind him. Eventually, Harvey said, ‘I’d imagine your sales went through the roof today following the newspaper article.’

  Trudy put her hand over the phone. She fixed Charlotte with a glare and asked, ‘How did our sales do today?’

  Charlotte answered without hesitating. ‘Your article reached a lot of people. Sales went through the roof. We’ve never had so many orders.’

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Trudy. She sighed and knew she had no option except to agree. Speaking to Harvey, she said, ‘OK. I’ll do the radio show tomorrow.’

  He chuckled good-naturedly. ‘I’m pleased to hear it. You’ll be a natural.’

  ‘But I’m going to need to negotiate different working hours somewhere. I can’t work full-time at Boui-Boui, part-time at Sweet Temptation, and also spend time writing articles and doing a radio show. There aren’t enough hours in the day.’

  ‘I’m visiting your part of the world tomorrow,’ Harvey admitted. ‘But the chances are that will be while you’re on the air.’

  Trudy tried to suppress her mounting frustration.

  ‘I’ll be back at Boui-Boui on Sunday,’ Harvey promised. ‘We’ll make time to chat then.’

  She nodded and thanked him and ended the call. Even though she felt sure Harvey would help her negotiate a compromise somewhere, Trudy knew that Sunday was a long long way away.

  Chapter 15

  Trudy was awoken by the sound of her phone ringing. She reached blindly to the bedside cabinet and answered it without bothering to check the caller ID. She hoped it was going to be Bill on the line but at the back of her mind she knew that was extremely unlikely.

  According to the digital display on the bedroom’s alarm clock, it was five-twenty in the morning. She realised it was ten minutes before her body-clock would ordinarily have woken her to start the day and urge her to begin her exercise regime.

  Because it was so early she knew it was unlikely to be Bill calling. There were lots of things that had been said about Bill Hart but few people ever accused him of being a morning person. He worked industriously throughout the day, and in the kitchens of Boui-Boui he usually worked long and hard into the very small hours of the night. But he seldom surfaced from his slumber this early in the day.

  As her sleep-clumsy fingers struggled to operate the phone, Trudy thought she would have loved to have spoken with Bill. She had spent the night sleeping in his bed and drinking in the scent of him that lingered on the pillow and in the duvet. He favoured a cologne that was manly in its notes of lemon, ambergris and sandalwood and she could always catch the memory of those fragrances as she was drifting to sleep or waking.

  There was also the lingering scent of his perspiration. It was a clean smell that belonged to no one else and it never failed to excite her senses. It was the scent that came from someone blessed with a natural perfume that she found infinitely comforting.

  The echoes of that scent had been exciting her throughout the night.

  Not sure it was proper to answer a call in such a horny frame of mind, but knowing she needed to respond, Trudy jammed the phone against her ear and growled a weary good morning.

  ‘I have good news and I have bad news.’

  It was Charlotte. Her voice was clipped and bereft of her usual cheerfulness.

  Ordinarily, whenever Trudy was given an opportunity to hear one or the other, she asked for the bad news first. Obviously she didn’t like receiving bad news but, if she had to, she figured it would be best to hear the bad news and then mitigate that disappointment with a cushion of good news. But Charlotte didn’t seem ready to let her choose. She blurted the good news, saying, ‘Bill’s on the front cover of two tabloids. There’s a picture of him holding his trophy and looking dapper and handsome.’

  Trudy rubbed sleep from her eyes. Had Charlotte used the word ‘dapper’? She sat upright in bed, trying to shake away the tiredness and focus on what she was hearing. She suppressed a yawn, not sure that would sound like quite the right response to such a call. It wasn’t that she found the news boring. It was simply that she was exhausted from the late night she’d spent with Charlotte and Imogen.

  ‘Bill’s on the cover of two tabloids? That’s not just good news – it’s great news.’

  ‘I thought the same thing,’ Charlotte said. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind being woken up by good news like that.’

  She didn’t sound particularly happy about it. If anything, now she was more awake and able to pick up on such details, Trudy thought her friend sounded tired and angry. A sliver of worry began to niggle at the back of her thoughts.

  ‘The headlines are rather droll,’ Charlotte added. ‘One of them describes him as “Big Bad Bill”. The other calls him “The Hart of the Kitchen”. I think I prefer the second one.’

 
; ‘Me too,’ Trudy agreed. ‘Although I suspect Bill and Harvey will both like the first one. “Big Bad Bill” plays more to his bad-boy image.’

  ‘And it has the word “big” in it,’ Charlotte agreed. She sighed heavily and said, ‘But that was the good news. The bad news is that you and I are on the covers of two of the other tabloids.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Check out the story online. Call me back when you’ve read what it says. I won’t be going out on our morning run, so don’t look for me outside the university.’

  ‘Charlotte?’ Trudy whispered nervously.

  But her friend had hung up.

  Trudy stumbled out of the bed and grabbed Bill’s silk robe. It was huge on her petite frame but it felt comforting to be wrapped in his clothes. The silk was a seamless caress against her bare flesh. While he was away in the city it was almost like being held by his ghost.

  After visiting the bathroom she went down to the kitchen and switched on the espresso machine. Then she found her laptop, turned it on and waited for it to boot.

  The world outside the kitchen window was dark and gloomy.

  She could see across the grounds of Boui-Boui to the pinprick of light that stood in the window of Aliceon’s cottage. It seemed Aliceon was again awake early this morning, or still up from the previous night. Trudy wondered if she had managed to resolve the problem that had been causing her so much distress when they last spoke. If she had known Aliceon’s number she would have been tempted to call and find out if everything was OK. It was early in the morning, they lived close enough to be called neighbours, they were colleagues and they had the shared experience that they had both been intimate with Bill.

  But she stopped herself pursuing that idea. Aliceon was cold and aloof at the best of times. She clearly hadn’t wanted to discuss her problems the previous day and it was unlikely that 24 hours had changed her personality so she’d become a more open person.

  Also, and probably more pressing, Trudy thought, she needed to find out why she and Charlotte were front-page news stories. She didn’t think she could do that with Aliceon in the kitchen.