The Plumberry School of Comfort Food

by Cathy Bramley

  ‘Yes, but doesn’t he sleep in my room?’

  She flashed her dark eyes mischievously. ‘Not often.’

  ‘Rosie!’ I squealed. ‘Just how old is this intern?’

  ‘Old enough,’ she said smugly, getting to her feet. ‘White or rosé?’

  She came back with blankets and wine and we proposed a toast to girls’ nights in. I told her all about Challenge Chester, realizing as I did so that for someone who’d refused even to open a cookery book for the last two years, I’d made a pretty remarkable recovery in the last few weeks.

  ‘I know I’d originally said I’d be away for a month,’ I said, ‘but Gloria is going to need a lot of looking after when she comes home.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. The Yorkshire air suits you. Well, something does, anyway; I don’t think I’ve seen you so sparkly since I met you.’

  I sipped at my wine thoughtfully. I did feel sparkly. I’d had a fabulous day: making bread with Tom had been fun and it had brought a new understanding to our relationship. Being there for Noah and Gabe at their first sports day had been fun too and it had warmed my heart to be part of their lives, even if the occasion was tinged with sadness. But it was more than that.

  ‘Plumberry suits me,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t think it would because it’s such a foodie place. But I feel alive and happy. And even though it has only just opened, I adore the cookery school. Being there makes me excited for the future.’

  ‘Then stay as long as you can, girlfriend. Even though I’ll miss you.’

  ‘Come and visit me in Plumberry and learn to cook then.’ I grinned. ‘Nonna would love that.’

  ‘She would. How you gonna keep a man happy if you can’t even-a make-a pasta?’ said Rosie, doing a mean impression of her Italian grandmother, complete with eye-rolls and sharp shoulder-shrugs.

  ‘We’re doing Perfect Pasta soon, as it happens,’ I said with a sudden shiver. I pulled the hood up on my hoodie and tucked a blanket over me, doing my own little-old-lady impression.

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ said Rosie, humouring me. She leaned across to top up our glasses just as the doorbell rang.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said flatly, returning two minutes later with a tall, broad-shouldered figure behind her. ‘The bad penny is back again.’

  It was Liam, looking handsome in a navy suit and a white shirt. I, on the other hand, looked like one of those all-night fishermen you see on riverbanks all hunched up in their deckchairs.

  ‘Hi, Verity.’ Liam’s bemused eyes flicked over my cocooned body. ‘You’re looking . . . cosy.’

  ‘I’ll go and sort your bed out,’ said Rosie, throwing me a look of apology.

  ‘That’s very generous of you.’ Liam grinned and lowered himself into her deckchair.

  ‘Not yours, tosser,’ Rosie growled and stomped off into the kitchen.

  ‘Verity,’ Liam began. His face was one of total contrition as he attempted to hold my hand.

  I dodged him, picked up my glass and took a big swig.

  ‘You stole from me, Liam; you stole my ideas and my trust.’

  ‘I know, I know, and it’s been keeping me awake at night ever since.’

  ‘Really?’ I cocked an eyebrow. That and Melanie, probably.

  He had the good grace to look sheepish.

  ‘It is lovely to see you. I’ve missed you, you know. And you had such a lucky escape at Solomon’s. There have been even more redundancies and Ruthless Rod is such a cretin to work for.’

  I couldn’t help but feel a teensy bit pleased. Liam had made his bed, now he could lie in it, as far as I was concerned. ‘But you got the promotion you wanted, so you must be happy, no?’

  His shoulders slumped and he raked a large freckly hand through his copper hair.

  ‘I’d only admit this to you, but . . . I’m out of my depth. I’ve got twice the amount of work to do and now that I’m the marketing manager, Rod expects me to just cope with it.’

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘So you’ve got more responsibility. What’s this got to do with me?’

  ‘I’m presenting the marketing strategy to the board next week. Please, help me out,’ he pleaded. ‘Explain your One, Two, Three Plan to me. Or else I’m toast.’

  We stared at each other for a long time. He pulled his cute schoolboy grin and I kept my poker face. Finally I exhaled.

  ‘If I tell you will you leave me alone?’

  He nodded.

  ‘All right. Have you got something to write with?’

  ‘Yes!’ His eyes shone. ‘I’ll put it straight into my new phone.’

  He pulled his latest gadget out of his pocket and flashed it around. I tutted; that was so very Liam. He had the looks and the patter, but none of the substance to back it up.

  ‘OK.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Take note.’

  His finger hovered over his touchscreen.

  ‘One. Never be unfaithful to your girlfriend. Two. Never cheat your girlfriend out of a job. And three. Get your own sodding ideas.’

  He dropped his head in his hands and groaned. ‘I guess I deserved that.’

  ‘You did.’ I raised my glass and took a swig. ‘Cheers.’

  Liam dragged himself to the back door.

  ‘I’m finished,’ he said flatly. ‘You were my last hope. Goodbye.’

  Revenge is a dish best served cold and all that but I thought of the work I’d put into developing those marketing plans for Solomon’s. I could take it to my grave, I supposed, let my brilliant idea go to waste, but where was the harm in letting him have it? Not because I wanted to help him out, I told myself briskly. Although he did cut a pitiful figure with his dejected smile and hunched shoulders. But at least I’d have the satisfaction of knowing that my ideas were good enough, even if Rod had chosen not to hear them from me when he had the chance.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I’ll email you my PowerPoint presentation.’

  Liam’s face lit up. ‘You, Verity Bloom,’ he said, pointing at me, ‘are the bomb.’

  ‘I know, Liam,’ I said earnestly. ‘I know.’

  Chapter 17

  By dawn the next morning the wet weather had found me again. Not as heavy as the rain I’d left behind in Yorkshire, but nonetheless as I packed my car with enough clothes to cope with every possible climate, water was running down the neck of my sweatshirt and soaking into the toes of my Converses.

  I hastily kissed Rosie, whispered my goodbyes to the mound of duvet next to her (which she assured me was Joe) and made an early start back to Plumberry.

  We hadn’t had too late a night last night after all, nor drunk too much wine; Joe had come back from the gym with fish and chips (rather counter-productively, I thought), which Rosie forced him to share with us. Then the two of us had retired to her room to style me for my TV debut, with me wishing I’d not eaten quite so many of Joe’s chips and her berating me for agreeing to help Liam out.

  Joe was a sweetie. At twenty-three he was several years Rosie’s junior and had a baby face to match. He’d finished his degree in computing and was working in the IT department at Rosie’s place temporarily, storing up experience ready for his gap year of travelling, which he planned to fund by mending computers on his way round the world from September.

  Both of them were realistic about the longevity of their relationship, but were happy to enjoy it while it lasted if the bumps in the night were anything to go by.

  So I was somewhat bleary-eyed as I made the journey northwards and had to stop off halfway for coffee at the motorway services. I sat down with a double espresso and called Mags.

  ‘Plumberry house for retired sex-goddesses?’ she panted as she answered the phone.

  ‘Retired?’ I said with a chuckle. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Verity! It’s the crack of dawn!’ she cried. ‘I’m still in my birthday suit. Hold on, you’ve woken the dogs. I’ll have to let them out.’

  I heard her feet slap on the tiles on her way through to the kitchen and the dogs squeak excitedly as
she opened the back door.

  ‘Wee wees! Good boys. No, don’t dig there, Sage; stop! Oh no,’ she groaned.

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Stick-mad that dog, trying to pull my bamboo wigwam up again. My poor petit pois don’t stand a chance. If it isn’t the torrential rain, it’s him stealing the canes. I’ll have to go out there.’

  ‘But aren’t you . . .?’

  ‘Hold on a minute, love.’

  I heard rustling noises and muffled grunts and more excited barking.

  ‘Jeepers, this rain is wet. And cold. Avert your gaze, Len,’ I heard her yell. ‘It’s an emergency.’ Len Banbury was Mags’s other next-door neighbour and must be pushing eighty.

  ‘Len? What is he doing outside at this time of day?’ I asked. ‘In the rain?’

  ‘Putting his nuts out on the bird table. Put those binoculars down,’ I heard her shout.

  The mind boggled. I sipped my espresso and waited dutifully.

  ‘Sage Ramsbottom, come back here with that cane.’

  I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the image of Mags chasing the dog round the garden in all her morning glory.

  ‘Please go back inside, Mags, before poor old Len reports you for indecent exposure,’ I said when I heard her heavy breathing at the end of the line again.

  ‘Pah! He loves it. Why do you think he took that fence panel down and replaced it with trellis? The saucepot.’

  ‘Well, if nothing else, you’ll catch your death,’ I said. ‘And one invalid is quite enough, thank you.’

  ‘Come on, you two, back in.’

  I held the phone away from my ear as Mags shouted to the dogs. There was a patter of little paws and then the kitchen door closed with a bang.

  ‘We’re all back in,’ she gasped. ‘Talking of invalids, good news. Gloria is coming out of hospital today.’

  ‘Is she? Oh, that is good news.’

  She gave me all the details and I rang off, agreeing to meet her at the cookery school later on. I swallowed the rest of my espresso in a single gulp and got up to leave.

  I was pleased for Gloria, of course, it must have been awful for her spending a week in hospital while goodness knows what was happening at her brand-new cookery school. But it did mean that my day had become even more hectic. She was going to need a lot of looking after when she arrived, as well as a makeshift bedroom sorting out downstairs. Plus, I had to prepare for the arrival of the Challenge Chester crew in the morning. My stomach lurched; only twenty-four hours to go . . .

  I arrived at the cookery school in time to greet the students and pinch a fresh pastry for my breakfast. Today I planned on using my new bread skills to attempt a loaf in the shape of the Eiffel Tower before my trip to hospital to collect Gloria. Tom was running the morning Knife Skills class for a small group of students so I decided to base myself in the Aga kitchen downstairs.

  I tied on an apron, gathered together my ingredients and began to mix the dough, trying to remember everything that Tom had taught me. An hour later, I’d pummelled and punched it into submission, covered it with a clean tea towel and set it aside to prove.

  ‘Can I borrow you for a moment?’ Mags’s head appeared round the door of the kitchen. I followed her out into reception.

  ‘Listen.’

  I frowned. ‘I can’t hear anything.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  She jerked her head towards the staircase and the pair of us tiptoed halfway up to peep into the teaching kitchen. Pixie was scraping vegetable peelings into the bin, Tom was patrolling the aisles like an officer of the law and the students were bent over their workstations, chopping root vegetables as though their lives depended on it. No one made a sound.

  My heart sank. I wanted our customers to gush with enthusiasm to their friends when they left us, not mop their brows and declare they hadn’t felt under such pressure since school exams.

  We crept back down and pulled grim faces at each other.

  ‘It’s like a morgue up there,’ Mags muttered.

  ‘I know,’ I whispered.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  I sighed. ‘His heart’s in the right place, Mags. And he is very talented. He was brilliant at helping me knead bread yesterday.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt he’s good with his hands.’ She raised her eyebrows knowingly.

  ‘Mags!’

  ‘But it’s not the Plumberry School of Cold Comfort, is it?’ she hissed. ‘We’ve got to find a way of getting him to lighten up.’

  I nodded. ‘Leave it with me.’ I stifled a sigh. Along with everything else.

  By lunchtime the students had gone, Pixie had popped out somewhere and Mags and Tom were clearing up while I took the most ridiculous loaf of bread the world had ever seen from the oven.

  Having Googled a picture of the Eiffel Tower, I’d moulded the dough into three sections: the bridge-shaped base, an upper-case A for the middle and a long thin bit with a bobble on the end for the top.

  I held the baking tray with my oven gloves and stared at my creation; it did look a bit suggestive. That bobbly bit on the top wasn’t helping. The loaf fell to pieces as I slid it on to a cooling rack, and at that moment the doors swung open and Tom appeared, a streak of red across the front of his chef whites.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s my blood.’ He held up a thumb wrapped in a blue plaster.

  ‘Phew. As long as we haven’t maimed a student.’

  He grinned at me and my stomach fluttered.

  It had been a long time since a man had had that effect on me. I certainly hadn’t felt that way about Liam, and I wasn’t even sure Chris had made my insides quiver quite so deliciously either.

  I remembered my promise to Mags earlier to ask him to lighten up when he was teaching, but it could wait. There was a new intimacy between Tom and me since yesterday and I was enjoying this moment too much to spoil it.

  He examined my bread, leaning his head first one way then the other.

  ‘Is that meant to be the Eiffel Tower?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a complete cock-up,’ I admitted.

  Tom stared at the floor, but I could see he was struggling to keep a straight face. Pixie burst in, her dark hair plastered to her head and rivulets of water running off her waterproof coat.

  ‘Have you heard— Ooh, that looks a bit, er . . .’ she began until she noticed my glare. ‘I mean a lot like the Eiffel Tower.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said briskly.

  The two of them exchanged mischievous grins and I coughed. ‘Have we heard what?’

  ‘About the storm.’

  Pixie took off her steamed-up glasses and blinked wide eyes at us. ‘It says on the news that people should avoid unnecessary journeys tonight. This rain is going to get worse.’

  ‘Is that even possible?’ I said, peering out of the window at the rain drumming on the glass like hailstones.

  ‘Yep. A storm of colossal proportions is on its way from the north. Floods, gale-force winds, the lot.’

  ‘That’s it, I’m coming with you to fetch Gloria and I won’t take no for an answer,’ Tom announced, folding his arms. ‘Mags told me you were heading off there later.’

  Pixie looked from him to me, her eyes dancing. ‘Cor, that was masterful, wasn’t it?’

  Very. I swallowed and managed a nod, trying to ignore the fluttering in my stomach. ‘Thanks. But perhaps we shouldn’t go at all if it’s dangerous?’

  Tom laughed. ‘You could try telling Gloria that, but I wouldn’t dare. Give me a shout when you want to go,’ he added, sauntering off to reception with a whistle.

  ‘What about the Challenge Chester lot?’ Pixie said, chewing her lip. ‘Do you think we should cancel? I mean, if they’re driving up from London or something, they might not be able to get through if the roads are flooded.’

  That was a thought. I took my phone out and dialled Cheryl’s number.

  ‘Chill, Verity,’ Cheryl said when I explained about the local precipitation problems. She was c
hewing gum, as usual; I could hear it in her voice. ‘We’ve been filming somewhere in Yorkshire today anyway and the boss’s mum only lives in Thickleton, so we’re all sleeping over tonight.’

  ‘You wouldn’t consider postponing?’ I suggested, trying to keep the glimmer of hope out of my voice. A few more days to perfect my bread tower wouldn’t go amiss.

  ‘Nah. With such a tight filming schedule, we can’t afford to miss a day. Your show will go out next week.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I said, swallowing my disappointment. The village of Thickleton was only a few miles away, between Plumberry and the motorway; they would be able to walk it if they really had to. ‘Great. Well, see you tomorrow, then.’

  ‘By the way,’ Cheryl added with a chomp on her gum, ‘we’re hoping to make the Eiffel Tower at least a metre high, just so you know.’

  ‘You mean long?’ I said in a wavery voice. I looked down at the baking tray. If it hadn’t fallen apart it would be about forty centimetres long, which was as big as I could fit in the oven.

  ‘No, high,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s a tower, isn’t it? We want it to stand up like a tower. So you’ll have to bake it in sections and, I dunno, stick it together with something?’ And with that she rang off.

  Stick it with what – chewing gum? I thought crossly, wishing I’d followed Tom’s example and given the whole thing a wide berth.

  ‘Let’s take mine,’ he yelled as we splashed across the car park through the rain later that afternoon. ‘It’ll cope better with this weather than your little Fiat.’

  I stared at his battered Volvo estate. ‘Why, does it have oars fitted as standard?’

  He was right, though; it was twice the size of my car and Gloria would be able to stretch her legs out properly. The passenger-side door handle was broken and he had to let me in from the inside.

  ‘It’s very lived-in,’ I said, searching for something nice to say about his car.

  ‘That’s because I have lived in it.’ He started up the engine, which rattled like a bag of loose spanners. ‘I like to chuck my stuff in the back and take off. I camp if the weather’s good enough; otherwise I just fold down the seats and kip in the back. Just me, a camp fire and a deserted field. Perfect.’