The Good Plain Cook

by Bethan Roberts

  For a brief moment, Kitty thought she should bob, but Mr Crane’s firm handshake kept her upright.

  ‘Kitty’s going to be our new help, George. She’s a plain cook.’

  He touched his forehead, as if considering the situation. His sleeves were pushed up his forearms and Kitty saw lines of flat dark hair and an ink stain on his wrist. It was an elegant wrist, with a prominent, rounded bone.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful? She’s been cleaning at the school until now, but she loves music and she’s got a broad outlook, haven’t you, Kitty?’

  ‘Yes, Madam.’

  ‘I’ve told her not to call me that, George. And I’ve told her there’s no need to come in here.’ Mrs Steinberg walked across to the desk, trailed her fingers along the typewriter keys and leaned back on Mr Crane’s chair, one leg crossed over the other. ‘He hates to be disturbed, don’t you, George?’

  Mr Crane didn’t reply. He was still holding his forehead and looking at Kitty.

  ‘He loathes it. Particularly if he’s reading Karl Marx.’

  Mr Crane gave a short laugh. ‘Welcome to Willow Cottage, Kitty. I hope you’ll be happy here.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’ She did bob, then, without meaning to; her knees bent and she cast her eyes to the floor.

  He touched her elbow as she came back up. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t do that, there’s really no earthly need ever to do that, and please don’t call me Sir.’

  She looked at the place where his long fingers had been on her arm.

  ‘Please. You can call me—’

  ‘Mr Crane,’ said Mrs Steinberg, showing Kitty the door.

  . . . .

  The kitchen smelled of coffee and Blotto, who was snoozing under the large table. She slipped the apron that was hanging on the back of the door over her head and buttoned the straps. She was already late getting on with the lunch, and she’d have to work fast if she was going to have anything ready on time.

  Geenie skipped ahead and sat at the table to watch with her blackened eyes.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss, but don’t you go to school?’ asked Kitty.

  The girl shook her head. ‘George says he could teach me at home but Ellen says he should be working on his book.’

  She seemed to draw her lips inward as she gazed at Kitty, as if keeping something close.

  ‘Your mother doesn’t mind?’

  The girl shook her head again. ‘What are we having for lunch?’

  Kitty walked to the larder without replying. Perhaps it would become clear what she was to prepare once she was inside. Mrs Steinberg may have left a note, or a particular set of ingredients might have been set aside. There was no need, no need at all, to panic. She closed the door behind her so the girl couldn’t follow.

  In the larder, she was greeted by bottles and bottles of wine, stacked all around the walls, beneath the lowest shelf. At least a quarter of them were empty. She brought one to her nose and sniffed. Vinegar. Raspberries. Something burny, like medicine. On the shelves were three bags of sugar, a sack of flour, and at least a dozen bottles of oil, all with labels that seemed to be in French; there were jars of lobster and cockle paste, and jam. One was open and had crumbs in it. There were two jars of something black that looked like Bovril but wasn’t. In the corner, a refrigerator – bigger than the one Bob had recently bought for Lou – hummed. Kitty opened the door: a dozen eggs, a packet of butter and bottle of milk, but no cheese.

  The larder door opened.

  ‘Can I have an omelette?’

  Kitty could scramble, poach and boil eggs with confidence, but her omelettes were always flat.

  ‘Just a minute, Miss.’

  She closed the door and stood biting the skin around her nails. What could she make from eggs and quarter of a loaf? Was Mrs Steinberg expecting her to go into Petersfield to fetch some groceries? Kitty hadn’t asked about the time of the deliveries. It was already eleven o’clock, and even if she managed the eleven-thirty bus she wouldn’t be back before one.

  She did another circuit of the larder, opened a jar of the black stuff that looked like Bovril and sniffed. Sardines and mud.

  If Lou were here, she’d have asked Mrs Steinberg outright, first thing.What should I make for lunch, Madam? It would have been easy to ask the question when the woman was showing Kitty her room; it would have been easy, if she hadn’t been too busy not looking at the awful painting of the naked woman to think straight. Why hadn’t she spoken up, then and there, and got it over with?

  She opened the larder door, took a step back into the kitchen, and almost walked into him.

  ‘Sorry to startle you,’ the man said, looking her up and down. He stood firm, with his legs apart and his feet planted evenly on the floor, as if he’d been rooted there all the time she’d been in the larder. His mouth was set in a peculiar shape. Was he chewing on something?

  Kitty held on to the door handle and tried to arrange her smile in the right way. She looked around the kitchen: no sign of the girl. She must have got bored of waiting and gone outside.

  There was a clicking sound as the man rolled whatever was in his mouth from one side to the other, making his neatly trimmed moustache twitch. His cheeks looked weathered but his eyes were bright, the skin around them unlined. ‘I do the garden and that.’

  Kitty nodded, still holding on to the door handle.

  ‘And look after the beast in the garage.’

  ‘The beast?’

  ‘Mrs S. asked me to fetch you these.’

  He brought a bunch of carrots, already cleaned so they were gleaming yellow, from behind his back. His hands were large and tanned. Then he swallowed, and Kitty smelled aniseed.

  ‘She said something about soup.’

  Kitty looked at the trailing ends of the vegetables. ‘But I haven’t any stock.’

  ‘And these.’ He produced a bundle of onions. ‘I keep all the veg in the shed.’

  Kitty let go of the door handle. She walked past him, sat at the table and pressed a hand to her mouth. Crying was not what a new cook should do on her first day, not in front of this man with his big hands and his low voice.

  The man placed the vegetables on the table. Then he produced a penknife from his pocket, divided the carrots into three piles, and deftly sliced the tops from them.

  After a minute she heard the rustling of a paper bag. ‘Want a sweet?’

  She hated aniseed but she took one and held it. The man had left his boots at the door, and his thick sock had a hole in it, Kitty noticed. A long nail was pointing in her direction.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, rolling the sweet between her finger and thumb. ‘I’m not quite…’ she took a breath. ‘I’m Kitty.’

  ‘Arthur.’

  Kitty rose from her chair. ‘I ought to get on – the stock pot…’

  ‘Sit down, don’t bother yourself.’

  She sat, and Arthur stood over her, stroking his moustache. How old was he? Probably not yet in his thirties, but that moustache made him look older.

  ‘All right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’m making myself a cup of tea. I daresay you’d like one.’

  Once he’d turned his back to her and was filling the kettle, Kitty slipped the aniseed twist into the pocket of her apron.

  He wasn’t tall and his shoulders were bulky, as if he had a lot of clothing bundled under his jacket. His wavy hair looked a bit like the woollen fur on a toy bear she’d had once.

  She watched him as he fetched the pot and cups in silence. The pot was light green and strangely angular. There was no cosy. He measured out the tea carefully, tapping the spoon on the side of the caddy to even it out before he tipped the contents into the pot. Then he went into the larder and Kitty rubbed at her cheeks and straightened her apron.

  Arthur set the pot on the table. He’d poured the milk into a jug and found the sugar basin. ‘Always have tea at eleven,’ he said, pouring two cups.

  Kitty looked at his face as he spoke. His teeth seemed s
et deep inside his mouth, a long way back from his lips.

  ‘Where were you before?’ he asked.

  ‘At the school,’ she said. ‘And I was a – cook, a plain cook, for a lady in Petersfield.’ She wasn’t sure why she’d lied to him. He looked like you could tell him the truth and he wouldn’t mind.

  ‘You’ll soon settle.’

  Some tea had slopped over the edge of his cup and he scraped its bottom along the edge of his saucer before pouring the spill back. Then he took a slurp, swallowed, and sighed. He held his cup with both hands and stared into space for a long time before speaking again. ‘The girl before you didn’t stay long.’

  ‘Dora?’

  ‘That’s her.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’

  ‘The usual.’

  Kitty waited for more, but he was staring into space again.

  ‘What are they like?’ she asked, being careful not to look at him too closely.

  ‘Mr Crane and Mrs S.?’ He swilled his tea around the cup. ‘He’s all right. Bit wet, but not afraid to get his hands dirty.’ He took another slurp.

  ‘And her?’

  He drained his tea. ‘She’s – all right.’

  There was a silence. Arthur began to clean his fingernails with the end of his penknife.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Since before they came, end of last summer. I worked for Mr Jacks, whose house it was. So I stayed with the house. Part of the furniture, you could say.’ He frowned and studied his own hands, which he’d spread before her on the table. They were, Kitty noticed, completely hairless. The muscles at the base of his thumbs bulged as he formed, then released, fists. ‘They wanted it all different, of course.’

  Kitty tried a smile.

  Arthur looked at the clock. ‘Best get on.’ He flicked the penknife closed and tucked it in his top pocket. ‘The beast will need stroking.’

  He stood up and flexed his fingers. ‘Like I said, veg is in the shed. Help yourself.’

  She watched him as he pulled on his boots, noticing the way he stooped over the laces and tightened them with some effort.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but where did you say the shed was?’

  Without a word, he opened the back door, stepped outside, and motioned for her to follow him.

  They walked along the gravel path at the back of the cottage, Kitty watching Arthur’s broad back. He walked swiftly, swinging his hands by his sides. He pointed to the garage. ‘Beast’s in there. Useless thing, electricity, if you ask me. Lights go off all the time. Don’t know why they don’t have gas,’ he said. ‘And my shed’s there.’ He stopped and nodded at a one-windowed wooden hut, covered in ivy and almost hidden behind the garage.

  Kitty looked from one to the other and swallowed. ‘Right.’

  ‘Leave you to it, then,’ he said, disappearing into the garage.

  When he was gone, Kitty stood for a moment, staring at the shed door, before hurrying back to the kitchen. It would have to be omelettes. They would have to be flat.

  · · · Four · · ·

  Come on, Flossy,’ said her mother. ‘Nothing really matters if you’re naked. Remember what Jimmy used to say, darling? Nudity is the magician of the genders. He was right, wasn’t he?’

  Geenie’s toes were cold, even now. It was Sunday afternoon, and it had begun to warm up outside, but she was still wearing her orange cardigan with the flower buttons, knitted by Nanny Dora. Now Dora was married and living with her husband in London. Ellen said it was for the best, because Dora had her life and they had theirs. But Kitty was not the same at all. She was not nearly so pretty. Everyone said that Dora was more like a Gaiety girl than a nurse, with her plump little figure and her budding lips. Kitty was short and wiry-haired, never took her apron off and hadn’t shown any sign of knitting.

  ‘What if someone sees?’

  ‘Who’s to see, apart from George? Kitty and Arthur are both off this afternoon. And who’s to care, anyway?’

  Ellen had already removed her own short-sleeved turquoise blouse. She rubbed the military-style shoulders together as if trying to get rid of a stain. ‘Rather manly, isn’t it? Better to take it off,’ she said, opening her fingers and letting the blouse fall to the ground. The buttons clattered and, beneath the table, Blotto stirred. ‘It’s not as if you’ve got much to show, anyway. Nothing to make a fuss about. If I can do it, you can.’

  Geenie looked down. It was true: nothing interrupted the view to her sandals. There was no bosom, stomach or thigh to upset the straight plane of space between her nose and her toes. But she knew that, underneath the orange cardigan and sundress, her body held secrets. The faint lines of a few pubic hairs, for instance, disturbing the smoothness of her own skin. When she was in bed at night she sometimes put a hand there and stroked them.

  Her mother crouched down and looked into her face. ‘When you’ve got something, I’ll be the first to notice.’ She paused and licked her lips. ‘And then we can take action. It’s no good being shy about these things.’ She touched Geenie’s cheek and lowered her voice. ‘God knows, I thought of sex as the most awful ogre until I met your father. Can you imagine? I was twenty-three! A scandalous age to be a virgin. But he enlightened me. It was really nothing to worry about, nothing at all. In fact, he was more worried than I was, when I’d finished with him.’

  Ellen straightened up and undid the buttons on her skirt, which shot to the floor, turquoise stripes concertinaing before Geenie’s eyes.

  ‘Is George going to sunbathe?’

  ‘George is writing, darling. I’m sure he won’t be interested in sunshine. Or, for that matter, in naked females.’ As she spoke, her mother pulled her ivory petticoat over her head and her thick hair crackled. Geenie could see the brown strands standing up on the crown, like skinny twigs.

  ‘Are you still in that damned dress? The sun will be gone by the time you get out there. This is England, Geenie. You have to make the most of these days of grace. Unhook this for me.’

  She knelt down to allow her daughter to reach the hook of her bra. Geenie hesitated before facing the bunched-up skin around the straps of the device. She particularly hated the way it bulged over the hooks, and wondered how her mother could stand this cage of rubber, ribbons and gauzy cotton. It was something like the tents Dora used to use for spotted dick and other steamed puddings.

  After a small struggle, she unhooked the bra, and felt the relief of her mother’s flesh as it was released.

  Ellen bent over and stepped out of her knickers. Geenie decided to stare at the sink.

  ‘Still not ready?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘All right. But you’ll regret it. It’ll be wonderful out there. The sun on every part of you. There’s nothing more natural than that, darling. Nothing more natural than the sun on your own skin.’

  As Ellen opened the back door, Geenie caught the smell of her mother: something sharp but spicy, like dandelions.

  When she’d gone, Geenie took off her cardigan and put her chin on the edge of the sink, letting the enamel cool her jaw. She could hear her mother humming and flapping out a towel. With one hand, she gathered up the hem of her sundress and hooked it beneath her chin. Then, staring at the taps, she circled a finger around the slight swelling of her nipples, first one, then the other. The skin there was like the lamb’s ears Arthur grew in the garden, all velvet springiness. She raised her chin from the sink and pulled the dress over her head. Cupping a hand beneath each nipple, she hunched her shoulders and thrust the flesh on her chest upwards in an effort to make a cleavage. But Ellen was right: there was nothing to make a fuss about.

  Clutching her sundress, Geenie tiptoed to the back door, which was still slightly ajar, and peeped out of the crack. Her mother was reclined on a white towel in the centre of the lawn. Apart from her sunglasses, she was totally naked, and she was tapping her nails on one thigh, bouncing them off the flesh.

  The door to George’s writing studio, Geenie no
ticed, remained closed. A few weeks ago, Geenie had peeked through the studio window and seen a piece of paper scrolled into George’s typewriter with the words LOVE ON THE DOWNS typed at the top. When she’d peeped again yesterday, that piece of paper was still there, with nothing else added. But, as Ellen often pointed out, George was very busy. He was making the cottage into a modern home so they could be a real family. Which was why Geenie shouldn’t go around knocking holes in walls, even if they were already broken and rubble was all over the rug, and why her mother had told her to stay in her room and miss supper last week. It hadn’t been too bad, though, as she’d remembered the three Garibaldis stored in her sock drawer.

  Blotto stretched and waddled from beneath the table. She patted him on the head and he began to lick her hand, pushing his long tongue between each of her fingers.

  After a while, her mother shouted, ‘You should come out here, Flossy. It’s divine.’

  Geenie wiped the dog’s saliva down the back door and continued to watch through the crack.

  George emerged from the studio. He stood on the step, shielding his eyes from the sun. He was wearing his writing cardigan, which Ellen said he should never wear out of the house. It was pale blue with a cream collar and big cream buttons, and was so long it almost reached his knees.

  He didn’t say anything for a long time.

  ‘There you are. How’s Karl, darling? Getting to the good bits yet?’ Ellen hitched herself up on one elbow and smiled in George’s direction. ‘Surely it’s too hot to be indoors, even for Marx?’

  George stepped onto the lawn and frowned. He stared at Ellen for a long time, his eyes going up and down her body but never resting on her face.

  ‘Ellen. What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘I should’ve thought that was obvious.’

  He ran a hand over his mouth. ‘Where’s your bathing suit?’