The Good Plain Cook

by Bethan Roberts

  She didn’t move. She listened to Jimmy’s breathing, which was slightly laboured, as if he’d run up the stairs. His hand would be on his hip, as it always was when he was watching something – her mother dancing on a tabletop, or Geenie riding her horse. He might be smiling his bright, sudden smile that made his cheeks wrinkle, the way he had when she’d shown him the drawings she’d done on the paving stones outside their London house. ‘Ellen will never forgive you,’ he’d said, smiling.

  She waited for him to retreat. She thought perhaps he’d come to calm himself. She hoped the sight of his sleeping Flossy – even in this strangled position – did that.

  But instead he sat on the chair by her bed. She closed her eyes in case he saw her lids flickering. The smell of whisky grew warmer. His breathing was steadier now. Perhaps he would sleep there tonight. Perhaps Ellen had locked him out of their bedroom and he had nowhere else to go. Geenie’s bedroom was the only place he could rest. That wasn’t true of course. There were plenty of guest rooms and a huge chaise longue downstairs in his study.

  Her limbs were stiff from staying in one position for so long, curled in this tight ball. Her toes started to itch with heat. How long would he sit there? She opened her eyes a crack. Jimmy had his face in his hands and was rubbing at his cheeks. Then he looked at her and she clamped her eyes shut again. Perhaps she should do heavy breathing to make her sleep more convincing.

  ‘Geenie,’ he said, in a soft voice. ‘Are you awake?’

  Her legs not moving, her arms not moving. Just the air in her lungs, out of her lungs, in her lungs, out of her lungs.

  It was silent for a long moment before the sob. And even then, she couldn’t be sure it was a sob, because she couldn’t open her eyes again. Was that thin rasp of air the sound of Jimmy crying? That sudden rush of breath, was that the sound of Jimmy’s sadness? She couldn’t be sure. There was no way to be sure of that.

  · · · Thirteen · · ·

  On Sunday afternoon, when she was free until Monday morning, Kitty prepared herself for tea with Lou. She put on her blue frock with the lily print, which was nipped in at the waist in just the right way, and took the bus from the village to Petersfield.

  On the journey, she peered at the Downs through the dirty glass of the bus window. She’d overheard Mr Crane telling Arthur that this landscape was inspirational, and wondered what he’d meant, exactly. Did the mere sight of grass get him going on a poem? How did those ordinary hills, so bare and bald, inspire anyone? They made Kitty think of chapped hands and eyes streaming in the wind. The picture in Mr Crane’s unused bedroom of rugged mountain tops and vast lakes – that was more the sort of thing, surely. Something you could really call a view.

  Perhaps she should go up on the Downs again sometime, and look at them in more detail. Close-up things revealed a lot. She was working on an embroidery design she’d bought from Wells & Rush of Victorian girls rock-pooling on a beach, and that was all tiny details: the shine on the pebbles, the black beads of the crabs’ eyes, the way the children’s lines caught in the water. It was going to be lovely when it was finished. The Downs weren’t like that. They were blankly green, empty of trees, and they seemed to hold the village captive, keeping the air from the streets.

  Often she visited her parents’ grave on the way to Lou’s, pulled whatever weeds had sprung up around the base of the stone with her hands, and knelt before it to try to say a prayer. She knew it wasn’t what Mother would have wanted: prayers weren’t her thing. But what else were you supposed to do at gravesides?

  Today, though, Kitty went straight to Lou’s. Reaching Woodbury Avenue, she opened Lou’s gate, which had 60 worked into the wood, and walked up the box-lined front path.

  ‘It’s you.’ Lou opened the door and peered over Kitty’s shoulder. ‘I thought it might be Bob, coming back for his extra set of irons. He’s always on that bloody golf course lately. Come in, then.’

  Lou led Kitty through the house, with its familiar scent of Nettine and new paint, to the back garden: a square of lawn framed by forget-me-nots, delphiniums and white moon daisies. In the centre of the lawn was a deep red rose bush. Red, white and blue: they’d planted the garden for the Jubilee last year, not long after they’d first moved in. Lou said it was Bob’s pride. But Kitty knew it was Lou who did the work: she’d seen the dirt beneath her fingernails, the calloused forefinger of her right hand, like Arthur’s.

  They sat on Lou’s wicker garden chairs.

  ‘What do you think of my new skirt, then?’ Lou smoothed it over her thighs and twisted to the side, jutting out her chin and widening her eyes. It was calf-length, bright orange with two pleats at the knees, and tight enough to show the curve of her bottom. ‘It’s rayon. Dries like a dream but a bit scratchy. Bob says this is his favourite colour on me, but I’m not sure. Is it a bit much, do you think?’

  Today Lou was wearing her red curls straightened and rolled at the ends so they rested on her shoulders and glinted as she moved. They reminded Kitty of the fox stole Mrs Steinberg kept hanging in her wardrobe but never wore.

  ‘It’s lovely.’

  ‘I expect your American woman has dozens.’

  ‘Not as many as you’d think,’ Kitty began, reaching for an egg and cress sandwich from the little camp table Lou had placed on the lawn. ‘I’ve seen her in the same outfit lots of times. She likes quite, well, boyish things. Buttons and military whatnot.’

  ‘I thought that bohemian lot were all scarves and no underwear.’

  Kitty giggled. ‘Lou!’

  ‘Well. That’s what I’ve heard. And she is on her third husband.’

  ‘He’s not her husband.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Kitty bit into her sandwich. The bread was a strange mixture of soggy and slightly crispy. Lou must have made them this morning. She’d always been very organised.

  ‘It must be nice, to have anything you want,’ Lou continued. ‘If it was me, I’d have a new cashmere coat, plenty of Swiss lace petticoats and dozens of silk stockings. And a georgette swagger suit. I’ve seen just the one in Norman Burton’s.’

  ‘She doesn’t wear stockings.’

  Lou raised her eyebrows. ‘What does she wear then?’

  ‘Socks, sometimes.’

  ‘Like a schoolgirl?’

  ‘Short ones. I think it must be an American thing.’

  Kitty looked at the back of her sister’s house. The sparkling kitchen window reflected the scene back to her: two sisters sitting on a lawn, one in a rayon skirt and the other in an old frock. New garden furniture with blue cretonne cushions. The Jubilee garden. It was fortunate that the King had died in the winter, because a red, white and blue garden would have seemed inappropriate when the nation was supposed to be in mourning.

  ‘What does he think of that?’

  Kitty reached for another sandwich, then changed her mind. ‘Is there cake, Lou?’

  ‘Later. Marble. What does he think of that, the no-stockings thing?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The poet, you ninny. Handsome Henry. Crake.’

  ‘Crane.’ Kitty twisted her hands in her lap. ‘I don’t know what he thinks.’

  ‘Are you blushing?’

  Kitty took a sandwich and bit into it. ‘No.’ The yolks were powdery, too.

  ‘He is handsome, though, isn’t he?’

  ‘Is he?’

  Lou tutted. ‘She’s a lucky so-and-so. Fancy having all that and not even being married to it. I suppose she can afford it.’

  Now Kitty did blush.

  ‘And having you to cook and clean for him, too.’ Lou stretched her neck to one side and closed her eyes. ‘Sometimes I wish I had a char. Then I could go and do something else occasionally.’

  Kitty said nothing.

  ‘Not that Bob’s very demanding. But it’s a big house to clean all on your own.’

  ‘Easy, though. What with it being so square – modern, I mean.’

  Lou shot her sister a sideways look. ‘I
suppose.’ She sighed. ‘I’m a lucky bugger, when you think of it.’

  ‘Mother would have loved it.’

  Lou picked up a sandwich, prised it open with one finger and studied the contents. ‘It’s you she would have been proud of, though.’

  ‘Get off. What about you marrying a schoolmaster? She never stopped on about that.’

  ‘But I don’t actually do anything, though, do I? Not any more.’

  When she was fourteen, Lou had begged their mother to let her stay at school so she could become a teacher, but their mother had said there was no way she could afford to support her until she was qualified. And, anyway, Lou was sure to meet some young man and change her mind before that, and then it would all be a waste. Kitty remembered the long nights of her sister’s sobbing in their bed. She’d always tried to comfort Lou, if only in an attempt to get some sleep herself, and Lou had always resisted, turning away and crying all the harder at the slightest touch.

  Lou dumped the sandwich back on the plate. ‘The bakery wasn’t much but it was something. Now I don’t do anything that’s of use to anyone. It’s not as if I’ve even got any children to look after.’

  ‘You will have, though, Lou.’

  Lou shook her head and smiled. ‘How do you know that? It’s been two years already.’

  ‘You keep house for Bob, and cook—’

  ‘But like you said, that’s easy.’

  Kitty touched the ends of her hair and looked at her sister. ‘Not for Mrs Steinberg, it isn’t. She’s asked me to show her how to do it.’

  Lou widened her eyes.

  ‘She said she wanted to become domesticated. She’s asked me to help her learn how to be a housewife. I don’t know what to do about it.’

  ‘I know what to do about it,’ said Lou. ‘I know exactly what you should do. You should show her how to scrub the floor and heave the bloody mangle round. You should get her on her hands and knees cleaning the lav. See how she likes it.’

  ‘I don’t think she wants to learn that bit.’

  ‘I’m sure she doesn’t.’

  ‘I think it’s more the cooking and things. And the children…’

  ‘But you’re not the nanny, Kitty, you’ve always said that. You’re the cook. She should be looking after them already, shouldn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘If a woman has children she should look after them herself. What’s the point in it, otherwise?’ Lou bit her bottom lip and stared at the rose bed.

  ‘Thing is,’ said Kitty, ‘I was wondering, Lou, if you could help me.’

  Lou’s gaze snapped back to her sister.

  ‘You’re good at that sort of thing,’ Kitty continued. ‘You were always better than me.’

  Lou waved a hand in the air. ‘It’s just getting a recipe from a book. Anyone can do it.’

  ‘She can’t.’

  ‘But what does she want? I can’t do anything fancy.’

  ‘I don’t know. The basics, I suppose…’

  ‘You can do that. I’ve never heard anything like it, a lady asking the staff for recipes. What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘Please, Lou. All you have to do is show me a few things. And then I can show her. What about that lovely omelette you made the other week, with the bacon in?’

  ‘Savoyarde.’

  ‘That would be the sort of thing. She likes French things.’

  Lou ran a finger along her neckline. ‘I suppose I could show you a couple of things. I did make a nice kedgeree last night. Bob was amazed that rice could be so edible.’

  . . . .

  On the way back to the cottage, Kitty decided to get off the bus a stop early. It was a lovely evening; the sky was streaked all kinds of pink. She was free until the morning, so why not walk back? Lou had Bob to drive her in their Ford. She, Kitty, would walk. She’d seen young couples on the hills by the cottage, both wearing shorts and carrying packs on their backs. Rambling, they called it. She wondered what it would be like to walk in shorts, baring your legs to the cows. Cold, probably. And what did they carry on their backs? Maps, compasses, treacle biscuits? Notebooks, perhaps, for moments of inspiration. That was probably what Mr Crane did, although she’d never seen him in shorts.

  Smiling at the thought, she stood on the verge of the main road to Harting and looked about. There was a cut-through across the fields back to the cottage somewhere. Arthur had mentioned he walked home this way sometimes in the summer, ‘to make the most of it’.

  She couldn’t find a gate, so she squeezed through a gap in the hedgerow, scratching her arm on a branch. A thin line of blood rose to the surface of her skin. She rubbed at it for a moment before making her way around the edge of the field. The wheat was almost to her waist, bristling green. Kitty couldn’t remember ever walking in the fields like this before. When they were younger, she and Lou sometimes cycled from their house in Petersfield to Harting; they’d shared a bicycle between them, and would take it in turns to sit on the saddle whilst the other stood and pedalled. The picnic was always the bit Kitty liked the best – a piece of cheese and bread, perhaps a slice of apple cake if their mother had felt like baking. They always ate in the village churchyard, then cycled home along the road again. Kitty remembered feeling that the devil must be in that churchyard. The pointed wooden doors and mossy arches of the church were, she thought, where the devil was likely to lurk. If it was God’s house, wouldn’t the devil want to hang about outside? That way, he had more chance of getting in and causing havoc.

  She reached a patch of trees which she thought she recognised, but she couldn’t see the cottage from here. Leaves flicked in the wind. Her shoes were beginning to feel damp. The only way, she decided, was to go through the wood.

  Although it had been a warm week, the ground was boggy, and mud crept over the edges of her shoes. As she went deeper into the wood, it was so quiet that she became aware of her own breath. She wished, now, that she’d accepted the piece of marble cake Lou had offered her to take home. She could have stopped for a bite then.

  Did Arthur come this way? She couldn’t see any track through the trees, which were getting denser. She’d have to go back. What had she been thinking? Even if she had reached the back of the garden, there was the stream to cross. She’d have to go back to the road and walk all the way round and through the village.

  The sun was getting lower in the sky. If she still had a bicycle, she could get away from Willow on her free evenings without having to pay for the bus. Perhaps she could cycle up to the church and sit in the graveyard again, to see if the devil had made an appearance yet. When they were younger, Lou liked to stretch out on the graves and sunbathe, hitching her skirt above her knees and closing her eyes. Kitty herself kept upright. When Lou had asked her why she didn’t lie down, Kitty told her, you never know who’ll come along. ‘Exactly,’ Lou said, and smiled.

  They’d waited long hours like that, some Sunday afternoons, Lou’s legs going goose-pimply as shadows dragged across the graves, and Kitty’s bottom turning to stone. The yew trees smelled of mould, and the grave they most often chose was dedicated to Mary Belcher, she remembered that. Mary Belcher had a headstone, which had fallen over and now lay flat in the grass, all to herself. Was it better to have room in the grave, or to have company? Would it be good to have someone else in there, waiting for you? Or better to be left in peace? She thought that her own mother would have preferred to have been left in peace, but she was in with their father, even though the two of them had hardly spoken when he was alive, so Lou said. What Kitty remembered most about him was the ripe smell of tea on his breath every evening when he kissed her goodnight. And how he used to go up the side passage of the house to fart, putting a finger to his lips. ‘Don’t tell, Kitty-Cat,’ he’d say. Their mother said he’d been a fool to go to war when he was already too old, and even more of a fool to die of the flu when he got back.

  She was at the road again now and her toes were rubbing together. Starlings clattered in the tre
es. She thought again of the marble cake she could have brought back in her bag. The hills were taking on their hunched appearance as the sun went down. All chalk and dust and wind.

  She was almost at the edge of the village when a car drove up behind her. It was Mrs Steinberg’s new vehicle: a yellow MG sports car with headlamps like moons.

  ‘Can I offer you a lift?’

  Mr Crane was squinting against the low sun, one arm reaching across to open the passenger door for her.

  She hid her handbag behind her back and looked down at her damp shoes.

  ‘I’d be pleased to drive you back, Kitty, if you’d like.’

  He didn’t smile, exactly, but he’d opened the door now and was holding out a hand. ‘Do climb in.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Crane, sir, but I’m fine, really I am.’ He was wearing a dark green corduroy jacket and no driving gloves or hat. His hair had gone awry and was hanging down over his forehead, which seemed to make his lopsided eye squint all the more.

  ‘I was hoping to put this blessed car to some sort of use.’

  ‘Thank you so much, really, Mr Crane, but I was walking, you see—’

  At this, he turned off the engine.

  ‘Do you often walk?’

  ‘Yes – no, I mean, I’d like to, but…’ She twisted the strap of the handbag behind her back. ‘I was thinking of getting a bicycle.’

  She hadn’t meant to say that.

  He nodded. ‘Cycling is enormous fun, isn’t it? For me, though, walking is absolutely the best way to travel. But – well, Mrs Steinberg has bought me this car, so one really ought to use it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lovely here, isn’t it? For walking.’

  ‘Yes. It is. Lovely.’ She shifted from foot to foot.

  ‘With the Downs just there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  That leather seat would be comfortable.

  ‘You can cut through to the cottage across that field, you know.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Quite wonderful now, with the wheat at full height.’

  Kitty touched her hair.

  ‘Of course, you have to cross the stream, but there’s a narrow bit, where it’s quite safe to jump.’