The Good Plain Cook

by Bethan Roberts

  Arthur got out his hankie and wiped the lattice-work chair before Kitty sat. There was a blob of jam on the cloth and no parasol. Kitty removed her hat and wondered if she should have worn gloves to hide the fact that the tips of her fingers were damp.

  ‘Well,’ said Arthur, squinting at her. ‘This is nice.’

  He straightened his jacket sleeves. He was wearing the same suit she’d seen him in at the pictures, and she saw, now, that the fabric was shiny with wear on the elbows. His face was ruddy and he’d put something on his hair to keep it down. What with this, his flushed cheeks, and his damp brow, his whole head looked as though it had been covered in a film of grease.

  Taking out his pipe, he twisted round, searching for the waiter. ‘I’m parched,’ he announced.

  ‘Have you been here before?’

  ‘Couple of times. In the evenings.’

  Kitty was surprised but tried to hide it by looking down at the tablecloth.

  ‘It’s what you do, isn’t it? With women, I mean.’

  She’d never heard him say that word, women, before. It sounded slightly obscene.

  ‘No doubt you’ve been here plenty, Kitty. Dancer like you.’

  Kitty thought of the times she’d been to the Sunday tea-dance with Lou when she was younger: the two of them had clutched at each other’s dresses, and Lou always hissed that Kitty should lead in case any boys were watching them.

  She lifted her head. ‘What do you mean, with women?’

  Arthur tucked some tobacco into his pipe and smiled. ‘You know. Girls and that. Ladies. A twirl around the floor in some hotel. It’s what they expect, isn’t it?’

  Kitty wiped her palms on her skirt and raised her chin.

  ‘What do you expect, then?’

  Arthur lit his pipe. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. Bit of company, I suppose.’ He paused before looking straight at her. ‘Someone to share things with. Doesn’t really matter what they are, does it? As long as you do them together.’

  Kitty looked across the lawn. The sun blazed down, bleaching everything in sight.

  Arthur put his hand up for the waiter, but the boy didn’t seem to see them.

  ‘Do you want to stay in service, Kitty?’

  The question caught her off guard. It wasn’t something she’d thought much about. She’d just been glad not to have to live with Lou and Bob any more, and it didn’t seem like there was any choice other than to stay in service – at least until she was married. Not that getting married seemed very likely to Kitty. She didn’t allow herself to picture that scenario very often, and when she did, she always thought of the wedding photograph, with herself in a tidy marocain silk frock, perhaps, and a feather in her hat, which would bear no resemblance to a boat. But she couldn’t imagine the man at her side at all.

  ‘It’s not a bad life, is it?’ she answered.

  ‘Well,’ said Arthur. ‘I’m all right. Come and go as I please really: do a bit of gardening, see to the beast. They don’t seem to mind, as long as I show my face and things keep going. It’s better than slogging it down at the rubber factory, at any rate.’ He sucked on his pipe. ‘But I don’t know about you. Seems to me you’re wasted, with them lot.’

  The waiter was near them again, and Kitty raised her hand a fraction of an inch. But he swept straight past.

  ‘You could be cooking in some proper house,’ Arthur continued. ‘For proper gentry. Have some girl do the skivvying for you. Those cakes of yours are smashing. Especially the – what is it? French sponge.’

  ‘French buns.’

  ‘That’s it. Smashing.’

  She smiled. For a while now, she’d had an idea that perhaps she’d be able to move and get a position as a real cook somewhere else, somewhere there’d be a kitchen maid to help her. But after the salmon incident, she knew she wouldn’t get anything like a decent reference from Mrs Steinberg.

  ‘Or, of course…’ he licked his bottom lip. ‘Of course, you could decide to go off and get married to some lucky Joe.’

  ‘Didn’t we ought to dance?’ she said, standing up so she wouldn’t have to look at his shining eyes. ‘It’s getting on. The band only plays until four.’

  ‘What about your tea?’

  But she was already heading for the open patio doors.

  . . . .

  As they walked to the floor, Arthur let his hand rest on Kitty’s hip. In between the mopping of brows, the band was playing a drowsy ‘Continental’. Kitty noticed that the lead trumpeter’s shirt was wet through; you could see the outline of his vest. A few girl-couples limped through the dance, gazing over each other’s shoulders, but there were no men in sight, apart from an old gentleman still wearing his jacket, who was guiding his wife slowly around the floor, his eyes half shut.

  She let Arthur pull her quite close before they began to move to the music. His hand was warm and dry as it clasped her fingers. He’d left his jacket on the chair outside, and his chest was against hers; she could feel its rise and fall. She thought again of the movement of Mr Crane’s shoulders as he put on his shirt. The leap of his muscle.

  Forwards, backwards, turn. Arthur wasn’t a bad dancer at all. His waist was stiff, but his feet knew where to go. The trumpets let out a long blast in an attempt to get some life into the tune. No one here would dance on the tables, Kitty thought. She tried to concentrate on following Arthur and not think of how she’d danced in the kitchen with Mrs Steinberg, how she’d let her hips lead the way. Here she must sway, rather than swing. She mustn’t force him with any sudden movement. His breath was on her forehead. He smelled slightly of his shed: warm mud and fraying string.

  ‘That girl’s very fond of you, you know.’

  Kitty looked up.

  ‘She told me what happened the other night, with Mrs S. Damned liberty, if you ask me.’

  Kitty stopped moving, but Arthur swung her round.

  ‘You should be careful, though. It’s never good to let them get too close.’ He was looking over her head. ‘Better to stick with your own.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  He swung her round again. ‘I mean, they’re all right and that, but in the end they’ll always be them, and we’ll always be us.’

  The only reply Kitty could think of was, ‘Geenie’s just a girl.’

  Arthur ignored this. ‘Take Crane. He’s on at me to join the Bolshies, but I know it’s not for me, it’s for them. I listen to what he has to say, and I even agree with some of it, but I keep my distance.’

  The music stopped for a moment. He released her and wiped the back of his neck with his handkerchief.

  ‘It’s not as if I’m really close to – to any of them—’

  ‘Didn’t say you were. But the girl was gabbing about you making her some costume or other. Rang alarm bells, that’s all.’

  The music started again. He took her hand and smiled. ‘Just looking out for you, Kitty. Seeing you’re all right.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Told you I could dance,’ he said, dropping his hand lower on her back and pulling her in closer.

  ‘I think it’s good,’ said Kitty, keeping her fingers taut in his, ‘the way Mr Crane stands up for the working classes.’

  Arthur gave a loud laugh over her head. ‘He’s just playing at it. Underneath all that talk, the Daily Worker and all that claptrap, he’s like the rest. He’s one of them.’

  ‘At least he cares.’

  Arthur pushed his hip into her body and moved his mouth close to her ear. ‘Crane doesn’t know anything about the working classes, Kitty. Have you ever seen him do any actual work?’

  She tried to move her face away from his breath. ‘He did that room, didn’t he? Knocked it through?’

  ‘I did that, with a mate who’s a brickie. Crane just handed us some tools now and then.’

  ‘He’s writing a book.’

  ‘That’s not work, is it? Sitting at a desk making up stories.’

  Kitty didn’t reply. She didn’t me
ntion Arthur’s love of Westerns. Instead she closed her eyes and remembered the feel of Mr Crane’s fingers on her elbow, and was glad Arthur hadn’t touched her there.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to announce this will be the last dance of the afternoon. I thank you.’ The trumpeter made a salute and let out a loud blast, and the band began a new tune with more vim. Yelping girls suddenly squeezed through the patio doors and piled onto the dance floor. They began spinning each other around and laughing. Arthur kept his back straight and squeezed Kitty’s hand.

  But Kitty had decided to let her hips lead the way. Her thighs took the strain as she dipped, then straightened, taking Arthur with her. She hardened her jaw and looked to the right, then the left, aware of Arthur watching her with a slight frown, his feet stumbling in an attempt to keep up with hers. The floor itself seemed to be moving with the rhythm. Everything was much too hot and fast, but the only thing to do was keep dancing. It was the last number and you had to keep dancing. The girls bounced around them, giggling, overheated, swinging.

  Arthur hooked his knee between her legs and swiped it to the side, almost causing her to topple. ‘You’re leading,’ he hissed.

  Regaining her balance, Kitty continued to dance, gripping his fingers in hers and twirling him around. Their feet tangled but she carried on.

  ‘Kitty!’ As he tugged his hand free of hers, she span out of his path; Arthur lunged forward, arms flailing, and she watched him and thought, he’s going to fall, but she made no move to save him. He batted his arms in the air, as he’d done when trying to fend off that wasp in the garden, and somehow, through this frantic windmilling action, managed to stop himself going down.

  The music stopped and a great wave of chatter and applause broke over their heads. Immediately, waitresses appeared and began to move through the crowd, pushing their way out into the tea garden with trays.

  They stood apart in the bustle, staring at each other.

  ‘You were leading.’

  She put a hand to her hair. ‘Was I?’ she said, panting slightly from the heat and the exercise. ‘I didn’t realise.’

  He seemed to be waiting for some sort of explanation, but she couldn’t think of anything to offer him.

  ‘We’d better go,’ he said eventually, starting for the doors.

  Standing in the middle of the dance floor, she watched him leave. She was sure he would turn around when he reached the doors and call for her to follow; he’d extend an arm, his trimmed moustache would twitch, and he’d say, ‘You coming?’ She waited, her eyes fixed on his short back. But he stepped right through the doors without so much as a glance over his shoulder.

  The room had emptied around her. Kitty looked up at the stage. The band was packing up, but the trumpeter was still sitting back in his chair, his shirt soaked. Raising his hand to his brow, he saluted her.

  · · · Twenty-eight · · ·

  It was incredible how close the girl could be. As Ellen walked down the garden path in the Sunday afternoon sunshine, she was sure she could hear Geenie breathing. It was almost as if the girl were trying to stick herself to Ellen’s own skin. When they reached the stream, Ellen stopped abruptly, and Geenie crashed into her back, her face crushing against her mother’s spine. Blotto nosed Ellen’s ankles.

  ‘Is it possible,’ asked Ellen, ‘that you could walk beside me, like a normal human being?’

  Dog and daughter looked up with big eyes. She sighed. ‘Right. All off.’ She began unbuttoning Geenie’s blouse, but the girl pulled away.

  ‘I can do it.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Ellen was wearing a knitted sleeveless top with nothing beneath, so was naked to the waist with one peeling motion. She unbuttoned her linen slacks, stepped out of her knickers and kicked them aside. They landed under the willow tree.

  ‘Ready?’

  Geenie had undressed, and was standing with both hands clenched around her backside.

  ‘What are you doing that for?’

  ‘In case anyone sees my bottom.’

  Ellen laughed. ‘It’s the front you want to worry about,’ she said, looking her daughter up and down. Over the summer, Geenie had filled out a little: there was now a definite curve to her hip, a fullness to her nipples; even a few pubic hairs were beginning to show.

  Ellen stretched her arms above her head, swivelling her hips around and bending at the knees before balancing on the edge of the bank. It was what James had always done before bathing. After weeks of sunshine, the earth was powdery between her toes. She looked over her shoulder and held out a hand. ‘Come on, Flossy. Nothing matters when you’re naked.’

  Geenie stepped to her side, and together they launched themselves into the water.

  It only came up to Ellen’s thighs, but it was cold enough to make them both yelp, which set Blotto off. The dog ran back and forth along the bank, yapping hysterically, ears bobbing and throat jerking with effort.

  ‘Watch this!’ Geenie cried, and there was a great splash as she threw herself backwards into the water, her limbs splaying, her newly shorn head going under. She held herself there, her face warped and silvery beneath the surface, and Ellen watched her daughter, wondering how long she would hold her breath this time. Ellen counted thirty seconds, concentrating on the sticklebacks pulsing around the girl’s waist. Blotto’s yaps turned into howls. Sixty seconds. Geenie’s cheeks ballooned and her eyes were squeezed tight. A minute and a half. Longer than she’d ever done before. The dog’s howls reached a higher pitch, and, in the shade of the willows, Ellen felt the top half of her body begin to cool and prickle.

  ‘Geenie,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Come up now.’

  Two minutes.

  ‘Come up.’

  Two and a half minutes.

  ‘Come up.’ Ellen plunged her hands into the water and grasped her daughter by the shoulders. ‘For God’s sake—’ But Geenie twisted away, burst out of the water, sucked in a huge breath, and, using her hands as paddles, began to scoop the stream in her mother’s direction, almost knocking her down.

  It took Ellen a moment before she steadied herself and fought back. She ran the length of both arms across the surface of the stream, pushing water over her daughter’s head. The stream was a white fury of crashing foam as the two of them shrieked and splashed, and Blotto rushed around the base of the willow tree, barking.

  . . . .

  Ellen spread a towel on the lawn and they lay down to dry themselves in the sun. Next to Geenie, Blotto flopped on his side, panting hoarsely. Overhead, the sky throbbed blue. Ellen closed her eyes and let the sun warm her from head to toe. She’d always loved to sunbathe, and believed the sun’s energy penetrated her very core. She smiled to herself, remembering the heat in the back room of the hairdressers’. When Robin unhooked her bra he’d made a sort of dive straight for her nipples, which had been tiresome, but she’d soon guided him back to her face and slowed him down. Then he’d carried her to the divan, which was something she hadn’t expected. No one had carried her anywhere since she was a child.

  ‘When are George and Diana coming back?’ Geenie had buttoned up her blouse and pulled on her skirt, and was kneeling on the towel, looking down at her mother.

  ‘Soon.’ Crane hadn’t said anything specific about his return when he and Diana left yesterday morning. He’d just mumbled something about being away ‘a few days’, and, at the time, Ellen hadn’t the will to tackle him about it. He’d hardly taken a thing with him, though, so he’d have to come back, if only to pick up some clean underclothes.

  ‘How soon?’

  Ellen shielded her eyes from the sun and peered at her daughter. ‘What would you say,’ she asked, ‘if I told you that it might be just you and me, for a while?’

  ‘Aren’t they coming back?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  Geenie tucked her chin into her chest and looked towards the house.

  ‘But if they didn’t come back for a while, it wo
uld be all right, wouldn’t it?’ Ellen continued. ‘We’d get on all right, wouldn’t we? The two of us.’ She sat up and put a hand on her daughter’s arm.

  ‘Why did we come here?’

  ‘You know why, darling.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  Ellen’s head began to feel tight with heat. She drew the towel around her shoulders so she wouldn’t have to answer her daughter’s question while fully naked. Then she looked at her hands and tried to think how she should begin.

  Geenie sat very still. Blotto had begun to snore.

  ‘When Jimmy died,’ Ellen said, ‘when he died, I didn’t know what to do. I know it’s hard to understand, but I needed to get away…’

  ‘Will we go back?’

  ‘To London?’

  Geenie nodded.

  Ellen pulled the towel tighter. ‘I don’t know, darling, maybe—’

  ‘Because I don’t want to go back. I want us all to stay here.’

  Ellen caught Geenie’s chin and twisted her daughter’s face towards her own. ‘So I did the right thing, didn’t I?’

  There was no response.

  ‘Geenie? Don’t you think I did the right thing?’

  There was a pause, during which the dog’s snores grew louder.

  Geenie closed her eyes and replied in a flat tone, ‘Yes, Mama.’

  Ellen’s head was aching now; she could feel her pulse behind her eyes. She’d have to go and sit inside, in the dark. The sun’s energy was too much for her today. A gin and it would help. She removed the towel and reached for her clothes.

  ‘How did he die?’ Geenie’s voice was quieter, but she still spoke in the same flat tone.

  Ellen dropped her clothes on the grass. The dog woke with a piercing yap and tore down the garden towards some unknown crisis.

  ‘How did who die, darling?’

  ‘Jimmy.’

  Ellen took a breath. Blotto was rushing around the willow tree again, barking with abandon.

  ‘You know how he died, darling. I told you. He died during the operation on his ankle.’