Food Fight

by Anne Penketh

  “Grim, of course. It didn’t stop raining. And it was pretty hard-core. I’d forgotten how religious they are in Brittany.”

  “And how’s Mimosa?”

  “You know what Mimi’s like. She went AWOL before the funeral. She took the phone off the hook for two days. And you should have seen her outfit. She described it as distressed. Why does she need so much attention?”

  “What a girl,” he said. “How old is she now?”

  “Twenty.” Frank couldn’t conceal his surprise.

  “I know. A bit old for that kind of statement. You can imagine how it went down in Dingy. They’re very conventional over there.” Serge’s home village was called Dingé but Susan’s family and friends called it Dingy.

  “I know what you mean.”

  Did he? As far as she knew, all Frank knew of France was their frustrating resistance to all things DeKripps. At the moment he was battling with the company’s tiny Paris office which had given up trying to push a new flavoured yoghurt into French supermarkets.

  “Too much sugar for the French palate,” he’d complained. “Surrender monkeys, of course. Back in the States, we could sue them for insubordination. Raising the white flag before we get a chance to tailor the recipe.”

  Thanks to her contacts in the French dairy industry, not to mention unhelpful comments from Serge about the invasion of ‘American junk food’, she knew there was little hope of changing their minds.

  She’d worked for Frank in DeKripps’ marketing department for years. They’d watched company profits soar the more added sugars went into their products. Her work with focus groups bore it out. In the ‘90s, the added sugars compensated for low fat, providing necessary bulk and taste, and now they were king. DeKripps just rode with the market, as did the rest of the industry. “Who are we to argue with our customers?” Frank would say. “If they didn’t like it, they wouldn’t buy it.”

  He wasn’t known for holding his tongue, but that morning, she was grateful he kept his counsel about the French. Her colleagues offered condolences but Susan could see they didn’t know how to deal with her new status as widow. Was it embarrassment? Most of them seemed to think it best not to mention her loss, which suited her. It was so intensely private, and yet so public at the same time.

  She kept forgetting what she was supposed to be doing at work, and covering up was stressful too. “I’m sorry, I’ve lost the plot,” she finally confessed to Martin. He made an expression of shared suffering she’d seen him use when their secretary’s cat passed away. “Don’t worry. It’s not a problem.”

  “It must be the lack of sleep.”

  She didn’t mention she could barely wake up in the mornings after crying herself to sleep.

  “You coming down the pub for a quick one?” Martin, who concealed his ambition under unthreatening cordiality, would always include her. A month ago, she would have joined her team willingly for a drink on the way home. But now, she looked up from her desk with a regretful smile.

  “That’s really sweet of you. But I can’t tonight,” she would say, gesturing to her computer. Then she’d kick herself for saying no. After all, she had nowhere else to go. She’d stopped accepting invitations altogether, particularly from couples.

  But she wanted desperately to talk about Serge, so she sought solace with Lily. At least she could raise a laugh with her imitations of his mangled English, which Lily called ‘Serge-speak’. And she took it in her stride when Susan burst into unprompted tears.

  *

  One morning, she was sitting at her computer holding her face in her hands, forcing herself to concentrate on a graph, when Frank walked in. He threw the wrapper from a bar of DeKripps chocolate into her waste paper, looking surprised at his own dexterity and licking the chocolate from his fingers.

  “Good timing,” she said. “Take a look at this spike.”

  Frank stood behind her, puffing out his cheeks, studying her screen as she turned her chair round to face him.

  “It certainly confirms our hunch,” Frank said. “Given what we know about HFCS in the US. This could be great news for DeKripps here.”

  The graph showed results from a focus group on Delight, DeKripps’s vanilla ice cream sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup.

  HFCS was the miracle ingredient, cheaper and sweeter than sugar, and revolutionising the industry. As far as they knew, there was only one similar ice cream product on the market.

  The group had been given a month’s supply of Delight and another DeKripps ice cream containing sucrose. There was no room for doubt in the results.

  ‘Irresistible’ was scribbled over Delight’s report cards. Given a list of words to choose from, the final study group had picked ‘more, please’.

  “I’ll pass it to advertising,” Susan said. “Look, this is interesting too.”

  She pointed again to the questions on her screen.

  How important is it for you to know the ingredients of your ice cream? Very important.

  Do you read the ingredients? No.

  “That’s lucky.”

  “Let’s not get carried away,” she said. “This could be group-think. They’re unanimous, so could they have fallen behind a leader? I’ve seen people trying to outdo each other before. It’s like they think the most fanatical will get a bonus payment.”

  “You’re the focus guru,” Frank said. “Who was the DeKripps rep in there?”

  She skimmed through the report on her screen.

  “Someone Martin sent along. I’ll have a word with them. I’ll also contact the researcher.”

  Frank stopped at the door. “You know, our people in the US are beginning to take the defensive about added sugars.”

  “I’m not surprised. Plenty of journals suggest a link to obesity. Mimi seems to think I’m to blame for diabetes.”

  Frank rolled his eyes and made off. She sat back. The industry research showed that while diabetes and obesity were on the rise, sugar consumption had actually gone down in the UK in recent years. So she was safe on that score. Correlation isn’t cause, Frank would say. There’s no proof of a connection between illness and added sugar.

  Her mind wandered again. She picked up a biro and stuck the pointed end into the palm of her hand, which did the trick. For some reason, the letter of condolence she’d received from Ellen, the company Brand Manager in Washington, came into her mind. Maybe Ellen was right, maybe she did need a change of scene.

  She got up to stretch and looked out onto the street below, office workers in their shirt sleeves heading for sandwich stores.

  Her grumbling stomach told her it was time to do the same. But instead of going downstairs, she found herself following Frank along the corridor.

  The words came tumbling out. Would he support her if she asked for a temporary transfer to Washington? He blinked warily at her. Why would anyone want to leave behind their family, friends and routine so soon after their husband had died?

  He opened the top drawer of his desk, took out a large checked-cotton hanky, and swivelled away from her to blow his nose. He turned round and mopped his brow, then returned the hanky to his drawer. Placing his hands together as though in prayer, he spoke gently, like a hospital consultant to a patient, and asked her to take time and reconsider. He obviously felt she was acting irrationally and must be half-crazed with grief.

  But she knew already that her mind was made up. It just feels like the right thing to do, she told him, before walking out in search of a salmon sandwich.

  *

  What Frank wants, Frank gets. Susan had sometimes felt her boss was coasting in London, but the speed with which he arranged her transfer was impressive.

  First, he lined up a job for her in the marketing department, reporting in Washington to Barney McManus, described by Frank as ‘next to God’ in the DeKripps company structure. Then he hired an immigration lawyer who secured a visa for her in a matter of weeks, despite it being subject to a quota system. By the end of August, she had rented her ho
use through an estate agent, sold her car and was ready to go.

  All that remained were goodbyes.

  She took Mimi for a last supper at her favourite vegan place on the South Bank. She couldn’t tell her how long she’d be in Washington because she didn’t know.

  “I hope you’ll visit,” she said. “Obama’s Washington. It should be interesting. Exciting. The hopey-changey thing, you know.”

  Her voice trailed off as Mimi shrugged. Susan wasn’t expecting promises, she knew her better than that.

  “So maybe not this year, unless you want to come for Christmas. But think about coming for the cherry blossom in March?”

  “Christmas?” Mimi usually found an excuse to avoid the call of ceremony. “I’ll let you know. And you’ve got to settle in first.”

  Susan looked at her. The nose stud was back in place, but she could tell from the way she flicked her head slightly too defiantly that the self-confidence was a veneer. “Look, you would tell me wouldn’t you, if you need me to stay?”

  The vulnerability was gone again. Her daughter met her gaze. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure? You only took a couple of days off work after …” She stopped to take a breath and Mimi interrupted.

  “Mum, I just told you. I’m fine.”

  She spared her a lecture about how everyone at her little NGO was indispensable, compared to the cogs in the giant DeKripps machine.

  Susan tried one last time. “Are you really sure you don’t mind me going?”

  But she knew the answer. Mimi had her own life, her own job and she’d be fine. She wanted to hug her tight, so tight, before leaving the restaurant, but she knew how Mimi would react. In the end, she was allowed to deposit a discreet peck on the cheek after paying the bill.

  Susan’s mother didn’t throw up any obstacles either. Had she wanted her to? Living so far from home would be such a big change, and the consequences of her decision were only beginning to sink in. Her mother also refused to commit herself to a visit. “I’m very pleased for you, darling. I’m sure it’ll do you the world of good to be in New York,” she told her on the phone.

  She hardly paused for breath when Susan reminded her the destination was Washington. “Anyway. Do try to come down to Lymington whenever you can.”

  Her mother had chosen the Dorset coast to recover from divorce with her third husband, a golf professional called John.

  Susan had never understood her mother’s taste in men. Although she could hardly remember her father who’d died when she was a toddler, her mother’s relationships had always ended in disaster. Still, after each divorce she hit the jackpot. Over the years, she had collected property across the south of England as though skipping along a Monopoly board.

  This time, Susan reflected, the housing crash had dismantled her mother’s dreams of a sea view near the Royal Lymington yacht club. She’d had to settle for a house up the hill but conveniently close to the shops.

  Frank invited her for dinner on her last day in the office.

  “Come as you are. We’ll have a kitchen supper while the kids finish their homework.”

  She looked forward to the chance to quiz him about the way things worked in Washington. She also wanted to know their strategy for dealing with growing media criticism of the food giants. She’d been aware of the company bosses starting to hit back, as she put the finishing touches to a DeKripps Buried Treasure ad before she left.

  “You’ll see, Barney spends half his life on the Hill lobbying for a bit of slack from our elected representatives,” said Frank, his frame swaying as they headed for Waterloo to catch their train. “He’ll be relying on you to keep things on track in the office. The big picture stuff.”

  Home for Frank and June was a thatched cottage only a short walk from the high street of Cobham, the picture-perfect Surrey village. The front door was framed by a rambling red rose, its outstretched branches always reminding Susan of the arms of a flamenco dancer, but that night she didn’t linger, and followed Frank inside.

  “What’s cooking, honey?” he called into the low-ceilinged living room. It amused her that oversized Frank had picked such a twee little place for his wife and two children, who were nowhere to be seen. Muffled sounds could be heard from the floor above. June emerged from the kitchen in an apron and gave her a kiss.

  “Hey, Susie. Good to see you.”

  “You too, June. You look great. Smells good.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing special,” June smiled. “How are you, anyway after everything that’s happened?”

  “Oh, you know, okay under the circumstances,” Susan said, trying not to let her voice give her away. “Can I give you a hand?”

  Susan knew that June, who’d never been known to taste the processed food available from her husband’s company, would have spent considerable time rustling up the supper. Frank wolfed his in a matter of minutes, and had seconds. He reached for a toothpick and cupped his hands over his mouth, probing his molars with a frown. Susan and June lingered over their vichyssoise, monkfish à l’armoricaine and cheesecake. The children were upstairs with cheese on toast.

  June made herself scarce after dinner, ‘filling the dishwasher’, and Frank led Susan to the living room for a glass of claret.

  “So you’re sure you’re ready for this?” He stretched out his legs and lit a cigar, his face slightly flushed.

  “Actually, I’m looking forward to it. You know, new challenges, things like that.”

  “Great, Susie. It’s just what we need right now.” He relit his cigar. “You know better than I that things are going to get difficult from here on.”

  She nodded. They both knew that on each side of the Atlantic, the number of exposés and probes into the food giants and the so-called health dangers of HFCS were on the rise. She didn’t mention her daughter and her NGO. Frank leaned back in his armchair and dispatched a pungent cloud of smoke in her direction.

  “You know this could be our 9/11,” he said. “Of course we’ve done nothing wrong, we give the consumer what they want. But it could be our turn for a walloping. It’s happening to the banks, telecoms have gone through it, newspapers have gone to the dogs. Look at Big Tobacco. Every industry has its turn and it may be ours next.”

  “Well in some cases, like the banks, it’s completely justified,” she said. “It surprised me that no-one went to jail over the toxic loans.”

  Frank lowered his voice a little. “The reason nobody’s gone to jail is that they didn’t break the law,” he said.

  “They were passing a parcel and the music stopped on someone else’s turn.”

  “You mean it’s only wrong if you get caught?”

  “I mean everyone was doing it. You have to look at the context. There was a bubble and everybody benefitted. Nobody expected it to pop when it did.”

  He leaned back again as another cloud of smoke swirled around him. “Anyway, I just wanted to say, we’ve got your back.”

  “Do you mean watch my back?” she said.

  “No. That’s what we say in America when we mean we’ll watch out for you.” His white teeth glinted in the lamplight.

  *

  It was one of her last evenings in London. Lily had come to Hackney for a few days to help her clear up and they were tucking into a microwaved lasagne at the kitchen table. The French windows were thrown open onto the warm evening air, but Susan sighed at the view and pushed her plate away.

  “Susie, you OK? I’ve got whatever you need in my bag, courtesy of Doctor Handsome-but-Married.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve tried to avoid taking anything, even sleeping pills, actually.” She added sharply, “What have you got there, anyway? Uppers or downers?”

  “Both. Need to keep things under control. There’s nothing worse than a tremolo when it’s not in the score.”

  Lily had given up a promising career as a soloist because of stage fright, which paralysed her at unpredictable moments. Now she eked out a modest living performing with a woo
dwind ensemble and giving private flute lessons.

  “You should be careful,” Susan said, but Lily pretended she hadn’t heard.

  “Want to play Name that Tune?” Lily stretched a blue-veined alabaster hand across the table. They had their own version of the old TV show where one guessed the song being drummed silently on the other’s arm. Amazingly, nine times out of ten, they would both recognise the mystery tune together, high-fiving their rhythmic brilliance.

  Susan shook her head. “I was just thinking this is the second time I’ve lost someone. You know my father died after their divorce. Not to mention the break-ups, and the bastard who left me two months before Mimi was born. It’s so bloody unfair.”

  “Yes, it is. But you know Rod was never really going to leave his wife. He wouldn’t have been a good father for Mimi. Not like Serge.” Lily let her fingers run along the table as though tapping on her flute. “Besides, you were probably too young to get married.”

  Susan had become pregnant in her final term at university and suffered morning sickness during exams. She knew with hindsight she’d been lucky not to get pregnant the previous year, when she’d just met Rod and was completely in love.

  “I was wrong to try to trap him with a baby. I just thought he’d come round in the end. How wrong I was. Maybe I’m just a bad judge of people.”

  “No you’re not. Look at Serge. And talking of inappropriate men, what about my track record?”

  “Inappropriate maybe, but they were all dishy.”

  “Yours always had the best chat-up lines,” said Lily. “I want damage!” she said, imitating Serge’s accent. “Brilliant!”

  They smiled at each other. Their differences were probably exactly what had glued them together for more than twenty years. They’d never been in competition, professionally or romantically, since the day they met at Sussex and became flatmates.

  Lily tucked her empty plate beneath hers. It had always amazed Susan how she could eat as much as she liked without gaining an ounce.

  “Right,” Lily said, looking at her watch. “I’m going to bed. You okay?”

  “Sure. I’ve got to finish packing before having a bath.”