The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club

by Chrissie Manby

  ‘Well, yes. That seems like a good idea.’

  ‘Only … I was going to tell you about this later. For my actual birthday Dad and Brittney have said they’re going to take me to London. Brittney’s a finalist in a big blog awards ceremony. It’s all the health, fashion and beauty blogs. Deliciously Ella is going to be there. Brittney’s known her since they were both starting out. And Alexa Chung is going to present one of the awards.’

  ‘Is she the one with the legs like toothpicks?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Mum, you think anyone who is a normal weight has legs like toothpicks. Just because everyone in Newbay is enormous doesn’t mean it’s right.’

  ‘So, the one with legs like toothpicks is going to be handing out awards to the ones with brains like candyfloss.’

  ‘What are you even on about?’ Saskia asked.

  ‘You’re telling me you want to go to London on your birthday weekend. Which, incidentally, according to the diary, is one of your weekends with me.’

  ‘Yes, but you and Dad always said that your splitting up was not going to ruin my life. You said that my needs and wishes would be first and foremost whenever you were making arrangements for where I had to be at weekends.’

  Liz couldn’t argue with that. It was indeed exactly what they’d said.

  ‘And I might meet some people at the blog awards who could help me with my career, Mum. You know I want to go into fashion or health food PR.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. What happened to reading biochemistry at Warwick?’

  ‘That was what you and Dad wanted me to do.’

  ‘It was just a suggestion. And Dad’s OK with you becoming a blogger now, is he?’

  ‘He understands that the future is all about being online. He gets it.’

  ‘Of course he does. He’s been getting it ever since he dropped round to Brittney’s with that bleaching kit.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Look, it’s your birthday,’ said Liz. ‘Of course you get to choose what you want to do on the day.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that. And Mum …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, the thing is, I’m going to Dad and Brittney’s this weekend as well. Windscale Clothing were really pleased with our photo shoot and they want us to do another. We’re going to have a make-up artist and everything this time. You didn’t have anything planned this weekend, did you?’

  Liz had thought she might try to mend some mother–daughter bridges by taking Saskia on a little shopping spree, but shoving thirty quid in her hand and telling her to ‘go crazy’ in Matalan at Newbay’s out-of-town outlet shopping centre was hardly going to compete with a make-up artist and free clothes from a label whose cheapest item was a Breton-striped T-shirt costing forty-five pounds (Liz had looked).

  ‘No. Ted and I are just going to be doing the usual. Walking, snoozing, going to Waggy Weigh-In.’

  ‘Going to what?’

  ‘Waggy Weigh-In. At the vet’s. I told you last week.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘The vet says Ted is a little overweight. He’s on a diet.’

  ‘So you let him eat the whole fish pie?’

  ‘I didn’t exactly let him. And it wasn’t the whole pie.’

  ‘Oh my God, Mum. You’ve let our dog get so fat he has to go to Weight Watchers.’

  ‘It’s Waggy Weight Loss.’

  ‘Whatever. It’s still totally embarrassing.’

  ‘You could have taken him for walks more often.’

  ‘When? I’ve got to do my schoolwork.’

  With that, Saskia excused herself and went upstairs to check her Instagram feed.

  Chapter Twenty

  On Friday, Alex caught a train to Exeter for a very important meeting. He went armed with his dream file, though he didn’t have an opportunity to show exactly what was inside it. The meeting went well, though, and Marianne, who had set the meeting up, told him she was pleased with how he had come across. She thought that getting the funding he needed would be a formality.

  Afterwards, Marianne and Alex went for a coffee and he told her how the cookery course had been going. Marianne had known Alex for a long time and when he spoke about his pupils, she could tell at once that one of them in particular had sparked Alex’s interest.

  ‘She’s great. She’s so funny and yet self-deprecating. She’s always joking and ready to laugh at herself, though she really doesn’t need to. When she looks at me, I feel as though she’s known me for years.’

  ‘That sounds good. Any potential?’

  Alex shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t think so. There are too many obstacles. You know what’s gone on with me the past few years.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know exactly what her relationship status is but I’m sure there must be someone in her life. She’s achieved so much. She’s not living in a bedsit, that’s for sure. She’s a proper grown-up and that makes me feel like a kid.’

  ‘Yet you’re the one who’s teaching her, remember?’

  ‘Yeah but that’s different. And I don’t think it will be long before I’ve taught her everything I know.’

  ‘Don’t do yourself down.’

  ‘I just want to get to know her better, to know what she’s thinking when she gets that smile on her face. To know what her life is like away from the classroom.’

  ‘Only another four weeks and you could ask her to tell you all about it over a drink.’

  ‘How could I do that? With everything that’s gone on …’

  ‘It shouldn’t matter,’ Marianne reminded him. ‘That’s all in the past. You’re a different man now, Alex. Don’t forget that.’

  Alex nodded. It was easy to say.

  ‘You’re a great catch.’

  ‘You say that to all the boys,’ Alex joked.

  Marianne chuckled. ‘In the meantime, we need to follow up on today. The charity trustees are very keen, I can tell. What you’re proposing is very exciting. I’m sure they’re going to go for it. I think you should start looking for a venue.’

  Alex agreed.

  On the train back to Newbay, he thought about everything Marianne had said. Not just that day but over the three years he had known her. Though they’d met in an unfortunate context – from Alex’s point of view at least – he had come to think of the older woman as a friend. Alex had come to realise that many of the people who chose Marianne’s line of work did so to make themselves feel better, but Alex never felt as though Marianne was talking down to him. She was never patronising. She saw him as an individual who wasn’t defined by his record. She was endlessly helpful and supportive. That Marianne thought Alex could be a restaurateur was a huge boost to his confidence. He wanted to make her feel proud.

  ‘You’ve got a glittering future ahead of you,’ she’d once said.

  He wished he could feel as confident about his chances of finding someone to share that glittering time.

  The train pulled into Newbay. Alex alighted with the commuter crowd and followed them out of the station. How many of them would be going home to ready meals, Alex wondered, as they headed off in their separate directions, heads down against the wind whipping in from the sea.

  It was almost dark. The buildings around the station were mostly empty. No wonder people didn’t hang around. But Alex’s eye was drawn by one abandoned storefront in the arches beneath the tracks. He’d walked past many times but never really looked at it properly before.

  ‘Hey! Alex!’ someone shouted.

  It was Jimmy. Jimmy who was always hanging out around the hostel.

  ‘All right, Jimmy?’

  ‘Haven’t got a spare cigarette, have you, mate?’

  ‘You know I’ve given up.’

  ‘Spare tenner?’

  Alex snorted.

  ‘Fiver?’

  Alex shook his head.

  ‘Always worth asking,’ said Jimmy. ‘I guess I won’t be getting a room in the hostel tonight then.’

  ‘Sorry,
mate.’

  ‘Ah. You’re all right. I know you’re one of the good guys.’

  ‘Are you going to be OK? It’s cold tonight.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m going to break in to one of the old shops and have a smoke.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t have any fags?’

  Jimmy waggled a joint in Alex’s direction.

  Alex exhaled at the sight.

  ‘Want some?’

  Alex shook his head firmly.

  ‘See you later then,’ said Jimmy, heading for the abandoned café.

  Alex watched him go. He watched him get the rotten door to the café open with a fairly feeble kick.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Alex. ‘I’m coming in there with you.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  So, Liz’s plans for Saskia’s birthday had been blown wide open by the revelation that she was going to the blog awards in London instead. What Saskia didn’t know was that Liz had taken a risk and booked the spa weekend before telling Saskia what she was planning. And because Liz had gone for the most bargainous of bargain rates, there was no way she could change the dates of her stay or get her money back. It was Sod’s flipping Law in action. Again.

  Maybe Liz should have insisted that Saskia spend her birthday weekend with her mother. It really wasn’t unreasonable. Ian would almost certainly have done the same had he already made a booking for anything more than dinner at Nandos. However, Liz had the feeling that insisting the birthday weekend went according to her plan would have driven a wedge the size of a bus between her and her daughter right then. Likewise, she felt she couldn’t put her foot down about the photo shoot.

  Saskia was so excited about it. She went straight up to her room as soon as she’d informed Liz about her plans for the weekend. She claimed she needed to get some rest but Liz was sure that Saskia would be up into the wee small hours on her phone or her laptop, telling everyone and anyone what she’d be doing at the weekend. Liz knew how embarrassing it would be for her to have to say the shoot wasn’t happening after all. Liz didn’t want to do that to her. She liked to see Saskia happy even if it was Brittney who was providing the inspiration.

  At ten, Liz retired to her own room. She was trying not to use her laptop in bed – she’d read all about the dangers of blue light and its effects on sleep – but she was too agitated to concentrate on the book she had been reading for the past six months. A quick look at Facebook couldn’t really do so much harm, could it?

  If only it were just Facebook that Liz ended up looking at.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she muttered to herself as she pressed the letter B and saw the blog address on the auto-fill.

  Brittney had published another post. This one was on ‘relating to teenagers’.

  ‘Dearest Readers! I hope you’ve had a happy day full of the universe’s greatest blessings. What a week of lessons I’ve been having. I knew that when my Darling BF came into my life, it would mean I had to make a lot of changes. I had no idea just how many. Not least because Darling BF didn’t come into my life alone. He brought with him his Darling Daughter. I’m going to call her the Darling SD from now on.’

  SD? S for what? Liz wondered. Step-daughter?

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself,’ she growled at the screen. The divorce was nowhere near done.

  ‘My Darling BF has custody of his daughter every other weekend. When we were first together I worried that I would lose him for those weekends. I panicked that my Darling SD would be hostile towards me and making any kind of relationship would be hard. I didn’t know how to relate to a teenager though it was only six years since I’d been one myself.’

  Yeah, rub it in why don’t you, Liz thought.

  ‘Luckily, I found some great resources online for anyone thinking of getting into a blended family situation.’

  AKA ‘thinking of stealing another woman’s husband’.

  ‘I read around the subject as much as I could. I knew that what sours most daughter–step-parent relationships is trying too hard to replace the parent the step-daughter already has at home. Fortunately, I could not be more different from Darling SD’s actual mother. We’re almost two decades apart in age for a start. That’s basically a generation’s worth of difference. What that means is that I have a better understanding of the realities of millennial life, so that I know how to talk to Darling SD without sounding like I’m from another planet.’

  Liz could only snort at that. Brittney seemed to be on another planet most of the time as far as Liz could tell. Planet Quinoa.

  ‘At the end of the day, we have to remember that the wheel of life keeps turning and that just as we were once young and beautiful, our children will one day take that mantle from us. We need to teach them well so that they can make the world a better place. I feel blessed to have this young person in my life. I hope she feels blessed to know me too.’

  Liz flicked the Vs at the screen.

  Brittney was no longer even pretending that she wasn’t trying to steal all of Liz’s life. Liz had no doubt that she was even at that moment preparing a post about vegan dog food and how she was going to save Ted from Type Two Doggy Diabetes. So long as she didn’t have to do it in her cream-carpeted flat.

  Unable to post her indignation because for some reason – perhaps because she had a tiny bit of shame – Brittney had disabled the comments function on her blog, Liz cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Saturday morning came around again along with Ted’s second Waggy Weigh-In. Liz felt terrible when she refused the dog his usual breakfast but, like a trainer preparing her boxer for a big fight, Liz was prepared to do whatever it took to make sure that Ted fell under his target weight. Or at least had lost something. She even briefly considered trimming his magnificent whiskers. She’d heard that some athletes shaved off all their body hair ahead of an important weigh-in but there was no real chance Ted would stay still to have his hair cut. Going without breakfast was as far as Liz could push him.

  ‘I’ll give you a really big bowl of kibble when we get back home,’ she promised. It didn’t sound like much of a deal.

  Once again, Liz was too late to get a space in the surgery car park and this time she had to park five streets away. She might as well have walked all the way from home. She was the last to arrive. Coco was already there. Liz knew that because her pushchair was positioned right outside the surgery door to ensure her delicate paws didn’t have to touch the dirty ground.

  This time, Mrs Coco had saved Liz a seat.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Liz as she gratefully sat down.

  ‘How do you think you’re going to do this week?’ Mrs Coco asked. ‘I think Coco is going to hit her target but I can’t tell you what a trial it’s been to keep her on the diet. We’ve had some real battles. There have been tears, I can tell you. I just keep reminding her that when she gets through this she is going to be so beautiful. The chrysalis is a stage every butterfly must endure, I told her.’

  That sounded like something Brittney thought the Dalai Lama would say, Liz observed.

  ‘Most of this excess weight is just puppy fat.’ Mrs Coco gave one of Coco’s spare tyres an affectionate squeeze. ‘It’s all part of being a teen.’

  ‘I know about teens,’ said Liz.

  ‘Isn’t it the worst?’

  ‘But it only lasts a few years. From the ages of nine until they have kids of their own, as I understand it.’

  ‘Oh, you are funny, Mrs Ted,’ Mrs Coco chuckled.

  ‘Call me, Liz, please.’

  Mrs Coco didn’t offer her own name.

  ‘How old is Coco?’ Liz enquired.

  ‘Four years this November.’

  Four years? By Liz’s reckoning, that made Coco twenty-eight in dog terms. Long past her puppy days. But Mrs Coco was so earnest. She cared so much.

  ‘Teenagers can be difficult,’ Liz agreed. That much she could say with authority.

  Nurse Van Niekerk arrived with her clipboard.

  ‘Good mor
ning, ladies and gentlemen. And owners,’ she said, nicking Dr Thomas’s joke. ‘Dr Thomas is running a little bit late this morning. We’ve got some very poorly patients in the recovery room today. So he has asked me to lead you all in a little light exercise before our weigh-in.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Exercise!’

  There was much moaning. From the owners.

  ‘Come along,’ said Nurse Van Niekerk. ‘There’s no need to complain. Let’s get out there. It’s a beautiful day.’

  With that Nurse Van Niekerk led the Waggy Weight Losers out into the car park and from there to the playing field behind the surgery building. Liz knew the playing field well. When Ted was a puppy, she had brought him there for training and socialisation sessions. What a laugh that had been. Liz had paid two hundred pounds for those classes and Ted still didn’t walk to heel. Which was obvious as he dragged her in the direction of the grass in pursuit of some interesting smell.

  ‘Talk to your dog, Mrs Ted,’ shouted Nurse Van Niekerk. ‘That’s the way to keep him at heel. Keep his attention at all times.’

  ‘Stop embarrassing me,’ Liz hissed at her pooch. Ted dragged her another fifteen metres.

  Meanwhile, Mrs Coco was struggling. Coco would not step off the tarmac. She absolutely refused. It didn’t matter how much Mrs Coco pulled on her dog’s special harness.

  ‘Come along, Mrs Coco,’ Nurse Van Niekerk yelled over to her. ‘Show Coco who’s boss.’

  Coco already knew who was boss and it wasn’t her lovely mummy.

  ‘I think she has a fear of grass,’ Mrs Coco explained. ‘Ever since she was stung on the paw as a puppy. She stepped on a bee. She won’t walk on something if she can’t be sure it doesn’t contain biting insects.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Nurse Van Niekerk. ‘You’re indulging her, Mrs Coco. You’ve made her soft. Come on. We’re walking the perimeter of the field three times.’

  That made Mrs Coco look upset. Liz, who’d managed one circuit, dragged along like a water-skier in Ted’s wake, drew level with her again.

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ she said. ‘Perhaps if Coco sees Ted having fun …’