‘Yes, but cooking’s fun. And there’s nothing better than watching someone enjoying something you’ve made for them.’
‘You’re right. I can’t say all the people I work for are grateful,’ Bella said.
‘Then why do you do it?’
‘It makes me happy to help someone out of a jam.’
‘And you do legal aid stuff?’
‘Yeah. It doesn’t pay much but it’s interesting and I know it’s important. Everyone should be able to afford a lawyer.’
‘It must be like seeing an angel turn up. I don’t remember any of the duty solicitors I saw being quite so lovely.’
Bella cast a sidelong glance at him but before Alex could explain his comment, her mobile rang.
Bella had a hands-free set for her phone of course.
‘I’ve got to take this,’ she said.
It was the DSCC. Bella got more calls from them than anyone. Even her mother.
‘He’s asked for you specifically,’ said the operator.
‘I bet he did,’ said Bella. ‘Look, I’ll be there in half an hour. I’ve got to do something first.’
But Alex would not hear of Bella taking him all the way back home now. Not when she had important work to do.
‘But where can I leave you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve taken you miles out of the way because of the one-way system.’
‘Drop me there. That’s my bus stop.’
‘I feel so embarrassed. This seems to happen every Thursday night.’
‘Your client needs a solicitor more than I need a lift home. Drop me here and go to the rescue, Angel Bella.’
Bella duly dropped Alex off at the bus stop, where he would stand, surrounded by his bags full of cooking equipment, for nearly forty-five minutes before a bus came. But though it was cold and damp, Alex didn’t care. He was really happy. The class had gone exceptionally well that night. His little team was beginning to gel quite nicely. And Bella had offered him a lift home. She might not have been able to give him a lift home in the end but it was the thought that counted. In fact, it was probably for the best. He’d almost said too much. At least she hadn’t got as far as seeing where Alex lived. Now that he thought about it, that could have left him with some explaining to do.
Bella could feel her shoulders tightening with annoyance as she drove away from the bus stop, leaving Alex and his box of kitchen equipment. Was there ever going to be an evening when her phone didn’t ring with some new emergency that she simply had to attend? How had she ended up being on twenty-four hour duty for these people who seemed utterly unable to stay on the right side of the law for more than a week at a time?
Jimmy Cricket certainly seemed to think he could have Bella at his beck and call as though he was a Russian oligarch and she was the family lawyer. No matter that she might want to have a life of her own.
But then she remembered what Jimmy had said about her father and how he thought she was a chip off the old block precisely because she treated him with every bit as much respect as she would have treated someone who could afford to pay for her services. In many ways her job was really a vocation. She wasn’t in it for the money. If she’d wanted money, she’d have joined a big commercial law firm in London, not a scuzzy partnership with an office above Argos in Newbay. She certainly wouldn’t have put herself on the CDS rota. She was in it to help.
And yet … There had been days lately when she was really tired. When she wondered if there was some other way she could be of service to the people who came into her life. There was no doubt she was being taken advantage of by her boss and her colleagues, who were always coming up with excuses as to why they couldn’t do the worst of the shifts. They had families. Bella didn’t have time to get started on one. She didn’t even have time for a date! The only men she ever met were colleagues or criminals. Until Alex.
‘Evening, Miss B,’ said Jimmy, when she walked into the interview room. ‘I’m sorry to have to drag you here because of this misunderstanding.’
‘What has Sergeant Mellor misunderstood this time?’ Bella asked.
‘I was only urinating into the dustbin because someone had thrown a lighted cigarette in there and I thought the whole thing would catch fire.’
‘There are public toilets,’ Bella reminded him.
‘Shut for the winter,’ Jimmy reminded her.
‘Of course. Is it that time already?’
Jimmy nodded.
Bella shook her head. A local group had campaigned for the public loos on the promenade to remain open outside the main tourist season but the council claimed it was beyond their budget. It also prevented people like Jimmy sneaking into the loos with the intention of staying there overnight to keep out of the cold. It was inhuman, really.
‘So, the charge is …’ Bella looked at the sheet and sighed.
‘Want a cup of tea?’ Sergeant Mellor asked her.
‘With two biscuits this time, my good man,’ said Jimmy.
Chapter Twenty-Six
John was very pleased with his aubergine parmigiana. It wasn’t a dish he had ever tried before, even in a restaurant. When he and Sonia went out for an Italian, John had usually plumped for a boring carbonara or a nice quattro formaggio pizza. Aubergine, he had always regarded with suspicion. But Alex had let everyone in the class try a bit of the parmigiana he’d made for demonstration purposes and John was surprised to discover he rather liked it. The aubergine didn’t taste as he had expected and caramelising the onions had added a pleasant sweetness to the tomato sauce, just as Alex promised. The bubbling cheese on top was a real indulgence. The whole thing came together in the perfect dish for a wild, wintry night.
Or even a slightly squally autumn one, as that one was. He abandoned his plan to go to the NEWTS in favour of heading home.
John had left the light on this time, so when he let himself into the house he didn’t have to make a dash for the switch. Everything was exactly as it had been at half past five. Except that the indicator on the answer-machine was flashing.
John stood over the machine. He knew that if he picked up and dialled 1471 he would be told that the number that made the last call was unavailable. Which meant that he couldn’t block it but he could refuse to listen to the message so that’s what he did. He cleared the message without letting it play.
However, the sight of the message indicator flashing had rattled him. He needed company. He wrapped the parmigiana back up in silver foil and took it to the NEWTS theatre bar.
Another rehearsal for the main cast of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was taking place that evening. By the time John arrived, it was finished and the cast members were milling in the bar. Trevor was serving. Moira was there too. She didn’t have a part in the production this time. She found it notoriously difficult to hold a note. Instead, she had been given the job of prop mistress.
Her face lit up when John walked in. John wondered if he should walk straight back out but Moira had been so kind to him. Now that he’d done a little cooking himself, he was starting to realise just how much effort it took to produce something from scratch. He was also embarrassed that he hadn’t returned any of Moira’s Tupperware thus far. He made a mental note to get it all washed up and ready to return the very next day.
‘Trevor? Can I use the café oven?’ John asked.
‘Be my guest,’ said Trevor. ‘Though I don’t know how sanitary you’ll find it.’
‘What have you made?’ asked Moira. ‘What have you got for us?’
‘An aubergine parmigiana.’
‘Aubergines! Don’t you have to soak them for three days to get the poison out?’ Moira asked.
‘No,’ said John. ‘Turns out you don’t have to soak them at all.’
While the parmigiana was heating through, John held a small audience, including Trevor and Moira, spellbound while he explained the recipe as though he had been making it for years. He did wish he’d started earlier.
The NEWTS oven was temperamental but the parmigiana c
ame out perfectly golden.
‘Oh, John. This is really tasty,’ said Moira as she helped herself to a portion. ‘You’re a natural. When the ladies at the NEWTS hear what a good cook you are, you’re going to be more in demand than ever.’
Behind Moira’s back, Trevor Fernlea pulled a face that expressed every bit of the panic John was feeling.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘Mum, what actually is this?’ Saskia asked when Liz placed that evening’s efforts on the kitchen counter.
‘It’s a melanzane parmigiana,’ said Liz, savouring the roll of the words on her tongue. ‘And it’s completely vegetarian.’
‘Ah, but it isn’t,’ said Saskia.
‘Yes it is. There’s no meat in it. No fish. No chicken. Just aubergines, onions and tomatoes.’
‘But there’s cheese.’
‘Vegetarians eat dairy,’ said Liz, trying to head off the argument.
‘Er, not all dairy actually. Because not all dairy is made without killing animals.’
‘You can’t milk a cow if it’s dead,’ said Liz.
‘Duh! Don’t you know how cheese is produced, Mum? Sometimes they use the contents of an animal’s stomach.’
‘What?’
‘It’s true. So I’m not eating cheese any more. I’m sorry, Mum, but you really should ask me whether I can have all the ingredients before you try to make me eat something new.’
‘You ate cheese on toast just last night.’
‘That cheese was OK. This cheese is like … It’s parmesan, right?’
‘There’s some on there, yes,’ said Liz. ‘Because this is a parmigiana.’
Saskia tapped something into her smartphone. ‘Parmesan is made using rennet. It has to be made with rennet or it can’t even be called parmesan. And rennet is made from the stomach of a calf.’
‘Crikey.’
Even Liz didn’t think the parmigiana looked so appealing any more.
‘So I suppose I shall have to have toast again.’
‘If you’re sure it’s vegetarian,’ said Liz. ‘I heard that the average loaf contains at least three ground-up insects.’
‘You’re not funny, Mum,’ said Saskia.
Neither are you, Liz thought.
Liz bunged the parmigiana in the oven to warm up again while she made Saskia two slices of wholemeal toast with mashed avocado. At least she could get that right. When she came back downstairs to eat it, Saskia first took a photograph of the toast for Instagram and Liz was faintly mollified by the idea that her avocado toast had passed the picture test. It was only later that she would log on and discover that Saskia had captioned the picture. #avocadotoast #brownbits #instafail.
In the meantime, Liz managed to put calves’ stomachs to the back of her mind and tucked into her class-cooked meal. She thought it was delicious. And she was proud that she had tackled her first ever aubergine. Until Alex had shown them how easy it was to prepare and cook, Liz had laboured under the impression that aubergine had to be buried in salt for at least three days to leach out some sort of poison. Where had she learned that?
Saskia slunk downstairs with her empty toast plate.
‘Enjoying your calf’s stomach juice?’ she asked her mum.
‘As a matter of fact, it’s delicious,’ Liz said. ‘I might insist on having calf juice sprinkled over everything from now on.’
Saskia gave a world-class sigh.
By coincidence, the following day, Brittney’s Bites Friday Inspo was replaced by a blog post on ‘The hidden dangers of cheese’, which explained Saskia’s rennet revelation in full and disgusting detail. Liz read the blog while she was waiting for her first patient of the day.
‘This is just another of “big food’s” ways of getting us to eat their lies,’ Brittney concluded. ‘Like Big Pharma, they have a vested interest in getting us addicted to their products.’
She illustrated the piece with a quote from the Dalai Lama.
‘You can’t have a clean conscience if you don’t eat clean food.’
‘Funny,’ Liz snarled. ‘I would have thought that adultery made your conscience grubbier than the odd bacon sarnie.’
‘First patient’s here,’ Julie called.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
That weekend Saskia was supposed to be spending time with Liz. She declined an invitation to join her mother at the Waggy Weigh-In, saying that she had to revise for a mock English Lit exam the following week. She would, however, be taking a little time off to go shopping that afternoon. She needed to get a new dress because on the Saturday evening she was going to her cousin’s eighteenth birthday party.
Ah yes. This was Eric, a cousin on Ian’s side of the family. For that reason, though it wasn’t Ian’s weekend to have Saskia, he would be coming to pick her up at seven on Saturday night. The party was going to be held at The Majestic, Newbay’s grandest hotel. At least, it used to be grand. Rumour had it Wallis Simpson was a guest there in the Thirties. Now it was rather more ‘tinsel and turkey’, filled as it was by busloads of senior citizens who flooded to the coast out of season for cheap Christmas-themed mini-breaks. The Majestic started offering its Christmas menu in October.
Liz didn’t know what to think about Saskia going to Eric’s birthday party without her. After all, until the divorce went through, Liz was still technically Eric’s aunt. She had known him since he was a red-faced baby, just two days old when she first visited him and his mother, Ian’s younger sister Kerry, in the hospital. Once Saskia was born, the two cousins were an excuse for the families to get together at child-friendly venues and Liz had grown quite close to Kerry for a while. She definitely preferred her to Ian’s po-faced older sister, Michelle.
Eric grew from an ugly baby into a serious sort of child. Now he was studying for his A levels. He was on track for a place at Cambridge to read physics. Liz knew all this because Ian’s sister still texted her. As she did on the morning of the party itself.
‘I feel really bad that you’re not coming tonight. You’ve been there for Eric his whole life. You’d be very welcome. We’d love to see you.’
‘I went ahead and made other plans,’ was Liz’s text response, which was almost certainly the answer Kerry really wanted to hear. Liz understood that when couples split up, families had to take sides. Kerry couldn’t un-invite her brother. Though, thought Liz, she could have told him not to bring Brittney if she’d really cared.
Ah. Liz had never really liked Kerry either.
Anyway it was true that she had something else to do that evening. For once, there were two appointments in Liz’s Saturday diary. Alex’s birthday party was one.
‘There will be plenty of food,’ he’d promised.
But first, Waggy Weight Loss.
Nurse Van Niekerk was there as the warm-up act as usual.
‘I’ve set up a new Facebook group,’ she said. ‘It’s specifically for this cohort of WWL. I’ve added as many of you as I could find. I thought it would be a good way to keep the lovely community spirit we have here going through the rest of the week. We can offer each other motivational tips and fill in the group on our own progress. You could even post photographs of your dogs’ dinners. It’ll help to keep us all honest!’
‘This is becoming a cult,’ Liz muttered to Mrs Coco.
‘Actually,’ said Mrs Coco, ‘I have been keeping a visual diary of what Coco is eating.’
‘You have?’
‘Yes.’
While Nurse Van Niekerk handed round a printout with the new Waggy Weight Loss Facebook page details, Mrs Coco showed Liz her Instagram feed. It was every bit as beautiful and well-curated as Brittney Blaine hoped hers to be.
‘That’s what your dog eats?’
There was a fillet of fish, cooked without seasoning, of course, but garnished with parsley and presented on a fine antique porcelain plate that was edged with gold leaf.
‘I would have eaten that,’ said Liz.
‘I did eat that,’ said Mrs Coco. ‘I’ve decid
ed that the best way to motivate Coco to eat properly is to sit down to exactly the same thing myself.’
‘Yikes,’ said Liz. ‘Does that mean you’re also eating kibble?’
‘The organic kind really isn’t so bad,’ said Mrs Coco.
‘Well, I’m not going to be joining Ted on the Waggy Weight Loss plan any time soon,’ Liz assured her friend. ‘I made aubergine parmigiana on Thursday night.’
‘Aubergine?’ Mrs Coco looked concerned. ‘Don’t you have to soak them for at least three days to stop them from being poisonous?’
‘It turns out you don’t,’ said Liz. But before she had time to explain to Mrs Coco exactly how you prepared the classic Italian dish, in strode Dr Thomas, looking ready to ‘move it, move it’. This time he was wearing a pink shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off those hairy forearms, which Liz could now imagine him flexing as he made his own bread. He was definitely the type to make his own bread.
‘Hello, everybody. Thank you once again for turning out on a Saturday morning. I’m delighted to see we’ve not lost a single participant since the beginning of the course. That tells me that you’re all truly dedicated to your dogs’ health and that makes me very happy indeed.’
Mr Biscuit, owner of Biscuit the Cockapoo, chanced a self-congratulatory whoop but was quickly shut down by a look from Nurse Van Niekerk. Waggy Weight Loss was not The Jeremy Kyle Show.
‘This week I want to talk about how our pets pick up on our moods and how their habits reflect our habits. Stress is contagious. And in a dog that has a propensity towards it, stress can cause comfort eating, just as it does in human beings. So, I want you to ask yourselves, what has been going on in your life or in the life of your family of late that might be triggering your animal’s desire to overeat?’
‘To think I thought Ted was greedy just because he was a dog,’ Liz whispered to Mrs Coco.
‘There will be time for everyone to share their thoughts in due course,’ said Dr Thomas, with a quick look in Liz’s direction. ‘For now, I just want you to reflect on events in the past few years and how you yourself have reacted. What do you do when you’re unhappy? When you’re down, do you automatically reach for the biscuit tin?’
The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club Page 14