Got You Back (11 page)

‘But, James, I never knew you had such hidden talent,’ Alison had cooed. ‘Hugh, why can't you cook like this?’ she'd asked.

‘Why can't you?’ Hugh had replied.

James had seen Katie shoot him a look and had had a brief moment of panic that she was going to give the
game away. He'd raised his eyebrows slightly, in a way that said, ‘Please don't,’ and she'd obliged, as she always did, with a smile. ‘Aren't I lucky?’ she'd said, placing her hand over his.

‘Too right,’ Simone had agreed, and she'd given James a look he would have sworn was flirtatious. Simone, of all the women in their little social circle, was the only one he would have considered going to bed with. Alison was, frankly, too shapeless, with her saggy breasts swaying somewhere down around her middle where her waist should have been, and Sam too neurotic — she always looked as if she had put her makeup on in the dark but it was probably because she had the shakes. Simone, on the other hand, was slim and shapely, even if her face did have a certain horsiness. Unable to help himself, he'd tried a little wink on her and she'd smiled girlishly. Since then there had been an added frisson at the dinner parties, which had made them far more enjoyable. He was certainly never going to act on his suspicion that Simone had the hots for him and he had no reason to believe that she would either. He just liked to know that he'd still got it. Whatever ‘it’ was.

Since that night, word of his culinary expertise had spread. Malcolm at the clinic had remarked on it and one of the local farmers had good-naturedly called him ‘Delia’, after Delia Smith. James rather liked that he had gained a nickname. It made him feel as if he was back in the playground, part of a gang. He mentioned it to Malcolm and Simon in the hope that they'd pick up on it and start to use it themselves.

‘Hi, it's Delia here,’ he'd say, with a mock self-
conscious chuckle when he had to call one of them. For a while he'd signed it on Post-it notes whenever he had to leave a message for either of them. He'd persevered for a week or so but, sadly, it had never caught on and he'd started to worry that Malcolm would think he was making some kind of statement, like those camp men who find it hilarious to refer to other men as ‘she’, so he had stopped.

The next eight weeks had been agonizing, waiting for it to be his and Katie's turn again and wondering if he could pull off the same trick twice. This time he'd bought goat's-cheese tartlets, venison pie and figs ready for baking, to be served with ‘homemade’ whisky ice-cream. There had been a hairy moment when Sam had asked where on earth he had bought the venison because she could never find any when she wanted it, and he had had to bluster something about Kent and Sons in St John's Wood, knowing she would never be able to check up on him. James had felt the glow of the praise and had almost started to believe that he deserved it.

Tonight's meal would be his fifth. He was starting to worry that he had exhausted the repertoire of the Le Joli Poulet Delicatessen and Gourmet Food Store. He had served up their rack of lamb, their monkfish and squid kebabs and their roast partridge all to great acclaim, but poking about now in the pre-prepared dinner-party food section, he was struggling to find anything new. It was too soon to start repeating himself. He was going to have to talk to the owner about broadening their stock.

He managed to find a starter of bouillabaisse and an entrée of cassoulet, which he'd always dismissed before
as being a bit low-rent. There were no new desserts so he went for the
tarte Tatin
again, deciding he could claim to be doing a French-themed evening. He had a quick word with Guy, who owned the shop, but it was difficult to get his point across without explaining the whole charade and why it was so important to him to produce something different each time so he left it.

By the time he got back to the cottage Katie had made the place spotless and Stanley had been banished to the spare bedroom. The warm spell wasn't showing any signs of letting up so she had pulled the table over to the open patio doors so that they could at least start the evening with cool fresh air flowing in from the back garden.

James unpacked his goodies, checked the reheating instructions on each, then carefully hid the packaging in a plastic bag buried at the bottom of the bin. The cassoulet he transferred to a large casserole dish, and as soon as the bottom oven pinged to let him know it had reached the right temperature he put it on the middle shelf and checked his watch. He poured the bouillabaisse into a pan and left it on the side. The
tarte Tatin
, which he was going to serve cold with cream, he placed in the fridge.

‘You've just about got time to have a bath,’ Katie said, kissing him on the forehead and handing him a large glass of red wine. ‘Anything I need to do?’

‘All under control,’ he told her. ‘Just remind me to put the soup on at about ten past. Mmm… you smell gorgeous,’ he added, nuzzling her hair.

Katie laughed and pushed him off. ‘Go and get ready,’ she said.

Katie watched as James went up to the bathroom,
humming to himself. After she had heard the door shut and the thunder of running water, she lifted the lid of the bin and began to rummage around among the debris.

Sam, Katie thought, looked like a ventriloquist's dummy when she opened the front door to find her and Geoff brandishing a bottle of Merlot. She was wearing bright red lipstick that might have been applied with a paintbrush, so little notice did it take of the contours of her lips. Her short hair stood up in clumpy peaks that made her seem as if she had just received an enormous electric shock.

Geoff was his usual dour self, dressed in the kind of hand-me-down shabby clothes that only the truly rich could get away with. On several occasions, Katie had suggested to James that they might try and socialize with people more like them, more their own age, more spiritual and less… establishment, but he had lectured her on the importance of being in with the right people and that had been that really. It wasn't that she didn't like Sam and Geoff, it was just that it was a bit like having your disapproving aunt and uncle over sometimes.

‘Something smells good,’ Geoff said, sniffing the air as he walked in. ‘What's he got lined up this time?’

Katie rattled off the menu, and Sam and Geoff made approving noises. She was just offering them a drink when James burst out of the kitchen, wearing a ridiculous stripy apron and wielding a spatula. The apron, Katie noticed, had streaks of red sauce down the front, no doubt carefully placed there just minutes ago. She sometimes thought he took the whole performance too far, putting flour in his hair and smudges of balsamic on his cheeks,
but it made him happy and she had never been able to see the harm in it. Now, looking at him, it struck her that he was a pathetic man, puffed up with self-importance, obsessed by appearance and status. ‘Hungry?’ he said now.

‘Ravenous,’ Geoff replied. ‘We've been looking forward to this for weeks.’

The doorbell rang again, and Hugh, Alison, Richard and Simone were huddled on the doorstep where they had bumped into one another. There were air kisses and hugs all round.

‘Shall we have an aperitif before we eat?’ James said, with the air of someone who knew he was about to impress.

Stephanie had not been able to get to sleep. In fact, she had given up trying and resigned herself to a night spent with her mind racing and a day feeling like shit at work tomorrow. She ran through Katie's version of events in her head again, alternately delighted and appalled. Poor James. No, fuck it, he'd asked for it.

The six guests and James had apparently started on their favourite topic, the need to elect a ‘parish council’ for the village to lobby on affairs like unsightly planning applications and the banning of loitering by the three teenage hoodies who occasionally hurled insults at passers-by from their post on the bench by the duck pond. All three were harmless, Katie had told her. In fact, she had once been struggling home with a bag of shopping from the village store and they'd taken it in turns to carry it for her, then refused to accept a pound each for
their trouble. But, Sam, Geoff, Alison, Hugh and James loved to over-dramatize the situation to one another, imagining crack being smoked and an onslaught of muggings on the horizon. Richard and Simone were slightly more forgiving, having a teenage son themselves, but the mention of a uPVC conservatory could send them both into spasms. All seven, James included, Katie told Stephanie, believed they were the chosen few to run such a council and each was secretly hoping to head it.

‘By the way,’ Katie had said, as an aside, ‘did you know he built the extension at the back of the surgery without planning permission? He figured no one could see it so it didn't really count. Plus he thought there was a good chance it'd be turned down. He used new brick too, in a conservation area. I bet Richard and Simone would love that.’

Stephanie remembered James telling her about his plans for expanding the practice and the subsequent trials and tribulations he had had with the builders. She had never thought to ask him whether he'd done it by the book; she had just assumed he had. He was James, after all.

Anyway, Katie told her, the bouillabaisse had been received with oohs and aahs, and several of the guests had gone for seconds even though two more courses were coming up.

‘I don't know how you have the patience,’ Alison had said, ‘shelling all those prawns and scraping beards off mussels.’

‘He probably buys them ready cleaned — don't you, James?’ Geoff had offered. ‘Much less hassle.’

‘God, no,’ James had said, puffing up with self-righteousness. ‘You can never be sure they've been washed properly. Or that they haven't forced open a few bad ones. I like to do it all myself. It's therapeutic, tell you the truth. I stick on Radio
4
and I'm happy.’

Katie, she had told Stephanie, had felt a little jolt of excitement as she'd watched him dig his own grave.

The cassoulet had been praised as ‘delicious’ and ‘simply stunning’. By now the conversation had moved on to the shortcomings of the village's other residents, especially those who were new money.

‘But James is new money,’ Stephanie had interjected at this point.

‘I know that now,’ Katie had said, ‘but for some reason he likes everyone to think he's not.’

‘So then what happened?’ Stephanie was both impatient to get to the end of the story and dreading hearing it. She could feel her heart beating up in her throat, and she couldn't imagine how Katie — who had told her she was now locked in the downstairs bathroom to make the call in private — must be feeling.

‘Then,’ Katie had said dramatically, ‘then it was time for dessert.’

Katie told her how James, face now rosy with a combination of wine and pride, had announced he had prepared his famous
tarte Tatin.
‘I thought about doing something new but I decided that as the whole flavour of the evening was French my old stand-by would be rather appropriate.’ He'd carried it in from the kitchen on a serving dish, as if he was presenting the world with his newborn child.

‘Where do you get the apples from at this time of year?’
Simone had asked. ‘I always find they're really watery and tasteless.’

‘Ah,’ James had said. ‘That'd be telling.’

He'd cut the first slice and Katie had sworn she saw him blanch as he'd lifted it up and noticed what seemed to be part of a sheet of paper stuck to the bottom. He went to drop the slice on the serving plate but, as he did so, Sam had leaned forward and whipped the paper off.

‘There you go,’ she'd said brightly, screwing it up and putting it by her plate. James, Katie had said, looked as if all the blood had left his body.

‘Looks like I've stood it on something,’ he had said, laughing nervously. ‘I'll just go into the kitchen and sort it out.’

Katie had held her breath. There was nothing she could do. She couldn't be the one to reveal what it was that was stuck to the base of the
tarte
. All she could do was wait, fingers crossed. James, it had seemed, was about to get away with it. He had put down his knife and was about to lift the plate when Hugh had clumsily reached forward and grabbed a corner of the rest of the paper, which was poking out from under the
tarte
, and pulled it. ‘No need to bother, old man. See? I've got it.’

‘What is it?’ Simone had said. There had been an almost comedy moment when James had reached out his hand to take the piece of paper just as Geoff had beaten him to it.

‘Looks like a receipt,’ Geoff had said, and had been about to discard it when Sam — thank God for Sam and her nosiness, Katie had said — who was looking over his shoulder, had exclaimed: ‘It says “
tarte Tatin
” here.’

The others had laughed, not realizing the momentousness of the discovery they were about to make. Richard had even said jokingly, ‘Don't tell me you buy the ready-made stuff when we're not here.’

Then Sam had taken a sharp breath. ‘Gosh, James, it says “bouillabaisse” and “cassoulet” too. How funny.’

The room, Katie had said, had gone suddenly silent.

17

James woke up with a head that felt as if it was full of cotton wool. He groaned, feeling the paper dryness of his mouth. He'd drunk too much. He rolled over, gingerly opening one eye, flinching as the light hit his retina. Katie must be up already. He peered at the clock beside the bed. It looked like… No, it couldn't say ten to eleven. Wasn't he meant to be at the surgery this morning?

He became aware of a noise downstairs. The radio and something that sounded like plates being scraped. Katie must be doing the washing-up. Then a thought struck him from out of nowhere and he laid his head back on the pillow. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, fuck.

He could remember the embarrassed silence after Sam had read out the receipt from the Joli Poulet. He'd tried to laugh it off at first, his brain scrabbling around for something — anything — he could say to cover his tracks. Then he had tried to imply that what he had bought were actually the raw materials for each dish, packaged up together for ease, so while he had told a little fib about cleaning the shellfish and picking out apples he had still cooked each dish from scratch.