MacAllister's Baby (9 page)

‘Are we going to do any cooking today?’ she asked, a clear signal to change the subject.

‘Eventually,’ he said. ‘First I want Danny and Jennifer to start designing the menus they’re going to present at the competition.’

‘Cool!’ Danny jumped out of his chair. ‘So why are we talking about it? Let’s do it!’

‘Calm down, mate.’ Angus pushed himself forward, sat on the edge of the table. ‘What we’ve been talking about is important. Cooking isn’t just about technique and fancy ingredients. Food is memory. Food is experience. Food is emotion. So if you’re creating a menu, you have to capture the right feeling. You’ve got to give a bit of yourself to it.’

Danny frowned. ‘You want me to make curry?’

‘I want you to make what you care about.’

‘But I’m not even Indian.’

‘Doesn’t make a difference. If you put yourself into what you’re doing, people will respond, whatever you’re making.’ Angus hopped off the table and put his hand on Danny’s shoulder. ‘Listen. It’s easier to show you what I mean than tell you about it. That’s why I’ve booked us a table for this Friday at Chanticleer.’

He was looking straight at Elisabeth when he said it, so he saw her blinking in shock.

‘Chanticleer?’ she said. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be one of the most expensive restaurants in London?’

He grinned at her. ‘It’s also one of the best. The chef is my friend Damien Virata.’

‘But Danny and Jennifer—’

‘Won’t have to pay for a thing. Neither will you. It’s my treat.’

‘But—’

‘I can afford it, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘No, that’s not—it’s just that—’

He loved seeing the teacher lost for words.

‘I’ve discussed it with Joanna Graham, and she agreed that experiencing innovative cuisine would enhance Jennifer and Danny’s learning. She’s got permission from their parents already. Provided, of course, that you come as well.’

Elisabeth looked stunned.

Finally, after four weeks of trying, he’d hit upon an invitation that she couldn’t refuse.

‘I’ve booked the table for six o’clock. The place shouldn’t be full at that hour. Miss Graham said she’d give you all a ride there in her car. We should be done by eight o’clock, nine at the latest. Just in case you have other plans,’ he added, looking significantly at Elisabeth.

She was shaking her head, but it wasn’t in refusal. ‘Mr MacAllister, I believe you are the most stubborn man in existence,’ she said.

‘Why thank you, Miss Read,’ he replied.

The package was waiting for her on her doorstep when she got home from school on Friday afternoon. Elisabeth recognised her mother’s slanted handwriting on the address label right away.

It wasn’t even close to her birthday, but her parents had never been very organised about remembering dates. If her parents saw a gift for her, they’d send it. When she was a kid she’d rarely had a party on her actual birthday. They’d throw her parties at other times, mostly to surprise her, so she hadn’t really missed out on anything except for the pleasure of anticipation, and of inviting her friends herself. Then again, she hadn’t had much time to make friends before her family had moved on again.

She made herself a cup of tea and sat down with the package and the telephone, dialling her parents’ number. Her mother picked up the phone on the first ring.

‘Hey, Poppy,’ Elisabeth greeted her. ‘How are you?’

‘Sunny! Great. Have you got it? Open it.’

She should have known her mother would be haunting the phone, waiting for Elisabeth to receive the package and call. She loved knowing what Elisabeth’s reaction was when she opened a present. Elisabeth smiled, feeling warmth at Poppy’s enthusiasm. She loved this aspect of her mother’s childlikeness, this eager generosity.

She began to unwrap the package.

‘You’re pulling it open carefully, aren’t you?’ her mother said. ‘Keeping the paper all in one piece?’

‘Yes.’ She unfolded one end and giggled at how well her mother knew her.

‘Just rip it. Quick. I can’t wait. You are going to love this.’

She wondered. Her mother and she didn’t share many tastes. If she hadn’t looked so much like her parents, she’d have spent even more of her childhood wondering if she was really related to them. She kept the wrapping paper intact, but she opened it more quickly. There was a long cardboard box inside.

‘Is it open yet?’

‘I’m lifting the lid now.’ She pulled it off, and she gasped.

‘You love it, don’t you? Take it out. Tell me.’

Elisabeth lifted a long chain of glass beads. Each bead was its own intense shade of green, its own unique shape. Like light shining through leaves of all the kinds of trees in a forest.

It was one of the tastes that she and her mother did share—a love of beautiful, unusual jewellery. She had many pieces her mother had given her, all of them more precious than their actual value. This one reminded her of some of the places where they’d lived in Canada. Quiet, living beauty.

‘It’s gorgeous.’

Her mother sighed in pleasure. ‘You don’t have enough wilderness there in England. You need a little to keep with you. Something wild-coloured.’

‘It reminds me of trees. I love it, Mom.’

At the last word, Poppy sighed in a different way. ‘I used to hate you calling me that. I like it now. Is that freaky?’

‘Well, you are my mother.’ Elisabeth tried on the necklace, felt its cool, smooth weight.

‘Yeah. I wonder more and more these days whether I acted like one, though, babe. I treated you like a friend, and maybe you needed a parent. We were trying to start a new world, you know? No hierarchies, no obligations. But you turned out okay. You’re helping people. We’re proud of you.’

Yes, her teaching was like her parents’ quest to save the world, she supposed. She didn’t have to fling herself in front of bulldozers or chain herself to trucks carrying nuclear missiles, but it felt as important. Especially these days, working with Jennifer and Danny and Angus. It was safer physically, but no less emotionally dangerous.

‘I got it from you,’ she said, and for the first time really knew it was true. Her crazy upbringing had given her something other than insecurities and wild desires and a need for safety. It had given her something precious.

‘Yeah. You’re doing good, babe. You’ll be a good mother too, when it happens for you again. Better than me.’

She stroked the beads of the necklace to distract her from what her mother was saying. She thought of Poppy’s simple joy at giving a gift. So many of Poppy’s joys were simple. It would be so tempting to live that way for once, to give up seeing the implications of everything and just be.

She’d tried to do that with Robin. She was a lot like her parents in several ways, it seemed. The successes, and the failures.

And yet having her mother admit her failures let Elisabeth see them in a wider perspective, as an outsider might have. As one of her own teachers might have, if they had asked a question like the one Angus had asked on Wednesday, about food and emotion.

She’d been a lonely girl, always moving, always insecure. But she’d had her books, and had parents who felt great joy whenever they could make her happy. It was more than many children ever had.

‘You both loved me,’ she said. ‘That’s what counts.’

Saying that, too, she knew it was true.

‘Joanna, would you please slow down?’

‘What?’ Jo reached over and turned down the radio, causing the car to swerve to the left.

‘Slow down. There are children in the car.’

‘They’re teenagers. Teenagers love to go fast. Don’t you, teenagers?’

‘Yes, miss,’ came Danny’s voice from where he and Jennifer were crammed into the tiny seats in the back of the convertible.

‘See?’ Jo’s hand stretched towards the radio again, but Elisabeth beat her to it. She switched the balance so that the sound was all transferred to the speakers in the back, and then turned the volume up.

Jo smiled, recognising the classic ploy of distracting students with something loud so you could get in a private conversation. ‘I thought you’d be impatient to get there, seeing as who’s hosting the evening.’

‘I’ve turned down half a dozen dates with Angus MacAllister in the past month. What makes you think I’m eager to see him tonight?’

‘Dress. Heels. Necklace. Lipstick.’ Jo took a corner at speed. ‘You look fantastic.’

‘It’s an expensive restaurant.’ But Elisabeth knew that wasn’t why she’d dressed up in her smallest little black dress and her highest little black heels.

She’d dressed this way out of anticipation and simple joy.

But she wasn’t going to admit that.

Jo sank her voice. ‘If he asks you home tonight after dinner, I’ll cover for you with the kids. Don’t worry about it.’

‘I told you. Angus MacAllister is everything I don’t need.’

‘Believe me, I say that about chocolate every day. Sometimes we have to go for what we want instead of what we need.’ She stopped at a red light. ‘And, Elisabeth, you know you don’t fool me, darling. You love going fast in this car just as much as I do.’

‘I don’t.’

The light turned green, and Jo put her foot down. The convertible leapt forward with a roar and a screech of tyres. Elisabeth was flung backwards into her seat and she heard Jennifer yelp.

‘How’d you like that?’ Joanna cried, her foot still on the accelerator, the car going faster every second.

‘I—’

‘Heart beating fast? Feel like you’re really alive?’

Elisabeth put her hand on her chest. Her heart was hammering and her body was thrumming with adrenaline.

She laughed. ‘Yes. I do.’

‘Knew it.’

Jo sounded so pleased with herself that Elisabeth laughed again. ‘All right. I’ll tell you my deepest, darkest secret. I’m looking forward to spending an evening with Angus MacAllister.’

‘Ha!’ Jo thumped the steering wheel in triumph.

‘But nothing’s going to happen. The kids will be there the whole time.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it. Angus MacAllister looks like a man who’ll do anything to get what he wants.’ Jo pulled up to the kerb and switched off the radio. ‘Here we are, kids!’

Elisabeth’s dress rode up as she climbed out of the convertible and she felt the cool spring air on her bare legs and arms. Aside from her jewellery, she was normally a conservative dresser; years of cheesecloth and patchwork hand-me-downs had instilled a love of simple, well-tailored clothes. But she’d thought of Angus when she’d chosen her dress, a sleeveless clingy sheath that ended several inches above her knee. And her heels were slim-strapped, open-toed, practically pornographic.

She didn’t feel like Miss Elisabeth Read, maiden teacher. She felt like an attractive woman about to have a date with a sexy man. And Jo’s comment about Angus being the type to do anything to get what he wanted sent Elisabeth’s heart racing faster than the speeding car had done.

But, shoes and dress aside, this was a safe date. Nothing was going to happen, and she could relax and enjoy it.

She remembered when she’d last thought that; when Angus had sent the children away and they’d been alone together. Something had happened then, all right.

She curled her fingers around the green-glass necklace, a reminder of the conversation she’d had with her mother that afternoon. And of her parents’ philosophy, echoed in a hundred sixties’ songs.

Be here now.

Elisabeth knew the bad side of that hippy-wisdom. If you never thought of the future, you were the victim of every passing impulse.

But talking with her mother had made her see that philosophy had its place. It could make you stop and enjoy the present. And it could give you courage to do what you wanted to.

She thought about what had happened on Wednesday—how Angus had coaxed her into revealing something about her past. It had felt good.

She was glad he’d tricked her into coming out with him.

She checked out Chanticleer’s façade. She’d read about the place in magazine reviews, all raving about the most innovative cuisine in Great Britain, but she’d never expected to come here herself. The outside was unprepossessing: plain brick, Georgian, with tall sashed windows that were frosted halfway down their length. There was no sign, just a life-sized brass rooster statue on a waist-height pillar near the front door.

Now
that
was pretentious, Elisabeth thought. Not even putting the restaurant’s name outside, and expecting the clientele to remember that Chanticleer was the name of a folk-tale rooster, retold in the
Canterbury Tales.

Still, at least it continued the chicken theme that Angus had introduced the first time she’d met him. She wondered if Angus was issuing a sort of challenge to her again, and she smiled.

‘Do you think it’s dead fancy, miss?’ Danny asked at her elbow.

Danny, the braggart, sounded frightened. These kids had probably never been in a restaurant more sophisticated than their local Chinese take-away. They were bound to be more daunted than she was.

She winked at Danny. She wasn’t convinced he was going to behave himself, but she was going to give him all the trust she could, regardless.

‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘I think we should use the wrong fork just to see what happens.’

‘Yeah, I dare you.’

She put her hand on Jennifer’s shoulder. The girl was tense. ‘You’ll have to sit next to me, just in case Angus and Danny start talking football again. Otherwise I might fall asleep in my soup.’

They walked up the staircase together and as they passed the bronze rooster Elisabeth patted it on its head. She wasn’t going to be chicken. She intended to enjoy every moment of this evening.

As soon as they stepped through the doorway a man wearing a suit that was probably more expensive than Elisabeth’s entire wardrobe greeted them. ‘Miss Read? Mr MacAllister is waiting for you at your table.’

The restaurant was bright, decorated in cream and warm orange, but she stopped noticing it as soon as she recognised the comfortable slouch of a dark-suited figure at a table in the corner.

Angus stood when they approached. He was wearing a chocolate-coloured suit, perfectly tailored to his body, with a snow-white shirt open at the throat. A lock of his dark brown hair fell over his forehead. Occasionally over the past four weeks he’d had a shadow of stubble on his face, but tonight he was clean-shaven, emphasising the line of his jaw and the dimple in his chin.