The Girl in the Yellow Vest (22 page)

The turkey’s expression did not change.

After swinging by a supermarket to pick up the ingredients, Mark was home an hour later. He ordered his dinner – chicken and vegetables – set the turkey cage on the dining table (Charlotte Templeton would never know) and then put his two bags of groceries on the counter. He stood in the kitchen, rubbing his hands together. The turkey, which was clearly visible over the bench, squawked.

‘What’s your problem?’ he asked. ‘I know
exactly
what I’m doing.’

He was pleased to note that his voice sounded very convincing. The truth was, he had no idea of Kathryn’s precise cake recipe. But surely with a cake precision wasn’t crucial. He had seen her make her decadent chocolate mud a million times and did recall what went in it, just not exactly how much. And of course he knew what it tasted like. So those two items of knowledge combined should allow him to guess his way through it. It couldn’t be that hard surely – certainly a lot easier that getting the correct mix of cement and aggregate to achieve the specified compressive strength.

‘Right,’ he rubbed his hands together as Augustus rubbed the rim of his bucket headpiece along the bars of his cage, ‘I’m pretty sure the first thing she did was melt a lot of chocolate with other stuff.’

He took out a saucepan and popped in a block of chocolate, sugar, butter and a little bit of water. Then he turned the stove on high and put the pan on.

‘Now I guess we just wait till that’s all melted and runny,’ he told Augustus, who gobbled agreeably.

Mark went to the couch and sat down. Drawing a computer magazine from the coffee table, he began to flick through it. As the smell of chocolate infused the room he started to feel very relaxed.

It was a relief. He was sure this would have been too hard – too close to the bone. But maybe enough time had passed to enjoy this again. Sitting here, flicking through his magazine with the heavy aroma of chocolate swirling around him was almost like getting a hug from his dead wife. It was very therapeutic and surprisingly easy.

The turkey squawked.

‘I’m sorry.’ He looked up imperiously. ‘Are you bored? You can’t possibly expect me to entertain you. I’m very busy at the moment, baking a cake.’

Augustus gobbled and banged his head piece against the cage with such force that Mark was sure he must have been very close to knocking himself out.

‘It amazes me sometimes how incredibly stupid you are,’ he sighed. ‘I suppose that’s what turkeys are in general, aren’t they? That’s why they’re called turkeys.’

He lifted his nose to the air. ‘Hmmm, that doesn’t smell quite right.’

He got up and went over to the stove. The butter appeared to be boiling, which was good because it was definitely melted. The chocolate also looked soft . . . ish. He got a spoon and began to stir it. But the chocolate just wouldn’t liquefy. In fact, it rather had the consistency of Play-Doh. The sugar grains stuck in it like pimples.

‘I think this chocolate is off,’ he told Augustus. ‘We’re going to have to start again. It’s a good thing I bought three blocks.’

He took the saucepan off the stove, shoved it in the sink and got out a new pot. Again, he added chocolate, butter, sugar and water and put the pot on the stove. He went back to the couch. Augustus banged his head again.

‘Stop that,’ said Mark. ‘You are going to hurt yourself and I’m not letting you out.’

The turkey dropped its arse and hit the paper-littered floor of its cage with a gentle
whoosh
.

‘Much better.’

Five minutes later Mark returned to the stove to discover that the same thing had happened. ‘I suppose the question we’re all asking then is, should I try again or cut my losses and move on?’

He laced his fingers together and flexed them. ‘I mean, let’s use the knowledge we know to be true. Most cakes are fairly crumbly. With mud cake you want it really hard and firm. I know Kathryn’s were always that way.’

Augustus squawked.

‘Just give me a second here. Why don’t we just break up the chocolate rather than melt it, so that it’s more like aggregate? That way we have some nice chunky bits to improve strength.’

He got out a large mixing bowl and did just this. Then he melted the butter with the sugar in a plastic bowl in the microwave because he couldn’t bear to use the stove again. He added this to the mixing bowl and then tried to recall the rest of the recipe.

‘Well, there’s definitely water in there, and eggs, cocoa and self-raising flour. I’m just not sure how much of each.’

Augustus put his head down.

‘You’re right . . . for once. Let’s think about this. With concrete we look at the water-to-cement ratio. For something nice and strong we might go sixty per cent cement. If we think about the self-raising flour like the cement, I think that’s our proportions.’

Augustus bent over and put his bum in the air, his tail feathers flexing.

Mark frowned. ‘You know, you’ve really got to stop doing that. It’s incredibly rude.’

Augustus shat.

Mark closed his eyes in pain. ‘I’ve got to get a cover for your cage. I think it would be better for both of us if we each had some privacy.’

He put all the ingredients in a bowl, greased a cake tin and shoved it in the oven. ‘Done.’

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. His dinner had arrived. Perfect timing.

He collected his dinner from one of Charlotte’s kitchen staff. Then after putting Augustus’s cage outside he sat down to have his meal in front of the television. By the time he was finished, forty minutes had easily spun by. It was time to check on his cake. He tested it with a knife in the way he had seen Kathryn do many times before. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem to be ready. He thought about cleaning up the kitchen but couldn’t face all those pots and pans just yet.

‘I’m going to have a shower,’ he told Augustus and left the room.

When he was dressed he returned to the kitchen to test his cake again. It smelled like it was burning and it was, on the outside. But when he stuck the knife in again it was still gooey in the centre.

‘Why isn’t it setting?’

Suddenly there was another knock at the door. No doubt the woman from the kitchen was back to collect his dirty plates. He wondered if he’d be able to persuade her to take all the dirty chocolate dishes he’d created in the kitchen as well.

He flung open the door, his most formidable expression firmly in place. After all, one needed to be adamant if one was to explain to anyone what was in their best interest to do. But instead of the fifty-year-old woman who usually worked in the Silver Seas kitchen, his visitor was Charlotte Templeton.

‘What are you doing here?’

She wrinkled nose. ‘What is that smell?’

He set his mouth stubbornly. ‘I asked you first.’

‘We need to talk,’ she said briskly and brushed past him into the room. Her floral scent infused his nostrils briefly as her body wafted the air around him.

‘About what?’

‘It’s been over two weeks and your men are still having pool parties and –’ She stopped talking abruptly, her nose wrinkling. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’

‘Baking.’

She choked. ‘
Baking?
’

‘Yes.’ He stared stonily back, daring her to challenge him.

Unfortunately, as usual she wasn’t intimidated by this haughty demeanour and spoke again, much like she was talking to a toddler standing next to a play kitchen. ‘And what have you been baking?’

Before he could stop her, she had marched over to the oven and opened it.

‘Crap, that looks bloody awful. What is it?’

His lips were so tight they almost refused to move. ‘It’s a decadent chocolate mud cake.’

Her eyes danced as she looked back at him. ‘Oh, it’s decadent all right.’

He lifted his chin. ‘It’s still soft in the middle.’

‘Honey, I think it’s done.’ She turned off the oven.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck fly to points as the endearment tripped off her tongue without any concern for his feelings at all. He knew instinctively that she meant nothing by it, except maybe to patronise him a little. But he still couldn’t help an uncomfortably tight feeling from taking hold in his chest. Really, the woman was way too familiar for her own good. He didn’t like her bustling about his kitchen either, getting another mixing bowl out of the cupboard. A dangerous scowl curled his mouth.

‘I think you ought to go, Ms Templeton.’

‘Mr Crawford, have you read my list?’

‘What list?’

She shut her eyes for what seemed to be a moment in prayer before saying, ‘Figures.’

She went to his cupboard and removed a measuring cup.

‘What are you doing?’

She tipped three-quarters of a cup of self-raising flour into a bowl. ‘I’m going to make you a new cake.’

‘Ms Templeton –’

‘And I’m going to continue baking until you listen to what I have to say.’

He folded his arms, a muscle in his cheek twitching while she placed three tablespoons of cocoa powder into the bowl.

‘Fine.’

She cracked two eggs. ‘Mr Crawford, I find your complete lack of interest in the well-being of your men concerning.’

‘I thought we were talking about your list.’

‘We are. Why do you think your men are such alcoholic, vandalising, disrespectful louts?’

He watched maddeningly as she scooped some butter into a container and went to the microwave. ‘Continue.’

‘Your men are living away from home, away from their families, working twelve-hour shifts, with very little time off. They have virtually no contact with the outside world except through phones and television. Their loved ones are too far away for them to have an influence on their lives.’

‘And you know this how?’

‘Observation, conversation, deduction,’ she said a little too succinctly for his taste. That was his forte, not hers. He pursed his lips.

‘So what’s your point?’

She gaped at him but after a moment shut her mouth, opened the microwave and removed the melted butter. ‘They are depressed and lonely. They feel powerless being so far away from their families, wanting to help but unable to return home because by the same token they need to earn a living. Are you aware of the statistics regarding suicide among FIFO workers?’

She poured in half a cup of caster sugar and gave the bowl a vigorous stir. He noticed that she cooked completely differently from Kathryn. Kathryn carefully measured her ingredients, savoured the smells, tasted the dough by dipping in her pinkie finger. Even sang to herself sometimes as she lovingly beat her mixture. Charlotte, on the other hand, attacked the ingredients, slapped them together, briskly whipped them into shape, like a drill sergeant shouting orders to his men. He noticed she hadn’t melted any chocolate either. Her focus was functionality. Her pace was efficient and her movements were almost second nature, as though she was used to doing three different things at once.

‘Mr Crawford, do you hear what I’m saying to you?’

‘Of course,’ he snapped, turning away. ‘That’s the nature of the industry we work in. The men knew what they were getting themselves into when they signed up for these roles. Furthermore, I don’t see how this has anything to do with you.’

‘It’s the drinking, mainly,’ Charlotte told him as she bent over and took his cake from the oven with mitts. Her perfectly proportioned rear might as well have had its own neon arrow. It drew the eye like a lighthouse. He took a stunned step back as his loins stirred, pulling on the collar of his shirt, which again appeared to be choking him.

‘I need a glass of water.’

She filled one and passed it to him.

‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’ Then to his utter indignity she tipped his chocolate mud pat straight into the bin.

‘Hey!’

She shook her finger. ‘You weren’t going to eat that, trust me. I saved you a tummy ache. Now . . .’ she clasped her hands ‘. . . let me cut straight to the chase.’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to bake another cake?’

She ignored his sarcasm, punching her fist into her palm. ‘The drinking is the catalyst and everything flows from that. The late-night parties around my pool, the litter, the vandalism, the defacing of property, the fighting, the complete lack of respect for me and for each other.’ As she washed and dried his cake tin she looked over her shoulder at him. ‘It has to stop.’

His mouth pulled into a hard line. ‘Easier said than done, Ms Templeton.’

Really, the woman was being unrealistic. His men hated him. Imagine how far morale would drop if he suddenly demanded that there was to be no drinking after work. The shit would hit the fan then! If she thought things were bad now, imposing any sort of strictures on the men in their spare time would be tantamount to creating a riot. So far he’d ruled with fear. Anarchy was something he was not prepared to deal with.

She eyed him with misgiving. ‘I didn’t say it was going to be easy.’

‘Why don’t you make a list of damage to property instead and I will endeavour to compensate you.’

‘I’m not fixing anything until I know it’s not going to be damaged again.’ She poured her mixture into the cake tin and placed it in the oven, frowning the whole time.

‘I’ll send out a memo about it.’

‘How big of you. Tell me, Mr Crawford, do you miss your wife?’

He started. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s a simple enough question.’

He was ashamed to hear his voice waver slightly. ‘Of course I miss her, with every fibre of my being I miss her. So much sometimes it hurts.’ He hadn’t meant to say all this, but his heart seemed to take control of his voice box. The passion in his voice had clearly startled her because she was watching him with a sudden stillness about her, as though seeing him for the first time. The real him.

He didn’t like it.

He didn’t like it one bit.

‘Then I don’t get it,’ she cried. ‘I don’t get how you can be so insensitive to these men. You are so hard on them when the situation they are in is hard enough.’

He kept his face as expressionless as he could. His only power in these situations was his mask. ‘As I said before, Ms Templeton, if it’s monetary compensation you want –’