The Good Plain Cook (16 page)
Read The Good Plain Cook Online
Authors: Bethan Roberts
If I were another man, I would write of what a tonic
the country air affords, of how I am
getting better
, whatever
that means, out here on the bleak hills, being blown
into goodness by the unforgiving wind; but all I can think of
is how long it will be before I am home again in London
with you and Flossy.
Mother, of course, occasionally tries to bring up the
subject of Rachel (whom she now knows is, in name at
least, my wife – it seems Rachel has written to tell her), but
those tweed skirts and double strings of pearls seem to keep
her from speaking too plainly, and she won’t allow herself to
become emotional with her only son, who, she can see, needs
rest and quiet, to recover from his nerves.
She stopped. James had sent this one whilst visiting his parents’ home in Northumberland. It was one in a series of letters
she kept separate from the others, in a folder marked ‘personal’. She’d never thought of publishing these. But, today, something
had compelled her to begin work on them. They were, she realised, the key to the collection. Without them, the book would
be incomplete.
I will stop drinking, darling; I know I’ve promised before,
but now I am away from London, all that madness, all that
pressure to
perform
, I do feel I can do it.
The library window was open but the air refused to move. She was sitting in her nightgown at three o’clock in the afternoon,
and she could smell her own skin in the heat. Burying her nose into the fleshiness of her upper arm, she reflected that Crane
hadn’t really touched her since their al fresco encounter. Last night, after the picnic, he’d come to bed late after spending
all evening in his studio, and she’d pretended to be asleep. This morning, she’d heard him rise early, but she’d stayed in
bed as long as she could, counting the boatmen on her curtains. How could he have abandoned her in that damned dramatic fashion
on the beach? She’d had to sit there with Arthur’s silence and Kitty’s infernal fiddling with needle and thread. In the end
she’d plunged into the sea again and swum until her eyes were stinging. She didn’t notice the ache in her arms and legs until
she was sitting beside him on the silent drive home, watching his long fingers grasp and wrench the gear knob into place.
Pushing her hair back, she began typing again.
It’s partly for the physical pain (I won’t go into the mental
pain; it’s too tiresome even to consider), you know that,
don’t you, darling?Whisky seems to be the only thing that
stops my blasted ankle hurting, but when I return, and have
had the operation and it’s all re-set, I know I will feel one
hundred per cent better.
There was something about hitting the keys that soothed her. It wasn’t about re-living the past. It was about typing it up
and putting it away. Getting it all onto clean white sheets. Seeing it as it was, in black ink, for one last time.
She ripped the page from the typewriter and placed it on the pile with the rest. Then she riffled through the folder. It was
a while before she found what she was looking for: the letter she’d received from Crane after James’s death.
She knew this one couldn’t possibly go into the book, but, scrolling paper into the machine, she began again.
My adored Ellen,
I do not know how to begin this letter. It is so sad and
strange. I am so sorry for your loss. I cannot imagine what
you are feeling now. I can hardly imagine what I myself am
feeling. It’s a terrible shock for all of us. You most of all.
Everything has happened so suddenly – all of it – that
it’s hard to know how to act, what to do.
I did not mean to write this letter.
Please forgive me for still wanting you. This is hardly the
time to write about such things, but our afternoon in
Laura’s flat was quite the best thing to have happened to
me.
If you choose not to come again, I will respect your
wishes. You will not hear from me any more.
But if, when the time is right, you decide to live again, to
love again, please live with me.
I can be patient.
He hadn’t had to be, of course. Two weeks later, she’d been here, in this library, holding his arm and telling him she was
going to buy the place, despite its cramped, dim little rooms. He’d kept calling her his Cleopatra. On the train back to London
to pick up Geenie, her thighs aching from three days of sex with Crane in the White Hart Hotel, she’d found she couldn’t stop
weeping. A woman in a bright yellow hat with a greasy Yorkshire terrier on her lap had moved carriages in disgust. Ellen had
lain on the seat, beaten her fist against the antimacassar, and wailed. She’d thought she would never be able to catch enough
breath to cry even harder, but somehow she’d managed it, the snot running into her mouth, her throat clenching. When she’d
reached Waterloo, the tears had stopped, and she hadn’t cried again. She’d told herself it was for her daughter’s sake. It
was necessary to begin anew, wipe the slate clean, for Geenie.
She’d long suspected that her daughter knew. Geenie must know, surely, that James’s death was Ellen’s fault. Her daughter
would have heard, of course, the terrible row the night before the operation. James had been drunk again, and it was just
after she’d first slept with Crane, but it was all over some silly thing – James saying they should try to persuade Dora to
keep working after she was married, at least until she had children of her own, Ellen insisting she could bring up her own
daughter perfectly well. It was when James had faced her and said, ‘You have no idea who that girl is,’ that she’d snapped
and thrown her tumbler of whisky at him; he’d ducked, and the glass had smashed on the wall and dripped down one of his maps,
soaking the countries and the seas, staining everything brown. James had brought back his hand and slapped her like a child.
What she’d felt, she remembered now, was relief that finally he’d done it, just as she’d always known he would, just as Charles
had hit her almost every week for the last year of their marriage. She’d sunk to her knees and started to pick up the pieces
of glass from the leopard-skin rug, the short hairs bristling beneath her fingers. James stood above her, watching in silence.
When she was finished she’d gone to bed, knowing he would sit in his study all night. She’d never thought, not for a moment,
that there would still be enough alcohol in him to react so badly with the anaesthetic. It simply hadn’t occurred to her to
mention it to the anaesthetist the next morning, when he’d arrived with his leather bag, warm hands and onion breath. James
was going to stop, after all; he’d promised her he’d stop, just as soon as the operation was over and all the pain was gone.
And, she remembered, her own head had felt as though a knife were stuck in her scalp, her tongue was coated and her stomach
tight, and all she’d wanted was to close the door of the sitting room and lie down in the dark.
Still. It was, she felt even now, sitting at her desk in this strange little house in the wilderness, looking out onto a garden
blighted by fierce heat, entirely her fault.
She left the sheet of paper in the typewriter and went upstairs to bed. The only thing to do on an afternoon like this was
to close her eyes and hope sleep would take her somewhere else.
. . . .
At half past seven, she managed to comb her hair into some sort of shape (there was nothing left, now, of that sculpture of
waves and light created so carefully by Robin), dust her nose with powder without looking too closely at the evil thing in
the mirror, and put on her cream silk dress, all without crying. Laura was already downstairs. Ellen could hear the click
of her heels on the wooden floor, the slow, confident timbre of her voice. She’d have to go down and face them all: the girls,
Crane, his pregnant sister and her drip of a husband. And the dinner, of course, instructions for which she’d left scribbled
on the back of an envelope last night:
KITTY: Tomorrow’s dinner menu. Pea and lettuce
soup. Chilled poached salmon and new potatoes. Strawberries
and cream.
Then she’d added:
I won’t be available to help so
have kept it simple. E.S.
They were all seated when she arrived downstairs. Kitty had extended the mahogany table to its full length. Ellen had brought
it with her from the London house, and even with the two rooms knocked into one, it was a squeeze to fit it in comfortably.
Crane seemed very far away, sitting on the other side of the room, studying his napkin. The feeble central light hung too
low over the table, giving the room a rather shadowy feel. For once, she was glad of it: her reddened eyes wouldn’t be so
obvious in the gloom.
‘There you are,’ said Laura. She was wearing a jade shot-silk tunic with metallic blue feathers for earrings. Everything about
her looked fuller: her curved lips and eyes, her black bobbed hair.
‘Here I am,’ agreed Ellen, trying a smile.
Next to Laura was a girl of about twenty, wearing a man’s paisley waistcoat and no blouse. She stood up and bowed her head
towards Ellen.
‘This is my new friend, Tab,’ said Laura, stretching a hand towards the young woman’s elbow. ‘She’s a singer. Awfully talented.’
Ellen looked Tab up and down. Her bare arms were sleek and muscled; her small breasts seemed to be holding themselves up without
any support, apart from the waistcoat, and her hair – dyed red to the point of being almost purple – was short and set in
neat waves.
‘Where’s Humphrey?’
‘Where indeed?’ replied Laura.
Ellen glanced at Crane, but he was still studying his napkin. She pulled out a chair at the opposite end of the table and
sat down. ‘Welcome to Willow Cottage, Tab. Do sit.’
The wall seemed to be very close behind Ellen’s back, hemming her into place. ‘A singer. How interesting. What sort of thing?’
Tab cleared her throat. When she spoke, her voice was high and reedy. ‘Anything, really,’ she said, gazing at Laura. ‘I mean,
I love the French songs…’
‘She does a marvellous “Mômes de la cloche”, interjected Laura. ‘Extraordinary.’
‘I’m working on widening my repertoire.’ Tab’s accent was hard to place. It was a bit like the barmaid’s in the Wheatsheaf,
but not quite that coarse.
‘She’s been a great success at the Café Royal, haven’t you, Tab darling?’
Ellen smoothed her napkin over her lap. ‘I rather thought it had all blown over for the dear old Café now.’
‘When was the last time you were there?’ asked Crane, looking up.
Ellen laughed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been stuck here in the wilderness with you for an age.’
‘It’s lovely here,’ said Tab. ‘A right breath of fresh air.’
‘Tab’s a Brighton girl,’ said Laura, sliding her eyes sidelong. ‘Isn’t it a blast? A fisherman’s daughter singing in the Royal.’
The colour rose in Tab’s face.
‘She used to help her father haul the nets up the beach,’ said Laura.
‘How interesting,’ said Crane, putting down his napkin and leaning towards Tab. ‘Wasn’t it wonderful work, though, Tab, out
there? There’s something so – ah – rewarding about physical work out of doors, isn’t there?’
Tab shrugged her shoulders. ‘I prefer the Royal.’
‘Shall we eat?’ said Ellen, ladling herself some soup from the tureen and passing it to Tab. She could tell the stuff wasn’t
nearly hot enough as soon as she lifted the lid: there was hardly any steam. Taking a breath, she decided to let it go. She
would have to ignore these little things in order to get through this evening. It was strange; despite being so upset this
afternoon by re-reading the letters, she found what her mind kept returning to was the image of that cow being dragged along
Petersfield High Street. She saw again the huge open wound of its stomach, the way it had seemed to sink helplessly into the
road.
Picking up her spoon, she looked around the table and forced herself to focus. Geenie’s normally pale face was, she noticed,
now quite tanned, which made her appear somehow more defined; her chin wasn’t pressed so far into her chest, and her hair
had been bleached almost white by the sun. Instead of eating her soup, she was studying the prongs of her fork, holding the
silver close to her nose. Next to Crane, whose eyes were fixed on his soup, was Diana. She, too, was tanned. Dark as an Italian,
thought Ellen, and eating like one, too: nothing could stop Diana once she’d started on her food.
‘Tell me,’ Ellen began. ‘Did you girls have an interesting day?’
Crane swallowed. ‘I was just telling Laura. We went up Harting Down, looking for bee orchids.’
‘But we didn’t find any, did we, Daddy?’ said Diana, between mouthfuls. ‘So we had a very interesting discussion instead.’
