Authors: Marita Conlon-McKenna
Rachel and Leah had cooked everything beautifully, and Emmet was proudly cutting into his beef. His tart was the perfect consistency and he had substituted tinned apricots for his filling as he hated pears.
Kerrie’s potatoes were done fine, but her vegetables were too chunky and undercooked to serve. Her tart filling was lumpy, and she hadn’t cooked her base enough, so the filling had leaked through and made it even soggier.
‘You have to let the base cook really well before you fill it,’ advised Alice. ‘Don’t rush too much.’
‘But my beef is fine,’ Kerrie said proudly. ‘I can’t believe it. The fillet turned out OK!’ They all had a taste of each other’s dishes, and Alice had to say she was delighted with the results. Everyone had something good enough to eat in front of them. It was a real confidence-builder on their first night, and they were all chatting excitedly about what they had made.
Rob sat down at the table, and without any fuss began to eat his straight away, while some of the others packed up their dishes to take home. Gemma and Paul sat in beside him and ate their own fillet of beef and the vegetables.
‘Seriously good,’ remarked Paul, tucking into his beef. ‘I’d have usually just flung my meat under the grill.’
Half an hour later they’d all gone. Lucy and Rachel had helped Alice to load up the dishwasher, and she had slipped off her shoes and poured herself a glass of red wine. She was helping herself to some beef and potatoes when Sean and his friend Dara O’Loughlin appeared.
‘Wow, it smells great. How did it all go?’ asked her son, automatically grabbing some extra plates and cutlery. She served the boys with a small portion of the fillet and popped potatoes on their plates.
‘It went really well. They are a great bunch. I’m sure over the next few weeks we’ll all get to know each other better … there’s nothing like working in a kitchen to see what people are really like. But I have to admit I’m very pleased with the class.’
‘This beef is really good … and what kind of potatoes are these?’ asked Dara, tucking into what was left.
Dara had been eating at their house since he was about seven years old, usually turning up with Sean at mealtimes. He lived about five minutes away, and he and Sean were almost inseparable. They had gone to the same primary and secondary schools and now were in college together. Dara was studying commerce in UCD, and Sean studying arts. Dara was a great kid and a hard worker, and had been a real support to her son over the past year or so.
‘They’re called fondant potatoes,’ she explained. ‘And there’s some tart left, too, if you fancy any. I’ll take a sliver with my coffee.’
‘So there’s going to be food every week after the class?’ Sean laughed. ‘A late supper for us!’
‘Honestly, you two!’ She smiled, and answered her phone, noticing that Jenny was on the line to find out how it had all gone.
Kitty couldn’t believe how the time had flown. Their teacher, Alice Kinsella, really knew what was what about cooking. A pretty woman, she had a nice way about her, spoke slowly and clearly, and explained everything very well. The class was a bit of a mixed bag: that pretty girl with her make-up and false fingernails, and those two sisters who seemed to spend their whole time laughing and joking about their husbands, and as for that poor widower! The poor man hadn’t a clue! The
crater
could barely peel a potato, let alone cook one! Well, it certainly was interesting, and a bit different from the other classes she’d done over the years.
The last cookery class Kitty had attended had been when she was about sixteen and was part of her home economics course when she was in school. She could still remember the greasy mutton stew Sister Patricia had made them all cook, and the brown bread, scones, potato soup and gammon and cabbage. Sister Patricia, red-faced and sweating, told them she was preparing them for their lives ahead. God be good to the poor old nun!
Martello Avenue was very nice, an old-fashioned kind of road, and the Kinsella woman certainly had a fine big house. Kitty couldn’t imagine what it must be like to work in such a bright modern kitchen with those big windows overlooking the garden and comfy chairs and big table and island. It was another world compared to her old kitchen, she thought, as she locked the Ford Fiesta and came in home. She’d put some of the meat and potatoes in the microwave and reheat them. She passed the sitting room. Larry was sitting watching
Sky Sports
on TV, his feet up on the footstool she had worked so hard on upholstering last year. The newspapers were scattered around the floor. He must have fallen asleep. It drove her mad, and she resisted the urge to go in and switch off the TV and headed for the kitchen instead.
She sighed as she looked around. It was a good size. They’d raised five kids in this kitchen. All had sat around the big pine table, eating and doing homework and school projects. Now they were grown up and gone, all living relatively close by, and Larry and herself had their three grandchildren. Jack and Roísín were usually dropped in with barely a moment’s notice for their granny to mind, and on a Thursday she took little Danny for the day, as her eldest daughter worked in the laboratory in Beaumont Hospital. Caroline, their daughter-in-law, was due in about ten days, and then there would be another new baby in their family. Kitty had a high chair in the corner, and a basket of toys for the kids to play with downstairs, and the old cot set up upstairs.
She put on the radio and divided up what she had cooked. The rest could keep till tomorrow. It smelled great, and she set the timer on the microwave. OK, so there were no fancy ovens or cookers in this kitchen, and the lino was worn
through on the floor, and the doors on three of her kitchen presses were loose. Also, you had to stand at the sink to look out of the window at the back garden with its washing line and shed and patio, which she supposed was the old way of doing things.
Larry, when he retired first, had talked about fitting a new kitchen, doing a bit of redecorating around the house, but it had never gone any further than looking at a few brochures. She was all up for it, and then Larry had stopped … sat in front of the TV and done nothing, like he always did. The two of them had had all kinds of plans for when the kids were finally grown up and independent and Larry was retired from his job in the civil service – forty years working in the Department of Health – on a good pension. They were going to visit her sister in America, go to Rome and see the Vatican, spoil themselves and eat out once a week, buy a new car, take trips, go on some of those special midweek deals that the hotels were always advertising, hire a boat, cruise the Shannon, and learn to play pitch and putt.
So many plans they’d had, and in the end she had given up raising things with Larry as it annoyed her so much when he told her he was too tired, and he wasn’t going wasting his hard-earned retirement fund on some stupid thing or another.
All Larry wanted was a few drinks on a Saturday night in the local pub, and to spend the rest of the time watching sport. Didn’t matter if it was football or GAA or the racing or even golf, he would settle himself on to the couch and not budge till 11 p.m. most nights. Two birthdays ago the kids had bought her a small TV of her own to use in the kitchen, as she never got to see any of her programmes any more, and
last May she’d gone to Rome with a group from the parish. She had had enough of waiting around for her husband!
She grabbed a place mat and sat down at the table to eat the beef and some of those nice potatoes. She’d have a slice of the pear tart with her cup of tea after.
Larry came in.
‘Are you making tea?’ he asked.
‘In a while.’ She kept eating.
‘That smells good,’ he said, curious, looking at her plate. She’d left him a chop and some mash for his dinner earlier.
‘Bit of fillet of beef and some potatoes … it’s very tasty,’ she said. ‘Made it at the cookery school I’ve joined.’
‘Cookery school?’
‘Larry, I told you I was doing another night class … something useful … you just didn’t listen to me. We made a lovely pear and almond tart for dessert. You can have a piece of it with your cup of tea if you want.’
‘That would be nice,’ he said, scooting back out. ‘I’m in the middle of watching the snooker. Will you bring it in to me?’
She wanted to say, ‘I will not bring it bloody well in to you,’ but wasn’t in form to have a fight with him. Larry was never going to change, and she just had to put up with it. She took out her recipe sheet from the night.
Not bad at all. On next week’s ingredient list chicken breast and that crab thing were on the menu. Sounded good!
It was strange doing the classes on her own … every year she had done night classes with her best friend, Sheila O’Leary, both of them glad of a night out and a chance to escape their stick-in-the-mud, stay-at-home husbands. Poor old Martin
suffered with chronic arthritis in his back so at least he had some excuse compared to Larry! She and Sheila were a right pair, and had been friends since they had their first babies, Clodagh and Melissa, around the same time. Sheila was always up for everything. She’d restored a whole mahogany sideboard last year. She laughed, thinking of Sheila with a mask on, injecting all the woodworm holes with some kind of chemical, and the two of them wondering where the woodworms would escape to. They’d had a great few days in Rome in the spring with the rest of the parish group. They’d seen the Coliseum, the Vatican, and the Trevi Fountain, but now poor Sheila was laid up in the hospital. They’d diagnosed breast cancer, a small lump, last year and removed it – but now it had spread. Sheila was in having her treatment. Kitty hated seeing her sick. Sheila was strong, a big woman. The medicines would work, and she’d get better, and the next time the two of them would go to Paris. Climb the Eiffel Tower. See the Mona Lisa. Go to mass in Notre Dame. She’d bring Sheila up a bit of tart tomorrow – the hospital food was awful – and tell her best friend all about the new class and what she was missing.
Lucy waited near the film centre in Temple Bar for Finn. They were going to see a great French film that had got brilliant reviews in the
Ticket
, and that she had texted him about.
‘Hey!’ he said, surprising her, and brushing his lips against her cheek. She liked it, and lightly kissed him back.
In the darkness they held hands, and she rested her head against his shoulder, listening to the rhythm of his breathing. Afterwards they went for a pizza and a drink.
‘Like your T-shirt.’ She smiled when he took off his leather jacket and revealed the pale-grey T-shirt with white stars and the words ‘Busy Stargazing’.
‘Nothing much else to do when you’re on the dole, so I put it on a shirt,’ he said sheepishly. They spent the next hour shouting out other busy things people like themselves on the dole could do.
‘Busy Cooking,’ she suggested. ‘Since I’ve just started my cooking course.’
‘Busy Sleeping.’ Finn laughed.
‘Busy Daydreaming.’ She added, ‘We all do a lot of that!’
‘Busy in Bed,’ he teased. ‘Well, some people might be.’
‘Busy Busking,’ she roared.
She really liked Finn, and was thrilled at the end of the night when he suggested meeting for lunch again in two days’ time and maybe hanging out for a few hours.
‘Busy Queuing,’ he called out as she stepped on the DART and headed for home.
‘Busy Hanging Out,’ she texted him five minutes later.
Lucy tossed and turned during the night, thinking of Finn and his T-shirt. He was so relaxed and easy and good fun, so different from Josh. She was more herself with him. He could accept her for who she was; there was none of that shit she had got from Josh. Things would get better, and in time she and Finn would have jobs and careers or whatever, but now when they both had nothing was a pretty good time to see if you liked a person or not or maybe could fall in love with them.
‘Love it,’ she yelled when she saw the familiar dole hatch and the words ‘Busy Queuing’ on Finn’s black T-shirt.
‘A guy on the bus asked me where I got it.’ He grinned.
They went to the Chinese on Dame Street for a shared lunch special, and then walked up to St Stephen’s Green and hung out there till it got too dark and cold.
‘We could go back to my place?’ he offered.
Finn was sharing a gaffe in Ranelagh with two old college friends, and they were busy playing Mario on an ancient Nintendo when she was introduced to them.
‘This is Duggy … he’s a film editor, and this is Karl. He’s a photographer.’
The guys greeted her warmly and then returned to their
gaming as she and Finn disappeared to the kitchen and made a big pot of tea.
‘I’ve got free tickets to see the Bunny Crew in Whelan’s on Saturday night, if you fancy it,’ she offered.
‘Great, I saw them playing in the Mezz last year and they were brilliant.’
Lucy couldn’t believe it … they even liked the same bands.
‘I was thinking about you the other night when I was in bed,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s good to hear,’ he said, grinning lecherously.
‘No, Finn, I don’t mean like that …’ She blushed, embarrassed. ‘Well, I do, but I was thinking about your T-shirt. And then, seeing this new one today, I think they are kind of hot … like right on the button. You said that guy on the bus asked you about it … well, maybe other people would, too. Be interested, I mean.’
‘What the hell are you talking about, Lucy?’ Finn laughed.
‘Everyone thinks when you are on the dole that you are just dossing and bored out of your tree, which let’s face it, is partially true, but we all are trying to keep busy … doing things even if they are kind of stupid. We do keep trying things. We keep, as you say, busy. I just think that with so many of us on the dole that maybe there might be a bit of a market for your T-shirt.’
‘Sell my shirt?’ he said, pulling at it.
‘No, I mean print and make more of them, and see if we can sell them at one of the markets or on the internet. People like shirts. We used to sell loads in the shop. Some of the bands sold more T-shirts than CDs!’