Golden Hour (11 page)

“Oh, she is a menace!”

Liz speaks both to herself in her dismay and to Bridget, signaling that the accusation of neglect is withdrawn. Bridget lifts her head higher and speaks in almost official tones. She has clearly prepared these words.

“I've been and spoke to my sister Janet in Hove, Janet always did have the sense in the family. Janet says I'm not to put up with it. Janet says if that's how I'm to be treated, then I'd best take Mrs. D at her word and see myself off. If I'm not giving satisfaction, then there it is. There's only so much a person can do.”

“Of course there is,” says Liz, wanting only to appease.

“And she won't take her medication sometimes. Takes it and drops it on the floor. The other day I made her a shepherd's pie, lovely it was, fresh out of the freezer, and she never touched it. Well, it's a waste, isn't it? And of course it's a worry. Won't take her medication, won't eat her food, won't go to bed. It's not right, not at her age.”

“I'll talk to her, Bridget. I'll sort it out.”

“If I'm not giving satisfaction, I don't want to stay on. The Lord knows I do my best. But Janet says I've no call to stay on and be spoken to like that.”

“Of course not, Bridget. I'm so sorry. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. You're so reliable and you keep everything so tidy—really we're so lucky to have you. My mum knows she needs you, really.”

“If I say I'll do a thing, then I do it. I was in this morning and not a word. It was just like nothing had happened. I put
out her toast and she ate it up. Then off I went, and still not a word. I went to Hove and spoke to Janet. So as soon as you can find someone else—”

“No, no. I'll never find someone as reliable as you, Bridget. I'll go over as soon as I can and talk to her.”

“If I'm not giving satisfaction, I don't want to stay on. Don't get me wrong, but it's no pleasure doing a job if you're spoken to like you're dirt.”

“I'll make her understand, Bridget. I don't know what I'd do if you left us. Don't worry about it. I'll talk to her. Please?”

“Well, seeing as you don't have anyone.” Bridget allows herself to be persuaded. “But if she tells me to go away again, I'll take her at her word and not trouble her no more.”

Bridget leaves. Liz feels so agitated by the encounter that she goes through to Alan again, even though she knows she's running out of time to file her five hundred words.

“My bloody mother!” she says. “Turns out she sent Bridget away last night.”

“You know why? She doesn't want a carer. She wants you.”

“Well, she can't have me.”

Caspar squeezes into the space between them.

“I know who can babysit me on Saturday,” he says. “Granny. I can go to Granny's.”

“Good Lord! Do you want to?”

“Yes,” says Cas.

“She's too old, darling. And she's not being at all nice to Bridget.”

“She'll be nice to me,” says Cas. “And Bridget could be there too.”

“We'll see,” says Liz. “Don't worry about Saturday. We'll sort something out.”

To Alan she says, “I'll have to go round there and try to knock
some sense into her. This is the last thing I need. I'm already late with my piece for today.”

“Do your work,” says Alan. “Forget your mother. One visit won't solve anything. She's just something you have to endure, like the weather.”

“God, she drives me crazy.”

Back at her desk, Liz starts up the radio program once more. She listens to a man called Louis confessing that he wishes he'd shagged around more when he was younger. It seems he was held back because he thought his knob was too small.

Liz stops the playback and puts her head in her hands. For God's sake. What is it with humanity? What makes people so ignorant, and fearful, and self-destructive? Surely there's enough misery in the world without dreaming up ways to make it worse.

She picks up her biro and writes at the bottom of her page of notes:
Men fear women because their knobs are too small
. So why would that bother them? Because they fear the loss of sexual power? If so, here's the news, guys. It's on its way. The day will come when you'll no longer be able to get it up. It's called old age, and it happens to every single one of us. You want to get angry about that? You're going to be old for a long, long time. How long can you stay angry? So let it go, guys. In the end all our knobs are too small.

Laura emails a friend who specializes in crime fiction to get a price indicator on the Menno Herrema collection. There are several serious buyers out there, and Golden Age mystery novels are much in demand. Get a bidding war going and you could end up doubling the standard dealer estimate. Laura wants a figure to dangle before Andrew on Saturday.

That done, she sits down at the kitchen table, pulls a lined pad toward her, and writes at the top: Dinner for 8. She has a menu to plan.

Laura is a good cook and she takes pride in her food. She wants to present a dinner that will be seen to be special, while at the same time not straining to be praised. The food is to be fine but not showy. But this is not a family supper, and she will feel inescapably on show, so she does not want to subject herself to any unnecessary last-minute stress. Dover sole for eight, for example. Or soufflé. Not that either are on her mental list. But the object is to have as much done ahead of time as possible, so that once the guests arrive there is nothing left to go wrong. Against this one must set the need to present each dish at its right moment, which will almost certainly mean last-minute cooking of some parts of the meal. And that will mean cutting herself off from the conversation at exactly the time when it's most relaxed, which is over the pre-prandial drink.

Then there's the weather. The forecast is for the hot weather to continue, so Laura's first thought is to eat out on the terrace. But by nine in the evening it can get quite cool. Should she make a hot main dish, say, a roast leg of lamb, to bring warmth as the air cools? Or should she go for a cold main dish, say, Thai beef salad, to acknowledge the alfresco nature of the evening? Or is it is madness to plan to eat outdoors when the temperature may plummet and the wind get up? July can be so unpredictable. Everyone is saying the hot weather must break soon.

She thinks then that it would be nice to make a summer pudding. There are still redcurrants and blackcurrants in the fruit cage, and though the crop of raspberries is just about over she has some frozen from last year. If she's to make summer pudding she'll have to buy the white bread today or tomorrow to give it time to go stale. If the bread isn't stale it forms a gluey rind and fails to soak up the juices of the fruits. The bulk of the shopping will have to be done on Friday, for maximum freshness.

When the sun is shining the garden looks lovely in the early evening. The light falls on the great brow of Mount Caburn, rising up behind the house like a guardian rampart. Laura visualizes her guests moving about the terrace, drinks in hand, enjoying the warm summer air, chatting to each other in a relaxed manner. So a starter that can be eaten standing up, then. Not canapés, this isn't a drinks party. But something bite-sized, that doesn't require a plate. Bruschetta?

Each decision affects the rest. If the main dish is elaborate, the starter should be simple, even homely. Perhaps a sardine pâté, made with fresh sardines, she could make that in the morning, it's just fish paste really, but no one would think it was bought pre-made from M&S. The whole trick is to present food that is easy to deliver on the day, but which requires skill
and originality in the making beforehand. The art that conceals art.

Laura catches herself thinking this, and realizes she's smiling in that way you smile when you want to deflect attention. And it's true that she would never reveal to anyone just how much the success of a dinner party matters to her. It's as if it's a secret addiction. And as with all drug habits, it's not the narcotic that's shameful, but the neurosis that drives the user to reach for the drug. In her case, the need to project a certain self-image. The need for control.

Why should this be a source of shame? No one accuses a businessman of being neurotic when he plans his appointments and ticks off his objectives. But have a few friends round for a meal and it's supposed to happen in some spontaneous manner, without forethought. Like sex, which is supposed to be the result of the passion of the moment. You don't schedule sex. Except quite often that's exactly what she and Henry do. He'll say to her, “Carrie is going to be out on Friday evening, let's have some time to ourselves.” That way they can both look forward to it, and make the time, and enjoy it. But she'd never tell any of her friends this. Somehow the acts in the arena of private happiness are not supposed to be rehearsed. Home life is natural, it's organic, it's free range. Why? Because it's our refuge from the disciplines and efforts of the world of work. We come home not to do, but to be.

When they have friends round for a meal, she often says to Henry, “What shall I cook?” He usually replies, “Don't do anything grand. Just a bowl of pasta.” He too lives in this dream world where home life follows a natural rhythm like the seasons, and good things grow and ripen in their time, and have only to be plucked and enjoyed. To be fair he does cook from time to time, and in what he would call an “instinctive” way. This means he
never uses recipe books, and he picks from the ingredients he finds in the larder and the fridge. No making of lists, no thinking ahead, no shopping. When he lays his triumphant dish on the table there's a look in his eye that says, “There, no need for all the fuss.”

Laura goes in secretly for a considerable amount of fuss. Perhaps if she exposed the process to Henry he'd be more grateful. But something in her wants to protect the illusion that her excellent meals are a last-minute improvisation; as indeed they sometimes are. The vanity of the expert. The hours of practice kept out of sight, so that the public performance will be nonchalant, without signs of strain, graceful. Like the way she ticked the box for Yes when he asked her to marry him.

She blushes a little as she remembers. There's something here of which she is still ashamed.

Henry managed the proposal in such a Henry-ish way. They were having lunch in a pub, nothing grand, the Dove, by the river in Hammersmith. He was telling her about the research he was doing at the time, which was all about the history of tests and examinations. He was explaining the terms used in multiple choice tests, the
stem
, the
key
, and the
distractor
, most of all the distractors, the false answers designed to be so plausible that you might be fooled into picking them. To illustrate what he was saying he pulled out a paper napkin from the holder on the table and wrote her an example.

Even before he had begun to write on the napkin she knew what was coming. This is the part she doesn't want to think about: how she was able to respond so seemingly without hesitation. All the calculation and the compromise had taken place earlier, out of sight.

He wrote on the napkin:
Will you marry me?
Next to this he drew two little boxes, with the choice of answers beside them.

Yes
and
No
. No distractors after all. He then turned the napkin round to face her, held out the pen, and fixed her with his hesitant smile.

She ticked Yes.

She kept the paper napkin, of course, but she can no longer remember what she did with it. She's looked through the bottom left-hand drawer of her desk where she keeps all her personal and family papers, but it's not there. She tries to remember when she last saw it. She remembers taking it from the pub table all those years ago and putting it in her handbag, but after that there's nothing. This makes her feel guilty, as if she has deliberately airbrushed the history of Henry's proposal from her past.

She hears Carrie and Toby come downstairs and is struck by a sudden thought.

“Carrie!” she calls out, catching them as they're crossing the hall. “Are you going to be in on Saturday evening? And will Toby still be here?”

“Don't know,” says Carrie.

“But I need to know.”

“It's Monday, Mum! We could all be dead by Saturday.”

With that she goes out, and Toby follows her, and the door shuts after them.

This is unacceptable, surely? The very least Carrie owes her is information about when she expects a meal to appear before her. If she and Toby are to join the dinner party, that means she's shopping and cooking for ten, which is quite different to eight. What if Toby has some quirky faddishness over what he eats? It seems to Laura to be highly likely. In which case she needs to know. Carrie is not being fair, or grateful.

Henry appears with that look on his face that says his mind is elsewhere. He's come to make himself a mug of coffee, and
to filch a Maryland cookie. In theory he has given up eating cookies mid-morning, as part of a program to lose his paunch; also in theory he goes for a run twice a week. The intention remains, and is honored by his secretive pocketing of the cookies, as if taking them without being seen means he can eat them without gaining weight. In the same spirit, while never actually going for a run, he has a way of talking as if he's always on the point of it. “I'll see if I can find time for a run after lunch,” he says. Or, “It's just too bloody hot to go running today.”

“About Saturday evening,” he says. “We shouldn't be having people round. It should just be you and me. It's our anniversary.”

“Too late now.”

“We can tell them not to come.”

“No, darling. We can't. Diana and Roddy are coming down for the weekend. People make plans. You can't just ring up and say you've changed your mind.”