‘The second person to be struck by a car,’ Macho was
paying attention, after all, ‘in as many months. The police will have noticed that. They’ll want measurements, noting locations of breaks and bruises, to try to ascertain if the same car was involved both times.’
‘You people!’ Cressie distanced herself from them, shuddering. ‘How could it be the same car? Adèle Desparta hadn’t hit town yet when the first accident happened.’
There it was again. That cool certainty that Adèle had disposed of her rival. And no one had even heard – or cared about – her side of the story. This town was turning into one big hanging jury – it was just as well that the death penalty had been abolished. Even so, fifteen to twenty years in jail wouldn’t do Adèle Desparta any good.
‘Has it ever occurred to you – ’ Lorinda began.
‘That’s it!’ Freddie drained her glass and made shooing motions towards the kitchen. ‘Let’s get started. Quick before it melts!’
Since it was still in the freezer, there was little chance of that. Freddie took out a bowl, fluffed up the contents with a fork, divided them into sherbert glasses and sloshed a bit more vodka over the tops.
‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘You’ve heard of the Bloody Mary, you’ve heard of the Virgin Mary. Now we present –
taa-daah!
– the Frigid Mary!’
‘What is it?’ Cressie looked at the frosted red mass with suspicion.
‘Try it and see,’ Freddie said.
‘It’s a frozen Bloody Mary.’ Macho had already dipped into his. ‘Were you expecting real blood?’
‘With you people, who can tell?’ Cressie poked at it moodily.
Lorinda and Freddie exchanged glances. It was clear that whatever bloom had once been on the rose had now definitely vanished. But, if Cressie was so miserable here, why did she stay? She had her own place in London, hadn’t she? That vaunted mews house, whose renovation
she had so exhaustively and harrowingly detailed in
Mooning the Builders.
‘This tastes funny.’ Cressie was determined not to be satisfied. For an instant, Lorinda felt a fleeting sympathy for the builders.
‘Everyone has their own recipe for a Bloody Mary.’ Macho eyed her coldly. ‘This is Freddie’s. It tastes just fine to me.’
‘You all stick together,’ Cressie complained.
No one bothered to answer. Lorinda watched as Freddie crossed to the oven, stalked by the cats.
‘Now for the pièce de resistance – I hope!’ Freddie lifted a pan from the oven and swiftly transferred the golden chicken to a platter and placed it in the centre of the table.
‘Well, it’s golden in patches.’ She eyed her handiwork judiciously. ‘Could be worse. It’s probably the sort of thing that needs a bit more practice.’
‘What have you done to it?’ Cressie asked.
‘Gilded it,’ Freddie said. ‘Or, as it was known in medieval times, “endored” it.’
‘Medieval, eh?’ Macho studied the bird with interest. ‘From one of your old recipe books, no doubt.’
‘No, I mean, why is it so flat? Did you hit it with a rolling pin?’ Cressie wrinkled her nose. ‘It looks like a shelf between the two wings. Is that medieval, too?’
‘No, that’s modern – I think.’ It seemed that Cressie had hit a sensitive spot. ‘All the current advice is to roast your chicken breast down for the first half-hour, then turn it over on its back for the rest of the cooking time, and it gives you lots of moist juicy breast meat. So I tried it – and this is what happened. That damned bird went into the oven a 36C and when I turned it over, it was a 32A. I hoped it might plump up again when I put it back in the oven, but it didn’t.’
‘Your medieval cook would have cooked it on a spit.’ Macho seemed to be having trouble controlling his expression. ‘It would eliminate that problem.’
‘It probably tastes all right,’ Lorinda said, ‘even if it does look a bit peculiar.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ Having allowed them enough time to contemplate it, Freddie began to carve briskly. ‘Let’s see how it tastes.’
‘I don’t like it.’ Predictably, Cressie balked at the first forkful. ‘It tastes weird.’
‘That’s probably the saffron,’ Freddie said. ‘It’s not everybody’s cup of tea – but it enhances the gold colour.’
‘Medieval food was usually highly flavoured.’ Macho spoke with authority. ‘And often too strong or too sweet to appeal to modern tastes. On the whole,’ he chewed reflectively, ‘this isn’t too bad, but I think I prefer your usual way of roasting it, right side up and covered with strips of bacon.’
The cats circled the table, alert for kindness or carelessness. Lorinda let a small chunk of chicken slip to the floor as Roscoe nudged her ankle.
Had-I and But-Known promptly crowded over, demanding their share – and giving her away
‘Are you feeding that cat?’ Cressie glared at her.
‘Not really,’ Lorinda defended. ‘It just fell off my fork.’
‘Put that cat out!’ Cressie ordered Macho. ‘Put them all out! They shouldn’t be in here when people are eating, anyway. It’s unsanitary!’
‘No!’ Macho said.
‘What???’
‘You heard me!’
‘Nevertheless, I believe I’ll put this recipe in the book.’ Freddie’s voice overrode the others. ‘It’s simple enough – and an experienced cook might be able to adjust the recipe enough to get better results.’
‘It’s a sort of sauce, is it?’ Lorinda tried to keep up her end of the conversation. ‘That should be easy.’
‘It looked easy,’ Freddie sighed. ‘Just one ounce of butter, a quarter teaspoon of saffron, an ounce of sugar, two tablespoons of white wine vinegar and one egg yolk. Bob’s your uncle, I thought – until I started cooking it. But when
I melted the butter and all the salty scum rose to the surface, I realized that they should have specified unsalted butter. Then you’re supposed to stir in the saffron and cook it gently until the butter turns bright yellow – only the butter started to brown and it was a race to get the colour out of the saffron strands before the butter burned black. When it came to straining out the saffron, I didn’t want to clog up my tea strainer with congealing butter, so I used a fork – it was like fishing spider legs out of the lemonade on a summer picnic.’
There was a gagging sound from Cressie.
‘Then you add the sugar and wine vinegar to the saffroned butter and cook it until it goes syrupy, when you take it off the heat and stir in the egg yolk and cook, but don’t boil, stirring constantly, until it’s thick – only it started going lumpy. I think they should have told you to use a double-boiler, otherwise it cooks too fast. Then you slosh the gloop over your chicken and put the bird back in the oven for the last ten minutes or so to finish cooking.’ Freddie regarded the results gloomily. ‘I’m not sure it was worth it.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I may try that,’ Lorinda said unconvincingly, privately thinking that, in these modern times, it might be easier just to rub some yellow food colouring over the chicken.
‘It could have a certain novelty value for special festivities,’ Freddie said. ‘But I’ve also decided that – just to give the readers a break – it would be more merciful to include some recipes from the past that no one in their right mind would want to try It would make such a nice change for them to just sit and read without feeling that they ought to be getting up and going to the kitchen to try out the recipe.’
‘Have you anything particular in mind?’ Lorinda’s voice rang out too loudly, now that the others had lapsed into silence. Cressie was sulking as Macho defiantly picked up a generous slice of chicken and hand-fed it to Roscoe. The
brooding hunch of her shoulders told them all that he was going to regret that the instant she got him alone.
For the moment, with his peers around him, he was safe. And so was Roscoe. Freddie heaped more slices of chicken on to Macho’s plate.
‘As a matter of fact, I have. Artificial Ass’s Milk,’ Freddie said. ‘I found it in an eighteenth-century cookery book.’
‘What the hell do you do with ass’s milk?’ Cressie’s attention was diverted.
‘Cleopatra bathed in it,’ Macho told her.
‘This one is supposed to be a drink for invalids,’ Freddie said, ‘but I think you’d rather bathe in it than drink it.’
‘Maybe I would.’ Cressie pointedly scraped the gilding off another piece of chicken.
‘It also minimizes any guilt feelings because you not only can’t get the ingredients these days, you’ve never heard of most of them. For instance, hartshorn shavings, eringo root, China root, balsam of Tolu – but the zinger is: “eighteen snails bruised with the shells” …’
‘Correction,’ Cressie said. ‘I don’t even want to bathe in it.’
‘How do you bruise a snail?’ Macho wondered.
‘After that, it gets pretty tame,’ Freddie said. ‘You’re supposed to boil it all up with real milk. Then the invalid is supposed to drink half a pint in the morning and half a pint at night.’
‘And it didn’t kill them?’ Cressie’s eyes were wide.
‘Our ancestors were a hardy lot,’ Macho said. ‘They had to be, what with the leeches and blood-letting and all. Not to mention the amateur herbalists who got it wrong.’
There was a sudden loud crash from the other half of the house.
‘The Jackleys are back, are they?’ Macho looked towards the wall. ‘I haven’t seen them around the village.’
‘Nor have I.’ Freddie shrugged. ‘They must be lying low for some reason.’
‘You mean you don’t really know who you’ve got living next door?’ Cressie seemed apprehensive.
‘Jack and Karla are,’ Freddie said.
‘But, if you haven’t actually seen them, it could be anyone. They might have sublet. You’re awfully trusting. There are a lot of strange people around these days.’
‘You’re not in the city now. We all know our neighbours here. We may not like them very much – ’ Freddie glared at the wall as another muffled thump shook it – ‘but we know who they are.’
‘Stop that!’ Cressie bellowed suddenly. Roscoe had crept into Macho’s lap and was eating the chicken at the side of his plate.
‘You knew he was doing that!’ She turned her fury on Macho. ‘You were letting him do it!’
Macho gave her a cold stare and deliberately hand-fed Roscoe another choice sliver.
‘That does it! If you don’t throw him out, I will!’ She charged around the table and snatched Roscoe from Macho’s lap. Roscoe protested violently, twisting in her grasp and clawing out.
Had-I went over to investigate and unwisely stepped into her path. Cressie lashed out with her foot.
The shrieks came simultaneously: Lorinda’s, as she rushed from the table to rescue Had-I; Cressie’s, as a claw caught in her forearm and raked it, leaving a long scratch that began welling blood.
Roscoe dropped to the floor and raced into the living room. Had-I, shocked and bewildered, nestled into Lorinda’s arms – no one had ever treated her like that before.
‘I’m bleeding!’ Cressie shrieked.
‘Bleeding nuisance!’ Macho muttered, not quite under his breath.
‘Here, sit down.’ Freddie pushed a chair towards her. ‘I’ll fix it. It’s just a scratch.’
‘No, you don’t! You’d probably poison me with one of those old recipes of yours!! You’re crazy!’ Cressie wrenched open the back door and darted for home. ‘You’re all crazy!’
In the silence, Freddie returned to her place at the table, sat down and buried her face in her hands. Her voice was muffled: ‘There’s nothing like a nice quiet dinner with friends.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Macho apologized. ‘She’s upset.’
‘
I’m
sorry, but that’s just not good enough!’ Lorinda was still furious. ‘That woman is a menace. You’ve got to get rid of her before – before she kills all our cats!’
‘She wouldn’t do that. Well, she would, if she could,’ Macho admitted. ‘But I won’t let her.’
‘You haven’t done a very good job so far,’ Lorinda said. ‘Poor Roscoe is – ’
‘I know, I know.’ He rubbed his forehead.
‘Macho …’ Freddie raised her head and stared into his eyes. ‘This has gone too far. Let’s have the truth: are you married to that woman?’
‘God, no!’ Macho shuddered.
‘Then why don’t you get rid of her? What hold does she have over you?’
There was a long silence.
‘Macho …?’ Lorinda asked.
‘Oh, all right.’ He caved in. ‘I guess the project is well enough along now to tell you. We … we’re collaborating on a new book. Something different for both of us.’
‘How different?’ They waited.
‘We’re using my knowledge of history and her, er, cutting edge and we’re writing
Anne Boleyn Is Missing
!’ He sat back and looked at them with a faint air of triumph – and some relief.
‘You mean you’re writing alternative history?’ Lorinda was dubious. ‘Like, Anne Boleyn went missing before she got involved with Henry VIII?’
‘No, no, it’s completely modern. Up-to-date.’ Macho drew a deep breath. ‘The concept is: Someone is Stealing the Stately Ghosts of England. One by one, they’re all disappearing from their, er, accustomed haunts, the stately homes and historic sites.’