Recipe for Disaster (18 page)

Another one – well you'll have to wait, mate. Get out of
my way – can't you see I'm in a hurry – now look what's
happened – wonder if I can pick the ice cream up with my
fingers – crap, no I can't – Jake's looking. Hasn't he got
anything else to do?

Fuck! This fucking parfait won't come out of the fucking
mould! What did Sally do to it, weld it on? Yes I know there
are another two orders – I am not blind, thank you –
where's the piping bag, why isn't it clean? Because I didn't
have time to clean it, that's why. God, it's coming out like a
nasty case of diarrhoea – why is it not piping properly?
Where's the fruit? WHERE'S THE FUCKING FRUIT? Oh
– it's here. I never put it there – who moved it? Bastards!
Oh, yes, I put it there. Christ, I'm hot; feel like I'm working
in the oven, not next to it. Why won't the yoghurt swirl like
it did when Jake did it? Yes, I know it looks like shit. There
was no need to do that with it, Jake, and now I'll have to
make up another and, look, the orders are piling up – I've
only got one pair of hands and someone has STOLEN those
ravioli thingies . . .

Shit – shit – shit – shit!

She was so hot the sweat was dripping down her nose and
in danger of falling into the plum soup. Her swirls looked
like bird droppings, the puff pastry crumbled into a thousand
pieces. Jake was on her back constantly, criticising,
complaining, chucking stuff away so she had to start all over
again, which meant she was always behind. She developed
a passionate hatred of him, of the stupid moulds, of the
piping bag, which squirted cream out of the wrong end and
into her eyes and on her fingers, which seemed to have
turned into overcooked sausages and wouldn't bend
properly any more. She was completely oblivious of
everyone else and what they were doing except when she
bumped into them and they both cursed, fiercely, automatically.
She could feel herself turning into a stiff, sweaty
pillar of terror. If she stopped for a second, she would
simply snap in half.

'Come on! Come on!' yelled Jake, who seemed to be
doing about fourteen things all at once, but still had time to
notice there were smears of chocolate on the edge of the
plate.

When this was over, she would hit him, very hard; she
would knock him to the ground and stamp all over him and
squirt that fucking strawberry sauce up his nose, having
boiled it up first. What? Someone wanted two puddings?
Greedy fucking bastards – she hoped their arteries
exploded at the table.

Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!

When the last pudding had gone out, with its usual quota
of criticisms, complaints and modifications, she looked at
the clock and realised time hadn't stopped – it was after
midnight. It was over. She threw her towel in the air and
without thinking, grabbed Jake and kissed him. For a split
second she could feel him pulling her closer, then he
backed off.

'For heaven's sake, woman! Don't put ideas into
Godfrey's head. Who knows where this would lead the next
time he gets something right!' He bent down to retrieve a
spoon from the floor, so no one could see his face.

Staggering outside, light-headed, as if she hadn't eaten
for three days, she smoked three of Kirsty's cigarettes in
succession, though she had given up years ago.

'Did you enjoy that?' asked Jake.

Kate ground the cigarette beneath her heel and took a
few sweet seconds to collect everything she had to say.

'I hated it. I hate you. I hate puddings. I never want to
see a strawberry ever again. I am never setting foot in there
again. I don't care if you have to get your desserts from the
ice-cream van down by the lake. If you ever, ever ask me to
help out again I will . . . I will . . .' She was a journalist, but
words had failed her.

'You didn't do that bad for a beginner.'

'Jake, you shouted at me for the whole fucking
evening!'

'Of course I did,' he said, genuinely surprised. 'But I was
just keeping a friendly eye on you, giving you the odd tip
now and again.'

It was dark outside but she could tell he was laughing at
her.

'It's good to see things from a different perspective now
and again. I bet you thought we just messed around in
there, didn't you?'

'No!'

Well, yes, maybe a bit. Shamefully she recalled her and
Jonathan's patronising conversation all that time ago, when
she had a different life. They were such a pair of goobies –
they didn't know the half of it.

Kirsty joined them and took her fags from Kate's
nerveless fingers. 'Is there a special name for people who
say they've given up smoking and then proceed to smoke
everyone else's?'

'Yes – shameless,' grinned Kate, and pinched another.

'By the way, Jake, I found this note outside your office.
Someone must have crept in and left it there during
service.'

Dear Jake,

I am sorry I couldn't tell you this in person. I am
handing in my notice as from now. I have been offered
another job. It is better pay, with less hours. It is a
good career move. Please don't get angry, but it's at
Café Anglais. Mr Hunter says he won't let you in if you
try to come round and give me a hard time. I'm sorry
if I've dropped you in it.

It was signed 'Sally'.

Jake let out such a bellow of rage that Godfrey dropped
a tray of crockery. It was a good thing all the customers had
gone or they would have run away in fright.

'I just can't believe she would do that to me! And after all
I've done for her. Why do people always say sorry about
something they don't give a toss about? How dare she just
leave without handing in her notice properly?' He was
incandescent with rage because he was powerless to do
anything. Sally didn't need a reference because she had
already got another job. Harry would probably have
bouncers on the door at Café Anglais to stop him from
entering and, anyway, he would just love it if Jake went
storming round there.

He kicked the wall to vent his feelings and then howled
with pain as well as fury. He would have to find another
pastry chef, and fast. They had only got through tonight
because everything had been made up, and anyway it
hadn't been busy. Kate had been great but she wasn't a
cook. He would have to stay up all night and make a new
batch of puddings, and everyone would have to work twice
as hard as they already were working. It could take weeks
to find someone new.

It was a waste of time to brood on it, but he felt bitterly
let down by Sally. He thought she had been happy here. He
had been endlessly kind and patient with her because she
had real talent. But she would be squashed to a pulp by
Harry. Fewer hours – hah! She wasn't going to know what
hit her! He would screw her, then dump her and dock her
pay every time she fucked up. It was like sending a tiny
kitten into a lion's den and expecting it to come out alive.

Kate wasn't feeling too good, either. In fact she was
gibbering with panic, a state she had never before
experienced. 'Listen, if you're expecting me to –'

'It's OK – don't worry.' Jake wasn't sure if he had broken
a toe when he slammed his foot into the wall, but the pain
had cleared his head. 'I meant what I said: you did great,
but I'm not expecting you to make a career change.'

Thank God for that. She'd had so many of those recently,
she wasn't sure who she was any more.

Kate sniffed, stirred and tasted. She thought about it for a
minute, then steeled herself for a second go. No. She was
right the first time. It was impossible to say anything nice
about Godfrey's soup. It was just terrible. It had all the
flavour you would expect to find at the bottom of a very old
sock. The surface of this revolting concoction was speckled
with small black spots, which didn't improve the soup's
desirability.

'Jake said to use white pepper but I thought it needed a
bit of oomph. I also thought I would try to improve on the
original,' he floundered on, aware that with his limited
experience, this now sounded frankly ludicrous.

'And what do you call this creation?' Kate asked,
genuinely curious.

'Er, cream of pea,' he said, desperately trying to remember
what he had chucked into it.

'Hmm,' said Kate, wondering if she should try to be kind,
but knowing this was impossible. 'The trouble is, I would
call it a lot of things, but none of them would actually
include the word edible.'

'Oh dear, you sound just like Jake.'

They both thought about Jake. Emma, the new pastry
chef, had been recruited after turning up at the back door,
bearing a lemon mousse that Jake said was the best he had
ever tasted.

'I am going to train to become a teacher, but I want to
take some time out before going back to class – you know,
to clear my head.'

'Hmm. I'm not sure that working here will actually do
that, but start anyway,' said Jake.

She was talented but inexperienced, which meant that
Jake was spending extra time training her. He didn't mind,
but it was tiring. Now he was out, having a meeting with his
bank manager. He had left Godfrey to make soup. He
would expect soup when he got back. A good soup would
restore his frayed nerves after a trying afternoon. This was
so not a good soup.

Kate and Godfrey were alone in the kitchen. Everyone
else had long gone and Godfrey was itching to do the same.
'The thing is, I've absolutely promised my dad to go and
find some sheep this afternoon. About a hundred and forty
of them. He'll be a bit peeved if I don't turn up.' This was a
massive understatement. On a good day, when Godfrey's
dad was shouting at his animals he could be heard in three
counties.

Godfrey could either stay behind and make a soup
someone would like to eat, but be bollocked by his dad, or
he could race up and down the fell for a few hours, while
looking forward to being bollocked by Jake when he got
back. 'Either way, I'm screwed.'

Kate was secretly very proud of her stint in the kitchen,
especially now that the horror had receded. Like a new
mother, she had forgotten about the agonising birth pangs
and could only remember the bliss of delivery.

A couple of hours on her own in the kitchen, and she
could make a perfectly acceptable soup. All the ingredients
were there for the soup Jake had wanted Godfrey to make,
before he had got ideas above his station. She also wanted
to impress Jake, for reasons she wasn't prepared to admit to
herself.

'Go on, get up that fell. I'll make some more soup,' she
said, trying to make it sound like a massive favour,
reluctantly granted.

'Can you?' asked Godfrey, doubtfully.

'Could it be any worse than this?'

'Well . . .'

'Go on, then, I dare you to eat a bowl of that . . . that
stuff.'

'I'll be back before six.'

Left on her own, Kate sauntered off to the fridge,
humming.
Soupe aux moules
. Albert Roux had described it as
a dish that would tempt even non-soup-eaters. Kate
reckoned it would also be dead easy to make as it contained
only a few ingredients and the instructions only covered a
few lines. Any recipe method that had you turning over
several pages of tightly written script was not worth doing,
in her opinion. Also, she had to admit, that sort of stuff was
probably best left to the professionals. Superbly talented
and versatile she might be, but she was not a pro.

She was also well on her way to a winning soup, because
Jake had thoughtfully provided the stock. It had taken
hours to make but as she heated it up and its delicate
fragrance hit her nose, she realised it was going to be a lot
better than chucking a ready-made stock cube into some
hot water.

She got out a chopping board and sliced onions, leaks,
carrots and celery. How on earth did you sweat vegetables?
Tell them they had to do a week's work with Jake? That
could send anything into a lather of fear. Trial and error
gave her the answer. She cooked the first batch on a high
heat for about ten minutes, after which they were shrivelled
to a very unappetising shade of burned. OK, maybe 'sweat'
meant cook gently, in which case why didn't they bloody say
so? It was as if cooking were some sort of arcane club into
which only a select few were admitted.

'Debeard the mussels.'

This was a kitchen, not a barber's shop. Did they mean
that funny bit hanging off the end that probably no one
would want to eat? After a few false goes she eventually got
into her stride. Crushing the garlic and chopping the
tomatoes was easy and then all you had to do was leave it to
simmer. She went out and sat in the sun for a few minutes,
enjoying the fact that she was not sitting in a stuffy, noisy
reporters' room.

The soup then had to be blended and cream and saffron
added. Bloody hell, that actually tasted good! OK, the
kitchen did look a bit of a mess because she had committed
the cardinal sin of not tidying up as she went along, but at
least she had produced something edible. One taste of
Godfrey's soup and you lost the will to eat again.

She tried some more, shutting her eyes and enjoying the
feeling of it moving silkily down her throat.

'If men could only make women look as happy as that.'

She jumped and dropped the spoon.

'Is this part of some cunning plot to take over my
kitchen? Do your ambitions know no limits?' asked Jake,
grinning.

She told him about the cream of pea débâcle, the urgent
question of dozens of missing sheep and her own incredible
good nature.

'Try this and tell me you don't like it.'

She couldn't understand why his lips were twitching but
he took a taste and agreed, with some surprise, that it was a
very good soup indeed. Then he looked round the kitchen.

'How long did it take you to do this?'

'Well, all afternoon, really. Reading the instructions was
a bit like deciphering the Rosetta Stone. And I know I
haven't been very neat, but I am only a novice and I can tell
by the look on your face that it's a good soup, which is not
what you would have said about Godfrey's. So why are you
laughing? You should be bloody grateful,' she added,
rather nettled.

Jake stopped pretending not to laugh and gave in. He
leaned against a wall and laughed until his eyes watered. It
was extremely annoying. She tapped her foot and advised
him to let her in on the joke before she threw something at
him. He wiped his eyes.

'OK, OK. Now, you are quite right. This is a perfectly
lovely soup. I am full of admiration at the effort you have
gone to, the evidence of which I can see all round my lovely
kitchen. It is a magnificent soup and one which I would be
proud to serve to my customers. The only question is, which
one of them am I going to honour with this dish?'

He started laughing again at the puzzled look on her
face. 'You have made enough soup for, well, about four
people, if they are not very hungry. When we make soup we
usually make enough to serve to a restaurant full of people,
to avoid nasty quarrels between customers and – oh, yes –
to avoid the small problem of us running out after five
minutes.'

'You mean I have slaved away all afternoon just to
provide soup for one small table? Oh fuck.' She was
mortified.

Jake got out a pan big enough to bath a baby in and
starting chopping potatoes and leeks with great speed. 'I
shall make
potage bonne femme
in honour of you,' he said.

'And I shall wash up,' said Kate rather dolefully. There
was an awful lot of it to do considering the very small snack
she had prepared.

'I have to go and see some people tomorrow. They could
be useful to me. I think, seeing as you are a writer and also
keen on food, you will find them interesting. We needn't
hurry back as we're closed tomorrow evening. Would you
like to come?'

Kate was flattered.

'Of course, you've probably got something better to do,'
he said hastily.

Well, she probably had, but the question was, did she
want to do it? It was rather disturbing that the thought of
spending the afternoon with Jake was what she wanted to
do more than anything. No man had ever made her feel
like that before.

'I would like to come, unless of course we have to trek for
miles through bogs and up precipices to get there.'

'There is a road, of sorts,' he said, grinning.

Jake's car was even older and scruffier than Kate's, but
immaculately tidy, apart from a king-size bag of jelly babies
in the glove compartment.

'Georgia's. She swears they are a cure for car sickness.'

Kate bit the head off a red one thoughtfully. Here was a
great opportunity. They were alone in the car; Jake was in
a good mood – there would probably never be a better time
for a confession. He could hardly take his hands off the
wheel to throttle her, well, not without driving them both
into a ditch. There would be plenty of time for him to shout
and swear and get it all out of his system. This was it, then
– this was the moment.

Oh, no, it so wasn't, she thought, a short while later.

'You know, Jake, you are not a bad driver.'

'Oh? Good.'

'No. You are an absolutely bloody AWFUL one. Please,
watch out for that cyclist!'

'But I have. He's still on his bike, isn't he?'

'Yeah, but we were so close I could smell his aftershave!'

'Nonsense. You are just like all other drivers – you always
think you can do it better!'

'All? By that I expect you mean every other poor sod who
has had the bloody bad luck to sit in this passenger seat,
don't you? I know you can slice the thinnest cucumbers in
the land, but really, there's no need to shave so close to the
bloody verge!'

'Look, it's much safer to hug the left-hand side of the
road. You know what tourists are like, always wanting to
drive in the middle.'

'Yes, but . . .' she began weakly, but then got flung round
another bend. She was having an unexpected spurt of
sympathy for Georgia. No wonder she had been driven to
extreme cures for car sickness.

'Actually, it's quite endearing, in an "ohmigod I'm going
to die" sort of way.'

'You are babbling now, you know.'

'No, what I mean is, you are so perfectly balanced in the
kitchen, you never put a foot wrong; even though every
shift it's like a dance with different steps. It's kind of good
to know you are a bit of a klutz behind the wheel. Oh, no!
Please tell me we're not going over Hard Knot Pass.'

'Relax, it's a perfectly easy road and the only way to get
to the Roman fort. I like your description of me, by the way.
You really do have a way with words. I'd like to read that
book of yours when it's finished.'

'Oh God, please give me a break!'

'Sorry – what?'

'Nothing.' Listen God, I can't tell him now, I think I am
going to be sick and I have to concentrate on the road
otherwise we will go over the edge of this precipice.

'I don't think there is a brake on your side of the car,
Kate.'

'Ha ha – very funny.'

Hard Knot Pass lived up to its name. It was the sort of
road that should really have belonged in a cartoon, with its
hairpin bends and steep drops. It should also have been
called Burned Clutch Pass, because that was what happened
to a lot of the cars. Locals tended to avoid it like the
plague during the tourist season, but for once Kate was
grateful for their cautious driving. It might force Jake to
drive more slowly.

They did, but not before she had to point out: 'If you are
entertaining even a fleeting thought of overtaking that
Range Rover I will force-feed you jelly babies until you
overdose on sugar.'

The Roman fort was perched on the side of the fell in
lonely, broken splendour. The sun was shining, a soft
breeze was blowing and the only sign of life was a lone
buzzard circling above them. It was the perfect place for
telling secrets.

The trouble was, Jake couldn't have had enough school
trips when he was young, because he insisted on taking her
hand and leading her through each of the ruined buildings.

'I'd have had this for the kitchen,' he said eventually.
'What must it have been like standing here, cooking stew
for a hundred hungry soldiers and looking down on that
magnificent view? Imagine being sent here, so far from the
heat and bustle of Rome. They must have been very homesick.
And I bet those pubs down there in the valley weren't
open for business two thousand years ago.'

'They weren't Romans, they were foreign mercenaries,
and I think it was a punishment posting,' said Kate absently.

'I didn't know local history was another of your talents,'
said Jake in surprise.

'I went out with an archaeologist for a while.' Well, it was
sort of true. Was there a saying about getting in so deep you
drowned? Quick, change the subject. 'Are you really having
problems with the bank?'

Jake shrugged. 'Teetering on a knife edge, would just
about cover it. You wouldn't believe how easy it is for a
restaurant to fail and not just because the food is bad either.
It is quite possible in this business to be superbly talented,
work like a dog and still go under.'

'My archaeologist friend had the same problem with
funding. He used to wait until everyone had gone home
and shout his frustrations to the hills and the sheep.'