The Sunshine And Biscotti Club (5 page)

The sun was low in the sky, just brushing the line of trees as it tipped into late afternoon. Everyone was exhausted. The heat had sucked them dry of energy. Libby and Eve had done some fractious decorating, unable to agree on almost any of the renovation choices. In the end they had focused on ripping up the carpets with Bruno.

Jimmy and Miles had slashed half the garden. It looked like a first day haircut, no one quite sure whether it would settle into something good or bad. She was amazed Miles had flown all the way from the States to be there. He said he’d been due a holiday but she wondered if really he’d been craving something familiar. He hadn’t mentioned Flo so neither had Libby but in retrospect she wished she had. It was weird though, to know what to say to him, because he looked so unlike himself nowadays—all polished and smooth-edged.

She’d wondered what Jessica had thought when she’d seen him. But then she’d seen the sparkling poolside
patio and, putting two and two together, Libby had presumed she’d been in need of hard-work distraction.

The terrace, on the other hand, was practically untouched, Dex having had a snooze in a lounge chair for most of the morning.

Now as Libby stood in front of them all in the outhouse she suddenly felt a bit stupid for cajoling them into a baking class. They were all there, standing reluctantly behind their benches like school children. Jessica had her phone on her table and was trying to surreptitiously scroll through her emails.

‘OK, so, what I’m thinking is that there will be scheduled baking times every day throughout the week. So, one day we’d make muffins and things for breakfast, another day bread for lunch, and then in the afternoon, like now, we’ll make a dessert or
petit fours
for after dinner with coffee. That’s how I planned it. It might change. That’s why you’re here. Guinea pigs. OK.’ Libby gave a small laugh and tied up her hair.

Miles tried to stifle a yawn behind his cup of coffee. ‘Sorry, jet lag,’ he said.

It was much easier when she did it to camera for her YouTube videos, with no one watching her.

Dex was leaning forward, chin cupped in his hands, elbows on the table, staring unblinking at her. The not-concentrating looks between Eve and Jimmy were equally distracting. All that as well as Jessica unsubtly tapping away on her phone. The worst, however, were
the glares of complete disdain from Giulia at the back, who Libby had roped in to up the numbers and to try and win her round to the concept.

‘OK,’ Libby said again, then she felt her cheeks start to flush. She couldn’t work out how to start without clapping her hands together like a strict Home Economics teacher. These were her peers, not people she could teach. They were people she had lived with, laughed with, fled the pub with after Jimmy was caught cheating in the quiz, sat in the hospital with when Dex got run over on his bike, lazed on the roof with as Jake’s barbecue puffed with plumes of smoke, squirmed with as the boys tried to convince Jessica there was a ghost knocking on her window at night, sat in darkness with as Eve hid from a pestering one-night stand, exchanged sniggering glances with as Miles took the stage in some grimy club. How could she now tell them all what to do like a teacher?

She looked down at her workbench—at the little bowls of flour and sugar that she’d measured out and prepared like a TV chef. ‘Oh god, now I’m getting hot.’ She pressed her hands to her face.

‘It’s all right, Lib,’ said Dex. ‘It’s only us. Just do it however you like.’

Libby exhaled. ‘You’re making me more nervous than strangers,’ she said, then she laughed.

In her head, in all the planning sessions, Jake had been in the room, maybe leaning against the wooden
mantelpiece, a cup of tea in his hand, a cocky smile on his face. He was the chatter. The one who made people feel instantly at ease.

Supper clubs had got much better when he’d stepped in to help. On her own they’d been a complete disaster. The first one she held, her fingers had shaken so much from the pressure that she’d barely been able to prepare anything. Smoke from the sizzling chorizo had set the smoke alarm off. The kitchen had gone from boiling hot to arctic cold when she’d had to throw all the windows open. Then the boys upstairs had thrown an impromptu party—Miles’s decks in situ right above her beautifully laid table, the thumping of feet on bare floorboards, the wine running out, her beef overcooking, her cream over-whipping, and the stem ginger ice cream refusing to set. It had been an all-round disaster. The three couples had sloped out before the coffee had bubbled up on the hob.

The door had closed on her overly effusive goodbyes, and, needing to take it out on someone, she had stormed up the stairs, thrown open the door of the boys’ flat, pulled the plug on the speakers, and shouted, ‘Well, thank you very much. You destroyed that for me. I hope you’re proud of yourselves.’ All the achingly cool party-goers had stared with disdain and she’d wished she hadn’t gone upstairs at all.

And of course Jake had come downstairs after her, because that’s the kind of thing he did. He took control
of situations. He smoothed over cracks. He’d leaned in the doorway and said, ‘We’re sorry. We’re thoughtless, pig-headed arseholes.’

She knew he didn’t really mean a word of it but it had made her feel better. It had made her smile when he’d taken a seat and looked down at the plates in front of him with a frown—at the split cream; the burnt, cracked pavlova; the liquid, unset, failed ice cream—and said, with a quirk of his brow, ‘This all looks excellent.’

‘It’s been a disaster,’ she’d said.

‘Nah.’ He’d sat back in his chair, hands behind his head, a grin on his lips. ‘It’s just the beginning. Teething problems,’ he’d said, then he’d taken a swipe of the melted ice cream and popped it in his mouth. ‘Might look like shit but it tastes amazing.’

She’d frowned at the half-compliment. He’d sat forward and tucked her hair behind her ear in the kind of clichéd trademark move that Jake managed to pull off to perfection, and said, ‘You’re going to be amazing, Libby. Because it will never be worse than this,’ and she had felt for the first time that someone completely believed in her. In retrospect she realised it was probably just a line to get her into bed. But from that moment on, she had felt stronger when he was next to her.

And there had been more supper clubs. Hundreds more. They’d built a business out of it. And Jake had taken over as host—greeting the guests, entertaining them over canapés, topping up wines, tipping back in
his chair and observing as she put the plates down in front of them, detailing the subtle touches that gave her mini venison wellingtons their hint of caramel, or explaining the origin of a bouillabaisse and how hers also included the often overlooked sea urchin and spider crab. He would subtly nudge her on the thigh if he thought she was going on too much and say something like, ‘We’re here for the food, darling, not the science bit.’ And the guests would chuckle as he winked at her or gave her a quick pat on the bum.

Libby was better when she could do things in her own time. When she could delete and edit. She wasn’t a spontaneous ice breaker or joke cracker.

‘Ready when you are, Libby,’ Jimmy said, snapping her into the present. ‘I can’t actually remember the last time I cooked anything.’

‘What do you eat?’ Jessica asked, glancing up, perplexed. ‘Do you gnaw on raw fish grabbed with your bare hands from the ocean?’

Jimmy did a self-assured chuckle. ‘I grab them, CeeCee cooks them.’

Jessica sighed. ‘Oh god, who the hell’s CeeCee?’

‘She lives with me on the boat.’

Eve reached forward and picked up the laminated recipe sheet Libby had laid out on every bench. She glanced casually over the type as if she wasn’t really listening but gave herself away by saying, ‘As in, she’s your girlfriend?’

Jessica glanced from Eve to Jimmy, a brow raised, a slight smile on her lips. She moved her recipe to the side so she could perch up on the bench.

Jimmy tilted his head to one side. ‘We have no need for formal ownership descriptions.’

Jessica snorted. ‘Oh, Jimmy, you’re not serious?’

‘I am!’ He grinned. ‘We have a boat, we live on it, both of us are free to come and go as we please.’

‘Who owns the boat?’ Dex asked.

Jimmy paused. ‘She owns the boat,’ he said with a shrug.

Jessica laughed. ‘I bet she does.’

Libby found herself anxious to stop the chat, unable to enjoy it because this was meant to be a class. She could see Giulia tapping her fingers on the surface at the back.

‘So if this CeeCee wasn’t there when you got back, you wouldn’t mind?’ Eve asked, putting her recipe sheet down on the bench, unable to hide her interest.

‘Well, technically he’d have to mind because the boat would be gone too,’ said Jessica.

Jimmy shrugged. ‘As I say, free to come and go as we please.’

‘No ties,’ Eve said.

Jimmy shook his head with a smile. ‘None. At the moment we are in each other’s lives. In six months maybe we won’t be. Come on,’ he said, holding
his hands out wide, ‘you gotta admit that’s a more interesting way to live?’

Eve’s phone rang. She looked surprised by the interruption and then started to rummage through her bag on the floor. ‘Oh, that’s me. Where is it? God. Hi, Noah! Everything OK?’

As Eve admired another Lego dinosaur on FaceTime, Jessica took the opportunity to get her phone out again, saying, ‘I just need to reply to a couple of emails.’

Jimmy leant back on his stool and started saying something to Dex that made him laugh loudly. Miles turned to see what was being said.

‘Are we going to cook or not?’ snapped Giulia, and they all seemed to remember where they were.

‘Yes! Yes, we are, sorry,’ Libby said, cringing at what it all must seem like to Giulia. She imagined Jake watching, rolling his eyes. She was confident that he would have somehow effortlessly combined the cooking and the banter.

Eve whispered goodbye to Noah and hung up the phone. Jessica, never good at being told what to do, sucked in her cheeks as if she’d been reprimanded by the head teacher and gave Giulia a glare before putting her phone back in her pocket.

‘OK, something really simple today, nothing taxing at all. We’re going to start with the humble biscotti.’

‘Oh, I like that,’ said Jimmy. ‘Ties in nicely with the name. Good one.’

Libby nodded. ‘That’s what I was hoping. You know, people would arrive, maybe be a bit tired, and it’d be a nice introduction to the whole thing. Not daunting.’

Giulia sighed from the back row. ‘The baking. Yes. More baking, less talking. We get it done, I get back to work.’

Eve giggled under her breath.

‘Yes, sorry,’ said Libby. ‘Sorry, Giulia.’ She made a mental note to try not to include her in any of her future classes. ‘Right, so you’ve got a choice here. I’ve given you the basic ingredients but you can flavour your biscotti however you like. I like dried apricots but you can use chocolate, pistachio—traditionally it was aniseed and hazelnut—it’s completely up to you. Or just make it plain. The main thing to a biscotti, and actually the meaning behind its name, is that it’s twice baked.’

‘Do I like biscotti?’ asked Jimmy.

‘Yes,’ said Eve, without looking up from where she had started to break her eggs. Libby caught Jessica’s eye. Eve glanced up and caught them sharing a look. She raised a brow in silent question and both Libby and Jessica looked away.

‘Hang on, Eve’s started.’ Jimmy frowned. ‘How has Eve started? Are we meant to have started?’

‘Well, you can start, Jimmy, because there’s a recipe, but I’ll talk you through it.’

‘Jessica, have you started?’

‘No.’ Jessica was eating an apricot.

‘And I am almost finished,’ added Giulia from the back. ‘This is very easy. Too easy I think. Far too easy.’

‘It is?’ Jimmy looked confused.

‘OK, right, everyone, go with me on this. We’re mixing flour, baking powder and sugar. The measurements are on your recipes and the ingredients are under your benches.’

Jessica leant forward on the bench, resting on her elbows, and perused the recipe. Next to her Eve had already started mixing in the eggs. Jimmy was looking perplexed at the ingredients and, without consulting the recipe at all, ripped open a bag of flour so it mushroomed out like a cloud in front of his face.

‘Suits you,’ Dex said, nodding towards Jimmy’s white face.

Jimmy groaned and wiped the flour away with a tea towel. ‘Libby, it’s no good. I don’t think I’m cut out for this.’

‘You’ll be fine, honestly, I’ll come and help,’ Libby said, coming to stand next to him. Jimmy pulled up his stool and she realised, as she started to measure out his ingredients, that he had no intention of doing any more himself. ‘Jimmy, what flavour do you want?’

He shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Look, you have to help me.’

‘I’ll just mess it up,’ he said with a twinkling grin.

‘But the whole point is that you learn. Here, get your hands in and mix this into a dough,’ she said, sliding the bowl over to where he was sitting.

Jimmy made a face to suggest he was being hard done by.

In front of them Miles rubbed his eyes, stopped what he was doing, and said, ‘Libby, I’m sorry but I think I’m going to have to go and sit down. I feel rough.’

Libby nodded. ‘OK, that’s fine.’

Jimmy followed him out of the door with longing eyes.

‘I’m quite tired, actually,’ said Dex. ‘Can I go outside?’

Jessica scoffed. ‘Tired? You didn’t do anything today.’

Dex ignored her.

‘Look,’ Libby said, tearing off some baking parchment for Jimmy’s biscotti. ‘No one is forcing you to be here. If you don’t want to do it, you are more than welcome to go outside.’ She didn’t mean a word of it. She was hoping that they would stay just because they knew it meant something to her.

But Jimmy and Dex immediately abandoned their posts, ditched their aprons, and raced out of the door, throwing themselves onto the pink metal chairs next to Miles.

Libby took in a breath. It was fine. She scooped out Jimmy’s mixture and smoothed it onto the baking tray in little strips.