The Sweetness of Liberty James (13 page)

Liberty bit her lip, feeling more than a little guilty for not phoning her parents. They didn't even know she was out of London. ‘I haven't called the clinic, but having been down this road before, it's just a case of spending the next few months getting rid of all the leftover drugs in my system, and trying to pretend that nothing is wrong, feeling ghastly and overweight for no reason, and my mood swings should go after a while.'

Paloma looked at the girl's forlorn face, as well known to her as her own son's, and just as dear. She felt wretched to be unable to do anything for her, and told Liberty so. ‘At one point in my life I could be of help, but my hippy self has nothing to offer apart from a safe place to rest and recuperate.'

‘But that's exactly why I came, and that's what I knew you could do,' said Liberty, ‘along with something else far more important!'

Paloma looked up from the glass she was draining, ready to go and greet dinner guests. ‘And what, may I ask, is that?'

‘I know what I want to do already!' exclaimed Liberty excitedly. ‘It came to me on the journey here, and sort of in a dream! I want to feed the world, I want to introduce people to tastes and flavours. If I can “wake up” after twenty years of having no sense of smell or taste, and feel so fabulous, then everyone in Britain needs to recover from fast food and cheap, tasteless, chemically filled rubbish and feel as good as I do. I am going to open a bistro, maybe just a small café, in England, and enlighten people!'

Paloma gazed open-mouthed at her goddaughter, marvelling both at her forcefulness and her determination, both of which
had been dormant for many years, and felt the excitement streaming from Liberty, excitement that was infecting Paloma as ideas poured into her head.

‘Well,' she began, ‘you need to start with our herb garden. If you want to feed people with flavour, you need to know how to grow the flavours. And then you must progress to the potager, because you have to understand what good vegetables are, how fresh they must be if they are to taste healthy and succulent.

‘Then you should learn about the animal, its meat and its dairy products. You need to eat from the earth up to the sky! Choose your own terroir well. If the soil and the air are healthy, you can convert anyone to eat your food. That is what la France has taught me. And no, you do not need this beautiful climate, it just helps. When the French chefs left their country after the revolution, they found work in the stately homes of England, Germany, Spain and so on. They took with them their need for fine produce, and because of their requirements hothouses were introduced in England for fruit, and walled gardens were developed for vegetable growing, as they kept out that dreadful wind which ruins so many otherwise wonderful crops. And you will need the very best available meat, although I don't suggest you try animal husbandry quite yet; give yourself one task at a time.'

Liberty looked at Paloma, and burst out laughing, ‘Golly, I didn't think you would be so encouraging, let alone so verbose!'

At that moment Vevetine came out of the restaurant and approached them.

‘Excuse me, Madame, but we are about to open. May we begin serving?'

‘Forgive me, Vevetine,' replied Paloma, ‘but for the first time since I can remember I am going to miss a night's work. I am sure you will manage perfectly without me, and I am here should you need anything. My darling Liberty and I have battle plans to draw up.'

And so an un-bathed and un-rested Liberty and a devoted
godmother put their heads together while an unmanaged restaurant lit up and filled slowly with guests, and nobody suffered; indeed, everyone was suffused with the atmosphere of happiness generated by Liberty's ‘recovery'. Plans were drawn up – literally. Paloma's own files were filled with drawings and notes for gardens, kitchen layouts, customer profiles, lots of advice from various sources, named and unnamed.

‘A lot comes in the form of well-educated customers,' explained Paloma. ‘I had to learn the ropes as I went along. Any constructive criticism went down in this book.' It included one they giggled over, where an inexperienced Paloma had poured wine over a client's lap when he had asked at the end of a meal for a special favour, something personal. ‘It turned out he meant to return here with his wife, whose birthday it was to be, and could we make a cake. It would have been almost tragic, if he hadn't been so calm. It was in the early days, and almost any comment like that meant whoopsie back then. Believe it or not, he still came back with his wife and a huge party. They had meant to celebrate in Paris, but chose to come here instead, which was rather a coup, even if I did have to pay for the dry-cleaning!'

Paloma pointed out that many things she would need to learn could come from her parents.

‘Most importantly, you need to get back your natural instincts for food, but first of all we will see how you are with your sense of smell. Starting tomorrow, you will have to name a great many items blindfolded, and identify flavours put before you and in the air. You will have to recognise whatever you are eating and drinking, in detail; and yes, you will have to taste soil! Then you must decide where you want to open this café of yours!'

10

After a very long sleep Liberty rose from her narrow but extremely comfortable bed and opened up the shutters on to a soothingly bright morning.

As she stood gazing out at the distant hills, stretching in front of the window, waiting for her eyes to adjust, an appreciative whistle sounded from the garden below.

Liberty gasped and leapt backwards. She had been stark naked, unaware that she was being observed by Claude and Antoine, the head gardener. Not sure which one had whistled, and bristling slightly because the other had not, Liberty dressed quickly (Capri pants, Tod's loafers and a simple Breton top) and ran downstairs.

‘Stop!' screeched Paloma's normally calm voice. ‘OK, right now, what can you smell?'

‘Um . . . um . . . butter, unsalted, as it smells slightly sour, coffee, um . . . guessing here, Milano beans, but only because I know you like them, stock, beef and fish – or is it fish soup? Saffron, bay, lemon, orange . . .'

She listed the scents that filled the air, sniffing around and looking a little like a Labrador that had lost a bird on a shoot.

‘Well, that confirms it. You still have your natural palate. Nothing to worry about at all. Quickly, have your coffee.' Paloma handed the younger woman a small steaming cup of black coffee with one hand and a croissant with the other.

‘Yum,' mumbled Liberty, spilling flakes of the lightest pastry. ‘Baked here?'

‘No, they do them so well at the Café Tropézienne. We pick
them up there together with our order for the Tarte Tropézienne, a very light brioche baked in a round tin filled with lemon-flavoured crème pâtissière that is very famous hereabouts. In fact, before you open your own place, you should come up with your own original, something that people will come from miles around to eat. Anyway, to return to this morning. Into the garden with you. Antoine is waiting.'

Yes
, thought Liberty,
I know
.

‘And Claude will be around to do the translation. Although I know your French is excellent, plant names may baffle you. And don't forget a notebook,' she added as she thrust pen and paper into a startled Liberty's hands.

Liberty disappeared outside after a gentle push, and Paloma thought to herself that keeping her busy would be just the thing. She had telephoned both Alain and Deirdre to fill them in and assure them all was going well with their daughter. Both of them expressed some anger when Paloma, in her usual forthright manner, blamed them for Liberty's difficulties, then each of them insisted on rushing straight to Nice. Paloma had managed to persuade Deirdre that it was a bad idea and she was dealing with everything perfectly well, but Alain had closed the restaurant for the month of October as he couldn't bear the old crones, as he called them, who travelled round in coaches after the school holidays came to an end on their cheap deals. They insisted on parking their caravans in the car park, then ordered water and one course, complained about the expense, and remarked loudly that ‘the Little Chef was just as good and very much cheaper'. They often stopped there on their way to Eastbourne, and as soon as Alain got the measure of them he closed his restaurant for the entire month and flew somewhere warm to sail. This October his yacht would be jaunting around the Mediterranean, and would moor in Marseilles, so it would be silly to refuse his wish to come along and see his daughter.

‘OK,' Paloma had agreed, ‘but let me have her for at least a couple of weeks first, and no grumbling about your customers,
this is about Liberty.'
For once in your life
, she thought, but kept this to herself.

Five weeks later Liberty was suntanned, fit from digging and preparing seed beds and glowing from a fresh fish, vegetable and rosé diet.

Antoine had delighted in having such a hard-working and beautiful assistant, and he was amazed at her ability to pick things up. She had just got on with the work, and he, in turn, learnt quickly it was a mistake to assume that a pretty face hid a very small brain.

He had shown Liberty into his private domain. It was the first time he had ever taken anyone in there. Neither Paloma nor Claude had ever been inside the ramshackle shed at the bottom of the terraced garden, well hidden by trees and shrubs from the restaurant's terrace but with full south-west views of the coast. Liberty gasped. The wiry little man had created beauty in the garden, but seemed to have few, or no, other interests besides his work – even in girls, which was unusual in a forty-five-year-old Frenchman, which no doubt explained the lack of the second wolf whistle!

The rather messy outward appearance of the shed belied what lay within. Old stained glass panels, presumably from a deconsecrated church or chapel, filled one wall. This created an unusual greenhouse effect, the colours of the glass muting the direct heat, which was also tempered by banks of bergamot growing outside the window. The simple tiled roof appeared to be set in large hinged panels to let out hot air, and the smell inside was incredible.

It was like a greenhouse on speed. A powerful aroma rose from the rows of peppers, greens turning to reds. There were chillies, tomatoes in various reds, deepening to dark burgundy, greens, yellows. Fruit, including what looked like an ancient vine, added a sweet perfume to the almost intoxicating tomato elixir. The size of the produce also varied considerably, from huge melons to tiny grapes, and courgettes with their flowers
ready to be stuffed or braised in the kitchens. It was the scent of the chillies and tomatoes that almost sent her reeling, a heady, healthy perfume that forced its way into her nostrils and her eyes and seemed to fill her stomach, although she had tasted none of it. And honey! Where was that smell coming from? Antoine pointed casually to a wall, where she assumed there must be the most enormous bees' hive.

On a high trellis reclined the huge arm of a vine. Plump red grapes dripped from branches, a bunch of which Antoine picked using his very ancient, very sharp penknife, without which he felt as lost as a city dweller without his mobile phone.

He laid the bunch reverently on an old tin plate. The bloom was untouched, still perfect, something you would never see in a shop. He then reached for two old scratched tumblers, gave them a cursory wipe with a cloth he probably normally used to wipe vegetables, and placed them on the rickety table. He spent a long time fiddling with keys and a padlocked trapdoor set in the floor, all this time in silence. Liberty began to wonder if this was where he kept his wife, and she became increasingly worried. She had only known this little man for a few weeks, after all, and she was sure nobody would look for her here if she failed to turn up for lunch. Perhaps it was an ancient Provençal ceremony, to drain a female's blood and use it to wash the first grapes of the season? But no, he now reached into the cellar he had revealed, and pulled out a bottle of red wine. The only label on the bottle was a rudimentary sticker with the date 1984. He pulled the cork, poured a little on the floor and then filled each glass with the glistening liquid, made all the more colourful by the refracted light streaming through the stained glass.

He handed a glass to Liberty and at last said,
‘Je vous remercie, Mademoiselle. À la votre!'
He raised his glass.

The nectar, for that was what it was, glided down Liberty's throat. It may not have been Château Pétrus, but it held 1984 in its belly. She could tell it had been a wet but hot summer; the blackcurrant was strong but not too prevalent, there was
a honey scent, but not overbearing, and lots of iron from the local soil. She could also feel the love and smell the toes, in a good way, that had gone into making it. Antoine nearly ruined the romance and moment by spitting his wine on the floor, but Liberty reminded herself this was meant to be a gift to the gods, and at least the next mouthful stayed in place.

Speaking in French, he said to her, ‘Mademoiselle, you have the greatest natural ability and desire of any kitchen gardener I have known, but you must always love what you nourish and then it will prosper and surprise you in ways that you simply cannot imagine. If you can do that, your food will delight and surprise, and make all those who consume your food happy. You will succeed, I feel sure. Good luck.'

11

Struggling through a pastis, Liberty decided it was an acquired taste. She related her morning to Paloma.

‘Well, bloody hell!' her godmother responded. ‘I've known Antoine for at least twenty years, and I have never seen anyone admitted into his hovel. We all assumed he buried vermin and wove spells down there, but we just let him get on with it as he is such a wizard in the garden.'

Liberty twirled the glass round in her hand, deciding she would leave the cloudy elixir to others. ‘I really feel I have a basic knowledge to start my kitchen garden, although I will have to enlist help back home. I've had the details emailed through of tea rooms for sale in the south-east, but they all look very pretentious, and not my idea of what I want at all. I really need to go there to extend my search, but I don't feel ready to visit home soil as yet, and anyway, I need to start learning how to make pastry.' She rubbed her hands together excitedly.