The Good Plain Cook Read online

  ‘Duster?’

  ‘It could be a feather one, I suppose, or a tea cloth—’

  ‘I’ll have a feather one.’

  ‘So you come in, and you say, Oh, sorry to disturb you, Sir—’

  ‘How do I say it?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re the director.’

  ‘Well. Sort of – quiet, you know, and hesitant. Look at the floor a lot. Just think of Kitty and copy what she does. Like this.’ Diana stood, hunched her shoulders, and shuffled towards the door. ‘Oh,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper, ‘I’m so sorry—’

  ‘Kitty isn’t like that.’

  ‘But that’s more or less it, isn’t it? Anyway, you’re not Kitty, you’re Ruby. It’s a general impression of a housemaid sort that we’re after.’

  ‘Kitty’s not a housemaid. She’s a cook.’

  Diana sighed. ‘Do you want to know what happens next, or not?’

  Geenie nodded.

  ‘Now we come to the good part.’ Diana sat back on the bed. ‘I’m struck by the thunderbolt, you see—’

  ‘What thunderbolt?’

  ‘The thunderbolt of love. I’m struck with love, and I just sit and stare at you, like this.’ Placing her hand flat on her heart, she opened her eyes as wide as they would go, then closed them slowly and let her neck go limp before saying, in a deep voice, ‘I am inspired as never before – inspired by love.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Geenie, ‘that’s good.’

  Diana smiled. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you kiss me then?’

  ‘Not yet. In the next scene, you’re kneeling on the floor, scrubbing, like this.’ Diana got down on all fours and rubbed furiously at the rug with her knuckles, pausing to wipe her forehead in a long sweeping gesture.

  ‘We’ll need some props for that,’ said Geenie.

  ‘Of course – that’s your department. So you’re scrubbing, working really hard, and I – the great poet John Cross – come up behind you and start reading my love poem.’

  ‘How does it go?’

  Here Diana looked suddenly shy. She sat back on her heels and tucked her frizzy hair behind one ear. ‘I haven’t finished it yet.’

  ‘Never mind. What then?’

  ‘Then I kiss you, passionately.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Geenie.

  ‘All right.’ Diana stood, readjusted her knickers and vest, and took a step towards her. Geenie closed her eyes and waited.

  ‘Don’t close your eyes yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We have to build up to the moment.’ Diana stretched out a hand and let it rest on Geenie’s shoulder. She moistened her cushiony top lip with her tongue and opened her mouth very slightly. Geenie began to giggle.

  ‘You can’t laugh when we perform it for real, you know.’

  Geenie covered her mouth with one hand and took a deep breath.

  ‘In fact,’ Diana said, ‘when I touch you, I think you should swoon.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  Geenie closed her eyes, put her forearm to her brow and let her body buckle. As she went down, Diana caught her, spreading one hand flat in the centre of Geenie’s back, cupping the other beneath her naked neck, and pulling her close. ‘Pretend you love me,’ she said, moving in for the kiss.

  When it came, the kiss was dry and hard, and both girls stayed completely still as their lips locked. Geenie squeezed her eyes tighter and wondered if she really would faint: her knees were weak, her neck twisted, her heartbeat loud in her ears; she could taste the sweat on Diana’s top lip. At first, she held onto her friend with a fierce grip to keep from falling, but as the kiss went on, Geenie let her lips go soft, and she found herself relaxing into Diana’s arms.

  Finally, Diana came up for air. ‘Very good,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘I’ll tell Daddy that we have a play to show them on Friday morning.’ She reached past Geenie, grabbed her skirt from the bed and began to dress. Geenie did the same, her fingers slipping on the mother-of-pearl buttons on her blouse, her heart still jumping inside her vest.

  · · · Thirty · · ·

  When Kitty arrived at Woodbury Avenue on Wednesday afternoon, Lou was waiting for her in the doorway, wearing a lilac crepe frock with matching hat, and cradling a lilac bag beneath her arm as if it were a small, fashionable dog. She peered through the net which half-covered her eyes with lilac crosses. ‘We’re going to the White Hart for tea.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘It’s your birthday, isn’t it?’

  Kitty hadn’t expected her sister to remember. ‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow’s my birthday.’

  Lou shifted her bag to the other arm and stroked it. ‘It’s nearly your birthday then, isn’t it? I’ve booked a taxicab and everything.’

  ‘Where’s Bob?’

  Lou didn’t answer this. Instead, she looked her sister up and down and said, ‘I’d have thought you’d make more of an effort, on your birthday.’

  ‘It’s not my birthday,’ Kitty replied, running a hand over the skirt of her lily-print frock. ‘Anyway, Lou, I really need to borrow your sewing machine this afternoon. Can’t we go another day?’

  Lou tutted. ‘Don’t be an idiot. Come inside. We’d better get you kitted out, quick.’

  . . . .

  In the back of the cab, Lou stared out of the window at the sun-stunned streets. Her face was flattened by white powder, and her hands wouldn’t stay still. It was unlike Lou, Kitty thought, to keep fidgeting with her hat, her gloves, her handbag; but all the way to the hotel, Lou’s fingers were busy with some clasp, seam, or pin. Kitty held on instinctively to the straw hat attached to her hair. It was pink, to match the pink frock with the white bib front Lou had donated to Kitty for the afternoon. The frock was too small for Lou (‘that’s what marriage does for you,’ she’d said), but wasn’t too bad a fit for Kitty. The crispness of the organdie on her skin made up for the slight sagginess around her bosom. Lou had also persuaded her to experiment with her Tangine lipstick, and Kitty could taste the stale-sweetness of it on her mouth.

  ‘Perhaps I could run up the costumes when we get back,’ Kitty thought aloud.

  ‘You’d better not.’ Lou patted her handbag. ‘I’ll have to get on – Bob’s dinner…’

  ‘I won’t get in the way.’

  ‘Why are you so set on these bloody costumes?’ Kitty said nothing.

  ‘It’s not like they do much for you.’

  ‘It means a lot to Miss Geenie.’ Kitty looked at her sister. ‘I don’t give a fig for the other one, but, well, you have to feel a bit sorry for Geenie.’

  Lou huffed. ‘Poor little miss millionaire. It must be awful, having all that money, and never having to lift a finger.’

  ‘She’s lonely, though,’ said Kitty.

  ‘Aren’t we all,’ Lou stated.

  . . . .

  It was cool and silent in the hotel reception. Yellow chintz armchairs were plumped and ready, but no one was sitting in them. A gleaming coffee table displayed a fan of expensive magazines, untouched. Kitty stepped across the deep pile towards the woman at the desk, whose head was bowed over a snowy white register.

  ‘It’s through here,’ said Lou, taking her sister’s arm and leading her through a pair of glass doors.

  They came into a large, light room which smelled strongly of beeswax. Pictures of ships on stormy seas covered the walls, and in the middle of the room was a grand piano. All the tables, each one displaying a tight white rose arrangement at its centre, were empty. An electric fan at the back of the room puffed over a parlour palm, but apart from that, the air was absolutely still.

  Lou took the table next to the open windows, sticking her face in front of the fan for a moment and blowing out her cheeks before sitting down. ‘This place is like the morgue. The morgue in a heatwave. Not very good for the dead, this kind of temperature. We’ll have a cocktail, liven things up. Where’s the boy?’

  ‘Tea for me, please,’
said Kitty, noticing the softness of the cushioned chair, the yellow and scarlet monogrammed antimacassar: WHH, the two Hs entwined in fish-bone stitch. ‘And cake. Victoria sponge, if they have it.’

  ‘No you won’t. You’ll have a White Lady with me. It’s your birthday.’

  ‘Not until tomorrow.’

  ‘Where did you get your damned uptightness from? It’s certainly not from Mother.’

  A waiter crossed the carpet noiselessly and stood over them, one hand behind his back. He was young, with a spray of spots up one side of his neck, but his cuffs were crisp, and his face did not move.

  ‘Two White Ladies, a pot of tea and some cakes, please,’ said Lou, the dots of rouge on her cheeks crinkling.

  ‘Would Madam like the afternoon selection? Or a particular cake?’

  Lou hesitated. She looked down at the tablecloth, then enquired in a quieter voice, ‘How much is the afternoon selection?’

  The waiter’s top lip twitched very slightly. ‘The afternoon selection is three shillings, Madam. It consists of a selection of our best sandwiches, cakes and dainties.’

  ‘All right,’ said Lou, looking up at him with a wide smile. ‘That’s what we’ll have.’

  ‘Very good.’ The waiter moved away as silently as he’d arrived.

  Kitty leant across the table and touched her sister’s fingers. ‘Can you afford it, Lou?’ she whispered.

  ‘Of course I can,’ snapped Lou, taking a packet of Player’s from her handbag and lighting one. ‘It’s always good to check the price in these places beforehand, that’s all. Then they don’t swindle you when it comes to the bill.’ She drummed her painted fingernails along the tablecloth and blew smoke towards the windows. ‘So. What’s new in Bohemia?’

  Kitty had been dying to tell someone – anyone – about the row over the salmon for days. But she couldn’t think of a way to explain it that wouldn’t make her sister angry, so instead she offered, ‘He left for a few days, all of a sudden. It was quite peculiar.’

  Lou took a long drag on her cigarette.

  Kitty couldn’t help adding, ‘I think it might have had something to do with me.’

  Lou gave a short laugh. ‘What could it have had to do with you?’

  ‘Maybe it didn’t. But she shouted at me – and he didn’t agree with it – and then, next day, he left.’

  Their cocktails arrived in long-stemmed glasses. Lou thanked the waiter, who looked over their heads and gave a quick, stiff bow before retreating.

  Kitty took a sip of her drink. The gin scalded her throat. ‘It was all over nothing, really…’

  ‘Don’t give me that. What happened?’

  Kitty swallowed another mouthful of White Lady. Her insides were suddenly cooled by the alcohol. It was lovely, like a cold, soft tongue flicking through you.

  ‘Something about the fish being overdone. She got very upset over it.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  Having first checked over each shoulder to see if anyone else had come in, Kitty leaned across the table towards her sister and whispered, ‘Fucking incinerated fish.’

  Lou almost spat out her drink. ‘No! She said that?’

  Kitty giggled. ‘They had this dinner party, and she went off her head, saying I’d overcooked the salmon – she called me in and said that it was—’

  ‘Fucking incinerated?’ asked Lou, wide-eyed. Kitty nodded. Both sisters took another drink, and then exploded with laughter.

  Kitty was laughing so hard that she didn’t notice the waiter had taken up position behind her chair. ‘Oh!’ she said, and giggled again as he placed the three-tiered silver tray and a silver teapot on the table.

  ‘Will you require anything else, Madam?’ he asked the air.

  Lou shook her head.

  When he’d gone, Kitty hissed, ‘Did he hear us?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ said Lou, bypassing the sandwiches and helping herself to a cream slice. ‘Happy twentieth birthday.’ She held up her glass in a toast, and they clinked and drank. A happy flush of gin spread from Kitty’s stomach to her thighs.

  ‘So he didn’t like it, then, when she shouted?’

  Kitty’s hand hovered over the sandwiches. Egg and cress, tomato paste, ham and mustard. Each one as flat as an envelope.

  ‘I don’t think he did, no,’ she said, choosing a glistening éclair instead. ‘He apologised to me.’

  ‘He apologised?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kitty took a bite of and licked a dollop of cream from her lip.

  ‘He apologised to you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Two bites and the éclair was gone. She moved on to the pineapple meringue.

  Lou sighed. ‘He sounds gallant. I wish Bob was more like that. I don’t think he’s ever said sorry to me. Not once.’ She pushed her plate away and lit another Player’s.

  ‘He is – polite,’ said Kitty, through a mouthful of sugary crumbs. ‘Very polite.’ Then she dared to add, ‘And thoughtful. He’s the sensitive type, you know.’

  Lou was staring at the tablecloth. ‘Bob’s never apologised. Not even now. After everything.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Lou drained her cocktail.

  Kitty swallowed the last of the meringue and eyed the thin slice of strawberry gateau still on the silver tray. Before she could get it onto her plate, though, Lou sighed again, loudly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Kitty, abandoning the gateau.

  ‘Sorry.’ Lou put a hand to her mouth and shook her head. ‘I suppose I might as well tell you.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to mention it, not now.’

  ‘Tell me what, Lou?’

  Lou opened and closed the clasp of her handbag. ‘Bob and me have been having a spot of trouble.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘The marriage kind.’ She smiled weakly. ‘We might – separate. For a bit.’

  Kitty stared at her sister.

  ‘He’s going to live – somewhere else.’ Lou looked out of the window. ‘With someone else.’ She ground out her cigarette. ‘I’ll be glad to get shot of the old bastard, won’t I?’ Then she added, ‘Sorry to spoil your birthday.’

  Picking up the silver teapot, Kitty poured tea into Lou’s cup, added milk and two knobs of sugar, and pushed it over to her sister. ‘It’s not my birthday.’

  ‘Fucking incinerated fish,’ said Lou, with a dry laugh.

  . . . .

  They travelled back to Woodbury Avenue in silence until, passing by the cemetery, Lou put a hand on the back of the driver’s seat. ‘You can drop us here, please.’

  They hadn’t been here together since their mother’s funeral. Kitty stood on the path, watching a heatwave shimmer over the rows of gravestones fanning out in neat lines on either side of them. It was a new cemetery, and the trees had yet to grow large enough to offer any shade. The smell of the rubber factory, which was just behind the cemetery wall, was at its worst in this spot, and the sickly, burning aroma rose around them.

  Lou pulled the net of her hat down lower. ‘I hate cemeteries,’ she said. ‘Especially ones that stink.’

  Kitty scanned the rows of crosses and slabs. She knew exactly where the grave was, but she wondered if her sister would. As they walked, Lou’s heel caught in the crack of a paving stone. ‘Bugger it.’ She twisted round and yanked the shoe from her foot. ‘It’s come right off,’ she said, showing the damage to Kitty.

  ‘You could stick it back on.’

  ‘It’ll just come off again.’ Clenching the heel in one hand, Lou limped on, and Kitty followed. To her surprise, Lou went straight to the right plot, over in the left-hand corner, by the wall nearest the factory. There was a small stone which read: Douglas Allen, 1875–1921; Mary Allen, 1881–1934; At Peace with God. The sisters stood before it in silence. It didn’t matter how many times you read it, Kitty thought, it never became any more familiar, or comforting. She considered uttering her usual quick prayer – something
about hoping they were both in heaven, and asking God to look over them – but she didn’t want to kneel, not in front of Lou, and not in the organdie frock.

  ‘It’s been two years, almost,’ said Lou.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She would’ve been disappointed with me, wouldn’t she? Her eldest daughter – the divorcee.’

  Kitty remembered the way their mother had always referred to Bob as The School Teacher. It was a kind of reverence, but also a kind of scorn. ‘She’d have wanted you to be happy.’

  ‘No she wouldn’t. She would’ve wanted what looked best on her.’ Lou turned to Kitty. ‘Not that she had to put up with Dad, did she? He went and died before she could get really fed up with him.’

  Kitty said nothing.

  ‘Listen,’ said Lou, suddenly grabbing Kitty’s elbow. ‘Bob’s going to let me stop on at the house, and pay me a bit. It’s all agreed. I’ve just got to take the blame in the divorce. He gets to keep his reputation, but I get to keep the house. It’s the least he can do, considering he’s the one who’s gone off with that old trout… do you know what he said to me? That he’d found paradise!’ The net on Lou’s hat quivered with anger. ‘As if he’d know paradise if it came up and bit him on the arse.’ She jabbed her broken heel in the air. ‘But what I thought – just last night – what I thought was, why be on my own? Why be on my own when Kitty could come back?’

  ‘Come back?’

  ‘To live at the house. With me.’

  Kitty took a step away from her sister. ‘But – my job – the cottage—’

  ‘You don’t have to live in, do you? Anyway, you could get another, now you’ve the experience. The Macklows’—’ ‘I hated it at the Macklows’.’

  ‘At least it was work. It got you out of the house, didn’t it?’

  Kitty gave a laugh. ‘I still had to go home every day and get Mother’s tea, while you were—’ She stopped. The sisters faced each other. Lou’s cheeks were puffy with heat and her lipstick had a tiny crumb of cake stuck to it.

  ‘While I was what?’

  Kitty concentrated on the crumb and kept her voice even. ‘Married. In your own house. With your own things. Away from us.’

  They were silent for a while. Then Lou said, ‘She had an all right life, when you look at it.’ She gestured towards their mother’s name on the gravestone with her handbag. ‘Did what she liked, didn’t she?’