The Good Plain Cook Read online

Geenie thought for a moment. The corset was one of her favourites, but she didn’t think that she should tell Diana that.

  Just as she was reaching into the pile of clothes to find something more suitable, Diana caught her elbow. ‘Tell you what!’ she said, ‘Let me guess what it is.’

  ‘You won’t guess.’

  ‘I will.’ Her eyes flashed and she clasped her hands together. ‘I will guess.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Geenie, straightening up.

  Diana’s hand hovered over the bundle of silk and cotton, feathers and lace. ‘Let’s see. It’s a process of deduction, like in a detective story.’

  ‘I don’t like those.’

  ‘Nor do I. But my mother loves them. Dorothy Sayers.’

  ‘My mother loves Dostoyevsky.’

  Diana pulled out the ripped silk stockings. Pulling one taut over her face, she breathed heavily and leant close to Geenie. ‘Now I’m a robber.’

  ‘That’s not my favourite.’

  ‘I know that.’

  Diana dropped the stocking and picked up the brocade waistcoat. ‘It’s not this.’

  ‘No.’

  Diana held out the white nightie with the pink lace. ‘Or this.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Diana heaved the sable coat from the heap and hung it from her head, like a hooded cape. ‘This smells,’ she said, ‘like a dead animal.’

  ‘That’s because it is a dead animal,’ said Geenie, throwing herself back on her bed and stretching her arms above her head. ‘It was Jimmy’s.’

  ‘Who’s Jimmy?’

  ‘He lived with us for ages after my father left. I don’t remember my father, but I remember everything about Jimmy. He was a true bohemian.’

  Diana peered out from her dark cave of fur. ‘My Aunt Laura’s one of them. But my father’s a Communist.’

  The girls looked at one another.

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Geenie.

  ‘He thinks the working classes should be – equal with us. Or like us. Something like that. He went to Russia a couple of years ago.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To see how they do communism there. He said the ballet was very good, and everything was clean and the people were happy.’

  ‘Did you go with him?’

  ‘No.’

  Diana sat on the bed beside Geenie and let the coat drop to her shoulders. ‘Did Jimmy really wear this?’

  ‘He wore it on car journeys. He drove from our house in Paris to Nice in one go.’

  ‘Did you go with him?’

  Geenie shook her head.

  ‘Where is he now?’

  Geenie sat up. ‘He’s dead.’

  Diana pulled the fur coat tighter around her and said nothing.

  After a while, Geenie said, ‘Can I wear it now?’ and Diana shrugged the coat from her own shoulders and placed it around Geenie’s. Then she stood back and frowned, as if concentrating very hard. ‘It suits you,’ she said, nodding.

  Geenie wrapped the coat tightly around herself and smiled.

  · · · Eleven · · ·

  Although Willow was a large cottage, the corridors were narrow. In the downstairs hallway, Kitty had to turn sideways to get along from the kitchen to the sitting room with the tray, due to a narrow bend that could catch elbows and was already covered in ancient dents and nicks where other trays and limbs had made their mark. It wasn’t much better upstairs; by far the easiest way to fold sheets, as Kitty was doing now, was to hang them over the banister like sails and gather the corners together, tucking the sheet under her chin and widening her arms to their furthest stretch as she did so. You had to be a bit careful with this method, because Mrs Steinberg’s sheets were surprisingly old. The cotton was thick and smooth, like the icing on Lou’s Christmas cakes (her sister was marvellous at baking, and even understood the intricacies of icing), but there was the odd rip here and there which someone, probably Dora, had darned. The stitches were uneven, and they formed bumps on the sheets, like scar tissue. Kitty worried that these vulnerable points might catch on a picture hook or a sharp corner of banister as she flapped, and then the sheet would tear and she’d have to explain; she might even have to mention that Dora’s darning really wasn’t up to much in the first place, which would be awkward.

  As she drew up the corners of the sheet, the scent of Lysol caught in her nostrils. Mrs Steinberg insisted a few drops were included with all the bedding when it was laundered by the woman in Petersfield. She came once a week to collect all their linen, and always rolled her eyes at the sight of the bottle of bleach.

  Kitty had just got the last sheet tucked into a decent shape and was about to transport the whole pile into the airing cupboard when Mrs Steinberg called her name. She hadn’t realised anyone else was upstairs. At this time in the afternoon, Mrs Steinberg was usually typing in the library, or sleeping. Once Kitty had walked into the sitting room at half past three and found her mistress splayed over the cushions, mouth open, eyes half closed. A long snort like a glugging sink came from her nose, and the whites of her eyes flickered.

  ‘Kitty. I’m in the bedroom. Can you come in?’

  What was she doing in there at this time of day? A cold queasiness crawled through Kitty’s stomach. She had a sudden vision of Mrs Steinberg in bed with Mr Crane, both of them sitting up, naked to the waist. There could be no other explanation for the woman being in her bedroom in the middle of the afternoon.

  ‘Kitty? That is you out there?’

  Mrs Steinberg’s breasts would probably be quite flat and long, what with childbearing, and three husbands, if you counted Mr Crane and the last man, who no one ever talked about, except the girl; Jimmy, that was his name—

  ‘Kitty?’

  And Mr Crane was very keen on tea in the afternoon; in fact, that was the next task on her list. Surely they wouldn’t dare to ask for a tray to be brought up after that?

  Kitty straightened her apron and faced the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar. A slit of light was all that was visible of the room beyond. ‘Yes, Mrs Steinberg?’

  ‘Come in here, please.’

  Kitty’s mouth jolted into a smile. ‘What is it, Mrs Stein-berg?’

  ‘Come in here.’

  That woman’s voice had metal in it.

  ‘I’m just folding the sheets—’

  ‘Damn it, why won’t you come in here?’

  Kitty pushed open the door a little, being careful to keep her eyes focused on the doorframe. ‘What is it, Mrs Stein-berg?’

  The curtains – green silk, decorated with Chinese boatmen in large hats with long poles, which Kitty had often admired – were open, she could tell that much by the light. Mr Crane’s shoes weren’t anywhere near the door. But perhaps he’d removed them and left them in his room before going to her. He had a room at the other end of the corridor, complete with a wardrobe full of clothes and a bed covered in a sea-blue eiderdown. But Kitty knew he never slept in there. His cream cotton pyjamas (she’d expected a poet to have silk, and was surprised by the practical choice of fabric) were never dirty. They were bundled under his pillow each morning. Kitty sent them off with the rest of the laundry, but she knew they hadn’t been worn. They smelled too fresh.

  ‘Come and sit down, Kitty.’

  She didn’t sound as if she’d just had relations, which was what Lou called it. ‘You’ll learn, Kitty, when you’re married,’ she’d said to her one day as they were sitting by Lou’s fiery orange azaleas. ‘Relations aren’t always what you think. And a woman has to be flexible.’ A little smile on her face and a flush on her cheek. The words rushing out in the warm spring afternoon.

  ‘Kitty!’

  She’d have to go in.

  She took a step forward and let her eyes settle on the edge of the bed where Mrs Steinberg was sitting, fully clothed, holding a handkerchief in one hand. Her face was a little flushed. But her eyes were slightly pink, and there was no smile. And no Mr Crane.

  ‘What is it, Mrs S
teinberg?’

  The woman seemed to be breathing oddly, unevenly, taking a little breath in and letting a big one out.

  ‘Sit with me, Kitty.’

  There was a notebook and a cardboard folder on the bed, full of what appeared to be letters.

  ‘I was just doing the sheets—’

  ‘They can wait.’

  Kitty sat on the bed, being careful not to touch the folder or any of the papers. It was a wide bed – the widest she’d seen – with large acorn-shaped brass knobs on each corner of the frame. Sleeping alone in such a bed would be like having a whole house to yourself.

  Mrs Steinberg placed her long fingers on Kitty’s shoulder. ‘I’d like to ask your advice.’

  ‘My advice?’

  Kitty couldn’t remember anyone asking her for advice before. Certainly not Lou or her mother. Looking at Mrs Steinberg, she saw that the other woman’s hair was even coarser than her own. It never stayed where it was put, and she always had her hands in it, pushing it this way and that. She ran her fingers through her fringe now, rubbing at it as vigorously as Blotto scratched his ear. Blotches of freckle the colour of toffee covered her large nose and her orange lipstick had dried out around the edges of her mouth.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me speaking frankly to you, Kitty.’

  Kitty shook her head.

  ‘As you’ve no doubt gathered by now, I’ve lived a rather strange life. I’ve had so much fun, and I’ve seen lots of things. And I’ve tried to learn.’

  In order to avoid the other woman’s eyes, Kitty gazed at the silver ring which flashed on Mrs Steinberg’s finger as she spoke. The woman had a habit of staring at you very intently whenever she said anything, as if she wanted to hold you in place with her cool eyes. Kitty wished this conversation were taking place somewhere else, somewhere away from the bed where Mrs Steinberg had relations with Mr Crane, and with something in the room to distract her, like Blotto, or even Geenie.

  ‘And I’ve always chosen men who might teach me something. If you know what I mean. I’ve always thought that any fun must also be about learning something… James, my second and dearest husband – which he was in all but name – used to say that a life without learning was a wasted existence. I hope I’ve honoured that sentiment.’ She stretched her legs in front of her. No stockings again, and sandals with the thinnest ankle straps. Her toenails were painted green, but, Kitty noticed, the colour didn’t quite reach the ends of each nail. ‘And I so want to learn. But I’ve never been very good on the domestic side of things.’

  There was a pause. Kitty filled it by nodding.

  Mrs Steinberg laughed. ‘So you agree.’

  ‘Agree with what, Mrs Steinberg?’

  ‘Never mind.’ She pressed her fingers into Kitty’s shoulder. ‘What I want to ask you, Kitty is… I want to ask for your help.’

  Kitty couldn’t think of any correct response to this statement.

  ‘I’d like you to help me become a domesticated woman.’

  ‘Domesticated?’

  Kitty hadn’t thought herself particularly domesticated. She wasn’t like Lou, who their mother called a tidy little homemaker. At home Kitty had thrown her dirty clothes in a pile, never baked a cake and left the washing up to her mother. Domesticated was just her job. Before she came to Willow, she’d never made even rough-puff pastry.

  ‘You see, the thing with Mr Crane is that he’s really rather old fashioned, despite all his communist sympathies. And I think that’s what he’d really like me to do, in his heart of hearts. Become a housewife. A really good one. His own mother’s an absolute angel. And he adores you, of course, Kitty.’

  Kitty felt a heat rise up her throat and spread across her cheeks. She looked down at Mrs Steinberg’s ankles.

  ‘You must have noticed it. I have. He really admires the work you do, for us and the girls. You’ve taken it all on, the cooking, the cleaning – the domestic science – with such aplomb.’

  The metal had returned to her voice.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Steinberg.’

  ‘So all I’m asking is that you show me, Kitty. Show me how to keep house.’

  Kitty nodded, still staring at the brittle ankles.

  ‘When you’re ready, you could give me a few lessons in cookery. We could go through a book together.’ She paused. ‘And, from now on, I am going to take full responsibility for both girls. Diana will be a daughter to me.’ Mrs Steinberg gripped her handkerchief and smiled. ‘This is the beginning of my life as a true wife and mother.’

  Kitty smiled back, wondering what the woman had thought herself to be up to this moment.

  · · · Twelve · · ·

  By day, Diana was calm. Her lips did not jabber; her nose did not twitch; her voice was level; her eyes were straight. She moved carefully around the house, sitting in chairs to read books rather than lying on rugs, joining her father to listen to the wireless in his studio rather than sprawling in the garden to sunbathe. And when her fingertips touched Geenie’s hand at dinnertime, while passing the salt or the water jug, they were cool and dry. Wherever she went, Diana seldom left a mark.

  But one night Geenie heard a groaning quite different from her mother’s usual nocturnal noises, and she knew it must be coming from Diana’s room.

  The noise sounded like a ‘whoa’, as if Diana were riding an out-of-control horse. Geenie imagined the creature bucking in Diana’s bed, trampling the mattress so the girl flew in the air, rolling the sheets to rags at her feet.

  When Geenie found her, Diana’s room was lit a blue-grey by the moon, and she could see the sheet was stuck to the girl’s stomach like a wet curtain. Diana’s nightgown was wrapped around her thighs. A strip of dark hair clung to her forehead, and she made the noise again, a long and wavering whoooah.

  Geenie stood in the doorway, watching the other girl’s nightmare. Her own nightgown was dry and heavy, the lace prickly at her neck. Diana thrashed again. She was trying, Geenie realised, to speak: her mouth was working frantically, the muscles around her eyes quivering, but no sound – other than the whoa noise, which happened once more – would come out.

  She’d have to go in and rescue her friend from this damp hell.

  She stole into Diana’s bedroom. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she put a hand on Diana’s ankle. It was very hot, but not wet. The sweat had yet to reach all the way down there. Slowly, Geenie applied a gentle pressure to the ankle. She wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do, but she’d heard Jimmy say that waking sleepwalkers was dangerous, so she thought this careful, doctorly approach was best. Doctors always sat on the edge of a bed and applied gentle pressure. That’s what they did when Jimmy broke his ankle falling from his horse, before his operation, and that’s what they did when she herself had caught pneumonia after he’d died.

  She decided she should work her way up: a touch on the ankle, the knee, the side, the wrist. There would be no sudden moves or noises.

  Very slowly, she began to increase the pressure on Diana’s ankle, staring at her damp face all the while. The girl’s nose twitched and her arm swung out and above her head so suddenly that Geenie ducked. But there was no whoa. Geenie put a hand on Diana’s other ankle and gently squeezed there, too. As she increased the pressure, the girl stopped thrashing and her face fell still. Diana’s eyes half opened, showing flickering whites, which made Geenie start back and release her grip. She wondered how she could explain her presence on the edge of the other girl’s bed. But then Diana turned, gave a long sigh, and began to breathe easily.

  Geenie sat on the bed, looking at the side of Diana’s calm face in the moonlight, until her toes felt frozen together and her back was stiff.

  . . . .

  Every night after that, Geenie lay awake in her own double bed waiting for the whoa. She’d never slept in a small bed (her mother didn’t believe in them) and for as long as she could remember she’d spent hours trying out different positions on the wide mattress before sleep. There was room for four Ge
enies in that bed. The headboard was a complicated grid of iron, twisted and hammered into swirls, from which her mother had hung a few pairs of old earrings which rattled each time Geenie moved. The hoops clanked, the drops clacked. Her eiderdown was lilac silk and stained in one corner with a banana-shaped blob of ink. Geenie didn’t remember where that had come from.

  She thought of the mattress as something like the huge map of the world which Jimmy had kept on his study wall. Each of its corners, its dips and lumps, were countries in which she could try to sleep. The far left was rocky terrain, with good breezes: ideal for hot nights. The mid-right was flat and firm, comfortless but solid; it offered a long night if you managed to drift off there. And the very centre, where the mattress gave out and yielded to her every move, was deep water where dreams were guaranteed. Lying there was like rocking in a ship at sea; waves of sleep came up to meet you, then pitched you back into wakefulness.

  When waiting for Diana’s nightmares, Geenie favoured the flat, unsurprising middle-right plane. Sleep was least likely to grasp her there.

  She waited, thinking of how Jimmy had once come into her bedroom at night and looked over her. She was six years old, and had listened to another long row for what seemed like hours. She could never quite make out the thread of the argument, only occasional words, such as your money (Jimmy) or not fair (her mother), or, once, better writer than you (her mother again). It had been quiet for a while when the door handle shook and turned. She could smell him immediately: whisky, tobacco, glue, sandalwood talcum powder.

  As Jimmy opened the door, and the light from the landing brightened her room, Geenie lifted her eyelids a fraction of an inch so she could spy on him. She wished she looked deeply, sweetly asleep, with her blonde waves chasing across the pillow, so Jimmy could stand and admire her and think about how much he’d lose if he left her mother. But instead she was curled in this tight ball, her fist clenching the sheet, her hair caught behind her neck, both feet tucked up below her bottom, and her eyelids fluttering with the effort of remaining slightly lifted.