‘I think that’s brilliant. I’d love to make stuff from a book that is all about food someone loves and means something to them. All the flavours they love.’
‘And it wouldn’t upset you?’
‘No, why would it?’
My husband took my hand and tugged me onto his lap from my place beside him on the sofa. I was the mother of a four-year-old and just pregnant again, which meant I had a lot of emotional reordering and thinking to do in coming to terms with how my body would change, how my life would change again. If I thought about it full on, though, panic billowed up inside and my heart became a speeding train, while my lungs would not expand fully. Joel understood this, sometimes better than I did. ‘You know why.’
‘No, it won’t upset me. It’s something you love so it won’t upset me. I like to cook. And I’m fine most of the time. It’s just sometimes things are difficult. But mostly I’m fine.’ I slung my arms around him, pulled back a little to examine his face properly. ‘And this idea of yours is brilliant.’ I kissed him. ‘Because you’re brilliant.’ Kiss. ‘And everything you do is brilliant.’ Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.
‘I ain’t paying you to help me,’ he said.
I took my arms away. ‘Fine, well you’re on your own then, ain’t ya?’ I said and put on a toddler-like grump that caused his syrupy laugh to erupt and fill the room. I closed my eyes and the sound of happiness, of my life working out, soothed some of the panic inside.
XVI
Ding-dong! echoes through our otherwise empty house. As usual, I toy for a second with leaving it unanswered, with not inviting whatever is on the other side of the door inside. I often wonder what would have happened that day if I hadn’t answered the door – if they hadn’t been able to tell me their news. Would it still have been true? Would I still have him? Or would they have hunted me down all over Brighton – the world – to tell me, to change my life?
The man at the door could not be more unwelcome if he tried. After last night, as punishment for what I admitted to myself, I read the rest of the letter. It spiralled me back to that time like the other night, but I was prepared for it and I braced myself as much as I could. When it wasn’t as sudden, brutal and unexpected as the other night, it didn’t precipitate as much mental, emotional and physical trauma as before. It still upended me in many ways. And the letter that was sitting on the mat when I came back last night is unread. It is tucked away with the first one because even I don’t need that much punishment.
The words of the original letter, although not as potent as when I first read them, are wrapped around my memories of that time like a red bow, the showy outer binding of something I’d rather keep shoved away in an unexplored corner of my mind and never brought out into the light. That is why I do not want this man here, he has made me confront something I do not want to acknowledge.
‘Hello,’ he says.
‘Hello,’ I reply. I want to be cold and glacial, but it seems out of reach, like something on a high shelf I’ve shoved that little bit too far back so I can’t get at it any more, not even on tiptoes.
‘My name is Lewis Bromsgrove and I am your daughter’s form tutor at St Allison. I am also the parent of the boy who got your daughter pregnant. I would like to talk to you, if that’s possible?’
‘Yes, it is possible.’ Lewis. His first name is Lewis. I don’t think I knew that. Or maybe I did, maybe I overheard it in the playground and didn’t register it in any meaningful way at the time because he was nothing to me. Or maybe he told me it during the last year or so and I’ve missed it like I’ve missed so much else.
‘I’m not quite sure what happened in the pub,’ Lewis says gently when we enter the kitchen. ‘But I thought it best that I came over so we could have a sensible conversation about the situation.’ I notice he has gone to the furthest part of the kitchen away from me, while I stand near the door, beside the cupboard where I keep my notebook of recipes, fussing. I pick up my notebook, I put it down. I force it open flat against the white marble, flick through the pages without seeing a single word that is written down. I pick up the notebook, hold it closer to my face, maybe I can read if I hold it nearer.
Eventually I toss the hardcover book, covered in pictures of crystal butterflies, bought for me by Phoebe and Zane for last year’s Mother’s Day, onto the side and stare into space for a moment. I think I’ll make stuffed cherry bomb peppers for dinner, I decide. I have feta, I have cherry bomb peppers, I have basil, I have chilli flakes. I will make them for dinner. Maybe with grilled sardines. No, Zane will hate that. Maybe with home-made pizza and salad. Yes, that’ll work. Stuffed cherry bomb peppers, pizza, salad.
‘Are you listening to me, Saffron?’ Lewis asks, barging his way into my thoughts. ‘If I may call you Saffron.’
My heart is fluttery, unsettled and agitated. It doesn’t feel like it is beating properly in my chest. And my breathing is far too shallow, probably because of the odd, staccato, stop-start of my heart.
‘You may,’ I say. I’m trying to concentrate on something else but he’s still getting through. If I focus on something other than him, I may not throw him out and the sickness may not come spilling out of me.
‘Did you hear what else I said?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
He fills the gap between us with a deep inhalation of breath. Frustration. ‘Have I done something wrong?’ he eventually asks.
Yes. Of course you have. How can you not know that? ‘No.’
‘If you’re sure … Anyway, I talked to Curtis, he said first of all that he didn’t say that to her. When I asked if he was calling Phoebe a liar on top of everything else, he admitted it. I can’t believe he’s been that stupid.’
‘Stupid,’ I echo.
‘If it’s OK with you,’ Lewis says, ‘I’d like Curtis to come to Phoebe’s next doctor’s appointment.’
‘Why?’
‘He needs to go through it as much as he can. He can’t carry the baby or give birth, but I want him to know what it’s like to have to arrange his life around appointments and scans and so on, like her.’
My fussing stops and I focus on the man in front of me properly for the first time. It happens again: the sudden, almost wholly unwelcome, awareness that he is male. Maybe it’s the set of his lip, possibly it’s the way he stands tall in his frame, or the way his dark, almost black eyes, highlighted now he is without his glasses, are concentrated on me. He is male, he is here, he is causing all sorts of pleasurably unsettling feelings to spiral outwards through me from the centre of my chest.
‘What if she doesn’t want to go through with the pregnancy?’
‘I’m guessing she’ll have at least one appointment for that, too, so I’d like him to go to that. And go with her on the day. As much as is possible, I don’t want him to be protected from any of what Phoebe’s got to go through. He needs to know what it’s like, especially if he’s not going to go off and do the same thing all over again.’
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. I’ve seen this many times before and I’ve always thought that boys get off too lightly in these sorts of situations. It becomes the girl’s “problem” and the boys are often protected from the reality of it. That’s why I tried to drum it into him to always take precautions … Clearly my lectures fell on deaf ears. Maybe going through this process won’t.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘Where is Phoebe? And your other child, Zane?’
‘They’ve taken their great aunt out to the shops. That was a while ago, and if you met her, you’d understand why I’m very nervous at the moment. No doubt there’ll be somebody on my doorstep complaining about her – them – at some point soon.’
I’ve told him we’re alone in the house. My body floods with heat, embarrassment and unexpected, irrational desire. In desperation for something else to do, to look at, I glance down at my hands, something that will sober me up from the intoxicating feelings caused by being around Lewis. Looking at my hands alwa
ys grounds me: my nails are neat and short, barely crescents above the tops of my fingers; the skin is smooth over a network of pronounced veins because I regularly rub moisturiser into them; but my knuckles are rough and scarred from past times when I haven’t taken care of them properly, when I didn’t give a second thought to my hands and how they would show up my regular lack of care and attention for myself.
‘How is Phoebe holding up?’ Lewis asks in another attempt to end the silence, break through my barrier. ‘Is she any further along with the decision-making process?’
I flex my hands, promise myself to take care of them before I turn away from Lewis and refocus on the butterfly-covered notebook that holds the secrets to my cooking life. The secrets to my current life, really. Before Monday, before my trip to the school that changed everything, my life had become about cooking: making, baking, creating. I return to Lewis. ‘When I said last night that she doesn’t talk to me, did you think I was exaggerating or lying?’
The sideways glance and clearing of his throat is all the answer I need.
‘I wasn’t lying. She doesn’t talk to me. My daughter has been through a horrible ordeal in her recent past and that means I have to be careful with her in everything I do and say because I do not want to further traumatise her. So, she doesn’t talk to me and I don’t push her.’
‘What about you? How are you bearing up after the trauma?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘But in relation to this, at least I know who the father is.’ As it has done several times a day since Thursday, how Curtis touched Phoebe plays across my mind: he was cautious, almost reverential in the way he put his arm around her; like he wasn’t used to it, like he’d dreamed of it, but hadn’t done it very often. Something doesn’t ring true, here. It’s been niggling and nibbling at my mind since I saw them together. The words fit, but the way they were with each other makes me wonder if he’s really the one. Also, someone who convinces a girl she can’t get pregnant first time wouldn’t have the almost worshipful respect Curtis has for Phoebe, nor would he come forward and confess so easily – boys who lie and manipulate are the types of cowards who hide every which way they can. On so many levels I don’t believe Curtis is the father, but why would they both lie?
‘If you ever want to talk …’ Lewis says.
‘Thank you. But in case you hadn’t worked it out yet, Phoebe’s non-talking nature was inherited from someone and her dad was the most open man on Earth.’
Mr Bromsgrove’s gaze flits over to the picture of Joel, Phoebe and Zane, reclining on the box seat in our beach hut, that is stuck under a seagull magnet on the front of our silver fridge. Another picture I haven’t seen in an age, even though I look directly at it every day, several times a day on my way to and from the fridge.
The Joel I know lives in the spaces of my heart, I carry him in my head; he is all around me and completely inside me. I don’t need to see the pictures to know what he looks like, I don’t need to close my eyes to conjure him up. He’s there. The impression of him, the imprints he made on my life are always there.
‘I’ve made you sad,’ Mr Bromsgrove says. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘I’m always sad,’ I reply. ‘I’m simply better at hiding it sometimes.’
‘I understand that.’
The air around us is instantly thick and syrupy with something, the thing we shared before I fled last night: potential. Something could happen. Something might happen.
Slice the tops off the cherry bomb peppers. Scoop out the middle, making sure to remove all the seeds. In a bowl, mix feta, basil, chilli flakes and olive oil. Ah, olive oil. ‘I don’t have any olive oil,’ I say aloud.
‘Is that code for something?’
‘I was going to make feta-stuffed cherry bomb peppers for dinner but I don’t have olive oil. I forgot to buy some the other day. I used the last of it for pesto and was going to buy some and then I was called to the school and, so, I don’t have olive oil.’
‘You cook a lot, then?’
‘No. I mean, yes. But this is all new stuff. The gourmet stuff was Joel’s area of expertise. I guess I’m following in his footsteps. Before he … He started writing a cookbook. Just for fun, he wasn’t going to get it published or anything. I want to finish it. I’d planned to have it printed up professionally for him as a present once he’d finished it but he never … I want to finish it for him. For me and for him. So I’ve been experimenting with flavours and ideas, trying stuff out really. This feta recipe is a new favourite … What was I saying about not being one for talking?’
‘I think it’s great,’ he grins. His smile, which changes the shape of his face, makes me suck in air and avert my eyes. ‘The idea of finishing the cookbook and the talking. I especially like the talking.’
‘Charmer.’
‘Do you have a name for the book?’
‘We came up with a title together. The Flavours of …’ The word hitches itself in my throat, hooked into place by embarrassment. Lewis Bromsgrove waits patiently for me to complete my sentence. The word love shouldn’t be uttered in front of one such as him. It’s indecent, wrong.
‘The Flavours of …?’ he encourages.
‘Ah, nothing. Don’t know why I even brought it up. And it’s not as if I’ve got much time on my hands at the moment, what with my aunt, well, Joel’s aunt, moving in and Zane and Phoebe and work. Nah, it’s not going to happen.’
I haven’t talked about Joel so much in an age. I am using my husband, right now. I am building a barricade around myself; a barrier between me and this man who kept invading my thoughts last night in between the replays in my head of the letter.
Ding-dong of the doorbell brings a new relief. I almost run to the door, throwing it open, hoping for someone trying to sell me something so I will not be alone with this man.
Fynn.
It couldn’t be someone from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, it couldn’t be someone offering to wash my car, it couldn’t be the postman with a delivery – all of whom I would have dragged in for a chat – it has to be Joel’s best friend. Who saw me out last night with the man in my kitchen.
‘Hi.’ He grins at me as he usually does.
‘Hi,’ I reply. My heart’s staccato beat is erratic now, it’s also deafening in my ears.
‘Am I coming in?’ he asks.
‘Oh yes, of course, of course. I was just in the kitchen.’ Although he’s texted almost every day asking how Phoebe is and how I am coping, I haven’t updated him on finding out who the father is.
Well trained in entering what is practically his second home, he kicks off his black leather Converse shoes, hangs up his grey hooded jacket.
‘So, I’m at a bit of a loose end for dinner tonight and wondered what you were up to?’ he says with a sideways grin.
‘Would you like to stay for dinner, Fynn?’ I ask.
‘Really?’ he says in an exaggerated manner. ‘That’s so kind of you. I hope I won’t be imposing too much.’
‘You’ve the cheek of a baboon,’ I say. This joviality is going to last until the end of my corridor, until we step over the threshold of the kitchen.
‘Aww, but all the charm of a … Actually, what is the most charming animal?’ he asks as he crosses from the honey-gold wood of the corridor into the white-tiled kitchen. He doesn’t get very far into the room, doesn’t even make it as far as the stain before he stops when he sees who is standing there.
‘Snake?’ Lewis Bromsgrove offers, as though he’s been a part of our conversation. ‘Or are they the animals that need charming?’
‘Snakes are reptiles,’ Fynn states, staring Lewis down with the sort of disdainful correction Zane would make.
‘True enough.’
‘Fynn, this is Lewis Bromsgrove – the father of the boy responsible for, well, what’s going on with Phoebe. Lewis, this is Fynn McStone, he was my husband’s best friend since they were eighteen and obviously became mine as well.’
Their handshake i
s firm, short, unfriendly, as if they’d rather punch each other instead. Fynn has always been protective of me, but in the last eighteen months he’s been shielding me as much as he can from what can and does go wrong. Without him and Imogen, I would have completely broken down, unable to function because I was frozen with shock; stupefied into inertia. When I needed him to, Fynn stepped in and did what needed doing.
Lewis’s problem is that he fancies me. It’s arrogant to think that, but it’s not a simple case of fancying me because he thinks I’m beautiful or amazing, nor has he fallen in love at first sight; he believes I’m fragile. He fancies me as a delicate little flower, partially crushed by the loss of her husband who needs help and nurturing to reanimate her petals. He fancies himself as the reanimator, the person who will help me get over this. Fynn’s appearance, his familiarity and ease with me has Lewis on the back foot – I am not alone, I am not isolated, I have adult support … in the shape of a rather good-looking man, too.
‘I’ll get off,’ Lewis says, pushing himself upright so he is no longer leaning back against the worktop. They’re the same height and that seems to perturb the pair of them – one of them was hoping they’d be physically superior to the other. ‘I’ll call you about the appointments,’ Lewis says to me.
‘Yes, yes, do that,’ I say, eager for this to end.
‘Fynn, good to meet you.’
‘Yeah, right.’ At the front door, Lewis lingers, reluctant to actually do the leaving part. ‘Take care of yourself.’
‘You, too,’ I reply.
He openly examines my face, his brown-black eyes almost hypnotic as he does so. ‘When I first met you, I assumed you didn’t have a clue about anything, despite knowing what had happened with your husband,’ he says. ‘I secretly thought I was so much more enlightened than you but the same thing’s happened to me. Guess I got a reality check, didn’t I?’
I nod. I’m supposed to make him feel better, to tell him that I had been a lesser parent, and he had done the best by his son and it was unfortunate, that’s all, that we’d both ended up in the same place. I’m supposed to add that we’d work together to make this right. Unfortunately for Lewis’s sensibilities, that isn’t going to happen.