2008 - Recipes for Cherubs (2 page)

How unbelievable that she was going to Italy. At last she’d be able to find out what had happened to him, why he’d left her like that. Then they would have the most marvellous reunion; she imagined herself lying on an airbed in a swimming pool, cool drink to hand and nothing to do all day. Absolute bliss.

She picked up the telephone and dialled the number of Catrin’s school. She would speak to the headmistress and tell her of the new arrangements for Catrin at the end of term.

Half an hour later Kizzy Grieve shut the front door and crossed the square, walked jauntily along the Edgware Road on her way to the travel agent’s to buy a rail ticket to Kilvenny and to arrange her own travel down to Italy. Then she thought she might go shopping and buy a few new summer outfits for Catrin as a little treat. One needed to look the part at Shrimp’s.

I
n Shrimp’s Hotel Ella Grieve shuffled slowly along the attic corridor, calling out as she went. “Olive! Maureen!” She opened the doors to the rooms but to no avail; there was no sign of any of them anywhere. Where were the blasted maids this morning? The door to the last room was open and she put her head round the door and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Honestly, young people today were so slapdash. The bed was still unmade and the sheets were positively filthy. Dirty clothes had been strewn across the floor, an opened but empty blue glass bottle of scent was discarded on the dusty dressing table and a pair of laddered stockings hung over a chair back. A bluebottle buzzed angrily against the windowpane and dead moths littered the windowsill.

Ella picked up a crumpled dress, shook it and watched the dust fall from it. She turned it over in her hands, then flung it crossly to the floor. Absentmindedly she brushed a cobweb from her hair, walked across to the window and stood looking out to sea.

The sun was rising, a soft pink glow bleeding into the misty horizon. Golden-winged gulls followed the wake of a small boat heading towards the shore and a cormorant was fishing over near Bleaky Rock.

Down on Kilvenny beach a thin stream of smoke rose from the chimney of the Fisherman’s Snug, a dilapidated thatched hut built up against the sea wall, where the fishermen used to congregate for a mug of hot, sweet tea or something stronger. Ella sighed wistfully. She and Alice had loved to sneak in there when they were girls, to mingle with the old men of Kilvenny while they cooked fresh sardines, bacon, cockles and lava bread on an ancient stove. It made her hungry just to think about it. She used to love to squeeze in among them and listen with wonder to all their stories of Kilvenny in days gone past, while Alice hid under the table and talked to her imaginary friends.

The fishermen had long since abandoned the place and no one went there now except that odd little boy she’d seen hanging about there of late. He’d been up here once, trying to peep in through the windows, but she’d yelled and banged on the glass and he’d fled. A frightened rabbit of a boy running away, hell for leather through the waving grass without looking back once.

Rooks were circling above the ruined tower of Kilvenny Castle and she could hear young Tony Agosti whistling as he washed down the pavement in front of the Café Romana.

Ella turned her attention to the garden below. She must speak to the gardener and get him to mow the lawns; a sprinkling of daisies and buttercups was one thing, but it was getting to be a bit of a jungle down there. Was that Mrs Ellis in the hammock beneath the mulberry tree? And surely that was young Charlie Heddon going down the rocky path to the beach with his sun hat askew and his shrimping net bobbing about all over the place.

For goodness sake, Ella, stop dreaming, she chided herself. Mrs Ellis would be over a hundred by now and Charlie Heddon must be in his forties at least. Hadn’t she heard that he was married and living in Canada? These days her eyes seemed to play tricks on her. She blinked and looked again. The garden was empty except for a blackbird pecking at a snail over by the rockery and a rabbit rifling through the vegetable garden.

It was early still and the hotel guests were sleeping. In an hour or so the water pipes would gurgle and clank as they rose and took their morning baths. Early smokers would wander out on to the terrace for a puff, and others would walk briskly down to Kilvenny for the daily newspapers that Luigi Agosti sold in the Café Romana.

Ah, well, it wouldn’t do to stand about idly staring out at the morning. What in God’s name had she come up here to do? She was getting terribly forgetful. She supposed it was because there was always so much on her mind, so many tasks to do at Shrimp’s Hotel in the high season.

She searched in the pocket of her overalls for the list she had made earlier, but to no avail. She was forever making lists and promptly losing them.

The menus for tonight’s dinner needed writing up, and she must check that Gladys Beynon had sent Alice up to Duffy’s Farm to fetch the cream and butter. There really was no time to waste. Tommy Roberts would arrive soon with a delivery of lobster and crab and no doubt on the lookout for a free breakfast.

As soon as breakfast had been served there would be even more work to do. Gladys, the cook, would be up to her eyes in the kitchen. There was luncheon to prepare and after that she would be making potted shrimps, scones and cakes ready for afternoon teas.

Ella must check that the chambermaids had cleaned the bedrooms; the newly starched sheets must be properly turned back, fresh flowers arranged in vases on the side tables. The windows had to be opened to air the rooms and fires laid in case of a sudden chill in the evenings.

That was the thing the guests loved about Shrimp’s, the old-fashioned hospitality, the fact that nothing was ever too much trouble.

There were several new guests arriving tonight for the summer ball and she must let Halloran know what time their train was arriving. She rummaged in her pocket for the guest list, but where had she put it?

Ella climbed slowly down the attic stairs and paused on the landing to pick up a discarded patent leather shoe. She saw a mouse scurrying into the airing cupboard. There seemed to be a plague of them this summer. She must remind Halloran to put out some more traps; the little devils must be getting in through the cellar again. She didn’t want her guests upset by mice.

Ella made her way through into Alice’s room and gazed around. The fire was already laid and Alice’s book lay on the chair just as she had left it. She stood for a moment looking at a painting on the wall, a very good copy of that Italian fellow’s famous masterpiece,
Woman and Child
.

It used to hang in the old nursery in Kilvenny Castle when she and Alice were children, and Alice had insisted on bringing it up here to Shrimp’s when they moved. Alice had loved that painting and used to blow kisses to the woman each night before she went to sleep. Ella put up her hand and touched the woman’s cheek, then turned away hastily.

She climbed stiffly down the main staircase and paused midway, looking down into the hall. The grandfather clock had wound down for the second time this week. Whatever was the matter with Alice? She must have words with her because it was one of her jobs to wind the clocks. The guests liked to hear the old grandfather clock marking out their hours of leisure.

She wandered into the dining room to check that everything was ready, and rut-tutted with irritation. The silver cruets hadn’t been polished to her satisfaction and in a pot, mustard had congealed to a sticky blob. That wouldn’t do at all. The standards at Shrimp’s had to be impeccable: attention to detail and thoroughness were what they were known for.

In the hallway she stood in front of the gilt mirror and frowned. What was going on here? The mirror needed a damned good clean – why, she could write her name in the grime. She would not tolerate this kind of sloppiness and she would give Alice the sharp edge of her tongue when she caught up with her: she was too slipshod about her chores these days. Where in God’s name was Alice this morning? She had been most odd of late, disappearing for hours on end.

Ella looked at her reflection in the tarnished mirror. One day soon she really must venture down to the village and get her hair cut; it was far too long for this hot weather. She turned away from the mirror and looked with dismay at the enormous pile of post on the doormat. She picked up a letter whose handwriting looked a little familiar, then tossed it back on to the pile. There was no time for reading the post now. She checked her wristwatch. Goodness, look at the time. She must make sure that the kitchen staff were getting on with the breakfast. Then, when all was as it should be, she would sound the gong and another busy day would begin at Shrimp’s Hotel.

S
ister Matilde hurried through the crowds on Paddington station clutching the hand of a young girl. As they ran, the nun’s grey habit swirled in the draught and her face grew red, beads of perspiration forming at the point where her wimple met her creased forehead. She was too old to be chasing up and down railway platforms but she was always given this job at the end of every term because she was the only one of the convent sisters who had the confidence to drive the battered old Austin through London. London traffic held no fears for Sister Matilde; in another life she’d driven in Paris and Naples and had nerves of steel.

She’d made two separate trips already today, had seen seven girls off on their trains and now she was running late. She had to get this last child safely off, and then if time were on her side she might get to see the art exhibition at the Royal Academy and still make it back to the convent in time for Benediction.

An announcement drew nun and girl to a sudden halt.

“We regret to announce that the four-fifteen train to Swansea is ten minutes late.”

“Damn. Here am I working myself up into a lather and the train is delayed,” said Sister Matilde.

Catrin Grieve looked up at her and smiled shyly. Sister Matilde was her favourite of all the nuns at school. There were lots of rumours about Sister Matilde, that she had been a professor or maybe it was an artist before she had become a nun. The older girls said she’d had a failed romance with a duke and that’s why she’d taken the veil and come to St Agnes’s. She was very clever, could speak French and Italian, play the piano and the organ, and knew everything in the world about art and books. And yet she was forgetful, too. She could never remember anyone’s name for more than five minutes, so she was likely to call you anything. She was also a little bit mad. On the last day of term, when she was supposed to be playing the school out to ‘God Save the Pope’ she’d played ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’ by accident. It was hilarious. All the nuns twittered with horror and the girls hugged themselves, desperate not to laugh. Sometimes clever people were like that because their brains overheated and that made them do peculiar things.

“Do you have the piece of paper with the telephone number of the place where you’re staying, Cynthia?”

“I’m Catrin, Sister, not Cynthia, and yes, it’s in my purse.” she replied for the tenth time since they had left school.

Sister Matilde looked down at the girl, reached out to push a stray curl under the brim of her boater.

Cynthia, Celia, whatever her name was, had lost such a lot of weight during the last term that there was hardly anything left of her. There was something not right at all with this child. She used to be such a lively, bonny girl, full of vim and vigour, but she’d lost her sparkle of late. And as for that dope-brained mother of hers, she could do with her face slapping. It was bad enough that the girl had no father; the least the mother could do was be around for her in the holidays. And yet she’d telephoned a few days back, saying that Catrin would be going to stay with some old aunts for the whole summer holiday.

Old aunts indeed. The girl needed to be with her mother. Girls of this age needed to fight with their mothers, lock horns, sulk and then make up again. It was part of growing up, for God’s sake. It was shameful the way some parents acted towards their children. It was one thing to choose a boarding-school education but quite another to try and offload them in the holidays when there was no need. No need at all in this case, because there didn’t seem to be any shortage of money. Hadn’t Sister Lucy said that they lived in a grand house in one of those elegant London squares? Too much money and not enough sense, probably. The mother hadn’t even had the decency to visit Catrin and explain the new arrangements for the holidays; she’d just sent a taxicab to deliver the train tickets and a suitcase full of expensive clothes which, according to Sister Lucy, were all two sizes too big.

As far as Sister Matilde was concerned, the woman was a well-to-do floozy. One of those hair-brained women out dancing until all hours of the night and throwing cocktails down her silly neck. Or else gallivanting about the Continent with unsuitable men in tow. She’d bet she was the type to flaunt herself in those new-fangled bikini articles that were all the rage, along with mini-skirts and the other ridiculous paraphernalia that was creeping in.

“Be sure to say your prayers every night and find a Catholic church as soon as you can so that you can go to mass every Sunday. I expect those aunts of yours are good Catholics?”

“I don’t know, Sister, I’ve never met them.”

“You’ve never met them?” Sister Matilde was horrified.

“No, Sister. I didn’t even know they existed until a few days ago. I didn’t realise I had any family apart from my mother.”

Sister Matilde frowned down at the girl’s worried face.

“Well, well, I’m sure they’ll be lovely people, and it’ll be good for them to have a youngster around the house.”

“I’m not staying in a house, Sister, it’s a hotel.”

“And what, pray, is the name of this hotel, Cecilia?”

“It’s called Shrimp’s Hotel, Sister, and it’s near a place called Kilvenny in Wales.”

Sister Matilde stared at the girl before her without really seeing her.

She caught hold of her rosary and held it tightly. Sweet Jesus.

Sister Matilde had hoped fervently that she’d never hear that place mentioned again. She wiped a bead of perspiration from her brow.