Pear Shaped (13 page)

‘Ah, the custards. So, Shake Shack, burger joint famous for milkshakes, they do a “frozen custard” selection, like a …’

‘I don’t think you need to explain what custard is to me at this stage in my career … I get it.’

‘No. It’s not like our custard, but I do think we could ask Appletree to make it. It’s like a soft ice cream …’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds fine, and 3?’

‘Compost Cookies …’

‘I thought that’s what you said. Explain.’

‘Right, David Chang, chef, opened Momofuku restaurant, now has loads of places, has a bakery/milk bar, and they sell Compost Cookies, which I admit sound weird but they’re the best things ever. This genius chef, Christina Tosi, invented the recipe, and now they’re famous for them. I brought you some back but then you went on that course …’

‘They’re made of compost? What have you been smoking, Sophie?’

‘No, not compost. Pretzels and crisps and chocolate chips …’

He does a fake retching, like a cat with furballs.

‘Honestly, Devron, I’ve got the recipe, I’ll bake you some this week.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘The salt/sweet thing is key, and the texture …’

He shakes his head. ‘Not sure about any of those, let’s catch up next week, gotta go.’

And he’s out the door before I can even show him the photos of what success looks like.

‘Of course they sound weird and gross. That’s why they’re interesting.’

James and I are baking Compost Cookies. In spite of Devron’s protestations, I am determined I can convince him if he just tries one.

James wrinkles his nose and sticks his tongue out.

‘Stop being such a baby and tell me how much brown to white sugar.’

‘One cup white, three quarters of a cup brown,’ he says, ‘what’s a stick of butter?’

‘Half a cup, I think, check the magnet on the fridge. Right, here’s the fun bit – your favourite baking ingredients and your favourite snacks …’

‘Are you serious? Crisps and pretzels? Trust Americans to take a cookie and make it more fattening.’

‘When have I ever let you down on the food front?’

‘That Japanese thing you made …’

‘That was Korean. Okay. I reckon Hula Hoops,
chocolate chips and maybe Ritz crackers … and there was coffee in it too, the bitterness was tempering the butterscotch chips … give me that paper … coffee grounds … huh.’

‘Like old crap at the bottom of the cafetière? If you think I’m eating that …’

‘Hang on … what are coffee grounds? Surely not the used, wet bits. Maybe it’s American for granules … google it, would you?’

He pads back in a minute later carrying my laptop and looking jubilant. ‘There you go, Soph, third one down.’

He shows me a page on Wikipedia which reads ‘Coffee ground vomitus’.

‘Told you so,’ he says, ‘do you want to read the bit about blackened stools?’

‘Shut up, nincompoop. Can you make yourself useful and sift the flour.’

He giggles to himself and gets to work. He keeps looking over at me as I break the eggs and measure out the rest of the dry ingredients.

‘This is nice, isn’t it,’ he says, smiling.

‘Isn’t it,’ I say.

‘I’m happy,’ he says.

‘Good! Now in that drawer on the left is a rolling pin …’

I’ve put the crisps and crackers in a Ziploc bag. He hands me the rolling pin and I give the bag a few thumps, smashing the contents to tiny pieces.

‘I’d better behave myself!’ he says. ‘You’ve got a fierce swing going on there.’

‘Years of repressed rage,’ I say. ‘You haven’t met my mother.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll do whatever you want, Boss.’

‘Are they ready yet? They smell good,’ says James, peering through the oven door.

‘One more minute … do they look light brown in the middle to you?’

‘I definitely think they’re ready.’

‘You can’t eat them till they’re cool, they’re too buttery to lift, they break.’

‘I’m taking them out.’

I make him walk round the block with me ten times, in order to stop him eating the cookies while they’re too warm. On lap eight he breaks into a run and together we jog round the block breathlessly joking about what we’ll put in them next time: pork scratchings, teabags, James’s Tikka Masala Pot Noodles.

Finally he hoicks me into a piggyback and we return home.

I pop to my room and by the time I return to the kitchen James is on his third cookie.

‘Oy, save some for Devron!’

‘Not bad!’ he says, with a mouth full. ‘Not bad at all.’

‘What did you expect? It’s basically a chocolate chip cookie with built-in pub snacks. How could the British public not fall in love with that idea?’

‘Such a clever girl, you,’ he says, sticking a biscuit in my mouth. ‘Very clever.’

‘Your company as ever was truly wonderful,’ he says as he kisses me goodbye later.

My company. Not me. My company. As if they were detachable.

My grandma has left a message on my voice mail:

‘Hello? Hello? Are you there, who is this? Evie, there’s no one there. I heard a voice but it’s gone … Hello? Sophie? … Sophie? It’s Grandma.’

Then Evie’s voice comes on: ‘Sophie, it is Evie and your grandmother calling on Monday at one o’clock. Your grandmother would like you to visit one night this week please, thank you, Sophie.’

The guilt. I have not been round for three weeks. Every weekend I have seen James and in the week I’m with him or friends.

Three weeks is a heartbeat when you’re in love, but a very long time when you’re lonely.

I bake a lemon drizzle cake, but am in such a rush taking it out of the oven to pour the syrup on immediately, that I burn myself halfway up my inner forearm, just where the oven gloves stop and my flesh starts. Careless. It is only two centimetres long but it hurts like hell. I hold it under the
cold tap as long as I can bear, then hurry down and out to her flat while the cake is still warm.

Evie opens the door dressed in one of my grandma’s cloche hats and a tailored suit from the 40s. The skirt is too long, but the jacket looks great.

‘Sorry, Sophie, your grandmother is making me try on all her old clothes. She wants them to go to a good home …’ She raises her hands and shrugs her shoulders in a typical Jewish gesture that she’s picked up since she moved in.

‘It’s a little bit long for me, Mrs Klein,’ she says, heading back into the living room, where my granny looks like she’s fallen into a nap, slumped over in her chair, her legs at an awkward Kerplunk angle.

‘Grandma?’ I rush over to her in a panic and grab her arm.

She’s dead.

‘Teddy? Not the good china!’ she says, rolling her head to the other side and opening one eye.

Not so dead.

‘Is that you, Sophola?’ Her hand reaches out to touch my face. You can see every vein, bone, sinew on this aged hand; it’s like an anatomical drawing. Yet her nails, as ever, look immaculate.

‘Yes, Grandma. It’s me. I brought you a lemon cake.’

‘Bless you, darling. Evie! Three plates please! And that hat doesn’t go with that suit. Sit, Sophola, let me look at you.’

I sit on the velvet footstool by her feet. Her ankles are swollen but her legs are so fragile and knobbly now, they look like twiglets in sheepskin slippers.

‘What news?’ she says.

‘Work’s very busy. I’m in charge of my own new product development, I saw some delicious cannolis in New York …’

‘New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town!’ she croons. ‘Your father was in New York during the war. He’d only been back a few months when we met: June. So hot that year. I used to sit in the back of Papa’s shop, help serve the ices …’

I nod. I have heard this story so many times, but apart from her confusing my father with my grandfather, the details are always perfect.

‘And one day Papa bumped into Reuben Meyers who told him of a young man, newly returned, of good family, living in Bloomsbury. Papa invited him for lemon tea after threatening to throw me out of the house if I made a bad impression by foolish talk.’

My great-grandfather had managed to offload his three younger, more docile daughters already.

‘In Papa’s eyes, at twenty-five I was an “alte meid”, a disgrace!’

Evie hands over a plate of lemon cake and my grandmother curls her hand round the spoon.

‘Papa always said “if anyone better looking than a monkey
asks you to marry him, go down on your knees and thank God”.’ Sound advice. ‘He said “don’t order more than a Bath bun – he’ll think you extravagant and unsuitable for a wife” … ooh, this cake!’

‘Your recipe.’

‘I know.’ There are crumbs stuck to her lipstick. She looks so very, very old now. ‘How’s your new chap?’

I wonder if she would actually like James. He’s very charming, always, but she’d see beyond that veneer. If I had to pinpoint his greatest appeal it would be his combination of manliness and boyishness. He is assertive and confident and tough, and yet has a boundless energy and silliness. Would she find him endearing or just immature? I’d really like her to meet him; her instincts are sound. ‘I’ll bring him round soon, shall I?’

‘I’d like that. How is Nicholas doing? Such a handsome boy.’

Nick was always so sweet with my grandma. When she was more mobile, he’d take her round to the local Austrian pastry shop and buy her strudel and coffees in the afternoon, and listen to her recite poetry or moan about the state of the nation. I can’t quite imagine James doing that.

‘Nick’s good. He’s in Paris making a record with a band. They’re very popular, nice melodies.’

‘Tell him I wish him all the best. Now if you’ll excuse me. Evie?’ She yawns for what seems like half a minute.

She has gone from being sparky to drained in the space of
thirty seconds. There is so little energy left in her body, yet her mind is still operating on almost all cylinders. But I know that she’s so desperately bored, if she could she’d take a pill and be gone tomorrow.

I kiss her goodbye and watch as Evie leads her down the corridor.

‘What happened here?’ says James, taking my wrist gently and holding my arm.

I’d forgotten about the burn, though my skin is still angry and red.

‘Oh. Yeah … oven gloves.’

‘When?’

‘Erm … last week.’

‘Did you put cream on?’

‘No, I put it under water … it’s fine. I always scar for ages. Look, see?’

I hold out my other arm to show him the long thin scratches on the inside of my elbow that look like a feral cat has attacked.

‘I wondered where those had come from …’ He’s giving me a suspicious look.

‘James? Do I look like someone who self-harms?’ I do all my self-harming internally, thank you.

‘No! That’s not what I thought …’

‘So what? Oh! You thought I might be an IV drug user! Cool. Yep, I keep my smack habit pretty well hidden, it’s true.’

‘I don’t know, they’re just – they’ve been there ever since we met.’

‘I fell down a rather large rock in Mendoza in January, I was just wearing a vest. I scraped my arm on some stupid bracken shit. Shouldn’t have had that extra glass of Merlot before the hike.’

‘You’ve still got the scar though.’

‘Yes! Idiot. I’m telling you, it takes ages for stuff to fade. I think it’s to do with the Factor XI. I bruise really easily.’

‘Do you want to see my scars?’ he says.

‘You’ve already talked me through them … remember?’ He sometimes forgets what he has and hasn’t told me. Must be his age.

‘I have?’

‘Yes. Right elbow – sixth form rugby match, Forest vs. Chigwell, all Terry Watson’s fault. Second knuckle, right hand – unidentified drinking injury. Left knee – rafting, Canada, 1984 with Mallard. Right eyebrow – bumper cars, South Woodford Fairground, 1969. Remind me, was everything still in black and white then?’

‘Your memory is scary. Anyway, what’s for dinner, Wench?’

‘I was thinking maybe some nice, fresh Scottish heroin, or would sir perhaps prefer a crack omelette?’

He pretends to throttle me, and I fall on the floor and pretend to die.

At work the following day my phone rings – Maggie Bainbridge.

‘I have a question for you and you have ten seconds to answer. Ready?’

Please say your business is now big enough to employ me. Please ask me to work for you again!

‘Would you like to go to El Bulli on August 1st?’ Popes, woods, bears, Catholics …

‘You got a table! I can’t believe you’re inviting me as your guest! I would LOVE to!’ My high-pitched yelping has caused Lisa to frown and Eddie to smile.

‘I’m not inviting you,’ she says.

Oh shit, that’s embarrassing.

‘I finally got a table in my fifth year of trying and now I’ve got a bleeding trade show all weekend in Harrogate, with fourteen clients to wine and dine at Harry Ramsden’s.’

‘You want me to help with the trade show? I can do the stand with you if you like …’

‘No, silly girl, listen: I want you to take my table for two at El Bulli and put it to bloody good use with whoever you think deserves it …’

Since I told Maggie about the whole ‘not my normal type’ conversation, she’s formed the opinion that James is an obnoxious arsehole.

‘Maggie, I owe you big time. THANK YOU!’

I hang up and immediately order her a £50 bunch of peonies – her favourite.

El Bulli! The best restaurant in the world, ever. Two million applications for a table each year, chance of getting one – thin as carpaccio.

I should take Laura. I know she’ll be my best friend till the day I die. She is my fellow horse-stealer. She is the platonic love of my life.

Besides, maybe Maggie’s right – I’m not sure James deserves such a treat.

I pick up my mobile before I can change my mind. ‘It’s me, are you free on August 1st?’

‘Why?’

‘Yes or no?’

‘… Yes?’

‘I have a table at El Bulli with our name on it, I’ll call you later about flights.’ And before he has a chance to ask what El Bulli is, or flights to where, I hang up, overexcited and ever so slightly disappointed with myself.

A week later, James and I are sitting on my living room floor with my computer on my lap.

‘So El Bulli is in Rosas,’ I say, pointing to a map on the screen, ‘and we fly to Barcelona …’