Second Thyme Around (2 page)

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Authors: Katie Fforde

Tags: #Fiction, #Contemporary Women

BOOK: Second Thyme Around
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‘No, no, I’ll be fine here. Now, do tell …’
‘Hang on. I’ll stuff a fag packet under it. I don’t know what that chair’s doing here. You think they’d give me a decent office. This place would be nothing without me.’
‘Oh, Ronnie! Don’t keep me in suspense! You’re always like this when you’ve got something really good to tell me.’
‘Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry and make ’em wait, we always used to say.’
‘Ronnie!’
‘OK, OK. Well, the story is that Mr Grantly was in France – you know he’s got a place there?’
‘Yes!’
‘Oh, all right,’ Ronnie said huffily. ‘Just giving you the background. Anyway, he was there and he met this new young chef …’
‘Not that young, surely?’ Lucas must be about thirty-five by now. In chef’s terms, that was ancient.
‘Younger than Enzo, anyway. And Mr Grantly thought he was just the person to get Grantly House a Michelin Star, so he paid off Enzo and got this bloke over.’
‘But that’s terrible! Kicking Enzo out so – this new chef – can sweep in and take over! We ought to picket Mr Grantly! Boycott his hotel! Get the press involved!’ Perdita was outraged as well as mystified. Lucas had been addicted to the speed of City life. What had happened to make him take such a drastic career change?
‘I don’t suppose you can afford to upset Mr Grantly, dear, seeing as he’s one of your main customers,’ Ronnie pointed out. ‘And by all accounts, Enzo’s quite happy about it. He never was quite cut out to be a top-notch chef. He did make some awful blunders.’
As Perdita was responsible for telling Ronnie about some of Enzo’s more colourful catastrophes, she couldn’t deny it. She blushed, feeling as if she had let Enzo down.
‘No need to look like that about it,’ Ronnie went on. ‘Enzo’s delighted.’
‘Is he? How do you know?’
‘He rang me before he left. Said he’d got a very good golden handshake out of it. And, of course, he’s been talking about going back to Italy for years. You know that. He’s no spring chicken.’
Perdita did know, but she doubted anyone would actually enjoy being disposed of so quickly.
‘He said we must all go out there and stay with him. He’s planning to open his own place.’
Perdita took a sip of barely liquid sugar. ‘So what’s this new one like, then?’
‘Well, you’ve seen him, so you tell me. But by all accounts he’s gorgeous. All smouldery and dark.’ Ronnie gave Perdita a sideways glance. ‘Obviously not your type, then?’
‘Well, no. Actually, we sort of know each other. Years ago, in a previous incarnation. He was a stockbroker.’ Better
to tell Ronnie what she wanted him to know herself and hope his sixth sense for old scandal wouldn’t be aroused. Ronnie could turn the most innocent encounter into something worthy of the
Sunday Sport;
what he would do with her quasi-elopement was too terrible to contemplate.
‘And you didn’t get on?’
‘No. He was a pig. Um – did Enzo say anything about his wife?’
‘Who? Enzo’s?’
‘No! Lucas Gillespie’s. He was married when I knew him.’ Which was true.
‘Oh? Well, Enzo didn’t say anything about whether he was married or not. Apparently he’s staying with Mr Grantly until his staff flat is ready, so he’s well in there, but I’ve not heard tell of any wife. What was she like, then?’
Perdita hesitated only a millisecond before abdicating from the role of spouse, giving it instead to the woman for whom she had been abandoned. ‘Well, I didn’t know her well.’ Perdita had met the other woman in her husband’s life only once. ‘But she was older than me.’ That had seemed the ultimate insult – he left her playing with her toys while he went off with the grown-ups. ‘And very sophisticated. Dark. Very well groomed.’
‘And you didn’t like her, either?’
‘I didn’t know her! But she made me feel very young and naïve. Which I was then.’
‘And now you’re Ms Sophistication, I suppose.’ He sounded sceptical.
‘But I’m not naïve!’
‘Yes you are. But not to worry, it’s part of your charm. So how did you meet the evil Mr Gillespie?’
‘Oh, at a party.’ Ronnie seemed to want a little more detail. ‘I’d only just left school. I hardly knew him at all, really.’ This was also true. They had met and married within three months. ‘But who I’m worried about is Janey. He’ll bully her to bits!’
‘If you didn’t know him that well, how do you know that?’
‘I know Janey. She’s young and innocent—’
‘And pretty. Remind you of anyone?’
‘Stop teasing me, Ronnie. This is serious. We must get her out of there! You wouldn’t have a job for her here, would you?’
‘Perdita, love, I hope you don’t mind me being personal …’
‘But you’re going to be, anyway.’
‘But don’t you think you spend too much time worrying about other people, and not enough time worrying about yourself? You should get yourself a nice boyfriend, have some fun.’
Perdita looked at Ronnie as if she had never heard this from him before, when in fact he said it nearly every time they met. But this time, it raised an important question: what would Lucas think when he found out, as he inevitably would, that she hadn’t got so much as a sniff of a boyfriend, let alone a husband? He would think, conceited bastard that he was, that she was carrying a torch for him. And if the painted sophisticate he had left her for was still around, well, her pride demanded she have someone sensational to hang on her arm – if only for special occasions.
Ronnie, surprised that Perdita wasn’t protesting as usual, followed up his opening. ‘You’re really a lovely girl, just a little bit unkempt. I mean, look at your clothes.’
For once, Perdita looked. The ancient Fair Isle sweater, which was warm and comfortable and, to her eyes, attractive, had once belonged to Kitty’s long-dead husband. It hung halfway down her thighs and the hem was partially unravelled. There was a hole in the arm and the welt of the cuff was nearly separated from the sleeve. There was a panel of mud on the inside of her leg running from where her Wellingtons stopped to above her knees.
‘And your hair …’ Ronnie, seeing that for once his words were having an effect, pressed on. ‘A good cut and a few highlights would make all the difference – carry you over the hump between light mouse and dark blonde. Why don’t you come here for a makeover? You could get staff discount. The girls would love to get their hands on you.’
Perdita shuddered. ‘If you’ve got in mind some wonderful man who’d make it all worthwhile, I might just consider it.’
Ronnie had long been trying to get Perdita to make more of herself, and made one more attempt. ‘You won’t find a man looking like Orphan Annie. But no,’ he went on, defeated, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got anyone up my sleeve. Young single men don’t come my way much, more’s the pity. And it’s no good looking among our clientele. We get mostly women, as you know, and enough of them are single to make any man a sitting target.’
‘But you do get celebrities, male ones?’
‘Occasionally, but …’
‘Tell you what, Ronnie. If you let me know if anyone lovely, male and straight comes in, I’ll submit to every torture you think I need to make myself beautiful.’
‘Perdita, love,’ Ronnie said sharply, ‘this wouldn’t be anything to do with the new chef at Grantly’s, would it?’
‘Good Lord no!’ Frantically Perdita tried to think of a reason for this volte-face. ‘It’s just that I’m approaching the big three oh—’
Ronnie, who was good at birthdays, frowned. ‘Not till next year, surely?’
‘Well, yes, but it’ll probably take me till next year to get my act together.’
‘True,’ he agreed brutally. ‘Well, if you’re that desperate, I suppose you could advertise.’
‘No I couldn’t!’ Just imagine Lucas seeing her lonely hearts advertisement in the local paper! She might as well
applique a bleeding heart to her sleeve and have done with it.
Ronnie looked hurt. ‘Why not? It’s all very discreet, you have a box number. There are all sorts of safeguards against perverts. I’ve met some lovely men through the small ads.’
Perdita bit her lip and sighed ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I’m a bit too much of a coward for that. There must be a less scary way to find a man.’
‘Perdita, are you sure this sudden change of heart isn’t anything to do with this new chef?’
Perdita felt herself blush and knew that Ronnie would have noticed it. ‘Only indirectly. Seeing him unexpectedly like that made me look back to how I’d been the last time I’d seen him.’ A wreck, but no need to tell Ronnie that. ‘I’ve come on a lot. I’m independent, I’ve got my own business going, but I haven’t got a partner. And I still wear my hair in a scrunchy. I’ve spent so much time and energy getting my nursery going, I haven’t had a date for years. I don’t mind ending my life as an old maid, but I want it to be through choice, not because I never had an opportunity for marriage.’
This fairly grown-up-sounding statement seemed to satisfy the eagle-eyed Ronnie. ‘You don’t get the opportunity because you spend all your spare time looking after Mrs Anson. How is she, by the way?’
‘Kitty? Oh, she’s fine. Still gardening all day, though I’ve told her a million times I’ll do anything that needs doing.’
‘I don’t suppose she’d approve of you advertising for a man.’
Perdita frowned. ‘I don’t know what she’d think, quite honestly; she’s completely unpredictable. She would like me to have a boyfriend, though. She’s always telling me I ought to have children of my own, and not waste my time treating her like a child. As if I’d dare!’
‘She’s right, you know, Perdita. That old lady’s got a lot
of sense.’ Ronnie patted her knee paternally, and got up. ‘Now, must get on.’
‘So must I. Thanks for the coffee and the chat, Ronnie.’
‘Any time, love. And let me know if you fancy a makeover. Or even a few make-up hints.’
‘I will.’ A makeover, much as the idea horrified her, would be worth the agony if it helped her get a man before Lucas could find out that she hadn’t already got one.
‘And give my best to Mrs A.’
‘Of course. See you, Ronnie.’
‘See you, love.’
 
 
Although Kitty and Perdita lived so close that their gardens backed on to each other, Perdita drove to Kitty’s on her way home, parked her van outside the house and knocked on the back door.
‘Kitty? Are you there? It’s only me!’ She wasn’t really expecting a reply, and so she walked down into the garden where she found her quarry in the vegetable plot, pulling out bean sticks.
‘Hello, darling, how are you?’ The elderly lady removed her pipe from between her teeth and kissed Perdita’s cheek fondly. ‘Here, take these and come and look at my wintersweet. I think it’s going to flower at last. I’ve had it for years.’
Perdita took the bean sticks and followed her friend down into the shrubbery. Once there, they studied the emerging blossom. ‘You are patient. I would have got fed up and thrown it out if it hadn’t flowered before now.’
‘By my age you’ve learnt patience, dear, and it smells heavenly.’ Kitty stripped off the surgical gloves she wore for gardening and rummaged in one of the many pockets of her body warmer for her tobacco. The body warmer was the last of many layers of clothes she had on and as she favoured clothes with pockets, her hunt took some time. Eventually, she found the plastic pouch in the pocket of her combat trousers and with it a postcard which she handed to Perdita before pinning a slipping plait back round her head with a hairpin retrieved from another pocket. She gestured to the postcard.
‘It’s from your father. The places they get to! I expect there’s one for you at home.’
Perdita glanced at the picture of a waterfall in the Andes for a moment. ‘Kitty, what did the doctor say?’
Kitty opened the pouch and found a tamper. She emptied the pipe with a firm knock against the fence and then began to scrape out the bowl of it with the tool. ‘Oh, the usual. It was only a routine check-up. There’s nothing wrong with me.’
‘Did he say you should give up your pipe?’
‘No he didn’t,’ said Kitty firmly. ‘He said at my age there was no point in giving up my little pleasures.’
‘Even if they include strong pipe tobacco and malt whisky?’
‘It’s quality of life they go for now. Longevity is out of fashion.’ She hooked out a plug of tobacco with her finger and began to fill her pipe.
Perdita laughed. ‘Pity they didn’t know that when you hit eighty-five!’
Kitty chuckled. ‘I could have been hygienically euthanased and they would have had to let me have a cardboard coffin.’ Her pipe full, Kitty tucked it into another pocket where it would stay until she was ready for it later. ‘Now come inside and let me get you some lunch. I know you won’t eat unless I make you.’
‘Nonsense! You’re the one who stays out in the garden until it’s dark and then is too tired to cook!’
‘At least I don’t think a few chemicals in a plastic flowerpot constitute a square meal,’ Kitty retorted.
Kitty and a gentleman friend, on their way back from their Philosophy evening class, had once called in on Perdita at ten o’clock at night. Kitty was appalled to find Perdita eating so late, and such unhealthy food.
‘I don’t often eat Pot Noodles.’
‘Considering you produce organic vegetables because
you think chemicals are unhealthy, you should never eat them.’
‘I’m not completely organic, you know. Only nearly,’ said Perdita.
‘Don’t change the subject, and come and have lunch. I bet you didn’t have breakfast.’
Perdita and Kitty constantly accused each other of not eating properly while denying they were both equally guilty. Kitty said she didn’t need much food at her age, and Perdita said she was young and poor and couldn’t afford to grow out of her jeans. One Christmas they had, coincidentally, given each other microwaves. Perdita used hers for heating up frozen pizzas and Kitty used hers to sterilise soil.
This time Perdita lost the argument about who should cook for whom because of the time it took her to get her hands clean. Unlike Kitty, she couldn’t garden in gloves. She sat herself down at the large mahogany table and flicked through the junk mail, marvelling at how fit her old friend seemed. Kitty was eighty-seven and more sprightly than many people half her age. She was Perdita’s favourite person in the world.
Perdita’s parents lived abroad, having worked their whole careers in the diplomatic service. Perdita had spent her holidays from boarding school with Kitty, who was her mother’s godmother, and had been more than that to Perdita. She vividly remembered the first time she had met Kitty. Sent by train to stay with her for the Easter holidays, Perdita had been terrified. For a start she had no idea how to address the person her mother referred to as Aunt Kitty, because no one had remembered to tell her Kitty’s surname. She managed to avoid calling her anything for nearly the whole of the first day.
She was shown her room, a large first-floor bedroom with windows in two walls.
‘This is always going to be your room now, my dear,’
Kitty had said. ‘My other guests can have the attic. If you’re going to stay with me during the holidays, you’ll need somewhere which is permanently yours. Can’t think it’s going to be much fun for you, staying with an old lady like me, but your mother said there was no one else she trusted to look after you.’
Perdita subsequently found out that Kitty disapproved strongly of boarding schools and of parents who put their careers before their families, but in the beginning, she had refrained from comment.
Although she had no children of her own, Kitty instinctively knew how to make Perdita feel at home. Probably, Perdita reflected,
because
she had no children. She just treated Perdita like an adult who needed cosseting a little. The name thing was got over very quickly when they were saying good night. Perdita started on the ‘aunt’ and Kitty stopped her immediately. ‘Call me Kitty, dear. All my friends do, and I think we’re going to become very good friends.’
Many years had passed since that first meeting, and the love between the two of them had grown and developed. When Perdita’s marriage had broken up, her first instinct had been to go to Kitty, who hadn’t said, ‘I told you so,’ although she had warned against Perdita marrying a man she had known for such a short time. She had simply said, ‘Men are
bastards
!’ and given her a stiff drink.
Now, the role of carer was more shared.
‘So, any news from the outside world?’ asked Kitty, when she had put bowls of tinned tomato soup and a plate of bread and butter down in front of them both. ‘Tell me while I pour more sherry. You can always walk home if you’re worried about “drink driving”.’ She said the words with the derision of a non-driver and fairly heavy drinker, as if ‘drink driving’ was an invention of the press.
Perdita shook her head. ‘No, I’ve got to get the van home. It’s playing up.’
‘Again? Why don’t you let me buy you—’
‘We’ve been through all that. Now, I’ll tell you what happened this morning.’ Perdita would have preferred not to bother Kitty with the news, but as she was by no means Kitty’s only source of information, she’d hear it eventually. It was better for Perdita to warn her personally. ‘Enzo’s gone from Grantly House!’
‘Michael Grantly never did know when he was on to a good thing. I thought Enzo cooked jolly well. On his good days.’
‘Exactly! And you’ll never guess who has replaced him!’
‘Then just tell me. You seem very excited about it.’
Perdita was concentrating hard on sounding upbeat. Finding Lucas in Enzo’s place had been a genuine shock, but she didn’t want to worry Kitty. ‘Well! It’s such a surprise.’
‘So, are you going to tell me? Or will you let me die waiting for the news?’
‘It’s Lucas! Lucas Gillespie! My ex-husband!’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘I know quite well who Lucas Gillespie is, dear. But he isn’t a cook, he’s a stockbroker.’
‘He’s a chef now. Apparently. Ronnie told me that Michael Grantly found him in France, and has sacked Enzo so Lucas can sweep Grantly House into all the gourmet food guides.’
Kitty frowned. ‘Well, you seem perfectly happy about it, but I can’t see it as a good thing.’
‘Of course I’m not
happy
about it, exactly. But nor am I traumatised. After all, it’s years since we parted and, thanks to you, I’m now an independent woman. Not the little mouse he left weeping in a heap.’
It had been Kitty who had insisted that Perdita stop weeping and, as much as a distraction as anything else, help her in the garden. Later, when Perdita’s green fingers became apparent, she had suggested she had some formal
horticultural training. Eventually Kitty persuaded Perdita’s father to give Perdita the fifteen grand he would have spent on her wedding had Perdita’s mother had her way. With that capital, Perdita had started Bonyhayes Salads. Now it was a thriving, if not exactly lucrative, business.
‘No. You’ve done marvellously, but I can’t help feeling it would be nice if you had a man as well as a smallholding.’
‘Kitty darling, women don’t need men these days.’ She glanced at Kitty. ‘You’ve managed without one for nearly forty years.’
‘True’ Kitty went on, producing a plate of rather sweaty cheese from the refrigerator. ‘Lionel dying like he did left me man-less for the rest of my life. But you’re a different matter altogether.’
Perdita was indignant. ‘Am I? Why?’
‘Because although my marriage was short, it was satisfying. You’ve only known that swine. You should have another bash at it. And you don’t want him thinking you’ve been pining all these years, do you?’
Perdita extracted a catalogue from the pile which took up one end of the huge mahogany dining table which was the hub around which Kitty’s life revolved, partly to avoid Kitty’s direct gaze. ‘Would he think that? After all, he must know that building up a business takes a lot of doing. I just haven’t had time for a social life as such. These clothes are quite nice. Have you ordered anything?’
Kitty ignored the change of subject. ‘He will think you’ve been pining because he’s arrogant. You need a man to throw him off the scent. After all, you don’t want him thinking he can pick up where he left off.’
Perdita shook her head. ‘I really don’t think he’d even dream of doing that. He left me because he went off me. But you’re right, I don’t want him thinking I’ve been carrying a torch. I’d better find a man. The trouble is, there aren’t any, not round here.’
Kitty cut the rind off a piece of cheese. ‘Do Universal Aunts have a branch for presentable men, do you think?’
‘I think that would be an escort agency, and going by the docu-soap I watched the other night I don’t want anything to do with one of those. So, unless you’ve got a guardsman tucked up your sleeve, I don’t have many options.’
Kitty chuckled. ‘Any guardsmen I know would be over ninety by now.’
Perdita twinkled back at her. ‘Well, you know what they say: better an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave
… After all, I don’t want a relationship, just someone to stop Lucas thinking I’m sad.’
‘But why don’t you want a relationship? You should! You should be having children by now.’
‘I’ve got a nursery already, I don’t need children …’
Kitty frowned. ‘Really, darling. You do need someone. I won’t be here for ever.’
‘Yes you will. Now do you want some more sherry? Or shall I wash up? Oh!’ Her eye was caught by ‘Derek, Vet’ who was advertising sailing trousers in the catalogue. ‘He’s nice. Do you think you can buy the men, or is it just the clothes?’
 
The next time Perdita went to deliver at Grantly House she was prepared. She hadn’t exactly put make-up on, or worn her best clothes, but she had made sure her hair was clean and that her jeans were freshly washed and not too obviously in need of mending. Lucas had greatly increased the order, which pleased her.
She piled up the plastic crates and carried them carefully into the kitchen. This time she was expecting a frigid reception and so it was a relief to find the kitchen so full of bustle that no one was aware of her arrival. There were several people standing round Lucas, who was storming about, throwing his hands up in frustration.
‘This is a professional kitchen. I don’t see any reason why it can’t be used!’
‘But our programme isn’t for professionals,’ said a well-spoken young man with floppy hair and an anxious expression. ‘It’s for entertainment.’ He sounded tired.
The word entertainment had caused Lucas’s black brow to darken further. ‘But I thought the location was approved months ago! Before I was even approached!’
‘It was.’ The tired young man seemed as frustrated as Lucas. ‘But not by me! And it’s just not exciting enough.’
Lucas opened his mouth to shout, and then shut it again. Before he lost the struggle to remember on which side his bread was buttered, Perdita decided to announce her presence.
‘Hi, everyone!’ she said over the top of her crates. ‘I’ve just brought the veg.’ Everyone turned towards her. ‘I’ll just put it all in the cold store, shall I? You’re obviously busy.’ Nobody moved or spoke, so she picked her way through the group until she got to the other door. ‘I don’t suppose anyone could possibly open that for me?’ She smiled, to indicate that she knew she was interrupting, and just trying to get out of the way as quickly as possible.

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