The Colour of Tea (10 page)

“Here we are, this is where we start.”

I come around to watch him from a better angle, facing him and the bowls from the other side of the marble bench.

“This is ground almond, sugar, and what I think you call ‘icing sugar.’ Oh, and cream of tartar, the little acid to make it rise,” he says, patting the top of one bowl. “This other bowl, of course, has the egg whites. And now we need to fold them together.”

Léon explains that the “folding” of the
macaron
ingredients is very important, gesturing with his hands that the mixture can be too flat and runny or too rough if not mixed properly. He takes both bowls over to a shiny white mixer, adding the dry ingredients to the wet slowly.

I peer into the mixing bowl. Baking always fills me with such hopeful expectation; Léon can sense it too.

“You enjoy this,
non
?” He laughs.

“Yes, I love it.” I notice that I am suddenly standing with my palms pressed together and raised close to my chin. Self-conscious, I move them behind my back and try to keep them there, fingers knotted together.

“Okay, looks good.” Léon switches off the mixer. “It needs to look like whipped cream. Thick, but not too stiff. The mixture must … ah …” He struggles to explain it, so instead shows me. He puts his finger into the bowl and presses lightly. As he lifts his finger up, the mixture clings on and then reluctantly lets go, remaining to stand tall like the top of a mountain.

“The mixture must stand in peaks,” I finish for him.

“Aha, yes, that’s it. Once it does this, then it is okay and ready. Today we are going to make passion fruit
macaron,
so we need to add a little color before we put it onto the trays.”

He reaches for a bottle filled with a radiant yellow liquid. He squeezes a few drops into the bowl, and as he mixes it through carefully, the snowy contents become bright, practically neon.

He notices my frown.

“Not to worry, the cooking makes it a bit browner. It’s the almond, you see.”

“Oh, okay.”

Back at the bench, a chef has prepared a plastic piping bag and a tray covered in a silicone sheet. Léon spoons dollops of creamy mixture into the bag and then starts to push out tiny rounds from the nozzle onto the tray.

“These are
petits
macarons.
You can make them bigger if you wish. These ones, they are a good size for our parties; the guests can have just a taste. Sometimes we get some catering requests for
macarons
… not as often as I would like.” He starts to fill up the tray with rows, sunshiny as the centers of daisies.

“Thank you for showing me this,” I say. “It’s very generous of you.” I am leaning on the edge of the cool bench.

He pauses to shrug and smile. “It’s my pleasure. I’m glad you are opening a café. You know, I love the way people are about
macarons,
cakes, these kinds of things. Sweets, I guess. It’s in their faces. How they look. They make people happy, you know?”

I think of a cake Mama made me for my eighth birthday. It was a clock tower, like Big Ben, laid flat against a tinfoil-covered chopping board. It was smothered in a buttery, cream-colored icing that was as thick and soft as a cloud. Smarties and jelly beans covered the face, and the numbers on the clock face were made with twists of licorice. Running up the side, there was a
little mouse with a plump marzipan body and licorice tail. Mama sang “Hickory Dickory Dock” and planted kisses under my chin and tickled me till I squealed.

“Yes, I know what you mean.”

Léon bangs the tray on the marble top. The yellow buttons spread a little but stay separate from one another.

“Okay, come now, we go to the ovens.”

The ovens are in the next room, stacked like shelves, at least ten or twelve in two tall columns.

“They need to be inside for about eight minutes. The oven is preheated to three fifty. You must make sure it is very dry. No steam at all.”

We stand close together staring into the heat. The warmth is dry and pleasant and the silence between us comfortable as we watch the
macarons
slowly rise. Around us the staff is busy: rolling dough through a machine, chatting and mixing, laughing and pounding. But the jumpy, sharp sounds of Cantonese, which normally interrupt my thoughts, fade into the background as I stare at the tray. I can feel Léon’s breath beside me. We are joined in the holy communion of this miracle: sugar and egg white and almond coming together.

The tops of the
macarons
become rounded and shiny, like buttons or bottle tops. Léon explains that we need to cook the undersides for a few minutes and then they must sit for a day or so. When they are done, he takes the cooked
macarons
from the oven. Back in the main kitchen, he talks me through the art of ganache, the soft, silky center of the
macaron.
He is not going to make the ganache for the shells we have just baked as they are too hot from cooking, so instead he mimes the process, gesturing while explaining what he adds, how he mixes it, what is important. He looks to the ceiling, searching for the appropriate words. He is so concerned that I get it right. As if it is his duty as a friend, as a
chef, as a Frenchman. Finally he asks one of the chefs to help him in another room. I wait for a few minutes, watching as someone carefully peels ripe pears.

Léon returns with a glass plate—a traffic light of
macarons
down each side. He places it in front of me. “Voilà.
Macarons.
These ones I made yesterday for a party tonight, so they should be delicious.”

He is right, of course; they are perfect. The first one I taste is dark chocolate with a center that is firmer than I had expected but that melts on my tongue in seconds. The second one is raspberry, the ganache retaining the roughness and texture of the fruit. The almond paste is stronger in this one, nuttier; blended together with the raspberry, it tastes of autumn. The last
macaron
is passion fruit. I know the shells are unflavored, but it tastes as though the entire sweet—the shells, the ganache, the scent—is alive with the zest of passion fruit before it even enters my mouth. Then, acidic on the tongue and rounding off a heavy sweetness. The perfume of the passion fruit
macaron
is like a bunch of lilies, assaulting and exotic. I close my eyes for a second, savoring each one.

“So, what do you think?” He is close enough for me to notice that the color of his eyes matches the cornflower blue initials stitched delicately onto his white chef’s shirt.

“Wonderful. Really lovely.” I smile at him, feeling drunk on the taste of divine
macarons.
He grins and looks down at the empty plate. I swallow with some effort and feel my heart run through a few beats.

“Good, that’s what I was hoping for.” He smiles.

Dearest Mama,

I might be a wanton harlot.

I knew that would make you laugh. But it could be true. I can’t stop thinking about a man who is married. And I am married. We
are both married but not to each other, which means such thoughts are wicked, aren’t they?

Mama, he has an accent that brings to mind a sweet and smoky caramel melting in your mouth. I feel so ridiculous even thinking about him. Léon. Léon. Léon. It’s got that soft, floating ending that could go on and on. And, I don’t know how to explain but, he looks like Paris.

Mama, do you remember the front desk manager at that hotel? You know—that god-awful place that smelled of wet dogs and old carpet. How we ate sandwiches in our room that night and watched French television while you stroked my hair? It was so ghastly that place, Mama; I can’t believe we stayed there. Even though it had a pizza-slice view of the Eiffel Tower. You always were too much of a romantic.

But that front desk manager, maybe he was the first love of my life. Antoine. Beautiful, soft, sweet Antoine. Do you remember? With the coffee brown eyes? Maybe you don’t remember. He excused us that last night when we couldn’t quite pay the bill. Must have taken pity on us two red-haired English girls. He was so kind to us, and he even held my hand for a second when he kissed us goodbye and I thought I was going to faint or wet my pants or something equally dreadful and embarrassing. Léon and Antoine. French men. Their souls have been crafted from the same rainbow.

Mama, I am married to a good man, and I must stop thinking such thoughts.

Your loving daughter,
Grace

P.S. Mama, he is a chef.

Raiponce—Rapunzel

Bergamot and Cardamom with White Chocolate Ganache

G
race Miller owns a café. My signature is on the papers; I put it there, it is done. It all happened so much quicker than I expected, and I have that strange smarting feeling, like the one you get when someone pulls out your tooth or rips off a Band-Aid really fast. Is it shock? I wanted this, didn’t I? Some days it is hard to remember. Here I am with a café. Or here I am, I should say, with a big dusty mess that used to be a Portuguese restaurant and somehow has to become a café in the next couple of weeks. I need a glass of wine.

Outside the window a thick mist swims between the apartment blocks. It fills your throat and settles on your skin like a sweat, strange and disconcerting. I watch it drift milkily in the spaces between and around things. Inside, the microwave clock reads 17:38, in a sickly lime green. Pete has become accustomed to twenty-four-hour clocks after working in casinos for so long. Twenty to six. The lease papers are a thick bundle inside a white envelope on the kitchen bench. My name is typewritten in daunting black letters. Is it too early to be drinking? I pour myself a glass of the chardonnay Pete has left on the bench. Its warm,
small bubbles prickle down my throat. I stroll through the apartment with my glass in hand, looking at each of the rooms. They could all do with a tidying-up, but I can’t be bothered. My muscles ache; hell, even my bones ache.

Today the builders came to remove a wall in the café so there is an easy view from the front counter to the kitchen. My ears still thunder with the echo of the jackhammers, cracking through old plaster and wood. The floors are now covered in gray muck, stepped through and kicked about. My shirtless builders left a different color from when they arrived, sweat turning the floury plaster dust on their bodies to a sticky ash. It is days like these I wish I could speak Chinese. The team leader, the one whose number Paul gave me after I rang him to ask for any contacts he might have, speaks English perfectly, but he is hardly ever around. Cantonese would be best, but even Mandarin would do. It feels like a disability, speaking only English. I have tried to encourage the builders to wear earplugs or hard hats, miming hopelessly with my hands, but I was met with confused glares and shrugs. I imagine that when I am not watching they smirk at me behind their drooping cigarettes. I quickly came to realize it was best for us all if I just got out of the way. So now I only watch, and then come home to my empty apartment, ears ringing. Tonight Pete has sent me a text message to let me know he is going out for dinner and then to karaoke with his workmates. Bonding over off-key singing and drinking green tea with whiskey. I’m a little relieved that he doesn’t invite me to join him.

I settle in our study, turning the chair to face the window. The glass is freckled with rain, and there is a smudge where one of us has leaned against it, looking out to the street below. My head is still full of floor plans, wallpapers, light shades, and napkin colors. Soon, too soon, I have to decide about the espresso machine and the walls. Perhaps the cheaper espresso machine will have to do, although the
one I really want is silver and topped with a bronze eagle, like the hood of an expensive car. Deliciously Italian-looking but out of my price range. I bite my lip. I wonder if Pete will be right about this venture; a ridiculous expense that will come to nothing. It seems that waitressing all your life and opening a café are two such different things, I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

We’ve been lazy about unpacking our boxes since the move. I notice there is a box untouched by the desk, still sealed with wide brown tape. I slice off the tape and open the box. The papers inside are a complete muddle. Pete’s, I assume; old reports and project plans and a flotsam of boring corporate debris. But as I start thumbing through, my fingers connect with the stiff edges of a bundle of photos. They’re old; they still have those rounded corners, the colors bled to oranges and ambers, the focus soft and hazy.

The first shot is of me, standing in front of our apartment block in Islington. I’m wearing my waitress uniform, from the first real job I ever had. And I look embarrassed. It’s not hard to imagine Mama behind the camera, proud and giggling. The next one I’m in France, teenage and sullen, on a bridge, again being forced to pose. The weather is grim and the sky slate gray. Yet another wild, last-minute trip. I sink down into the reading chair, flicking through the pile. They are all pictures of me. Me and a chocolate cake with candles, eyes wide and dreamy; me sitting on a picnic blanket, squinting up at the camera; me and the Houses of Parliament. Here I am skinny and frightened in my high school uniform and then, years later, sulking at the kitchen table with my hair cropped short. I take a big sip of the chardonnay and lean my head back against the chair. The wine crawls through the rivers and inlets of my blood.

The last pictures are of Mama and me together. She has a terrifically bad hairdo in one, with two distinct layers, short on
top, long underneath. Luckily for her she had wonderful, glossy hair that looked pretty in just about any kind of cut. She’s smiling so wide in that photo, a toddler-size me pressed back against her legs. I think I’m dressed as a fairy—I have wings made from coat hangers and kitchen foil. I don’t look very happy about it; probably not the girlie, gauzy number I had been hoping for. But Mama—Mama looks like she just built the Eiffel Tower.

Mama’s not smiling in all the pictures, though. Sometimes she looks off into the distance, or seems to be gazing through the camera. She has that faraway look she used to get, like she’s hovering between this world and another. These are the photos I stare and stare at. Bringing them up close to my face, reviewing every line in her forehead, the way her mouth is hanging, the tension in her shoulders. I am looking for something in her face that I cannot find, a clue or a sign. When my vision starts to get fuzzy, I put down the photos and stare out the window.