The Secret Ingredient (21 page)

Andie had to get out of this house, at least for part of the day; staying indoors and trawling through her parents' belongings would only make her depressed, and there was more than enough going on to make her depressed without adding to it. She needed to go shopping for supplies and that was as good a reason as any to get out, so she set about doing an inventory of the kitchen cupboards. Neville had disposed of all the perishables; the refrigerator was almost empty. Apart from the few things Andie had brought with her yesterday, there was a jar of jam and one of pickled onions, possibly dating back to the seventies. As there was no use-by date, that was highly likely, so Andie turfed it, and the jam, along with most of what she found in the cupboards. There were canisters of weevil-ridden flour – both plain and self-raising. When was the last time either had been used? She couldn't imagine her father doing any baking. There were years-old packets of breadcrumbs and jelly crystals, and skim milk powder that had set rock-hard. Andie found stale saltines and Milk Arrowroots in the bottom of a pair of biscuit barrels, tucked right at the back of a cupboard. Her father had probably forgotten they were there. She tossed cans of food that had dents, or signs of oxidation around the rims, or that she wouldn't eat anyway – there were four tins of rice cream that only brought back bad memories of bland childhood desserts. In the end, all she kept was a couple of tins of baked beans that appeared to be relatively new.

Finally, as she stood on a chair to reach into the back of a cupboard above the fridge, Andie discovered a stack of cookbooks. She had never seen her mother use a cookbook or follow a recipe. She stuck to plain, unfussy food and made a variation of the same dinner, week in and week out, pretty much the whole of their childhoods. She was very much a graduate of the school of meat and three veg.

Andie dumped the books on the kitchen table and started to flick through them. They were very dated, and very Anglo – there were no Asian dishes here, not even any Italian. The books all harked from before the days of silly experimentation, when the height of sophistication was half a pineapple studded with cheese and gherkin toothpicks. Ingredients here were simple and largely unadulterated; nothing was processed, or wasted for that matter – there were an awful lot of offal recipes. But it was the method that really grabbed Andie's attention: detailed and exacting, often an art in itself. There was a respect and understanding of the properties of food and rules for handling that read like sacred doctrines. As Andie turned over page after page, she came across handwritten notes in a lovely, old-fashioned script next to some of the recipes; corrections, additions, ideas . . .

It eventually occurred to Andie that these books must have belonged to her grandmother, her father's mother. She died when Andie was quite small, maybe five or six, and so her memories were fuzzy at best. But she did remember the kitchen of her simple weatherboard house in Ashfield. Her grandmother had the purest white hair, and she always wore a pinafore-style apron over a flower print dress. Andie could see her now, standing at her kitchen table, the big round mixing bowls, striped blue and white, wooden spoons laid out, and one of those wonderful old Mixmasters that were a designer must-have these days, and cost a bomb. She used to let Andie sit on a stool and watch as she cooked. She showed her how to measure ingredients and add them to the bowl, she let her sift the flour and stir everything together. She talked to Andie the whole time about what she was doing, why you needed eggs for cakes but not biscuits, why cakes rose in the oven, why she added certain spices – a touch of ginger to a teacake, for example. And when it was cooked, she'd ask Andie if she could taste the ginger.

These weren't just books of recipes, they were manuals about how to cook. They featured simple, unadorned photographs to clearly illustrate each step, not glamorous shots of celebrity chefs in state-of-the-art kitchens. There were no such things as microwaves and fan-forced ovens, measurements were still imperial. Andie was mesmerised. She reached for her notepad and began to make a list.

Jess parked out the front of the Lonergan home in Roseville. She'd been here a few times when she and Andie were at TAFE together, but she'd never stayed long. The place used to creep her out then. The ghosts of Andie's dead mother and brother seemed to hang over everything; Jess could only imagine it would be worse now, with her father gone as well. As she started down the front path, she noticed the overgrown garden, and that the front facade of the house looked faded and shabby. Jess remembered it used to look neat as a pin – a little soulless, but always immaculate.

She was worried about Andie, rattling around in the big, empty family house, all on her own, it couldn't be good for her. Jess had called her yesterday to see if she wanted to do something last night, but Andie had declined. Jess suspected that Ross was hanging around so she asked Andie straight, but she assured her she had nothing to worry about on that front, Ross was gone for good. It was over. And that was all she would say about the matter.

So, what now? Was she just going to hide away in the old family home and never go out again, like some kind of twenty-first century version of Miss Havisham? Jess realised the metaphor was strained – Miss Havisham had been stood up on her wedding day – but the fact remained that Andie was in danger of becoming . . . well, maybe not a recluse, but heading down that path. She'd hardly stepped foot in the shop for weeks, and Jess doubted she was going be any more actively involved now she was living way over on the other side of the harbour. She was worried that Andie might easily sink into a depression. It was creepy that she was back here at the house. Her father had never been able to move on, and Jess was not going to just stand by and watch that happen to Andie.

She stepped up onto the porch and knocked loudly on the door. After Andie turned her down last night, Jess informed her she would come for a visit today. She didn't ask, she just told her she was coming over.

Andie opened the door a few moments later, looking weirdly like a housewife from the fifties. She was wearing one of those pinafore-style aprons, her hair tied back in a ponytail. And was that flour smudged across her cheek?

‘Hi, Jess!' she said. Her eyes were bright, maybe even a little manic, and she had a big, wide smile on her face. ‘Come on in.'

Jess followed her down the hallway, past the lounge room, while Andie prattled on, barely stopping to take a breath. She had made a discovery, she was so excited, she'd been up half the night, and had got straight into it again first thing this morning.

‘I know what I have to do,' Andie declared as they walked into the kitchen. ‘I'm going to start cooking again.'

Jess looked around the room; every available surface was covered with racks of cakes and slices cooling, trays of biscuits jostled for space on the sink and two large stockpots bubbled away on the stovetop.

‘Well, looks like you already have,' said Jess.

Andie had been carrying out surveillance from her car since first light. She had a plan, which, granted, wasn't much of a plan, but it was too late now; she was here, she was going to have to just sit it out. Luckily she had brought supplies: a large coffee she'd picked up on the way, and a container of her scones.
Her
scones! Which were, if she said so herself, not bad at all. Making them had felt like a sheer labour of love; kneading the dough, rolling it out flat, and marking the scones out with a glass, just as she remembered her grandmother doing. She made batch after batch until she got it right, until they tasted exactly the way she remembered. Taste was such an evocative sense; Andie had closed her eyes, with the scone melting in her mouth, and been transported back to her grandmother's kitchen, biting into the same warm scones . . .

She had almost lived in the kitchen this past week, rediscovering what she loved about cooking, what she had always loved – the magic, the alchemy that happened when you took raw ingredients and transformed them into something not just edible, but delicious and sustaining. Nourishment was nurture.

Her mother had never seen it that way; cooking was just another household chore, which explained the perennially bland meals, desserts out of a tin, and always a shop-bought cake for their birthdays. Andie had begged her once to let her make a cake for Brendan's birthday. She had eventually agreed, on the strict condition that Andie clean up afterwards. So she went ahead and made the cake, icing it meticulously, even piping his name on top. Brendan made a huge deal over it, of course; even her father chimed in, saying he hadn't tasted cake like that since his mother died. Buoyed by her success, Andie asked if she could bake another cake the following weekend, but her mother became annoyed. ‘Cooking is something housewives do, you have better things to do with your time. Haven't you got homework anyway?'

So during the week, Andie had gone out to buy cooling racks and biscuit trays and cake tins because her mother had never had much call for such things. She wished she'd thought to collect some of her kitchen gear from the apartment, but it wasn't really a priority on the day. At least she'd held on to her chef's kit, so she had decent knives and utensils.

‘Do you know how fast these would sell at the deli?' Jess said as she perused the kitchen on Sunday, sampling the fresh-baked goodies.

Andie shrugged.

‘I'm serious, Andie,' she said, holding up a lemon slice. ‘You said you want to get back into cooking, you already have an outlet at your disposal.'

‘I tried all that a few years ago, remember?' said Andie. ‘The shop's just not set up for food production. It was all too much of a hassle.'

Jess leaned back against the bench and folded her arms. ‘I've been thinking about that. Really, all you need is a commercial-grade double oven, in addition to what's already there. Some of the other equipment might need to be upgraded, and we could definitely use more bench space. But the area's so big, there's plenty of room for a huge island bench, and that would allow three or four people to work at it at once.'

Andie looked at her. ‘You really have been thinking about this, haven't you?'

‘Since I've been there more often, I can't help it,' said Jess. ‘I just think there's so much more we could be doing with the shop. I'm getting sick to death of the casual gigs, and now you've got your cooking groove back. I know last time it got a bit much on your own, but if we did it together . . . Think about it, Andie, we're both chefs, and you own your own deli – we have all the ingredients at our disposal and the skills to do anything we want with them . . .'

Andie didn't know how to tell Jess that she couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the deli, especially right now. It was a symbol of her chronic acquiescence to Ross – she'd wanted to be a chef, instead she owned and ran a shop that sold food.

‘You should look into it,' said Andie.

‘Seriously?' Jess said. ‘You're open to the idea?'

‘Get Toby over to give you a quote.'

Andie was happy for Jess to check it out, but right now, she wanted to plot her own path, which was why she was sitting in her car, gazing across the carpark to the back exit of the restaurant. She was waiting for Dominic Gerou to arrive for work, she needed to get to him first thing. He was the type of man – no wait, she hardly knew what type of man he was – he was the type of
chef
who did not brook interruptions, and once his day got underway, Andie was quite sure she wouldn't be able to get anywhere near him, and she needed his full attention in order to state her case effectively. She knew it was a long shot, but at the moment it was all she had. If he refused to give her a second chance, she'd have to start applying for work through the normal channels, and Andie did not like her odds. She was too old to be starting out, her qualifications were dated, she was out of practice, despite her cooking frenzy of the last week. She doubted anyone would give her a look-in. Dominic Gerou probably wouldn't either, but he was the only contact she had, no matter how tenuous. And besides, she kept telling herself, what did she have to lose?

A compact black BMW swept around the corner of the building and pulled into a reserved space not far from the entrance. Andie's heart began to race. It may not be him, it could be the owner. She watched anxiously as the car door swung open and a leg appeared. There was a moment's delay before the rest of the body followed, and Andie breathed again. It was him. He reached into the back of the car and lifted out a satchel-type bag, hooking it over one shoulder before closing the door and heading for the entrance of the restaurant. Andie watched as he paused at the door, fiddling with keys, until finally he unlocked the big, heavy
security
door. Bugger, she'd forgotten about that. He pushed the door open and went inside, and it swung closed behind him with a loud clunk which Andie could hear all the way to the other side of the parking lot. Damn, she was going to have to press that buzzer and summon him back to the door, and that was probably going to be as far as she would get. So much for her plan.

But now the door was opening again. Gerou appeared, dropped some kind of block on the ground, and then kicked it under the door to wedge it open. Then he walked back inside. Andie could hardly believe it. He must be waiting for a delivery, or maybe he did that to avoid going back and forth, letting staff in as they arrived for work. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter . . . a door had opened for Andie, and the symbolism was not lost on her. She couldn't let the opportunity be lost either.

She locked her car and darted over to the door, slipping inside. She really felt like a spy now. As she started down the long corridor, sidling along the wall, she thought about the last time she was here, running for all she was worth in the opposite direction. Little had she known what she was running towards that night or she may not have been in such a hurry. Her whole life had changed. She wondered where she'd be right now if Dominic Gerou had not given her a hard time, and she hadn't fled, and she hadn't arrived home early that night. She'd probably still be with Ross, oblivious to what he was getting up to, except for those niggling doubts, which he would have just kept dismissing. She may even have continued at the restaurant, giving him all the time in the world to carry on his affair.

Maybe she should be grateful to Mr Gerou – if he wasn't such an arse, none of this might have happened.

A quiet rage had been slowly building inside Andie since the night Ross had turned up at the house, or more accurately, since the fateful phone call the morning after. She'd had enough of bloody men with bloody enormous egos, the kind whose needs and wants and opinions outweighed everyone else's. They weren't all like that; Toby wasn't like that, or Brendan, or her dad. Having a penis didn't automatically make you a dickhead, but it certainly helped.

So she wasn't going to let Dominic Gerou intimidate her. Mentally she had to cut him down to size so that she could pull this off.

Andie came to the end of the corridor and shrunk back against the wall, peering around the corner into the kitchen. It was quiet, there didn't seem to be anyone around. Good. That much at least was going to plan. Now she had to find Gerou. She crept into the kitchen and over to the side wall, skirting along past the rows of stainless-steel benches. She knew very little about the layout of the place, there was an office over the other side, but it was still in darkness. Directly ahead was a set of double swing doors, which she assumed must lead into the restaurant proper. Andie surveyed the kitchen again; there were no other exits. Apart from the back corridor, there was only one way for her to proceed. She tiptoed over to the doors, carefully easing one open just enough to peer inside – into an airlock, as she suspected. Beyond was another set of doors with the standard porthole windows. Andie saw Gerou pass on the other side, a phone to his ear. She ducked her head down and crept into the airlock, flattening herself against the wall. She could hear him talking, but his voice was muffled. Andie pushed on the door to open it a crack.

‘Be that as it may, when I am told twenty-four hours, I expect the produce to be delivered in that time.'

Great, he was already in a bad mood and it was barely eight o'clock. She eased the door closed again, and shrank back out of sight. The muffled voice had stopped, but she could still hear his footsteps. They didn't sound like they were coming this way, but they might any minute, and it would be much worse for him to discover her here, hiding like a thief.

Music started up suddenly, mid-song, probably a radio. Andie raised her head to look into the restaurant again, but she couldn't see him now. There was a bar off to one side, stretching away from her. She realised she had no choice but to walk straight in there and find him. She had nothing to lose, she told herself for the umpteenth time. She straightened, took a deep breath, and strode determinedly through the doors and right into the room. Andie scanned the area and spotted Gerou, over behind the bar. He was staring at a computer screen, his head down; he hadn't noticed her.

Andie cleared her throat and walked towards him, treading heavily on the polished timber floor so he would hear her coming. He looked up.

‘Where did you come from?' he said abruptly.

‘Um, through the kitchen,' she said. ‘I came in the back way.'

‘That isn't a public entrance.' He frowned, studying her for a moment. ‘Do I know you?'

‘My name's Andie,' she said. ‘Andie Corcoran . . . Lonergan, it's Andie Lonergan now. I had a trial here, in the kitchen, about a month or so ago.'

He considered her for another moment. Her hair had been tucked up under a chef's cap when he'd last seen her, Andie wasn't surprised he didn't recognise her.

‘You,' he said finally, his expression not giving anything away. ‘What are you doing here? We're not open for a few hours yet if you were after a meal.'

Smart arse.

‘I came to see you, actually,' Andie said, unperturbed.

‘Well, you're looking at me.'

‘Do you have a minute?'

He gave a loud sigh and glanced at his watch. ‘Roughly,' he said, returning his attention to the computer screen.

‘So . . .' She took a breath. ‘I came to ask for my job back.'

He didn't look up, but a smirk formed on his lips. ‘I wasn't aware that you ever had a job here.'

She was expecting him to say something like that.

‘That's not quite true,' she returned.

He did glance up at her then, briefly, before looking back at the screen. ‘It was a trial, not a guaranteed position. And as you only lasted half an hour —'

‘It was closer to three hours actually.'

He shrugged. ‘So you lasted a couple of hours. You had your trial. And you've had your minute,' he added, turning away.

‘Hold on,' she blurted. Keep your cool. Don't lose it in front of him. Again.

He turned around again slowly. ‘Look, miss, I'm very busy —'

‘I was promised a trial,' Andie persisted. ‘I think you should hold up your end of the bargain.'

He shook his head. ‘You have got gall, I'll give you that much. But I've already given you your trial,' he said, finally meeting her gaze, ‘and you failed.'

‘Because you were impatient and you didn't give me a chance,' she said brazenly.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Did you imagine everyone was going to pussyfoot around you?' he asked. ‘Make it easy for you? Then you have no idea, Miss . . .'

‘My name is Andie.'

‘A kitchen is a busy, stressful, hectic place,' he went on, ignoring her. ‘We don't have the space or the time for someone who can't function in that environment.'

‘I can cope with the stress and the workload,' she said, ‘but I don't see why I should have to put up with plain bad temper.'