‘There’s still a chicken in the fridge,’ Michelle said. ‘It’s raw, but Claire has nothing else to do now. It’ll do her good to have something to occupy her – take her mind off things. She needs to keep busy.’
The doorbell rang. ‘That’ll be Neil and Ronan back,’ Liz said, going to answer it. She returned, followed by the four children. ‘Neil and Ronan are waiting in the cars, so we’ll be off,’ she said to Luca. Then she started barking instructions at her children. ‘Take that dish, Adam. Ben, you take the other one. Hold it straight – don’t let it drip on the floor.’
Luca watched as Claire’s sisters-in-law and their progeny went through the kitchen like a team of worker ants, streaming in and out of the house, the children bearing dishes of food almost bigger than themselves to thecars, until the place was empty except for him and a lone chicken.
When he went to tell Claire everyone had gone and it was safe to come downstairs, he found her asleep. He was glad – she must be exhausted. He felt so helpless in the face of her grief, and he wished there was something he could do to make her feel better. He pondered this as he returned to the kitchen. Unfortunately, sex was off the table. He knew he could make her feel good that way, but even if he wasn’t supposed to be keeping his hands off her, now probably wasn’t the time. What else did people turn to for comfort? Food? Maybe he could make her dinner. He opened the fridge and stared into it, almost empty now except for the chicken – thank goodness her sisters-in-law had left that. Now he just had to figure out what the fuck to do with it.
He took it out and examined it, relieved to find that there were cooking instructions on the bottom. It seemed you basically just had to bung it in the oven – that should be easy enough. He rooted around and found potatoes and vegetables, and set to peeling and chopping. The vegetables, however, didn’t come with instructions, and he wasn’t sure what to do with them once he’d cut them into pleasingly even chunks. And there should be gravy too. He had no idea how gravy happened. He’d ask Ali, he thought, grabbing his phone. When she didn’t answer her mobile, he rang home. Jacqueline answered.
‘Hi. Is Ali there?’
‘No, she’s out. You could try her mobile.’
‘I did. She’s not answering it.’ Luca hesitated. ‘I wanted to ask her something but… I guess I can ask you instead.’
‘Okay…’
‘How do you make roast potatoes? Really good ones like you and Ali make.’
‘Oh. You’re cooking?’ She sounded surprised.
‘Um… yeah. I’m making dinner for Claire.’
‘Sounds romantic.’
‘No, it’s really not. Her mother died last night.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Give her my condolences.’
‘Yeah, I will. So… roast potatoes? And I need to know about gravy too. I mean, where does that, like, come from?’
‘Okay, for really good roast potatoes, you’re going to have to parboil the potatoes first…’
Luckily, Claire came downstairs just as Luca was starting to worry that the chicken would go cold. His mother had told him how to let it rest, and it was sitting on the worktop under foil.
‘I fell asleep,’ she said, rubbing her eyes as she came into the kitchen. ‘Gosh, something smells really good.’
‘I made dinner,’ Luca said. ‘Sit down.’ He waved at the table, which was set for two. He had even lit a candle.
‘Oh! Do you want me to help with anything?’
‘No, thanks. Just – don’t look,’ Luca said, as he began hacking at the chicken with a knife. He was relieved when Claire sat down with her back to him. It might not look very pretty, he thought, as he tore at the meat, transferring huge chunks – you couldn’t really call them slices – to two plates, but it smelt fucking delicious. He cut up the whole chicken and divided it equally, piling it up on the plates. It looked like an awful lot, he thought, surveying it dubiously. Maybe you weren’t meant to serve the whole thing in one go. He shuffled some meat back into the dish from bothplates until the portions looked more reasonable. Then he added roast potatoes, carrots, stuffing and gravy.
‘It’s chicken,’ he said, as he plonked a plate in front of Claire.
‘Thank you. This looks amazing. But you really needn’t have gone to all this trouble. There’s already tons of food in the house.’
‘Not any more,’ he said, as he poured them both wine. ‘Your sisters-in-law made off with it all.’
‘Oh,’ Claire said. ‘I might have known.’ For a moment she just looked at her plate. She took up her knife and fork and began to eat slowly, carefully. And then, to Luca’s horror, she began to cry silently, great fat tears rolling down her face and splashing into her gravy.
‘Oh God, is it awful?’ He winced apologetically. ‘Sorry.’
Claire shook her head mutely.
‘Really, if it’s terrible, just don’t eat it.’
Claire wiped her eyes with her napkin. ‘It’s not that…’
