They had decided they’d probably need to borrow some tables and chairs for the supper club but that it would be nice to use as many of Amy’s as possible.
They were seeing how far into the corner a table could go while still letting people actually sit at it when Issi asked, ‘So, individual pies, then?’
Fran shook her head. ‘No. I’m going to do family-sized ones. Part of the point of food – particularly at a supper club – is the eating together. I’ll put big pies, bowls of vegetables, extra gravy, things like that, in between groups of four or six. People will have to serve each other, talk to each other even if they’re strangers, and it’ll be like joining a large family.’
‘Oh!’Issi was impressed.
‘Apart from anything else, doing all those individual pies would be hellishly fiddly,’ Fran added.
‘But do you have enough pie dishes? Should I add it to the list of things we need to buy on eBay?’
‘Amy has a very nice line in Pyrex, so we may be OK, but before we go to eBay, which I know is the sensible thing, we could see if there are any sales coming up at the local auction house. I love auctions!’
They concluded they could get twenty people into the sitting room if they divided them up into one table of eight, one of six and three of two.
‘What sort of veg are we having?’ asked Issi, disentangling the chairs they were using to check all the tables were usable.
‘Carrots, probably, and whatever else is in season.’
‘What sort of potatoes? Nothing too complicated, I hope.’
‘Mash! Obviously! Pie and mash with gravy. People love it. I think we’ll have to move that little table further away from the fire or the people sitting there will singe, and we can’t have that.’
‘If it passes its flue test, will you light the fire?’ asked Issi. ‘It might get awfully hot in here, with all those people.’
‘I’ll get Tig to light a fire that looks pretty but doesn’t actually push out any heat,’ said Fran. ‘I bet he can do that.’
‘Andif it fails its test, we could just fill the fireplace with candles, set well back so they can’t set light to anything.’
‘Oh, good idea, Is. Now let’s have something to eat. I’m starving.’
Later that evening Issi asked Fran three times if she’d emailed Antony to see if he could see her the following day, and so eventually, Fran did it. A reply pinged back saying yes, she could come at ten o’clock.
The next morning, having walked down the now nearly completed track, Fran set off in her car to see Antony. She planned to visit Amy later, and would ring Issi to see if she wanted collecting so they could go into town together. Issi had got up surprisingly early, saying she wanted to see Tig milking the cows.
Fran could not avoid comparing the sleek, well-kept feeling of Antony’s property with Hill Top Farm as she drove up the perfectly smooth driveway. She really did prefer Amy’s place: more hilly, definitely more scruffy, but also more welcoming and, she was sure Issi would confirm, more environmentally friendly. But there was probably a middle way between ramshackle and show home. She really wished she could be visiting Antony for a different reason, if he’d invited her for supper or something. As it was she was practically begging,andshe was someone who found it so much easier to give than to receive. She really didn’t like asking for favours – except from Issi – and she was going to be asking Antony for what amounted to the loan of several thousand pounds. The fact he could afford it didn’t make it one bit easier. Still, it had to be done. There was more at stake here than her pride.
‘Why are you laughing?’ Antony asked as he handed Fran a cup of coffee made in a machine the size and value of a reasonably priced family car. They were sitting at the breakfast bar in his enormous kitchen.
She tried to stop giggling. ‘It’s just so funny – I mean the contrast! You’ve been up at Hill Top in all it’s scruffiness, and you come from all this …’ She gestured to the gleaming kitchen, which seemed never to have been sullied by anything as mundane as a chopped onion. ‘To – well – a care home for items that will one day be referred to as “kitchenalia”.’
‘Rustic,’ he said firmly. ‘Hill Top is rustic.’
‘It’s sweet of you to give it an appealing name but not only is it rustic, it’s probably unhygienic.’
He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. ‘You’re right,’ he said eventually.
‘You’re not supposed to agree with me! You’re supposed to say, “You’ve got to eat a peck of dirt before you die.”’
‘Most people agree that it’s best not to eat it all at once.’
Fransighed. Antony was drinking a double espresso, while she had gone for a latte. His taste in coffee made him seem severe, somehow, and hers made her a lightweight.
She put her head in her hands for a minute, resting her elbows on the stainless steel work surface, then straightened up. ‘I’ve come here to say yes please to the cheese room. I need it if I’m going to serve cheese at my supper club and I want to. It’s mostly to advertise the cheese that I’m doing it.’
She didn’t mention that she’d wanted to do a supper club before she’d dreamt of making cheese, or that she hoped to make a bit of money out of it that she badly needed if she was going to have a chance of paying him back.
‘Fran, just how long do you think it would take to get one of the outbuildings at your farm up to scratch as a place to make cheese?’
