‘Oh, doesn’t it?’
Up on the patio Colin guffaws loudly at something Deborah has said. It’s obvious he fancies her – she, too, is divorced – but it’s equally clear that his feelings aren’t reciprocated. Meanwhile formidable Sue Stone, who grows freakily large radishes, keeps glancing our way, perhaps picking up on the tension.
‘Well,’ I tell Vince, ‘there’s that chicken pie in the fridge...’
‘We can’t give them old pie,’ he exclaims.
‘It’s notoldpie. It’s only yesterday’s—’
‘Isn’t there anything else?’
‘I don’t know,’ I snap. ‘Isthere?’
He looks at me with exasperation as if – just like with the bake sale – I’m making way too much fuss. ‘Couldn’t you just knock up a buffet?’ he says. Then, before I can answer, and with catering matters seemingly settled, he trots back up the garden and gets back to the business of entertaining ‘our’ guests.
CHAPTER FIVE
In the kitchen I lean against the fridge and try to quell my burning fury. Jarvis has trotted in to join me. Judging by the hopeful tail-wagging he hasn’t been fed either. I administer the premium lamb casserole with vegetables and herbs that the Shugbury vet insisted we buy: ‘If we’re going to trim him down he needs around six hundred calories a day,’ he instructed, ‘sopleasestick to the portion sizes, Kate.’ Although the food whiffs a bit – Vince won’t involve himself with it – it’s a sight easier to dish up than a buffet, comprising numerous dishes that must somehow work beautifully together.
What any sensible woman would do now is thinkfuck itand pour herself a massive glass of wine. Crisp, chilled Sauvignon, surging like an alcoholic river down my throat. That’d improve things. Thus fortified, mythical sensible woman would then glide back out to the garden and suggest, ‘How about we order in some pizzas?’ Sometime later, she might initiate A Big Talk with her husband and eventually, if things still didn’t improve, walk out and never set eyes on him again. But I’m clearly not a woman of good sense, because rather than threatening Vince with divorce proceedings I now intend to assault him with an extensive party spread.
‘I’llgive him a buffet,’ I announce to a startled-looking Jarvis. ‘I’ll give him a buffet like he’s never had in his life!’ I’m aware of how mad I’m sounding, and that if I were to substitute the word ‘buffet’ for ‘hammering’, then Vince would be right to be alarmed. As it is, I aim to ‘show him’ by means of the array of dishes I’m planning to conjure up.Then he’ll be bloody sorry!
Through the kitchen window I spot Colin Carse trying to chivvy everyone to stand close together so he can take a group photo. Only Deborah is complying, as she’s virtually clamped onto Vince. I bang various serving plates onto the worktop and microwave several pouches of ready-cooked rice. Ripping them open, I tip the steaming contents into a dish, and fling in olives, peppers from a jar and – controversially – raisins, then snip over some kind of fresh (well, fresh-ish) herb that Agata brought round from her garden.
What else? There’s still time to dig out the take-away pizza menu from the drawer. But instead, sensing something rising in me – fury, or perhaps bile? – I pour myself a big glass of wine and gulp it greedily. Now, with booze flooding my veins, I remember a book about trailblazing women I’d bought Edie when she was a little girl. A book to ignite a feminist spark, I suppose. I’d wanted her to grow up believing she could be anything she wanted to be. She’d become obsessed with it for a time, poring over Boudicca and Catherine the Great: warrior women who feared no one. What would she think of me now, throwing together all this food in a feeble attempt to be liked? Yet I can imagine what our neighbours would say, if I didn’t make the effort.You know Kate, Vince’s wife, with the massively wide feet? We went round for drinks and all she offered was crisps!
Now I’m chopping a cucumber with unnecessary force, considering it’s something like 99.99 per cent water, into crudités for the dip I’ve found lurking at the back of the fridge. I’m not saying Vince won’t appreciate my efforts. He praises me occasionally, although I doubt if Marie Curie was ever described as ‘good at that stuff that nobody ever notices but is actually pretty important’. Stuff like emptying the kitchen bin before it becomes a tightly packed cylinder of rotting filth. And finishing his book! Christ, that needs doing tonight!
Panicking now, I batter on with the crudités, stopping only when there’s nothing left in the kitchen that can be chopped up into little sticks. Then I whack up the oven to max heat and load in frozen quiches, garlic bread, sausage rolls and literally anything else that might come under the banner of party food. Soon the kitchen fills with the aroma of browning pastry and saturated fat.
Pausing for breath, I figure that, while I’m not Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo halfway around the globe – Edie’s favourite from the book – I’m possibly theonlywoman to have concocted what I’m terming ‘couscous surprise’, by sloshing boiling water onto grains that I seem to remember buying when we still lived in London, and adding kidney beans, bashed-up pistachios of indeterminate vintage and, yes, more raisins, and more of that mysterious garden herb that Agata brought over.
Quaffing more wine, I glimpse Deborah standing on our garden table. Unlike Colin, she commands attention and everyone shuffles into position obediently as she takes a group photo from above. Her long black pleated skirt is billowing, giving her the gravitas of a statue – the kind that gets toppled these days because it’s offensive.
Youcanpull this off, I reflect, tipping the rest of my wine down my throat. Yes, Vince has acted like a knob tonight but I’m pulling out all the stops now. I’m an unstoppable force like Boudicca, on a roll – on a Lidl sausage roll – as out of the oven comes a tray of glistening pastry snacks. With a flourish, I sprinkle more of Agata’s herbs over everything, including Jarvis, who’s standing a little too close, and the crisps I’ve tipped into bowls. I’m wishing now that Vince would walk in – because although I’m tempted to chophiminto batons I’m immensely proud that I’ve managed to pull together an extensive feast with zero notice.
You’ve done it,I tell myself, blotting my sweaty face with a tea towel.You’re a marvel, Kate Weaver, and this is going to be great.
*
‘Wow, you’ve been busy!’ Agata has wandered into the kitchen.
‘It was pretty easy,’ I fib.
Doe-eyed and dainty, she runs a hand over her elfin crop. ‘Oh, is that aboughtdip?’
‘Um, yes.’ I curse myself for plonking the tub on the table instead of decanting it into a bowl.
‘D’you never make your own?’ She blinks at me. ‘There are lots of recipes online...’ As if I might be unfamiliar with this mysterious concept called the internet. ‘You just give some feta a light whipping,’ she adds, picking up a sausage roll and taking a tiny bite. Wincing, she sets it back on the table.
‘Oh, are they plant-based sausage rolls?’ trills Gail, who’s just marched in.
‘I don’tthinkso,’ Agata announces. As they share a smirk I wonder privately how the pair of them would respond to a light whipping.
It’s not healthy, I realise, to have such violent urges. I never used to be like this, fantasising about lashing out at guests and flinging Wotsits in my husband’s face.
Now light rain is falling, and everyone starts to drift indoors. They seem hungry, and actually grateful for the ‘spread’, as Mum would term it. After a couple of large wines I’m tipsy already, and decide that I’ve overreacted and everything’s going to befine. A silver-haired man whose name I’ve forgotten announces, ‘This looks fantastic, Kate. You needn’t have gone to all this trouble for us.’
