Still, as she said to me at the time, when she was clearly trying very hard to be strong: ‘We can try again, I don’t care, we are going to have a baby.’
I think of the bad things that have happened to our family over the past year: Dad’s stroke, Scarlett and Jack’s hideously sad infertility journey, and my being mugged, and I wonder where people get the sheer belief to think good things will miraculously begin to occur? How have humans decided that if we really want things, they will come to us? Why do we think we can make lemonade out of lemons?
I would do anything to stop Scarlett’s pain, but there’s nothing I can do.
With that amazing ability she has to almost see what is going on inside all our heads, Mum gets to her feet, takes the jasmine tea tin from Scarlett and hugs her.
‘I think Freya has been hiding this and I think we need to have it now,’ she announces. ‘Have you unpacked many of the cups, darling?’ she asks me.
I laugh.
‘Five mugs, plastic beakers, cereal bowls and sundry plates unpacked.’
‘Right,’ says Mum. She leaves the kitchen and returns with Pip in tow, instructing him to fetch the crockery boxes, which are, of course, despite many giant ‘kitchen’ signs plastered on them for the movers, not in the kitchen. Once Pip, ever obliging, has hauled them into the room, he heaves the correct box onto the table and Mum starts unpacking.
‘These ones will do, I think,’ she says, by the time crumpled newspapers litter the floor. ‘Special china for a special day.’
The special china is made up of old fragile things that I have collected over the years. For my first TV series, whenSimplicity with Freyawas born, I thought my old china would look beautiful for filming but the stylists for the production company overruled me.
‘That mismatched look is so over!’ they’d said, all equally horrified. ‘Like, the noughties, almost.’ It takes them a while to recover from this frightening image of old, cute things which are so not ...now.Nowness is everything in cooking shows. Inlife!Arrive at the correct sort of nowness and you might have a hit.
‘The show is calledSimplicityand we need simplicity,’ they said in unison. ‘Cool. You in geometric shapes – we’re thinking Cos clothes?’ they said, half to me, half to the director and producers. ‘You’re tall enough to carry it off. No jewellery. White everything and the odd twig in a vase to lighten it up.’
I held my tongue about the concept of a mere twig lightening things up. I’m more of a fan of vast bouquets of wildflowers with plenty of blue irises, myself. I dither over mentioning that the food was to be simple rather than the decor but the whole team agreed with theless-is-more approach. I say nothing. This TV lark is new to me.
I swear the whole cool/simplicity schtick started because I’m tall, blonde and have clear, pale skin and high cheekbones.
They instantly saw me as a strong, modern woman who would live in a minimalist apartment and haveno knickknacks whatsoever,so now, every kitchen implement is Scandi modern, the plates are snowy white and even the twig didn’t make the final cut. I do mourn my idea of pretty things but the team were proved to be right.
‘The sheer simplicity of the food and the set meansSimplicity with Freyais a welcome relief after a recent TV flop in the US with a female chef trailing around in devoré tea dresses,’said one review.
‘Simplicity with Freyais a gem. Freya is quirky and clever, cooking modern food with healthy ingredients: it gets a thumbs up from us,’ said another, from one of the most influential TV reviewers. And I was off to a good start. I yearn to be allowed to use my floral bowls and cups, but it’s too late to change it all now. I am Ms Minimalist in the public’s eyes and that’s that.
Dan jokes that the devoréfringed kimono (pink and purple with jangling beads) that I bought in an Amsterdam market must hide in my closet forever or my reputation will be ruined.
Scarlett unearths a glass teapot with a central sieved container for tea leaves, and pours hot water on the jasmine buds.
‘Isn’t this nice,’ says Granny Bridget, watching the flowers open through the glass. ‘I don’t hold with all these strange new teas, but this is so pretty to watch.’
We drink some tea, talk a little and I begin to unpack, feeling my anxieties drift away.
All my cupboard essentials are there, the vast array of unusual ingredients that a good chef needs.
Despite my many protests, Mum insists on cleaning out the big pantry cupboard that made me drool when I saw it on the first house viewing.
‘I can’t sit still,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Let me help, darling.’
Soon, she’s installing my precious things in it, while Granny regales us all with a tale of a woman from down the road who has taken up with her widowed next door neighbour despite already having several gentlemen friends.
‘I don’t think she’s after a new beau,’ Granny muses. ‘She’s a marvellous cook, you see. Men will go a mile for a decent meal. I told her to charge them for dinner and make a few bob out of it. Not to marry any of them, obviously. But with the money, she could go on a nice cruise with her sister.’
‘I really should get you to show me how to cook, Freya,’ says Scarlett idly, picking up some pomegranate molasses and gazing at the jar as if it’s from Mars.
‘I can always teach you,’ I say. ‘Delighted to, although here I have a book for just €9.99.’ I plaster on a fake smile, mime holding up a book and we all laugh.
‘Oh I don’t know, I couldn’t be bothered buying it, maybe you’d give it to me?’ Scarlett teases and we all laugh again.
One of my mother’s newest neighbours said this to my mother when my first book was published. Said neighbour blithely pointed out that she couldn’t possibly buy it, but she would deign to read it were she handed a copy.
