Dan grinned some more. ‘In our room ...?’ he suggested.
I’ve always cooked. It’s my thing.
In the same way Scarlett’s was how to domake-up and inadvertently make boys/men drool; while my older sister Maura’s was to boss people about without them quite noticing. I have a baby brother, too, Con, and attwenty-nine, I think his superpower is telling perfectly nice women he’ll phone them, which is nearly always a lie.
Truthfully, I learned how to cook from my mother who can stare into an empty fridge, see nothing but a few bits of bacon, leftover potatoes, a rind of cheese and a shrivelled pepper and conjure up the most amazing ‘throw in everything’ frittata you have ever tasted, followed by a crumble made with those apples you’d forgotten about. But training at theworld-famous Prue Leith culinary school in London meant I knew my stuff.
I race into the kitchen, start ripping open one of the many boxes labelled ‘pantry’ and finally find all the ingredients. A bit more ripping provides a brownie tin, my palette knife and the emergency hand mixer that’s got me out of so many kitchen crises. You can’t take a pale silver Kitchen Aid to cookery demonstrations in tents is all I’m saying.
Seven minutes later, the brownies are in the oven and I’m making tea and coffee for the masses.
‘I’m an almond milk flat white man, myself,’ Big Brian is saying, looking with distaste at the instant coffee.
‘Ah, Brian,’ I say kindly, ‘we’re not up and running yet. Can I interest you in a millionaire’s shortbread?’
‘You made them, Freya?’ he asks.
I nod.
‘It’d be rude not to,’ he says happily, and takes two.
The men are reluctantly getting back to work, when I hear a car horn tooting from outside along with the insistent press on the gate button.
‘It’s me, Mum!’ says Lexi’s voice on the intercom.
I tear up. My babies. They might be four, eleven and fourteen, but to me, they’ll always be my babies.
This house will keep us all safe.
I close my eyes for a moment and pray. I’m not much of a one for prayer but in the last year, I’ve been living proof that fear and trauma make you want to pray to something or someone.
I pray now: ‘Keep us safe, house.’
*
It’s Saturday morning and as I survey the endless boxes at the edge of our bedroom and on the landing of our new house, I wonder if I could hire a skip, fling all the contents of our old house into it, and start again?
Feng shui the wholeAbalone-Conroy family in one swoop without ever unpacking a box?
People could interview me and instead of writing ‘Television chef Freya Abalone tells us how she cooks nutritious food for her whole family’, they could explain how the five of us live in ajunk-free home where we all drift around in linen smocks like people in a Scandinavian clothes brochure.
‘We just got rid of everything when we moved into our new house,’ says Freya, who looks five (no,ten) years younger than herforty-two years ...’
The photos would show our new house with no excess stuff in it.
Sadly, this idea is just a lovely dream. Sorting out will have to be done, to the soundtrack of my inner voice, Mildred, who spends all her time telling me where I am going wrong.
How could you not have dejunked before you moved?
Yoga pants, again? Really?
You could fit in some exercise if you weren’t so addicted to Netflix, you know.
Yes, we all have some version of a Mildred. She lives in our head and she says things no true friend would ever say to a woman. You’d dump a friend who says you’re about to be found out by the Imposter Police and fired.
But that inner voice bitching at younon-stop ...? You listen and you believe it.
I hope that one day, with meditation, yoga, mindfulness and reading Eckhart Tolle on a loop, I will banish Mildred and replace her voice with a chorus of the lovely – deluded, possibly – people who said I was Sexiest Cook of the Year.
