A Taste of Love (15 page)

As
autumn approached she stopped thinking of herself as the other woman and rebuilt her confidence by walking tall again. She worked hard and began to build a social life by joining a reading and writing class at the library and restarting the salsa dancing twice a week. She even forced herself onto a couple of blind dates arranged by friends, and although she enjoyed the company her heart wasn’t in the dating scene. Annette had heard that Richard was working for a company in Huntingdon near Cambridge. Ah, well, Helen thought, Angela’s emotional blackmail had worked and he’d obviously gone home. She didn’t feel bitter or resentful, just gratified that at least he must be happy.

It
was the first time since her early twenties that she’d lived alone and she soon relished the fact that she could live her own lifestyle to suit herself.

‘But, Mum, just because you fell in love with the wrong man once doesn’t mean to say you’ll do it again.’ Rachel said one Saturday morning. ‘You should get out there and date loads of different men until you find the right one…’

‘No,
sweetheart. I’m more than content to be on my own.’ She looked fondly at her daughter. But in her mind she wanted to scream – she had found the right one but unfortunately he’d belonged to someone else.

Epilogue

Nine months later, on the week before her 40th birthday Helen was in Selfridges looking for a knock-em dead outfit – Karen and Rachel had a surprise planned and she’d been told to look her best. Just as she passed the entrance to Itsu in the Food Hall she stopped dead in her tracks at the familiar sound of a man’s laughter. She spun round to see Richard and two other men coming out of the entrance – he froze and stopped still in his tracks.

Her
stomach flipped in a somersault when she saw him recover and hurry towards her grinning. ‘Helen,’ he cried, taking her hands in his and shaking them gleefully. ‘How are you?’

Her
heart thumped and her throat was dry but she managed to find her voice. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Pleased to see you’re still eating Sushi.’

The
two guys called to Richard that they’d see him back at the office and he waved in agreement. He couldn’t believe it was her and wanted to pick her up in the air and shout with joy simply at seeing her again. Instead, he took a deep breath to keep calm. ‘Oh yeah, I love Sushi now. We often come over here for lunch especially as it’s not far from the office.’

She
was confused and asked, ‘The office? But I thought you were working in Huntingdon.’

‘What?’
he asked, shaking his head slightly. ‘Why would you think that? I’ve been working here in the city since last August and have bought myself a trendy flat over in Lewisham.’

She
swallowed hard taking in the information. ‘Annette told us she’d heard you were working in Huntingdon,’ she said, feeling silly that she’d listened to gossip.

‘Oh,
I see,’ he said grinning at the mix-up. ‘We do have a smaller site up there and I had to spend my first two weeks on an induction course with personnel.’

She
nodded her head and looked over his shoulder towards the wall. She was terrified to look into his eyes but her heart bounded with happiness at the news that he wasn’t in Cambridge. Warnings niggled in her mind, however, and she steeled herself to tread carefully – he could well have met someone else in nine months. ‘That’s great. I’m pleased you’re settled,’ she said sincerely.

Was that a friendly brush off, he wondered – she was bound to be with another guy by now. But he decided to lay all his cards on the table – he had nothing to lose. ‘Yes, I’m happily settled alone in my own place. My divorce is going through and Angela has a new boyfriend who’s the chairman of the village council. Christopher’s doing well at Durham and Emily’s doing her A levels in sixth form. So everything did get sorted out, eventually,’ he said cautiously. ‘And you?’

Now
she couldn’t stop herself and looked into his eyes. ‘Oh, I’ve just been plodding along on my own.’ Then she told him about Rachel and how well Karen was doing.

She
could tell as they locked eyes that he’d stopped listening after the words, on my own. And it was still there – the invisible force between them was dragging her into him again as he gently put a hand on her cheek. ‘Oh, Richard,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve missed you so much…’

He
shook his head slowly and smiled. ‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed you, Helen.’

She
threw her arms round his neck and he wrapped his arms round her waist pulling her into him. ‘But please,’ she asked. ‘Can we take it a bit easier this time?’

‘Oh,
I don’t know about that,’ he laughed. ‘We’ve got nine months to make up for and I don’t intend to lose a minute.’

He
covered her mouth with his lips and they stood together kissing and devouring each other while shoppers and diners milled all around them.

Love on a Plate

THURSDAY 18 OCTOBER

Sarah excused herself from her four panellists sitting around the presentation table and hurried through into the small adjoining kitchen. So far, Olga, Margaret, Aarshiya, and Jason had arrived and she prayed the last two people wouldn’t be too late as the quiche tarts took twenty five minutes to cook. Placing the five varieties of tarts onto baking trays she set the oven timer and just as she closed the oven door she heard a man’s voice calling, hellooo.

Hurrying back through to the room she welcomed the second man of the group. She was expecting a man aged 44 years and decided to check his name.  “Hi, are you Mark Whittaker?”

“Yep, that’s me,” he said holding out his hand to shake.

This guy, in his jeans and stripy cream shirt looked much younger, Sarah thought, more like mid-thirties. He wasn’t particularly good looking with a large nose, moustache, and short-trimmed, goatee-beard but when she shook his hand she felt a frisson of heat surge through her and caught her breath. How strange was that? She hadn’t had a sexual thought about a man for over six months, not since Paul had walked out.

The huge grin he gave her reached from ear to ear and seemed to light up his whole face and when she held onto his hand he raised a quizzical eyebrow. Realising she was staring at him she shook herself back to reality, dropped her hand, and then hurriedly showed him to his seat.

While Mark took his seat and started to greet the other panellists the door to the room banged shut and a woman’s voice exclaimed loudly, “Blooming traffic! It’s taken forever to get through the rush hour, and parking? Well, don’t start me off on that one!”

Sarah surmised this must be her last panellist. “Hello,” Sarah said. “Sally Jones, I take it? Come and join us at the table and we’ll make our introductions.”

Mumbling apologies Sally took a seat next to Mark and Sarah noticed how she too looked at him appreciatively. Mark turned and treated Sally to one of his lovely smiles and Sarah irrationally felt a stab of envy.

Scolding herself she pushed all thoughts of men from her mind, pulled her shoulders back and began her introductory talk. She welcomed everyone to the first of ten weekly sessions which would run up to Christmas.  “So, just to wet your appetites,” she said, “we’ll be tasting jam doughnuts, cocktail sausages, turkey crowns, trifles, prawn cocktails, custard, sausage rolls, Christmas cakes and puddings. In fact, these make up most of our popular selling products at Christmas time and the last panel will be on Thursday 20th December.”

There was a general buzz of excitement with exclamations of oohs and aahs, and a yum, yum comment from Jason.

Sarah gave them a few minutes to settle and then continued, “We are lucky here in North Shields to have one of the bigger supermarkets and our retailer takes what you, their customers, think very seriously. So, all the results and your comments will be noted and sent to head office for consideration. This information helps the buying and marketing teams keep abreast of what their competitors have on their shelves. Therefore, each week we’ll try to have samples from M&S, Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, and Asda to taste against our samples, and of course you’ll all be given your £25 voucher at the end of each session to spend as you like. It’s our way of thanking you for taking the time to come and give us your feedback.”

Taking a deep breath she stared straight into Mark’s dark brown eyes. He was sitting directly opposite gazing at her with a smile playing around his lips which for some reason it made her fidget on the hard plastic chair while she handed out welcome packs. 

Lowering his gaze he took brown-legged glasses out of his shirt pocket and placed them onto his face. The square, clear lenses seemed to transform his eyes and make them look much bigger and darker. She looked again at the long lengths of thick brown hair on the top of his head but then cut short around his ears, and this, coupled with the brilliant smile made her change her mind - he was indeed very good looking.

Sitting on the other side to Mark was one of the two older ladies called, Olga who asked in a loud high-pitched tone. “And what does one do if there’s something on the session we don’t like? I mean, I don’t think I’ve eaten a doughnut in my life?”

Sarah dragged her eyes from Mark. “Good question, Olga,” she said. “Just let me know. And if there’s something you don’t want to eat you only need to fill in the appearance, and aroma section of the form- which I’ll go through later. Now, as we are going to spend a couple of hours together every night for the next ten weeks I usually find it helpful to spend five minutes introducing ourselves.”

“Oh, dear,” fluttered Margaret, the other elderly lady sitting next to Olga. “I’m not very good at talking in front of people…”

Sarah smiled reassuringly and leaned across the table to cover Margaret’s agitated hands with one of her own.  “That’s fine, not to worry. This is Margaret Atkinson, everyone. She is 64, lives on Camp Terrace and has signed up for the taste panel because…”  Sarah nodded encouragingly at Margaret until she realised that she was to carry on with the sentence.

“Oh, well,” Margaret said. “I do love eating food and cooking and, although I’m on my own now,  if either of my sons come to visit at Christmas I’d like to have plenty of food in the pantry and the vouchers will be handy for the ‘Two For One Deals’.”

Sarah beamed at her. “That’s a great idea, Margaret,” she said squeezing her hand and everyone around the table smiled encouragingly at Margaret.

Everyone except Olga however, who with large arms folded under her heavy bust gave a loud, “Hmph!” through pursed lips. “It must be at least three years since you’ve seen either of them, Margaret.”

Margaret smiled pathetically at Sarah and put her head down in embarrassment and Sarah heard Sally click her tongue in annoyance at Olga’s rudeness. Sarah released Margaret’s hands and in an effort to smooth over the situation she turned to Mark. “So, Mark, how about you? Why did you decide to come along?”

Mark winked at her as though he’d worked out her distraction technique and sat forward with his hands folded on the table. “Well, some of you might know my face as I own the photography and art studio on the high street?”

Margaret raised her head again and exclaimed, “Do you know I thought I recognised your face when you came into the room but wasn’t certain.”

Mark smiled back at her. “Yep, that’s me. And, some of you might have known my late wife, Jessie who died two years ago. And well, it’s hard getting used to cooking for one and I’m determined to try and eat more healthily. So, I’ve bought Jamie Oliver’s fast supper cook book and intend spending my vouchers on spices and herbs, and who knows, maybe I might become the next celebrity chef?”

He gave a throaty laugh which Sarah thought was to cover the embarrassment of his open admission. The reaction around the table was electric. Olga’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and Sarah could tell she was trying to remember if she knew him or Jessie.

“Oh, you poor, lamb,” Margaret muttered softly.

Sally seemed to digest the news that he was a widower with relish leaning towards him and squeezing his shoulder with long red-polished finger nails. Mark turned to Sally and smiled in gratitude at her empathy.

Sarah decided to draw the last two panellists, who had so far been watching and listening, into the hiatus of the conversation.

“Thanks, Mark,” she said and turned fully away from him to look at the other male in the group, Jason Smith. “Now, its Jason, isn’t it? What brings you along?”

Jason’s small pleasing face looked a little startled but he grinned at everyone revealing a large gap between his two front teeth. “Yes, I’m what is fashionably known as a house-husband to my twin daughters who are nine months old. My wife, Stacey, works in the estate agents and when she arrives home and we’ve  had dinner she baths and beds the little darlings and I get a couple of hours grace. We’ll be spending the vouchers on nappies, talcum powder and baby food, I’m afraid.” He pulled a comical face and Margaret clapped her hands in glee.

While Sarah had been listening to Jason’s voice she couldn’t quite decide if he sounded effeminate, obviously he wasn’t gay because he was married but he certainly didn’t look or sound like a true alpha male. When he’d first arrived in very tight skinny jeans with a slim satchel slung across his jumper she’d wondered about his sexuality but then reminded herself how wrong it was to make assumptions on first appearances.

“Mark hooted. “Oh my. Well, if you want to share a secret plan behind Stacey’s back we could split some cases of red wine?” he offered.

Visible male bonding started between the two men and Sarah decided Jason was probably, as they say in all the magazines, just in touch with his feminine side.

Sitting next to Jason was the most beautiful Indian girl Sarah had ever seen. The red tunic she wore with a gold sparkle woven into the pattern seemed to glisten in the sun which shone through the window behind her. Until now Aarshiya had sat with her head bent and eyes lowered throughout the introductions and it was only when she looked up at Sarah from huge, brown, oval shaped eyes that Sarah appreciated how stunningly beautiful she really was.

Sarah smiled. “Aarshiya, would you like to go next. But before you start can I just say your tunic is absolutely fabulous – the colours are so striking…”

Her shoulders lifted in pride. “Thanks, Sarah,” she said, “I made it myself.”

Margaret butted in. “Oh, how clever of you, dear. I can’t even sew a button on.”

A slight titter of laughter escaped Sally’s lips but she added genuinely. “I quite agree - it’s beautiful.”

Sarah asked, “And you wanted to come because?” 

Aarshiya flushed with the compliments. “Well, I’m eighteen and I want to save the vouchers to buy myself a kindle to read my favourite books. My home is above our corner shop where I live with my parents and my two brothers who are twelve and fourteen.”

Olga’s imperial voice asked snootily. “And are you made to work in the shop?”

Sarah saw Aarshiya bristle and look at Olga’s name card. “No, Mrs Treadcott,” she said, “I work as a receptionist at the medical centre.”

Good for you, Sarah thought, that’s put Olga back in her place and she’d done it with the respect due to an elder, and with impeccable manners.

Before Sarah could ask Sally to talk next Olga interrupted. “Surely it must be my turn now?” Sarah smiled and nodded her consent.

Olga pulled her broad shoulders back and licked her thin tight lips which were smeared in a scarlet red lipstick. “I’m Mrs Treadcott, and I have a three bedroomed detached property on Cleveland Road. My husband, when he was alive, was a senior civil servant for the ministry of transport, therefore, we were what one would call well-travelled. I sit on the residents association and I wanted to come along to keep abreast of what is happening in our community. And, to make sure ordinary people are not being taken advantage of…”

She looked at Sarah as if to say and I’m keeping my eye on you. But Sarah wasn’t intimated by Olga Treadcott, she’d been doing consumer research for years and had met people from all walks of life. She was confident in her professionalism and her ability to run the group session.

Just as Olga took a breath to start again, Sarah cut her short.

“Lovely, Olga, that’s great,” Sarah said. “And now, last but certainly not least, Sally?”

Sarah turned back towards Mark and Sally. She was pleased that Sally was sitting down because she looked at least five foot nine and with two-inch wedged heels she would have towered above her measly height of five foot three.  She was, Sarah had to admit an extremely attractive woman with long, black, sleek hair tied up in a high pony-tail which swished from side to side when she talked and moved her head.

Sally folded her hands calmly and confidently in her lap, gave everyone a sincere smile and said, “Yes, I’m Sally Jones, I’m 44 years old, am divorced, and a lawyer and associate on Northumberland Square, although I do work from home most of the time. And, yes, Olga, I do know where your house is but my five bedroomed detached property is on Preston Road overlooking the park.”

Sally paused to wait for the reaction around the table to which Sarah saw Olga wrinkle her nose in the air and pat the back of her brown, bouffant hairstyle.  Sarah was delighted with Sally’s put down because everyone would know that her house was practically double the price of Olga’s.

Sally continued, “So, I’m going on my first holiday to Italy next year and thought I’d use the vouchers to try some new pasta dishes.

“Fab idea, Sally,” Jason said.

Mark smiled. “I’ve been to Venice and Rome,” he said. “You’ll love the place.”

Sarah stood up. “That’s great everyone. Now I’ll give you two quick minutes about me before I rescue the tarts from the oven. My name is Sarah Williams and I’m 36. I was born here in Preston village and went to Northumbria University to do a food science degree then got my first job with this supermarket chain at their head office in London. I worked there for years as a sensory analyst and have returned home now to live and run the food section. I have a department of three juniors to supervise and due to the popularity of our Tuesday night taste panel I decided to start this extra Thursday session because we have a back-log of products to assess before Christmas.”

She began to walk towards the kitchen and heard the group interact together with Jason and Ayesha chatting and Sally pouncing upon Mark with questions about his studio. The oven timer bleeped and she checked the central temperature of the tarts with a probe – they were fully cooked and she put them onto five plates with random numbers marked on the side. There was a small serving hatch in the wall between the two rooms and she opened the two flaps to put the plates through. Suddenly she looked up and saw Mark’s face on the room side of the hatch.