No Place For a Man (17 page)

‘No. Well yes, I suppose so in a way. Though appealing to a different client base, let’s say.’

‘Everyone likes McDonald’s though. Even posh people.’

‘Posh
children
, you mean. I’m thinking of something aimed at the parents, the organic free-range sort. Well, wait till Friday, you’ll see.’

‘What does Mum think?’

‘Ah, well, I haven’t actually mentioned it, not as such. It might be just as well to sort of …’

‘Keep quiet?’

‘Yes. If she asks about food I’ll just say I’m going to surprise her and she’s not to get involved.’

‘OK, I’ll keep out of it. Can Tom come?’

Another blood-rushing moment threatened, then subsided. There was no need to feel like that
yet
, surely? She wasn’t even sixteen …

‘Yes of course he can. Any friend of yours, all that.’

‘… mistake to think it’s a way to get teenagers to join in a social event. Barbecues bring out the worst: Zoe won’t eat anything with a crumb of a charred edge – black bits being carcinogenic and she wants to survive past A levels. Natasha thinks it’s all too primitive and …’

Jess stopped typing and thought about Oliver and barbecues. He was just like his father with them: happy to battle with the blazing coals, to prod at slabs of meat, cheery enough about getting crushed garlic all over his fingers, slooshing out the olive oil for a marinade and completely oblivious of the fact that the meal required more than just the stuff you cook on the fire. If it was just for the family she would more or less trust Matt to get it right and buy enough salad, potatoes, rice and vegetables to put together an entire meal. Anything he’d forgotten, well there was plenty of last-minute stuff in the cupboards. But there now seemed to be quite a lot of people coming, and he was up to something in the kitchen, something that involved the food processor and a lot of herbs. She could smell coriander
and basil and coconut and there was something that reminded her of a Thai chicken dish they’d had in a restaurant and tried unsuccessfully to re-create at home. She hoped, as she worked, that whatever exciting new taste sensation he was concocting he’d also remember that you needed something else to go with it.

‘Do you want any help?’ She ventured into the kitchen and filled the kettle, having a swift look round to see what he was up to.

Matt, poring over a notebook with a frown of concentration and a biro between his teeth, looked up at her with an expression of worrying alarm.

‘No!’ he said rather too quickly. ‘It’s fine. You just carry on working and I’ll take care of everything. It’s all in hand.’

She laughed. ‘Now why does that make me feel …’ then she stopped and continued making the tea. She’d been about to say ‘redundant’, but stopped herself just in time.

‘Feel what?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. Makes me feel wonderful. Really. I’ll leave you to it then.’

‘Hmm. Good. Off you go and get your nails painted or something,’ he murmured, back into the depths of his notebook. And
I
was trying so hard not to be patronizing, she thought.

‘OK, so what have we got?’ Ben and Micky, leaving the Leo for a few hours in the hands of grumbling and resentful Friday-night bar staff, peered at the trayful of uneven and unmatched burgers on Matt’s worktop. Matt looked at them thoughtfully, trying to recall which were which. He’d made three different sorts,
one lot according to a combination of his and Jamie Oliver’s imaginations, one with a choice of spices plagiarized from Ken Horn and the third following instructions from Micky.

‘I think these are chilli,’ he said eventually, pointing to the selection that had a distinctly orange look about them.

‘And which are my sun-dried tomato ones? These pink things?’

‘Yep. Only – well I used those oily half-grilled ones instead. I thought they’d go better in the processor, no sharp-edged bits.’

‘Good thinking,’ Ben said. ‘We’ll have you sweating on the early shift in our kitchen yet. How was it on costings?’

Matt scrabbled through a pile of bills and mail on the dresser. ‘It’s all here, written down. Obviously unit-price-wise it would come down a lot if we bulk-bought and did some freezing …’

‘Mmm. Freshness is rather the point …’ Micky murmured, studying the figures.

‘Yes of course it is.’ Matt felt weary suddenly. What the hell did he think he was doing, diddling about with recipes for a suburban bistro? Did any of them really, truly, deep down believe even in their wackiest flights of fantasy that they could come up with anything that would eventually rival Burger King? And suppose they did, what would his role be? Inevitably he pictured himself back at a desk, trawling through the lists in his Psion, organizing mailshots for magazines, setting up launch events, toadying to the press again, ever the obliging PR. The very thought made him feel depressed.

Micky and Ben weren’t stupid. They might let him
loose trying a few prototype recipes on his own guests and giving him their patiently non-critical opinions, but when it came to major catering know-how, they were the ones who’d done the courses and knew what was what. It was their bar, for heaven’s sake. They were only letting him in on this because of his connections, his address book and his usefulness. It reminded him of when he was small and the big boys on the rec had let him play cricket with them because, he one day realized, he was the one who owned a halfway decent bat. His joblessness seemed, at that moment, a miserable burden. The freedom feeling had gone missing. He hoped it intended to come back soon.

‘Cooee! Anyone in here?’ Paula appeared in the kitchen clutching a huge bunch of tulips lavishly wrapped in tissue paper in several shades of orange. Yellow ribbons trailed from the package, curling down over her hand like a Victorian child’s blond ringlets.

‘Matt darling! Wonderful to see you!’ She pressed her entire body against him (rather unnecessarily hard, in his opinion, though he wished he was feeling more up to enjoying the moment) and slapped a sticky lipstick kiss on the corner of his mouth. Over her shoulder he caught Ben and Micky smirking and blowing camp mock kisses at him.

‘The front door was wide open so I just came right in! You should keep it shut you know, Jess told me all about the burglary along the road.’ Paula ripped the tulips from their pretty packaging and started opening cupboards looking for a vase.

‘Here, I’ll get it,’ Matt said, taking a plain oblong glass vase from the dresser cupboard. Paula picked it up and inspected it for suitability.

‘Haven’t you got anything more,
round
?’ she asked.
‘With square ones they tend to go all droopy.’

‘Ooh I know the feeling,’ Ben cut in. Paula smiled at him, looking uncertain.

‘I’m sure we have, somewhere.’ Matt glared past her at Ben. ‘But let’s just leave them in this for now. I’ll sort it later. Come on outside, Jess is there with the girls.’ Jess hadn’t seen the flowers arrive, it occurred to him. Surely they were meant for her?

Jess, listening with Clarissa to Eddy’s tale of how a makeshift barbecue in a dustbin lid on the hard shoulder of the Ml had set fire to his band’s first van back in ’68, saw his face change like someone who’d just caught sight of Madonna shopping in Sainsbury’s. She turned and saw Paula approaching in cream leather trousers so tight that anyone with iffy eyesight could have been given the impression of naked skin.

‘And who is this?’ Eddy muttered to Jess, keeping his eye on the vision picking her high-heeled way across the terrace towards them.

‘Paula, lovely to see you!’ The two women kissed briefly and Jess could almost feel Eddy’s hot breath on the back of her neck.

‘Paula, this is Eddy Valera. He lives just along the road. And Clarissa who lives next door to him.’ Clarissa, knowing her time was up, grinned briefly at Paula and strode off towards the bench for some ‘aren’t men bastards’ solidarity with Angie. Paula’s delicately extended, perfectly manicured hand was grabbed in both of Eddy’s and he hauled her back in the direction of the conservatory. ‘Let me get you a drink. I don’t suppose you ever went to any Spidercrunch gigs a few years ago …?’

*  *  *

‘Dad did all the food,’ Natasha said to Tom. ‘So I suppose we should go and eat some of it.’ She disentangled herself from him and leaned back against the shed door.

‘Sure. I’m starving,’ he agreed, shoving his arms back into his jacket. Natasha fastened the buttons on her shirt and pulled her sweatshirt over her head, then cuddled up close to him again and breathed in the scent of the battered and oily old leather. ‘Whenever I smell leather, whatever happens when I’m old or at university or married or something, I’ll always think of you,’ she said.

He held her tight against him and kissed her hair. ‘And whenever I smell burning sausages on a barbie, I’ll think of you too!’ he teased, opening the shed door and making a run for the food before she could hit him.

‘You’ve got to try one of these,’ Zoe told Emily, handing her a plate from which a steaming fat burger hung out over the side of its bun. ‘Dad’s got a master plan to set up a smart burger chain and make us all mega-rich. They’re at the experimental stage but it smells all right.’

Emily screwed her nose up and looked at it with suspicion, then turned to Matt who was waiting for an opinion. ‘You need to make them a bit smaller, for a start,’ she commented. ‘Or you’ll go broke.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind. We haven’t got round to portion control yet. Just try it. Zoe’s got one of the other sorts, a tomato and herb one.’

‘What’s mine?’

‘See what you think, guess the flavourings.’

Emily nibbled cautiously round the edge of the food. Then Zoe watched as she reached across the table for
ketchup. She took the top off the bun and carefully squirted a letter E over the burger’s surface. Then she very slowly arranged two slivers of raw onion in a cross, added four small circles of dill pickle, placing them meticulously in the four arms made by the crossed onion, and replaced the bun lid.

Zoe wished Angie was watching, but Angie was now swapping horror stories about Things Bin-Men Leave on Your Drive with Clarissa and wasn’t interested in her skinny daughter’s meal rituals.

‘It’ll get cold,’ Matt prompted, exchanging a glance with Zoe.

‘OK, OK.’ Emily eventually lifted the burger and bit a neat piece out of it. She chewed it slowly, reminding Zoe of a programme about wine tasters.

‘What do you think?’ Ben joined them, eager to see what the youth market made of his idea.

‘You’re all looking at me! Don’t watch me!’ Emily wailed, showing an unattractive chewed mass of food. She bolted from the garden, running through the conservatory and kitchen towards the downstairs loo.

‘Back to the drawing board Matt, do you think?’ Ben poured himself and Matt generous glasses of wine.

‘Probably, very bloody probably,’ Matt agreed, gloomily.

Jess’s head was hurting and she didn’t want to hear any more about hamburger flavourings. If Matt couldn’t cope with everyone laughing then it was his problem – she didn’t want to know. Matt was lying on the bed, snug in his blue towelling robe. He’d propped up the big square pillows and was comfortably reclined with his arms wrapped across his chest, reminding Jess of a child snuggled safe beneath a scruffy but treasured security blanket. Jess was taking her time getting ready for bed: the headache made her move slowly. Even brushing her teeth had been a tentative operation for fear of the buzz from the electric toothbrush pushing the pain up another notch of intensity. She opened her underwear drawer and rustled around looking for a forgotten packet of aspirins. ‘I don’t want Anadin Extra because of the caffeine. Any of that and I’ll never get to sleep,’ she murmured.

‘I don’t understand what went wrong with the chilli,’ Matt was saying.

Jess grinned at him. ‘You nearly killed poor Angie. How much did you put in?’

‘Only a couple of tablespoons. It’s what it said in the recipe, two or three tablespoons. If anything it was a bit less.’

Jess finally unearthed a torn-off bit of foil bubble containing a couple of Nurofen and swallowed them down with the last of a large glass of water. Probably she was simply dehydrated – too much wine, too much talking and then too much taking Angie across the road to home and dealing with her panic attack brought on by the unexpectedly savage chilli-flavoured burger. This had involved full-scale gasping, clutching at throat and chest, breathing dramatically into a Sainsbury bag due to lack of recommended brown paper ones and then another glass of wine, on Jess’s part just to be neighbourly and on Angie’s as a calmer. Emily and Luke had ignored their mother’s choking and gasping, becoming immediately absorbed in a TV programme about wolves.

Right now, something occurred to Jess. ‘How was tablespoon written?’

‘Tsp of course. How else?’ He was giving her that look, the one where he was telling her she was quite obviously the idiot of the two of them and not even to consider that
he
might be.

Jess laughed. ‘Ah well that’s it then. That means teaspoons. You must have put in about four times the amount you were supposed to.’

Matt slumped further down on the bed, folding his arms even tighter and frowning.

‘Jesus I can’t do a fucking thing right. I wasn’t supposed to nick anyone else’s recipe in the first place. The whole idea was to be original. Ben and Micky will think I’m a right case.’

‘Of course you’re not. Anyway don’t tell them, just say you were experimenting.’ Jess lay down next to him, slid her hand under his robe and stroked his warm chest. Matt sighed but still looked miserable so she moved her hand further down and slithered across to nuzzle at his neck. He surely couldn’t, she thought, really care that much: it was a mistake anyone could make.

‘No don’t.’ Matt took hold of her marauding hand and pushed it back at her, like a petulant infant refusing a placatory toy. ‘I’ll probably only do that wrong as well.’

‘You never have before.’ Jess stood up and headed for the bathroom for more water. ‘Come on Matt, stop sulking. Really the burgers didn’t matter. It was funny, everyone coughing and trying to be polite. Didn’t you think so? Just a little bit? Where’s your sense of humour?’