Recipe for Disaster (3 page)

Her flawless face screwed into a scowl, Georgia pushed
Jake away and drummed a tattoo on the pavement with one
Manolo Blahnik. 'You. Cannot. Be. Serious.'

'Oh, come on – we'll be here all day if you are going to
talk like that. Look, you're right. It's a dump. But it's
definitely a dump with promise. I'll show you.'

He led her inside, talking quickly.

'OK, imagine this room empty and clean. Now, we'll have
the bar in this corner, tables along here –'

Georgia jumped. 'Ohmigod, is that a spider? You know
about my phobia, Jake,' she wailed.

'Look – here – I've put it out of the window – relax. Now,
I'm thinking –'

'The doors and the windows are completely in the wrong
place! I'm getting terrible vibes and you know how sensitive
I am to that sort of thing. It needs to be feng shuied from
top to bottom! And fumigated.'

Like I can afford that, thought Jake, but she was already
making for the stairs.

Anxiously he watched her look round the dingy sitting
room, clearly struggling with the best way to convey her
utter contempt of this hovel. As far as Georgia was
concerned, this wasn't about Jake's dreams for the future –
it was about what she was expected to put up with. And she
considered herself far too sensitive to put up with very
much. 'You're mad!' She turned round and began beating
her fists on his chest emphatically, but taking care not to
ruin her manicure. 'How dare you even dream that I would
live here with you in this unsanitary hellhole! It's
disgusting! Oh, no! I feel one of my panic attacks coming
on . . .'

'Well, stop shrieking then and start breathing. Here, sit
down on this chair – look I've covered it with my jacket. The
place won't look anything like this after I've given it a lick of
paint. Anyway, you are away so often working, you'll
probably only spend two days a week here. And there's a
bonus!' Jake took a deep breath, glad the window was still
open. 'Think how good all this fresh air will be for your
complexion!'

Georgia fixed him with an accusing eye. 'Exactly what is
wrong with my complexion at the moment?' she asked icily.

Bugger. He said, 'You know perfectly well I didn't mean
it like that!'

'I'm going back to my hotel. I can feel a migraine coming
on.' She stood up. 'Well, are you coming?'

'Er, I was just going to wait for the next train back to
London. You know, save money and all that.'

'Fine. Absolutely fine. I make a huge effort to meet you
here to help you sort out your job. I take the trouble to book
us into a nice hotel, but of course that's not right. I've got
one of my heads, which of course is going to get worse if I
have to sit on the train for six hours and anyway, I thought
a hotel would do you good – you look awful, Jake.'

He winced, but she was right. Hours at work followed by
hours hunched over a calculator working out his too
meagre finances had left him looking considerably less than
shiny. He dredged up what he hoped was a winning smile
and gently stroked the back of her neck. She was like a cat
– she couldn't resist it. Eric was watching with interest and
making mental notes, when a tapping noise suddenly came
from downstairs. They all trudged back down to the
restaurant, Georgia theatrically holding her forehead.

'Are you open?' An old man in a flat cap and a tweed
jacket was trying to peer in through the grimy window and
knocking on the pane rather too firmly for Jake's taste.

'No. See – there is the closed sign,' explained Jake
patiently.

The old man turned round to his wife and bellowed:
'They're not open, Mabel!'

'They're what?'

'THEY'RE NOT OPEN!'

'But they could do us supper, couldn't they?'

'I say, could you do us –'

Jake was now beyond tired and his self-control was
evaporating like early morning mist on the fells. 'What part
of "this place is closed" do you not understand?' he hissed.

'There's no need for that tone, sonny. We were just
hoping for a nice fish supper.'

Jake took a deep breath. He might cook like a god, but it
would be pointless if he upset the locals before he'd even
started. 'When we are open, I will cook you a wonderful
supper with a free bottle of wine to thank you for your
patience.'

As soon as they had gone, Georgia turned on him.
'You're not going to do fish suppers, are you?'

'No, of course not. I will call this place Cuisine, because
that is what it will be all about – stupendously tasty but
simple and sensible.'

Eric was bubbling over with excitement. It sounded like
this fool – oops – client was going to buy. 'Maybe you should
have cooked them something now to show them what you
are made of!'

'If you think I'm waiting here while you –' began Georgia
in outrage.

'Oh don't be so silly the pair of you!' said Jake in
exasperation. 'I am a chef, not a bloody magician. I can't
produce a fabulous meal out of thin air, like a bloody rabbit
out of a hat! The actual meal is really only the tip of the
iceberg. Underneath that . . .' No, he could see he had lost
them both. Lay people didn't have an inkling of the huge
amount of effort it took to present a perfectly prepared
meal. 'Look at it this way, darling, you wouldn't set off down
the catwalk before they'd finished making your dress,
would you? You wouldn't go down naked?'

'Well . . . I would have to take laxatives for at least a week
beforehand and book a top-class exfoliation and then a
spray tan with Amy – she's the only one at the salon that
knows how to do it – and of course the lighting would all
have to be angled towards the right because of that awful,
unsightly dimple in my left thigh – I really will have to think
again about surgery – but, yeah, I don't have any real hangups
about my body.'

Jake looked at her in disbelief, then turned to Eric, who
was leaning against the wall with a faraway look on his face,
quite obviously picturing Georgia on the catwalk. 'So, how
much are they asking for this place?' he said, though he
knew perfectly well.

Eric hastily stood to attention and named the price.

'Tell the vendor I'll give them five thousand pounds less.
This will be my only offer so they needn't waste their time
trying to squeeze any more out of me. As you can see, I have
a very expensive girlfriend.'

'Yeah, but I bet she's worth every penny,' said Eric with
a wink. As he turned to go, Jake could see that some more
of the window paintwork had peeled off and stuck to his
jacket.

*

Their hotel room had a view over the lake, which was a
pointless extra expense, because it was now dark. Peering
out of the window, Jake could see nothing but a few stars.
Georgia was prowling round the room, taking stock of all
the mirrors. 'I don't see the point of having a lovely
complexion like mine if there's no one there to take a
picture of it,' she complained. She secretly kept a tally of
how many times she was featured in the press each week.

'Come to bed,' said Jake, patting the duvet invitingly.
'We might as well get our money's worth out of it.'

'I still don't know why you want to stop being head chef
at Brie. It's one of the best restaurants in London –
everybody says so – and loads of famous people go there.'

'I worked there because my boss is a genius, pure and
simple, but now it's time to spread my wings. I want my own
place. It's the only way I can put my mark on the cooking
world.'

'Yes, but why here, in the middle of nowhere?'

'It's beautiful up here. And it's cheap, at least compared
to London.'

'Oh, don't talk to me about money! That's all it ever is
with you. By the way, do you know you look like a tramp in
those jeans?'

Jake shrugged. He wasn't a conceited man – he couldn't
afford to be. 'Basically, I can either dress well or buy my
own business, but I can't do both. If I want to make it in this
game, I have to give up shopping, sleeping, having any sort
of hobby –'

'You mean you have to give up having a life! I wish you
had told me that before I fell in love with you!' Georgia
glared, albeit in such a way that would have had any
photographer salivating for a camera. But then she always
looked hot.

Her lover, however, was a mess. Georgia sighed. The
trouble was, Jake was an irresistible mess. He was tall, with
dark eyes, and a lean and hungry look because he often was,
always tasting food but never having time to sit down to a
decent meal. He had trendily ruffled dark hair, though less
by design than because he was always running his fingers
through it in desperation at the stupidity of commis chefs.
Even his hands were sexy, despite looking like they had
done ten years' hard labour in Siberia. They were covered
with the scars of burning encounters with hot stoves and
were living proof that knives were sharp and saucepans
heavy. When they first became a couple, Georgia would kiss
each wounded finger tenderly, before guiding them inside
her with a moan of pleasure.

They had met at a party Jake had been pushed to attend.
Prowling crossly round the room, clutching a beer, he found
things began to look up when he laid eyes on Georgia.

Georgia was extraordinarily, incandescently beautiful.
She glowed – even at four thirty in the morning, rushing
round without a shred of make-up on her luminous skin,
clad only in one of Jake's hideously over-washed T-shirts
and complaining bitterly that only models had to get up for
work this early in the morning. Properly dressed and made
up, men would look at her and forget how to speak. Of
course, Jake had fallen instantly in lust with her at the party.
But it was her apparent vulnerability and fragility that had
made him fall in love.

'Ordinary people don't really understand the dark side of
my glamorous lifestyle,' Georgia explained earnestly when
they finally gravitated towards each other. She looked up at
him from under her lashes. 'I so, totally, get why Princess Di
had to run away from the paparazzi. They don't know what
it's like to be hounded every time you go out for a packet of
Tampax. I have nightmares about millions of popping flashbulbs
and then I wake up and relive the nasty things other
models have said behind my back,' she explained tragically.

Jake nodded eagerly. He too had been the target of a
campaign of malice. He glanced briefly at the surging tide
of people swilling around them. He hadn't wanted to go to
this party, but now he knew why he was here – to meet this
creature.

'Don't you just hate these sort of dos?' Georgia was
thinking that champagne was so last year – people were
only drinking vodka now – and as for the food . . . 'Do they
really think it's cool serving those mini burgers in mini
buns?' At a hundred and fifty calories a shot, no wonder no
one was eating them.

'Pretentious rubbish,' agreed Jake, who loathed food
fads, and blinked as Georgia gave him one of her mega-watt
sexy smiles.

How cool he was – complaining about things being
pretentious was so in at the moment. 'That suit's not new, is
it?' she asked.

Jake grinned; it was his best charity shop bargain. 'Yes,
I –'

'How clever you are. That retro look makes everyone else
here seem so drab.'

'Well, it's –'

'It's so nice finding someone I can really talk to.
Everyone else is here just to talk about themselves. Do you
know, I was about to run away but fate stepped in so I could
meet you.'

Jake had just come off an eighteen-hour shift, the fourth
that week. He was befuddled with exhaustion, blinded by
the lights, nearly deafened by the roar from the people
around them and in no condition to sift sense from silliness.
Georgia, however, was an oasis of calm and stillness. Her
ability to stand utterly still and become the focus of
attention was one of the things that had made her a great
model. But in reality, she was chronically insecure, despite
her success, because she lived in constant fear of the
competition from other models. All the adulation she got
was like a meal without calories: however much she gobbled
up she was always hungry for more.

At first, Jake's love was like a breath of fresh air blowing
through the hothouse world of competition and spite she
moved in. Attention from Jake was freely given and honest
and straight, and so she clung to him like a vine. It took
Jake a while to realise that vines can be choking.

When Georgia confided to him that she was an avid
reader, he was delighted – he was so busy that his
girlfriends had to have their own interests. But she didn't
make clear at first that the only things she read were glossy
magazines and pseudo-psychological self-help books. She
had nearly as many of these as he had cookery books. There
were books about women who loved too much; women who
didn't; women who loved the wrong man, and women who
loved cats more than men. They had titles like
Change Is Not
a Four-Letter Word
(well, of course it bloody well wasn't),
A
Guide Dog for the Spiritually Blind
,
Life Shouldn't Be a Trivial
Pursuit
and
Co-dependency – Break the Chain!
. During a night
of insomnia, Jake had picked this last one up. After two
hours he still couldn't figure out what exactly the hell co-dependency
was, except that if you had it you were in big
trouble. Eventually he had filled in the questionnaire at the
back. Not only was he co-dependent but so was everyone
else he knew. In fact, according to this, it was impossible not
to be co-dependent. Enraged, Jake had thrown the
paperback into a corner and turned to the comforting and
sane thoughts of Elizabeth David in France.

Jake wasn't lying when he told Eric that food was his
passion. His passion and his life and there wasn't much
room for anything else, even something as delectable and
irresistible as Georgia. His grandmother was responsible
for this. When he was small she told him endless stories
about her own grandmother, who had lived in a small
village in Poland. Life there revolved around the kitchen –
the children sometimes even slept on top of the oven
because there wasn't room for them in the one bed. The
door was never locked and there was a continual coming
and going of people – talking, arguing, crying, laughing –
all of which was accompanied by a constant stream of food.
What did they eat? asked Jake, who was fascinated by this
picture of a very different world. So she cooked for him the
comforting and tasty food that was part of her culture:
chopped liver, potato latkes and goulash soup. When she
was only a baby, the family had moved to Germany in the
hope that life would be more prosperous there. And at first
they thrived. She was the prettiest girl in her class and the
most popular – until the morning her best friend had given
her a Nazi salute and her boyfriend dumped her so he
could join the Hitler Youth. Then came the lean and
terrible years of persecution and flight and hunger. As an
old woman, she hoarded food obsessively. When she died,
Jake was dry-eyed at the funeral. He had done his crying
the night before, when he'd found all the tins and packets
of outdated food stacked neatly under her bed.