The Art of Baking Blind (15 page)

Somehow, she gets to the bathroom. Every ten or so minutes there is another gush: the blood turning deep crimson and clotted; dense with guinea-sized clumps. She dreads something larger coming. I can't let him come out like this – into the toilet. I can't let him get dirty, and she hauls herself up, padding herself with a towel.

The bathroom floor is cold but she shakes more from shock than the chill of the tiles. Her teeth chatter like a cartoon character's. Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together. Her words come out as a sob.

Try to breathe. In for two, out for five; in for two, out for five. Oh, how can that help? She stops trying to be rational and dabs at the floor, desperate to banish all evidence. It's a losing battle. Every time she wipes the checkerboard tiles, there's another smear, or gush, or trickle. She moves, and sprinkles blood.

Cocooned in towels, she curls into a ball and waits for what she now knows is inevitable. She thinks she is – she was – twelve weeks pregnant. Yesterday, she had still felt nauseous. Today the sickness had gone and she had felt such intense relief. She had spent the day baking, watching the dough rise and imagining her stomach growing, stretch marks forming like the tears on its surface. And she had kneaded the dough without dreading the rising bile.

Now, she would do anything for such sickness. For such proof that a baby was growing inside her; lengthening by the day; preparing for life.

George will be so disappointed – and as for herself? Children are what her family does; what they expect and what they – what her father – would have wanted.

Her womb contracts and, in a rush of blood, she expels what would have become her child.

14

Baking is much like having a husband: there will be times when you must pay attention to your dough and show it some sensitivity.

It is the thump that wakes Greg. A muffled thudding. Far more gentle than a bang, and rhythmic, as if someone were counting out bars of music in a softly shuffled 4/4. He glances at the clock radio: 5.13. That frustrating no-man'sland time, too close to his 5.45 a.m. alarm call to allow him any sleep, yet – in the chill of late-March – too early for a dawn chorus to justify the end of night and herald a new day's start.

There's the thump again. Half awake, he rolls towards Vicki, hoping to luxuriate in her warmth, to snuggle up and siphon sleep from her soft body. His arm stretches over tepid sheets. Her side of the bed is empty with only the faintest residue of warmth.

He looks back at the clock, properly awake now: 5.14 a.m. It is, he realises with increasing frustration, Saturday, the one day he can get some sort of lie-in, Sunday morning being taken up with Alfie's ridiculously early swimming lesson in which the small child just screams and clings to the side of the pool. Saturday is the morning when he can curl up to Vicki and fantasise about the possibility of early morning sex – though it's rarely achieved thanks to the clockwork wake-up call provided by Alfie at around six thirty. At 5.14 a.m., it's a possibility though, if only Vicki were around.

Lying back against the pillows, it occurs to him that the rhythmic thudding probably has something to do with her absence. Disgruntled, he swings his legs out of bed, grabs a hoodie, and stumbles for the door. The faint sound becomes more persistent as he reaches the bottom of the stairs and follows the light filtering from the kitchen across the stripped oak floorboards. Thump, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle; thump, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle; thump, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Thump.

Vicki, wearing an oversized jumper, bare legs and an apron, is flinging dough on to a granite worktop. Entirely absorbed in her work, there is something ritualistic about what she is doing: throwing the glutinous mass, then kneading it, then folding it in a repetitive dance. A smile plays on her lips. For someone so controlled in her daily life, so concerned with the pursuit of perfection, she seems to be relishing such casual brutality. Pushing her dirty blonde hair back from her eyes with the back of a floured hand, she flings the dough down with a particularly solid thud.

‘Vicks … What are you
doing?
'

Greg does not share her enjoyment.

‘It's five in the morning. On a Saturday. You've woken me up.'

Concern floods her intelligent eyes.

‘Oh, my love, I'm so sorry.' She approaches to hug him but her hands sprinkle flour.

‘I'm making bagels. I thought you could have them fresh for breakfast. Don't worry: I'm coming back to bed now because I need them to prove for an hour and a half before I shape them and then boil them. I'll do that at seven. You'd be having them for lunch if I hadn't started now.'

Characteristically perky, it all appears to make perfect sense to her. But Greg is incredulous.

‘You got up before five so I'd have them fresh for breakfast? Why would I want you to do that? I'm not married to a baker.'

She grins. ‘Ah, but you see you are.'

‘No, I'm not. I'm married to someone who's become obsessed with a cooking competition. Well, that's great. I'm pleased for you. And I know you want to practise. But you're taking authenticity too far.

‘You don't need to bake in the middle of the night. You need to sleep like normal people. Or perhaps you need to think about making a baby. I thought that was what you wanted?' Exasperation clouds his even features then begins to dissipate as he takes in the bizarre image of his wife standing bare-legged and dusted with flour in the middle of the kitchen in what still counts as night.

Despite himself, he begins to stir. There is something surprisingly sexy about her doing all this baking. She rubs her nose, depositing flour, and he notices smudges of tiredness below her eyes. She is pushing herself and he realises for the first time just how much she wants to win this competition. A wave of tenderness subsumes him. Seeing her, blinking under the harsh halogen spotlights, love mingles with desire.

‘Well, let's go back to bed then.'

She places the dough in a bowl, covers it with clingfilm, rinses her fingers and moves towards him to placate him. It strikes him that she is using the same reasonable tone and distraction technique she would use on their three-year-old. But it's unnecessary. When she looks at him like that, he is putty in her hands.

‘I can't sleep now. I'm too wide awake.' He grins at her, all innocence.

She smiles up at him, reaches cool fingers up his inner thigh inside his striped cotton boxer shorts. ‘Who said anything about sleeping?'

She knows him too well. Much as he would like to resist – to make some statement about being irritated at being woken up – there really is no point. He is incapable. They kiss: a chaste kiss of contrition that morphs into invitation, her tongue probing his mouth, her hands caressing his neck. He reaches for her buttocks, naked, he discovers with a thrill under the hastily thrown-on sweater. The discovery excites him more than he would have thought possible and, with something of a stumble, for she is nearing ten stone now thanks to the extra baking, he lifts her on to the counter. Her bottom pushes through the soft sprinkling of flour. She pulls away; then gives a giggle as her thighs are coated with the white powder.

‘Don't.' He wants to freeze this moment. To preserve it, untainted by humour.

She looks at him, taking in his expectant face, softened by desire.

‘There are far better things to be doing at five in the morning than baking,' he mutters, embarrassed to admit to his need for her.

And she reaches down and begins another rhythmic dance.

15

Most of the time you will need to be firm with your dough. You will need to control this changeable, organic substance: working it; determining how much it should expand; knocking it down at the correct time; and knocking it into shape. You will need to behave, in other words, like a clever wife who knows the secret to marital happiness lies in educating her husband to appreciate her needs.

Nigel Briggs is naked in his en suite bathroom – a former dressing room – performing his morning routine. Eyes heavy with sleep, he stands in front of the toilet taking a boyish satisfaction in the hot hiss of his pee as it strikes the cold toilet bowl and his ability to aim it in different directions. Urine drips from the end of his penis as he gives it an affectionate flick and lands on the granite floor in a neat, sticky circle. It does not occur to him to wipe it up. Jenny will follow with the Dettol spray.

He turns to the basin and begins the process on which he lectures his patients. Floss; brush with an electric toothbrush, spit splayed in concentric circles; swill with mouthwash, rinsing the plaque away. A shower – brief; cold; invigorating – comes next. And only then, once he is alert and can concentrate properly, is he ready for the main event.

Naked again, he stands on his wife's raspberry-coloured digital scales experiencing a frisson of excitement as the display fluctuates, raising then dashing his hopes, determining his weight. Eleven stone, 8.9 pounds. Better than yesterday's eleven stone, 9.2 but still not good enough. He gives a moue of dissatisfaction and wonders, for the umpteenth time, how much difference it would make if he'd had a shit.

A towel around him now, he wanders back into the bedroom and jots down his weight in the small notepad. Once dressed, he will add it to a spreadsheet on his laptop to be translated into a graph detailing his consistent weight loss over the weeks. Yet there is no need for the memory jog. Eleven, 8.9 will be branded at the front of his mind throughout the day, governing his food choices, determining how far he should run that evening. He does not need a graph to tell him that, at six foot, he is still nine pounds off his target weight.

‘I'm still a long way off my target.' The information is barked at Jenny, who, fully dressed, has entered the room with a cup of breakfast tea for him. It does not occur to him that she might not find this information interesting.

‘Hmm?' She shows a modicum of interest, fine-tuned over twenty-five years of marriage. Sufficient not to rankle yet some way short of the level of enthusiasm he would like.

‘My target weight? I'm a long way off it. For a six-foot man, running a marathon, I should be under eleven stone – 15 to 20 per cent less than your average six-footer. I'm eleven, 8.9; that's only about 10 per cent less than the average. I'll have to check my spreadsheet for the exact figure. Seb Coe was more than 20 per cent.'

Bombarded with this flurry of statistics, Jenny tries to work out a response that will sound informed but reassuring.

‘Are you sure you should be comparing yourself with a double Olympic gold medallist?' is the best she can manage. It does not have the desired effect.

‘Of course I'm not comparing myself with an Olympian.' He splutters as if the idea is preposterous. ‘Nor am I comparing myself with a middle-distance runner. I was using him as an example of an elite athlete. And yes, actually, Jenny, that's what I'm aspiring to be.'

He looks incandescent, and faintly ridiculous, as he stands in his socks and boxer shorts, rifling through his wardrobe. Despite his lean physique and dark good looks, he remains a middle-aged man – one who should have been working on his fat ratio three decades earlier if he wanted to join the athletic elite.

He continues chuntering as he searches for a favourite shirt, spurning the three she had ironed the previous evening, and she sidles out of the door, keen to escape the disdain that accompanies much of his comments these days. Head in the wardrobe, he seems to sense her departure, and calls her back, like an owner bringing a dog to heel.

‘Jennifer.'

‘Yes?'

‘I asked you a question. Did you confirm the Paris hotel booking for the marathon weekend?'

‘I haven't but I will.'

‘April 14-15. Don't forget.'

‘April 14-15.'

As she repeats it, she realises there is a problem. Now three weeks away, April 14-15 is the weekend when they will be making pies and pastry. Feather-light home-made puff pastry is her baking signature. Making pies is her forte. Missing this – missing out on the chance to shine in the competition; effectively to drop out – is not a possibility.

It is not the ideal time to bring it up but she forces herself to do so.

‘Nigel. I won't be able to join you, darling.'

His face forms a question mark.

‘It clashes with the pastry stage of my competition. I can't miss that. I'm so sorry.'

The look on his face changes from incomprehension to derision. If eyebrows can sneer that is what his are doing.

‘April in Paris versus pies in Buckinghamshire?' His voice drips with sarcasm. ‘Your choice, my love, your choice. I would have thought you would have welcomed a romantic break away – quite aside from the opportunity to support your husband. But no, you go back to making pastry.'

A hard ball of fury forms in her chest. She wants to scream at him; to puncture his self-righteousness, and point out that he could support her for a change. It is on the tip of her tongue to suggest that Gabby Arkwright might be partial to April in Paris but she cannot bring herself to go there. Instead, she takes a deep breath and wills herself to be calm. When her voice emerges, she is surprised by its steeliness.

‘I do support you, Nigel, of course I do. But I need to do this.'

Her tone remains firm; no hint of beseeching here.

‘I am not going to give this up even though I won't be able to cheer you over the finishing line. I'm very sorry but I do need to do this.'

The silence goes on far longer than she would have expected. Derision has drained from his face and his expression is one of incomprehension once more.

Jenny walks from the bedroom feeling visibly taller; her head raised high, her footsteps brisker than usual. It is only once she is in the sanctity of the kitchen that she notices her hands are shaking.