The Cornish Affair (21 page)

Soon
the aroma of leek and potato simmering together in chicken stock, were pervading the kitchen.

It’s
a simple, cosy, comforting sort of soup, and no matter even if we chill it and call it Vichyssoise, and add double cream and chives to it, or use celery, or non-Cornish butter, or blend it, sieve it, pepper it to death, sprinkle cheese or herbs on it, it will remain good tempered and sweet tasting. A friend, almost. Something you can rely on, and god knows, we all need that from time to time.

What
do they say about soup? It’s the first resort of a special dinner and the last resort of the weary cook. It can be peasant food, or it can be the food of kings.

It
is a salve to the troubled soul (and between you and me, so unreasonably easy to make, I cannot believe that anyone buys my cartons of it).

In
short, it is the food of life.

Chapter
Twenty One

Mr Harris enjoyed the soup. Or so I hoped, it was difficult to tell. He was monosyllabic, but seemed happy enough, as he smiled a lot, mostly at Nancy.

After
lunch, he disappeared outside again, with his bag of tricks. Nancy and I were sitting at the kitchen table, when Baxter gave a half hearted bark, as if he really couldn’t be bothered pretending any more to be a guard dog, but had better things to do with his time. The door opened and Richard was there.

He
greeted Nancy and told us that he’d got here because the chain saw gang had finished, so the lane was clear and he thought I could do with a hand gathering in the wood.

I
gave him some soup, and put my boots back on I dissuaded Nancy from helping.

“But
I want to see what’s been happening anyway, I’ll just have a little walk around to see if anything needs rescuing,” promised Nancy.

“Like
the plants in the greenhouse?” I said tartly.

“Oh
darling, Jace and I have been growing that for years-”

“Have
you?” I said in surprise.

I
heard Richard snigger. I tried to quell him with a glance but it made no difference.

“Oh
yes,” Nancy continued, “It’s not like we
sell
it or anything, but I know you don’t agree with it, so we just kept it to ourselves. I suppose it’s ruined, now?”

“Umm,
don’t you just hate it when that happens?” I said, pushing Richard out the door. He was convulsed with laughter.

When
we were outside, he said, “Unbelievable, isn’t she? I thought you musta known about it, seein’ as it’s
your
greenhouse.”

“No,
it seems there’s quite a few things I don’t know about,” I said.

We
spent the next couple of hours dragging wood on wheelbarrows and stacking it up against the garden wall. It was a very satisfying task, although back breaking after a while. It felt more like autumn than early summer, but the air was soft and the gulls wheeled above our heads in the sky.

I
saw that Nancy was trampling through the muddy garden, propping up damaged plants, generally trying her best to restore some order to the havoc that the storm had made. Baxter, who of course, being newly bathed, tried to find every bit of mud and puddle that he could to roll in, scampered about beside her.

“Reckon
that’s the last lot,” Richard said, wiping his brow with hand, “Been in the woods yet?”

“No,”
I said, straightening my back after heaving the last lot of logs out of the barrow. They gave off a wonderful scent. “I haven’t gone there yet, probably quite a bit of damage.”

“Me
an’ Jace could come up with a saw tomorrow, if you like?” Richard offered.

“Thanks…
but it can wait. There’s quite a lot to do in the village still, isn’t there?” I said.

Richard
nodded gloomily. “Bloody mess, ain’t it?”

We
made our way inside, and I saw that Richard was hovering by the office door.

“Want
to go on line, Richard?” I asked, throwing my boots by the door. I was sick to death of wearing wellies and so were my feet. I felt like an old woman as I sat there rubbing some feeling back in them. What did normal people wear outside? There was probably a whole range of comfortable, warm, good looking foot gear. I bet I was the last person on earth still to be clumping along in hideous rubber boots that gave blisters.

Richard
beamed at me, and disappeared into the office, closing the door firmly behind him. What was it he did in there?

Nancy
came in, with a basket full of rescued blooms and vegetables. “It’s so sad, seeing it like that… but, it’ll all grow back quite quickly. It could have been much worse,” she said, dropping rose heads into a bowl of water. “And the house has stood up well to the storm, these granite places were built to last, thank goodness. I can’t get used to the cliff being so near, can you?”

“No,
it makes me feel a bit sea sick, to tell you the truth. I think I’ll have to get a wall built.” I said.

“Let’s
see what Arthur says… Where’s Richard?”

I
pointed towards the office door.

“Oh.
Well, I hope he’s sorted it all out,” Nancy said vaguely.

“Sorted
what out?” I asked, not really very curious, but still, it would be nice to know.

“Oh,
you know… his wife,” Nancy said, unpacking some young courgettes from her basket.

“His
what?”

“Wife.
Shall I put the peas in with the courgettes? Or do you want them left out? Not many to rescue, and they’re very early, more like mange touts, or snow peas as Bea calls them in Canada, I wonder why?”

I
stared at her.

“OK,
come on, give. What
wife
?”

“Well,
you know he never has any success with the girls here, so he’s been looking at this Russian web site that has girls who want to marry British men-”

“Like
mail order brides!?”

“I
suppose so, although it all seems very above board, anyway, he’s been e-mailing Olga now for weeks and weeks, and she wants to come over, mind you, he’s very nervous, I mean, suppose they don’t get on in real life? Or she’s a hunchback or something-”

“
Hunchback
? Nancy, what
are
you telling me?” I was horrified. I thought only sad slightly grubby old men wearing nylon shirts and smelly socks did this sort of thing. Not Richard.

I
thought back, to see if I could ever remember him having a girlfriend, but I couldn’t. He hung out with Jace so much that I thought he must have had ample opportunity to chat up women. Maybe that was the problem? Jace was so good looking… But he was good friends with silent Will as well. Will seemed to have girls after him, maybe they all liked the Gary Cooper type? Maybe his red hair was a drawback?

“Why
don’t I know about this?” I said suddenly.

Nancy
laughed, “Oh Fin, you’re the wrong age darling… I’m an old woman now, so people feel like they can tell me anything. Believe me, they do! You want to hear what Arthur Harris’s wife did to him last year –”

There
was a knock on the kitchen door, and the man himself came into view.

“Now
then, what’s the news?” Nancy cried, drawing him inside, “Are we safe? Or are we all going to tumble into the sea?”

Arthur
Harris would not be drawn. He had to go back to London (the helicopter was waiting for him) He had to make enquiries; he had samples to analyse, other experts to talk to, data to write up, people to see.

We
regarded him in silence.

“But,
Mr Harris,
Arthur
, what about having a party here, is it safe?” Nancy said pleadingly.

He
regarded us blandly.

I
felt like hitting him.

“Well…
it all depends what you call safe,” he said slowly.

“Penmorah,
the house, is it safe? You know, safe as in it won’t fall into the sea? Safe as in it won’t crumble about our ears? Safe in as –”

He
held up his hand to stop me. “The house is safe –”

“Thank
god!” I said emotionally. Nancy and I clasped hands.

“As
I was saying,” he said gently, “The house is safe, well, safe enough, at the
moment
, but the land that it is on… well, we’ll have to see.”

He
pointed outside the window. “There has been a serious landfall there, not helped by the underwater stream coming from the disused tin mine, and the weather conditions. This sort of erosion happens here over years, but this has escalated rapidly. You will need serious work done to make it safe… and I’m not sure that it will be financially viable. I will have to find out. I’ll be in touch. It was a pleasure meeting both of you, good day.”

We
watched him leave. I turned to Nancy, “I’m still not sure what he means, are you? I mean, are we safe or not? And I hated the words not financially viable, what does that mean? How much is not viable? Thousands? Or more?…
Millions
?”

Nancy
looked worried. “I don’t know Fin, we’ll have to wait and see.”

One
of the (many) things I’m not good at is waiting and seeing. Patience, being kind to small children, knowing when to stop drinking, substituting marge for butter are a few of the others.

“Well,
sod it. It’s safe enough for the dolphin party,” I said with a great show of bravado.

That
gave me three days to organise a party. Who needs more? Well, I mean obviously Elton John, the Queen and anyone with any sense does, but not me.

I
went to the phone and started to make arrangements.

I
use the word arrangements very loosely because this is Cornwall, not London. Things are done differently here. I expect in London you could pick up the phone and within ten minutes could have a gourmet meal, with wine,
and
flowers,
and
balloons,
and
a bubble making machine delivered. I bet that if you knew the right people there you could have a chocolate cake made in the shape of anything you desired arrive in a trice, along with Robbie Williams singing at the party, for a large consideration. Here, it’s not so simple.

Someone’s
sister who lived over in Rock knew someone who would deliver the wine, and the glasses,
if
the tide was in and
if
she could get the chickens in the back of the van as well.

It’s
not easy.

In
London you can, I am
sure
, hire staff. The type that turn up on time, do their job, and then go home. Not here, here we have to make do with somebody’s teenage son, who would
love
to earn twenty quid, but doesn’t have any trousers other than baggy hipster cargo pants and a ripped hot tuna tee shirt. He has had quite a few spliffs beforehand, making him liable to scoff any snack he can get his hands on and wander off with a drink order, never to return. When eventually found he will be being sick in a rose bed and someone (me) will have to drive him home.

It
really isn’t easy.

I
wanted the sort of bohemian, sophisticated, arty party my parents used to have.

I
enlisted Sunita and Samina as helpers, and hoped that I could bribe Will and Richard as barmen for the night.

I
decided that Doris would do her famous Port Charles pasties and I would do the rest of the food. Nancy would decorate Penmorah with greenery and candles at the drop of a hat. The rest was in the lap of the gods.

It
wouldn’t make it into
The Tatler
but for Port Charles it would be a knock out.

The
phone rang, and I went to pick it up. It was Harry.

“So
what did Mr Harris say?”

I
gave Harry the gist of it.

“Oh.”

“Yes, I know… Anyway I’m having the party, so you and Martha will come down, won’t you?”

“Of
course! And Oliver?”

I
could sense some fairly malicious glee in Harry’s question, and I decided to override it with sweetness. I didn’t know what Harry knew, or what Oliver had told him about us.

“Yes…
do bring him too.”

“And
the weather there now, what’s it like?”

I
thought of the pervading gloom here at the moment, the grey sky and the mud. Something with a heart was needed, something with colour and pizzazz.

“Borscht…that’s
been made with love and attention and allowed to let all the flavours linger together for a while, oh, yes and served with a huge blob of sour cream and some homemade bread, preferably rye. OK?” Harry laughed.

“I’m
so glad to hear that you’re rallying… the moment I hear you talk about food, I know everything’s OK,” he said.

Well,
there’s OK and then there’s OK, I thought to myself.

We
said goodbye, and I put the phone down. Damn, I knew what I meant to ask him about – music. What sort of music should I have for the party? The library had always been the dancing room, and I searched my memory for the sort of music that my parents had. Nancy would know. But what did they have now? Most of it sounded like a drum kit falling down the stairs. I think it was called drum and bass, more like drum and a god awful noise, if you ask me, but then I’m very unmusical indeed. I have only ever danced unprompted to the sort of tune that gets played so often in our youth that it has etched itself in your brain as
dancing
music; the legs just go ahead anyway, no matter what the brain says. Perhaps I could ask Jace, or Richard.