The Perfect Match (14 page)

‘OK, currant buns next, find new groups to be in, please!’ called the chef and everyone shuffled around.

Alice liked making buns. It reminded her of when she first went to work, and the little shop next door sold ‘double butter, triple fruit’. As the office junior, it had been her job to buy them.

‘So, how did you learn so much about cooking?’ asked Darren, another young man with cheffy aspirations watching Alice sprinkle on her currents with a casual hand.

Alice smiled and tried to look enigmatic. She didn’t want to tell him it was from a past boyfriend, with whom she’d had a short, very passionate relationship that had been as much about food as about lust. The love of food had lasted, although the passion had not.

‘OK, guys,’ said their teacher a little later. ‘You’ve all done really well, even though baking is obviously new to some of you. Now, I want you to get together into your final groups for this last item. It’s rum babas, newly back in fashion and quite right too. They take a while so let’s get going!’

Inevitably Alice found herself with both Lucy and Hannah. Then Darren rolled up. ‘I wanted to be with you again, Alice. I reckon I could learn a lot from you,’ he said.

Before Alice could feel flattered, Hannah broke in. ‘Yes. Older people do know about baking and stuff.’ Alice stiffened, slightly tempted to give details of how she’d acquired her ‘older person’ knowledge, aware that it would ‘gross them out’. She smiled instead. She was here to bond with Michael’s daughters, and she owed it to him to make a bit of an effort to do so.

‘Not that you’re old,’ said Hannah, quickly, possibly slightly embarrassed by the rudeness of her previous statement. ‘It’s just . . .’

‘I’m older than you,’ Alice agreed.

‘And older than Da—’ began Lucy before Hannah dug her sister hard in the ribs.

‘Shall we get on?’ interrupted Darren. He had all the energy of a potential MasterChef and twice the ambition.

‘So why do we have to keep the salt and the yeast separate?’ asked Lucy, looking at her notes and scratching her head.

‘Because the salt stops the yeast working,’ said Alice. ‘He did tell us. Really you’d get on better if you listened, instead of picking out dough from under your fingernails.’ Too late she realised she shouldn’t have said this. It was understandable – they just weren’t paying attention – but fatal if she wanted to keep Michael in her life.

‘Yeah!’ said Darren. ‘Now measure out the milk.’

Somehow, in spite of the bickering and the lack of focus, their babas came together. While everyone was waiting for them to prove, the chef gave a demonstration of how to make strudel dough. As this was something Alice had always wanted to try, she ignored Hannah and Lucy and concentrated hard.

‘I can’t believe it’s so thin!’ said Darren. ‘You really could read a newspaper through it!’

When the time came, Hannah (annoyingly) proved an adept piper and piped the batter into the baba moulds very neatly. When they were baked (Darren squatted by the cooker, peering into it, to make sure they didn’t overbake) they added the syrup and later, the cream and fruit.

‘They look really good, don’t they!’ said Hannah, surprised.

‘Yes, you’ve got a way with a piping bag,’ said Alice, her sense of fairness overcoming her reluctance to praise her.

When the chef came round to taste them he took a huge bite and chewed thoughtfully. ‘That’s a good light baba, just the right amount of rum in the syrup. Well done. I think yours are the best.’

They were each awarded a rolling pin and wooden spoon.

‘That was really cool!’ said Lucy.

‘Yes, well done, everyone,’ said Alice, genuinely pleased. ‘It all came together at the end.’

‘It so did!’ agreed Hannah. ‘Well done Dad for a cool idea.’

‘I like winning,’ added Lucy. Alice looked at her and realised she was being sent a message: they’d cooked with her at the end because they wanted to be the best; they didn’t care about Alice personally at all. ‘Now let’s get all this stuff home. Phillip is going to be so thrilled. He doesn’t think I can cook at all!’

A COUPLE OF
days later Bella was not having a very good time at work. She was wearing the wrong clothes and her feet were freezing in their new sandals. She’d intended to go home at lunchtime to change although she’d have had to start from scratch and put on trousers (socks with sandals not being a look she favoured), but she hadn’t had time. And although she’d rung the Agnews days ago to tell them that currently there wasn’t anyone else interested in Badger Cottage, she still hadn’t heard back from them. She was also totally distracted by thoughts of Dominic. She tried to convince herself he was only a client, but she didn’t really manage it.

Their time at the swings together had been lovely, even if it had been cut short. And Dylan was a poppet. Seeing them together had been heart-melting. But not, she realised, good for her resolutions.

It was still only four o’clock, and with not much else to do except paperwork, Bella faced another hour at the office with cold feet.

Fortunately, before she could get too gloomy, her fiancé swept by her desk and said, ‘Fancy an outing?’

Bella looked up. ‘I do! But now? It’s not home-time yet.’

He grimaced at her childish expression. ‘Yup. I’m the boss and I give you permission.’

Bella made a face at her colleagues, who reciprocated with ‘get you’ expressions, fetched her things and joined Nevil in his car. She pulled on her cardigan. ‘So where are we going on our outing, and does it include a nice little café?’

‘I think that could be arranged.’

‘It’s a shame it’s raining. We could have gone to a lovely tea room and sat in the garden.’ She knew just the place.

‘You’re a simple soul really, aren’t you Bella?’

He managed to make this sound as if she was a bit thick, but she persisted in her cheeriness. She knew he didn’t mean it really. ‘This is so much fun!’ she said, stirring up enthusiasm. He was being spontaneous and jolly, and she was away from her desk. Of course she was happy! She brushed aside thoughts of ice cream and swings with Dominic and Dylan.

‘So where are we going?’ she said, when Nevil had offered no information and they’d been driving a good twenty minutes.

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘A good surprise?’

‘Very good indeed.’ He paused for a few moments and then said, ‘Oh, OK, I can’t do surprises. I have to tell you. We’re going to look at a house.’

‘But we’re estate agents, Nevil,’ said Bella, teasing. ‘Looking at houses is not a surprise. It’s what we do. It’s actually work.’

‘But this house is special. It’s going to be our house.’

Bella felt a rush of something she only recognised as fear a little later. Her ‘sort of’ engagement to Nevil was OK – as long as she didn’t give it too much thought. He hadn’t mentioned it again, and she was reasonably happy with how things were at the moment. But suddenly the thought of them having a house together, sharing it, being a couple, was making it too real. She wasn’t sure she was ready yet. If only she could get wretched Dominic out of her mind, she’d be able to focus on Nevil.

‘It’s quite a long way from town, isn’t it?’ said Bella, more for something to say than anything else. ‘How far are we going?’

‘It is quite far. But it’s worth it. You’ll see.’

Bella tried to think what sort of house she might be about to be shown. If she fell in love with it, would that make her feel better about Nevil? Would she find herself marrying him for a house? It did happen, she knew. She also knew of couples who were miserable with each other, but stayed together for the sake of the house, which neither could face leaving. Not good.

Eventually, Nevil turned up a track that had the marks of heavy machinery on it. A little way along, the track opened out into a building site. And what a building site! It seemed big enough to justify its own church, school, pub and shop. She’d never seen so much mud in one place before.

‘Goodness me!’ she said, fighting the horror she felt at the sight of the bulldozers, diggers and small cranes which were dotted around.

‘It looks nothing now, but you wait until you see the show house and the plans!’ Nevil’s excitement was palpable.

Bella tried harder. ‘I can’t wait! But I wish I had my wellies.’ She always had them in the boot of her car and she silently reproached Nevil for not suggesting them. He knew what he was coming to, after all. She stepped gingerly out of the car, trying to avoid a large puddle.

‘You’ll be all right. Follow me!’

In his much sturdier footwear, Nevil strode ahead to where Bella could see a large house, presumably the show home.

She caught up with him, slipping in the mud. ‘Nevil! We could never afford to live here!’ But what she didn’t add was, ‘And why would we ever want to?’

‘Come and see. Prepare to be amazed.’ He ushered her through the front door into a nearly completed house.

She knew he preferred contemporary properties – his own flat, though small, was very cutting edge, and Bella quite liked it. But this was so vast it was more like a public space than a home.

‘This is the hallway,’ he announced and Bella realised how annoying estate agents must be, stating the bloomin’ obvious. Of course it was the hallway.

‘It’s massive!’

‘It’s all travertine marble and there’s room for an eight-foot Christmas tree there. It’s part of the spec,’ Nevil announced. He was like a man showing off his new sports car to his mates, assuming they’d be as impressed as he was.

‘It’s extremely spacious,’ Bella agreed, trying to suppress her inner gloom.

‘Underfloor heating, naturally. Come on through to the kitchen. I think you’ll like.’

The kitchen could have hosted a party for twenty people who didn’t speak to each other. It was vast. The surfaces were marble, the floor was marble and all the door fronts were some highly polished surface that looked like marble. It reminded Bella of an ice rink. There was an island near the cooking area with two sinks, and a range the size of a double bed. It was attractive, but it seemed to Bella to be big enough for mass catering on a grand scale. Bella felt she’d rather live in a swimming pool and yet Nevil seemed completely seduced by the size and grandeur of it.

‘Here.’ Nevil produced a brochure giving details of the range. ‘You can cook anything on that. And look at that bad-boy cooker hood. Bosch.’

Bella inspected the cooker hood which to Nevil seemed to be the kitchen equivalent of a Ferrari. She glanced down at the brochure. ‘It says it’s the perfect choice for the modern family kitchen.’

‘It’s the top of the range.’

Bella hid a smile at his unintended pun. He always had to have puns explained to him anyway, and now he was on a mission to show her a dream home, he wouldn’t appreciate her going off topic.

Nevil pulled open a door. Inside was a fridge-freezer that could have accommodated a whole bullock and champagne for a medium-sized wedding.

Bella, wishing she had her old rollerblades to speed her progress, went across to the other side of the room. Here a dining table for twelve was set as if for a very smart dinner party.

‘This is the biggest kitchen I’ve ever seen,’ she said.

‘I knew you’d like it!’ said Nevil excitedly. ‘Look, a built-in coffee-maker, wine-fridge, cheese-larder – everything you could ever need really.’ He pulled her to him and gave her a hug, assuming she’d be as enthusiastic about it all as he was.

‘Amazing.’ She knew she didn’t sound amazed, she sounded shell-shocked. Fortunately Nevil didn’t notice the difference.

‘Come and see the main reception room, although, as you’d expect, there’s more than one.’ He was off again.

Bella wondered briefly if giving ballet lessons in her own home would justify a room so large. It had been arranged with massive leather sofas and a television with a screen that wouldn’t have disgraced a small cinema. The phrase ‘masses of taste and all of it bad’ floated into Bella’s head. She opened a door and found herself in a slightly smaller room.

This had the advantage of looking out into what would become a garden. She went to the French windows, trying to imagine Alice’s mature lawns and trees instead of the skid marks of heavy machinery and mud. She turned back into the room. Her imagination had failed.

‘Fireplaces, I see. Do they work?’ she asked.

Nevil was striding about, obviously having mentally moved in already. Bella had seen this with clients – it was almost always a sign that they’d fallen in love and would make an offer. ‘Probably not but they’re hardly necessary, with underfloor heating throughout.’

Bella opened her mouth to say that open fires were about a lot more than heating, but didn’t. She knew Nevil didn’t really get the magic of real logs and flames.

‘Let me take you upstairs,’ said Nevil. He took her hand and led her up the wooden staircase. ‘This will all be carpeted of course. There are five bedrooms, three en suite, and the master has a dressing room as well. Come and see.’

Bella wanted to say it looked like a picture in
Hello!
magazine, before the celebrity couple got expensively divorced, but she didn’t. There was a bed that would sleep five easily and an enormous dressing table. She imagined wrestling the sheets on to the huge bed, and moved quickly into the en-suite, which was the size of Alice’s main bathroom, easily. A glimpse of the taps, inset with crystals, and she hurried out again. If she’d been with Alice, they’d have giggled at the ghastly flamboyance of it all. It was such a dreadful shame that Nevil’s dream home was more like a nightmare for her.

Nevil, possibly picking up on some of her horror, said, ‘If you don’t want sparkly taps, you don’t have to have them! At this stage we can design it just how we want it.’

‘We couldn’t change the basic dimensions, and it all seems a bit – well, big.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly! How can a house be too big? I’ve seen you drool over bloody great mansions before now!’

‘But they were old. They didn’t seem quite so enormous somehow.’ There were other things she could have said about this house, quite a lot of them, but she didn’t want to upset Nevil. He was in house-heaven.