The Queen of New Beginnings (13 page)

“Surprise me: has there ever been a Mr. George in your life?”

“Don’t be a complete idiot, Shannon. As if I’d make that kind of a mistake. So how’s Alice these days? What is she up to? I remember she wanted to become an actress.”

“From what she’s told me, the actress thing didn’t come off for her. She does voice-overs. Not that I know that much about her.” Which was an odd thing to say, given how much he’d learned about Alice as a teenager last night. “When was the last time you saw her?” he asked, curious now to see what information he could extract from his unforeseen guest.

George topped up her glass. “She must have been about eighteen when I last saw her. Maybe older. I’ve lost track. I was sad to see her go. But I quite understood why she had to do what she did. If she’s stayed, folk round here would have gone on talking for ever. She would have been the focus of an endless stream of tittletattle. Worse, they would have poured sympathy on her. Who in their right mind wants that? Certainly not a young girl with her whole life before her.” She paused, then once more tossed back the contents of her glass. “Well, Shannon,” she said, pushing the empty shot glass away from her, “this fancy dinner of yours won’t cook itself. It’s time to stop your idle gossiping and drinking and get stuck in.” With a creak of bones, she rose from her chair.

His curiosity lured out into the open only to be left exposed and unsatisfied, Clayton felt perversely cheated she was leaving as unexpectedly as she had arrived. He wanted to know more. What had gone on here all those years ago? Could he rely upon Alice to tell him the whole story? Or would she skip over the really interesting bits?

“I’ll see myself out,” George said when Clayton had made no attempt to move from his seat.

“No chance,” he said, jumping up. “I want to make sure you’ve really gone. I don’t want any nasty surprises, like stumbling over you in the middle of the night and giving myself a heart attack.”

“And they say chivalry is dead. By the way, you haven’t said where Alice is now living. Do you have her address?”

“Sorry, I don’t. All I know is that she’s somewhere local.”

“Telephone number?”

“Only a mobile number.”

“Excellent. Give it to me the next time we meet.”

He walked her to the boiler room, helped her into her coat, which swallowed her up whole, then opened the back door. He pulled a face. “It’s a foul night,” he said.

“I’ve seen worse.” She buttoned her coat up to her chin. “Give Alice my best wishes. Tell her to call in on me. Tell her that I’m furious she hasn’t done so before now. And—” She broke off and put a hand on his arm.

“And what?” he asked, nervous at what might be coming next.

“I’ve decided you need keeping an eye on, young fella m’lad. I’ll call in again soon. Take care.”

Clayton had never cooked Toad in the Hole before and now that the situation seemed thoroughly out of his control, he was wondering why he had ever thought of cooking it in the first place. How difficult could it be? The batter was just eggs, flour, milk and water. Basic ingredients. Nothing tricky. And surely, doubling the quantities involved so he could make a really big Toad in the Hole couldn’t have affected anything, could it?

He had followed the recipe to the letter, even sieving the flour, but the trouble had started the moment an electric whisk was called for. He had never used one before. Could that have been his mistake? Had the jug-like container not been the right bit of kit to use? Whatever it was, it was an instrument of the devil and had just sent the mixture flying at supersonic speed, splattering everything within range, including him. Now, as he tried to mop his face clean, two things occurred to him: should he have put a lid on the instrument of the devil before switching it on, and what had possessed him to say he’d cook for Alice? Unless a grill or a frying pan was involved, he was a rubbish cook. What had he been thinking? Had he been trying to prove himself? If so, was this yet another level of pitiable behaviour he had been reduced to? Middle-aged man trying to impress young girl? Was that what this was about? He groaned and pushed a hand through his hair.

He checked the time. Forty-five minutes and Alice would be here. OK, plenty of time yet to put this mess right. He would dispense with any complicated machinery. Clearly he and electrical kitchen appliances of a whirring nature weren’t compatible. He’d weigh yet more ingredients out and do things the old-fashioned way. He couldn’t recall his mother ever using a mixer to make Toad in the Hole. When he thought about it, she had used a hand-held whisk. A balloon whisk, that’s what it was called. He rummaged around in the drawers and came up with just the thing.

“Right. Six ounces of flour.” No, that wasn’t right. He had to double the amount. “OK. Twelve ounces of flour.” He tipped the bag and poured. It seemed a hell of a lot. Well, all the better. More for him to eat.

He found a larger mixing bowl, transferred the flour to it, added the eggs, then some milk. He began whisking. Except the mixture wasn’t working with him. Like just about everything in his life these days, it was working against him. It was too stiff. He added more milk. Whisked again. Oh, what the hell. He added all the milk. And the water.

“Right,” he said with determined resolve. “Here we go.” A puff of flour flew up into his face. He wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand. It was then that he realized something important: he had quadrupled the ingredients, hadn’t he? He’d doubled up on the doubling up. Oh, shit! This was going to be the mother of all Toad in the Holes!

He lost track of how long he’d been trying to whisk some sense into the bowl of lumpy gloop when he heard the doorbell.

Here already? She couldn’t be. Why did she have to be so early? He looked at his watch. She was bang on time. Why couldn’t she be more like Stacey? Stacey had taken so long to get ready to go out she had turned being late into an art form. It used to drive him mad. Really mad. So mad on one occasion he had pulled off the clothes he’d just put on, changed into his pyjamas, cancelled the taxi and restaurant he’d booked, ordered a takeaway pizza, poured himself a drink, and switched on the television. When she had finally appeared downstairs—looking a million dollars, it had to be said—she’d found him a third of the way through his favourite sausage and chilli pizza. “Congratulations,” he’d said, “I think that might be a record for you, darling. A spectacular two hours and thirty-seven minutes.”

The use of the word “darling” was enough to alert her to the fact that he was being far from sincere. Although, if he was honest, he couldn’t remember the last time he had been sincere with her.

• • •

It wasn’t often that he was greeted with such a wide smile. “What happened to you?” his guest asked when he opened the door.

He caught sight of himself in the large gilt-framed mirror on the wall to his right. Oh, smooth, he thought. His hair, face and beard were covered in a powdery, patchy white coating. He looked like he’d had his head in a trough of cocaine. Or he’d been Artexed. “I was trying out a new face pack,” he said.

“Hmm…I think you may have overdone it.”

“That’s me. One day I’ll learn that less is more. Come through to the kitchen. But I have to warn you, there’s been a hitch with supper. Basically, I’m wearing it.”

She laughed and carried on laughing when she saw the state of the kitchen. “What happened?” she asked, her eyes sweeping round the scene of devastation, finally homing in on the instrument of the devil on the draining board. “Oh, don’t tell me,” she said. “You forgot to put the lid on?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, “of course I put the lid on. Only a blithering fool would forget to do that.”

Her eyes then took in the table. “Holy moley! Is that what I think it is? A bottle of George’s grog? Tell me you didn’t drink any.”

“I stopped after four,” he said, deadpan.

She raised an eyebrow. “And you’re still on your feet? You still know what day of the week it is?”

He shrugged and spread out his hands. “Oh, all right, I admit it, I’m nothing but a big wuz; I managed one solitary, pathetic sip. But believe me, the stuff inside that bottle is firewater in its most evil form.”

“If it’s as bad as I remember, you did the right thing in avoiding it. She used to give us a bottle every year for Christmas. My father developed a taste for it in the end, but I never did. It’s probably what’s preserved her all these years.”

“Pickled on the inside and creosoted on the outside,” he agreed. “Before I forget, I’m charged with passing on her best wishes to you and to instruct you to call in and see her. She was adamant on that point.”

“Did she…did she say anything about my family whilst she was here?”

Clayton noted the change in Alice’s voice. Gone was the sure, light-hearted tone of before and in its place there was hesitancy. “Nothing specifically about your family,” he said, “only that had you not left Cuckoo House when you did you would have been on the receiving end of a certain amount of tittle-tattle.”

“How very discreet of her,” Alice murmured. Then looking about her again, she said, “Would you like me to straighten things out here while you see to…” she turned and looked directly at him, “your face pack?”

“Please don’t make me feel any more hopeless than I already do.”

She smiled. “Just trying to help, that’s all. What exactly is it that you’re covered in?”

“Batter mix. I was trying to make Toad in the Hole. But the toad was a wriggly swine and wouldn’t hold still.”

“In that case, I’d really recommend you wash it off quickly before it sets like concrete.”

“But I can’t leave you down here tidying this lot up on your own. Even I can see that that would be pushing the boundaries of extreme bad manners.”

“I honestly don’t mind.”

“You’re sure?”

“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”

• • •

Left alone, Alice took a moment to take stock. Where to start? Hot water. And lots of it. She ran the hot tap, filled the sink and squirted in a long squeeze of Fairy Liquid.

The damage was fairly localized but still there was the stretch of worktop to scrub, the cabinet doors, the window, the tiles on the wall and an area of the floor. What was it with men and machinery? They made out that only a man could operate anything that came with a manual and an electrical supply, and yet they couldn’t manage the simplest of things in the kitchen. Her father had once done exactly the same thing. The damage had been worse in his case since he’d been attempting to make carrot soup. The stains had been indelible; nothing had ever shifted them. Or her father’s unshakeable conviction that of course he’d screwed the lid on firmly—what did people take him for, a raving imbecile?

As she recalled yet another poignantly vivid memory in the actual place where it had happened, Alice felt that if she looked hard enough she would come across those very same carrot soup stains…or if she listened hard enough she would hear the bellowing roar of her father’s voice as he slid down the banisters. It didn’t make her feel happy, though.

When she had everything in order, she looked at the abandoned bowl of greying, lumpy batter mix, put it to one side and started making a fresh batch. Next she found the sausages in the fridge, put them in a roasting tin with a heavy base and into the oven on a high heat. Some mashed potato would be nice, she thought. But after a thorough search, she couldn’t find any potatoes. She did find a bag of peas in the freezer, however. And some stock cubes in one of the cupboards. Toad in the Hole with peas and gravy: perfect.

She was opening a stock cube when her mobile rang. It was her agent and at once she knew that Hazel had bad news to deliver. Hazel only ever asked Alice how she was when she was prevaricating. When there was good news to report, she was straight to it, no shilly-shallying.

“What is it, Hazel?”

“I’m sorry, Alice, and I can’t tell you how angry this makes me, but you and I both know how this business works. The thing is, James Montgomery has just signed a new contract to write another five books and because his popularity is growing, his publishers want—”

“Let me guess. They want someone else to read his books. Someone else with a bigger profile. A name. A
big
name.”

“As I said, you and I know all too well how this industry works. If I could change it, Alice, I would. You know that.”

So that’s what James had wanted to discuss with her. That’s what he didn’t have the nerve to go through with. What a fool she had been! A bloody stupid fool. Would she never learn? Would she never learn to read the signs?

“Alice? Are you still there?”

“Yes,” she said tiredly. “I’m still here.”

“You’re upset; that’s quite understandable.
I’m
upset. We’re in this together, Alice. Don’t ever forget that. Although I sometimes wonder why I do this job. It doesn’t get any easier.”

Alice smiled to herself. You do it for your cut, she wanted to say. “I shall miss Mattie,” she said.

“Mattie? Who’s Mattie?”

Hazel was a good agent when it came to finding Alice work, whether it was audio books or voice-over, but her interest in the actual product was minimal. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“I’ll be chasing the next big thing for you, Alice. Trust me on that. Speak to you soon.”

Alice ended the call as cheerfully as she could manage.
The next big thing
. When it came down to it, that’s what it was all about. From one day to the next, it was living in hope of the next big job. The next big relationship. The next big moment of happiness. The next new beginning.

James must have known for some time about his new contract and that she wouldn’t be reading any more of his books. He had waited for her to finish work on her last Mattie adventure, then he had skedaddled. Yet as much as Alice wanted to blame him for the way she was feeling, she knew she was deluding herself. James owed her nothing. In fairness, he had very nearly plucked up the courage to talk to her, hadn’t he? The mistake she had made was to read too much into his input at the studio, his occasional emails and his charming manner. She had allowed herself to create a make-believe world in which she and James were the two main characters. Again, in fairness to him, he had never once given her cause to think that they had anything more than a professional relationship. It was her overactive imagination that had got the better of her. Everything was fantasy for her. It always had been.

“Mm…something smells good.”

She turned at the sound of Clayton’s voice.

Except it wasn’t Clayton. It was a very different man. He was a clean-shaven stranger. His hair, still wet from the shower, was neatly combed into place and his shirt and jeans were less rumpled than she was used to seeing. He looked altogether less rumpled. Younger too, just as she had thought he would without the beard.

“You’ve wrought a miracle here,” he said, observing the tidy-up operation she had carried out.

“I have magical powers,” she said, adding “and so have you by the looks of things.”

He smiled ruefully and rubbed his smooth chin. “You were right about that stuff setting like concrete. I gave up trying to wash it out of my beard; it was easier to hack the lot off. I haven’t done a brilliant job, though. It feels strange being me again.”

It was going to take some getting used to, Alice thought as she looked at him with new eyes. She had to fight the urge to gawp at him from all angles. The transformation was really quite something. “Aren’t you worried about someone recognizing you?” she asked.

“Round here? I don’t think so. Would you have recognized me if you’d passed me in the street?”

“Perhaps not.”

“There you go. Paranoia had me kidding myself that I had made that big an impression on the world. Better to believe in one’s smallness than one’s greatness, don’t you think?”

Aware that she still had her mobile in her hand, she said, “Funny you should say that. I’ve just received a call from my agent that’s made me realize just how insignificant I am.”

“Sounds like you need to change your agent.” She put the mobile away in her bag. “It wasn’t Hazel’s fault; she was merely the messenger of bad news.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. I’ve been replaced by a bigger name. It often happens in my line of work. If the product I’ve been helping to get off the ground hits the big time, the money men step in and demand a well-known actor to be used. It happened to me a few years ago. I was the original voice of
This Little Piggy
but when it took off, I was history.”

“And what’s the product in this particular instance?”

“A series of children’s books by James Montgomery.” She could see him thinking. The cogs literally grinding. “I’ll save you the trouble of asking your next question,” she said. “He was the one who phoned me here that day. The one you said made me go pink at the edges.”