Page 58

Chapter 58

Mid-March 2011

Tess and Georgia both hear the letterbox snap, and they reach the front door at the same time.

Georgia is wrapped up in a tangerine bathrobe and is pink-faced from being in a hot shower for longer than usual.

A white towel is wrapped around her wet hair like a turban and it makes her look even more flushed.

Tess has careered down the stairs at full pelt, chasing Baxter, who seems to anticipate the arrival of the post as though a sixth sense is sending him messages from the end of the street.

The two women stand politely, each waiting for the other to bend down and retrieve the letters from the mat.

They aren’t yet completely at home in one another’s company, and a degree of reserve is still there, despite the best efforts of Baxter, who pesters each of them for treats, without favour.

In the end it’s Georgia who scoops up the mail.

She studies the typing on a grey envelope and hands it to Tess.

‘One for you. And this big thing is the census form.’ She tucks the thick envelope under her arm and pushes the final item, a postcard, into her damp bathrobe pocket without looking at it properly.

‘I think today feels like a cauliflower cheese sort of a day.’

Tess shakes her head slightly, trying to work out the connection between the census and cauliflower cheese, but quickly gives up.

‘That sounds lovely. I’ll give you a hand with it later.

’ She waits until Georgia has gone, picks up the paper knife that always sits on the hall table, and slides it under the flap of the envelope.

As she pulls out the letter, she catches sight of the name of a firm of solicitors in the header.

She takes a deep breath.

He knows what she did.

This is her comeuppance for acting with sheer cold anger.

There is, she thinks, hot anger, the sort that makes people thump one another, or race after a culprit without regard for the consequences, and then there is cold anger.

Chilled fury, planned retribution.

Tess doesn’t want to know what the letter says, but she knows she has to read it.

She has tried so hard to put everything to the back of her mind but it keeps rising to the surface, particularly now that spring is well on the way.

It was inevitable that he would react.

Only a matter of time.

She wonders how he has worked out where she is.

She had used the Royal Mail forwarding service and crossed her fingers that it would catch everything that was important.

Is it possible that some company or other has written and inadvertently provided him with the information?

Maybe the bank requesting confirmation of her change of address?

She stands very still as an alternative suggests itself.

His house, in Craiglockhart, isn’t that far away from Library Terrace.

Maybe he has seen her?

Or even followed her?

She walks through to the drawing room in a daze and stands in front of the fireplace until she can pull herself together.

Tears blur her vision as she reads the letter and then rips it up as though she is a human paper shredder.

She separates out a few sheets of the previous weekend’s newspaper and rolls each one diagonally from one corner to the opposite one, making the rolls tight and even, and then folds each thin tube into a triangle about the size of her hand before weaving the long ends in, making a slow-burning fire starter.

It’s a lot easier with a broadsheet, she thinks, but these tabloid-sized sheets will have to do.

She makes five, and adds them to the shreddings in the grate before putting a criss-cross of kindling on top and adding a few lumps of smokeless coal.

*

It’s going dark outside when Georgia comes into the drawing room to close the shutters and draw the curtains.

‘That’s nice of Tess to lay the fire,’ she says to Baxter, who has followed her and is taking up his now customary position on the rug, ready to absorb the warmth as soon as it’s available.

She studies the triangles of newspaper.

‘I’ve never seen it done like that before.

’ She crouches down, and lifts a lump of coal between her fingertips to get a better look at the architecture of Tess’s work.

The nest of shredded paper is no longer hidden by the rolled-up firelighters and she catches sight of part of a logo on one of the strips.

‘What’s this?’ She tugs at it and peers at the headed paper.

‘Well I may have left my reading glasses in the kitchen, Baxter, but I recognise the name. Tearing up solicitor’s letters is never a good thing, and I should know that if anyone does.

’ She rests back on her heels and strikes a match.

‘One letter could be a mistake,’ she reassures herself.

‘But more than one would definitely be a problem. I suppose it’s a case of wait and see, Baxter, isn’t it?

I can’t tar everyone with the same brush, after all.

’

*

They sit at the kitchen table, with Baxter at their feet.

He is perpetually hopeful of a scrap of something tasty.

The rule about feeding him in the scullery and not in the kitchen is ruthlessly enforced by Tess, but Baxter has learned that when Tess is out, Georgia is not quite as strict, and he lives in hope.

‘I know mature cheddar is a thing of beauty,’ says Tess as she grates the cheese, ‘but this stuff seems a bit wasted on a basic cauliflower au gratin.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Wouldn’t supermarket cheddar work just as well?

’

‘It might, but I don’t like all the plastic.

Mellis’s costs more but it’s wrapped in waxed paper.

Aren’t we supposed to be saving the planet?

’

Tess thinks about the smoke that will be rising up the chimney from the coal fire in the drawing room and decides to keep her thoughts to herself.

‘Save the rind,’ says Georgia.

‘I’ll have that later.

’

‘You eat the rind?’

‘It’s just the outside of the cheese gone hard, and it’s the best bit.

Annie and I used to fight over it when I was a child.

’

‘Your sister?’

Georgia shakes her head, and the subject seems closed.

‘Get the cornflour down, please.’

Tess reaches into the larder for the flour.

‘Not plain flour, cornflour.’

Tess frowns, but does as she is asked.

‘During rationing, which was long before you were born, we never wasted butter or margarine on making a sauce. You just heat the milk and stir in some cornflour mixed with a little cold water and it thickens perfectly well.’

Tess is not convinced.

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes, the Ryvita on the shelf near the bread bin.’

‘Ryvita. OK.’ Cauliflower cheese and crispbread?

Would that be like cauliflower cheese on toast?

Tess wonders, but doesn’t ask the question.

‘And that jar of wholegrain mustard. It’s nearly empty and we can add the last dregs to the sauce.

’ Georgia chops the cauliflower into florets, slices the stalk thinly and puts it into a jar of water.

‘We can have it in a terrine tomorrow; it lasts longer if you keep it under water in the fridge.’ She gathers the cauliflower leaves into a heap and chops them up with her old Sabatier knife, forged long before they were made from stainless steel, using a rocking motion like a TV chef.

The round dish is filled with cauliflower, then the cheese sauce studded with mustard seeds is poured on top.

‘See? No lumps. Absolutely fool-proof and much easier than making a roux.’

‘You don’t cook the cauliflower first?

’

‘I don’t. It makes it mushy, like baby food.

I like a bit of crunch in my dinner.

Speaking of which, pass me the rolling pin.

’ Georgia takes four Ryvita from the packet, puts them onto the chopping board, and crushes them into rough gravel.

‘Mix this with the chopped leaves and sprinkle it all on the top five minutes before the cauliflower is ready and then pop it back in the oven. It makes it nice and crispy. You can start it off now. That’ll give me enough time to go and deal with this morning’s post.’

Tess feels as though some sort of baton is being passed, as if she is being entrusted with what is clearly an old family recipe.

She nods. ‘Five minutes.’

‘And another thing,’ says Georgia.

‘The census.’

‘The census?’ echoes Tess.

‘I was going to fill it in online this year, but it’ll be a bit of a performance for us to do it side by side at my computer.

’ She points to the narrow wooden staircase in the corner of the kitchen.

‘My office isn’t set up for more than one person, so I ordered a paper form and it came in the post this morning.

I’ll leave it on the table for you next weekend.

You can enter your details first, and then I’ll do mine.

’

‘I’d forgotten all about it.

I don’t think I was even in the country when the last one happened.

’

‘Well, you’re here for this one, and we both have to do it.

And it’s one of the rules of the house.

You must be registered to vote and you must complete the census.

Neither of us is exempt from our responsibilities.

’

Tess feels like a small child who has just been given a telling-off without really understanding why.

After Georgia has left the room, wiping her hands on her apron, Tess realises she has no idea how long the cauliflower cheese is supposed to bake for, which means she also doesn’t know when the all-important crispbread sprinkling will need to happen, but it’s too late to ask the question.

She’ll just have to make a guess and hope she doesn’t stuff it up completely.

It feels like a milestone that matters.