Page 20 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

The two other women exchanged a look. Flinty shook her head. ‘No pet. Just boil-boil.’ She turned back to Bella while Jodie did her best not to peel the skin off her knuckles. ‘You need a good floury potato. Nothing too waxy.’

Bella nodded as if that was obvious. Jodie didn’t even know what the difference might be. Waxy sounded like a bad thing for food.

While the potatoes bubbled they weighed out the flour. Flinty nodded approvingly at Bella. ‘I mostly do it by eye, and you’ll be all right doing the same once you know what you’re aiming for.’

That was the part of cooking that was a mystery to Jodie.

She understood recipes. She couldn’t necessarily follow one, but she understood the idea.

All the quantities and instructions were laid out and if you followed it to the letter you’d end up with the result you were supposed to get.

That wasn’t what happened when Jodie tried to follow a recipe, but that was, she’d always assumed, because Jodie was doing it wrong.

The idea that there was a world beyond recipes where you could look at a potato and know how long to cook it and whether it was floury or waxy was a whole new mystery.

Flinty prodded the potatoes with the tip of a knife. ‘They’re going to need a good fifteen minutes. Why don’t you fill me in on the big Hogmanay plans while we’re waiting?’

‘Yes. Why don’t you?’ Jodie turned towards the new voice. Veronica was standing in the doorway to the rest of the castle. ‘I asked Darcy but she said you had everything in hand.’

Veronica’s presence put Jodie further on edge.

‘She absolutely does,’ Bella grinned. ‘She’s a godsend.’

‘I don’t know about that. I’m not much help in the kitchen,’ Jodie muttered.

‘It’s not the kitchen where we need the help.’

‘So…’ Veronica pulled up a seat at the island. ‘I am all ears.’

Jodie could have handled this if she’d had a chance to prepare.

If she’d had a chance to rehearse and get her thoughts and her words all into a neat line she could have made it sound like she knew what she was doing.

She was almost nearly sure that she could.

She had not had that time. ‘I don’t want to go on. ’

Veronica didn’t reply straight away. Did Jodie catch her brow creasing ever so slightly? ‘Oh while I’m here, did you remember to give Darcy your National Insurance details?’

Out of the frying pan. ‘I…’ She what? ‘Actually, I think my old payslips were electronic. On my old laptop.’

‘It blew up,’ Bella helpfully reminded them.

‘So I heard,’ Veronica murmured. ‘You’ll have to ask them to send a paper P45 then. If you don’t have one already.’

‘Right. Yeah. I didn’t think of that.’

Veronica was still staring at her. If she said anything else about her NI number she was going to slip up even further, but she couldn’t talk about the grand plans for Hogmanay either.

Not without sounding like the fraud she was.

There must be something. ‘Actually, while the potatoes are boiling I thought I might try to film some more social media stuff.’ Jodie glanced round the room for a safer port than the elder Dowager Lady.

‘With Flinty. And Bella. And maybe…’ She turned back towards Veronica and her voice tailed away. ‘Well, with whoever wants to.’

‘I’m tired.’ Bella slumped onto a stool. ‘Do Flinty first.’

‘What are we doing?’

‘I’m filming people’s food tips for social media. To promote the cookery school.’

‘And Flinty helps out sometimes with classes. She has brilliant tips.’

Great. Jodie pulled out her phone. ‘Can I ask you some questions then? About cooking and food?’

‘And sprouts,’ Bella chipped in.

Flinty sat up a little straighter. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You’ll be great,’ Jodie reassured her.

‘Where do you want me? Should I get my hair done first?’

Veronica’s lips pursed even further than normal.

‘You look perfect,’ Jodie insisted. ‘And you can sit right there.’ She asked Flinty about her favourite foods and her cooking tips, and closed with, ‘And how do you feel about sprouts?’

‘Love them,’ Flinty declared. ‘And I have a tip. I bet you’ve been told you have to cut a little cross in the bottom. Utter nonsense. Just makes them soggy. Save yourself the time.’

Jodie stopped filming. ‘That’s great. Maybe we could do a whole love-em-or-hate-em thing with sprouts.’

‘I still don’t see how that actually uses any up?’ Bella questioned.

It was a fair point.

Veronica cleared her throat. ‘So if you’ve finished with that little distraction, maybe we could get back to the Hogmanay plans?’

Of course. She wasn’t going to be diverted entirely, was she? Maybe Jodie should be grateful. At least she wasn’t asking about National Insurance numbers any more. ‘Basically for Hogmanay there’s four main things. The music, getting people to come, the venue, and the food.’

‘Yes, dear. I have read the plan.’

Of course she had. ‘So for music I’ve booked the ceilidh band. Tickets are on sale and I’ve shared that all over the place. And today is food. Bella’s in charge of that, though.’

‘And the venue?’

Jodie frowned. ‘Well, here.’

‘Again, you don’t need to state the obvious.’

‘Veronica!’ Flinty’s tone was exasperated but affectionate.

‘Oh, don’t mollycoddle the girl. She’s here to do a job.’

‘The ballroom,’ Jodie continued.

‘And what needs doing in there before however many people arrive expecting the party of the year?’

She’d put her finger on the thing Jodie had been trying her hardest to ignore. The ballroom was a mess. At best it needed the full Marie Kondo. At worst it would probably turn out the supersized cobwebs were holding the roof up and the whole thing would collapse around her ears.

The scale of the job wasn’t the thing holding her back though. Well, it was, but not the scale of the whole job, more the scale of walking to the ballroom, opening the door and looking at what needed doing.

‘That’s next on the list,’ was the best she could come up with.

Veronica nodded curtly. ‘Very well. I’m sure you’ll let us know if any assistance is required.’ She glanced at the bubbling pot on the stove. ‘Those must be nearly done.’

The group jumped to attention. Flinty prodded a potato with the tip of a knife. ‘Yes. Good for mashing now.’

Bella nodded. Jodie shrugged. There was no recipe, so how on earth were you supposed to know?

Flinty strained the potatoes into a bowl, and grabbed a bottle of milk and butter from the fridge. ‘You can mash them, pet.’

Jodie picked up the masher.

‘Not yet. Give them a minute or two to dry out a touch. You can’t do scones with a soggy mash.’

Once the potato was mashed, initially by Jodie, but very quickly by Flinty who took over with an exasperated, ‘Don’t just tickle it, girl,’ they added flour and mixed the whole lot into a dough, which Flinty then rolled out and fried in neat triangles in a hot pan. ‘Try that.’

Jodie, Bella and Veronica all took small nibbles of a finished scone. Bella nodded. ‘These’ll be great for canapés.’

Veronica nodded. ‘They need a pinch more pepper.’

Flinty glowered at her partner. ‘I don’t think they…’ She took a bite and sniffed. ‘Maybe a touch.’

Any crowing Veronica might have allowed herself over this small victory was curtailed by Pavel’s appearance at the door. ‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realise you had a crowd in.’

‘We always have a crowd in,’ Bella laughed.

‘True. I was just checking…’ Jodie caught something in his tone. Pavel was floundering. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

Bella frowned. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah. It’s nothing.’

He was definitely masking something. But what?

Bella stopped him as he turned to leave. ‘Are you free tomorrow?’

‘I was going to…’ Again Pavel hesitated. ‘I can be.’

‘Any chance you could spare an hour to give Gemma a hand in the ballroom?’

‘What sort of hand?’

Any sort of hand you want to offer, Jodie thought.

‘Just clearing it out. Bit of muscle with the bigger stuff.’

Pavel frowned. ‘Not like you to need a big strong guy to help with the heavy lifting.’

‘I’m doing cake decorating with a baby shower but, yeah, actually I’m not feeling a hundred per cent.’

Jodie hadn’t noticed that her boss was under the weather. That was typical. Jodie didn’t notice things. She didn’t take care. She didn’t think. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. Just keep having these mad waves of nausea. I threw up yesterday morning, but I was fine after.’

Veronica and Flinty exchanged a look.

‘Nausea?’ Veronica asked.

‘In the mornings you say?’ Flinty added.

‘What do you…’ Bella’s face froze. ‘Morning sickness? No. I mean, it can’t. I mean…’ She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened the calendar app. ‘Oh.’

‘Hello!’ Forty minutes later a voice carried through the castle to the yellow room, where Jodie was squashed onto the sofa between Flinty and Darcy, while Veronica was sitting neatly on the wing-backed chair near the fire and Bella paced up and down along the full length of the room.

Pavel was standing quietly by the door, having tried to make his excuses several times and been instructed to stay right where he was by everyone from Veronica down.

Finally a body associated with the voice appeared in the doorway.

The woman was in her thirties, wrapped in a bright pink coat over jeans, cherry-red Doc Martens, a head of hair that looked entirely uncontrollable and, Jodie noted, a dog collar.

This must be Pavel’s famous vicar. She stopped in the doorway when she saw him. ‘Oh. Pav.’

And then she looked up.

‘Oh. And everyone. I didn’t realise this was a group activity.’

‘Did you get it?’

Jill nodded, and pulled a small carrier bag from the capacious pocket of her coat.

‘And not from the village shop?’ Bella asked.

‘Straight out of the vestry.’

Jodie was as confused as she’d ever been. ‘You keep pregnancy tests in your vestry?’

‘Yep. Imagine being a young lass round here who’s worried. Buy one of these in the village shop, or even in Lochcarron, your dad’ll know before you’ve even got it home. And there’s not a chemist until…’ She frowned.