Authors: Marita Conlon-McKenna
She tested the sludge. It tasted burnt, and on closer inspection some of the meat was tough and blackened. Maybe it was their fan oven that did it. Was it too hot and burning the bejesus out of everything? God, what a mess! Better destroy the evidence before Matt got home, she thought, and getting the wooden spoon she began to scrape it all into the bin. She’d soak the pot, even though it looked like it could take days before the stain from the brown mess would wash off. Then she’d pop it into a bucket and throw a tea towel or two on top of it to hide the incriminating evidence. Maybe she should have phoned her mam and got her recipe for the beef stew she always made. The big pot of her mam’s concoction of meat and vegetables was a constant feature on the stove in the small red-bricked house on Riverfield Grove where she had grown up. The stew tasted even better by day two or three than when it was first served. It was almost like a soup by the time they all polished it off and got her mam to make a new pot. How did her mam do it? Turn out edible
meal after meal? Kerrie certainly hadn’t inherited her mother’s talent for cooking.
She gave a quick tidy around and retrieved the packet of beef bourguignon from the freezer. Polly’s Pantry, their local delicatessen, provided a huge array of their own chilled and frozen meals that could be easily reheated.
Kerrie pulled the beef dish from its wrapper and packaging and reheated it in the microwave, turning it into one of her beautiful blue oven dishes. Then she poured in a drop of red wine from the open bottle on the counter before giving it a final touch by sprinkling on a few bits of red onion and some chopped parsley. It really looked homemade, she thought proudly, before popping it into her oven and hiding all the packaging in the bin.
She loved Matt; loved to hear the sound of his key in the door, his heavy footsteps on the floor, the smell of his aftershave, the steady rhythm of his breath as he pulled her close to him. Matt was the man she truly loved, her other half, her better half, her fiancé. He was so kind and good and intelligent, and she still couldn’t believe that in only a few months’ time she would be married to tall dark handsome Matt, and would be Mrs Kerrie Hennessy!
She was busy on the internet when Matt returned home.
‘Hey, that smells good!’ he said, smiling and kissing her.
‘It’ll be ready in a few mins,’ she warned, ‘so why don’t you get out of your suit and change?’
She watched proudly as Matt tucked into the beef. Everything looked perfect: their oak table and brown leather
table mats, their white plates with the ripple design and their modern glassware. The mixed leaves were in an expensive hand-turned salad bowl and the rice in a Stephen Pearse bowl.
‘Thanks,’ Matt said, raising his glass of wine to her as if she had performed some great feat. ‘It’s delish. Maybe you should cook this the next time we have Justin and Lindsey over. We haven’t had anyone to dinner for ages. I’ll set something up.’
‘Sure.’ She smiled. ‘That would be fun.’
‘We’ll get a few good bottles of wine in, and some beers, too, since we’ve lots to talk about.’
Kerrie nodded. Matt’s best friend Justin was going to be his best man. He and Lindsey had got married the previous year in a big wedding in the Mount Glenn Hotel in Wicklow, a complete contrast to the small exclusive wedding she and Matt were planning in the South of France, with only thirty or so people attending.
‘Hey, is there any more of the beef left?’ asked Matt, looking hopeful.
‘Sure,’ she said, scooping the last of the beef out on to his plate. As she watched him polish off a second helping, she made a mental note to cook at least five packs of Polly’s Pantry beef if there were four of them eating.
‘I’m such a lucky guy,’ he said, snaking his arm around her waist and pulling her on to his lap. ‘Meeting a girl like you, and then getting to marry her.’
Kerrie buried her face in his shoulder. She loved him. Loved him madly! Meeting Matt had been the best thing ever that had happened to her, too. He’d transformed her life … changed it totally.
‘And you are such a good cook, too!’
She blushed. Lies! Lies! Lies! How had she got herself into this? How much longer could she go on pretending to Matt to be someone she wasn’t?
Rob had taken great care cooking the piece of steak he’d bought in the butchers, the potatoes were almost done, and he had tilted a pack of a fancy-looking ready-made salad into a bowl. He’d have liked a few onions fried with the meat, or some of that lovely pepper sauce Kate used to make with their steaks. How hard could it be to do a few onions and make a sauce?
He was keeping a weather eye on
Sky Sports
in the next room for the rugby results when the smoke alarm sounded. He ran straight back into the kitchen, flinging the frying pan with the burning steak and onions off the hob. The small saucepan he’d put the peppercorns and flour and butter into now held an unappetizing porridgy dough.
‘Shit!’ he said, opening the window to get rid of the smell.
The alarm stopped. He scraped the blackened onions off the meat, and lifted the saucepan of potatoes off the hob and drained them. Overcooked! He searched to see if there was some sort of masher thing that would complete the process.
He’d been looking forward to the steak and grabbed the newspaper to read as he swallowed a few mouthfuls. It was not what he’d expected. No matter what he did, nothing he
put on this confounded fancy hob and oven that Kate had chosen when they put in a new kitchen five years ago seemed to come out properly. Getting the temperature spot on was a lot harder than it looked, and Kate had made it all appear so effortless. He accurately followed recipes step by step, and yet nothing seemed to turn out the way it should. He took another bite of the dried-out toughened beef. It was disgusting and, giving up, he cut it into bite-sized pieces and went across and tipped it into Bingo’s bowl. The dog lumbered over excitedly to claim another of Rob’s culinary disasters.
Rob phoned the Bamboo Garden, his local takeaway, and ordered his usual fillet of beef with ginger and scallions and some rice.
He was watching the golf on TV when Gary from the takeaway delivered his order.
‘The usual.’ Gary grinned, passing him the brown paper bag. ‘Plus you get two small tubs of ice cream … chocolate whirl and a toffee one.’
‘I didn’t order any ice cream.’
‘No … but if you order a takeaway more than three times in the one week you get ice cream compliments of the Bamboo Garden,’ Gary explained, as Rob paid him.
He sat reading the newspaper as he ate. Afterwards he polished off the two tubs of ice cream. He debated watching another rerun of
CSI
or
Law and Order
or slipping down to his local in Monkstown for a pint. The lure of his local pub midweek was hard to resist.
The first few weeks after Kate’s death Rob had found himself opening bottles of wine and drinking Scotch whisky when he
was alone here in the house at night. It might have numbed the pain and loneliness to sit slumped on the couch with a good malt or fine Bordeaux, but he knew it was something that could not continue. So he had set himself a maxim for the past four weeks: not to drink on his own in the house midweek. If he had someone in, some company, fine, otherwise he had to go out. Turning off the TV he grabbed his jacket and set off for Goggins. The night was chilly, and he pulled on a scarf and gloves. Kate and he used to walk regularly down to the pub to meet friends or just to have a drink on their own. He’d taken those times so much for granted. He was passing along by Martello Avenue when he saw the simple sign attached to the garden railings of the red-bricked house with the green-painted door and the tubs of purple heather. Curious, he stopped.
Rob stopped and read the notice. It seemed like just what he was looking for. He wouldn’t dream of attending one of those expensive fancy cookery courses advertised in the back of the
Irish Times
or mentioned by the food writers and critics, but this was literally down the road from where he lived. He put the number in his phone. Perhaps he’d phone tomorrow and find out the details from this Kinsella woman. He wasn’t
looking to be a gourmet cook or that kind of nonsense, he just needed to be able to cook a few dishes, learn about preparation and make something decent to eat. Cooking was a necessity, and he had to learn how to do it if he was to manage living on his own. Rob knew that he couldn’t depend on the Bamboo Garden and Tesco and M&S microwaveable meals for ever. He was getting bored by the limited menu and was realistic enough to know that despite his reluctance he had to learn to cook!
The bar was quiet, only a few regulars in attendance, and Rob ordered a pint and sat up at the counter. Jimmy, the barman, made small talk with him about the weather and asked if he had been watching the golf. He noticed old Bill Deering sitting only a few places from him. He was a contrary old geezer and lived about eight doors away from Rob. Bill had been annoyed by the kitchen extension Rob and Kate had put in a few years ago, even though he was in no way affected by the bright, sunny one-storey space. He seemed to enjoy being difficult, and had lodged an official objection with the council. Kate had been furious at the time, and had invited him in for a cup of coffee so she could show him the plans and explain how little effect the extension would have on neighbouring properties and dispel his fears, but Bill had refused to budge. Still, he had come to her funeral.
Bill’s wife Nora had died about ten years ago, and despite regular rumours that he would sell up and downsize he hadn’t made the expected move to an apartment or a townhouse. He had four children, including a daughter in Cork and a son who was married and lived on the other side of the city.
‘Good evening, Bill,’ Rob said, nodding.
‘How are you?’ asked his seventy-year-old neighbour.
‘I’m fine,’ Rob said, taking a slow sip of his beer.
‘I’m fine, too,’ said Bill. ‘Fine, fine, fine.’
Alarmed by the tone in his voice, Rob glanced over at him. The barman was busy unpacking glasses from the under-the-counter dishwasher. Grabbing his beer glass Rob moved his seat down the bar and sat in beside Bill.
‘Everyone says the same thing every bloody time you meet them … you must be finding that,’ Bill said truculently.
Rob had to admit it was true. Friends, family, work colleagues and neighbours all greeted him constantly with the same concerned tones whenever he met them or even dealt with them on the phone. He welcomed their support at the moment, but it was as if he had become a new person in their eyes: a man to be pitied … a widower … a loner.
‘Nora will be dead ten years in August. You know we were married forty years. Ruby, they call it, for sticking out that much time together. Nothing’s the same without her.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rob.
‘Your wife was a nice person,’ Bill ruminated, staring into his glass. ‘She made a lovely carrot cake.’
‘So you tasted it?’
‘Had it the day I was in your house.’
‘Yeah, Kate was a great cook, a great wife,’ Rob said. ‘I miss her every day.’
‘My Nora was the best wife a man could have. I don’t know how she put up with me, to tell the truth.’
Rob burst out laughing, recalling the reputation of the puckish man with the white shock of hair and tweed jacket sitting beside him.
‘Here’s to the women,’ toasted Bill. ‘The both of them!’
Rob bought Bill another pint of Guinness and ordered another beer for himself. Bill might seem a contrary old character but he wasn’t bad company, and loved to talk about the past.
‘Our generation went through tough times, with emigration and unemployment. Nora and I had to live with our in-laws before we saved enough to get a home of our own. It was a little box of a place, and we lived there for eight years till we got on our feet,’ Bill explained. ‘Work was what it was about. No one particularly liked their jobs, or did what they wanted to do. You were just glad to be able to earn a wage, put food on the table, keep the roof over your head and pay your bills. That’s what it was all about in the old days. Not like the kids nowadays, with their fancy jobs and cars and houses and holidays. They want too much! Is it any wonder the country is in the state it’s in?’
‘I think most people still want to be able to take care of their family,’ Rob argued. ‘That hasn’t changed, but now they also want to work at something they consider worthwhile.’
‘Jobs are scarce!’ Bill sighed. ‘It’s a shame to see the best educated lads and lassies in the country all bound for Canada and Australia, and the like. Reminds me of the fifties and sixties: my three younger brothers went to Liverpool and Manchester. Settled there, and never came back except on holidays. I had to stay put, as Nora and I were starting a family and she wanted us to get a place of our own.’
‘My two boys are both overseas.’ Rob found himself telling Bill about Gavin and Luke. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure either of them will ever come home.’
‘What a shame!’ said Bill sympathetically. ‘At least our four
might be a bit scattered, but I get to see them regular enough. The girls boss me no end. Grainne wants me to sell up here and move down to Cork where she lives. What would I be doing in Cork, I ask you! She means well but I’ve no intention of leaving my home. Emer is into wholefood and has me plagued with feeding me nuts and lentils and beans and bloody muesli. It gives me wind! She’s a teacher living in Wicklow, and she and her husband are big into healthy living. The two boys are married: Eamon’s in Clontarf and Kevin’s in Waterford. I’ve twelve grandchildren so far. Nora, Lord rest her, would have been chuffed with them all.’
Rob, holding his glass, felt envious of the other man, who at least had his family and their offspring around him, compared to the awful loneliness he was presently enduring.