Page 76 of A Recipe for Love
‘Great. That’ll give me time to do some nursery visits and catch up with Danny.’
Ravi nodded. ‘He’s been taking up a lot of slack the last few weeks.’
From the bags under Ravi’s eyes Adam guessed he wasn’t the only one. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault. Shit happens.’ Ravi stopped. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean your dad dying was shit. Well like obviously it is…’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Adam was more comfortable with Ravi’s unfiltered chat than with the hundreds of sympathetic head tilts and muttered ‘sorry for your losses’ he’d been receiving endlessly over the previous weeks. ‘Everything’ll be back to normal soon.’
Ravi nodded. ‘We can talk on Friday.’
The next morning Bella slipped out of bed early, and headed straight for the kitchen. Entirely unsurprisingly Flinty was there before her. ‘You’re up early,’ she noted.
‘I’m starting Operation Peace in Our Time.’
‘What?’
‘Peace in our time. Sorting out Darcy and Veronica.’
Flinty sucked the air in over her teeth. ‘You know that didn’t work, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘Peace in our time. It’s what Neville Chamberlain said right before World War Two broke out.’
She had not known that. ‘Well this will go better than that. Hopefully.’
Bella rolled up her sleeves. All the best endeavours in Bella’s life started in the kitchen. Today was baking. A lot of pro chefs hated baking. Pastry was notoriously one of the trickiest roles in the kitchen, rewarding precision and attention to detail, and being utterly temperamental to any change in temperature or humidity.
Proper baking – not fancy patisserie restaurant faff – was Bella’s first love. One of the few times her nan was ever still was in the kitchen, when she was concentrating on weighing out ingredients or folding batter into gentle fluffy clouds. The process of making a cake or a batch of biscuits still felt, to Bella, like home itself.
This recipe was one of the very first she’d learned and one that she still knew by heart. It was perfect in its simplicity. Flour, butter, sugar, rubbed together by hand and then pressed into a dough. A dash more flour on the worktop before she rolled her dough out into a thick, butter-hued disc. You could cut out shapes now, or fingers, but Bella preferred to shape the disc into a rough circle and chill the whole thing for a few minutes before scoring out wedge-shaped portions, dappling the surface with a fork and baking it as one huge biscuit to be broken up when it cooled.
As her shortbread round baked she opened her phone and scrolled through her email. Her nan was still staying with some Wiccan friends in Somerset, taking a lazy break after Glastonbury. They were planning to head to Cerne Abbas with one of the friends who wanted to sleep out a night on the giant as part of a fertility ritual. Nan joked that she thought she was old enough now to be able to risk it without consequence.
Bella smiled and tapped out a quick reply. ‘Still in Scotland…’ She hesitated. These two-line messages were a lifeline for both of them, but, not having mentioned it straight away, the size of the ‘I’m engaged to a Scottish baron’ elephant in the room was rapidly increasing.
She would visit. Once things were calmer here, and the next time her grandmother stayed in one place long enough to make a plan, she would take Adam to meet her in person. ‘Still staying on the West Coast.’ What else could she say?In a massive castle, or,With the hereditary baron of Lowbridgeseemed like additions that would need a lot of explanation. ‘My friend’s father died a few weeks ago,’ she added, ‘so things are a bit tricky but I’m trying to help. Tomorrow the world!’
‘That smells good.’ Bella looked up as Flinty broke the silence. She was right. The baking aroma that was filling the kitchen was warm and sweet and wonderful. ‘What are you making?’
‘Shortbread.’
Flinty smiled. ‘Risking a Scottish classic?’
Bella hadn’t thought about it like that, but she supposed Flinty was right. Shortbread always came in bright red tartan tins with bagpipers or Scottie dogs on them, didn’t it? ‘It was one of the first things I learned to make.’
‘Same here.’ Flinty started piling Bella’s baking things into the sink.
‘I can do those.’
‘It’s no bother.’ Flinty busied herself filling the bowl with water, planting herself firmly in front of the washing up. ‘You were cheffing when you met the lad?’
‘Yeah. I was working in his hotel in Malaga.’
‘Good trade. People will always need feeding.’ She had her hands plunged into the soapy water. ‘You’ll probably not want me under your feet in here then, will you?’ There was the hint of a catch in her voice. ‘Once you’re married and settled. I understand that. I’ll not get in your way.’
‘Oh. I mean…’ Bella wasn’t sure what to say. Everyone was very adamant that Flinty was retired, so wasn’t she around at the moment because they were having a crisis? That was what people did in a crisis wasn’t it? Chipped in. Brought around casseroles. Made sandwiches. Acted as unpaid housekeeper for weeks on end.
