Recipe for Love

CHAPTER Eighteen





ZOE SLEPT LATE the following morning. She had woken once in the early hours, and realised it was Gideon’s car that had disturbed her. Sadness washed over her again, but her long day meant she didn’t stay awake for long and awoke again after nine. She showered and then went up to the house.

The kitchen was full of bustle and noise. The news of the baby had leaked into the ether and half the neighbourhood seemed to have arrived to wish Rupert joy. His parents, seated at the table with mountains of bacon and eggs in front of them, seemed far less bossy and imposing than they had the night before.

‘Morning!’ she said when she could make herself heard among the half-dozen people seated at the table. Only three of them were eating breakfast, but they all had mugs of something in front of them.

‘Zoe! Sweetheart!’ said Rupert, getting up and engulfing Zoe in his cashmere sweater. ‘Everyone! This is Zoe! She’s staying to help with the baby for a bit.’

In among the ‘hello, Zoe’s Zoe heard Rupert’s father say, ‘I thought she was staff, not Rupert’s bit on the side.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said his mother. ‘He wouldn’t let her in the house if he was sleeping with her.’

Glad no one else seemed to have heard this, Zoe pulled up a chair and accepted a large mug of something put into her hand by a smiling Rupert. It turned out to be coffee. The lovely warm atmosphere of the kitchen softened the blow of Gideon’s departure at little. If nothing else Zoe felt she’d made real friends here.

‘So you’re in that cookery competition they’ve had here?’ asked a friendly woman sitting next to Zoe. ‘I don’t know how you cook in front of the cameras. I’d turn into a heap of nerves and drop everything.’

‘It’s like that to begin with but you forget the cameras frighteningly quickly,’ said Zoe.

‘Well, rather you than me,’ said the woman, shaking her head and pushing back her chair. ‘Rupert, I must go. Give my love to Fen and the baby. I’ll be over again the moment she gets here. But don’t let her have too many visitors, she’ll get exhausted.’ She sent a look up the table that was missed by Rupert’s parents but observed by everyone else.

‘I should go too,’ said almost everyone, and the big table was soon nearly empty, leaving only Rupert’s parents and Zoe. Rupert was showing people out.

Zoe got up and started gathering dishes as Rupert’s parents left the room.

She was about to check everything had been cleared from Fenella’s study when she realised it was occupied. Rupert’s mother was having a few words with her son.

‘Darling, I know you have all these bolshie ideas about how to treat servants but really and truly they need to know their place! They feel comfortable with that! God knows what Winterbotham would have done if we’d used his Christian name! Had forty fits, that’s what.’

Zoe had to listen although she knew perfectly well she shouldn’t.

Rupert was amused, she could tell, and wondered if his mother could too. ‘Mater! Zoe is not Winterbotham! She’s a dear friend who is helping out! She’s not a servant.’

‘Well, she was putting on quite a creditable impression of one yesterday!’

Zoe nodded smugly.

‘Although that spinach she served with dinner was a little odd. I didn’t know you grew spinach and strange to have it at this time of year.’

Zoe could hear the frown of confusion in her voice.

‘You know, Ma, I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Rupert.

‘Typical man, never remotely interested in the garden. But what I’m saying is, if you keep your distance with her, she’ll be really quite useful. But this “all friends together” nonsense is just that! – nonsense!’

‘But if I treated her as a servant I’d have to pay her,’ said Rupert.

Zoe stiffened. She couldn’t take money from Rupert and Fenella, not unless she had a proper job with them.

‘Oh, she’s free, is she? In which case, my darling, forget I ever spoke!’

Zoe went back to the kitchen. So Rupert’s mother was mean as well as demanding. Poor, poor Fen!

Rupert was adamant that Zoe did her own thing after breakfast, at least until he had got the kitchen tidy. So, after a brisk walk to clear her head, she sat down at her laptop in the cowshed and started researching recipes. But eventually she accepted that she couldn’t concentrate; all she seemed able to do was think about Gideon. She couldn’t decide if Gideon really liked her – in a long-term, meaningful way – or if she was just a convenient armful. How she wished they had had another night together. If they’d been together for longer she might have learnt more about him. When they were together she felt so sure of him, but when he wasn’t there doubts rushed in. Doubts that said she was mad to be with him when she’d been warned against him and knew for herself she was risking her heart.

She got up from her computer and went back to the house. There’d be loads to do there. She was doing no good sitting on her own, dreaming.

Rupert insisted on roasting a joint of beef for supper, getting it ready before he went to visit Fenella and the baby.

‘So how’s Fen liking it in hospital?’ asked Zoe, wrapping up the paper of potato peelings and putting them in the compost.

‘She says everyone is brilliant but she’s homesick,’ he explained, dusting half a cow with mustard and flour. ‘She wants me to buy chocolates or something as a thank-you for the staff.’

‘I could make cupcakes, if that would be any good. The nurses probably get quite a lot of chocolates. Cupcakes would be a change.’ It would also keep her busy.

‘Oh Zoe, I couldn’t ask you to do that!’ said Rupert.

Interpreting this as a ‘yes please’ Zoe said, ‘You didn’t ask, I offered. And I’m very happy to make some. There are cases and things left over from the wedding.’ She paused. ‘It’ll give me something to do in between bell-answering duties.’

Rupert gave her a look of embarrassment mixed with despair. ‘I know! I’m so sorry! I have explained but they don’t understand that you’re a friend and not a servant.’

‘It’s fine, really it is! It’s quite funny actually, and I like trying to second guess their requirements and make them happy.’

‘You’re a star.’ Rupert closed the oven door behind the joint.

‘And as such, would you like me to pick some more coltsfoot? It went down OK yesterday. Or will they object to having the same vegetable twice in succession?’

‘Frankly, I’d give ’em peas and beans and to hell with the farting!’

Then Rupert gave her a hard squeeze and a kiss on the cheek before going off to see his wife and daughter.