A Taste for Love Read online

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Do you like cooking, Lucy?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so. I’ve always liked making stuff, and seeing it turn out all right. I get a kick out of it. Though there are only a handful of things I cook. I usually end up sticking to the same old recipes: like pasta and curry for my friends, or burgers, fried chicken or sausages at home. I wouldn’t mind learning how to make some new things, and how to do them properly.’

  ‘My aim is to take some wonderful dishes that are tasty and well-presented. And teach a selection: ones that are simple to cook and others that are a bit more complicated, but definitely have the wow factor. Especially if you are having a dinner party. Good food is really what matters, whether you’re cooking for one or for fifty people!’

  ‘Are you just going to demonstrate how to make things?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Oh no. I’ll show everyone, but then they’ve got to turn around and make the dish themselves. It’s the only way to learn.’

  ‘I guess so, because Mum and I are always watching MasterChef and all those kind of programmes, but we can’t really make any of the things.’

  ‘Cooking is hands-on.’ Alice laughed. ‘And that is what these classes are all going to be about. The course will start after the New Year and run for sixteen weeks, and costs 320 euros which works out at twenty euros a night.’

  ‘It sounds great. I’d love to do something different. I don’t know if Mum told you, but the music store I worked in closed down.’

  ‘Yes, I was sorry to hear about it,’ Alice said gently. ‘There seems to be so much changing at the moment, and your generation is taking the brunt of it. It must be hard for you.’

  Lucy nodded.

  ‘Change is always awful. We humans aren’t very good at it. Most of the time we want to curl up and hide and pretend it’s not happening to us, get our lives back the way they were … though sometimes that’s just not possible … we can’t go back … can’t turn back time no matter how much we want to … we have to go forward.’

  Lucy was thoughtful, nibbling at a circle of biscuit.

  ‘So, Lucy, that’s what I’m doing … with this school … going forward. Trying something new, and hoping that the people who come along to learn will enjoy it, too.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ said Lucy. ‘I’d love to give it a try, if that’s OK, Alice.’

  ‘I’d love to have you.’ Alice laughed. ‘You’re the seventh person on my list.’

  ‘Can I pay you by the week?’ Lucy asked. ‘I’m not working at the moment, and I don’t want Mum or Dad forking out for this. I want to pay it myself, if that’s OK with you?’

  ‘Of course, Lucy, love, whatever suits you.’

  As Alice watched Lucy walk down the path she had to admire the young girl. It would be a pleasure to teach Nina’s daughter how to cook.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alice could feel the tension slip away from her after only twenty-four hours in Wexford, staying in Joy’s house near the beach. The place was practically deserted, and Alice loved to sit in the big cushioned window seat watching the constantly changing seascape. Joy and Malcolm had bought the house only twelve years ago, and nowadays Joy spent as much time as she could there. There was no traffic, no crowds, no stress, no rush, only water, sand, fresh air and lots of quiet – which was exactly what Alice needed.

  ‘Come down and chill out after Christmas … you’re welcome to spend New Year in Curracloe with me if you want,’ Joy had offered.

  This Christmas had been a lot easier than the disastrous one last year, when Alice and the kids had toughed it out at home. She had spurned offers to go to her brother’s house for Christmas Day. She wanted to keep the bloody tradition, even if it made her miserable. She’d cooked the usual huge turkey and ham and all the trimmings, and remembered feeling she would choke on the turkey meat as she tried to pretend everything was normal, when it totally wasn’t! She had spent St Stephen’s Day sobbing upstairs alone in the bedroom, cursing Liam and blaming him for destroying her life, destroying Christmas!

  This year had been very different: she and Jenny and Sean had spent Christmas with her brother Tim and his wife Patsy and Erin, her dad Barry joining them there, too. Conor and Lisa had gone down to Cork to Lisa’s parents. Alice had brought along a baked ham and a pudding and her Christmas sherry trifle, and had never imagined that she could have had such a relaxed and easy Christmas Day. The day had started with Christmas drinks next door at Molly and Jack’s, with no worries as she wasn’t on duty cooking, then her dad had collected her, Jenny and Sean, and driven them to Rathgar, where Tim and Patsy had served up a fabulous Christmas feast. They’d stayed over that night and she hadn’t got to bed till all hours as Tim and herself and her dad had reminisced about their childhood. The next day Jenny and Sean had been invited to have dinner with Liam and Elaine in their apartment.

  ‘Go!’ she had told them. ‘I’m fine here with Tim and Patsy and Erin. We’ve a mound of food to get through.’

  Joy had invited her to come to Wexford after Christmas.

  ‘Beth’s on duty all over the New Year in St Vincent’s Hospital. You know what it’s like – the young trainee nurses get all the worst shifts – so I’ve no intention of staying on in Dublin on my own.’

  Alice had accepted, glad to escape to the seaside. The kids had their own post-Christmas and New Year plans, catching up with friends that were home from London and Canada for the holidays. Jenny was heading back to Galway for New Year, and Sean and a few of the lads were renting a house in Lahinch.

  So Alice had packed her bag and brought the dog with her, looking forward to the lazy days ahead and long walks on the beach, and the utter heaven of being away from it all. Lexy had jumped out of the car the minute they arrived and run down across the sand to the water’s edge, barking at the tide.

  ‘Well, she’s happy to be here.’ Joy laughed, welcoming them both.

  The beach house was bright and cosy. The logs in the wood-burning stove gave great heat, which warmed the pine kitchen and snug sitting room with its stunning view of the whole bay. Joy and she were content to read and relax most days, watching the changing colours of the sea below, the shifting tides and water birds and the small boats that skimmed along.

  Going out for a walk along the sand, they muffled up with fleeces and woolly hats and scarves as they braved the chill winds and cold and enjoyed the bracing sea air. They walked for miles.

  ‘Joy, thanks for being such a good friend, especially since the whole thing with Liam.’

  ‘Any contact with him over Christmas?’

  ‘Not a word. Though he made the kids have dinner with him and Elaine on St Stephen’s Day.’

  ‘Awkward?’

  ‘He is their dad, and they have to get over this and keep their relationship with him, and, I suppose, maybe build one with Elaine – whether I like it or not.’

  ‘Men are so bloody odd!’

  ‘Talking about men, what about Fergus? What’s happening between you? How come you’re down here on the beach with me instead of celebrating the New Year with him?’

  ‘Fergus is great. Honest, he’s a good man, probably one of the most decent that I’ve met. But he’s gone to Brussels for Christmas. His daughter and her husband live there, and he’s spending the holidays with them. They just had a baby boy, so he was dying to see his new grandson. He’ll be back next week, and we’ll get together then. Just because he’s divorced doesn’t mean he hasn’t family commitments. It’s good to see that he’s close to his kids and is on pretty good terms with his ex-wife, which is kind of freaky.’

  ‘Well, I’m dying to meet the guy who has put a sparkle back in your eyes,’ teased Alice, the wind catching her as they walked a further few miles.

  Over the next few days there were late breakfasts-cum-brunches and simple, uncomplicated meals.

  ‘No one is wasting their time cooking!’ warned Joy. ‘You’ll be sick of it when you’re trying to teach your new students how to c
ook.’

  ‘I’m nervous about it,’ Alice admitted, ‘but I’m also excited! Teaching a group of strangers how to cook is a bit of a challenge, but if I can pass on my love of food and making it and creating dishes, I guess I’ll be happy! I can’t believe that already I have nine people signed up. I just need one more to have my ten.’

  ‘You don’t start till the nineteenth of January, so I’m sure you’ll have somebody signed up by then,’ assured Joy as they walked the beach.

  *

  ‘Joy, I can’t believe that I’ve actually got through a second Christmas and almost a second New Year without Liam,’ Alice said. ‘This time last year everything was so fecking awful, and I was so scared about everything, thinking: how could I possibly face anything without him? I was so depressed. Some days I wished Liam had died. Being a widow must be easier than just getting dumped. It drives me crazy to think of Liam not only living about three miles away from me with bloody Elaine, but the two of them in bed, or watching TV, having breakfast or shopping; his life just going on.’

  ‘That will pass,’ Joy promised, ‘honestly it will. Eventually you genuinely start to forget about him. And he’ll mean less and less to you.’

  ‘I hope so!’

  ‘The New Year after Malcolm and I separated Beth went to stay with him in London for a few days. It was awful. I was on my own. I came down here and sat and moped and felt really miserable. I got utterly pissed … drinking on your own is never a good idea, and I remember this desperate urge I had to stop everything that was going on … I wanted to swim. The beach was deserted.’

  ‘Joy?’

  ‘I know … I swam out and it was bloody freezing … I went out as far as I could up to my neck … I just wanted the pain of it all to end … I was up to my neck with water … I could taste the salt water in my mouth and nose and my throat, and then suddenly I thought of Beth … Beth having to live in England with Malcolm and Linda. And of my mum, and my sister and brother and their families, and I bloody well got sense and turned around. I remember a wave catching me and throwing me off my feet, and thinking … I’m going to drown! And panicking, and frantically trying to get my breath back and stand and save myself. Somehow I managed to wade in. I was so cold, I thought I’d die of hypothermia. Somehow I must have crawled back up to the house, and I was crying and blubbing and so happy that I was OK. I remember stripping off and wrapping myself in the duvet and sitting in front of the fire, and even though I was alone, thinking: this is the best New Year ever … I can begin again.’

  ‘I’d no idea,’ Alice said, stopping in her tracks and hugging Joy. ‘Absolutely no idea.’

  ‘I suppose I didn’t want to talk about it. I remember I almost got pneumonia out of it. I told everyone I’d got the flu. And you all fussed about me, and my sister Maria insisted on coming to stay and minding me till I felt better.’

  ‘Promise me, no more crazy swims!’ said Alice, a shiver going through her as she took in the strength of the waves and the isolation of the beach on a cold winter’s day.

  ‘Alice, I love life too much … every day is special … and I know it. Now, come on, let’s head back and heat up some soup … I’m flipping freezing and my toes are going numb.’

  ‘The Sound of Music is on TV this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, we can’t miss that!’

  On New Year’s Eve they debated walking to the local pub for a few drinks and some pub grub, but instead opted for staying in and feasting on Joy’s legendary spicy chicken curry with all the trimmings.

  ‘Alice, go and check … I’m sure there’s a packet of poppadums in the cupboard, and some chutney in the back of the fridge from Halloween! Let’s hope that they’ve not gone out of date!’

  ‘Two weeks to go, so we’re fine.’ Alice beamed as she set the table and tried not to interfere with what Joy was doing.

  ‘Wow, that’s hot,’ she declared thirty minutes later when they sat down to eat, two candles setting their shadows dancing on the wall, the sound of the sea outside in the darkness. Thank heaven for the chilled beer they’d bought in the local off-licence. The curry was hot … really hot … Joy had been a bit heavy-handed with the chillies and curry spices, but it was good.

  ‘That’s the way I like it,’ Joy insisted, wiping her eyes on her tea towel as she filled two huge glasses with iced water for them.

  Afterwards they curled up on the two armchairs with a bottle of wine, happy in each other’s company, while Lexy snored softly on the floor.

  ‘Did I tell you Malcolm is getting married again?’

  Alice didn’t know what to say. Joy rarely mentioned her ex.

  ‘Apparently he’s dumped the lovely Linda and his two boys, and is now madly in love with a Russian girl called Sylvia. Poor eejit to get involved with the likes of him!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Joy.’

  ‘Don’t be! Malcolm’s ancient history! As far as I’m concerned the only good things Malcolm ever did were to father Beth, and, I suppose, agree to buy this place.’

  ‘It’s a great house,’ said Alice, raising her glass.

  ‘I fell in love with it the minute I saw it, even though it was pretty trashed, with peeling paint and broken windows. And it was a horrible yellow-beige colour with high windows and a disgusting bathroom and grey concrete patio. Malcolm kept saying he wasn’t sure we needed a holiday house, but I talked him into it, insisting it was a bargain, and would be a great place for the summer and weekends, as it was only an hour and a half from Dublin. I suppose I imagined long hot sunny days here on the beach with my husband and a few kids around, my own mini-Kennedy compound.’

  ‘You were lucky to find it!’ laughed Alice.

  ‘OK, I didn’t exactly get the rounders team on the lawn and the happy family set-up, but it’s always been such a special place to me. I guess that’s why I dug my heels in and refused to let Malcolm sell this place when we split up. It was bad enough having to give up that lovely old house in Ranelagh and downsizing to Shankill with Beth.’

  ‘You’ve a nice house,’ soothed Alice.

  ‘I know, it’s fine, but having this place to escape to is my sanity saver. OK, I need to rent it out during the holiday season to pay the mortgage, but the rest of the year it’s mine, my retreat from the big bad world and what is going on there.’

  ‘And mine, too,’ agreed Alice.

  ‘You know you can always come down here if you want to get away, Alice … just hop in the car and drive here if things get too much for you. I’m serious.’

  ‘Hey, it’s getting late!’ warned Alice, noticing the clock. ‘We’re coming up to twelve.’

  ‘I’ll open another bottle of wine. We’re not going to sit here with empty glasses ringing in the New Year.’

  ‘Looks like someone is having a party in the big bungalow further down the beach.’

  ‘That’s the Reynolds. I saw some of the kids earlier today around the place. They always have great parties.’

  ‘Hey, they’ve got fireworks.’

  Alice and Joy went outside to watch as the fireworks banged and lit up the darkness, rockets and Catherine wheels and giant snakes of vivid colour flashing and whizzing across the sky. They hugged each other when the local church bell rang out midnight and some of the ships at sea began to sound their horns.

  ‘Happy New Year!’ said Joy. ‘Here’s to us!’

  ‘Happy New Year!’

  Alice texted all her family, wishing them good things for the year ahead, and Beth managed to sneak a phone call to Joy, while the ward sister was busy with a patient.

  ‘Poor Beth, the hospital casualty is already full of drunks!’ Joy laughed.

  ‘She’s a wonderful nurse, so like you, and good with people.’

  ‘But with a strong stomach. You know me. I faint at the sight of blood, whereas Beth is always cool and calm in a crisis. I suppose she gets it from Malcolm!’ Joy paused, noticing Alice was reading a text. ‘So what’s Liam doing for the New Year?’

  ‘Th
e kids say he and Elaine have gone skiing to Austria.’

  ‘I thought he had no money?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Alice shrugged. To be honest she didn’t really care too much what Liam did any more.

  As the fireworks died down they went back inside.

  ‘Resolutions?’ quizzed Joy. ‘Have you got any?’

  ‘Well, obviously I really want to make a success out of my little cookery school, perhaps even grow it!’ Alice admitted. ‘The other thing is to try not to bad-mouth Liam in front of the kids. What about you?’

  ‘I’m certainly not giving up bad-mouthing Malcolm, because he so deserves it! No, my New Year’s resolution is to try to be kinder to everyone and to slow down and listen before I jump in to talk.’

  ‘What about Fergus?’ pressed Alice.

  ‘Well, I suppose I need to give him a chance. He gets on great with Beth, which is the important thing, and it’s nice to have someone in my life again …’ Joy raised her glass. ‘Enough about me. Here’s to you and your cookery school,’ she toasted.

  ‘And here’s to us!’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Are you going to be OK, Mum?’ Tessa asked, fussing around Florence Sullivan upstairs in the bedroom before she left. ‘I won’t be too long at my cookery class, and if you need me my phone will be on.’

  ‘Honestly, Tessa, will you stop all the worrying and go and leave me in peace? I want to watch EastEnders, and then that new detective programme on BBC. I’m quite capable of being left on my own at night, you know!’

  ‘I know,’ Tessa apologized, giving her elderly mother a hug while secretly checking that the portable phone was beside her bed, and that her personal alarm was on, and that she had a drink nearby, and that there was nothing that she could fall over underfoot.

  Outside, as she pulled on her jacket and grabbed her car keys, Tessa Sullivan asked herself how she had become such a fusspot, constantly worried about her mother and what might happen to her! It had been two years since her mother Florence had suffered a heart attack and fallen down the stairs here at home. She’d given them all such a fright, and Tessa could remember racing through Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 1 with tears racing down her face as she tried to catch the last Aer Lingus flight back to Dublin from London that night. Her brother Donal had come back from San Francisco, and her sister Marianne had arrived from Hong Kong.