Free The Good Plain Cook by Bethan Roberts Page A

forte?’ asked Geenie.
    ‘It’s like a special talent, darling, like you and dressing up.’
    ‘Or drawing,’ said Geenie. ‘That’s my forte, isn’t it, Ellen?’
    She looked up then, hopefully, and Ellen conceded, ‘That too.’
    ‘My mother’s forte is dancing,’ said Diana. ‘What’s yours?’
    ‘Mine?’ Ellen asked. The may blossom flashed past as she bit her lip. She couldn’t very well say sex. My forte is fucking your daddy .
    ‘I should say it’s helping people. Making them happy and comfortable.’
    Diana looked confused. ‘Isn’t that what servants are for?’
    Ellen turned into a slip road rather too fast and a man on a tractor shook his fist at her. ‘Ellen’s concentrating, darling.’
    Of course, Diana’s mother probably had lots of fortes. It had been a short meeting, for which Ellen was glad. Lillian had
     worn a mint green hat like a miniature meringue, and a green short jacket with mother-of-pearl buttons. Her eyebrows were
     heavily plucked. But, Ellen had noticed, she looked old for her twenty-eight years. Perhaps all that dancing took it out of
     you. And Lillian’s legs – the part Ellen had glimpsed beneath her fish-tail calf-length skirt – looked no better than her
     own. She’d greeted her brightly enough, but had looked at her watch when Ellen suggested tea at Willow Cottage, which she’d
     done on a whim, really, suddenly interested to see how Crane would react to seeing the two women together.
    And now here was this girl, thankfully much more like her father than her mother – big brown eyes, a straight, strong nose,
     prominent cheekbones – but when she closed her mouth, her lips were Lillian’s: large and slightly bunched together, as if
     she had plenty to say, but couldn’t quite bring herself to the bother of letting it out.
    ‘What do you like?’ Geenie asked Diana.
    Ellen had almost forgotten Geenie was in the car. It was strange how her daughter did that, seemed to disappear under her
     cloud of blonde hair. She’d done it since she was small, her chin receding first, her eyes dropping to the ground, then her
     shoulders sagging forward, until her face was almost entirely covered by hair. It was what had made James call her ‘Flossy’.
     When she decided to make her presence felt with a scream or a tantrum, it was all the more shocking. Ellen remembered the
     time she and James had been fighting, and neither of them had known that Geenie was under the table until James threw a dish
     of hot beans at Ellen, and they’d splashed Geenie’s toes, making her yelp. They’d stopped, then, and spent the afternoon bathing
     the girl’s feet in a jug of iced water in the garden. That was in the early days, when such an event was still enough to stop
     them rowing.
    She turned into the drive of Willow Cottage.
    ‘Do you like dancing?’ Geenie asked the other girl.
    Diana shifted in her seat. ‘I’m still thinking,’ she said.
    ‘Thinking?’
    ‘About what I like.’
    Ellen stopped the car.
    ‘What do you like?’ Geenie asked again.
    ‘Come on, then, time to get out.’
    ‘What do you like?’
    ‘Reading,’ said Diana.
    ‘Oh,’ said Geenie.
    Ellen got out of the car and opened the door for the girls.
    ‘And dressing up,’ said Diana. ‘I like dressing up and being in plays.’
    . . . .
    Diana forked up her luncheon-meat salad with one hand. Unlike Geenie, who scattered crumbs and left mounds of lettuce untouched,
     Diana ate everything and left the plate clean. Then she went on to tackle Kitty’s apple pie, using her spoon like a knife
     to cut the pudding into even chunks before slowly chewing each piece.
    ‘Look at that, Flossy,’ said Ellen. ‘A good appetite, even for Kitty’s food.’
    Diana did not return Ellen’s beam, but Ellen pressed on regardless. ‘Good girl, Diana. Geenie picks at her food like I don’t
     know what. You’d think she ate between meals, but she doesn’t, do you, Flossy? No interest in food, is what I