Free The Private Patient by P. D. James Page A

Talk about bloody slow. Try to hurry her and she looks at you like a whipped puppy. Gets nervous and nine times out of ten spoils the whole bloody dish. And she affects the rest of you. Nicky and Winston are forever helping her to plate up. Most of the time, you’ve only got half your bloody mind on what you’re supposed to be doing. I’m running a restaurant, not a bloody kindergarten.”
    â€œKim’s a good cook, Mr. Carlos.”
    â€œOf course she’s a good cook. She wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t. She can go on being a good cook, but not here. Why not encourage her to stay at home? Get her pregnant, then you can go home to a decent meal you haven’t had to cook yourself, and she’ll be happier. I’ve seen it time and time again.”
    How could Carlos know that home was a bed-sitting room in Paddington, that this and the job were part of a carefully worked-out plan, the putting aside each week of Kim’s wages, the two of them working together, then, when the capital was sufficient, finding the restaurant? His restaurant. Their restaurant. And when they were established and she could be spared from the kitchen, there would be the baby she so longed for. She was only twenty-three; they had plenty of time.
    The news having been broken, Carlos had settled himself back, prepared to be magnanimous. “No point in Kimberley working out her notice. She may as well pack it in this week. I’ll pay her a month’s salary in lieu. You’ll stay on, of course. You’ve got the makings of a bloody good chef. You’ve got the skills, the imagination. You’re not afraid of hard work. You could go far. But another year of Kimberley in the kitchen and I’ll be bloody bankrupt.”
    Dean had found his voice, a cracked vibrato with its shaming note of entreaty. “We’ve always planned to work together. I don’t know that Kim would like to take a job on her own.”
    â€œShe wouldn’t last a bloody week on her own. Sorry, Dean, but there it is. You might find a place to take the two of you, but not in London. Some small town in the country, maybe. She’s a pretty lass, nice manners. Baking a few scones, home-made cakes, afternoon teas, nicely served with doilies, that kind of thing; that wouldn’t stress her.”
    The note of contempt in his voice had been like a slap across the face. Dean wished he wasn’t standing there unsupported, vulnerable, diminished, that there was a chair-back, something solid that he could grip to help control this surging tumult of anger, resentment and despair. But Carlos was right. That summons to the office hadn’t been unexpected. He had been dreading it for months. He made one more appeal. He said, “I’d like to stay on, at least until we find somewhere to go.”
    â€œSuits me. Haven’t I told you you’ve got the makings of a bloody good chef?”
    Of course he would stay on. The restaurant plan might be fading, but they had to eat.
    Kim had left at the end of the week, and it was two weeks later to the day that they saw the advertisement for a married couple—cook and assistant cook—at Cheverell Manor. The day of the interview had been a Tuesday in mid-June of the previous year. They had been instructed to take a train from Waterloo to Wareham, where they would be met. Looking back, it seemed to Dean that they had travelled in a trance, being borne onwards with no consent of will through a verdant and magical landscape to a distant and unimaginable future. Looking at Kim’s profile against the rise and fall of the telegraph wires and, later, the green fields and hedges beyond, he longed for this extraordinary day to end well. He hadn’t prayed since childhood, but found himself silently reciting the same desperate petition. “Please, God, make it all right. Please don’t let her be disappointed.”
    Turning to him as they approached