‘That’s right. A long time ago Jewish scholars had to pretend they weren’t studying the Talmud – the holy book. So they pretended they were playing a game instead. And tomorrow you’ll get another present, and that will be gelt.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You’ll see. You’ll like it.’
‘Can you eat it?’
‘In fact, yes. Now, would you like to come for a walk with me?’
‘It’s freezing outside.’
‘To the cinema. It’s two blocks – they’re showing Miracle on 34th Street. I think you’ll like it.’
‘That sounds like it’s for girls,’ said Darny dubiously.
‘I won’t tell a soul,’ said Marian.
Chapter Sixteen
Caroline’s Turnip Pie Surprise
Chop turnip, mushroom, radishes, Brussels sprouts and a red onion and put in a dish with a spray of flax oil. Add cumin (not too much).
Cover with wholemeal pastry. Bake.
Fumigate house. Call out for pizza.
Three days before Christmas, Caroline saw Donald again. Looking like a very small bear in his footsie pyjamas, he was creeping out of Kate’s house. He saw her looking at him and blinked, his thumb in his mouth. Caroline gave him a stern look and mounted the imposing stone steps. The house had been remodelled beautifully by a builder she had had a fling with the year before. The affair had finished when he’d tried to buy her a bacon sandwich and they had both realised they had no future together. He was a good builder, though. Immaculate box trees stood either side of the forest-green-painted front door.
‘Come on, you,’ said Caroline, taking Donald’s hand. She rang the bell. No one answered, so she pushed the door open. The nanny was standing exhaustedly over a huge pile of ironing, while the twins charged up and down the stunning stairs, with their freshly painted balustrade and tasteful works of art, hitting each other with sticks.
‘Um, missing anyone?’ Caroline said. The nanny looked up, a defeated look on her face.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Come here. Was he running away again?’
‘He’s a baby,’ said Caroline. ‘He’s just looking for his mother. Where is she?’
The nanny shrugged. ‘In bed. She say she needed lie-in after the jet lag. They just got back from Cyprus.’
‘Cyprus?’
Caroline marched up the stairs.
‘Kate! KATE!’
A door clicked open.
‘Heinke? Could you keep those bloody children quiet for five seconds?’
‘Kate?’
Kate was wearing an expensive-looking silk night shirt and yawning widely. Caroline glanced at her watch. It was after eleven; she’d been doing the early shift.
‘Good holiday?’
Kate snapped awake. Her eyes went wide.
‘Caroline? What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Picking your children up off the street. What are you doing?’
Kate snorted. ‘Oh, thanks for the lecture about children. And who’s been doing all the complaining to Richard about school fees?’
Suddenly there was a male voice from behind her in the bedroom. Both women froze.
‘Darling, it’s no one,’ called back Kate, optimistically. But it was too late. Caroline had already recognised the unmistakable tones of her ex-husband. She felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. So this was where the bastard had been hiding! No wonder she and Kate hadn’t been getting together so much.
Caroline may have been many things, but she wasn’t a coward. She took a deep breath and stood up straight in the face of adversity, just as she’d learned at her hard-ass boarding school.
‘Good lord, you do both get around,’ she held on to herself long enough to say. ‘I hope you used a condom, Richard; remember that time you gave everyone chlamydia?’
Kate went pale and gasped, as Caroline turned on her heel. Downstairs, the nanny was unplugging the iron.
‘I quit!’ she shouted. ‘Is like being slave for crazy woman! I’m going to look for job for non-crazy woman. Bye! Stop losing child!’
The three children started wailing their heads off all over their smart Petit Bateau Breton shirts. Snot was going on the William Morris wallpaper. Donald dropped his juice carton on the pale landing carpet. Caroline carried on out of the house.
‘And lock the bloody door behind me for once!’ she shouted over her shoulder.
Later, she looked at her handiwork. She had made the children a pie. They were terrified of her cooking; normally she tried to get them to eat raw food. Hermia especially, her daughter, tended, even at the age of nine, to shrink from her mother’s highly critical gaze. She consoled herself at school, finishing up the thick stodgy puddings the other girls were already pushing away. It showed.
Caroline added turnip, cabbage, carrot and some pieces of apple for flavouring, and a spray of low-calorie oil. Then she put the pastry over the top. That would cover it up, then she’d suggest that Hermia didn’t eat the pastry, just as she herself wouldn’t be doing.
Perdita was bustling round the kitchen and looked dubiously at the pie, but a warning look from Caroline soon froze her off. Caroline also fired off an email to her lawyer, demanding additional damages for pain and distress caused by Richard flaunting his infidelity.
Then, at a loose end, with Maya taking the afternoon shift and Issy back, she found herself sitting down with her photo albums. Like many other things in her life, Caroline’s photo albums were immaculate. She chose only the best pictures of them all in carefully staged perfect environments – round the fire in the ski chalet, wearing matching jumpers and toasting cups of hot chocolate (Achilles had screamed and refused to touch the snow or go outside; Hermia had been horribly bullied at ski school and woken up with nightmares for five months); on their island getaway (Richard had stayed on the phone to work pretty much the entire time; Caroline had gone mad without childcare and with all the mosquitoes); dressed up for a wedding (Richard had chatted up a bridesmaid, Caroline had burst into tears, the marriage had lasted six months before the bride ran away with the caterer). She smiled ruefully at the expensive albums and the stories they did not tell.
But there were other stories, too, real ones. Hermia putting her nursery angel on the Christmas tree, one branch totally weighed down by decorations (Caroline had immediately tidied the tree up once the children had gone to bed, so it looked nice). She glanced over at this year’s tree. It was exquisitely tasteful in silver and white. But it didn’t have Hermia’s nursery angel on it. Caroline wondered where it had gone.