Graham and I got married, not in the early years. I had never had any experience of cooking when I was young; there had been no hours of fun spent watching my mother home baking. Or cook at all, for that matter, all of our meals came out of a tin or packet. Supermarket own brands. And at the home, all of our meals were prepared for us in the canteen – the ‘daily slop’ as Anita called it. But over the years a mixture of boredom and those ubiquitous cookery programmes had led to experimentation and then to a discovery that I did indeed have some latent creative culinary skills. I wished I’d had a daughter, we could have had some fun in the kitchen together; chopping vegetables, rolling pastry, mixing eggs and flour and sugar and laughing as the mixture spilled over the side, smiling as she dipped her little fingers cheekily into a bowl of melting chocolate - hell, maybe we could have baked cookies like they do on all those American movies...
My sons weren’t interested in cooking. Not even Simon, in fact especially not Simon. He didn’t want to do anything that could be construed in any way as ‘girly’. As if to prove that he was not what I knew he was. It didn’t help that Graham thought I was talking rubbish, that I was just being stupid. Not that I’d ever said anything to Simon, of course. The fact was that Simon was gay but he didn’t yet realise it. Well, he probably suspected, deep down, but I don’t think he wanted to believe it, he didn’t want to accept it. I knew it, though. It was difficult to define the reasons for my certainty. There had been clues from a young age - he was more relaxed with girls, and some of his mannerisms were innately effeminate – but it was more than that. I just knew, a mother always knows these things.
I put four scallops onto each of the rectangular plates, and wondered when it was decided that round plates were no longer trendy. Another sip of wine, and then I reached for the olive oil. A special Tuscan one - Graham ordered it online from a website with the tagline ‘designed for shoppers with a discerning taste.’ Or as I said to Graham when I saw the prices – ‘designed for mugs who are happy to be ripped off’. Graham hadn’t found my comment funny.
I drizzled the oil over the scallops in a zigzag pattern, then swirled a dribble of balsamic vinegar at the corner of each plate. Finally, I squeezed a few drops of lemon juice over the shellfish and then garnished each of the plates with a handful of rocket, half a lemon and a few succulent baby tomatoes. I took another sip of wine and looked at the price on the side of the packet of rocket and rolled my eyes. Rocket grew wild in Jersey in abundance – Graham said he saw loads of it on the golf course – yet it seemed all they had to do was pop it in a see-through bag and it turned into green gold. Just as well it didn’t say ‘organic’ on the packet, or that would have doubled the price.
‘Andrea, is the starter ready or what? Our guests have been waiting for bloody ages,’ Graham said, suddenly appearing at the kitchen doorway. He was angry, but his voice was low. He had gone a bit red, perhaps it was the champagne or maybe it was due to the challenge of trying to convey his burning anger with a whisper.
I glanced at the kitchen clock. I must have been lost in thought for a few minutes. I stared at Graham, sadistically enjoying his discomfort. He was clenching and unclenching his fists and I could see a vein pulsing in his neck. I waited another few cruel seconds and then said, ‘Yes, okay, sorry, yes, it’s coming.’ I motioned towards the worktop. ‘Here, you can take some plates in with you.’
‘Ooh, this looks lovely, Angela,’ trilled Debbie, David’s girlfriend.
‘It’s Andrea, not Angela,’ I said, but Debbie wasn’t listening. She had turned to Katherine, Matt’s girlfriend. ‘I never used to like fish at all, but last year David took me to this wonderful sushi restaurant – it’s got one of those Michelin stars and everything, and now I just can’t get enough of it. Very low in calories too, so it’s good