Read Online Second Thyme Around by Katie Fforde - Free Book Online

‘What shall I do? It’s probably completely raw. I’ll poison us all.’
    ‘It’s OK,’ said Janey. ‘Lamb is supposed to be pink.’
    ‘Everything all right in here?’ Lucas’s voice boomed from behind them, making both women jump.
    ‘Fine!’ snapped Perdita. ‘Go and sit down, or pour
everyone else some more sherry. You go and sit down too, Janey. I’m better off on my own.’
    ‘Mrs Anson wants to know if you want her to cook the vegetables,’ Lucas persisted, peering over Perdita’s shoulder at the mess beyond.
    ‘No. Tell her, thank you, but I’m managing just fine. Now everybody get out of my way and let me get on!’
    After Janey and Lucas had gone back to the sitting room, Perdita shifted the sack of compost which prevented the door from closing, and shut it firmly. Then panic lent inspiration. She put all the vegetables into her wok, stirring them violently with a couple of wooden spoons. Then she took Janey’s advice about the potatoes and stuck them in their tin on her hottest ring at its highest heat. While everything spat and cracked behind her, she drained the meat juices into a saucepan. Good gravy might disguise poor roast potatoes. She stuck the lamb back in the oven, which she switched off, and – after another quick glance at Delia – flung a handful of flour into the pan with the meat juices.
    All three plates of her ancient electric cooker were going full bat, but Perdita concentrated on the gravy, adding salt and pepper, and the heeltap of a bottle of wine she had opened rather a long time ago. It thickened, and turned a purplish colour. She added the vegetable juices from the wok, which did nothing for the colour.
    ‘Oh, for some gravy browning!’ she beseeched, knowing it had been on her list and she had just forgotten to buy it. For a mad moment she contemplated sprinting across her land to Kitty’s and hunting in her cupboards for some. There was bound to be something, be it in a bottle or a packet, and it would be so old the price would still be in shillings and pence, but Perdita wouldn’t have cared.
    No, that was ridiculous. She turned over the potatoes and was gratified to see faint singeing at the edges of
some of them, but the gravy was still an unattractive pinky-beige colour. In desperation she turned to her own cupboard and found some soy sauce. She tipped in a large quantity, knowing it would make the sauce dreadfully salty, but anything which meant she didn’t have to serve gravy the colour of raw sausages was OK by her.
    To her huge relief it worked. It even tasted all right. Perdita decided to quit while she was ahead and declare the meal ready. But as she was tipping veg and potatoes into dishes she realised that someone would have to carve the leg of lamb which was now sitting on a bread board, oozing quietly.
    Kitty had never learnt to carve. Her husband had always done it, and after he died, she just hacked bits off whenever she cooked a joint. William probably couldn’t carve either, which left herself, raised in the Kitty method of removing meat from bones, or Janey. She would die before she would ask Lucas.
    She stood in the doorway of the sitting room. The gathering didn’t look like a hive of social intercourse. Lucas was reading a book, Kitty had produced her needlepoint, and Janey and William were exchanging stilted sentences, but not appreciative glances. Perdita sighed.
    ‘Janey – give me a hand?’ she asked.
    Janey, glad to get away, came at once.
    ‘It’s the carving,’ said Perdita. ‘Do you think you could do it? The table’s not big enough so we’ll have to do it in here. Do you mind?’
    ‘Perdita, I don’t mind giving it a go, but I’ve never carved more than a slice of cheese in my life. My dad always does it.’
    ‘Oh. Well, you’re a bright girl, good at cooking, I’m sure you’ll be able to do it all right.’
    Janey ran her thumb over the knife Perdita produced. ‘You haven’t got a steel, have you? Something to