Read Online A Winter Bride by Isla Dewar - Free Book Online Page B

regularly?’
    Nell said, ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then you’re not poor,’ May had replied. ‘Me, my mother and three brothers lived in two rooms. My father buggered off when I was three. Never saw him again. We’d no electricity. The bathroom was two floors down and across a muddy back yard. If you needed to go in the middle of the night, you didn’t. You crossed your legs and hung on. There were rats. Often the only thing I had to eat was a slice of bread and the top of one of my brother’s boiled egg. I went barefoot in the summer. In winter, I wore hand-me-downs. We burned the furniture to keep warm and when that was finished, we burned the door. Cold; I’ve known cold. I’ll never let myself be cold again.’ She glared at Alistair who was playing a melancholy tune on a pretend violin. ‘Oh, you can mock me. You’ve never been cold or hungry in your life. If you had, you’d know the fear of being poor. It’s humiliating. Nell, eat your lasagne and have some more salad. And leave some room for your pudding.’
    When the meal had ended, May had waved Harry and Alistair away from the table. ‘Take your coffee and drinks through to the living room. Nell and me’ll clear up. C’mon, Nell. I’ll wash, you dry.’
    Until that evening, Nell hadn’t thought about kitchens. She’d never considered them to be beautiful, and had never thought of lingering in one. In fact, it was a relief to leave the kitchen at home. Walking out of that room meant that the dreary business of preparing food and clearing up after that food had been eaten was over. It was time to relax.
    May’s kitchen was large. She’d swelled with pride as she stepped into it. ‘This is where I’m really me,’ she’d said. ‘This room makes me happy.’
    Food was cooked on a huge range. Copper pots hung from the ceiling; herbs grew in pots on the window sill. One wall was lined with shelves containing over two hundred cookbooks. Nell’s mother had one cookbook, a battered, splattered collection of wartime recipes, which she rarely opened.
    May was a passionate cook. Food and love were one for her. A well-fed family was a happy family. The surest route to anyone’s heart was through the stomach. ‘Well, most of the time,’ she said. She had nudged Nell and winked. ‘But, your children would grow to walk away from you, if you made them face the day on nothing more than the top of a boiled egg.’ Hungry families fought. She knew this; it was a knowledge that moved through May’s veins, beat with her heart and rested in her bones.
    The far wall of the kitchen was made up of floor-to-ceiling cupboards, each one with a door painted one of the colours of the rainbow. They were packed with food. Nell had never seen so much in her life.
    The yellow cupboard had been filled with packets of pasta, rice, flour, sugar, lentils, packets of tea, jars of coffee; the red full of tins: meat, tuna, fruit and vegetables; the blue, jams and jellies; the orange door fronted a fridge stuffed with cream, butter, cold meats, milk, and wine. Behind the violet door was a packed freezer. The green door was locked. Nell had asked what was in this cupboard. May had replied that it was her little secret.
    ‘I like to see my family fed,’ she’d said. She’d filled the sink with hot water and set about washing the plates. ‘What do you think of Alistair?’
    ‘He’s very nice.’
    ‘Nice? Nice? Don’t mention nice to me. I don’t like it. It’s a mean little word, tepid, means nothing. Alistair’s a good, kind, gentle soul. He is a bit logical, I admit. But then most men are. It’s one of their failings.’
    She’d told Nell to pile the dried plates on the counter. ‘I’ll put them away later. See, men think in straight lines. Women think in curves. It makes them rounder people. Do you like men, Nell?’
    Nell had said she did.
    ‘I like men. They’re handy. I like a man in my bed. But I don’t like them in my kitchen when I’m cooking. They always want to