Read Online The Parasite Person by Celia Fremlin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Celia Fremlin
Ads: Link
wife’s multifarious failings and deficiencies. Possessive … lazy … boring … sluttish … no good at cooking … no good in bed … it all added up to as leave-able a wife as any Other Woman could hope to encounter. And yet still Helen felt uneasy. She kept picturing the poor little rabbitty thing scuttling hopelessly about her messy home, picking things up, putting them down in the wrong place, pushing dust around, trying her best, in her muddly way, to run a home worthy of this incredibly glorious husband of hers.
But no, Martin would insist, it wasn’t like that at all. Beatrice didn’t try. If she had, things might have been different; but she’d never tried. Okay, so a woman can be a hopeless cook; but surely there is no woman alive so hopeless that she cannot sometimes boil potatoes so that they are eatable? Occasionally fry sausages without burning them?
“And half the time she doesn’t cook anything at all!” Martin would complain, “Not even a bloody frozen pizza from the supermarket ! I come home, worn out by a ghastly day at the Poly, and there she’ll be, slumped in an easy-chair, her hair a mess, her tights laddered, and hasn’t even bothered to put away the groceries….”
Helen leaped to her feet as if at a pistol-shot, gathered up her assorted purchases, and fled into the kitchen. Already, it was past five, and if they were to sit down to their meal at seven—which was what they’d decided on, so as to give Martin good long evenings for his work—then it must all be ready, actually, by twenty past six. Ina low oven, and somehow not spoiling. This was so that they could have a long, leisurely session of drinks, or occasionally of love-making , before dinner, just as in the old days when Helen had been only the Other Woman and Martin had come to dinner at the flat only once a week. Oh, the yearnings, the frustrations, the agonies of those days! And how easy it had all been, compared with this! In those days, there had always been tomorrow for the clearing up, and yesterday for the preparation; it had been child’s play, in these circumstances, to produce a delicious three-course meal effortlessly and without fuss.
Beatrice, of course, had always made an awful fuss, about even the simplest meal. This was one of the wonderful things about Helen, Martin used often to say, that she was able to produce such marvellous food with no fuss. She was incredible.
And incredible, naturally, she intended to stay, as would anyone in her position. With one eye on the clock, she set the oven to heat, spread out the cod fillets on a floured wooden board, fetched butter, lemon, fennel, fresh parsley, a sharp knife, and set to work. If the main dish could be in the oven by twenty to six, then at six she could turn the fillets, sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice on each— real lemon, of course—and then lower the gas to the merest bead so that it would still cook, but ever so gently, without losing any of the delicate flavour. There would be buttered carrots for a vegetable—she’d planned these for the colour contrast with the white fish—and a few mushrooms, fried lightly and added at the last minute. The soup, thank goodness, she’d made yesterday, real Italian minestrone, and it only needed warming up. She’d grated the cheese too, on the fine grater, before seven o’clock this morning, but she must find a moment for transferring it from its plastic saucer to the pretty little jade green bowl which would look so good alongside the carrots….
Chopping parsley … slicing carrots lengthways … whipping cream to go on top of the apples baked in syrup and ginger … and all the time the hands of the electric clock pressed silently forward, and still she hadn’t got her red wool dress on, or changed her tights; and supposing one of the links of her gold chain belt broke again as she put it on, and supposing that after all Martin turned out not tobe late at all, but early, as not infrequently
But no, Martin would insist, it wasn’t like that at all. Beatrice didn’t try. If she had, things might have been different; but she’d never tried. Okay, so a woman can be a hopeless cook; but surely there is no woman alive so hopeless that she cannot sometimes boil potatoes so that they are eatable? Occasionally fry sausages without burning them?
“And half the time she doesn’t cook anything at all!” Martin would complain, “Not even a bloody frozen pizza from the supermarket ! I come home, worn out by a ghastly day at the Poly, and there she’ll be, slumped in an easy-chair, her hair a mess, her tights laddered, and hasn’t even bothered to put away the groceries….”
Helen leaped to her feet as if at a pistol-shot, gathered up her assorted purchases, and fled into the kitchen. Already, it was past five, and if they were to sit down to their meal at seven—which was what they’d decided on, so as to give Martin good long evenings for his work—then it must all be ready, actually, by twenty past six. Ina low oven, and somehow not spoiling. This was so that they could have a long, leisurely session of drinks, or occasionally of love-making , before dinner, just as in the old days when Helen had been only the Other Woman and Martin had come to dinner at the flat only once a week. Oh, the yearnings, the frustrations, the agonies of those days! And how easy it had all been, compared with this! In those days, there had always been tomorrow for the clearing up, and yesterday for the preparation; it had been child’s play, in these circumstances, to produce a delicious three-course meal effortlessly and without fuss.
Beatrice, of course, had always made an awful fuss, about even the simplest meal. This was one of the wonderful things about Helen, Martin used often to say, that she was able to produce such marvellous food with no fuss. She was incredible.
And incredible, naturally, she intended to stay, as would anyone in her position. With one eye on the clock, she set the oven to heat, spread out the cod fillets on a floured wooden board, fetched butter, lemon, fennel, fresh parsley, a sharp knife, and set to work. If the main dish could be in the oven by twenty to six, then at six she could turn the fillets, sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice on each— real lemon, of course—and then lower the gas to the merest bead so that it would still cook, but ever so gently, without losing any of the delicate flavour. There would be buttered carrots for a vegetable—she’d planned these for the colour contrast with the white fish—and a few mushrooms, fried lightly and added at the last minute. The soup, thank goodness, she’d made yesterday, real Italian minestrone, and it only needed warming up. She’d grated the cheese too, on the fine grater, before seven o’clock this morning, but she must find a moment for transferring it from its plastic saucer to the pretty little jade green bowl which would look so good alongside the carrots….
Chopping parsley … slicing carrots lengthways … whipping cream to go on top of the apples baked in syrup and ginger … and all the time the hands of the electric clock pressed silently forward, and still she hadn’t got her red wool dress on, or changed her tights; and supposing one of the links of her gold chain belt broke again as she put it on, and supposing that after all Martin turned out not tobe late at all, but early, as not infrequently
Similar Books
