Food Fight (6 page)
As Christmas approached, a blizzard dumped a record sixteen inches of snow at Dulles on the night of Susan’s scheduled flight to London, disrupting her travel plans.
Ellen invited her home for Sunday brunch on December 13th, the anniversary of Serge’s death. Her husband, Jed, a K Street lobbyist for one of the banks, was in charge of the kitchen that morning.
“Looking forward to Christmas?” Jed asked, chewing gum and handing her a cup of coffee. He was preparing a pile of blueberry pancakes, spooning the mixture onto the stove from a mixing bowl. Ellen was taking care of the twins, holding one with each hand as they trotted unsteadily round the kitchen like string puppets. Susan perched on a stool by the counter.
“Sort of. Not really. It’s a bit of a schlepp to my mother’s on the coast, and my daughter’s doing her own thing,” she said. “And as Ellen probably told you, there’s a cloud hanging over the family. So it won’t exactly be festive.”
“Sure,” Jed said. “So you’re going to France as well?”
“I kind of feel obliged to see Serge’s family. His brother lives in Rennes, he’s a chemist.”
“What, chemistry?”
“No, drugstore. Problem is I think he helps himself to a few too many of his drugs.”
“You mean he’s an addict?”
“More a hypochondriac. There’s always something the matter with him, so he self-medicates.”
“Oh, man. And are you done with all the paperwork now?”
“I’m not sure. That’s another reason I need to travel to France, their family notary was handling all that, but it should be pretty straightforward. It just takes time.” She turned to Ellen. “So which of these lovely boys is Darren, and which is David? They both look so much like you, by the way.”
“Jed says they’ve got my nose, poor things,” said Ellen. “This one in blue dungarees is Darren. And this little fellow is David.”
“They’ve got Jed’s chin though,” Susan said. Jed, stroking his square jaw, grinned from behind the kitchen counter. “They’re a year old now, right?”
“Fifteen months exactly.”
Susan got down on her knees to play. “They’re such fun at this age,” she said. “I remember when Mimi learned to walk. Oh for the days when she couldn’t answer back!”
“Don’t you believe it,” Ellen said. “Once one of them starts emptying his lungs, the other follows suit straight away.”
Jed gave her a lift back to the Metro after brunch, and she asked how his firm was doing after the banking collapse last year.
“Let’s just say it was bad,” he said in a Texan drawl, lingering on
bad
as he checked the rear view. “It’s tough right now. Customers hate us, and blame the banks for the recession.”
“I guess that’s where DeKripps is recession proof,” said Susan. “Even in a crisis, people love sweets. And of course the worse people feel, the more they eat.”
“Did you prove that in focus groups?”
“No, but others have.”
“Seriously, do you mind if I ask you something? It’s about Ellen. Do you think she’s working too hard?”
“Why?”
“She’s listless. Distracted when she gets home. She’s usually as focused as a laser beam.”
“Did she say anything about Barney?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Do you think she’s under too much pressure from him?”
“Could be. It’s this new product, right?”
“It’s in development stage right now. Our department is going to be under a lot more pressure once it launches. We’re the ones who have to sell it. But I’ll make sure Ellen’s okay. She’s got my back too.”
“Thanks. Appreciate it.” But she could see he was hoping for more.
*
Susan was restless on the flight to London. She clicked through the movies on offer but couldn’t make up her mind. When the flight attendant brought drinks, she picked up her can of tomato juice and examined the Nutrition Facts on the side, squinting at the print size which seemed to be even tinier than usual. The ‘one hundred percent’ tomato juice contained nine grams of sugar. Well, if Chewers think they can get away with it, good for them.
She caught the train to Lymington, where a yapping Yorkshire terrier named Nellie greeted her at her mother’s front door. “Why didn’t you tell me? And why did you give it such an old-fashioned name? It’s as bad as Susan.”
She’d always hated her name. She could never decide as a child which she hated more, being ginger, being freckled, or being Susan.
Over the next few days, braving the misty chill, she pottered listlessly around the shops, their Christmas lights sparkling on the cobbled streets in the lower town.
She would raise her head from time to time to look towards the Solent and the Isle of Wight’s dark hulk.
Christmas Day meant capon, sprouts and roast potatoes, shared with the dog which only seemed to stop barking when it was eating. They didn’t bother to buy crackers. Her mother’s attempt to lighten her mood, by inviting her to lunch at Sticklers on the high street, collapsed as soon as the subject of Mimi was raised.
“Do you think I’m a bad mother?” Susan asked as she tackled a generous helping of cod and chips.
“What do you mean, dear?”
“Well, I must be to blame for Mimi turning into the daughter from hell.”
“You did your best. It’s nature as well as nurture, isn’t it? And who knows what genes the girl inherited from her father.” Her mother had never approved of her married boyfriend, despite having broken up a marriage or two herself.
“I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.” That sounded like the final word. Her mother had never been one for introspection.
“But I do worry. I worry I should have done things differently. And is it a coincidence that she’s a vegan as well? All this unconscious attention-seeking. Maybe I didn’t give her enough attention when she was young.”
“She’ll grow out of it.”
“Do you really think so? I’d be surprised. It’s not a diet, you know, it’s a belief system.” Susan pushed away the remainder of her chips. “Do you think Nellie wants one?”
“She doesn’t eat junk food.” The little dog was sitting at her mother’s feet, had been quiet for most of their lunch. Susan was amazed she’d been allowed into the restaurant.
“I don’t understand why Mimi has to be so aggressive about it,” Susan said. “All this nonsense about bee’s vomit. I’m not sure she’s getting proper nutrition, but she’ll never listen to me.”
“The other day she told me I shouldn’t sprinkle sugar on my oatmeal because it’s refined with cattle bones. I do hope that you’re not responsible for that.”
“Of course not, mother.”
She’d always found it difficult to confide in her mother who remained a private person, averse to raking over feelings and motivations. Susan scrutinized her face as her manicured hand searched her handbag for a wallet and powder puff. She was still beautiful at 72, dignified, lipstick intact. She’d always seemed slightly distracted but few outside the family noticed that now she was increasingly deaf. She dabbed her cheeks with powder. The words remained unspoken. If Susan had been a bad mother, what about her own? Had she unconsciously followed the same pattern of benign neglect with Mimi?
Then her mother said something that surprised her. “Do you know, when I look at Mimi, I see you,” she said. “You want to be different too. That’s why you married a Frenchman, don’t you think?”
Before she had a chance to reply, her mother put on her reading glasses to look at the bill, and feigned shock. “If it gets any worse, I’m going to have to go out to work,” she said. Susan wasn’t aware that her mother had ever had a job.
“Come off it. You’ve got your investments.”
“What do you mean? For two years now that income has been more than cut in half.” She pulled on her woolly poncho which gave off just a hint of mothballs, scooped up Nellie, and sailed out of the restaurant, Susan following behind.
*
The fish restaurant in the old town of Rennes had an open air seafood counter where a young man in an apron and gloves was shucking oysters in the freezing cold.
“I’ve booked a table for three in the name of Pairkeens.” She Frenchified her last name for the benefit of the
maître
d’
.
“
Ah
oui
,
Madame
Pairkeens
,
suivez
-
moi
,” he said. He gathered together the menus and a wine list. Susan glanced back and saw Marie-Christine extinguishing her cigarette on the pavement, then heard the clicking of her stilettos.
It was the first time they’d seen each other since the funeral. The ritual kissing greeting was perfunctory. Susan watched her frown deepen as she surreptitiously scanned her outfit while they took off their coats. As usual, she was made to feel that her fashion sense wasn’t up to scratch.
Jean-Louis, his polo shirt collar turned up in the French way, was seated on Susan’s right, and his wife opposite them. They’d left the children, François-Xavier and Lucie-Anne, at home with a babysitter. She’d always thought there were too many hyphens in that family.
Minutes later, the table was piled high with an imposing
plateau
de
fruits
de
mer
of crab, oysters,
langoustines
, prawn and whelks.
“Well,
bon
appétit
,” she said. She picked up a mini-spear and wondered whether she had the stomach for a slimy grey-green whelk.
“
Alors
, Suzanne,” said Marie-Christine - Susan had long given up correcting to
Soo
-
san
- “tell us about America.”
Her sister-in-law had made no secret of her lack of interest in her move to Washington. As a Frenchwoman who’d once said she had no need of a passport, she was convinced that her native land was paradise.
“I bet you don’t have seafood restaurants like this in Washington DC,” stressing the
dee
see
.
She was obviously expected to reply in the negative.
“It depends where you go,” she said in as neutral a voice as she could muster, determined not to be goaded. “The food’s okay, actually.”
“But how can it be? Americans are so fat,” said Marie-Christine, pouting in disapproval. “Obese. Everybody knows the Americans eat nothing but fast food, genetically modified.” She added a dismissive
pff
!
Susan felt targeted. “Well, would you believe that every bottle of tomato sauce in the world comes from genetically modified tomatoes? You can’t even escape it in Brittany.”
Her sister-in-law raised a carefully plucked eyebrow and returned in silence to her dish. Jean-Louis didn’t say anything either. He knew when it was best to keep quiet. Susan noticed he wasn’t serving himself with the expensive Pouilly-Fuissé she’d ordered. He explained that he’d woken with a tummy upset, and kept on disappearing to the loo.
But Marie-Christine had put Susan on the defensive. As she looked around the restaurant, she noticed that nobody was fat. How did the French do it? They simply had a different attitude towards food. She watched as the family at the table next to theirs was ordering. None of them was asking the waiter to ‘hold’ this or that, like they did in DC.
Her sister-in-law was sounding off again. “All those GM crops in America, Frankenstein food,” she said. “At least we have Bové here to protect us from the
malbouffe
.”
“I have colleagues at DeKripps Europe,” Susan said, reaching for her water, “who consider José Bové MEP to be the symbol of European over-regulation.”
“
Notre
héros
,” Jean-Louis said, gripping his stomach and heading again for the loo.
“And who else is on our side? Who else is fighting GM food?”
My daughter for one, Susan thought. But she said: “I think we’ve been through this before. You defend Bové, but why don’t you consider for a change what intensive farming brought to Brittany. It’s called progress.”
She was struggling to find her words, it had been a while since she’d had to hold down a conversation in French.
“Those Breton villages you love so much have been yanked out of the dark ages. It’s thanks to progress that farmers have been able to do up their properties, and drive around in expensive 4x4s.”
She came to an abrupt halt with a shrug. Marie-Christine’s self-satisfied smirk was unchanged. She could almost hear Serge saying, “José Bové is right.”
Not long after she joined DeKripps, they had a testy exchange in which he defended the trashing of a French McDonalds. Susan might have agreed with them standing outside and shouting at customers, but she couldn’t justify Bové breaking the law. She’d been vindicated when he was eventually sentenced to a jail spell.
Now, of course, more McDonalds burgers were sold in France than anywhere else outside America.