Food Fight (7 page)

Marie-Christine had cupped a hand in front of her mouth and was muttering something to Jean-Louis, who was leaning back in his chair stroking his tummy. Susan heard “
les
Anglo
-
Saxons
.” She was back on her hobby horse about the American multinationals, and their supposed quest for world domination. Susan knew that Jean-Louis agreed that globalisation was a threat, not an opportunity.

What’s the point of having this argument again? They were just going round in circles. As for Bové, he’s Frank’s problem now. Poor Frank virtually had apoplexy every time he saw the ‘French poser’ with his droopy Gallic moustache on the news.

Marie-Christine was twisting the head off a prawn and sucking its contents before adding it to the pile of translucent shells on her plate. Susan finished tearing apart her crab and asked, “Dessert, anyone?” just as Jean-Louis began lining up his pills neatly on the tablecloth.

It was only after she left the restaurant that Susan realised her in-laws hadn’t asked her about Mimi, and that she hadn’t enquired after their children either. As usual, nobody had asked about her job. For Serge’s family, the notion of a career woman was beyond the pale. His late mother had made it plain from the start that she disapproved of foreigners, particularly one with a child out of wedlock. Marie-Christine had simply carried on the family tradition of closing ranks against the outsider.

They said polite goodbyes with the minimum two kisses on the cheeks on the pavement outside. The in-laws didn’t offer to accompany her to Dingé to visit Serge’s grave. Had she expected them to? So, the next day she drove to the village alone.

Standing graveside brought back memories of the funeral which struck Susan so forcefully she found herself leaning on the granite cross for support. She looked back towards the church, and mentally retraced their muddled procession down the hill to the tomb in the rain. She remembered Camus and
The
Outsider
, who hadn’t cried at his mother’s funeral. She’d been too numb to cry. But now there was no denying it: Here was Serge in the family plot. He was never coming back.

His name was spelled in full, Serge André Victor Gautier, and the dates of his birth and death – March 22nd 1962 – December 13th 2008 – carved into granite. There had been no question of an inscription like ‘Beloved Husband of Susan’, because, as Marie-Christine had told her during the preparations, “That’s how we do things here”. The in-laws had also insisted there be no hymns, nor readings by friends. Her tentative suggestion that Lily might play at the service had been ruled out as, “
trop
…”, as they raised their hands and eyebrows in surprise, but trop what had never been explained.

Why had she given in so easily? There was no point in fighting back. Serge had always wanted to be buried in his home village where his relatives made it plain she had no rights. As she contemplated the grave, bare apart from a pot of white chrysanthemums, she couldn’t decide whether the Gautier family’s hostility towards her was personal, or directed against the British in general. Her sister-in-law invariably took on an air of cultural superiority, whether trying to justify the existence of the two-pin electric plug or the bolster pillow.

How many times had she been subjected to Marie-Christine’s refrain, “You come here, you buy our houses, you push up the prices, you bring over your own workmen, you don’t contribute to the local economy.”

And then there were the tiresome Joan of Arc jokes. Every time she offered to help out with a barbecue in the back garden in Dingy, one of them would ask if she wanted to burn them at the stake. “
Ah
les
Anglais
,” Marie-Christine would say, wagging a nail-varnished finger. “We can’t trust you.”

With a bit of luck, she had heard her last in-joke from the Gautiers about
Jeanne
d’Arc
. But with Serge gone forever, she had to ask herself whom did
she
trust?

CHAPTER NINE

“Mum you should go online, you know.”

“I do go online. I just bought a cut-price sweater through the miracle of global communication.”

Susan was juggling a cup of coffee and a bran muffin on a tray when Mimi had popped up on Skype, nose stud glittering in the Stygian gloom of the Wandsworth flat.

“That’s not what I mean. You should try Internet dating, it’s time you took the plunge again. Everyone does it.”

“I know. But everyone’s not me.”

“I found my boyfriend online,” said Mimi.

“You did
what
?”

So that’s what accounted for the cheerfulness. This was two pieces of information at the same time: Her daughter had (a) ended a two-year fallow period having declared that she was through with men after being ditched by her last boyfriend, and (b) done so in the murky underworld of the Internet without, apparently, being killed or kidnapped. “When did this happen?”

“About a month ago.”

“Okay. So never mind me – tell me all about him.”

“There’s not much to tell, really. He’s a librarian.”

Mimi explained that her boyfriend, Josh, was a PhD dropout, a couple of years older than she, who worked at the local library. At least he did until he started ‘borrowing’ more books than he loaned, and now he was unemployed.

“So how often do you … see each other?”

“Well,” said Mimi, “he’s actually just moved in.”

“That was quick, I must say.” She squinted into her laptop in case the boyfriend could be seen in the shadows.

“Is he there now?”

“No, he had to go out.”

“And what exactly are you going to live on?” A tone of sarcasm crept into her voice. “Because even the most valiant activists have bills to pay, you know. Banner printing, vegan shoes, voice projection …”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. But look. This isn’t about me. I was saying that you should find a man online.”

“Look,” she sighed. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.” She didn’t have the stomach for another shouting match. She sensed that Mimi had had enough also. Her image disappeared with an electronic groan.

“God!” Susan snapped her laptop shut.

She padded round the apartment, fluffing the sofa cushions and smoothing out the duvet on her bed. Then she went to the bathroom and on impulse opened the cabinet and took out some dark cherry nail varnish she’d bought recently, a welcome sign that the tidal wave of grief might be receding.

But then a tear sprang onto her cheek, and she wiped it away. “How could you do this to me?” she said aloud, slamming the varnish down on the washbasin. Why had she bought this stuff anyway? There are Korean nail bars on every street corner. She took a deep breath, headed for the kitchen, switched on the radio and began painting her nails with an unsteady hand.

*

“Christ, I need a drink.” Susan settled into the smooth leather booth at the Café Deluxe, and craned her neck in case she could catch sight of the cathedral.

“Nice place, right? So what’s up?” Jessica crossed her legs and leaned in to listen in one smooth movement.

Susan sighed. She’d met her at Pilates, and the classes were obviously working better for Jessica than for her.

“I’ve got so much work on,” she said. “It’s pressure, pressure, pressure.” Jessica looked disappointed.

She was a freelance interior designer, and not the slightest bit interested in politics, especially office politics, or the trials of working for a multinational. “I wasn’t talking about work. What else is going on in your life, Susie? Are you ready to rumble yet?”

“Are you psychic? My daughter was just telling me I need to start trawling the Internet,” she said. “But I’m damaged goods.”

“Damaged goods? Don’t be ridiculous! What’s wrong with finding a boyfriend online anyway? Less chance of running into them when you split up,” Jessica said. “You need a man, so check out the man store.”

“Really? Have you?”

“Of course.”

She was dumbfounded. If the lovely Jessica couldn’t find a partner without going online, what hope was there for the rest of us?

“I don’t know. Who’s going to fall for me and my spare tyre?”

“Are you crazy? You’re hot to trot, Susie.”

“Aren’t all the nice ones either gay or married?”

“Well, you won’t know until you try.” Jessica looked over the menu. “How does the seared salmon sound?”

For the rest of the evening, Susan probed her friend’s knowledge of the various online dating sites, from the specialized Jewish and Christian ones, the uniform fetishists, the bondage consultants, the fee-chargers and the free, the places where the dater’s profile is created by a friend, the marriage-or-your-money-backs, the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

Jessica finally admitted she had met her (now ex) boyfriend Randall on ‘Partners 4 U’. Susan had never thought to ask her where they met, they seemed so natural together. And then Jessica volunteered that her sister, too, had found a partner in a chat room.

She wasn’t expecting the first hurdle when she signed up that evening. She had to make up a name for herself. The ironic MsWhiplash? Already taken. The flirty MadamPerky? What, already taken too? The next task was to describe herself. This was going to take all night.

Signed on as ‘Peek-a-boo’, which to her sounded light-hearted and flirtatious, Susan rested her head on her hands. It needed to be witty and cliché-free while conveying her personality and the reason she was even in this cattle market. They would be able to see her picture, so she wouldn’t need to describe herself physically. She carefully picked a photo from before Serge’s death, in which she was definitely a few pounds lighter. Oh no, that won’t do. She flicked through the few photos she’d taken in DC. Here was a nice one of her in the Botanic Garden, no cleavage in sight. With a click, it was up.

As soon as she entered her date of birth, the pictures of ‘single’ men began floating along the top of the screen. That was already an achievement, she hadn’t expected any matches after entering her Washington zip code. Everybody joked that you had more chance of being shot by a terrorist than finding a soulmate in DC. When did hair make a comeback, she wondered as she examined the photos. She laughed out loud when she noticed the site was automatically putting her desired age match as from 50 to 100.

She began, “Devastated by the death of my husband, 18 months ago” and paused. No, too tragic.

Before she had time to find the Edit button, her words had gone live. A message from a lugubrious guy with a moustache in Ohio.

“Hello dear, would you like to share your pictures?”

She was not getting the hang of this. A few minutes later she found Edit and tried again. Who was she looking for? Someone who wasn’t frightened by freckles. Was that too flippant? She rubbed her eyes, wondering why she found this so hard. She was writing an ad, after all.

Tell us something about yourself, the site said. She’d better be honest. So she told the whole world, or at least the single men of Washington DC, about how she’d thought that Jimmy Granger had asked her for a kiss in the school playground because he was after her body. Then she found out all he wanted was to be introduced to her friend who lived next door.

Story of my life. I’ve always had friends who were prettier than I. Lily would certainly have no difficulty in attracting a long line of suitors if she were to try Internet dating. Maybe she had, already.

She found herself mesmerized by the floating photos. Some of those 50-year-olds were quite well preserved. But how could you judge from a picture? As Jessica had said, there’s only one way to find out.

*

She stood nervously at the end of the boardroom table, looking through her notes. She was about to present the marketing plan for ‘Guilty Secrets’, the name of DeKripps’ new product targeting rich professionals, to the company’s senior executives. The CEO, known to everyone as Bubba, would be watching from DeKripps headquarters. It was a big moment and she had dressed for the occasion, her hair tamed in a switch.

She was excited by the launch. Barney, with the air of a conspirator, had presented the results of Project Candy to the strategy group a couple of weeks earlier. Each of them was given a chocolate, inside which was a piece of fresh fruit. Hers was mandarin. Judy, the communications chief, had a strawberry, and Randy, the lawyer, a blueberry. Barney stood back and savoured their reaction.

“Awesome,” said Judy, licking her lips. Susan was equally impressed: “Can I have another? Just for comparison?”

“No. I want you marketing people hungry. Go away and remember the taste of that first bite. Think pleasure principle. An explosion tickling the taste buds.”

“But this is fresh fruit,” said Ellen, who had bitten into a raspberry chocolate and was holding it up to her eye. Susan, trying to analyse the sweet’s slight fizziness which was almost like sherbet, was wondering simultaneously how they’d keep the product from going mouldy on the shelf.

“That’s right,” Barney said. “Fresh fruit. So how do we keep it fresh? By selling it in
fridges
. Once again, DeKripps has innovated with a special recipe and a very short sell-by date thanks to our technology and our balls. They are the first chocolates ever sold from the fridge. Wait till the folks at Chewers get their heads around that!”

When they were all assembled in the boardroom, Susan described the ad campaign, which would launch the golden boxes of Guilty Secrets on billboards across the country. There would also be a separate TV spot with the slogan: ‘Forbidden Fruits Taste Sweeter’. They’d agonised over the best outlet for the chocolates and had finally rejected supermarkets in favour of Partridge and Peartree. It was a gourmet grocery store, affectionately known to its customers as ‘P and P’, with only about a dozen branches in the major American cities.

It might be a risk but they’d decided less was more, given the target demographic. The price was considerably higher than any other DeKripps chocolate products.

“Everyone has their fingers crossed,” Susan said. “After licking them, that is.”

The billboard ad was projected onto a screen that descended as the office blinds came down. A glamorous blonde in a blue silk dressing gown and heeled slippers was shining a torchlight on a half-opened golden box. By her side was a tousle-haired little boy in pyjamas. The DeKripps logo was almost invisible in a corner.

“You think of midnight feasts, and you want something you know you shouldn’t have,” Susan said. “Transgression makes the ad all the more powerful. It should resonate with both parents and their children.”

She added, “You’ll notice each chocolate is individually wrapped, which amplifies the secret pleasure inside.”

The wall-mounted screen crackled. It was Bubba.

“Ms Perkins, I like this.”

Every time she saw the elderly Quaker, she was reminded of his resemblance to his grandfather whose portrait hung in reception.

“Thank you sir,” she said. “Are there any questions?” She glanced round the table.

“We just need to decide when to rollout, but apart from that, we’re good,” said Barney, smiling. Once any product had the CEO’s approval, the rest fell into place.

“LA?” Barney asked, just for form.

“No problem,” said Luke.

Someone wheeled a trolley into the boardroom. It was filled with boxes of Guilty Secrets and Barney beamed. “Help yourselves, folks,” he said. They each took a box for home.

Susan opened hers before leaving the office. There were twelve little Guilty Secrets tucked inside. There was no flavour guide because DeKripps had decided to add to the mystery, teasing the consumer.

The first one she picked was strawberry. She ate it in one bite. Heaven. She had never tasted a boxed chocolate so exquisite. Next came mandarin, the flavour she’d first been given. By the time she left work, she’d already devoured half the box. Usually, if she ate so many chocolates in a row she’d feel sick, but she convinced herself she was really eating fruit, real fruit. Customers might even think it’s good for them.

She was lifting the lid of the golden box again as she crossed the street to the entrance of her apartment building. A swishing noise made her look up.

“Watch out, dude! Coming through!” It was the leader of one of those annoying Segway tours, shouting out as the group swung past, forcing her to halt in the middle of the road.

“Look where you’re going!” she screamed. They swarmed around her, laughing, and she was surrounded by the giant scooters and their upright riders. Their sudden appearance, and the speed at which they moved, could have easily knocked her off her feet. Reaching the safety of the curb, she shouted, “And I’m not a dude!” to their helmeted heads disappearing down the street towards the National Mall.

*

Susan’s resolution to spend more time at the gym had somehow petered out. She needed a new trim figure to go with a new boyfriend, she said to herself, and Pilates wasn’t producing results. She waved Barney away when he offered her a lift in his black SUV one evening just as she’d changed into her running shoes and was setting out with her rucksack for Rock Creek Park, pulling in her tummy and straightening her spine.