Woman to Woman (37 page)

Debbie’s face was shocked, but Vivienne’s was worse. They both looked as if they were going to cry.

“I swear I did the salmon the way the book said,” wailed Debbie.

“I let the water boil and turned it off… honestly.”

“Did you leave the fish in the fish kettle until it cooled?”

asked Aisling.

“No. Was I supposed to?”

“That’s part of the cooking, Debbie. What happened to the coleslaw?”

“I don’t know. I’m a pastry chef really. I’ve never taken on this big a job myself. I’m so sorry.” She looked horrified. But then so did Vivienne. For once, the cool and calm senior secretary was totally at a loss.

“Look,” Aisling took a quick glance at Vivienne’s face and decided to take charge, ‘what cooking equipment have you got here?”

“We’ve got a microwave in the van … I’m so sorry Debbie repeated miserably.

“I did my best Aisling calmed her down.

“Look, Debbie, we don’t have time to start blaming anyone. We’ve got to come up with something else fairly rapidly. Bring the microwave into the canteen. That way, we’ve got two microwaves which we can use to heat the salmon up. It’s the only way we can use it. We don’t have enough time to recook it and cool it and we better have a proper first course if we don’t have the buffet any more. OK, let me think.” Aisling stood back and looked at the food Debbie and Bob had brought up. There were plenty of salads, along with a cooked ham, a huge bowl of mixed lettuce and a cheese board.

Vivienne sat down on a chair and rubbed her temples shakily.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she said.

“I just can’t believe it. Today is so important to Edward and I can’t let him down.”

The difference between the two secretaries’ relationships with their bosses was amazing, thought Aisling briefly.

Vivienne didn’t want things to go wrong because she’d be letting Edward down. If Aisling had arranged a lunch for Leo and it had gone wrong, she’d have been terrified that he’d kill her, never mind not wanting to upset him.

“Don’t worry, Vivienne,” she said calmly.

“I’ve an idea. Bob, get the microwave and any pots you have from the van.

Vivienne, you go with Bob to Quinnsworth in Baggot Street he can double-park while you shop. I want you to get a pound of beef tomatoes,” she instructed.

“Debbie, do you have any herbs with you?”

“Er, yes,” answered Debbie.

“I need oregano, basil, thyme, parsley and olive oil. Oh yes, we need to make a vinaigrette. Have you got the ingredients for that?”

“Yes. I’ll get everything I have.”

“Put it in the canteen, it’s downstairs, Vivienne will show you. Right Vivienne, get the tomatoes, three or four French sticks, potatoes and, let’s see, courgettes. Debbie and I will divide the cooked ham into starters with salad and when you get back we’ll cook the potatoes and salmon. We better forget about the prawns.” She reached out and patted Vivienne’s arm.

“It’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

Vivienne ran to her office to get money from petty cash.

Aisling carefully transferred the food to the basement canteen. A tiny white-tiled room with a table and four plastic chairs, a microwave, a kettle, a fridge and a grill that looked about twenty years old, it was totally unsuitable for cooking and serving a meal for sixteen people. It would have to do.

She slipped one of Debbie’s white aprons over her clothes and washed her hands carefully, her mind on the best way to turn a disastrous buffet into a top-class lunch. It was seven minutes past twelve and lunch was supposed to be ready at one. But she felt remarkably calm and focused.

She cut the salmon into large chunks which she put into one of the

large serving dishes Bob had just carried in. Debbie arrived panting, with a box of herbs, oil, butter and cooking equipment.

“We’ll use the ham, the potato and the pasta salads and make individual starters Aisling explained, breaking open a garlic bulb and expertly peeling and crushing several cloves with an old bread knife she’d found in a drawer.

Debbie handed her a sharp Sabatier knife from her box.

Thanks.” said Aisling, never taking her eyes off what she was doing.

“Keep it very simple, all right she added, assembling a speedy vinaigrette as she talked.

“Just drizzle a little vinaigrette on each plate, place the radicchio in the centre, a little of the cooked salads on the left and the ham on the right.”

Delighted that someone else had taken charge, Debbie started arranging the plates immediately. They were nearly finished ten minutes later when Vivienne and Bob arrived back with the shopping.

“You were quick said Aisling astonished.

“Necessity is the mother of invention answered Vivienne.

“I

skipped the queue by begging everyone in front of me on the express checkout to let me go first. I said I was going to be fired if I didn’t get back to the office on time and it worked!”

Debbie blanched at the mention of the word ‘fired’.

“OK, Bob and Vivienne, you peel the potatoes ordered Aisling.

“Then wash them and cube them into very small cubes. We need them to cook very rapidly. Debbie, you prepare the courgettes. We’ll just cook them in the microwave and serve them with a little butter and black pepper.”

“What are we making?” asked Vivienne as she carefully rolled up the sleeves of her blouse.

“Salmon with tomato and fresh herb salsa and courgettes and mashed potatoes. Because men love mashed potatoes and it’s the quickest way to cook them with two microwaves.” By one o’clock, all the guests had arrived and the boardroom was full. The salmon and mashed potatoes were being kept hot in Debbie’s portable ovens.

Vivienne dispensed drinks while Debbie carried the starters up from the canteen and left them on the long white-covered table.

“Make up a couple of starters with just salad, Debbie instructed Aisling when the other girl returned to the canteen.

“Just in case there’s someone who doesn’t want to eat the cold ham.”

“What will we do if there is someone who doesn’t eat fish?”

asked Debbie. They won’t be able to eat the main course.”

“Oh no, I never thought,” Aisling paled.

“I’ll do the salad.

Get Vivienne to check if everyone will eat the fish. We’ll have to give them a cold plate or maybe I can make them an omelette. You do have eggs, don’t you?”

They’re all eating the ham,” said Vivienne with a relieved sigh when she walked into the canteen ten minutes later, ‘and everyone wants the salmon. I managed to tell Edward what had happened and he says well done to you. And sent down this.” She produced a bottle of red wine and two glasses.

“I need this,” she added, filling one glass for Aisling and another for

“I don’t believe in drinking at lunchtime but today is definitely an exception.”

When the last of the main courses had gone upstairs, Aisling relaxed.

They love it,” Vivienne said, when she came back down from the boardroom.

“What a relief. I never want to go through that ever again. I’m wrecked.” She slipped off her impossibly high shoes and sank down into a chair.

“You were amazing, Aisling. You really saved the day. And you were so unflappable.”

“Cooking calms me,” Aisling replied, putting Debbie’s olive oil back in the box along with the herbs and butter.

“It’s one of my favourite occupations and one of the things I’m best at.

Unfortunately,” she added drily, “I spent more time over the last five years worrying about making a perfect souffle than worrying about the state of my marriage. And I spent much too much time eating the products of my cookery classes. My answer to everything was to bury

myself at home and learn how to make flaky pastry and cream horns and then eat them!” She laughed.

“Well, you’re certainly not eating them now commented Vivienne.

“You look great. You’ve lost so much weight.” Aisling flushed with pleasure at the compliment. Both Jo and Fiona had said the same thing yet she still didn’t know how to take flattery. In her mind she was still an overweight, dull housewife waiting for twelve o’clock to chime and her carriage to turn into a pumpkin.

“Have you been dieting?” asked Vivienne.

“Not really. I don’t have the time to cook stuff like I used to any more but I have been making a big effort to eat properly.

Working certainly helps,” she added.

“It’s easier to keep off the biscuits when you’re not staring at the fridge all day long.

Breaking up with Michael has done wonders for my figure.

Maybe if I’d copped on earlier that he was bored with me and changed somehow, he wouldn’t have left.”

Vivienne leaned over and poured Aisling another glass of wine.

“Well, I don’t think it’s ever that simple,” she said gently.

“I’ve never been married, but my relationship with Christine’s father was a long-term thing, so I know all about letting relationships go stale. You can’t say it was your fault things didn’t work out any more than you can say it’s the man’s fault. It doesn’t work like that. People change so much, that’s what happens. Nobody ever tells you that in romantic novels, do they?

“Christine’s father didn’t want the same things I wanted,” she revealed.

“He wanted to remain single and fancy-free, which was OK by me before I got pregnant. But afterwards, I wanted to settle down, I wanted security. He didn’t.”

She shrugged.

“We drifted apart and it wasn’t really my fault or his fault. Was that what happened with you?”

“I suppose so,” admitted Aisling.

“We both changed. I couldn’t see that in the beginning. I blamed Michael for everything from global warming to cellulite, but I can see

what happened now, thank God. I went one way and Michael went another. I’d stopped thinking of him in the same way, I suppose she

“He wasn’t so much my husband as the father of the twins, and breadwinner. I cut myself off from his world and he did the same to me. I notice it now because his being there isn’t much different to his not being there. Apart from late-night conversations about what the boys did and what type of dinner was overheated to a crisp in the!

oven because he was late home, we didn’t talk at all. Wow,” said Aisling, ‘this is a very intense conversation. Are you sure you didn’t put something in this wine, a bit of truth serum?” Vivienne laughed. Trauma makes you want to unburden yourself or at least that’s what it says in Caroline’s latest psychology book.”

“Caroline likes psychology books?” said Aisling.

“I can’t imagine it.”

“She loves them. She’s been doing a nighttime accountancy course for the last two years and she says she’d never have dreamed of doing it without her books. She says they’ve given her the encouragement her upbringing never gave her.”

They finished off the bottle of wine, leaving a flustered Debbie to serve dessert, a raspberry roulade with cream.

“If there’s any left over, bring it back ordered Vivienne, buttering a piece of French bread.

“It looks yummy and we’re ravenous.”

Aisling was beginning to feel distinctly tipsy. She hadn’t actually eaten any lunch and the wine, a particularly potent Rioja, had gone straight to her head.

“Eat.” advised Vivienne, making an enormous French bread sandwich with some ham and potato salad, ‘or we’ll be plastered.”

She cut the sandwich in half without too much of the filling squelching out and handed one piece to Aisling.

“Was it very difficult bringing up Christine on your own?”

ventured Aisling.

“It’s just that I’ve a friend who is pregnant and her boyfriend has left her. I wonder how hard it will be for her.”

“God help her. It’s very hard said Vivienne through a mouthful of crumbs, ‘if it’s anything like my experience. I mean, I adore Christine, she’s everything in the world to me, but there have been some difficult times. It’s hard being alone, but you know that. You’re responsible for everything, nobody else. And it can be lonely, too.”

“I know. You miss adult conversations,” said Aisling reflectively.

“It’s not even that,” Vivienne added.

“Your social life just disintegrates when you’re a single parent, that’s what I’ve found, anyway. Nobody invites a single woman to parties because the women are all terrified you’re going to run off with their husbands.” She chuckled as though remembering something.

“And the husbands all think you’re dying for it and chat you up madly!”

Aisling said nothing. Did Leo think she was dying for it?

Probably.

“You lose all the friends who are couples,” Vivienne continued, ‘and end up hanging out with your single friends. Most of whom don’t have kids and can’t understand why you can’t stay out all night or have to stay sober to drive the babysitters home. Am I making this single parenthood thing sound too attractive for you?” she inquired with a large grin.

“Fantastic. How do you ever get time to work with such a hectic social life?” Aisling asked.

“Oh, you know, I fit a few hours in every week between visiting Leeson Street, picking up bored married men and trawling through singles pubs looking for Mr. Might-Possibly-be-Mr-Right.”

Vivienne took a big slug of wine. That probably sounds very bitter,” she said quietly.

“Has it been that tough?” Aisling asked gently.

“Yes and no. I’d love to have someone in my life but it’s so hard to meet someone who wants a single mother. It’s so hard to meet someone full stop. I’m thirty-four and the men my age are all married. Or have no intention of settling down,” she added.

“Sorry, this isn’t what you need to hear, Aisling. I’ve been having a

miserable week because Christine has the flu. I’ve got the most dreadful PMT and the video conked out on Wednesday evening when we were watching 101 Dalmatians.

Lord knows how much it will cost to fix, or if it’s even worth fixing.”

“Ladies, you’ve been asked to join the party upstairs seeing as how you saved the day said a loud voice.

Pat Finucane stood at the door of the canteen.

“I’ve been telling everyone about your amazing culinary skills, Aisling, and how you managed to transform a disaster into a wonderful meal. They nearly licked their plates, you know. Those mashed potatoes were delicious.”