A Place in the Country by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online

mixed with diced onion, cilantro, and jalapeño peppers, then rolled in corn leaves and baked in the oven to a savory melting softness—they were a big success.
    Meanwhile she was cooking steak and fries, but she’d also added chicken pot pie to her menu, American-style, served in big white bowls with the flaky pastry crusts fluffed to spectacular heights that brought gasps of admiration. She had also taken to making her own bread, round, dense, flattish loaves that she let rise overnight on back of the Aga, with a cloth draped over the tins, then baked just before lunchtime.
    â€œWith good bread and butter, you can keep the customers waiting for their food a bit longer,” she told Maggie, “and they won’t even notice, they’ll order a second bottle of wine before you know it.” She was learning the business on the hoof, so to speak.
    And after long nights on the pub’s infamous hard stone floors her feet felt like hooves. She longed for one of those whirlpool Jacuzzi baths they had in spas, where she could sit with her feet being gently hot-massaged while her hair frizzed in the steam and she could keep her eyes shut against the world. A world she was still afraid to acknowledge existed, where she took complete responsibility for her own life. And her daughter’s.
    Right now, they were living “on the kindness of strangers” as Tennessee Williams had so tragically phrased it in A Streetcar Named Desire. Not that she was a Blanche DuBois. Far from it. Blanche was a woman totally alone. And Caroline had Issy, who thank God, was loving her time at Upperthorpe school. The Headmistress had taken her under her wing and she was getting a good education, preparing for sixth form and boarding school, though James was still not paying for it.
    Caroline’s father paid up and never once said I told you so. He never said what were you thinking signing that prenup. What he did say though, was, “Look, James can’t do this, he’s legally obligated to pay for his daughter. Not only legally, but morally.” Her father was a moral man.
    Meanwhile, Caroline was getting on with her new life. She’d met some of the locals who seemed to know more about her than she did them, via the “pub grapevine,” she supposed, and received many a cheerful good morning while shopping on the high street, or queuing at the post office where the line was so slow you could read the morning paper while you waited, because everyone had to have a chat and a laugh. And of course she became familiar with the regulars at the pub, who came for her pie and Maggie’s tacos, as well as the cute young guys whose eyes fastenened onto her as she walked across the lounge to serve them, making her blush, which of course made them laugh and tease her.
    â€œI’ll have you know I’m old enough to be your mom,” she would say sternly, folding her arms over her sweatered bosom. Oh, go on ! they’d reply, or words to that effect. You’re not old enough to be anyone’s mom.
    There was one face, though, Caroline found herself looking out for. He wasn’t “a regular,” he only popped in occasionally, and he was never “dressed up.” Middle height, dark hair, a bit beaky-looking. Hawklike some might have said. Maybe he had a sexy mouth? What did she know? She certainly wasn’t thinking about “sex.” Anyway, he came in early, sixish usually for a beer, and his sweater always seemed to be dotted with bits of wood shavings. Caroline assumed he was the local carpenter, though she never asked. She wasn’t that interested. Or was she simply being cautious?
    Every morning, Caroline got up early, gave the girls breakfast and drove them to school. Maggie picked them up in the afternoon. They were inseparable. They did their homework together; ate breakfast, lunch, and supper together. They gossiped and flirted with boys online. They went to the movies