A Start in Life by Anita Brookner Read Free Book Online

holding a carton filled with damask napkins, entrée dishes, serving plates, a ladle, and some knife rests.
    ‘Mamma would have liked you to have them,’ he said.

6
    ‘Mrs Cutler,’ asked Ruth, who refused to call her Maggie, ‘how do you make a chicken casserole?’
    Mrs Cutler removed her cigarette from her mouth, tipping the ash into the saucer of the cup of tea she was drinking at the kitchen table.
    ‘For how many?’
    ‘Two.’
    ‘I get it. Well, you can buy some chicken pieces at Sainsbury’s, put them in a Pyrex dish with a tin of Campbell’s mushroom soup, and bung the whole thing in the oven for a couple of hours. Dead easy. I usually serve it with a bit of rice and some frozen beans. Then you could buy one of their apple pies and warm it up for pudding.’
    For once Ruth had the feeling that Mrs Cutler was doing her best. Unfortunately, it was not good enough.
    ‘Anthea,’ she asked on the following morning. ‘How do you make a chicken casserole?’
    ‘Are you still trying to get that nut to come to dinner?’ Anthea carefully replenished her lipstick and smiled brilliantly at herself in her mirror. ‘Why chicken casserole? Why don’t you just grill him a bit of sole? You can do it at the last minute. He’s been known to turn up late, you know.’
    But the weather had become hot and thundery and Ruth did not trust the refrigerator at Edith Grove to preserve anything for longer than half an hour. It would
have to be a chicken casserole because the oven, also slightly defective, could be relied upon to cook it very slowly. Ruth saw herself, in a long skirt and her Victorian blouse and cameo, casually taking the complete dish from the oven when Richard arrived. Besides, it would smell better.
    So it would have to be the
Larousse gastronomique
in the public library.
    She was appalled by the number of ingredients required and also by the fact that leeks, which figured largely in the recipe, were in short supply. She should have done all this two months ago. Eventually she located some in Harrods, poor shabby things propped up like invalids in their wooden boxes, and anxiously swathed in blue tissue paper. She bought ten, together with two melons (in case one was unsatisfactory); then, with an obscure feeling of giving in to bad advice, she bought an apple pie – rather superior, very expensive, with an overlay of lyrically golden varnish – in the bakery department. She took a taxi back to Edith Grove, put the cake in the refrigerator, the melons on the windowsill, the leeks on the table, cutting away the yellowing green parts which she took down to the dustbin as she went out with her shopping bag for the second time. On this trip she bought three pounds of new potatoes, some carrots, onions, cream, and a bottle of wine. When she got back up the stairs, she was just in time to seize her notes but not in time to catch the bus to her lecture. It would have to be another taxi.
    ‘You all right, Miss Whatsaname?’ asked Miss Howe, emerging from her basement. ‘I keep hearing the door go.’
    ‘Yes, I’m fine, Miss Howe. Just a bit late this morning.’
    ‘All right for some,’ said Miss Howe to her cat, but loud enough for Ruth to hear.
    The lecture was important; Ruth heard about one
word in three. ‘And so, ladies and gentlemen, in
La Cousine Bette
we have the plain woman’s revenge, but Balzac has given this particular plain woman manipulative powers that most plain women cannot use. Here we have the clearest example of Balzac’s own desire to manipulate his characters.’ She heard that bit and nodded her head in agreement, then stopped abruptly as she realized that she had forgotten to buy another bottle of wine for the sauce. Why did simple meals cost so much, not only in terms of money but in sheer attention? One part of her would have been happier with
La Cousine Bette
, but she dismissed this as faint-heartedness. Balzac would always be there. Richard, she knew, would not.
    ‘I