Where Everything Seems Double, Penny Freedman [best inspirational books txt] 📗

Glad rags? Granny had suggested a skirt, and she had brought one, but it was denim, which probably wasn’t smart enough. Her best thing was a jumpsuit which she had chosen as her birthday present from Mum. It had a zip up the front and no sleeves and skinny legs that went just to her ankles, and the most exciting thing about it was that it was black, with just a single white rose sketched on the top. She had never had anything black before and it made her feel grown-up when she put it on, though she hadn’t actually had the courage to wear it in public yet. She got it out and looked at it. The only other things she had with her that were at all smart were some patterned trousers and a crop top, but she wasn’t sure whether crop tops would be frowned on in the restaurant. It was now or never for the jumpsuit, she decided, and once the bathroom was free, she had a wash and slipped into it. Then she pulled her curls high up onto the top of her head and twisted them into a knot. After that, she allowed herself to look in the mirror behind the wardrobe door. She struck an attitude, one hand on a hip, and surveyed the result. Too cool for school, Freda, she told herself and went next door.

Even the boost of the jumpsuit didn’t stop her from feeling intimidated by the restaurant, though. It wasn’t that she was not used to eating in restaurants. They ate out as a family sometimes, but not in this kind of place. The menu, for a start, was huge – it came in a leather cover with pages and pages of wines listed, as well as the food itself. All thoughts of being vegetarian this week had vanished since Milo had offered to take her fishing one day, so that was one complication dealt with, but the next hurdle was that the menu was mostly in French. Granny would be only too happy to translate for her, of course, but she had been learning French for two years after all, and she wasn’t going to be patronised. She spotted a section headed POISSONS, thought that some people might think they were being offered poison but was confident that she would be choosing fish, and lighted on filets de sole, which would come accompanied by pommes de terre sautées, so that would be all right – for tonight, at least. She closed her menu but she thought she might try to do some private studying of it for future reference when she got the chance.

‘Decided?’ her grandmother asked, looking at her over the top of her glasses.

‘Filets de sole,’ she said, ‘please.’

‘Do you know what á la meunière means?’

‘I’m sure I shall like it whatever it means,’ she hedged.

‘It means “as made by the miller’s wife”.’

‘Really?’ This sounded improbable; some language game of Granny’s, she thought.

‘Yes. And why would that be, do you think?’

Freda was beginning to feel like one of her grandmother’s students.

‘I have no idea,’ she said, in a way that she hoped implied that she had no interest either.

‘Well, if I tell you that the sole fillets are just dipped in flour and fried in butter with a squeeze of lemon,’ her grandmother said, ‘does that help?’

‘The flour, I suppose,’ Freda hazarded, ‘from the miller.’

‘Possibly.’ She eyed Freda over her glasses again, looking distinctly professorial. ‘But the point is, it’s very simple. The miller and his wife stand for ordinary people. This is simple home cooking, not haute cuisine.’

‘We don’t have sole at home,’ she objected. ‘It’s really expensive.’

‘It probably didn’t use to be, before the stocks were depleted.’

Feeling that this conversation had gone as far as it could before it became boring, Freda put down her menu firmly and sat back in her chair, but Granny, she saw, was just getting into her stride.

‘And pommes de terre sautées’, she said. ‘Jumped potatoes. Why “jumped”?’

‘I think you’re going to tell me,’ Freda said.

‘Think about how you cook them. You toss them about in a frying pan, don’t you?’

‘Do you?’ Freda asked. ‘We have oven chips at home.’

She was rescued from the language tutorial by a waiter, who took their order – Granny was having duck – and returned with their drinks. Freda would really have liked a coke, but thought that might be frowned on, so she settled for elderflower pressé, while Granny had a large glass of red wine. They had decided not to have starters, in order to leave room for pudding, but starters of a sort came anyway. The waiter arrived with plates on which nestled two tiny tartlets for each of them.

‘An amuse-bouche’, he said, ‘with Chef’s compliments.’

One of the tartlets had a tiny egg in it. Freda put it in her mouth.

‘Nice?’ her grandmother asked.

‘My mouth is quite amused,’ Freda said.

The sole, when it arrived, was delicious. It had capers sprinkled on it, which Granny hadn’t mentioned, but that was all right. The duck looked very pink and rather uncooked to Freda, but Granny seemed to like it, and they ate happily. When they had ordered desserts – a berry sorbet for Granny, tarte tatin for Freda – and Granny’s wine glass was empty, Freda decided that this was the moment to ask about the mystery of Milo’s granddad. You couldn’t beat about the bush with Granny, so she said, ‘Can I ask you something, Granny?’

‘Ask away.’

‘It sounds weird to say it, but did you once have a thing with Fergus’s and Milo’s granddad?’

‘A thing?’ Granny’s face had gone very tight-looking.

‘A relationship?’

‘A relationship? The only relationship I had with Colin Fletcher was that he was my doctor and my best friend’s husband, Freda. But I don’t think that was what you meant, was it? What have Fergus and Milo been saying to you?’

This was not going well. Freda swallowed. ‘Milo said that you ruined their lives,’ she mumbled, ‘and I could