Domestic Science , livre ebook

About the author

Jane Burdiak lives in Buckinghamshire and is married with four sons. She works in a large comprehensive school as a food technology teacher, enjoying the challenge of a demanding and stimulating environment. Domestic Science is her second book to be published.
For
Julie Isabella Friell
1960 – 2008
Jane Burdiak



Domestic Science



Austin Macauley
Copyright © Jane Burdiak


The right of Jane Burdiak to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.


A CIP catalogue record for this title is
available from the British Library.


ISBN 978 1 84963 053 5


www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2011)
This edition 2012
Austin & Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LB
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to my friends Judy and Mandy, who have been with me all the way, and above all, to Elaine, who provided her invaluable technical expertise.

BE-RO illustrations used with permission from Premier Food Group Limited. And one line from The Road to the Isles .
The three books lay on the counter. The librarian swiped the bar codes on the front of each. A mouth of red light lit up in the hand-held scanner and her eyes travelled across the monitor to her right. She remarked on the covers, implying that there was something about them that linked, and indeed there was. The quiet muted colours and the subtle blurry images were nostalgic and inviting. She had chosen two of them for her husband three weeks earlier. The third book had been hers and she had hoped to finish it in the Christmas holiday. She had first started it in the summer on the flight back from Kafelonia, bored with the free newspaper placed inconveniently on her seat. As if there is space for reading a broadsheet newspaper on a package holiday flight.
“They say you can’t judge a book by its cover,” she said.
The librarian smiled, agreeing.
“I always judge a book by its cover,” she continued. “It is what makes me pick it up in the first place.” She usually chose paperbacks because they were lighter, easier to carry home and easier to hold. She would pull up a chair beside the revolving bookcase and gently spin the shelves until she came across a book that took her fancy. Sometimes she came across a book that she had read before. She always remembered the covers. Like old friends, she picked them up and turned a page, remembering. Why she chose books for her husband she never knew. He was perfectly capable. It had become a habit, a bad habit.

It had not been her intention to dismantle the tree. It just happened. Her husband was in the garden having a bonfire, taking advantage of the still, black night, and she was at a loose end. It had been a lovely tree, thick with spindles. Even on New Year’s Day it didn’t look tired. Reluctantly, she collected the carrier bags from the wardrobe and carefully stored the decorations for another year, returning the glass baubles to their vacuum-formed moulds and the fairy lights to their special box, weaving the wires around the cardboard tray. She was glad that she was alone. Even though her children were now in their twenties, she had never liked them to witness the harsh reality of ending the magic. Armed with a black sack and the secateurs, she began to remove the branches, making it easier to lift outside – never a problem when brought indoors because the white net had kept the branches under control. But, once cut, the branches exploded into the dining room, filling it with hazy forest and earthy pine. She questioned bringing a tree into the house. Surely a bizarre thing to do? Effortlessly the secateurs cut cleanly into the bark. She placed the branches in the sack. The tree, which only an hour earlier was spangled and dizzy with light, looked torn and desperate. She took its disfigured awkwardness outside to stand and shiver. The bonfire, reluctant at first to start, had leapt into life. She could see her husband silhouetted against the glittering sparks and licking flames.

A bitterly cold day had been forecast. Local news had brought reports of gritting lorries working round the clock and isobars tightly packed, the temperature hovering around zero, but feeling much colder in the strong easterly wind.
“ Let’s walk to The Black Horse,” she said to her son, “and have lunch.”
They took to the path wrapped against the icy wind and speckles of sleet. It was called The Railway Walk and long ago it had been the railway, prosperous and bustling, not as it was now, devoid of activity and lifeless. Slippery brown leaves had gathered and collected along the tarmac edges. Nettles, decaying, dark and waterlogged, swayed and leaned. Set back, on either side of the path, hawthorns glistened with beads of melting hoarfrost, their black branches bending in the wind. They ignored the dank and dreary outlook, walking briskly, determined not to succumb to the atrocious conditions. Log fires were an added incentive and the warmth greeted them as they opened the door. Well worth the effort, she thought. They chose a table and draped their hats, gloves and scarves over the red-hot radiator, ready for the journey home. The waitress suggested that it was false economy to have two glasses of wine, that it was more economical in the end to have a bottle. She was easily persuaded. In fact, she didn’t need persuading. They both chose the game pie. It sounded much more interesting than pan-fried chicken on a bed of rocket and it was seasonal, hot and warming. The wine mulled and blurred the walk back, even though the scarves, hats and gloves offered intense, deep heat before the icy blast penetrated on the other side of the door.
Saturday too was cold. As she waited on the platform a funnel of wind ripped through the station, snatching her hair and whipping it about. Even though she knew she would be cold to start the day she dressed meanly. She didn’t want accessories and her coat to hinder. She was going shopping and knew that by twelve she would be throbbing with heat, horribly hot and irritated with excess baggage.
She went to Liberty’s, her favourite shop. Although she looked at the bags and the scarves on the ground floor she had gone to look at the fabrics on the third floor. The wooden staircase was just as she remembered, the banisters, old and over time smoothed with hands, comfortably worn. No neon, no plastic, no hideous shop fittings and if there were and there probably were, they were discreet. She imagined she smelled polish, polish out of a round tin, rubbed deep and buffed with yellow lightness. Even as a student she had frequented the shop. She liked the atmosphere and the feeling, she didn’t have to buy anything. It was like another time. Since her last visit, the area devoted to fabrics had been reduced to a fraction and the selection to a minimum. She sauntered round the open Elizabethan gallery, lightly taking her fingers over floral lawns that caught her eye and a basket of lavender bags tactile and inviting. She couldn’t resist. Beautifully made and fat with dried flower heads that rubbed against each other when she squeezed one in her hand. The smell lingered, fragrant and summery. It was about the only thing she could afford and, looking back, she should have bought one. Everything was hugely expensive. She went down a floor to ladies’ fashions. A black silk voile dress with a flocked spot caught her attention. She put her glasses on and scrutinized the topstitching, rows and rows of it. She could find no faults. She examined the placket and the tabs on the cuff and, horror of horrors, there was a band of fraying silk on the edge of the cuff. Surely a mistake. She checked the other cuff nearest the wall. The same. She lifted the hanger off the rail. The neck too had the same distressed look. A design fault. Definitely a design fault, she concluded. That was why it was still hanging there, reduced to£469.95. A snip.

It was Sunday. The impending start of term overshadowed her day, creeping in and out of her thoughts. It was never far away. She had to remember to take ingredients for spaghetti bolognaise and put a partly squeezed tube of tomato purée on the kitchen table to remind her. The low January sun poured in, bright and light, showing up the smears and the flaws. She looked in the mirror. Every hair on her face was there to see, exposed. Removing her glasses, she hoped that the image, how others would see her, was lessened. Those with good young eyes would see. Children were perceptive and they missed nothing.

Slowly the darkness seeped away and was replaced by looming grey shapes. Soon it would be time to get up. It was only in the long summer holiday that a normal sleep pattern resumed. Between two and three she woke and from then on found sleep impossible. She would lie awake thinking and planning her day or the week ahead. She knew that she would be fine when she walked into her classroom. She had a light purposeful air and spent her time distributing booklets and sheets of paper and packets of crayons. She welcomed the pupils at her door. Now, how many weeks was it until the next holiday?
She appreciated that writing an evaluation about a pizza or a shepherd’s pie was not terribly exciting and it wasn’t long before an interesting conversation about body piercing commenced, much more interesting to a fifteen year old. It was mainly between three boys but she could see that several other