 Thyme
Out
Perdita, after the discovery of ex-husband, Lucas,
in the kitchen of her local hotel where she delivers her home-grown
baby vegetables, is horrified to learn that he is to become the
latest celebrity chef and needs both her picturesque if primitive
cottage, and her, in supporting roles.
Her life is further complicated when Kitty, her 87-year-old
friend and support, has a stroke. Is Lucas really such a villain?
Can she cope with all this alone? Or should she face up to the fact
that ‘You can’t cuddle lettuces’? The result is
a deliciously funny and captivating read.
Chapter One
‘Well? Are you going to come in? Or just stand in the doorway
with your trug, looking picturesque?’
Perdita was almost paralysed with shock and confusion. How could
short, plump, amiable and easy-going Enzo have, almost overnight,
turned into the tall, black-browed monster she had divorced ten
years before? Somehow she got herself across the threshold.
‘And take off those bloody gumboots! This is a professional
kitchen, not a farmyard!’
Perdita looked down at her feet and noticed that the floor was
a lot cleaner than usual. She looked up at her ex-husband. ‘No.’
‘So you’ve got bolshi in your old age, have you? You
always were difficult.’
‘I’m not at all difficult. Where’s Enzo?’
‘Fucked off to sunny Napoli, I expect. How the hell should
I know?’
Perdita suddenly became aware that it wasn’t only Enzo that
had undergone a hideous transformation. The rest of the kitchen
had been affected too. She had an impression of a strange whiteness.
The friendly, busy place she had been delivering veg to for five
years had metamorphosed into something akin to an operating theatre.
The noise and clutter had all gone, as had the cheery hum of Radio
One, a Greek chorus to the hubbub of the kitchen. In fact no one
seemed to be doing anything.
The other two occupants of the kitchen were still just recognisable,
but looked completely different. Instead of a pair of brightly coloured
cotton trousers, be-sloganed sweatshirt and a striped apron in one
case, and a pair of ripped jeans and grubby T shirt, in the other,
they wore white overalls and chef’s trousers. Janey, the young
sous-chef, who looked about seventeen, had tried to confine her
Pre-Raphaelite hair under a white cap but, like its owner, Perdita
suspected, it was desperately trying to escape.
The grease-spattered, doodled-on calendar, marked with everyone’s
holidays and birthdays, no longer hung by the telephone. In its
place was a smart white board and marker pen without so much as
a smiley face to relieve its blankness. The large pots of fresh
herbs, grown by Perdita, had disappeared from the windowsill. As
had the fat string of garlic, brought over from France by someone,
the chilli peppers, too hot to use but so cheerful and the ‘boob
chart’, a list of the mistakes made over the week. The person
with the most cock-ups – usually Enzo – brought in some
lagers to be drunk after service on Saturday night. The disappearance
of the boob chart was the ultimate symbol of the end of Enzo’s
regime: an evil dictator had dethroned him.
Cover Illustration: Mary Claire Smith; Calligraphy:
Stephen Raw
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