Instructions for Visitors by Helen Stevenson

Author:Helen Stevenson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Washington Square Press

CHERRY PIE PROJECT

Shortly before the cherries ripened, a month before the May reelection, I was approached by a deputation from the Foyer de Jeunesse, who are involved with creating employment for the young and had a plan. They needed me to supply a recipe for authentic American cherry pie, which they would sell at the Saturday morning market. We’ll have a meeting at Luc’s in two weeks’ time, said Marianne, the project’s leading lady. Luc said, “Don’t be ridiculous, it’ll never work. Stick to writing. At least you won’t run up any bills.”

The day of the meeting I was making curtains and realized I had forgotten to do anything about the recipe. At lunchtime, just before the two o’clock kitchen meeting, I let myself into Luc’s office while he was out at the pizzeria, searched for “cherry pie” on the Internet, and was able, within seconds, to download a short-crust-pastry recipe from a source in Tennessee. I had a problem with the printer, which recognized I was English and kept trying to form a queue. When Luc printed out a prescription and insurance form for his first patient after lunch, the computer started producing a neat set of instructions that began, “Pick ’em ripe and juicy.”

Luc was right, the cherry pie project did not seem set to be a winner. Even if you have sixty cherry trees that ripen on the hillside every April, it’s a long way from that to a cherry pie. You need to spray them for blight—organic spray made from nettles, so you need some nettle beds, too—you need ladders and a workforce to pick them; de-stoning volunteers; huge pans to simmer them in; sugar; ovens; pastry bowls; large quantities of flour and butter; baking dishes; freezers; licenses to cook and to sell; and something to do for an income the other eleven months of the year.

Even so, I told Marianne she should go and see someone called Bruno, who was on the town council. He was popular with everyone. He had a nice face and was funny and inquisitive. His wife, though Catalan, had a touch of the hunt country about her and drove around in a Range Rover with her ashblond hair in a ponytail. Bruno would give Marianne advice about the laws covering preparation of food for commercial use. “The fat bastard who drives a city jeep?” she said.

Marianne, who seemed to have been torched into feminism by a neglectful husband, had run away down here from Paris with three children, bought a horse and a patch of land with sixty cherry trees on it and lived in a constant state of incipient outrage against the state, the mayor, men, marriage and, apparently, her own children. “No one on the town council’s going to get involved with a harebrained scheme like this right now,” she said. “Not with the election coming up.”

* * *

By the time the election was over Marianne seemed to have decided to let the project slide. At the first

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