The Opened Cage by S. C. Howe

Author:S. C. Howe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786239877
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
Published: 2017-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

CHAPTER SEVEN

Joss took his greatcoat from him, as would a waiter at a top grade hotel, in the porch of the farmhouse.

Tom looked up at it. ‘Was this here before?’ he asked, and was surprised at his lack of memory. But then he had only seen it once. Only once?

‘No, it’s new. Thought it was a good idea in case of rain.’

‘That’s a fine idea.’

‘I did write to ask if you agreed, you know,’ said Joss pushing the front door into a warm, golden interior.

Tom would have said, ‘When I read your letters, it was you that mattered, the fact you were getting better, that you were all right’, but instead gasped in amazement. From the old, rather dull interior of his first visit had metamorphosed a warm, honey-lit room. A big range was now inside the cavernous inglenook and on top of it, various kettles and pans wheezed and steamed. There was a large sofa along one side and two high backed chairs on the other and between them a rich coloured rug of mighty size.

‘Look!’ said Joss, jumping towards a tap on the side of the range. ‘Constant hot water!’ Tom arched his eyes. ‘I asked the plumbers to devise something to pump it through to meet up with a boiler in this range. And they did!’ He was beaming like a child, waving his hands in his old way when he was overwrought. ‘We’ll never be cold or dirty again.’

Tom wanted to lurch over to him and hold him, this childish enthusiasm moving him more than any tears or long words. Looking over to a long deal table, he saw a feast set out.

‘I had the cook at Woodham show me how to make cakes and things,’ Joss said. There was an undeniable pride in his voice. ‘She said I was rather a good pupil.’ It was something he had been pleased with himself over, getting Cook at Woodham to give him basic lessons in food preparation, and she had appeared happy to coach him. It had taken a time with several episodes of eggs skittering along tables and floors, of mixes flying high in the air from too vigorous a whisking, and pastry mixes being peeled off his large, clumsy hands when too much milk and then flour had been applied. Yet somehow, the cook, a woman of later middle age who came up to Joss’s shoulder, had trained him in the basic recipes. Mrs Deerman had peered in on occasion. In the early days she had cooed exuberantly at the sponge cakes with sunken sodden middles; at chewy braising steaks swimming in thin gravies; at the crunchy, partly-cooked vegetables, prepared when the cook was out and he was determined to ‘have a go’, until trying his meals was no longer something of a chore but actually rather enjoyable. And she admired that this strapping young man didn’t care that anyone saw him cooking cakes and puddings, as though it was the most usual thing in the world.

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