A Gift of Poison by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911420408
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2019-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

David cooks well. Elizabeth doesn’t think she’s ever had such a good lunch in anyone’s home before, without cooking it herself. It’s clearly a feast in her honour and makes her feel cherished. Cheese soufflé that dissolves in her mouth; roast duck with crisp skin and apple sauce to counteract the sweetness, crunchy mange tout and waxy new potatoes in their skins; tangy home-made orange sorbet. She is beginning to wonder how his wife could bear to let him go. A mild case of manic depression seems a small price to pay for such food.

‘Did you do the cooking at home?’ she asks.

‘Oh yes, all the time, Kate hates cooking. But not always as grandly as this, of course, this is specially for you. Still, my bangers and mash were pretty famous. I like cooking. I find it relaxing. I can think about work while I’m cooking.’

A man who likes Verdi and D. H. Lawrence and also cooks and has a beautiful mouth and is seventeen years younger than I am, she thinks. I ought to be very grateful and not thinking about Felix at all.

‘I made all the curtains as well,’ he continues. ‘Kate hates sewing. Well, I couldn’t actually write all day, of course, I hardly ever do more than four hours, but four or five hours manual labour after that, gardening, decorating, whatever, was ideal. It’s the perfect way to iron out problems in the book without feeling you’re idle or stuck.’

Perhaps that was what Felix was doing when he had affairs, Elizabeth thinks. Keeping busy. Sorting out the book.

‘Well, that was a magnificent lunch,’ she says.

‘Coffee?’

‘Oh – yes please.’ She needs coffee; she feels rather drunk. She has brought a bottle of Sancerre and drunk most of it herself. David says he doesn’t drink much at lunch-time and she wonders if he means ever or if he is planning to make love to her and saving himself for the event.

Over lunch she finally talked about Felix. Perhaps that was a declaration of trust, an admission that she is ready to make love. If she can talk about Felix, then sharing her imperfect body should be easy. Once she began talking she could hardly bear to stop. It was as if she had never talked about Felix before, as if all the hours with Helen and other women friends didn’t count. She realised she had never before discussed Felix with a man other than her doctor, when she was very depressed about not having children.

She was surprised how well David listened. She hadn’t expected that, knowing how much he talks, but apparently he can do both. She didn’t want to maintain eye contact with him because the sympathy she saw was too much for her, so she looked all round the room, which is austerely furnished in black and white leather and tubular steel. She has admired the flat out of politeness but she isn’t sure she likes it: it seems more like a showroom than a home.

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