Page 48 of The Last Postcard

‘What is going on?’

The young woman froze. Sam felt her fingers tighten on his forearm. Together, they turned.

Someone was standing in the doorway. Through the floating dust, he saw grey streaked hair, a cream linen suit, a cigarette held in one sinewy hand. Deep brown eyes met his.

‘Samuel Hackett.’ A husky voice filled the kitchen. ‘You have your wish. It seems I shall have to introduce myself after all.’

Part Three

Third Degree

Take a jigger of Plymouth gin and a pony of French vermouth. Into this add four dashes of absinthe. Shake and strain into an old-fashioned whisky glass. Of a challenging and potent nature.

I would love to say that once I found Langham, my life ran smoothly on its tracks. I would love to say that after I arrived at Dar Portuna, all my hillsides were oregano, all my dishes were flowers and whipped cream.

But that’s not how it was.

I remember so well the smell of the kitchen that night: boiling milk and old lard, half-rancid fish offcuts and discarded onion skin. I remember too the mess that the hired chef – who had scarpered as soon as dinner was served – had left behind for some poor servant to clear. Bad workmanship. I observed as much to Langham’s man, Bouzid, who had showed me to the kitchen.

He only grunted. ‘You have what you need?’

In that moment, the audacity of what I was doing struck me, hard. It was almost eleven and Langham had ordered food for midnight; I had a single hour and an unfamiliar kitchen with which to secure my future. I was not cooking for half-drunk townsmen at the inn, unfussy and distracted by the girls. I was cooking for Langham, for a saint and his exalted guests. I was cooking for my life. Every trick Ifrahim had taught me to please the teeth and charm the tongue, I would need now.

‘Yes,’ I told Bouzid. My hands hesitated on the lapels of my jacket. I didn’t want to take it off; it was my protection, a shield between my bound chest and the world. I’d already caught his sharp, sober eyes watching me. ‘Is there an apron?’ I asked gruffly.

The garment he returned with was a huge, canvas thing, stiff from laundering. With my back to him, I shucked off the jacket, and ducked beneath the apron’s cover. As soon as it was tied around my waist, I began to feel better. I bared my wrists to wash my hands at the sink, and became aware of the familiar tingle in my fingertips, the itch to spice and shape the world.

‘You can leave me now,’ I said, over my shoulder.

My kitchen self and Alejandro had not yet met each other. If I was to introduce them, if I was to stir them together until they were blended, inseparably, I needed to do it alone. Bouzid watched me a moment longer, his dark eyes sceptical. Then he turned and disappeared into the garden.

Thankfully, the stove wasn’t a fancy gas contraption, but a huge old blackened thing with a glow of embers deep in its belly. I rattled them up hot, fed it more wood, and went to search out the raw ingredients of my future.

I was right about Monsieur Hubert, the cook. It takes a thief to know a thief, and the hired chef was a lazy one. Almost everything I found was cut-rate or half-bad. The milk skimmed and skimmed again, the cooking wine no better than vinegar. How had it not been noticed? Perhaps Langham and Lady Bailey did not often eat at home. A smile found the edge of my lips. I could change that.

Almonds, my hands moved across the shelves. Garlic. Olive oil. Ifrahim’s voice was with me. Herbs from the garden. Lemons. Bones. If in doubt, serve the best things whole and let them speak. Let them be barefaced.

I tumbled what I had found on to the table and freed the kitchen knife from my jacket. It had come with me all this way, it had blistered my childish hand and tasted men’s blood to aid my escape. Now, it would help me win my freedom.

Outside the back door, the gardens were warm, fanned by a breeze that smelled of brine and sea fog. The noise of the party reached me as I knelt among the dark plants. The scent of herbs rose up; must from oregano, the tough greenness of parsley, bright, clean rosemary. Rocío del mar, Ifrahim had always called rosemary; the dew of the sea. That was what I needed.

It was not until I returned to the kitchen that I realized how tired I was. Luckily, my hands remembered the work. The guests outside were drunk, for the most part, so they’d want strong tastes, guilty, heady morsels. And salt. It was the easiest charm to work upon a tongue, especially ones drenched in liquor.

I found potatoes and onions in the pantry, a shrivelled chilli pepper, the end of a chorizo sausage that I guessed the chef had been gnawing on. It would do for a patatas a lo pobre. The onions hissed like laughter; I’d serve poor man’s potatoes to those rich beasts and they would wolf them down like caviar. Soon the onions were joined by spicy sausage, turning the oil crimson.

What else? Anchovies, freed from their coffin and plunged into a pool of olive oil and lemon and garlic. More garlic for an aioli, another trick, a way to dazzle the mouth. No matter that it would linger long after it was welcome; what mattered was approval, here and now.

Watch what comes out of their mouths, as well as what goes in, and you will know them for what they are.

Leaning out of the back door, I listened to the party. It was raucous still, but the voices were growing languid. Somewhere near by, foliage rustled and two people hushed each other’s laughter. I smiled. Sweetness was what I needed to add, and decadence. There was a lump of hard cheese on one of the shelves, which I sliced finely to disguise its age. Next came a pot of honey, which I drizzled all over, followed by a scattering of rosemary flowers. It wasn’t subtle; it was blatant and heady. That honey would linger tantalizingly on fingers, shine on lips, and the guests would praise me silently for helping them in their seductions.

I hadn’t noticed the time racing by. Suddenly, Bouzid was back, looking dubiously at the dishes on the table. I didn’t blame him. It wasn’t food to be eaten with silver cutlery and linen, but with hands. It was a gamble on my part, a guess that Langham’s guests hadn’t come to this hot, dazzling city for luxury alone. They were here because they were hungry, famished for what they couldn’t get in their own countries. They wanted to crush the world to their mouths and sink their teeth into its flesh, they wanted to suck at the juice and fling the rinds away and never think about the cost. I can see you, I wanted my dishes to say; I can give you what you want.

Bouzid and I carried the platters between us, two on each arm, like I used to at the inn. The guests were waiting on the veranda, a pack of bright, wild things, their beautiful clothes splashed and crumpled and pushed askew. I saw Lady Bailey amongst the cushions, leaning forwards over a pipe, her pale hair sliding across her cheek. And in the middle of them all was Langham, the head of that lost troupe, his face smooth, his mouth full of secrets.

We locked eyes. ‘Supper is served,’ I said.

‘Very well, del Potro,’ he smiled. ‘We’ll taste your petition. With what do you make your case?’