Cooking the Books Read Online Free PDF Page B

them, and I haven’t made them,’ I said firmly.
    ‘I know, I know.’ Her face crumpled. ‘But make me some? Say six? She didn’t demand them until five and I didn’t have time. Besides, I can’t make pastry. Please? She’ll be bearable if she isn’t hungry.’
    ‘You’re pushing this friendship further than it will go,’ I warned, but went off, securing myself a cup of coffee, to find the eggs and make more pastry. After all, I was there to make pastry.
    As I rolled and crimped I was conscious of curious glances from the room. The sandwich hands had completed their mound of wrapped comestibles and were starting their clean-up, which for some reason always involves retrieving tomato slices from the floor.
    Everyone in a kitchen looks superficially alike: white cap, white coat. I stashed the egg and bacon pies in the oven. They ought to be delicious: free-range eggs and the best prosciutto. But definitely not low-fat, not with all that parma ham. As I started on the beef pies I considered my company.
    Not a friendly kitchen. No one had greeted me or offered to show me where the coffee was. Efficient? There was no shouting, no clanging of dropped or thrown pots. Everyone seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing, and to be doing it. Sandwiches were made, eggs were being fried, bacon crisped, tomatoes grilled, mushrooms seethed. Apparently we offered a full English breakfast, which was ambitious. My bread was being sliced and yesterday’s was being toasted. Someone was making a ratatouille; I could smell the eggplant cooking. The vegetarian option, no doubt. I missed one scent: garlic. Ratatouille needs garlic. Beef pies in the oven, I said as much to the chopper-and-slicer on the next bench, a tall thin pale cook who resembled a stick of celery. He giggled.
    ‘Not in this kitchen,’ he told me. ‘Hi! I’m Lance. They call me Lance the Lettuce Guy. We’re feeding actors. They spend all day breathing into each other’s faces. No garlic and precious few onions.’
    ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ I confessed. ‘Could certainly take the passion out of a love scene.’
    ‘Especially if it’s Ms Atkins,’ he whispered, using a piece of cucumber as cover. ‘She threw a pink fit one day because that poor camera guy was eating mints. She hates the smell of mint. Or so she says.’
    ‘She’s powerful?’
    ‘It’s all a merry round of “Who’s Queen?”. What she wants, she gets. She’s on a fearsome diet and demands low-fat everything but if it’s really low-fat she flings it away and says it has no taste. I’m glad I’m on salads. If she puts on a gram it’ll all be your fault, you watch.’
    I began to wonder what I had got myself into. I could be sitting on my balcony right now, caressing a cat and drinking a G and T. Of course, I could do that when I had all the pies done.
    So I got on with the pies.
    As the first lot came out of the oven I slotted in the next lot. A servitor came to collect the special order for Ms Atkins. She was a thin nervous girl, rather pretty, with dark hair in a ponytail and no makeup. She reminded me of a trapped mouse I had once rescued from Horatio, who had no idea of what to do with it once he had cornered it. It had shivered under a crumpled bathmat, its little beady eyes bright with terror. It had not offered to bite when I picked it up and took it down to the street and let it go. I suddenly remembered its little trembling warmth in my palm as I gave the small pies to the girl with the warning that they were hot and it would not do for the star to burn her mouth. Her hands shook as she took the tray. Poor little mouse!
    ‘Emily,’ sympathised Lance the salad maker. ‘What a life!’
    ‘Ms Atkins’ assistant?’
    ‘Personal slave to a superbitch,’ said the salad maker’s mate. ‘Hi, I’m Kate.’
    ‘Corinna,’ I replied. ‘Why does she stay?’
    ‘She wants to be an actor,’ said Kate. ‘It’s an addiction, like wanting to be published or