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  ‘It tasted great. I don’t know how to describe it.’ Aengus was a loyal, proud friend. Rona looked at him in a mixture of rage and scorn.

  Before either of them could say ‘Yummy’ again, Rona broke in. ‘Aengus loves his food, surest way to his heart, Finn. It must have been some pie. How did you get those pecan nuts I tried everywhere?’

  Finn had all the confidence of a Queen for a Day. ‘Just lucky I suppose,’ she said. She spoke to Rona. But her words had a meaning for Aengus.

  Rona felt she was in charge of the situation; all she must remember was not to try to score cheap points too soon. Don’t win any minor battles and lose the war. There would be no silly games proving how little Finn knew about cooking. That might easily make Aengus feel protective. No, indeed, much more subtle methods were called for.

  Next evening, Finn called in and Aengus was not there. Rona realised that they must have met during the afternoon, a lovers’ snatched hour. Where could they have gone? They wouldn’t have dared go to a hotel. The car was too uncomfortable. She mustn’t guess because going down that road meant breaking Rule One, it meant making an image of the two of them together. Yet she knew that they had been together. She had needed to ring Aengus and he was out on a call. She rang Finn’s office and heard the same message.

  Never mind. She was launched on the slow process of breaking up this romance, of ending this affair. She must just get on with it as methodically as she would have approached any other job.

  They talked of cooking, the small, freckled, determined Rona and the wild, laughing, abandoned-looking Finn. On and on she prattled, the seemingly innocent deceived wife telling all her husband’s favourite dishes, and how he liked them made.

  ‘He’s such a baby,’ Rona said affectionately. ‘He hates to hear how things are made and what goes into them. Just loves the effect, he said. I’ve long stopped trying to get him to take an interest in ingredients.’

  She saw her rival sipping a glass of cold white wine, lips pursed around the glass. For a moment a wild feeling of rage came over Rona. She would like to have smashed the glass from Finn’s hand, she would like to have taken a ladle of some scalding liquid and poured it on the tanned shoulders in their skimpy top. But she told herself in that slow measured voice that spoke in her head that this was not the way she could win the war.

  Bit by bit, with contempt for Finn, she taught her rival the fine arts of cooking. She never pretended she was teaching her, of course, it was all in the way you said it. ‘How do you make a roux, Finn? With cornflour, is it?’ she looked interested and helpful and before Finn could stammer anything, Rona had it made.

  Whenever she was sure that Finn actually could make something she encouraged her to do it. ‘Shall I make a raspberry coulis, do you think? Aengus does so love it and it’s terribly simple …listen could you just do one for me … super.’

  As the weeks went on she knew that Finn was making mouthwatering little delicacies for Aengus to be served … it didn’t matter when they were served. Don’t think about those cheese straws that Aengus would love if served fresh and with an ice-cold champagne. In bed. Don’t think of them together. Keep on and on.

  Rona knew that Finn was uneasy about how generous the wronged wife was being. Sometimes she saw a look of contrition on the dark, gypsy-like face. But it was easy to change her mood. Together the two women planned wonderful meals for the unworthy Aengus, but it was never acknowledged that Finn had served him any of the recipes that she learned eagerly, knowing how much he loved good food.

  The lovers had planned a weekend away. Aengus called it a conference. Finn called it seeing about schools for the boys. Rona realised it was one of those idyllic cottages where she would love to have spent a happy relaxing weekend with Aengus. No children, just the two of them. But now it would be Aengus and Finn. Even their names sounded good together, she thought, with a suspicion of a tear. But she would not fall at the last fence.

  Finn was bubbling with enthusiasm. ‘I feel much more confident about cooking since I met you, Rona,’ she said in a burst of gratitude.

  ‘No, no,’ she protested, ‘You were always very good. Look at that wonderful duxelle you taught me.’

  ‘Surely you taught it to me?’ Finn was confused.

  ‘No, we were discussing it, you know, how the mushrooms and the onions are chopped so finely … all that.’

  ‘But you said it was something Aengus loved?’

  It is, he often orders a chicken duxelle in a restaurant but I never managed to make … ’

  ‘So you never made it for him?’ The gypsy eyes were bright.

  ‘Never.’ Rona sounded apologetic almost. But her heart was soaring. The trap had been set.

  She held him to her tenderly, the lying husband who was going away to a rented cottage with a gypsy and not to the conference that he had told his wife he was heading for.

  She held him in the knowledge that he would be very ill. His allergy to mushrooms was real and had never been mentioned to Finn. Lovers don’t talk of allergies which bring on vomiting and diarrhoea. Lovers’ wives certainly don’t warn faithless Finns.

  If she had given him something that looked like a mushroom, Aengus would have refused it. He would never spot it until it was too late, hidden in a duxelle.

  He wouldn’t leave this new love just because she had prepared food which made him vomit. Aengus wasn’t that kind of man.

  But the golden edge would have been taken off the affair. The aura of romance would have blown away. Aengus would return to his wife again. To Rona who would welcome him back without ever pretending he had gone.

  She smiled to herself, a tired smile. She could do it the next time and the next time. For years to come maybe. Or until she lost interest and didn’t care enough any more. Whichever came first.

  THE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM IN THE SPRING

  Julian Symons

  The outsider, Bertie Mays was fond of saying, sees most of the game. In the affair of the Purchases and the visiting cousin from South Africa he saw quite literally all of it. And the end was enigmatic and a little frightening, at least as seen through Bertie’s eyes. It left him with the question whether there had been a game at all.

  Bertie had retired early from his unimportant and uninteresting job in the Ministry of Welfare. He had-a private income, he was unmarried, and his only extravagance was a passion for travel, so why go on working? Bertie gave up his London flat and settled down in the cottage in the Sussex countryside which he had bought years earlier as a weekend place. It was quite big enough for a bachelor, and Mrs Last from the village came in two days a week to clean the place. Bertie himself was an excellent cook.

  It was a fine day in June when he called next door to offer Sylvia Purchase a lift to the tea party at the Hall. She was certain to have been asked, and he knew that she would need a lift because he had seen her husband Jimmy putting a case into the boot of their ancient Morris. Jimmy was some sort of freelance journalist, and often went on trips, leaving Sylvia on her own. Bertie, who was flirtatious by nature, had asked if she would like him to keep her company, but she did not seem responsive to the suggestion. Linton House, which the Purchases had rented furnished a few months earlier, was a rambling old place with oak beams and low ceilings. There was an attractive garden, some of which lay between the house and Bertie’s cottage, and by jumping over the fence between them Bertie could walk across this garden. He did so that afternoon, taking a quick peek into the sitting-room as he went by. He could never resist such peeks, because he always longed to know what people might be doing when they thought that nobody was watching. On this occasion the sitting-room was empty. He found Sylvia in the kitchen, washing dishes in a half-hearted way.

  ‘Sylvia, you’re not ready.’ She had on a dirty old cardigan with the buttons done up wrongly. Bertie himself was, as always, dressed very suitably for the occasion in a double-breasted blue blazer with brass buttons, fawn trousers and a neat bow tie. He always wore bow ties, which