‘With a kitchen like this you ought to have guests every evening,’ I said instead. ‘Especially if you’re as good a cook as you claim to be.’
‘You’re my first guest for a year,’ said Mark. ‘My sister was here with her husband and children last Christmas. Since then it’s just been Jeremy and me.’
He handed me a glass, and we sipped at our drinks.
‘Good.’
‘A donkey can make a gin and tonic. Has Castor had something to eat?’
I nodded and received a surprised look from my dog. He has a tendency to forget that he’s eaten the moment he finishes doing so.
‘He’s had his evening meal. But maybe you could give him a bowl of water?’
Mark stroked Castor and provided a bowl of water that he naturally turned up his nose at. Went and rolled up in front of the fire in passive protest.
The starter was scallops. Fried in butter with a pinch of cayenne pepper and a touch of black sauce that I would have called piquant, were it not for the fact that I can’t stand that word. But it was good in any case, just as good as I’d hoped it would be.
That’s what Mark and I had — Jeremy sat beside his father and ate fish fingers with chips and mayonnaise. ‘There’s no point in making fancy stuff for him,’ Mark had explained. ‘There are four or five dishes he condescends to eat, and they’re all in the same class as fish fingers. Preferably some yellow Fanta to wash it down, as you can see, but he only gets that on special occasions.’
Jeremy didn’t seem to mind Mark speaking about him like that. He was too busy concentrating on eating. Very carefully, almost scientifically, he cut up the fish fingers with his knife, speared a piece on his fork, added a suitably sized piece of potato, dipped it into the mayonnaise, tasted the result and then put it into his mouth. As he chewed away at length, he sat motionless with his eyes closed.
Then he washed it all down with a mouthful of Fanta. I tried not to look at him, and Mark noticed that. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘He eats like a robot. But he tended a bit that way even before the accident, so perhaps it has something to do with his personality. . Whatever is left of it.’
I thought about that gesture Jeremy had made in the window. It didn’t seem at all appropriate to the impression I had of him now. But as I hadn’t mentioned it before, I didn’t bring it up now. I just felt surprisingly well disposed towards this boy who had never had a chance to learn how to behave in social circumstances. He looked so well groomed and harmless, and I wondered if he was always like this, and how much training he had needed in order to get him to behave in such a civilized manner. Lots of medication, perhaps? Good days and bad days?
‘He’ll leave us as soon as he’s finished this course,’ said Mark. ‘He never has a starter or a dessert.’
‘Not even a Crunchie?’
‘He’ll get a Crunchie up in his room.’
Mark’s prediction turned out to be correct. When Jeremy had eaten his six fish fingers he stood up and looked at his father. Mark nodded, Jeremy shook my hand again then went back up the stairs to his room.
‘I hope you didn’t. .’
I paused, but it was too late. Mark raised an eyebrow. I could see that he had expected me to ask the question I wanted to put. So I asked it.
‘I hope you didn’t instruct him to go away and leave us in peace, did you?’
We both had a drop of wine left in our glasses. Sancerre, dry and full-bodied, and a much better accompaniment to the scallops than yellow Fanta would have been. Mark raised his glass and gave me a slightly reproachful look.
‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to be clear that I would never do anything like that. He is worth that respect. He’s out of his depth wherever he goes in the world, but not in his own home. This is the only place where he will ever be fully accepted.’
‘Was that why you took him home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Forgive me.’
‘Of course,’ said Mark, with a smile. ‘I have a bit of a hang-up with this. I stress it too much and when it’s not necessary, I know. But now we’re coming to the real fish. Could you see your way clear to continuing with the same wine?’
‘I can most certainly see my way clear to continuing with the same wine. Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘You could stack the plates away in the dishwasher while I see to the halibut. Cheers once again, and thank you for coming. It’s going pretty well, don’t you think?’
‘So far I’ve nothing to complain about,’ I said, and Mark burst out laughing.
That must have been the first time for goodness knows how many years that anything I’d said made anybody burst out laughing.
I don’t know what expectations I’d had for his halibut, but whatever they were there is no doubt that Mark’s dish exceeded them, and he repeated what he’d said at The Royal Oak: ‘It’s the low cooking temperature that does the trick, nothing else. You turn the heat right up for a few seconds so that it doesn’t lose its moisture, then no more than sixty to seventy degrees for an hour.’
You could hear that he really was interested in this kind of thing, and I wondered how pleasant life might have been if I’d been married to a cook rather than a professor of literature. It was presumably as a follow-up to such thoughts — and also the fact that by now we had drunk almost two bottles of wine — that I decided to put my little problem to him.
‘To change the subject, I have a bit of a problem,’ I said. ‘I think I’m being pestered by a stalker.’
‘What?’ said Mark. ‘What do you mean?’
‘A bloke who’s following me around. I think he is, at least. .’
‘Well, that is what a stalker does,’ said Mark. ‘He follows people around. I’m not surprised, in fact.’
‘Now you’ve lost me.’
‘It’s obvious that a woman like you is going to get a stalker sooner or later. . No, I’m sorry. . Are you serious? You don’t mean here and now, do you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Unfortunately I do mean here and now.’
He gave a laugh, and looked confused for a moment. As if he couldn’t make up his mind if I was joking or not. ‘A stalker in Winsford? That sounds like. . No, surely it can’t be true?’
I recalled what he had said about reading other people’s minds, and wondered if he really could see that I was lying. But emboldened by the wine I went on:
‘If it’s who I think it is, it’s an old story. It’s rather unpleasant, to be honest, and I can’t help feeling that I’m being got at. The fact that I’m not absolutely sure almost makes it feel worse.’
Now I could see that he was taking me seriously. He moved his elbows up onto the table and leaned forward. ‘Huh, you’d better tell me about it. You’re not going to get a dessert until we’ve sorted this out. A stalker? A loony who’s after you. .?’
I took a drink of wine, cleared my throat, and started my tale.
‘It’s an old story, as I said. I think I mentioned that I have a past as a television presenter?’
He nodded.
‘Everybody knows it can be a bit risky, always appearing on the box. Lonely loonies sit on their sofas, imagining all kinds of fantasies. . I suppose it goes with the territory, unfortunately. Anyway, there was a bloke some years ago who started to get all kinds of strange ideas. He managed to get hold of both my address and telephone number, and. . well, he kept pestering me quite a lot until we managed to put a stop to him.’
‘You put a stop to him? What did he do? Ring up and do some heavy breathing?’
‘That happened, yes.’
‘Were you on your own by then?’
‘Yes. It started about six months after my divorce. At first I actually thought my ex-husband was mixed up in it somehow or other.’
‘But he wasn’t in fact?’
‘Certainly not, no.’
I suddenly realized I couldn’t remember how many children I’d said I had. I hoped he wouldn’t ask — but then, why would I lie about something like that? I decided to say there were two.
But he concentrated on the stalker, thank goodness. ‘What happened? I’ve read about such characters, of course, but this is the first time I’ve met somebody who’s actually been pestered by one.’