Summer Soap, Part 8: Cheese, wine, and an intimate conversation

This year's summer soap, The Lost Recipe, is a summer mystery with a romantic subplot and an underlying theme of food - and involves a search for a long-lost recipe. It was written by Emma Tirlot from the MA in Creative Writing Programme at UCC. Catch up with previous episodes at echolive.ie

In the eighth episode, Claire and Fionn are enjoying each other’s company.

Episode 8: Cheese and Wine

I scroll up and down the Word document I call The Mind Of Margaret Kelly. Half of her biography is drafted. For the first time, I trust that I will be able to send it on to the editors at Flammarion in time.

We’ve been making steady progress since Margaret let me give up the search for the recipe a few weeks back. On the draft, the words come easily. But those aren’t mine; they come from Margaret’s wisdom, which makes it so much easier. Just like the way gran’s words carried the first cookbook.

Regardless of that, I am happy with the way it’s turning out so far. So many biographies are dull, which is exactly what I want to avoid with Margaret’s. I don’t want it to be a simple praise of one of Paris’ most influential chefs.

Margaret’s story is about choices, blind guesses, about happiness and heartbreak coexisting on the same plane. Successes, just like failures, can never be universal.

Margaret didn’t know what she was doing any more than I do. Yet, from the outside, it looked like every step she took was carefully measured, calculated. Sometimes, even the most seemingly confident people don’t know what to do. Sometimes, what we see as the best decision for ourselves turns out to be a crappy choice. But it doesn’t make those experiences any less worthy to be lived.

I am dividing the biography into two juxtaposed frames. Two lenses. In the first one, Margaret tells her story the way she intended the public to see it. In the other one, it’s her story without the cover-up. The one with questions and hesitations and doubts and fears. I can only cross my fingers that the editors will be on board.

I stretch in the office chair and my eyes dart to the time on the bottom of my screen. 1am. Merde. I’m supposed to get up early to meet Fionn at Kent station tomorrow. He’s insisting that we take the train to Cobh because at high tide it looks like the train travels over water, just like the one in Spirited Away.

******

On the way back from Cobh, I tease Fionn for not having survived the Titanic. I’d been so relieved after the visit, when I found out that the passenger I was assigned had survived. She’d made it to New York and reunited with her brother and sister, who didn’t even know she was on board the Titanic.

Before heading to the cottage, we had stopped by the English Market downtown. Fionn is now lining the cheese and bread we picked up on the table while I serve the wine.

“Sláinte,” Fionn says, raising his glass to meet mine, a glint in his eyes.

“Let me guess, cheers in Irish?”

Fionn smiles. “That was an easy one.”

“It kind of sounds similar in French: santé!”

Since we’d stop frantically searching for the recipe of the currant buns, Fionn had insisted on teaching me as much Irish as he possibly could. I’m incapable of remembering it all, but I have to admit that he is a good teacher. And I know he can’t help himself.

We set the cheese board on the coffee table and sit on the floor, our backs resting against the sofa.

“Oh! This one tastes like tomme,” I say after trying a goat cheese, “that was my gran’s favourite.”

“Do you want to tell me more about her?” Fionn casually asks, picking up a piece of toasted bread.

I smile because even though I’ve been dodging this particular question several times, he still asks it again. We both know I don’t have to answer, but this time I want to talk about her.

Fionn listens while I tell him about the cooking, her songs and her dances, the garden in which she grew every single aromatic herb in existence, the stone farmhouse, the gazebo.

I smile. “I wouldn’t be half of who I am without her. She taught me everything I know about cooking and baking. She could do it all, she had a solution to everything.”

I bring my knees to my chest, “I wish I could tell her about Margaret’s recipe. I bet she would have solved the mystery in a heartbeat.”

And I wouldn’t be here in the first place. I would’ve spent the summer away at gran’s house. Maybe the cookbook wouldn’t be stuck anymore. But I wouldn’t be here.

Fionn turns toward me, pulling me out of my thoughts. There’s a concerned look on his face. Without all of this, we would never have met.

Fionn seems hesitant. “About the recipe... I finally heard back from Catherine’s cousin.”

I frown and he cuts in. “Look, I know you said you wouldn’t pursue it anymore but just hear me out, Claire.”

I search his eyes.

“He didn’t have anything about the recipe itself...”

“Of course,” I cut him, “why would he...“

“Wait,” Fionn lowers his head closer to me, I let him speak.

“He had more information than Catherine about their grandparents and great-grandparents. The Gallaghers opened their own bakery after the fire. On the north side of the city. I haven’t had time to investigate the lead yet, but it could...”

“Fionn, if the Kellys didn’t keep the recipe, I don’t see how the Gallaghers could have.”

“I’m not saying we’d find the recipe, but we could get closer to it.”

“Fionn.” I turn away from him to face the coffee table, where a large stack of cheese still sits on the board.

I reach for my glass of wine and Fionn continues. “I’m not asking you to be any more involved, I just... Claire, let me do this. I won’t bother you about it, but if I find anything...”

I shake my head, before facing him again, “I barely have two weeks left here before I go back to France, and then...” I sigh, “I have an entire cookbook to work on.”

“You have a right to enjoy the process, Claire.”

“I leave in two weeks.” A knot forms in my throat.

We look at each other for a second until I lower my gaze back to the wine glass I’m holding. Silence stretches between us. In the corner of my eyes, I see Fionn checking his watch before scrambling to his feet.

“I should get home.”

I join him up, nodding silently.

I feel heavy. I try to shake off the feeling, focusing on slowing my breathing down. In and out.

Fionn’s taxi waits outside while we finish putting away the plates and cheese. We both stand in the hall of the cottage in silence. Fionn glances around. For a second, it feels like we’re both waiting for something. A silent beat. One of us breaks the spell and a second later Fionn is gone. I stare at the closed door. Was I waiting for something?

I’m too busy to think about this. This is my make-or-break year. I need to get through all of this. Get it done. This is the moment to focus on my work. My craft. My life. I can’t afford distractions.