“We are more alike than you think,” he said, putting out the cigarette which had now burnt down to the butt. “Maybe in a way I didn’t first consider, we could help each other.”
“I don’t think by parading around the house in your dead wife’s clothes are going to help either of us very much,” she said back.
“I’ll buy you some new clothes,” he said.
“But that’s the point,” she sighed. “I don’t want you to buy me new clothes. I want to be able to buy my own. Be my own person for once in my life, and not what everyone else expects me to be.”
“And you will be able to buy your own clothes with the wage I pay you,” he said. “It’s not charity, Winnie, it’s a job. You will work for your money. You will earn every penny.”
Winnie thought of the eight hundred pounds he had offered to pay her each month, and with no rent to pay, nor bills, she knew that it wouldn’t take her very long to be able to save enough money to be able to pay the deposit and the first month’s rent on a place of her own. Then she really would be free and would never have to run again. With her own address, she would be able to get a proper job and finally live like everyone else did.
“What do you say?” he half-smiled at her, but again she could see that desperation in his eyes. “I promise. No more dressing up, no more pretending you are Frances.”
“But why do you want me to stay, if the reason you brought me here was that I reminded you of...” Winnie stared.
“You will still remind me of her,” he confessed. “There is no denying that. Over the last few days since you came to stay here, I have realised grief isn’t the only thing eating a hole in me.”
“What do you mean?” Winnie asked.
“Loneliness,” he said. “I have enjoyed your company very much. You might look like Frances, but your personalities are very different. You have a feistiness about you, and although you have lead a difficult life, you have retained a naivety which I like very much. You are great company and I would hate to go back to wandering this vast house on my own. I have found a great comfort in knowing that you are around.”
Winnie listened to his gentle voice, and again she found herself being captivated by it, just like she had the night he had approached her on the Embankment. Then, thinking back to their first meeting, she thought of the life she had once led. It already seemed like a lifetime ago, and she didn’t want to go back to that any more than Thaddeus wanted to go back to being lonely.
Thaddeus watched her thoughtfully.
“Will you stay then?” he asked her. “Give me another chance now that I have been honest with you.”
Winnie drew a deep breath and said, “Okay, I will stay – for now. Although, I won’t be Frances’s ghost.”
“Understood,” he half-smiled at her. “We have a deal then?”
“I guess,” she whispered.
“Excellent,” he smiled. Then standing up, he looked at her and added, “If I remember rightly, I thought I said I was going to cook tonight.”
“You said you were going to teach me how to cook,” she reminded him as she stood up. “You didn’t like the fish fingers, remember?”
“Let’s get started then,” he smiled at her.
Then, before leaving the lounge, he went to the window where Winnie had been sitting. He closed the curtains and switched out the lamp, throwing the room into darkness.
Chapter Nineteen
In the kitchen, Winnie filled the kettle with water and switched it on, then started to prepare two mugs of coffee.
“I think tonight calls for something a little stronger than coffee,” Thaddeus said, switching off the kettle. He went to the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine. There was silence between them as he poured them both a glass. He handed one to her, and smiling he said, “A new beginning for both of us.”
Winnie smiled then took a sip from her glass. She watched Thaddeus go back to the fridge and sort through the groceries she had bought earlier that day. As the light from the fridge fell upon his face, Winnie couldn’t help but think, that, while he looked no older than twenty-five, he had a way about him – a maturity – which gave her the impression he was older. She continued to sip her wine and watch him as he took out some chicken breasts and a tub of plain yogurt and placed them on the table. Her eyes never left him as he crossed to one of the cupboards above the worktop and retrieved a cooking apple, an onion, and a clove of garlic, then placed them alongside the chicken and yogurt. He then turned to the spice rack and plucked four little bottles from it. He placed these on the table along with a cube of chicken stock and a bottle of cooking oil.
As Winnie stood and slowly drank the wine, she wondered how Thaddeus knew how to cook so well. She guessed that most guys his age would struggle to cook a pizza without burning it, yet here he was, busying himself in the kitchen and putting together all the ingredients for what she knew would be something far grander than the fish fingers she had served up.
With a smile tugging at the corner of his full lips, and with what looked like a flicker of excitement in his eyes, he said, "Winnie, tonight I’m going to teach you to cook one of my favourite dishes, Bramley Turkey Korma."
"I didn't buy any turkey,” she said.
"Not to worry," he assured her. "Chicken is just as good."
He turned, drew a large slender knife from a rack on the work surface. He unwrapped the chicken breasts, and like a surgeon, he quickly sliced the meat into thin slivers. He spoke to her as he worked and said, "Get a pan from the cupboard over there and heat some oil"
Winnie did as he asked, placing a pan on the stove and pouring in some of the cooking oil. She found herself beginning to enjoy working alongside Thaddeus. She had never done anything like this with anyone before. He stood close to her, and placing the slivers of chicken into the hot pan, he said, "We have to sauté the chicken first.”
“Sauté?” she frowned, enjoying being taught by him.
He smiled at her and she could tell he was enjoying himself, too, and she now hoped the misunderstandings between them could be put behind them.
"We need to seal all the juices and flavour of the chicken into the meat,” he explained.
Thaddeus took a plate out of a cupboard and placed it on the work surface beside the oven. "Can you get me a fork out of the drawer, please, Winnie?"
She found one and handed it to him. Thaddeus plucked the meat from the pan with the fork and placed it on the plate. Winnie watched him carefully. He crossed back to the table, and tossing her the onion, he said, "Peel and slice that." Winnie set about the task, cutting the onion in half.
With a sideways glance, he looked at her, and with a smile, he said, “Are you crying?”
“It’s this onion,” she smiled and sniffed.
Then standing before her, Thaddeus wiped the tears from her face with his thumb. Winnie felt awkward and turned her face away. “It’s okay, I can do it,” she said.
“Sorry,” Thaddeus smiled, looking embarrassed. “I could just see that you had your hands full so I thought I would...”
“No, it’s okay, honest,” Winnie blushed and went back to slicing the onion.
When Winnie was done, Thaddeus added the onion to the pan, leaving it to simmer. Winnie sat at the table and sipped her wine as Thaddeus began to boil some rice. As he worked, Winnie told him about her trip into town and her visit to the bookshop. With his back to her, Thaddeus listened to her story. After she had finished, he picked up his glass of wine, drank a mouthful and said, “You wouldn't find any poetry books by a poet named Thaddeus Blake. The old woman in the shop was right. He doesn't exist.”
With a frown, Winnie said, "But you told me you were a poet and that's what you did as a job."
Thaddeus plucked the bottled spices from the table and tipped a little of each into the simmering pan. He then began to cut the clove of garlic into paper-thin slices.
"It’s not how I make a living,” he said. Then just as Winnie had suspected, he added, “The money that I have has all been inherited. It’s more of a hobby, really, but I write under a pseudonym."
"A pseudonym?"
"Yes. It’s a fancy word for a pen name."
"Why would you want to do that?” she asked him.
"For two reasons,” he said, adding the garlic to the pan. “Firstly, there is a far better poet than myself named Blake, albeit his first name was William, and secondly, I’d like to keep my identity a secret. I don't write for the money, I have inherited enough. I don't write to collect adoring fans, and I definitely don't write for fame."
"Why do it then?" Winnie asked, and then drank the last of the wine in her glass.
Leaving the pan to simmer, Thaddeus refilled Winnie’s glass and sat at the table.
"I write because I love words. The pictures, the images you can create with them. Poetry gives me a chance to play with words, sculpt them into something beautiful,” he tried to explain to her.
"But I don't understand. If you have something to say, why not say it instead of using posh, fancy words?" she asked.
A touch of a smile played out across his lips. "Winnie, stand up,” he said.
She continued to sit for a moment, a little unsure of herself as he watched her.
“Go on,” he said.
Slowly she got up and stood before him. She felt uncomfortable, as if she was on show somehow.
"Now, Winnie, what are you wearing?" he asked her.
She frowned, and then said, "Clothes?"
He smiled as he sat back in his seat, his eyes never leaving hers. "What is their purpose?"
"To cover my body? To keep me warm?" she said, feeling kind of dumb.
“Exactly,” Thaddeus beamed. “So if those clothes are made to cover your body and keep you warm, why do they have such beautiful colours, designs, and fastenings? Wouldn't they serve their purpose just as well without all of the added extras?"