Mornington-By-Mere – (06) The Perfect Recipe for Love

(Part 01)

Lorraine Olson had lived in Mornington for two years, in the room above the restaurant at the Old Mill Inn.
Originally she was employed by landlady Helen Andrew as the sous chef but after only six months, Francois, the temperamental French chef, stormed out after a heated dispute with a customer who had had the audacity to criticize his sea bass.
He returned the next day in a much calmer frame of mind but landlord Peter Andrew wouldn’t have him back under any circumstances and Lorraine was made up to chef until they could find a suitable replacement for Francois.
However once Lorraine was given her chance she made the most of it and thrived in the role but after three months the Andrews were still looking for another Chef with similar experience to the Gallic Francois and weren’t quite ready to give her the reins permanently.
Despite it only being temporary it was still a dream come true for Lorraine.
She had been fortunate in that as part of her job she also lived as part of the Andrews family.
Polly Andrew was the same age as she was and so they became like sisters and she thought her brother John, who was a couple of years her junior, fancied her.
But after two years she was ready to move on which meant if she couldn’t find somewhere to live in the village she would have to move to another restaurant as well.
But fortunately things were changing in the village, because the Mornington Estate had exercised its option to purchase Mornington Field back from the MOD and along with it they also acquired all the buildings and infrastructure on the airfield as well as 29 houses in the village formally used as quarters for military personnel.
Lyndon-Sanders Properties of Shallowfield had been instructed to find tenants for them but priority was to be given to local people or people with ties to the area or those who worked in some capacity for the estate such as agriculture or the brewery.
So Lorraine applied for one of them, but she was told that she might not be successful, being a single woman and the new housing stock all being 3 and 4 bedroom homes.
But then she had some good fortune of a sort due to events that had occurred some distance away in Abbottsford.

The Olsen family were originally from Abbeyvale but Lorraine’s older sister Hannah moved to Abbottsford after she had married Mick Hill.
Mick however deserted his wife and family after the birth of their second child leaving huge debts behind him including 6 six months of mortgage arrears.
As a result Hannah lost her home and she and her children ended up living in a two bedroom flat in a dingy part of town.
However what was once dingy and undesirable was, after five years, suddenly up and coming, and so her landlord decided to sell out to a developer.
It just happened that her eviction notification came within a few days of Lorraine meeting with the agent about one of the newly acquired Mornington houses.

So with her sister about to be made homeless it meant she could make a new application for herself, her sister Hannah and the children and this time they qualified for a 4 bedroom house.

(Part 02)

Lorraine got word from the agents that she was being given the tenancy of number 6 The Close on Friday September 26th, the day before the wedding of Harry Topliss and Jenna Newman, which was the biggest wedding in Mornington for 30 years or more.
It was big for Lorraine as well because she was catering the wedding breakfast and the reception with the assistance of Jane Cooper and Emily Goff from Shallowfield, which meant that she and Hannah couldn’t move in until the following weekend.

But even when the weekend arrived Lorraine couldn’t take any time off because the restaurant still hadn’t replaced Francois and the other problem was that between her and her sister they had little or no furniture and number 6 the Close was unfurnished.

However help with that came problem came from an unusual quarter in the shape of Gabriel St George who was having lunch at the Old Mill Inn with his girlfriend Chantel.
“I’m sorry we’re having to push service back half an hour” Helen Andrew said when Gabriel and Chantel sat down
“That’s fine, we’re in no hurry are we?” he said and squeezed Chantel’s hand
“Absolutely not” she agreed
“Well thank you for that” Helen said
“Is everything ok?” Gabriel asked
“Lorraine and her sister moved into the Close this morning” she explained “and she was a little late”
“Oh moving house is horrible” Chantel said “Not that little lord Fauntleroy here would know anything about that”
When they had both finished laughing at Gabriel’s expense Helen went on to explained that the sisters had no furniture and that they would be sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags.
“Oh I think we might be able to do better than that for them” he said

After lunch Gabriel phoned his friend Jonathon Springthorpe who lived in the village at The Old Forge but despite the fact it was a Saturday he was in the office at O’Sullivan and Springthorpe Auctioneers in Shallowfield.
Apart from their normal business as one of the premier Auctioneers in Downshire, the firm were also required rather more often than they liked to do house clearances.
On many occasions they would turn up a few choice pieces to at least cover the cost of the clearance but that still meant there was a lot of serviceable items that weren’t worth auctioning but still had value.
Apart from the Auction House they also owned and operated second hand shops across the county but even they couldn’t sell all the goods they had amassed which had to be warehoused.
And of course among the warehouse full of unsold goods was furniture of every conceivable colour and style.
“O’Sullivan and Springthorpe” a female voice said
“Jonathon Springthorpe please”
“May I say who is calling?” she asked officiously
“Baron St George”
“I’ll connect you immediately” she said
“You never use your title” Chantel said quietly
“I do sometimes with particularly officious receptionists” he said
“You’re terrible” she said “I’m shocked”
“Well when we’re married you’ll be able to call yourself Baroness”
“Well I won’t,” she began “What do you mean when we’re married?”
“Oh didn’t I mention it?”
“Hello Gabriel” Jonathon said “What can I do for you?”
“Hi Jon, I’m looking to relieve you of some stock”
He then proceeded to detail what he was looking for from a hand written list Chantel had prepared and the address it needed to be delivered to and then he disconnected.
“Well that’s sor…” he began but was prevented from finishing his sentence by Chantel wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his mouth, and this was not done in appreciation of his generosity.

(Part 03)

Gabriel St George put his head around the kitchen door and spoke to Lorraine
“Lorraine I must apologize” he said “the furniture should have been delivered yesterday”
“What furniture?”
“Well you’re renting number 6 the Close” he said
“Which is supposed to be furnished”
“Is it?” Lorraine asked
“Yes” he said “and it will be delivered this afternoon between 3 and 4”
After he had convinced Lorraine that it was a clerical error that it didn’t mention “furnished” in her tenancy agreement he and Chantel went back to the Manor to tell the family that they were engaged.

Lorraine wasn’t fooled for a moment by Gabriel St George’s performance but she was very grateful to him so she played along.
Almost the moment the kitchen door closed she was on the phone to Hannah to warn her of the impending delivery.

It wasn’t until 4.30 in the afternoon that she managed to slip off her whites and hang them up.
Once she had, Lorraine took the green bandana from her head and let her carrot coloured hair cascade onto her shoulders before she went over to the house.

When she arrived the shutter was just being pulled down on the O’Sullivan and Springthorpes truck and she could see Hannah stood on the doorstep.
It was obvious from a thousand yards that they were kin, both of them possessed of freckled cheeks and open smiling faces and the flaming red hair.
The only difference between them was that of stature, Lorraine was tall and slim while Hannah was shorter with a fuller figure but then she had given birth to two children, 7 year old Nick and Joe 5, and they too had the carrot coloured hair.
As she got closer Hannah ran to meet her she said
“You should see what they sent us Loz”
“Well show me then” she replied

They settled in to The Close quickly and with the children enrolled at school Hannah worked hard making the house a home but Lorraine was still bearing all of the burden at the Old Mill Inn because try as they may finding a replacement Chef to come to Mornington was proving difficult.
The restaurant was closed on Monday’s and apart from that one day a week she hadn’t had any time off since Francois flounced out in a Gallic huff.
She had no time for a social life, no time to spend helping Hannah around the house and there’s wasn’t a second to spare for a love life.
And as she was running the kitchen virtually on her own from prep to clean down, she was completely frazzled, and noticeably so.

Helen Andrew could see that Lorraine was being pushed too far, and even with Helen her husband and the children mucking in when the need arose Lorraine was still near breaking point.
Helen knew that things were only going to get busier as they counted down the weeks to Christmas and she realized that if they didn’t do something soon they would need to find two new chefs in the New Year.
So on Halloween she took decisive action.

(Part 04)

Halloween was one of the few nights of the year apart from Mondays when the restaurant was closed to diners, instead they did the hot dogs and burgers for the Halloween party at the village hall and for Lorraine it was like having a holiday.
And it was at the end of the evening when Lorraine, Helen and Polly were packing up that Helen said her piece.
“You know that we think you’ve done a brilliant job Lorraine”
“But you’re going to go back to being the sous chef and take orders from some arrogant French ponce”
That was how Lorraine imagined the conversation going.
“But…” Helen continued
“Here we go” Lorraine said in her head,
“You can’t go on the way you are, you need help”
“That’s not what I was expecting” she continued in her head “I expected better”
“We want you to take the Chefs job” Helen said
“Me?” she asked
“You’ve been doing it for weeks and the number of covers is up” she went on
“Me?” she repeated
“Unless you don’t want it” Helen said
“Yes” she snapped “I do”
“But…” Helen began
“Why was there always a “but”?” Lorraine asked herself
“It’s going to get busier, Helen continued “we’re already taking bookings for Christmas and some days are fully booked already so you do need help”
“A sous chef” she was going to suggest but then she had a thought.
When she had catered Harry and Jenna’s wedding she had some help, one of whom was Emily Goff, as her sous chefs and when they were chatting Emily told her that there were two girls living in the village who were on the same catering course as her and they were both very capable.
Now ideally she would have liked Emily to work with her but she was already kept very busy by Jane Cooper, the Chef at the Brown Windsor in Shallowfield.
So she would have to settle for one of the two young girls but even that would be a very big help.
And as it turned out the girls lived in The Close, either side of Lorraine, Tegan Crockford was at number 5 and Cally Wilson at number 7.
And having chatted with her new neighbours during the course of October she knew that the girls still hadn’t found anything permanent.
So she made the suggestion to Helen and she agreed to interview them.
“No promises mind” Helen said

Three days later the two girls sat quietly together in the bar of the Old Mill Inn.
It was a strange feeling for them as they were actually best friends.
They had even walked to the interview together, it hadn’t seemed to dawn on either of them that they were rivals.
Maybe they knew something no one else did.
Cally was the older of the two by about two weeks and she was significantly larger, not fat but very definitely cast from a bigger mold.
She stood six feet tall with short curly auburn hair, and a very large bust.
Tegan on the other hand was a foot shorter and at least six stones lighter.
She was small with delicate features and bobbed strawberry blonde hair.
And was small enough to shelter beneath the bust of her friend if it rained.
The anomaly with the pair wasn’t their physical appearance it was their personalities.
The giant Cally was quiet and reserved while tiny Tegan was feisty and forthright.

(Part 05)

Tegan was called first and was on her feet immediately but Cally grabbed her hand and said
“Good luck”
And she meant it too even though getting a job in a restaurant kitchen was her dream and doing it in her own village would have been perfect.
Because Cally’s mum had MS and everyone in the family had to do their bit.

Tegan was only gone for about 15 minutes and when she came out Cally asked
“How did it go?”
“I’m not sure” the normally ultra-confident Tegan replied “But they said to wait”
That reply didn’t fill Cally with an ounce of confidence but then she was called and this time Tegan squeezed her hand.

Cally was also only gone for 15 minutes and she too was told to wait and then after about 10 minutes Helen and Lorraine both walked into the bar to where the girls were sitting and sat opposite them.
“Well we have made our decision and we thought it was only fair to tell you immediately, rather than keep you waiting” Helen said
“We have decided to offer you the position of trainee chef”
The two girls looked at each other and then at Helen and then and Lorraine who was grinning.
“Which one of us?” they said in unison
“Both of you” Lorraine said and the two friends hugged each other and just at that moment the landlord Peter Andrew walked in to the bar with his son John close behind and said
“What’s going on here then?”
“We have just offered Cally and Tegan the trainee chef positions” Helen said
Introductions followed and then John shouted down the bar to his sister Polly
“Here Poll, come and see Lorraine’s started her own Ginger coven”
Tegan turned and gave him a look and said
"I’m actually a strawberry blonde"
"And I’m auburn" Cally said
“and I” Lorraine began, but then paused
“Ok I am actually ginger” and everyone laughed

The two newbies started work two days later which was a Monday so the restaurant was closed and she could see what they could do.
Lorraine had to forgo her only day off but she thought it would be worth it in the long run.

Almost immediately the three of them gelled and worked extremely well together and with having the extra pairs of hands to do the prep it meant Lorraine could try out new dishes to add to the menu and almost from day one Lorraine was visibly more relaxed as the two trainees proved to be every bit as good as Emily Goff had indicated.

The three girls soon settled into a comfortable routine, Cally came in later in the mornings than the other two because she had to help her mum get ready for the day but then she made up the time in the afternoon while the other two took a couple of hours off.
The newbies were both very different characters, Cally was steady and dependable, precise in her application and never strayed from the task.
Tegan on the other hand was a bit more adventurous in the kitchen as well as in life.
But there was one thing they had in common and that was that they were totally reliable.

Cally Wilson was a “steady Eddie” who had commitments so she couldn’t put in any extra hours but every minute she was in the kitchen she made every second count.
Tegan Crockford was a bit of a firecracker and loved the banter with the pub staff but she was also an eager beaver and ambitious and she wanted to absorb as much as possible, Lorraine didn’t doubt for a second that she would have her own kitchen one day,
Cally wasn’t ambitious but because of her work ethic she would never have a problem getting work.

(Part 06)

As November drifted seamlessly into December the girls all new things were going to get really busy.
Apart from being fully booked in the evenings there was also a full calendar of seasonal lunches so as Christmas approached Lorraine was leaning more heavily than ever on Cally and Tegan, particularly the latter because they had a lot more prep to do after service was finished and there were a number of early starts which Cally couldn’t participate in because of her mum.

As they worked diligently through the tasks Lorraine had become quite close to Tegan and was growing increasingly fond of her, it was so nice to work with someone she liked, not that she didn’t like Cally but Tegan had become a friend as well.
As the weeks slipped by Lorraine found herself really looking forward to her four days off, the first proper break she’d had since Easter.
The restaurant would close on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and would not reopen fully until the following Tuesday.
On Christmas day the pub was closed, on Boxing Day the pub was open but the restaurant wasn’t and on Saturday and Sunday there would only be bar food, hot and cold sandwiches and such, so Lorraine was leaving the girls in charge while she, Hannah and the children were off to Abbeyvale to spend Christmas with their mum, Irene.
It was the first time in four years they would all be together.
Lorraine and Hannah had been prevented by their abusive stepfather from contacting her, but Irene had finally had enough after 9 years of being used as a punch bag and hit him in the face with an iron and broke his jaw.
Lorraine was so looking forward to spending time with her mum, and having a family Christmas all under one roof, but most of all she was looking forward to no cooking, but she would however miss the strawberry haired slip of mischief Tegan and her sparky presence.

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve the pub was still open but there weren’t many customers left but those that were made enough noise for a crowd.
The kitchen was cleaned down and pristine and Cally had just finished putting the clean cutlery back in the trays in the dining room.
“Anything else you want me to do?” she asked Lorraine
“No you get off home now” she replied and gave her a hug and kiss “Happy Christmas lovely”
“Happy Christmas” she said in response and Lorraine went back into the kitchen.
Tegan was stood up on a chair writing up Saturday’s menu.
“Oy what about me you ginger bint” she shouted
“I’m auburn” she shouted back and went over a picked Tegan off the chair and got her in a bear hug.
“I give in, I give in” she said laughing loudly
“Now give me a kiss” demanded Cally
After exchanging kisses Cally then deposited her back on the chair.
“Happy Christmas Cal” she called as her friend walked away

Lorraine came out of the kitchen and Tegan was still stood on the chair in front of the menu board.
“Haven’t you finished that yet?” she said
“Just” she replied and crouched down ready to jump down
“Can you give me a hand” she asked
“Ok” Lorraine said and walked over to her
With Lorraine’s height and Tegan crouching they were roughly the same height and as she reached the little elf on the chair Tegan moved towards her and stole a long lingering kiss which lingered long because Lorraine reciprocated.
“Oh I didn’t even know that was on the menu” Lorraine said
“It’s a new addition” and kissed her again
“Is it a Christmas special or will I be able to have it anytime of the year?”
“Whenever you fancy it” Tegan replied and then Lorraine lifted her down to terra firma and kissed her again.