A Taste of Freedom

by Liz Ryan

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

When Keeley and Mary, best friends from Dublin, go off to pick grapes in France in 1977, both their lives change profoundly. Provence is utterly different from boring, repressive Ireland. Mary, who is taking a break before she settles down to marriage with her uninspiring but steady boyfriend Cathal, is the one who manages to become pregnant, and has to go home. Keeley, who only went along to keep Mary company, is the one who stays in France, making a new life for herself with a charming French hairdresser. As the years pass, they both dream of what might have been - until, in a very different Ireland, Mary gets her second chance at freedom. 'Liz Ryan understands not only a woman's heart but a woman's mind' Terry Keane Sunday Times

Release date: July 18, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 600

Sample

 

 



Mary Jameson stretched herself face down on the wooden slatted bench and announced her intention of dying. It wouldn’t take long, she
promised; in fact it was to be more or less immediate, so perhaps her dear friend Keeley Butler would be good enough to remain with her until the end?

‘Of course I will,’ Keeley agreed reassuringly, perching on the end of the bench, reaching forward to rub Mary’s back comfortingly. Thus they remained in silence, for several
minutes. Nothing happened.

And then Mary heaved herself up on one elbow with the most terrible groan, a groan that would not have discredited an Elizabethan traitor stretched on the rack, and dropped her head in the
direction of the deck. Her mouth opened like a fissure in an ice floe; but nothing came out.

‘Oh God,’ she whimpered, ‘I have nothing left to give.’

‘Of course you have,’ Keeley assured her cheerfully, and then bit her lip with a grin. Perhaps that was not the most encouraging thing to say to someone who had already given her all
– certainly everything she had eaten in the past twenty-four hours, if not the past week. She tried to think of something more positive.

‘I’ll go and get you a Coke. Cold and fizzy. That might help.’

‘Aaah.’ Mary sighed and replaced her head limply across her forearm, her long hair dangling loose as if it were a damp towel she did not quite know what to do with.

Getting up, Keeley strode briskly in the direction of the ship’s cafeteria. Well, perhaps ‘strode’ was too strong a word for it, but she staggered with purpose, picking her way
callously between the other inert bodies on the deck and on the floor inside. The trip from Rosslare to Le Havre normally took twenty-one hours, she had been told, but they had aleady been at sea
for nineteen and there was as yet no sight or mention of land. There were perhaps three or four hundred people on the ferry, and it surprised her that she was one of the half-dozen apparently
impervious to the huge pitch and swell, the waves towering higher than Liberty Hall. Having never been on a boat of any description before in her life, she put it down to beginner’s luck.

In the cafeteria she had no difficulty in getting a Coke. She simply picked up one of the abandoned ones which, because its owner had taken the precaution of securing it in one of the metal
rings supplied for the purpose, had not spilled over. Just recently abandoned, it was still quite fresh, with little creamy bubbles on top. Picking it up she grasped it firmly to her chest and
returned to her dying friend.

‘Here we are. Nice and cold. Take a sip.’

Mary turned her head just far enough to get the red and white paper cup into her line of vision, shuddered, and whispered something inaudible. Kneeling on the deck, Keeley inclined her ear
closer.

‘What? What did you say?’

‘I said I – I want to go home. I want to die at home. I want my mother.’

Keeley giggled. If Mary really was going to die, which she doubted, then she was going to have to do it without the ministrations of Mrs Jameson. Mary was a grown-up now, off to France with only
the dubious Keeley Butler for chaperone. In fact that was one of the several purposes of this excursion, to get away from their families and prove they were grown women, well able to make their way
in the world.

Never in a thousand years would Keeley have thought of going to France. People like her simply didn’t. If they went anywhere, it was to the Canaries or the Costa Brava, where they spent
two weeks consuming a couple of hundred tequila slammers while wearing stuffed donkeys on their heads. Then, roaring red and violently ill, they returned dutifully to their jobs in factories,
canteens and hairdressing salons, and the women amongst them spent the next six months sobbing for Juan who, she suspected, did not sob for even six seconds.

But even this level of ambition had never occurred to Keeley. She was so grateful for the job she’d found two years ago, having left school at sixteen with virtually nothing to recommend
her, that she clung to it like a lifebelt, rarely even taking off the time that was due to her. Officially she was entitled to a fortnight in the summer, but someone always seemed to be out sick or
missing in action, giving her the chance to notch up a few stars in her copybook by agreeing to work overtime. It meant a bit more money, too, not to be sneezed at when you considered what
hairdressing apprentices were paid. Keeley worked it out at exactly 21p for every head she washed.

That was before tax of course, which brought it down to 12p. On average she washed a hundred and thirty heads a week, which left her with £13.26p a week and not a lot of time for browsing
through travel brochures. But on Friday nights she went to the pub to meet her friends, including Mary Jameson who had first started coming to The Lantern as a friend of someone else. One evening
Mary had arrived with an armful of stuff about France and said she was thinking of going there in the summer, on a working holiday to pick grapes ... would anyone be interested?

She’d hoped to gather a group, maybe four or six of them, but Keeley was the only one whose ears pricked up. Why, she didn’t know, except that the idea of working outdoors appealed
to her. It would be heaven to get away from the salon for a while, with its smell of shampoo and chemicals, the smoke that the women emitted like locomotives while they were getting their hair
done. What the grapes were picked for, she didn’t even know at the time; she assumed it must be for sale in shops and the connection with wine never entered her head. Everyone else said Mary
was cracked – why would she want to go on a trip like that, working for God’s sake? – but apparently Mary had accidentally seen a film called Claire’s Knee
and had got a bee into her bonnet about France.

Keeley had volunteered on the spur of the moment, idly raised her hand and said yes, she might be interested. And the plan had developed from there; every Saturday night thereafter the two of
them met to pool and count their minuscule savings. Of course they’d be paid for picking the grapes, but not much; it was essential to bring a bit to get you on your feet, and then there was
the ferry fare to be paid. So Keeley worked all the hours God sent, washing scalps vigorously while Mary worked in the supermarket delicatessen, filling carton after carton with vast quantities of
coleslaw.

The trip would require a lot of time, a whole month, so they’d both worked right through Christmas, weekends, bank holidays, amassing enough time credits. Mary had ended up three days
short, but the deli manager said she could have them, provided she made them up when she came back.

And now here they were on their way at last, and here was Mary dying, after only nineteen hours. Keeley felt she wasn’t showing much fighting spirit.

‘Come on, Mary. The worst is over. We’re nearly there.’

Mary raised her head just enough to look at her, about an inch.

‘This is awful. I’ve never felt so sick in my life. I thought it would be ... ooh.’

The boat pitched again and the head clunked back down on the forearm. Well, Keeley thought, I expected it to be different too. I thought this would be a proper sea voyage, that we’d sleep
on deck under the stars, one of the other backpackers might even strum a guitar or something. Then we’d wake up to see the sun rising, the water all blue and glossy, the coast of France all
foreign and romantic. How was I to know I’d end up nursing a corpse, skating on a pool of vomit?

Cathal Sullivan will laugh himself silly when he hears about it. He’ll say he told us so and serves us right, all that stuff, no sympathy. I don’t know what the hell Mary sees in
him. He nearly scuppered this trip altogether, did everything he could to put her off. She’d have dropped out only I wouldn’t let her, reminded her it was her idea and she
couldn’t let me down after getting me so excited about it. But I suppose we’ll be having Cathal Sullivan for breakfast dinner and tea, she’ll be talking about him the whole time
and writing to him every day. She needs her head examined.

But Mary was pretty keen on him, for someone she’d only met three months ago. Fortunately the grape-picking plan was well under way by then, the tickets were paid for, it was too late to
back out for the charms of the barman at The Lantern. Not just the barman, of course; the owner’s son, who was merely serving his time before becoming manager and, some day, inheriting the
entire gold mine lock, stock and barrel.

Cathal Sullivan was what you’d call a good catch. No great oil painting, but fit and muscular as might be expected of a GAA football player, with grey eyes, short dark hair and a father on
the county council. His pub was in west Dublin, in a suburb where Mary lived in the ‘better’ half and Keeley lived in the other. But the Sullivan family lived forty minutes away from it
in the midlands, where they owned a second pub in a small town – another gold mine, that Cathal would also inherit if he played his cards right. And Cathal seemed very good at playing his
cards right. He’d persuaded his father to get him a second-hand car so he could commute to the pub in west Dublin, and he’d charmed Mary Jameson into his clutches like a bird off a
bush. It had come as a shock to him to hear of her plans to go to France in September, and he had tried everything to put her off. But Keeley had fought back, and won. Thinking of it now, she was
somewhat surprised; the pair were going very steady, with Sunday drives to Dun Laoghaire or the Phoenix Park in Cathal’s Fiat, the mothers pleased as punch. Of course, Mary was very
attractive, with those blue eyes and that chestnut hair swinging merrily in its ponytail, it was hardly much wonder she’d found a boyfriend. But Cathal Sullivan would not have been
Keeley’s first choice, even if he did have what everyone called a ‘future’; she thought there was something a bit smug and bossy about him. Getting Mary out of his clutches, if
only for a month, had privately pleased her. Maybe they’d meet some other lads and have some adventures for themselves, and Cathal would be put on the back burner for the duration. Well, she
could hope so anyway, and do her best to make it happen, even if it was a long shot.

As Keeley sat there thinking, on the end of the bench where Mary remained prone, she became conscious that the heaving and rolling had stopped. Well, not entirely, but the waves were receding a
bit, the water was becoming calmer. Mary’s face was still the colour of skimmed milk, but that awful greenish tinge was going, the groaning and whimpering had subsided.

‘Feeling better?’

‘A – little bit.’

‘Right then. Sit up and take a few deep breaths.’

Obediently Mary swung herself into a more or less vertical position, cautiously gripping the bench as she lifted her head and glanced nervously at the ocean.

‘Oh, thank God, it’s getting quieter.’

‘Yes. I suppose when they’ve cleaned up the bathrooms there’ll be a rush on them, but I think you should find one even if you have to queue, have a good wash and brush your
teeth. We want to be first off as soon as we dock.’

‘Do we?’

‘Yes, of course! Every backpacker on the boat will be lining up when the cars start coming off, looking to hitch a lift.’

‘Oh Christ, Keeley, I can’t get into a car. I’d be sick as a parrot. Why don’t we find a hostel in Le Havre and—’

‘And waste a night’s money? Miss a car that might be going all the way to Aix?’

Mary smiled wanly. Keeley certainly knew how to save money. Not in the sense of being tight-fisted, but in the sense of knowing all the short cuts. It had been her idea to hitch instead of
taking trains – perfectly safe, she’d said airily, when there were two of them – and she’d even thought of taking provisions for the journey, sandwiches from the deli where,
sure enough, Mary’s boss had let her make them up for nothing. Her stomach heaved as she thought of them.

‘We’d have to be right geniuses to spot the car that’d be going to Aix.’

‘Well, you never know! Look, tell you what. You go get cleaned up and I’ll have a bit of a scout around. Ask a few people ... I’d say their resistance might be low at the
moment.’

That was for sure. Everyone must be dying to get off this bloody boat, even if it meant taking two filthy hitchhikers with them.

‘OK. I’ll meet you back here in twenty minutes. Keep your eye on the rucksacks.’ Feebly, Mary got to her feet and tottered away. God, the boat was destroyed, there was going to
be a huge queue for the loos. If only they’d booked a cabin, they’d have a bathroom of their own, with even a shower in it ... at this moment she would sell her grandmother for a
shower. But she’d have to make do with a tap, a toothbrush and her face flannel.

It was half an hour before she returned to the bench on the deck, but when she got there Keeley was sitting on it grinning, brown eyes all eager and pleased.

‘Look! You can see France! We’re coming in at last!’

Mary looked, and thought she’d never been so glad to see anything in her life.

‘And I’ve got us a lift! Only to Paris, but it’s a start ... a couple in a blue Renault, we’re to meet them on B deck in an hour.’

‘An hour?’

‘Yes, apparently we’re still quite a bit out, a little pilot boat has to come out to guide us in, but – oh, Mary, this is so exciting! I’d never have gone anywhere if it
weren’t for you! Get out the map, there, and show me again where Aix is.’

Pulling it out of her rucksack, Mary unfolded it on her knees and they squinted at it together, sea-sickness forgotten as she was suddenly infected by Keeley’s excitement. This really was
a big adventure, and maybe the only one she would ever have: after all, married women didn’t go picking grapes in Provence, and by this time next year she would be Mrs Cathal Sullivan.

It took seven lifts and two days to get down to Aix-en-Provence, but it was a fascinating, fabulous journey – apart, that was, from Keeley Butler’s incredible lack
of discretion.

Incurably chatty, indifferent to whether or not her audience spoke English, she told them every single thing there was to know about herself and her friend Mary Jameson, curled up on
people’s back seats with her spiky dark hair sticking out in all directions, her mouth going a mile a minute.

‘Hi. I’m Keeley and this is my friend Mary. Thanks for picking us up. We’re going to Aix – can you imagine, two young wans like us, from Dublin west, going to a place
like that? It was all Mary’s idea. She’s from a better home, you see. I’m from Pearse Gardens, an awful kip, but she’s from Pearse Avenue, much nicer altogether,
they’re semi-detached there, got nice gardens, no graffiti or anything. Mary works in a posh deli and I’m a hairdresser – well, not a stylist or anything, just an apprentice, but
still, it’s a job. My father hasn’t got a job at all. Just sits in an armchair watching the telly, ever since the brewery changed from wooden kegs to aluminium and he was made
redundant. Only ever gets up on Fridays, to go and collect his dole. I keep telling him there’s loads of things he could do, carpentry, handyman stuff, get a ladder and wash people’s
windows for them, but he won’t. Been unemployed for six years now, my oul fella. Of course Mam could work, if it wasn’t for Poor Tony.’

Poor Tony?

‘Yes, he’s my brother. Had a motorbike, got a great job as a courier, he loved it, only he was a bit – well, he thought he was Mr Easy Rider, like in the movies. Clipped this
woman’s car one day and turned round to give her a mouthful ... well, you should be looking where you’re going, shouldn’t you, on a motorbike? Only he wasn’t, he was busy
effing and blinding and next thing there was this lorry, a big one full of fridges and washing machines being delivered to a warehouse, weighed a ton. Poor Tony never stood a chance. But he’s
coming on, now. He’s in the rehab centre. They’re teaching him to type, with a stick he grips in his teeth. Mam goes to visit him every day.’

At this point there would be gasps and exclamations, nudges from Mary, but Keeley always kept right on.

‘In a wheelchair for life. Paralysed from the neck down. Poor Tony. No compensation money or anything, because the woman he was shouting at told the police it was all his own fault, and
there weren’t any other witnesses. The lorry driver came out all right though, not a scratch. My family’s a walking disaster – you can tell by my name, can’t you? Keeley. My
Mam called me after some film star she saw on the telly. Said she hoped I’d bring a bit of colour into her life. But I’d rather have been called something ordinary. Like Mary. Now
there’s a nice name, you can’t go wrong with that. Mary’s got a boyfriend back in Dublin, Cathal, his oul fella owns two pubs and he’s got a car. Thinks the sun shines out
of his ass, if you ask me, but Mary’s mad about him, aren’t you, Mare?’

Scarlet, Mary would nod and mumble, point to some distracting object on the landscape, praying for delivery. She was very fond of her friend, who was always so cheerful and good for a laugh, but
this was a bit thick.

‘She asked Cathal to come with us, but he wouldn’t. Too busy working in pub numero uno, the one in Dublin, they couldn’t manage without him for five minutes. He didn’t
want us to go. But Mary had seen this film called Claire’s Knee, she didn’t know it was French at the time but then she really got into it, followed all the subtitles, came out
of the cinema singing the praises of France. Then she found out about the grape-picking, that you could just turn up and get work at harvest time, you didn’t need to speak French or anything.
Just as well. We haven’t a word between us.’

Some of the drivers offered to teach them a few phrases at this point, if only to get a word into the conversation; others decided it was time to pull in for a cup of coffee.

‘Oh, right – well, we haven’t much money ourselves, we’ll just wait for you in the car, if that’s all right?’

And so the hapless drivers usually ended up buying them coffee, sometimes chips or sandwiches as well, at which Mary stared mesmerised.

‘Look at them, Keeley! They’re the size of a baby’s leg! Totally different to Irish sandwiches ... and what are these things?’

They were gherkins, served on the side. Neither girl had ever seen them before, nor tasted the things in the sandwiches – brie, salami, rillettes. Keeley pulled a face, but Mary was
entranced.

‘This is fantastic! Go on, Keeley, try another bite.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes! We’re in France, you have to try everything. Besides, this food is being bought for you, it’s a present, you can’t just say yuk and leave it.’

This was whispered in an aside, and the girls lived in terror that when the bill came the drivers would turn to them and demand a contribution, but nobody ever did. Apart from the price of two
nights in hostels, the thousand-mile trip cost them nothing.

And then they were in Provence. They smelled it long before they reached it, a mixture of scents they were informed were pine, lavender, olives, herbs. And then the scenery,
the landscape fading from green to mauve, from mauve to gold, stippled with peach, cherry, lemon, all kinds of trees growing in the rust-red earth.

‘Oh, wow! This is gorgeous!’

Tumbling out of the last car, which let them off two miles short of the village of Rognes, they stood for a moment clutching their rucksacks, blinking in the white light, savouring the hot sun
pouring down on their faces, arms, shoulders and legs. Neither of them had ever felt anything so intense in their lives, imagined that it could really get as hot as this. Already their teeshirts
were damp with perspiration, their shorts stuck to the backs of their legs.

Around them stood several low stone houses, farmhouses they supposed, grey chunky buildings from whose direction they could hear a distant clinking noise.

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know ... cows, d’you think? Or goats? I’ve heard they put bells on them down here.’

‘Oh ... and that other noise? The sort of whizzing?’

It was closer than the bells, and with a shriek they soon found out what it was – huge insects, like crickets, rubbing their wings together in the coarse yellow grass. Thousands of them,
all rubbing furiously.

‘M-Mary, let’s get going. Let’s find the vineyard.’

It had to be somewhere quite near, according to the map and the directions Mary had got from the youth travel agency that specialised in finding summer work for people their age. Hoisting their
rucksacks on their backs, they set off, a little overwhelmed by the settling, gathering silence.

‘It’s very quiet.’

Keeley was half-nervous, half-pleased as she said it; where she lived it was never quiet, the street permanently filled with yelling kids, barking dogs, revving cars, slamming doors.

‘Yes ... listen to it, Keeley. It’s quiet as a prayer. So still.’

‘They must all be at lunch. They have long lunches in these parts, don’t they?’

‘Yes. It’s probably the worst time of day to arrive. We won’t get another lift, unless maybe on a tractor or something. But we’re in the right place. Ten miles north of
Aix, two miles south of Rognes ... let’s just keep walking and see what happens.’

‘I’m thirsty. I wish we had some Coke or something.’

‘No. They drink water here, haven’t you noticed? Out of little plastic bottles. That’s what we need.’

‘Huh. As if anyone would pay good money for plain water. There must be something in it.’

‘No, I don’t think there is. They just seem to prefer it to sweet drinks.’

‘Well, I’d settle for anything right now. How do you recognise a vineyard anyway, Mary? What does it look like?’

‘I’m not sure. But I suppose we’ll know it when we see it.’

Forty-five minutes later, dusty and sweltering, they were forced to concede that maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d better go to one of these farmhouses, actually, and ask before they
got well and truly lost.

The woman who opened the door did not seem particularly pleased to see them, and then there was terrible difficulty with the language; neither party could understand one syllable the other was
saying. It took a good ten minutes and much pantomime before she eventually stabbed her finger to the right.

‘Chez Lazouin. Là-bas, à droite.’

Thanking her as best they could, they trudged back to the road, turned right and kept walking.

‘Jaysus Mary, I’m short enough already, my legs will be worn to stumps.’ Mary smiled, checking her stride so that her friend did not have to trot. Despite her big mouth Keeley
was quite small, petite as the French would say, and the rucksacks were heavy. Of course they’d packed like a pair of idiots, bringing everything bar the kitchen sink just in case.

‘There! There it is!’

And so it was, miles of dark green vines suddenly stretching away in front of them, dotted with bending, moving figures. The grape pickers: dozens and dozens of them, their arms going like
pistons under the unmerciful sun. Working their way methodically along the straight, regular rows, they looked like soldier ants.

Suddenly nervous, they made their way up the long rough avenue in silence, eyeing each other as they caught sight of a large, grey stone house surrounded by geraniums, fingers of some
creamy-green creeper twining their way up its walls. Compared to the other houses they had seen, it was extremely well-tended and, they suspected, very ritzy inside.

‘Cripes. We’re not going to be staying here, surely? I’d have brought my pearls.’

But no. It quickly emerged that they were not. A well-dressed woman came out and directed them, with some distaste, to a wide low barn well away from the house.

‘God. You’d think we were knackers, the way she looked at us.’

‘Well, I suppose we’re not looking our glamorous best. Let’s find someone and ask where we can have a shower.’

The barn was in fact a dormitory, filled with bunks and lockers, but there was nobody in it. As they looked around they heard a shout, and jumped.

A man stood in the doorway, beckoning to them.

‘Eh! Vous deux! Venez ici!’

Hastily they followed his accusing finger out and round to what looked like a lean-to shed, but turned out to be an office inside. Taking a folder from the desk, the man frowned at them.

‘English? American? Dutch?’

‘Irish. We’re looking for work. We were told you’d have some, if we just turned up, there wasn’t any need to—’

‘Yes. Two francs a kilo. Meals included. One day off a week. Take two bunks in the dormitory, leave your luggage in the lockers, I will give you a key. Follow me.’

They followed, were given keys from a numbered rack, led back to the dormitory barn and watched while they stowed their rucksacks in two empty lockers.

‘Phew, that’s a weight off! Now, we’re dying for a shower. Where’s the—?’

‘Tonight, you may shower. Now, you start work.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes, of course. You are just in time after the lunchtime siesta.’

Without further ado the man thrust deep baskets into their hands, pointed in the direction of the vines and left them.

‘Keeley, I’m dying.’

Under the brutal sun Keeley straightened slowly up, feeling her spine open out like an accordion, and turned to look at her friend.

Mary was crouched on the ground, gazing despairingly into her basket full of fat purple grapes, clipping shears clenched in her juice-stained hand. Heat blisters peppered her shoulders and neck,
sweat ran down her temples, round the backs of her ears and dripped from her gypsy-hoop earrings. The mass of her hair was tied back in a blue scarf, but a cluster of wispy curls stuck to her
forehead, also running with sweat which fell and clung onto her eyelashes, making her blink with a puzzled air.

‘Jaysus Mary, you didn’t die on the boat and you’re not going to die here. Would you ever give over!’

‘But this is a killer!’

‘Mary, look around you. What do you see?’

Vaguely Mary looked, and saw a vast field full of workers like themselves: young Danes, Belgians, Americans, many nationalities as well as perhaps twenty or thirty local people. The foreigners
were young but the locals were mixed in age, some of them fifty or even sixty, men and women, all crouching, snipping industriously.

‘Yeah, well, they’re used to it—’

‘And we’ll get used to it! We’ve only been here three days.’

Mentally Mary calculated. Another twenty-seven days to go. Christ almighty.

‘So stop whingeing. I know it’s hard, but we’re having fun, aren’t we? I am, anyway.’

Keeley smiled as she spoke, thinking of all the good things about this exhausting job. Nobody could say the work was anything other than a crucifixion, but they were out in the open air –
lovely scented warm air at that, not a drop of rain – they were meeting all sorts of people, earning money and being housed and fed while they were at it. Each evening they gathered with the
others round big wooden tables set up in front of the barn and were handed hot food they didn’t have to cook for themselves – very odd food admittedly, but Mary liked it – and
there were big jugs of wine for everyone to help themselves. She’d never have ordered wine in a month of Sundays back at The Lantern, but she’d tried it here since there was nothing
else, and somehow it tasted good, out in the open shared with everyone, smelling of fruit and honey and sunshine. Despite the language problem they seemed to manage to talk to lots of people, and
slept a deep sleep that filled her, Keeley Butler, with the most robust sense of health she’d ever known. She never came home from the hairdressing salon feeling the way she felt at the end
of her day’s work here.

‘Think of dinner, Mary. Only an hour to go.’

Mary did smile then. She could hardly name a single one of the things they ate, had to be told what every item was, but she couldn’t get enough of the extraordinary food. Maybe it was just
sheer hunger, they were all ravenous, filling up their plates twice or sometimes even three times – but no. It wasn’t just quantity. It was quality. Everything tasted so fresh.
Despite all the jokes everyone had made back home about snails and frogs’ legs they hadn’t come across those – not as far as they could make out, anyway – but the other
things were amazing.

The Dutch and the Danes assured them that there was nothing exceptional about the food, or cuisine, as they called it; said it was just simple peasant stuff. And indeed there
wasn’t anything unusual about the method of cooking, in normal pots and pans except that they were on a grand scale, rather black and old-fashioned at that. But that wonderful oil, made from
olives, made everything taste so different! And the vegetables: tomatoes the size of fists, potatoes cooked in cream and cheese, a kaleidoscope of things Mary had never seen before. Corn cobs
streaming with scalding juice and melting butter, green peppers full of crunchy