talisman
The jaunty Union Jack bunting strung along the elemental umbrella pines, and the arc of long tables on the gravel path around the lawn lent the rose garden of Rome’s British School a festive and intimate air. Inés also sensed an expectant air, an excited air, an overdressed feeling too—all the patent leather, winged eyeliner, and lacquered hairdos displayed by the teachers’ wives seemed rather too elaborate for a school fête.
Church bells across the city jangled two o’clock. ‘Will she come?’ she asked Jenny, who was hanging a sign on the nearest bunting loop: Baking Competition Drop Off. Entries Due 3pm. Slices Sold 4pm.
Jenny shrugged and noted the forecast was for scorching, ‘… it’ll be rivers of icing if we’re not careful.’ She neither offered instructions nor asked for help, though they were supposed to be working together.
Inés wasn’t sure what was expected of her—she was new, her husband having replaced the previous Classics master mid-year. The pine trunk sculpted and warm against her back, she scanned the other wives setting up stalls in front of the ornate villa that housed the school. The elegant backdrop could not disguise that things were far from ready: the coconut shy lacked coconuts and the apple bobbing was apple-less, the tombola and auction were still just piles of boxes, and Signora Ersilia the school cook was still laying out rows of tea cups and saucers on the table by the staircase. Music blared suddenly—Inés recognised the new Beatles song about singing out of tune—then the volume reduced to bearable. At the top of the stairs, Frances was assembling the blue and white striped beach umbrella that would protect Mr. Summerly, the headmaster, from the sun, ‘It’s a fierce sun but not unusual for a Roman June,’ Jenny said.
Inés grabbed the edge of the table, ‘Let’s move this further back, under the trees.’ Jenny gripped the opposite side and they shuffled back a few metres. But Frances appeared with a clipboard and demanded the table be moved again: ‘Our guests must see the cakes. It would be a shame if they walked right past, such a shame after all the effort.’
Such a shame. Inés had first heard that expression soon after arriving in Rome. Mid-school-year, all allegiances had already been established, prompting her husband Neville to suggest she invite the other wives for coffee, ‘They’ll love your wonderful cakes, and then they’ll return the favour.’ But no one came, and she’d had to give her pretty magdalenas to Signora Maria downstairs so they wouldn’t go to waste. When Neville had asked how the wives’ coffee had gone, she’d said ‘fine’ so as not to worry him, but mostly because she didn’t want herself diminished in his eyes. The following afternoon, when Inés was collecting the children from school, Frances had approached her and said ‘such a shame’ that the coffee morning had conflicted with the school fête planning meeting, ‘I hope you got my note about the date change.’ Inés had observed the mouth upturned at the sides and the filled-in eyebrows pitched down towards the nose, and those pallid irises had held no shame.
Here in the garden at the school, Inés saw the same expression when Frances demanded, ‘Just move the table.’ This was the same Frances who’d instructed the wives to wear a frock but not their best frock, and flat shoes that wouldn’t get stuck in the lawn, but Inés had never seen that silver dress before. The high-heeled black patent leather boots that tottered away could not be comfortable. ‘Nice frock,’ Jenny muttered, and didn’t budge.
Inés said nothing. So much commotion for a school fête. Had it not been for Neville she wouldn’t have involved herself, but he was keen for her to make friends: ‘Everyone’s from somewhere else, just like us. There’s no need to be lonely.’ She hadn’t expected him to notice, but neither had she expected so many solitary days, counting the minutes until she picked up the children. No one was like her friends in Madrid. Neville kept dragging her to Thursday evening beer and darts at the Embassy, and to the dreary cheese and wines held by the headmaster’s wife—cocktail dress required. Those endless cricket matches every Sunday, por Dios. She missed Madrid and her family. In her ears, her mother’s words reverberated: ‘You marry that Englishman, we’ll never see each other.’
Eyes stinging, she took a deep breath and set out forks, plates, and napkins for the judges. She observed Frances’ officious trotting from stall to stall, the woman still wearing that mismatched face she’d put on at the wives’ excursion the previous month.
A veteran wife at the school, Frances had name-dropped some film set designer more than a few times, but it was thanks to that connection that the straggle of women had found itself at the film studios of Rome’s Cinecittà of a Sunday afternoon, wandering through an otherwise deserted Roman Forum as it might have looked hundreds of years earlier. ‘… built as the backdrop for the film Cleopatra, notice the replica of the Arch of Constantine and how it is larger than the real thing… This Forum, by the way, was built three times the size of the original because the producers felt that it wouldn’t be impressive enough otherwise,’ lectured Frances. ‘Everything actually seems smaller than the real version,’ Inés had commented, which appeared to offend that wife. Jenny made a little joke: ‘It has to be small to fit inside the camera,’ but Frances didn’t laugh. When Inés imitated Frances’ glare, Jenny didn’t respond, and Inés found herself embarrassed that she’d misjudged the mood. ‘Do you have any helpful comments?’ Frances asked. Composing herself, Inés had replied that the Arch seemed authentic, and praised the workmanship, but the pervasive smell of paint had unsettled her, and when she’d looked closely, the construction had seemed meagre and fragile.
Another Beatles song came on. ‘Where’s your fruitcake?’ Jenny asked.
Inés had left it in the fridge in the school kitchen, ‘I’ll get it soon.’
Jenny set out the sweet potato cake she’d learned to make in Zimbabwe when her husband had been teaching there. She said she wasn’t much of a baker. Inés replied that it looked good and Jenny laughed, ‘Liar,’ throwing back her head to show strong white teeth. Perhaps this English wife could be a friend, Inés thought, although she’d missed the coffee morning those weeks ago. Then a wife called Diana dropped off a small golden loaf. ‘Here you are, weather-resistant lemon drizzle cake as ordered,’ she joked, but her downcast eyes seemed at odds with the words, her face washed of its usual make up.
‘You all right?’ Jenny asked.
‘Oh, you know,’ Diana said.
Jenny hurried around the table to hug her, whispering it would get easier, ‘You’ll see.’
Would it? Inés wondered.
Signora Ersilia approached in her perennial white apron over long-sleeved black dress and tights, seemingly impervious to the swelling heat. She placed an attractive latticed tart on the table. ‘Grazie, grazie,’ she kept saying, inordinately pleased to have been invited to contribute.
‘Che tipo—what kind?’ Jenny asked.
‘Crostata di ricotta e visciole,’ Ersilia replied and, when Jenny asked what visciole were, mimed picking something small from a tree and biting it off her fingers, then puckered her mouth and made a pained expression. Sour cherries, thought Inés. They all laughed together.
She watched Diana and Jenny exchange glances when Frances arrived with a lopsided brown thing topped with neon pineapple rings. ‘Thank you,’ Inés said. Frances replied noblesse oblige, which made Jenny snort. ‘What is it?’ Inés asked, so she could write a label.
Frances scowled, ‘My upside-down cake, of course.’
‘It certainly is,’ Jenny said, and Diana seemed suddenly fascinated by the gravelled ground.
Inés wondered about these English women. Like those sets at Cinecittà, they weren’t as they seemed. In a marble-clad room of the pretend Forum, the walls had not had the substantial feel her fingertips sought. ‘The external sets are more realistic,’ she’d told Jenny. Chuckling, Jenny had replied they had to be, because sunshine was revealing. Inés then found columns of actual stone. ‘… these sets for Cleopatra will be dismantled soon, to make room for a new Fellini production...’ Frances had continued, but it hadn’t seemed possible to Inés that it could all disappear. It had been so massive and permanent on the screen when Neville had taken her to see that film—the most amazing spectacle—so many people, maybe thousands, so many different costumes, Elizabeth Taylor like a goddess on the screen, the most powerful woman in the world.
Inés noticed more school parents and children arriving, and the air in the garden enriched with voices from all over the world. She accepted a few more offerings for the baking competition: another chocolate cake, another crostata, a paper plateful of ugly pale shortbread.
Frances and her clipboard materialised again, and she scanned the cakes on the table, eyebrow raised. ‘As I’d predicted, not a popular competition.’ Her floral scent was strong but not enough to cover her acrid smell. Then Mrs. Summerly brought over her Victoria sponge; like the headmaster’s wife, it conveyed competence and sweetness. Jenny had said it wouldn’t be judged because Mrs. Summerly had made it only to encourage esprit de corps. Jenny had said this in a strange tone, ironic perhaps; Inés was uncertain, and not only of the words. Frances said, ‘That’s a fab sponge, Helen, delectable,’ dark hairs bristling by her simpering mouth.
Mrs. Summerly thanked her, ‘It’s all coming along splendidly. Now would you mind gathering the judges for the flower arranging?’ Inés sensed a touch of impatience, but Frances hobbled off full of purpose. ‘Patent leather is a brute in this heat,’ Jenny said.
Inés checked her watch, 2.45. Time to get her cake. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’
She returned to the stall as a distracted Jenny was arranging several new offerings on the table. ‘There you are, thank goodness. They’re coming in fast and furious. Would you write out some labels? This is a Madeira cake, me dear, and that’s a Battenberg,’ Jenny said. Inés put her cake down and spent a few minutes writing out names on little square cards. ‘Battenberg with two Ts,’ Jenny said, as more wives arrived with more contributions.
The chatter in the garden grew louder. Inés waved at people she recognized, many more than just weeks earlier. A thrill—she thought she saw Elizabeth Taylor, whom everyone had been hoping would come; the actress was in Rome again to film the Taming of the Shrew. Inés had seen her old dressing room at Cinecittà, her name and the gold star still on the door. But maybe it wasn’t the actress after all at the pin the tail on the donkey. The woman in jeans and flats, laughing with her blindfolded daughters, seemed too ordinary.
Inés watched the wives lay out knick-knacks at the white elephant stall. Diana looked put-together in a pale pink minidress that suited her fair skin and pixie hair, but her movements lacked energy. Jenny whispered things weren’t going well between her and her husband. ‘She misses home.’ When Inés said she understood, she really did, Jenny looked surprised. ‘Isn’t Spain like Italy?’ Then, ‘That was a stupid thing to say, I’m sorry,’ which decided for Inés that this person could be worth getting to know.
It had been Mrs. Summerly who’d suggested the two work together to organise the baking competition. Jenny had always worked on the tombola but Frances had taken that over. Jenny said that, last year, Frances had somehow managed to win an almost complete bone china tea service that had been ‘forgotten’ in the storeroom so no one else could bid for it. She bent down to look under the table, ‘Now where are the napkins?’ She wandered off, grumbling something about ‘bloody Frances’ and ‘I’m not doing this next year.’
Many cakes arrived, contradicting Frances’ earlier pronouncement (far from dear Helen’s ears) that baking was ‘old hat’ and no one would participate. Inés watched her with the headmaster’s wife, nodding her false smile with her hands clasped below her scant heart.
Neville had assured Inés that the competition was a common enough activity for a school fête and she shouldn’t worry, but the knot in her stomach remained because she didn’t want to embarrass herself or him and, if she was completely honest, because she wanted to show esa Frances. That was why she’d steeped chopped candied peel in rum overnight and carefully scraped hundreds of black vanilla seeds into browned butter. She’d beaten sunny yolks with sugar over a bain marie—a tricky operation—until all was paled and tripled in volume, then gently folded in the flour, the melted vanilla butter, and the candied peel to the mix. After it baked for an hour, she was satisfied with the springy result. She’d decorated the sides of the cake with chopped nuts and topped it with whole glaçé cherries, pears, and apricots that now gleamed like oriental jewels. Jenny said, ‘That’s gorgeous,’ and moved it to the centre of the table.
Diana skipped up with her first smile of the day. ‘She’s here! I’ve just spoken with her!’
‘Richard Burton too?’ Jenny asked.
‘No, he’s filming today, apparently. It’s just her and the daughters.’
Inés had seen those girls many times—a little older than her own children—being picked up by the nanny. Not a friendly nanny, Diana agreed, but that was to be expected, wasn’t it. To herself Inés reflected how, after marrying Neville, she’d thought her life would be a simple one of caring for their family, but he’d found a new job at this school in Rome and here she was perhaps meeting Elizabeth Taylor. Her sister would never believe it.
The church bells rang the three o’clock, Diana returned to her stall, and Inés surveyed all the cakes on the table. With its plump emerald and ruby cherries, the golden pears and apricots, and the sparkling wheels of lemon and orange, hers stood out in full Technicolor, perhaps too showy. As she made to move it, a dome of golden pastry appeared at the periphery of her view.
‘That’s a great looking cake,’ a voice said. ‘Am I still in time to enter?’
Not much taller than the two young girls with her, and less significant in person than Inés had expected, the voice’s woman wore plain jeans and a purple flowered shirt, her dark hair held back by a wide lilac band, a plain small shoulder bag matching her plain flat shoes. She could have been anyone, but her face was the face magnified on billboards across the city. The violet of her eyes, however, no billboard could capture their reality.
‘Yes,’ Inés said, putting down her cake and finding herself at a loss for words. She couldn’t pretend not to recognise her, but should she call her Mrs. Taylor or Mrs. Burton?
‘OK to put mine here?’ Elizabeth Taylor asked, with that light childish voice.
Inés had only ever heard her speak Italian or Spanish, dubbed of course, so the real voice seemed artificial. She recovered herself. ‘Yes, of course. What kind is it? I’ll write a label.’
‘It’s an American apple pie.’ The woman lay down the plate and took from her shoulder bag a couple of sugar sachets like those that come with an espresso at the bar. She tore off the corner of first one then the other, and sprinkled the contents over the pastry. The sugar glimmered in the sunlight. ‘That’s better,’ she said, viewing the pie from all angles.
Inés thanked her and said the judges would come by shortly. ‘They will decide the winners later. I hope you will stay for the prize-giving this evening.’ She had heard Jenny say this kind of thing and tried to sound as casual. Jenny sauntered back and said hello, and wasn’t it a lovely day. Elizabeth Taylor nodded and pointed to Inés’ cake, ‘I’d like to try that one.’
‘You may do so after the judges have passed sentence. We’ll be selling slices later to raise funds for new playground equipment,’ Jenny said, smiling but firm.
The actress seemed surprised by the words, or perhaps the tone, but returned the smile and said she’d be back. Inés watched her leave, that slight woman with a hand to each daughter either side, a woman used to getting her own way, who was already cheating on her fifth husband if the papers were to be believed. Everyone was watching her while pretending not to, and Inés found herself not envying that wife.
Frances tottered over again, the mascara and lipstick now melted and clownish. ‘How marvellous that Liz should support our little competition. Look at those gorgeous gems of glaçé apricots! But then, it’s to be expected.’
Inés didn’t correct her. Jenny had said the judging would be fairer if no one knew who’d brought what.
Mrs. Summerly approached with the British Ambassador's wife—according to Jenny they’d been school chums. The third judge was France’s husband, another teacher, pink faced and sweating in his navy velvet blazer and garish tie. Inés tried to ignore his piggy eyes straying over her body. His unwelcome attentions had been so persistent at the last cheese and wine, and Frances’ scowling so intense, that she’d asked Neville to take her home. ‘What’s the matter?’ Neville had asked, and she’d said nothing, because she didn’t want cause trouble between colleagues.
‘Let’s go and find a cuppa,’ Jenny offered, for the very first time.
Yes, it was bitter tea, but with a bit of sugar it was all right. As Inés sipped, her attention kept straying to the judges cutting her cake and their expressions as they bit into their slice.
After the judges finished, Jenny and Inés returned to the stall and set about selling slices. ‘If I eat nothing else today, I’m trying yours,’ Jenny said, ‘There’ll be none left by the time the winners are announced.’ Inés was flattered but didn’t want to raise her hopes. She helped herself to the American apple pie. The pastry was very fine and, under the crust, the apples weren’t at all mushy.
‘Your cake is fantastic!’ Jenny said.
‘This one’s good also,’ Inés said. Surprisingly so.
‘I don’t expect she made it,’ Jenny said, but Inés disagreed, ‘I think she did.’ She didn’t mention the sugar sachets because Jenny wouldn’t understand.
Elizabeth Taylor came by again with her children. Her eyes went to the almost-finished slice on Inés’s plate, ‘How d’you like my pie?’
Inés wasn’t lying when she said it was excellent, ‘Did you add nutmeg as well as cinnamon?’
The woman seemed pleased with the question, ‘Yes, my mother’s recipe.’
Inés asked about the other taste, ‘A different taste.’
‘That’ll be the maple syrup.’ Elizabeth Taylor explained it came from trees, which sounded interesting and something Inés might like to buy herself, but Jenny said it would be difficult to find in Rome.
‘I get mine sent from Vermont,’ the actress said, which paused the conversation until Inés said it was the best pie she’d ever tried. The woman who’d been empress of Egypt beamed, ‘Is there any left of the cake with the glaçé apricots?’ She said the A of apricots as in cat, not hay.
Inés brought out the remaining piece from under the table, ‘I kept some aside for you.’
The woman thanked her as though she was used to such treatment. She tasted a forkful and lifted her hand to hide her mouth. Inés averted her eyes from the act of chewing, so personal. ‘It really is a great little cake,’ Elizabeth Taylor said.
Mrs. Summerly at the top of the staircase tapped on the microphone. The audio squeaked and the chatter died down. Inés held onto the table as the headmaster’s wife announced the winners of the children’s fancy dress contest, and then of various races—egg and spoon, sack, and three-legged—and of the flower arranging competition. Then she announced the amount of money raised, ‘…and we have until the end of this evening to achieve our goal that will allow us to buy new playground equipment.’ While everyone clapped, Jenny strode up and whispered in Mrs. Summerly’s ear.
The headmaster’s wife giggled, ‘Oh yes. How could I forget… The multitude of delicious entries in the baking competition this year made it difficult for our judges to decide…’
Inés struggled to understand—Mrs. Summerly spoke quickly—but she held on for the winner’s name, feeling sure the famous actress would get it because that was the way of the world.
‘… And the winner of our baking competition is… the sublime jewelled fruitcake!’
The American apple pie came second and the sour cherry crostata third. Everyone clapped, Jenny whooped, and the children jumped up and down as Inés and Ersilia stood with Elizabeth Taylor for the judges to pin red white and blue rosettes to their chests. Neville looked quite proud as he snapped photographs.
Inés gathered this instant and wrapped it in silk, embroidering a talisman of memory. As the others cheered for her, she sensed the air shift, her soft breath in and out, the sunshine on her face, salt and sugar on her lips, the scent of vanilla and pine, a warm breeze fluttering across the surface of her skin.
END
Zoë Fairtlough writes about outsiders, history, science, and family life. Her short stories, essays, and translations have appeared in Silver Apples Magazine, La Piccioletta Barca, and Typishly. She is also working on two novels. When not frantically reading and writing, she is tending to her family and garden, and consulting on communications.
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