Liam was smirking like a sixth-former.
‘What, apologise for calling your boss a hunk?’ Imelda’s eyes widened in mock amazement.
‘Darling, why so sensitive? Don’t tell me you really are having a thing with him. You can’t seriously be serious,’ she affected horror, ‘about a man who wears weave-your-own sandals and a Fair Isle tank top.’
Dulcie spun round and marched into the kitchen. She was back in less than three seconds with a thirteen-pint stock pot and a ladle.
The cafe went quiet.
‘This,’ said Dulcie, conversationally, clutching the stock pot to her chest and dipping the ladle in,
‘is ratatouille.’
‘Oh Christ,’ muttered Liam, his fork clattering on to his salad plate. His chair scraped back like chalk on a blackboard.
‘Dulcie, it was a joke,’ Imelda protested lightly. ‘Come on, where’s your sense of humour?’
‘I don’t have one any more. I lost it along with my brain when I got involved with him.’
To indicate who she meant, Dulcie flicked a ladleful of ratatouille at Liam. It went splat against his chest and slid down inside his tracksuit top.
Imelda screamed and tried to dodge behind Liam but Dulcie was too quick for her. Splat went the second ladleful against the pink Lycra dress.
‘Terrific shot,’ someone murmured admiringly on table six. ‘She’s mad,’ shrieked Imelda,
‘someone stop her!’
‘Come on, we’re out of here.’ Liam grabbed her by the arm and yanked her towards the door.
‘Dulcie, where are you going?’ shouted Rufus from the kitchen doorway, but she was already outside.
The gleaming red Lamborghini was parked across the entrance to Rufus’s garage. For all Liam’s obsession with exercise, he never parked his car an inch further away from his destination than was humanly possible.
Imelda was still struggling into her seat when Dulcie launched the contents of the stock pot through the open passenger door.
A tidal wave of garlicky ratatouille shot everywhere, drenching the inside of the car. It looked, Dulcie realised, pleased with the effect, like John Travolta’s famous accident in Pulp Fiction.
And oh, how Liam loved his precious Lamborghini. Almost as much, Dulcie thought happily, as he loved himself.
‘My car!’ howled Liam, clawing lumps of courgette and tomato out of his hair. ‘My fucking car.
You bitch!’
‘Never mind your car,’ Imelda screamed, ‘what about my dress?’ Her voice rose another octave.
‘It’s a Galliano!’
‘You’re blocking a garage,’ said Dulcie. She pointed to the No Parking sign Rufus had pinned up only last week. ‘I’d move if I were you. Before you get clamped.’
‘Sorry about the ratatouille,’ she told Rufus, dumping the empty stock pot in the sink and running the taps.
‘Lucky it wasn’t hot.’
Dulcie pushed her sleeves up and began scrubbing the pot clean.
‘I wish it bloody had been.’
She was white-faced and shaking. Rufus’s heart went out to her; he knew how awful she must be feeling. When his wife had left him for the bank manager he would have given anything to have flung a pot of ratatouille in their faces. He just hadn’t had the nerve.
When he saw the tears sliding down Dulcie’s face, Rufus didn’t hesitate. Crossing the kitchen, he put his arms around her, as he had dreamed of doing for so long.
‘There, there.’ He patted Dulcie’s heaving back as if she were a child. ‘Don’t let them upset you.
You deserve better than him.’
As he murmured the soothing words, Rufus wondered if they were a mistake. A naturally modest man, it felt odd to be telling Dulcie she deserved someone better when what he really meant was: someone like me.
On the other hand, when was he likely to get another opportunity like this? Dulcie was a woman in distress, in desperate need of comfort, and he wanted nothing more than to be the one providing it.
His heart raced. Maybe, thought Rufus, this is fate .. . ‘Whmmph,’ gasped Dulcie as his mouth fastened eagerly and unexpectedly on hers. She tried to pull away but it was a real sink plunger of a kiss. Rufus was giving it his all.
‘Oh, Dulcie,’ he breathed, when he at last came up for air.
He clutched her joyfully to his Fair Isle chest. ‘Forget Liam!
I’d never cheat on you. I’ll make you happy, I swear!’ Oh dear.
Carefully Dulcie extricated herself from his grip. Rufus was panting like a boisterous St Bernard and he had sampled the ratatouille at regular intervals during the making of it. The great wafts of garlic he was breathing all over her were strong enough to strip paint.
‘I wasn’t crying because I was upset.’ It was hard to talk, Dulcie discovered, when you were trying to hold your own breath. ‘I was just so ... so mad.’
