Wetherby Pie

Could the traditional family dish work its magic and heal the rift between Susie and her father?

SUSIE has eaten Wetherby Pie many times, but has never made it before. It’s part of their family lore: a recipe passed down through generations, invented long ago and captured on paper by her grandmother, Flora.

Wetherby Pie – named after the town where her family had lived long ago – is meaty, strong and fragrant all at once, crowned by delicate layered pastry.

It encourages her to recall good memories from the past, of family meals and in-jokes and laughter.

It brings back bad memories, too: the family in-fighting that usually came at the end of the meal, after too much wine.

But she doesn’t have to dwell on those.

Susie can’t remember the last time she had the pie. Certainly not in adulthood, anyway. For when a family breaks up, the family heritage gets lost along the way.

She looks at the mountain of food on the worktop and swallows hard. Couldn’t she just have done bangers and mash?

There’s a chance he won’t even remember, given his selective memory and often internal gaze. If he doesn’t remember, she worries it might destroy her.

She flings open a cupboard and crashes out a pan. She’s not ready for this.

She picks up the recipe book and bites a nail.

After a few moments she puts the book down, walks with purpose to the oven and switches it on, ignoring the uncomfortable whirling in her stomach.

Susie cubes the meat and browns it. The smell of the fat crisping makes her want to eat it right now.

Her family had always eaten the fatty bits; fought over the skin of the chicken; enjoyed all the rich flavours.

She lays the meat aside and goes to work on onions and carrots, frying them slightly before adding dark ale, setting the vegetables dancing in the bottom of the pan.

She consults the book and adds the herbs.

This is the bit that Gran used to make jokes about when Susie was a child; the secret ingredients that only women could pass on to other women, when they were old enough.

Susie was forgotten in the break-up, only finding these secrets out a few weeks ago when she got the book.

She’s surprised; some of the flavours aren’t the ones she expected.

She’s got all the jars lined up, and the fresh green herbs ready chopped in neat piles.

She sprinkles and spoons according to the recipe, and closes her eyes as the scents climb the steam to her nose.

She adds more ale and watches it simmer. Then, in goes the colour: yelloworange squash, lilac garlic, gentle sunset swede and a little creamy parsnip.

Finally, it’s time to return the meat. The stock is a secret, too, and took her a while to concoct the previous night, hunched over the pan like a witch.

She pours it in, turns the heat down and steps back from the stove.

She wipes perspiration from her forehead and decides it’s wine time, to help her relax.

Otherwise it won’t matter what the meal is like; she’ll mess it up by being tense and edgy – the girl she’s always been around him.

Susie pours herself a glass of Merlot.

She’s tempted to add some to the pan, but it’s not in the recipe. For once, she’s going to follow the rules.

She scans the book. She reads, mixes and tries to add some magic as she turns the spoon.

Please, let this work. Let him enjoy it. Let him notice, she thinks, over and over.

Darren tells her she shouldn’t bother, after everything. But he’s still her dad, after all, and he’s ill. Shouldn’t she try one more time?

The pastry is where it could all go wrong. She’s never been any good at making pastry, and usually cheats with the readyrolled stuff.

But the recipe had a few surprises, and the result was soft and connected. It behaved like pastry should.

It’s been in the fridge – the “cold place” mentioned in the recipe, written before fridges hummed heartbeats in every house.

She unwraps and kneads it until it is soft and workable once more. She drinks more wine while she waits for the filling to cook.

It’s hard to get the pastry to look how she remembers it should look – thumbed up around the edges, neat and professional – but she does the best she can.

Unfortunately, Susie’s best has never been enough before.

But she doesn’t intend to give up – a trait, she’s been told, that came from her grandfather, whose mind didn’t give up until his body gave in to the same cancer that is now consuming her father.

She sighs, wishing she’d known him,

wishing she could have asked him what to do to make it all right, to make her father like her the way he should.

Before it’s too late. When the pie is in the oven and the vegetables are all stacked up for steaming, she gently closes the recipe book and strokes its cover.

It’s blue, made of a soft, stained leather which, she imagines, has absorbed the emotions and aromas of thousands of meals across the generations.

She thinks of all the events that unfolded in the world as this book sat in kitchen after kitchen. She wishes it could talk to her.

Touching it is like holding hands across the years. Time-travelling and finding a different version of herself using copper pans, a hand whisk and an enamel bowl.

She can remember her gran using it; remember watching her as she squinted at her own mother’s tiny writing.

Last night, as she’d allowed the aromas drifting up from the stock pot to spirit her away, she thought she saw her own future children sitting, drawing at the kitchen table. Watching her cook.

She thinks about her father as a boy, sitting watching his mother, too – a young woman Susie never got to see, except in photographs.

Gran’s familiar, worn face was the only one she knew.

The one which had lived so much already; the one whose laughter and whose sadness had already written themselves on her face, had tired her, had sapped her energy far too quickly.

Susie places her palm on the cover of the book, knowing her grandmother had once done the same, knowing it’s the closest they will ever come now.

Her grandmother’s funeral was one of the few times she can remember her father holding her, his attempted hug awkward and stiff.

She wonders what her father was like as a child.

He’s still childish, of course.

A petulant toddler in an

He’s an enigma that she’s spent her whole life trying to crack

old man’s body. Or is that too cruel?

That’s the angry part of her speaking. The one he’s hurt.

He’s an enigma that she’s spent her whole life trying to crack.

But she must think with love, and not dwell on her anger while in the kitchen, or it could seep into the meal and embitter the delicate flavours that she hopes will soften him.

He’s living proof that nature overrules nurture.

Proof that, however much love you feed someone, they can still grow up as if they’ve been deprived of its light.

Or perhaps she’s not tried hard enough to find him, hiding deep down inside his thorny shell.

As the most recent custodian of the recipe book, Susie has added her own contributions to it.

She’s happy there are still lots of blank pages left; yellowing, slightly crispy pages, a crinkly joy to write on.

She’s added her name to the list inside the front cover, and made sure there’s plenty of space underneath.

It was Hilly who hid it from him, handing it to her with a secret smile on one of her visits.

She’d tried to push down the rage and the horror she’d felt at the thought he could throw it away, like so many other things she’d been too late to save.

Anger simmers again, and she banishes it with a mouthful of wine.

She lays the table, checks the recipe book, turns down the oven and turns on the potatoes, broccoli and cabbage, ready in their steamer to go on top.

She looks down at herself and wonders if she should change.

Her clothes are splattered with food and she’s hot, but she decides against it.

He won’t notice anyway, and she feels comfortable enough as she is.

She sits and clockwatches. Twelve minutes to go; two until they arrive.

Her father is never late.

They arrive as Darren does, harried, from the office. He kisses her and gives her an “it’ll be OK” squeeze.

Susie collects herself and tries to look confident.

It’s a few weeks since she’s seen her dad, and she notices right away that he’s lost more weight.

He looks grey, and he’s somehow shrunk.

She’s surprised by the tears that blur him suddenly.

She blinks them away. He never could deal with emotion.

Her father gives her a barely there air kiss on the cheek.

Hilly is more tactile, and gives her a hug.

“Smells gorgeous,” she says, smiling broadly.

Susie takes the coats as Darren rushes up to change.

She never knows what to say, so plays it safe.

“Good journey? You found us OK? I know it’s harder to get to than our old house but –”

“Where’s the toilet?” her father asks.

“Fine, thanks, dear,” Hilly says. “Yes, no problem.”

“This way, Dad.” Susie leads him down the hall, noticing him not noticing anything.

Back in the kitchen, Hilly’s unloading wine from a bag and explaining they’re going to stay at the B&B down the road.

Susie expected this, especially when he said they didn’t want to stay with her because they needed to be getting back.

He’s good at making up some excuse and then acting as if he never said it; as if it doesn’t matter that he lied.

She has learned to let this go. Never mind that she has a spare bedroom. She’d hoped, briefly.

“Out of his comfort zone,” Hilly says, guessing her thoughts.

“It’s all right, Hilly, I know. It doesn’t bother me any more.” Susie pauses. “How’s he been?”

“Stubborn. Awkward. Thinks he knows better than the doctors. Tried to tell the nurses how to take blood the other day.” They both smile at this. Something hisses from the stove top, and Susie swears under her breath.

She rushes over, turning knobs on her cooker as if she’s conducting an orchestra of steam.

“Need a hand?” Hilly asks.

“No, it’s all under control. Darren’s in the lounge, I think. He’ll get you a drink.”

Hilly touches her on the shoulder and strides out of the kitchen.

Susie has no idea how Hilly lives with her dad, with his singular, selfinvolved self, his way of doing things, his temper.

She’s surprised by the tears that blur him suddenly

He even seems to do what Hilly says, sometimes.

She doesn’t understand how, but they seem to be a good fit.

She suddenly remembers the plates, cold in the cupboard.

It’s right there in Gran’s writing – serve on hot plates – a little afterword in faded ink at the end of the recipe.

And she’s glad, because the distraction takes away her annoyance.

“If you’re here tonight, I need your help,” she says, speaking quietly to the recipe book.

“I just want . . .” But what did she want? A lifetime of love, condensed into these few last weeks? An apology? A thousand apologies?

What about money for all the therapists she’d seen? A plaster for the bruises, both real and spiritual?

Perhaps a compliment and an evening of peace would be enough.

Perhaps just a moment of connection with him.

“Actually, Gran, just make this meal as good as yours. It’s my gift to him.”

She shoves some plates and serving dishes in the top oven and grabs the strainer, then stands and waits for the timer to beep.

By some miracle, Susie feels, it’s all ready on time.

She arranges the serving dishes around the pie and stands back.

It looks OK, she thinks, but the vegetables might be overdone. And is she sure the pie is ready?

Maybe she should put it back in for a few moments to make the top slightly browner?

She turns around and knocks the recipe book from the side.

Bending down to pick it up, she notices the page that’s fallen open is the next page from the pie recipe. It has a few words written in her grandmother’s distinctive copperplate.

Wetherby Pie – Perfect for family reunions and other events. This recipe always works to bring people together.

Susie smiles, touching the words softly with her finger.

She looks back at the table and makes her decision.

“It’s ready!” she calls, pleased at how strong and steady her voice sounds.

There’s a brief pause in the air, a gap in which anything could happen.

Susie stands on the kitchen threshold, eyeing the front door.

Her legs twitch, as if to take her running away. She hugs herself, and waits for a few tense moments.

Her father’s voice comes ahead of him.

“I hope she’s remembered I can’t have bread, or anything too fibrous, or . . . Oh!”

He stops in the doorway and looks at the table. “Wetherby Pie?”

“I made it for you,” Susie says.

Her father looks at her and looks back at the table.

“Susie, dear. This looks wonderful!”

Hilly sounds genuinely impressed.

Darren winks behind their backs, and gives her a thumbs up.

“Please, sit anywhere,” she says.

Her father sits, making a show of trying to get comfy on their lumpy chair cushions, habitual frown settling in to the grooves on his forehead.

She picks up a serving spoon and takes a breath, then breaks the crust of the pie.

She spoons some on to a plate, making sure her father is served first.

“You’ve forgotten the salt and pepper,” he says.

For a second, Susie wants to react – just tip the table over and walk away, leave them all there.

But violence is his thing, not hers.

She picks up the salt and pepper from the worktop and smiles as she puts them down.

“Please start,” she says, when all the plates are full.

Her father’s frown has gone again, and he’s looking at his plate.

Susie watches him as he slowly cuts into the pie.

Meat and vegetables fall steaming from the pastry.

He scoops some on to his fork and watches it every millimetre of the way as he brings it to his mouth.

As he chews, he shuts his eyes and gives a small groan.

He swallows, then opens his eyes and looks directly at Susie.

He can see me, she thinks. He’s going to say something nice!

“It’s very good,” he says. “But not as good as my mother’s.”

Hilly looks up, her mouth working to chew the food quickly and speak, but Susie shakes her head.

She can feel his words in her stomach, as if they’ve hit her.

She should say something. Make it all right. Show everyone she’s not hurt by the remark.

Susie opens her mouth but shuts it again as she realises she has nothing to say.

It’s just his way, she reminds herself. He’ll be gone, one day soon.

She starts eating, but the food tastes wrong.

He’s right. Why did she think she could cook as well as her gran?

She should have done her own thing, not a poor imitation of someone else’s.

It tastes good, but not as good as she remembers.

The meat’s too hard. The parsnips are . . .

Darren kicks her under the table. She looks up, and he inclines his head across at her father.

He is chewing, slowly, nodding. His face is red and his eyes are watery.

She notices – as she hasn’t for a long, long time – that his eyes are exactly the colour of hers.

He’s taken another mouthful and the food is caught there in his mouth.

A tear escapes and rolls down his cheek.

Susie stares, unable to look away. She’s never seen him cry.

He chews the food, swallows and looks at his plate.

“Mother used to say –” is all he says, before he covers his mouth with a hand.

He shoves his chair away from the table and leaves the kitchen.

Darren coughs.

“It’s the most delicious meal,” he says.

Susie’s staring at the door.

“I know,” she says, and she follows her father down the hall, the rich smells of the pie like hands carrying her, guiding her along.

As she walks, she feels the blood in her calling out to the blood in him.

She feels – knows – that this time she’s reached him.

She’s going to take his hand and explain why she created this meal and what she wants him to tell her.

She feels the absence of fear like a drug.

“Dad?” she calls quietly. “I’m here.” ■

Her legs twitch, as if to take her running away