As she heard him approach, she pulled the scarf from her hair, and with a quick flick of her head, sent her auburn hair cascading over her shoulders like liquid copper. She smartened her top and straightened her trousers with the palms of her hands. Winnie stood before the table as Thaddeus entered. He stood in the doorway, his hair more of a mess than she remembered. His eyes shone brilliantly like two glowing coals in his pale face. He wore a white shirt which was open at the throat, revealing just the brief glimpse of his chest. His legs were hidden beneath a pair of faded blue denims, and he wore loafers on his feet. Out of his suit, he looked younger - relaxed somehow.
Thaddeus smiled and said, "Good evening, Winnie."
Smiling back, Winnie gestured to a seat. "I've cooked your dinner, Thaddeus." It had been a long time since anyone had trusted her with any kind of responsibility. Okay, so she had only chosen the meal, cooked it, and prepared the table. To most, these were just a series of menial and mundane tasks, but it had given her a sense of self-worth and a glimmer of purpose. It had been a long time since she had felt either of those things.
Thaddeus eyed the table curiously as he took his seat. Winnie turned to the grill, and covering her hands with a towel, she plucked two plates out and placed them on the table. She took her seat. Winnie looked across at Thaddeus, who sat staring down at the plate of fish fingers, oven-ready chips, and a mound of baked beans.
“Is everything okay?" she asked.
“I hadn’t realised I had employed you for your sense of humour,” he said, not once taking his eyes off the meal before him.
“I’m not sure what you mean?” Winnie said.
Ignoring her question, he prodded one of the fish fingers with his slender fingers. “What is this?”
Winnie remained silent, her own knife and fork poised over her plate of food. “I don't know what you mean, Thad....."
“Are you trying to be funny?” he asked, cutting over her and fixing her with a dark stare.
Winnie felt flustered. "No, Thaddeus, it’s your dinner. I cooked it for you. Is there something wrong?"
He scoffed a cynical laugh and pushed the plate back towards her. “I’d say there was something wrong, wouldn't you?"
Seeing the rejection of her meal and all her hard work, she, too became annoyed. "I'm not sure I follow.”
"This isn’t a meal,” he sneered.
"It looks like food to me,” she shot back.
“Surely you don’t expect me to eat this?” he said, looking down at the food again. “This isn’t food.”
“It is where I come from,” Winnie said, trying to hide her growing anger. Then pushing her chair back from the table, she stood up. With tears burning in the corners of her eyes and feeling useless, she looked at Thaddeus and said, “When you’re freezing cold, tired, and starving hungry, you would eat anything. I guess you wouldn’t have the faintest idea how that would feel. I know people back in London who would sell themselves for a meal like that tonight.”
Thaddeus looked at her, his face impassive and said, “I’m sorry; perhaps we should Fed-Ex it to them.”
Drawing a deep breath, Winnie clenched her hands into fists by her sides. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard him say. With silent tears now streaming down her face, she looked at Thaddeus and said, “You prick.”
Without waiting for him to reply, Winnie raced across the kitchen to the door. As if realising how much he had hurt her feelings, he dropped his head in shame. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Please forgive me.”
“Screw you!” Winnie hissed, yanking open the door.
But before she even knew what was happening, Thaddeus was beside her, his hand gently falling upon her arm.
“I’m truly sorry,” he whispered.
"Fuck off!” she blurted out through her tears. Thaddeus removed his hand but stayed standing beside her. Then leaning in close to her, he whispered in her ear.
"I'm sorry, Winnie. It was thoughtless of me. Please forgive me."
Covering her face with her hands, Winnie bent forward and began to sob. His apology seemed to have sent her into a new flood of tears.
Then reaching out, Thaddeus placed a hand lightly on her shoulder.
"Shhh, Winnie," he soothed, "I'm sorry, I never meant to make you cry."
She continued to sob, and through her tears she began to speak.
"Not...not your fault...I'm a thick...bitch...." Winnie sobbed. Perhaps she was thick? She wondered. After all, he wasn’t paying her two hundred pounds a week to cook fish fingers. Why had Thaddeus found it necessary to be so cruel, though?
He removed his hand from her shoulder. It felt odd being so close to her. To be standing so close to Winnie was like betraying his wife in some way. The smell of Winnie’s hair and skin stirred feelings in him. It reminded him of what his wife had once smelt like, and he wished now that he had got Winnie a different shampoo. It had been a mistake to buy the same one. However much he wanted to stand next to Winnie and convince her he was sorry for hurting her feelings, Thaddeus had to walk away.
“You're not thick, Winnie. You did your best under the circumstances. I should have realised that and been more understanding and less fussy. It won’t happen again,” Thaddeus said, going back to the table.
Winnie drew her head up. A thin line of snot trailed from her right nostril and she cuffed it away with her sleeve. She realised what she had done and knew that old habits were the hardest to break. She wasn’t on the street anymore. It was more than that. Thaddeus had shown a flicker of cruelness she hadn’t expected. What had she expected? She didn’t know him. She knew nothing about him. Only what he had cared to tell her.
Staring at him, she spoke softly without any malice in her voice and said, “I know it won’t happen again, Thaddeus, because I'm leaving. You don't need a stupid tramp like me hanging around, cluttering up your beautiful home and cooking you naff meals."
Thaddeus looked at her, and for the second time since she had met him, Winnie saw desperation in his eyes.
"Please don't leave, Winnie. We can work things out. Don't go back to London. It isn't safe for you there. You can stay here. I’ll teach you to cook. We'll be good for each other."
Winnie looked upon his face. She felt confused. “What’s the point of employing me to cook and clean for you if you’re going to cook all the meals yourself?”
“I didn’t say I was going to cook all the meals - I said I would teach you,” he tried to smile, but that look of desperation still darkened his eyes.
"But what do you get from this deal?" Winnie asked with a shake of her head.
"Like I said in London, Winnie, you take care of my home and put up with my eccentric ways, and I’ll give you a home, a wage,” he said. “I’ll even teach you to cook.”
She began to dry her eyes and said, “It seems a little strange to me, Thaddeus."
"What's so strange about it?” he asked with a shrug of his shoulders. “We're both a little strange if you think about it. We can make a good team. You've got nothing to go back to, and I've got nothing up here all on my own. What do you say?”
Winnie stared at him for a long moment. Half of her felt unsure of him, but there was another part of him that fascinated her, and she didn’t know why. If he had wanted to have harmed her in some way - wouldn’t he have done it by now? Okay, so he was pissed off with the whole fish finger thing, but she could tell by the size of the house, the material wealth, he was used to finer things. Maybe it was just one of his eccentricities he had warned her about. Besides, what was there to go back to? Getting into an argument about her cooking skills was nothing compared to what she had left behind. She knew in her heart that Ruby Little wouldn’t have thrown away the chance, if she had been offered it.
Finally, she whispered, "Okay, I’ll stay.”
“Thank you,” Thaddeus whispered and turned away.
He scraped their uneaten meals into the trash. Placing their empty plates into the dishwasher, he looked back at her and said, “Get a coat. I’m going to take you out for dinner.”
Winnie was just about to leave the room, when Thaddeus said, “Wear the grey coat with the hood.”
Looking back at him, she cocked an eyebrow and said, “Why that particular coat?”
“It has a hood,” he said right back. “It’s raining. Besides, I like the coat.”
As she left the kitchen, he plucked a waterproof coat from the hook on the back of the door. Flicking off the kitchen light, he made his way to the front door. He took the silver cigarette case from his trouser pocket and smoked while he waited for Winnie. She hadn’t been gone long when he heard her footfalls on the stairs. Thaddeus looked back to see Winnie step off the bottom stair and into the huge hall. The long, grey coat swished just above her ankles. She almost seemed to float towards Thaddeus who stood by the front door, the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. As she came towards him, Thaddeus noticed that she had daubed the faintest hint of green eye shadow above her eyes, a smudge of blusher on each cheek, and a deep, red lipstick now coated her soft lips.
He could hardly mask his smile as she stopped before him. “You look stunning,” he breathed.
She let out a little laugh of embarrassment and blushed. “I found the makeup on the dressing table in my room,” she said. “It’s okay to use it, isn’t it?”
“Use whatever you like,” he smiled, and pulled the hood of her coat up so it covered the back of her head and the sides of her face.
“Whose is it?” she asked.
“It’s yours,” he said, hooking a long length of her hair out from beneath her hood so it hung against the right side of her face. “Perfect,” he whispered, looking at her.
“Perfect for what?” she smiled.
“For dinner,” he winked back and led her out into the night.