Griff
room, which pulses with Metallica. She swears it’s better than a white-noise track. She grumbles as I gently shake her awake,
and I’m glad that we’re both still alive.
Her eyelids shoot open, my phone torch reflecting off her glass eyes. She springs up like a jack-in-the-box, raising her arms
to the ceiling. “Glory hallelujah! Jesus, is that you? I’m ready, Lord! You can take me now!”
I step backward, running my hand over my chin. The carer forgot to shave me this week, but I’m no Jesus—not that she can see
me anyway. “No, Gladys, it’s me Gr . . . the new Greff, I mean chef.” Thankfully, accents have always been my forte and I
put on a posh voice to disguise my own. “We are cooking the cake tonight. Remember, madam? For your husband’s birthday?”
If she’s disappointed that I’m not the Messiah, she doesn’t show it. She crinkles her nose, the cogs turning. “Oooh yes! Even
better! Help me get my shoes and robe, would you . . . Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Err . . . you can just call me ‘chef.’”
I hand her the fluffy robe and Velcro sneakers, which she puts on without any help. Like many residents, the woman is far
more capable than she is given credit for.
“My bad leg’s been playing up a bit, chef. Hand me my walking stick. I won’t need the cane with you to guide me.”
I pass it to her, and for a split second I catch myself wondering if the timber would make a better rolling pin than the aluminum bar I’d liberated. The dough probably wouldn’t cling to the wood as much . . .
I shut the thought down as a symphony of snoring surges through the walls, pushing us toward our quiet destination. The hallways
are deserted, not a nurse or carer in sight.
We reach the kitchen, and I place Gladys’s hands on the stainless-steel countertop to steady her while I fetch the ingredients.
Thankfully all are pantry staples. The old woman hums softly, and I imagine her in her own kitchen, a warm wooden countertop
replacing the cold metal, a window overlooking a pretty garden rather than the staff car park.
I take it upon myself to chop the butter, hesitant to give a sharp knife to a blind woman. They say the secret ingredient
in any good dessert is love, not fingertips. “Would you like help to knead the dough, madam?”
“No, sir!” She bats me away. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed this; I’m going to enjoy every moment.”
I know exactly how she feels.
She sticks her misshapen fingers into the flour and butter and shudders with delight, working deftly. “Now we need milk, sugar,
eggs, and vanilla.”
I hand her each item, taken aback by the fact that there are still things that can surprise me in the kitchen—I’ve never seen
pastry quite like this before. She adds the extra ingredients one by one, separating the eggs with the precision of a chef
with twenty-twenty vision, and soon brings it into a ball. “Pop it in the fridge now. It needs a rest, like me.”
She has no idea she’s instructing a Michelin-star chef on how to make pastry, but for once I don’t mind not being in charge
and do as I’m told.
“Now for a treat,” she says. “You know what I used to do while I was waiting?”
“What’s that?”
“I’d murder a can of VB! What I wouldn’t do for a cold one. You know,” she adds, stroking her chin, “I overheard the staff
say the grog is stored in a pantry in the kitchen office.”
I don’t need to be asked twice. Stepping into the back room, I spy a door in the far corner.
Locked. A quick rummage through the desk drawers turns up a set of keys, and the second one I try does the trick.
I open the door, see the VB straightaway and grab a couple of cans.
They never bother to chill the bloody things for happy hour.
Do they think we have lost our sense of temperature along with our taste?
“It’s not cold, madam, but might be better than nothing.” Emphasis on the word “might.”
The can hisses open. She brings it to her lips and takes a long drink. “Ahhh. That’s the stuff. They don’t even offer me grog
here, you know. They think because I’m disabled and old, I don’t drink, but I’ve been known to throw a few back in my day,
let me tell you!” She takes another swig, and her whole body jiggles. “I’m so grateful for this, chef, thanks.”
“Cheers.” I tap my can against hers and drink too. The smell brings an unwelcome memory, but I swat it away. It’s definitely
not my beverage of choice, and my first reaction would usually be to complain about the temperature, but I can’t put a dampener
on Gladys’s joy. So I keep my mouth shut and, surprisingly, it feels better than the complaining would have.
We chug them down, and she lets out a juicy belch. “Excuse me!” she chortles. “This is the most fun I’ve had in ages!”
“Me too!” I burp in reply, dropping my posh persona and sending her into fits of giggles.
Once the dough has rested, I hand her the “rolling pin.”
“Geez, some fancy equipment you’ve got here,” she says, running her fingers over the length of it. “I’ve never seen a rolling
pin this long. C’mon now! It’s time to rock and roll! See what I did there with the roll?” She cackles, and I begrudgingly
let a smile creep onto my face.
I don’t want to admit it, but I’m glad I hung around for this. Seeing the joy on a blind woman’s face while she rolls out
dough with part of a walking frame wasn’t exactly on my actual bucket list, but somewhere between the mixing bowl and Gladys’s
crooked grin, a thin thread of joy slips in through a crack I thought was sealed shut.
“You know, I was wondering what to get my youngest daughter, Tina, for her birthday. I reckon a whizz-bang rolling pin like this would be just the ticket! Where do you reckon they get ’em from, chef?”
My cheeks warm. “I’m not sure, sorry, madam.”
“I don’t suppose I could have this one, could I?”
I consider it a moment, my gut clenching. “Ah, no. But I can have a look online for you for something similar.” Something that ideally isn’t a mobility apparatus.
“Oh really? That’d be great. She’s trying to get her girls into baking, which would be so good for ’em, I reckon.”
“Yes,” I say, recollecting the cooking from my childhood—my safe place that I protected fiercely.
She feels out the dough with her fingertips then slices it into two rectangles with a butter knife. “Now if I’m not wrong,
that should be precisely the right size to line a standard twenty-three by thirty-three rectangular baking tin. Put it in
front of me, dear.”
I place one next to her, and she taps her fingers over it, then rolls up the pastry on the cylinder, expertly unrolling it
into the pan.
The old girl could have worked in my kitchen. “You’re spot on, Gladys.”
She beams as her fingertips lightly press the dough. “It’s amazing, you know, what people assume. People think you can’t,
so you don’t. Memories aren’t just up here, though,” she says, tapping the side of her head, “we have them down here, too.”
She scrunches her arthritic fingers in and out. “This—baking tarts—it’s muscle memory. And, boy, does it feel good!” Her face
lights up with so much joy that I half expect her to burst into song.
“Are you going to blind bake that?” I instantly regret my choice of words, but she only laughs.
“Nah, we don’t need to with this. And not just because I’m too blind to bake that. Ha! See what I did there? You core and
chop the apples and put them in the saucepan. Small pieces, okay?”
“Yes, chef.” The satisfying slice of the knife through crisp green skin sends a tingle up my arm as I dice the apples into
precise one-centimeter cubes.
There’s a kind of camaraderie here I’ve never felt in any kitchen before. Professionally, I was feared—sharp, exacting, a chef whose silence cut deeper than his knives. That’s how I was made.
Those rigorous years of training were brutal. Long hours, burnt fingers, no room for vulnerability. You kept your countertop
spotless and learned fast or you were gone. So I became precise, cold, clean. Respect was survival, and fear was the tool
that built it. Even at home, I kept the kitchen door shut—sometimes slammed it. I thought that was how kitchens worked. How
life worked. Keep it tidy, contained, closed. Truth was, I was guarding the sole space in my head Brent couldn’t reach: a
little world that belonged to me and was free of his sneers and fists. Lisa never knew that. She just thought I’d shut her
out. She was right. She was collateral damage, and I hated that about myself. Maybe I should’ve left the door ajar.
Gladys picks up the cup of sugar I’ve measured. “Now, I think we are a bit light on this, chef. I reckon it’s only 250 grams.”
“Yes, that’s the recipe.”
“Bah! Not my recipe. My Herb likes things extra sweet, that’s why he married me!” she declares, batting her eyelids. I give
her more, and she tips it into a saucepan with the apples, cinnamon, breadcrumbs (tragically Wonder White) and chopped walnuts.
“I also like to add a bit of zest. Hand me an orange, please.”
Good call.
She sniffs the fruit like she’s inhaling a memory. “You know, Herb and I had orange trees in our very first home. I can’t
tell you the number of times I made marmalade or orange and poppy seed cake for him. The worst thing about being incapacitated
is not being able to love my hubby in the way that he most feels loved. They say that the way to a man’s heart is through
his stomach, but it’s more than that for my Herbie. I think his heart is his stomach. They are one and the same.” Gladys is right. The ability to love people in the way that is meaningful to you
both is definitely one of the rights waived upon entry to this prison.
“My better half was built like that too,” I say, wiping the countertop.
The woman hesitates. “Was? Did your wife pass?”
I pause, the word catching in the air. It’d be easier to agree, to let her think I had a wife. That’s what people expect—men
of my generation have spent a lifetime dodging questions, some going back into closets they thought they’d escaped. I nearly
do the same. But I swallow hard and say it anyway. “My . . . husband, Beau.” The word still conjures mixed feelings—blokes
my age usually stick to “partner”—but it’s the truth, and one we fought hard for.
She smiles. For a second I wait for the flinch, the awkward comment—the one I’ve braced against for as long as I can remember.
But it never comes. The silence feels lighter than words.
“Good men, my Herbie and your Beau. We did alright, didn’t we?”
“We sure did.”
It’s time to turn on the stove to cook the apple filling, and despite her tipsy sway, Gladys insists she can do it. Her center
of gravity strongly disagrees, so I stand close in case. Good thing I do, as Gladys topples backward onto me. “Oops, sorry,
love!” she hiccups, regaining her balance. “That beer went straight to my knees!”
I wash my hands and insist on helping her pour the hot filling.
She expertly lifts the second sheet of pastry on top. “Now for my favorite part—the meringue.”
I wash the dusty Kitchen Aid bowl, and we turn the machine on, adding egg whites and sugar. Gorgeous, glossy, stiff white
peaks form, and I’m transported to my mum’s kitchen. If I try hard enough, I can smell her rose perfume as she teaches me
to make pavlova one rainy afternoon when Lisa was sick and Brent was at the football game. Apart from bread, it was one of
the few dishes she’d mastered.
Gladys folds in some crushed walnuts and scoops the meringue on top of the pastry, and I slide it into the oven.
“Grab us a spoon, will ya, love?” she asks. “I like to scrape the bowl. And another beer—I reckon we’ve earned it!”
I hesitate, weighing whether enabling a tipsy octogenarian counts as a crime.
“Don’t overthink it, chef. I can feel you stalling. I’m right as rhubarb.”
I hand her the spoon and fetch her another beer, which she gratefully accepts. She scrapes the bowl and brings the smooth meringue to her mouth. It’s then I realize that Gladys isn’t blind and that, like me, she sees the world through her tastebuds. What a bleak view she’s had since living here.
After a quick clean up, we sit in the warm, cinnamon-scented air as we wait for the cake to bake, talking about cooking and
kitchen gardens, another thing I miss. What I wouldn’t do to taste fresh basil or mint again—anything but coriander. She tells
me about the cancer that took her eyes, and I tell her about losing Beau.
Soon the lenja pita is cooling on the countertop, its golden-brown crust faintly crinkled at the edges, a light dusting of
icing sugar softening the ridges. Beneath the top layer, spiced apple nestles in pale, buttery pastry—simple, sturdy, and
quietly beautiful. I have to stop myself from cutting a piece right now.
Gladys doesn’t have a fridge in her room, so I offer to store it. “I’m going to put this in Griff’s fridge, okay, madam? I
don’t want anyone in here accidentally eating it or giving it to someone else.”
“Righto.”
“And Gladys?”
“Yeah?”
“If Griff . . . isn’t here tomorrow, just go in and take the tart, or get one of the staff to, I mean.”
She furrows her brows. “Is he going somewhere?”
I pause, my confidence shaken. “Yeah, I’m pretty certain he is. He’s . . . got plans.”
After I escort her back to her room, Gladys, full of meringue, beer and happiness, pulls me in for an embrace. I stiffen.
How long had it been since I was last properly hugged?
She doesn’t let go until I relax into it and hug her back. Her voice is raw with emotion. “Thank you so much. Tonight has
been an absolute gift to me. It’s meant more than you know.”
“All good, madam. I hope you get some rest.”
“You too, love.”
I was going to get some rest alright: eternal rest.
I help tuck her in bed then turn to leave, hoping that she doesn’t want a lullaby too.
“And, chef?”
“Yeah?”
“If you speak to Griff, please tell him to cancel those plans of his.”
I freeze. I thought my fake accent was pretty convincing . . .
She gives a bemused smile, as if reading my mind. “You know, I had a hell of a nap yesterday, which is very unlike me. When
the carer put me to bed, she found a couple of pills stuck to my hair. Said they looked like sleeping pills. I told her I
can’t imagine how those got there . . .”
Shame burns my cheeks. I can’t form a single word.
“I may be blind, but I see things. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. But you simply must try the cake! And I’d love
you to meet my Herb and witness the look on his face when he sees it. I can’t do that anymore. Don’t take it for granted,
love, it’s the sight I miss the most. Be my eyes?”
Beau’s butter beam flashes in my mind; it was my favorite sight too.
“I’ll, um . . . pass on your message,” I say.
“Good lad. You tell Griff to think about it. He is still wanted here.”
A lump forms in my throat. I return to my room, look in the mirror and take Gladys’s advice: I tell Griff to think about it.