Recipes for Love and Murder - Sally Andrew

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I was watching the shrike; it had a lizard in its beak. It stabbed its meat onto a big white thorn.

      ‘Tannie Maria.’

      Was the lizard still alive, I wondered?

      ‘I argued, told them how much the readers adored your column. But they said the advice column was non-negotiable.’

      Was the butcher bird going to leave the meat out to dry, and make biltong?

      ‘Tannie Maria.’

      I looked at her. Her face looked so tight and miserable – as if her life was going to pot, instead of mine. That recipe column was my life. Not just the money. Yes, I needed the extra food money; the pension I got after my husband’s death was small. But the column was how I shared what was most important to me: my cooking.

      My throat felt dry. I drank some tea.

      ‘But I’ve been thinking,’ Hattie said. ‘You could write the advice column. Give advice about love and such.’

      I snorted. It was not a pretty sound.

      ‘I know nothing about love,’ I said.

      Just then one of my chickens, the hen with the dark feathers around her neck, walked across the lawn, pecking at the ground, and I did feel a kind of love for her. I loved the taste of my melktert and the smell of rusks baking and the sound of the rain when it came after the long wait. And love was an ingredient in everything I cooked. But advice columns were not about melktert or chicken-love.

      ‘Not that kind of love, anyway,’ I said. ‘And I’m not one to give advice. You should ask someone like Tannie Gouws who works at CBL Hardware. She always has advice for everyone.’

      ‘One of the marvellous things about you, Maria, is you never give unsolicited advice. But you are a superb listener. You’re the one we come to when there’s anything important to discuss. Remember how you helped Jessie when she couldn’t decide whether to go and work in Cape Town?’

      ‘I remember giving her koeksisters . . .’

      ‘You listened to her and gave her excellent advice. Thanks to you, she is still here with us.’

      I shook my head and said, ‘I still think it was the koeksisters.’

      ‘I had another idea,’ Hattie said. ‘Why don’t you write a cookbook? Tannie Maria’s Recipes. Maybe I can help you find a publisher.’

      I heard a whirring sound and I looked up to see the shrike flying away. Leaving the lizard on the thorn.

      A book wasn’t a bad idea, really, but the words that came from my mouth were: ‘It’s lonely to write a book.’

      She reached out to take my hand. But my hand just lay there.

      ‘Oh, Tannie Maria,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

      Hattie was a good friend. I didn’t want to make her suffer. I gave her hand a squeeze.

      ‘Eat some melktert, Hats,’ I said. ‘It’s a good one.’

      She picked up her fork and I helped myself to another slice. I didn’t want to suffer either. I had no reason to feel lonely. I was sitting on my stoep with a lovely view of the veld, a good friend and some first-class milk tart.

      ‘How about,’ I said, ‘I read people’s letters and give them a recipe that will help them?’

      Hattie finished her mouthful before she spoke.

      ‘You’d need to give them some advice.’

      ‘Food advice,’ I said.

      ‘They’ll be writing in with their problems.’

      ‘Different recipes for different problems.’

      Hattie stabbed the air with her fork, and said, ‘Food as medicine for the body and heart.’

      ‘Ja, exactly.’

      ‘You’ll have to give some advice, but a recipe could be part of it.’

      ‘Tannie Maria’s Love Advice and Recipe Column.’

      Hattie smiled and her face was her own again.

      ‘Goodness gracious, Tannie Maria. I don’t see why not.’

      Then she used the fork to polish off her melktert.

      CHAPTER THREE

      So it was on the stoep with Hattie that we decided on Tannie Maria’s Love Advice and Recipe Column. The column was very popular. A lot of people from all over the Klein Karoo wrote to me. The letters I wrote back gave me the recipes for this book: recipes for love and murder. So here I am, writing a recipe book after all. Not the kind I thought I’d write, but anyway.

      One thing led to another in ways I did not expect. But let me not tell the story all upside-down, I just want to give you a taste . . .

      The main recipe in this book is the recipe for murder. The love recipe is more complicated, but in a funny way it came out of this murder recipe:

      RECIPE FOR MURDER

      1 stocky man who abuses his wife

      1 small tender wife

      1 medium-sized tough woman in love with the wife

      1 double-barrelled shotgun

      1 small Karoo town marinated in secrets

      3 bottles of Klipdrift brandy

      3 little ducks

      1 bottle of pomegranate juice

      1 handful of chilli peppers

      1 mild gardener

      1 fire poker

      1 red-hot New Yorker

      7 Seventh-day Adventists (prepared for The End of the World)

      1 hard-boiled investigative journalist

      1 soft amateur detective

      2 cool policemen

      1 lamb

      1 handful of red herrings and suspects mixed together

      Pinch of greed

      Throw all the ingredients into a big pot and simmer slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon for a few years. Add the ducks, chillies and brandy towards the end and turn up the heat.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Just one week after I sat on the stoep with Harriet, the letters started coming in. I remember Hattie holding them up like a card trick, as she stood in the doorway of the office of the Klein Karoo Gazette. She must have heard me arriving in my bakkie and was waiting for me as I walked down the pathway.

      ‘Yoo-hoo, Tannie Maria! Your first letters!’ she called.

      She was wearing a butter-yellow dress and her hair was golden in the sunlight. It was hot, so I walked slowly down the path of flat stones, between the pots of aloes and succulents. The small office is tucked away behind the Ladismith Art Gallery & Nursery in Eland Street.

      ‘The vetplantjies are flowering,’ I said.

      The little fat plants had pink flowers that gleamed silver where they caught the light.

      ‘They arrived yesterday. There are three of them,’ she said, handing me the letters.

      The Gazette office has fresh white walls, Oregon floorboards and a high ceiling. On the outer wall is one of those big round air vents with beautiful patterns that they call ‘Ladismith Eyes’. The office used to be a bedroom in what was one of the original old Ladismith houses. There’s only room for three wooden desks, a sink and a little fridge, but this is enough for Jessie, Hattie and me. There are other freelance journalists

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