Acquired Tastes by Simone Mondesir Page A

some cookery, or was it a flower arranging, course? And if only his mother Henrietta had not been so set against Vanessa, perhaps it would have been a brief affair - one last mad fling before he settled down to the security of marriage with dear little Chloe. But the moment Henrietta and Vanessa met, it had been war, with him as the prize. Both sides had wielded their weapons to inflict maximum damage, Henrietta using filial loyalty and Vanessa sex. Sex had won. He married Vanessa within two months of meeting her.
    He thought that everything would change after the wedding. Henrietta would accept Vanessa as his wife, babies would come along, and everyone would live happily ever after. How could he have been so wrong?
    It had never crossed his mind to ask Vanessa before they got married whether she wanted to have babies, he had taken it for granted, surely
all
woman wanted babies. After all, what were women for? Her refusal to have any had felt like a physical blow. It made him take a long, hard look at himself and, for the first time in his life, he realised how much he wanted some small being to look up at him and call him Daddy.
    His mother made it even worse. He would have liked to talk to her, perhaps even have received some comfort from her, but she refused to have any mention of Vanessa made in her presence and the set of her mouth said it all. She had told him so.
    Nanny Greig had been more encouraging. She suggested that he give Vanessa a little more time. According to Nanny Greig, a woman's hormones always took over.
    He had taken her advice and he had tried to be patient. Nanny Greig's predictions, like her potions for sore tummies, usually worked. They moved out of their flat in Fulham and bought a five-bedroom, three-reception house near Clapham Common. Vanessa had hated the idea at first because she considered south of the river to be foreign territory, but then she discovered how many media people lived there and agreed. Jeremy had wanted to buy the house because he thought it would make the perfect family home. He looked out at the hundred-foot garden and imagined it strewn with toys and echoing with the sounds of happy children. And while he patiently waited for Vanessa's hormones to do their job, it was to the garden he turned to fulfil his unspoken need to see things grow.
    At first his ambitions had been modest: a nice lawn, neat flower beds and a small patio with a barbecue for the garden parties Vanessa wanted to throw for her neighbours. He soon discovered he possessed a surprising talent for nurturing plants and as his sense of achievement grew, so did his sense of adventure. After watching a Channel 4 programme on organic gardening, he carefully disposed of all his chemical fertilisers and insecticides and made a vow to work hand in hand with Mother Nature.
    He bought a rotavator, and his carefully striped lawn disappeared under rows of lettuces, Chinese cabbages, radishes and onions, all of which grew lush and chemical free. He agonised over Big Bud Mites and Mealy Aphids, and harboured murderous intentions towards the neighbourhood cats whose unsanitary habits showed a total disregard for his prized kohlrabi.
    Being a gardener opened up a whole new world of seed catalogues, garden centres and chats across the fence with fellow enthusiasts. He even joined a local organic gardening club, which was how he met Belle.
    Belle was a guest speaker at the club. She gave a talk on the importance of gardening as an expression of feminist creativity exemplified by the efforts of Vita Sackville-West. Jeremy had not heard much of what she was saying as he was more intent on studying her.
    She was small and slim and very pretty, with dark, lustrous skin. The curve of her cheeks and the perfection of her features reminded him of sculpture, an effect emphasised by her hair, which lay flat against her head in an intricate braided design. The faint musical lilt of her voice was a legacy of her Caribbean childhood. After