by Craig Melvin
‘CHEFS!’
March–September 1991
Tick-tock Swiss clock. Switzerland, Suisse, Sweige, or whatever the Italians and Krauts sprecht. Six months free from Belle Hotel. Basel Bahnhof Buffet. Finest railway station catering operation in all of Europe, so Franco said. Two enormous brasseries that fed folk onto their trains and a street-facing Michelin-starred restaurant, L’Escargot for Basel’s best.
Charlie flew to Basel, Bale, Basle with two of the prettiest girls on his course. He’d beaten a scrawny chef named Graeme to get the place. Graeme had all the techniques, they’d said, but none of Charlie’s basic gift for flavour. What luck, months and months of fun for the three of them, and the girls understood they might have to share him. Sassy, aspirational and way out of his league, they soon took up with the restaurant manager and sous chef, while Charlie got lumbered with Tom, a sardonic, second-generation Irish Manc from the hotel school in Shannon. Together they played merry hell in the kitchen that spilled out into the bars after hours. Goading the chef who was trying to mentor them and trying it on with the barmaids were all part of the learning experience, or so they told themselves.
Charlie sat at the back of the bier keller, waiting for Tom to finish the sack of potatoes he’d been given to turn as punishment. He’d bought the postcard at the Bahnhof cabin with the change from forty Marlborough Red. Now he sat chewing his pen in the wood-panelled heat of a mid-European summer night and wondered what to write.
Franco Sheridan, Belle Hotel, Brighton
Rösti
Potato
Onion
Garlic
Chives
Butter
Peel and grate the potato. Mix with chopped onion, garlic and chives. Fry off in butter until golden brown. Ciao, Charlie!
‘Good idea,’ Franco muttered to himself as he clasped the postcard into his book. ‘Good idea, Charlie.’
Franco had taught Charlie about the joys of a crispy topping way back, how it added a delicious taste sensation to food. Every culture had their own version. For the Spanish, it was the socarrat crispy rice at the bottom of the paella pan. This’d be it for ze Swiss.
So, Belle Hotel became famous for its rösti. The bar did a roaring trade with eggs, cheese and bacon for brunch.
Roger and Lulu had one each the Saturday her A level results came out. It was meant to be a celebratory lunch in the restaurant, but the Ds dictated a downgrade to the rather more shabby surroundings of the Belle Hotel bar.
‘Days like these I wish your mother was still with us. She’d know what to do.’
‘Dad, you always say that. She’d not know what to do. One, because she’s dead and, two, because nobody’s died. I just flunked my exams.’
‘And failed to get your university place. My God, what have I been working for all these years. What do you want to be, a bloody carpet fitter?’
‘Well, it did you all right. But, no, I don’t want to be a carpet fitter, like my knees too much for that. I want to go into catering.’
‘You what and end up a, oh, thank you, Janet. They look lovely. How’s Charlie getting on in, where was it, Switzerland, yes? Lulu’s not heard from him since he left, have you, sweets?’
Janet gave as little away as she possibly could, never remembering whether Lu and Charlie were on or off at any given moment. They’d certainly had a loud send-off the night before he left. Janet’d slept with the pillow over her head. Though whether they were rowing or the other ‘it’ was hard to tell. She backed away from the awkward exchange and went back to her lager tap.
Once Roger had scoffed his rösti, he soon saw sense in the idea and, after the three of them had a quick chat with Franco at the kitchen door, Lulu’s future was sealed with a sweaty handshake. Lulu grinned all the way down Ship Street.
‘Don’t think I have forgiven you for failing your exams. You’d better make this Belle Hotel thing work, or you can go back and re-take them. Okay?’
‘Yes, Dad. Okay.’ And she squeezed his hand.
Later, in her room, Lulu looked at the postcard from Charlie. Three words, typical. Loads of kisses, though, under ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’, scrawled in Charlie’s appalling handwriting. Charlie Sheridan. Why she’d put up with him for so long, Lulu did not know. Habit, she supposed, like sucking her thumb. She’d managed to kick that in the upper sixth. Maybe it was time to give Charlie the old heave-ho, too. In spite of all those promises, they’d agreed to be unofficially on an ‘off’ while Charlie was in Switzerland. This, technically, leaving them both free to date other people. Most of her friends were seeing guys at Sussex Uni, guys they’d picked up at the Arts Club on a Friday night. Maybe Lulu would give that a try? Not that she’d sleep with anyone willy-nilly. Charlie and her had taken until they were sixteen, and not all because of her. For all his showing off, Charlie could be quite the sensitive sort when they were alone together. Maybe he was just inexperienced? Maybe he’d come back from Switzerland having done so much shagging that he’d not want her any more? Well, sod him, Lulu was going to express herself, like Madonna sang. Isn’t that what she was supposed to do at eighteen, rather than mooning around for her childhood sweetheart day in, day out?
Lulu thought about Belle Hotel. About her job. She loved the place. The way it smelt, the way it charmed, the way she felt at home. It was quick thinking of her dad to ask Franco there and then and she loved him for that. Great that Franco had gone for it, too. Imagine Charlie’s face when he found out. No, don’t imagine Charlie’s stupid face. Lulu got off her bed, put the postcard in the wastepaper basket and went off to call her mate about going to Sussex Arts Club that Friday night.
*
In Switzerland, blissfully unaware that Lulu had got herself a job with Franco, Charlie was having his first experience of split shifts, the beginning of a lifetime of up at six, nap for a couple of hours in the afternoon and back twelve hours after he started. Bar by midnight, if he was lucky. Bed, sometimes, sometimes not. Best thing about this industrial-sized operation, thirty chefs on shift at any one time, was fresh whites before every service. Charlie met Tom by his locker and together they hatched a plan.
‘Look, it’s festival time. The kitchen is gonna be crazy. How bad do you think we’ll have to piss them off before they kick us out?’
‘I dunno, man’ – his accent was Dublin via Didsbury – ‘I’m up for the craic anyhow. Fair play to us if we pull it off.’
‘Cool, what we gonna do then, Tom?’
‘Shafheitel?’
‘Shafheitel.’
Oldest chef in the kitchen and a rumoured Nazi sympathiser during the war, no mean feat in a neutral country, Shafheitel was as mad and as bad as they came. Raging at the stagiaires, students, estudentes all day long was, Shafheitel felt, his duty. Shafheitel was in charge of sauces and stews. A lowly position, yet one that suited his personality well.
‘Yo, yo, Stagiaires, alles gleich, gottverdammt, wo ist mein Salz?’
Charlie and Tom took great pleasure in goading the beast of a man, moving small but important objects the moment he returned with a simmering pan. Jamming his mixer with spoons, that sort of thing. The low-level attrition that was hard to prove but built up a handy store of suppressed rage. Suppressed rage that was very ready to release when you needed it.
Tom winked at Charlie, in a watch-this kind of way. Shafheitel was lumbering out of the chiller with his plat-du-jour trolley loaded with shallow trays of indeterminate stew. So loaded was that trolley that the ageing chef was unable to see the stagiaire, student, estudente lock a wheel with a discreet tip of his toe. With all the grace of a holed liner, the trolley listed forward on its frozen wheel, losing just enough balance to slide out plat-du-jour all over the floor.
Shafheitel exploded, once he’d stopped trying to catch the chunks of mutton with his bare hands. Head chef only stepped in when Shafheitel started throwing portions, portiones, portzion at Tom and Charlie.
‘Genug, Koch, genug. Man muss nicht.’
&nbs
p; The rösti-flipping subordinates shuddered beneath their gravy stained whites. The war was won. What else could Chef do?
He took the two boys into his office, a raised glass box with a view of the pass, shut the door and pretended to read them the riot act. As with most cultured Swiss, his English was perfect.
‘Right, you two idiots. You win. The first time, I accept was an accident. The second time, a coincidence. This third time, impossible to believe you have not just been goading my most loyal and longest-serving chef all along. That is not only cruel, it is bad for business. I cannot have you here during the festival. Ten days’ paid leave. You tell no one. Not your fellow stagiaires, Herr Director, anyone within a hundred kilometres of this operation. No one. Do I make myself clear? Now get out. I don’t want to see you two again until the festival is over. I’m letting you off lightly. Your actions were unacceptable in a professional kitchen. Even towards… him. Unacceptable and funny. So, go… go!’
The two friends ran shrieking through the locker room, swinging filthy whites into the laundry bin and pulling on jeans and tees that were barely cleaner. Charlie couldn’t believe his luck. Ten fucking days. To do what? Luckily, Tom had a plan. And a guitar.
‘Côte d’Azur, man. How many francs can you lay your hands on? I’ll go get me axe. You wanna come back to the flat, or shall I grab your passport for you?’
Charlie and Tom went back to the accommodation they shared with the twenty other stagiaires employed by the Bahnhof. They banged the doors to their rooms and ran yodelling down the echoing concrete stairwell, setting off shouts and groans from their fellow chefs and waiters as they tried to catch up on their sleep between shifts.
They had francs, but not enough for the sleeper.
‘Hitch, roite, it’s easy, man, we do it all the time in Ireland.’
Pitch black, warm night, still giggling, half-pissed, holding up a ragged piece of cardboard.
‘Lyon, it’ll get us halfway there, I had a look on the map. Best chance of catching the Paris traffic if we break it there.’
A black Opal coupe pulled up.
‘Fook, a Manta. Here we go, here we go, here we go.’
The car’s driver wanted to get out of Switzerland quick, something about a bit of pharmaceutical business. Dutch, all the dodgy ones are, a cassette deck full of Dire Straits and a duty-free allowance worth of Marlborough, the three amigos sped across the border and on down, down into the hot Gallic night.
Tom sat up front and talked chord progressions with Wiki, ‘call me Wiki, man.’ Charlie shared the cramped back with Tom’s guitar and the two sailors’ hats they had bought at the station gift shop before setting off for the autostrassen and freedom. Ten days, Charlie could barely believe it. Best of all, nobody knew. Franco, his mum, Lulu, college, Belle Hotel… A recent reading of On the Road, the first and last novel of his teens, gave the Manta-fuelled flight south an added sense of adventure. Windows down, the smoke of their skunk coiled round the sounds of Dire Straits’ “Romeo and Juliet” from the radio’s tape deck.
At four the Manta pulled onto the hard shoulder, 160kph to 0, fast enough to jerk the sleeping beats awake. Wiki waved a friendship-braceleted arm and sped off.
‘Fuck, what time is it?’
‘Dunno, Oi left me watch in me locker.’
Tom picked up his guitar and strummed B7, Em, G.
Charlie watched his fingers morph the chords in awe, not just at the golden light striking taut silver wire but at the fact that he’d never, ever be able to do that. At that moment he was in love with Tom, in love with his talent, in love with making music. Together.
Tom put down the guitar and shivered.
‘Fook, I wish I’d brought me jacket.’
Wiki had dropped them under a well-lit AIX-EN-PROVENCE sign. He was obviously less stoned than they were, what was it about Dutch skunk? Provence, Charlie recognised, even through the fug. He could conjure up a memory of that taste of Franco’s daube of beef Provençal as though he had it in his mouth at that very moment. Charlie felt a tingle of joy at the knowledge that he had travelled through the night to the source of that joyous wine- and herb-infused cheap cut of beef cooked languidly. He was a taste tourist. Barrelling through the night towards the tastes of his past and possibly his future. What better way could a Michelin star wannabe get to what they were looking for?
‘What do we do now, Tom?’
‘You got that pen and board?’
‘Yeah, in my back pocket.’
Tom jerked his thumb up at the sign.
‘Breakfast in Aix, wherever the fuck that is.’
The first four wheels to pass stopped. A baker’s truck, loaded with warm baguettes, its floury driver shifted his dog and, amid loud whines of protest they jumped in.
A smattering of kitchen French got them by, that and the word ‘café’. The baker nodded in understanding and jerked a thumb back at his crusty cargo.
‘Cool, he’s gonna take us wherever that lot is going. Oi’ll be hopin’ for some jam and coffee to go with it. How much cash you got?’
‘Fifty francs.’
‘Well, Oi’m broke. That should get us breakfast. We’ll have to sing for us supper. Oi hope the good folk of Aix loike Simon and Garfunkel.’
They drove down an elm-lined avenue and into town. It was still early, shutters were going up, birds were about the only ones going about their business. They jumped down at the baker’s first stop. Only one of Les Deux Garçons appeared to be up and about, but the place looked open enough. Tom and Charlie helped the baker with his baskets, nearly half his load for this place, must be a busy joint. They had a face, hands and elbows wash at the stone and copper fountain in the middle of the boulevard and took a table for breakfast.
Warm bread, tart jam and robust coffee soon cleared their heads. The sun crept around the ancient Roman corner, spreading a buttery yellow light down the boulevard.
Their bill came to fifty francs exactly, with a tip for Garçon. They were now broke.
‘Roite, let’s fix our pitch.’
‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you.’
‘Galway, Cork, Dundalk, and ooh, Lisdoonvarna.’
More chords, then a Christy Moore song that Charlie came to remember as the anthem of their ten days on the road.
Tom explained the drill. He’d play and sing – sounded good so far – Charlie was to join in on the hand claps and la, la, la’s.
‘But when Oi tip you the wink, take the hat round quick and I’ll blast ’em with an encore.’
Nervous at first, but with his confidence building as the notes started to fill his seafarer’s cap, Charlie was a falsetto franc extractor by lunchtime.
‘… and you’re a hootchi, cootchi woooomaaan, toooooo. Roite, how much we got?’
‘Just over two hundred francs.’
‘Jeez, Oi’m famished. Is that enough?’
*
Menu du Jour. Four courses. A simple slice of terrine de foie gras outlined with Madeira jelly. Daube of beef Provençal with the creamiest mashed potato Charlie had ever tasted. Tarte au citron, sugared zest over flaky pastry. Three cheeses – hard, blue, soft – with a couple of slices of clarty raisin bread. Heaven. So this was what Franco meant when he said brasserie. Charlie got it, now.
Tom polished off the last of the rosé and ordered a couple of balloons of brandy to go with their coffee.
‘I dunno about you, but I’m whacked. Oi’m gonna find a shady spot for a little siesta.’
They slept under a cluster of trees by some empty petanque gravel until it was time to earn the beer they needed to get them through the night.
Dusk fell and with it came a promenade of shoulder-slung jumpers and well-cut slacks, couples out for dinner, garçons mobyletting in for a pastis and gangs of hommes and filles fresh from the lycée.
They were getting to know their act. Tom had ten songs, Charlie knew most of the choruses and did a little dance while he went round with his hat. Captive audiences s
at at tables, sipping Evian as they dipped into monogrammed pockets.
When darkness fell, the festoon lighting flickered into life. Charlie felt like ringmaster at an exotic circus, with the diners as his audience and Tom as his lyrical lion. Food, wine, warmth, music… this was the life.
They slept in their empty ballpark and rose early for ablutions at the fountain, then breakfast with the boys. Day two of ten and Charlie had already let go of time. Hand to guitar string to cap to mouth. Rest and repeat.
They busked all the next morning, with less success than before but enough for two second-class train tickets to Marseille and a fetching bomber jacket for Tom, who had shivered in the small hours. The train journey was fast, less than half an hour, they slept all the way.
Coming out of Gare St-Charles, the familiar sound of seagulls reminded Charlie of Belle Hotel. Home and Mum and Franco. Home and Lulu. They’d argued on that last night and nearly wasted it. Clinging to one another in the final hours. Lulu. Charlie wondered what she’d be doing right now? He shook his head as if to forget, and pointed towards the dipping sun.
‘The port must be this way. Come on, I’m starving.’
Tom, his low blood sugar making him snappy when woken, took a while to be coaxed down to the water and longer to get strumming. Charlie wanted two shifts out of them before bed, one for food and booze that night, the other to give them the morning off and a chance to sightsee before setting out for the next town.
A rough edged, salty crowd, the Marseillaise gave generously, albeit in smaller denominations than the Aixois. Charlie wowed the crowds with more of his mad dancing. Some of the fishermen joined in, until their drunken playfulness turned to aggression.
‘Come on, Tom, I’ve had enough. Let’s go eat.’
Bouillabaisse at L’Épuisette looked like the dish to die for here. Charlie having cooked it at college in his first term, the enthusiastic chef-lecturer talking saffron-infused aroma through glasses fogged with fish stock. And then that promise that they would find it again in their own way, as he’d said in his speech at the leaving do. That by tasting it again they may come to their own version of the dish. Charlie had imagined what that experience would be like. He’d hoped it would transcend what he’d tasted at college. And that it would be in France, naturally. But this was something else. Guillaume, the patron’s son and chef apprentice, talked them through the dish. Charlie and Tom slurped the fish soup, cutting it with a pile of rouille and croutons. Next the five types of fish, fresh off the Vallon des Auffes boat, that had cooked in the soup.