The Woman Who Knew What She Wanted

by William Coles

  That morning I’d been walking on the beach. It was blustery, the wind licking at the white caps. Two hardy swimmers had braced the sea, but most of the families were snug in their seaside huts.

  I loved those huts, and one in particular. They were much the same size as a large garden shed, though much more substantial, with walls and windows that were built to withstand the worst of the winter storms. The huts reflected the owners’ vast array of tastes, some painted grey, and some pillar-box red, with the outside walls sometimes festooned with rocks and shells and flags and seaweed. The interiors were equally quirky. Some had beds, and sofas and tables and some had even converted the roof space into a mezzanine with just enough room for a low-slung bed. There’d also be a small gas cylinder for brewing up tea and toasting muffins. As I wandered along the beach, head down into the gale, hands thrust deep into my pockets, it looked like very heaven to be sitting in a deckchair on the porch of one of these little shanties, with the wind blowing hard, and the kettle bubbling merrily on the hob.

  I found a shell. It was two halves of a beautiful scallop shell and the pearly insides gleamed in the grey light of that Easter Day morning. I put it into my pocket as a keepsake. I find the sea is a great leveller. It puts your life into focus, for as you look out at these waves that will roll on for all time and listen to the ever-same sound of the sea, you come to appreciate just how brief is that fleeting snap of time that we have on this earth. You realise that you shouldn’t be wasting a moment of it.

  I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted kisses and affection and drowsy sex in the afternoon. I wanted to love. I wanted to be held by a beautiful woman who would tell me, over and over again, that she loved me. I wanted little jokes and stupid names; I wanted to wake up with a beauty by my side and to have her look me in the eyes and tell me she loved me; more than anything, I wanted to be walking along that windy beach, holding the hand of my lover as we stared out to the sea and dreamed our impossible dreams.

  I was aware that a song was hissing in the background of my brain and when I tuned in, I realised it was Freddie Mercury singing ‘Find Me Someone to Love’. I wondered where I might find my love. Among the staff? The clientele? The local folk of Swanage and Studland with their seaside homes and their prying eyes?

  I’d just put on my white tunic for the lunchtime session. The lunches were generally much more relaxed than the dinners, because most of the guests were on half-board and preferred to take a packed lunch and eat al fresco.

  I was walking towards the staff entrance when I saw Liz, McKenny’s girlfriend, sitting on a bench outside the hotel. She was wearing a black fur coat and was smoking a cigarette. By her side were two small quilted Chanel bags.

  I very nearly continued on my way, but I realised that she was leaving and that I would not be seeing her again, so I went over. The smell of her cigarette smoke was mixed with the scent of her perfume and the salt tang of the sea.

  For a while, we sat there. I wasn’t looking at her. I was looking up towards the children’s playground.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re leaving,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ She took another drag on her cigarette. She was still wearing her ruby ring. She did not have any make-up on and she looked younger than when I’d seen her in the dining room.

  ‘Are you going back to Texas?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It won’t take long to pack up in London, and then…’ She trailed off. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said. It all sounded rather lame.

  Liz flicked the stub of her cigarette onto the ground and stubbed it out with her stiletto. ‘Ed likes you, doesn’t he?’ she said.

  I shrugged. ‘I slightly amuse him.’

  ‘It’s strange, this whole love thing, isn’t it?’ she said. Liz stretched out her arms, interlocking her fingers. She held the stretch for a moment and then plunged her arms between her knees. ‘One moment you know everything about each other. You know all the little intimacies. You know about the pets and the neighbours and the friends and the enemies. Then it’s over. Suddenly everything stops.’

  ‘You’re much too young and much too pretty to be with a guy like Ed,’ I said.

  She looked at me and for the first time she smiled. What a gorgeous smile. I wish I’d told her that.

  ‘I’m dirt poor,’ she said. ‘I want money. There’s only one way I’m going to get it.’

  ‘Do you love these guys?’

  ‘You got a better reason for falling in love, Kim?’

  She had a point.

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t have a better reason for falling in love. Though if you’re looking for money, that’s going to put me right out of the picture.’

  I had never before tried such an impish line with such a beautiful stranger. I could not recommend it more. For great beauties are used to having men in their thrall. It is almost as if they expect their male acquaintances to be fawning and tongue-tied, so that when they’re confronted by a piece of cheekiness, they find it oddly refreshing. Liz looked at me out of the side of her eyes and lit up another cigarette.

  ‘I guess it does,’ she said with a smile. ‘But if you were rich…’ She paused, the smoke trailing from her nostrils, ‘then I’d be all over you.’

  I laughed. ‘I’ll bear you in mind when I’ve made my fortune.’

  ‘At least I can smoke again,’ she said. ‘Ed always hated smoking. Typical. He used to be on sixty a day. Now he has a fit if a cigarette comes within fifty yards of him.’

  A blacked out limo pulled up outside the front of the hotel. Liz stood up. ‘I guess that’s me,’ she said.

  I picked up her two bags and placed them on the back seat.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I said. I happened to put my hand into my trouser pocket and my fingers touched upon the shell that I’d found on the beach. I pulled it out. It looked good. The mother of pearl winked in the sunshine. ‘Have this,’ I said. ‘A little souvenir.’

  I felt her fingers touch the palm of my hand as she took the shell. She tossed it lightly in the air and snapped the scallop shell down its spine.

  ‘One for me,’ she said, giving me the other half, ‘and one for you.’

  ‘What a memento,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Goodbye, Kim.’ She gave me a peck on the cheek. I liked the feel of her lips on my skin. They were soft and moist; made to be kissed. ‘Better get that fortune soon.’

  She got into the car very elegantly, her knees locked together throughout. ‘You’ll have been snapped up long before I earn my fortune,’ I said, closing the door on her.

  As the car slid away from the hotel, she smiled and waved her half of the scallop shell at me. I stared after it wondering, wondering, what would happen if I did earn that fortune and if I ever did make that call.

  Dinner that night was gruelling. The hotel was full, the dining room packed; it didn’t matter how much we gave the guests, they always seemed to be yammering for more. Oliver was as predictably slow as ever – painstakingly slow, but at least he didn’t smash anything. Roland and I were helping out with at least half of his tables.

  It was the first time that I had a run in with the kitchen staff.

  I did not really know any of the cooks or the sous-chefs, but since we were all in it together, I had spent the previous three days doing my best to be amicable.

  That night, everything in the kitchen was running at full tilt. The waiters, at least in the dining room, were endeavouring to look serene and in control. We were like swans, gliding effortlessly over a millpond while beneath the water our little feet were paddling like fury. But in the kitchens, hot and dripping with sweat, there was this edgy, febrile atmosphere where everyone seemed to be on the very edge of explosive madness.

  The head chef, Monty, was unflappable; I never once saw him lose his cool. But under him were several lieutenants, of whom one, Giles, had taken a very strong and immediate dislike to me. I neither know nor care what it was that I had done to o
ffend him. He had blubbery, pasty skin and rank mousy hair that would tuft out from underneath his chef’s cap and lay slick against his forehead. He always looked hot and bothered and the sweat would dribble down his cheeks and onto his chin.

  The drill was that we waiters had to enter the kitchens through the entrance door and then queue up at the pass until our guests’ meals were ready to be served. The pass was a high metal counter, heated to keep the plates warm. On the one side were the chefs sweating away in their hot hell, and on the other were the spruce waitresses and waiters, chattier, chirpier and usually much younger.

  Before each plate went out into the dining room, it was usually given a quick once-over by Monty, who would check that it was presentable and that the rim of the plate was clean.

  That night, I would guess that there were well over two hundred covers. There certainly wasn’t time for any badinage with Ed McKenny. In the kitchens, the pace was manic, just juddering on the cusp between control and outright chaos.

  I was serving a table of six people and had already taken out two of the plates. I had just returned to the kitchens and was stretching over for the next two plates on the pass. One of them was a beef stew. I had presumed that since the plates were on the pass, then they were good to go.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said.

  ‘Oi!’ It was Giles. He tried to rap my knuckles with a soup ladle, hitting the tips of my fingers. I jerked my hand out of the way and the beef stew slopped over my fingers. It was hot.

  ‘Can’t you just control it?’ I said.

  ‘It still needs the gremolata,’ he said.

  ‘Well, what’s the point in trying to hit me with a ladle, you fat idiot?’ I mopped the stew off my fingers with a handkerchief.

  Monty had come over. He took in what was happening. ‘Can we have one more stew?’ he called over his shoulder, before saying to me, ‘Let me have that.’

  ‘Sure.’ I passed the plate back over and stood there with Oliver at the pass waiting for a fresh plate to be brought over. I tried to mop the worst of the stew off the hem of my tunic, but only spread the brown stain up to my waist.

  Another stew was brought over. Monty cleaned the rim and Giles sprinkled on some of the gremolata. The gremolata was made from parsley, orange zest and crushed garlic; it went well with the beef stew.

  I was not remotely going to leave it at that.

  ‘Is everything to your satisfaction now, Giley?’ I said.

  I stretched out to take the plate, though I was well prepared for what he would do next. He lunged at me again with the ladle. He missed me. The ladle cracked into the plate, spattering stew over the pass.

  ‘You might be able to hit me once with your little ladle,’ I taunted. ‘But if you want to hit me again, you’ll have to move a lot faster than that, fat boy.’

  I think if Monty hadn’t been there, Giles would happily have thrown the plate at my head. Monty charmingly defused the situation. ‘Giles, you couldn’t get some more gremolata from the fridge?’ he said, before turning to me. ‘I could do with a glass of champagne, Kim, old love. You wouldn’t do the necessary?’

  I fetched him a glass of ice-cold house champagne, and by the time I’d returned to the pass, Oliver had already delivered the offending stew to my table.

  ‘Cheers,’ Monty said, tilting his glass towards me. ‘I find that in most situations, champagne is usually the best remedy.’

  ‘You must be right,’ I said. Giles scowled.

  We arrived at The Bankes Arms at just after ten. I hadn’t even bothered to change out of my tunic, just slipping a coat on top. Oliver, of course, had changed; for him it would have been inappropriate to have worn work clothes to the pub.

  There was a horse outside the pub. I remember thinking how unusual it was to see a horse tethered onto to a tree, as if some cowboy had turned up to his local Wild West saloon. Though I knew nothing about horses, I realised that it was a fine gelding, at least sixteen hands high and probably more. The horse was saddled up and had a nosebag. It seemed quite content.

  The pub was buzzing. Oliver was getting the drinks and I recognised a few of the hotel guests. I smiled at a girl who was staying at the hotel with her parents. I like looking at people in pubs while I am waiting for my drink; it’s almost impolite to start scanning the crowds when you are in company. But when you’re waiting for your drink, you can stare all you like.

  Over in the corner, I saw Cally. She was wearing her riding gear and I realised immediately that it was her horse out at the front. She was talking to a man in a jacket, though he was facing the wall and I could not see him. Her brown, voluptuous hair was coiled about her neck, but not overly so. She looked sexy.

  I had only been looking at her for a couple of seconds before she looked up and stared at me. She smiled and flashed the palm of her hand. I gave her a wave back.

  Oliver came over with our two pints. We squeezed onto the end of a table right in the middle of the pub. We chinked and looked each other in the eye. Oliver approved.

  ‘It is important to look somebody in the eye, when you toast,’ he said.

  ‘Why’s it important?’

  ‘Otherwise, seven years bad sex.’

  ‘Bad sex?’ I said. ‘What’s bad sex? I’d certainly take bad sex over no sex.’

  ‘I am not very good at sex.’ Oliver said, announcing it in the same way that he might say that was no good at football. ‘I have not had much practice.’

  ‘Just find yourself a nice girl and—’

  Roland had just come into the pub. He pulled up a stool and squeezed in between us. ‘Whose round is it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s mine,’ Oliver said. He got up to fetch Roland a drink.

  ‘You got a girlfriend?’ asked Roland. He had tousled light hair and silver-rimmed glasses, but the most striking aspect of his face were his full lips. They were fleshy and made him look slightly debauched.

  ‘I haven’t,’ I said, ‘but I’d like one.’

  ‘Anyone in particular? Janeen’s taken a shine to you.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d be quite right for Janeen. Besides, she’s seeing Darren.’

  ‘She sees Darren when there’s nothing else better on offer.’

  The four drinkers at the end of our table left. We were just moving our chairs, when I felt a puff of cold air from the front door opening, and then a thump on my back.

  ‘Kim! I hoped I’d find you here.’

  I looked round. Everyone looked round. It was Ed McKenny. But it was the person with him who had me transfixed. He’d come to the pub with Annette. She was so very different from his now ex-girlfriend Liz: bare legs, white sneakers, a grey skirt to her knees and a baggy green jacket. Effortlessly gorgeous. There might have been a trace of make-up, but she was in full bloom and her skin just glowed. She smiled at me.

  McKenny had made some effort. He was in full rock star regalia with tight jeans and a white silk shirt and necklaces and bangles and rings and all the other rubbish with which a man can try to turn himself into a peacock. Yet next to Annette, he was like a tatty old crow who’d sidled up next to a swan.

  ‘Can we join you?’ McKenny asked.

  ‘Be my guest,’ I gestured.

  ‘I’ll get us something to drink.’

  He bought two magnums of Moet and paid in cash. I introduced Annette and McKenny to Oliver and Roland. I did not mention that McKenny was a rock star, and to my delight, Oliver had no idea who he was. He gave McKenny a brief handshake and then turned his full attention on Annette. He was pleased to meet her.

  ‘We are the only two foreigners in the hotel,’ Oliver said to Annette. ‘When England plays football, we will have to support the other team.’

  She laughed. Do you know, it’s only now, in my forties, that I have realised there is nothing so sexy on a woman as a smile and a genuine laugh. ‘And will you support Sweden at the Olympics this summer?’

  ‘Of course,’ Oliver said. ‘I have always supported Sweden. I even support Sweden over
Germany, because the Swedish women are, without question, the most beautiful women on earth.’

  Annette giggled and sat down next to Oliver. I don’t know what McKenny made of it, but he found himself perched on the end of the table between Roland and me while Annette was entirely monopolised by Oliver.

  We drank very fast. Annette and McKenny were drinking out of flute glasses, but Oliver set the lead for the rest of us. He drained his pint of beer and then, after giving his glass a swill, filled the entire thing with champagne. He knocked off the first half pint in less than five seconds.

  ‘I am thirsty!’ he said.

  I was not to be outdone. I filled up my pint glass with champagne and downed most of it in one.

  ‘Rock on!’ said McKenny. ‘Annette, do you want a pint?’

  ‘I’m fine with this.’ She sipped from her glass.

  Roland was in awe of the rock god who was sitting next to him and said not a word; but I, on the other hand, felt as if I had been released from my fetters. For the first time I was on equal terms with McKenny. I liked it also that he had spent hours on his clothes, while I was still wearing my stained tunic.

  ‘So you didn’t hang around long after Liz left,’ I said to McKenny.

  He looked at Annette and smiled. ‘Just trying to make the most of all the hotel’s amenities.’

  ‘So what happened?’ I finished the rest of my champagne and took the second magnum. We’d already emptied the first. I topped up everyone else’s glasses and poured myself another pint. ‘Annette was making your bed this morning and just happened to find you in it?’

  ‘I like you!’ McKenny clapped me on the shoulder before bellowing, ‘I like this guy!’

  ‘I said goodbye to Liz,’ I said.

  ‘Did you now?’

  ‘She told me to give her a call just as soon as I’d made my fortune.’

  ‘That’d be Liz,’ he said. ‘I hope you get that fortune. She’s well worth it. When she turns it on, she’s dynamite.’