by Monica Ali
Victor stood there panting, sweat dripping down his forehead. ‘Cocksucker,’ he said. ‘Motherfucker. You’re dead. You’re dead. You’re fucking dead.’
Ivan weighed his testicles. ‘You fight like girl.’
‘If you ever, ever speak about her again …’ Victor leaned tightly into the words, shaking with juvenile passion. ‘One word … I’m telling you, man, I’ll kill you. You hear?’
Ivan, in his slashed clothes and bandanna, looked like a mutineer. All he was missing was a cutlass. He directed his bad ear towards Victor and cupped it delicately. It had turned a labial red. ‘Hear?’ he said. ‘What?’
Victor hissed through his teeth.
‘Girlfriend?’ said Ivan. ‘I say nothing. Nothing.’ He made an obscene gesture with his mouth and tongue. ‘She left you?’
Victor whirled round and snatched a knife from Benny’s station, the broad blade glittering instantly, famously, in his hand. Brandishing the weapon, Victor let loose a blood-curdling scream that at long last set Gabe in motion. He reached Victor in a single bound, relieving him of the awful necessity of carrying this thing through. Victor let the knife drop.
‘I should sack the both of you,’ said Gabriel, steaming. ‘I should kick you out right now. Consider this your last warning. Understand?’
‘It was him …’ Victor began.
‘“He started it.” Don’t be such a child. Enough.’ It wasn’t the first fight Gabe had witnessed in the kitchen and it wouldn’t be the last. It certainly wasn’t the worst. In Brighton one of the commis, tiring of having his buttocks fondled daily, had taken a six-inch Excalibur filleting knife and stuck it deep in the sous-chef’s arse. If Ivan and Victor’s squabble was over a girl then Gabriel wasn’t going to get into it, he’d leave it to burn itself out.
Service was all but over and so the clear-down began. Gleeson tried to seat a walk-in for ten a few minutes before the kitchen closed. Gabe still had the adrenalin pumping because it took scarcely a look to dissuade the restaurant manager from this plan. ‘I see that’s not to your liking,’ said Gleeson, smiling the way he smiled at diners who ate at six thirty on a Saturday evening, dressed in their Sunday best.
Gabe went into his sticky cube. He took off his whites and sat in his T-shirt and checks going over the banqueting figures on the computer. The figures melted in the heat. Impossible to get a grip. He needed to draw up the shifts for the Christmas period. That would be easier. He looked out at the kitchen. Most people had gone home. He would go home for as long as he could over Christmas. Oona would have to come in every day. Too bad. What could he do? He could sit here feeling guilty about it, because guilt was what you consoled yourself with when something was out of your control. If you could change it then guilt became redundant because you could fix the problem, whatever it was. Guilt was only a booby prize.
He was drifting again. He couldn’t remember going to the mill, after that day. God, Dad had pissed him off! And then he’d gone and fallen and broken his ribs. Dad was so invincible. Then he wasn’t. It was hard to forgive him for that. But it was all in the past. He hadn’t given it a thought in decades. He was getting to be like Nana, the mill, the past, more real to him than what was in front of his face.
‘It OK if I get home?’ said Oona, trundling in and wedging herself in the spare chair.
‘You go,’ said Gabe. ‘I’m nearly finished here.’
‘Finished off me own self, darlin’,’ said Oona, scraping off her shoes. She rubbed her feet together. It sounded like a dozen matches being struck at once. She leaned against the desk. Any moment now she would ask him if he fancied a nice cup of tea.
‘Getting the Christmas rota finalized,’ Gabe said briskly. ‘I’ll be up in Blantwistle, you know, with my father. You’ll have to hold the fort.’
Oona picked up a pad and fanned herself. ‘Course you will. Your father, God bless him and keep him. How is he?’
‘Still dying,’ said Gabe, perhaps a little too jauntily.
‘Any time you need, you take it,’ said Oona, her head at a sentimental tilt. ‘Honly too happy to help.’
Gabe nodded. He looked back at his screen and tinkered with the keyboard. After a short while Oona creaked to her feet.
‘I split up with my girlfriend, with Charlie,’ said Gabriel, his gaze still on the computer. ‘She split up with me.’
He heard Oona rearranging herself on the chair. She would say, it all turn out for the best. She would say, sometime a ting ain’t meant to be.
‘That lovely girl?’ said Oona.
‘The very one,’ said Gabe.
‘You want her back?’
Gabe looked at Oona, her little sad smile, her plump cheeks bursting with concern. ‘Of course I do,’ he said, not knowing, not caring if he meant it, the conversation proceeding, as it must with Oona, in a series of platitudes.
‘That is a problem, then.’ This piercing insight provided all for free.
‘Yeah,’ said Gabe, ‘that’s right.’
‘Mm’m,’ said Oona, digging the heel of her hand into her bosom. ‘A problem to be solved.’
‘What’s done is done.’
‘Chef, if I know you …’
‘Thank you, Oona.’ Gabe jumped up and held the door. ‘Thank you, it’s getting late. Take a taxi if you want and put it on my expenses. See you in the morning. Goodnight. Did you put the requisition in with maintenance about the extractors? Oh, good. And the air-con’s gone crazy again. Got to kick some arses in maintenance. No, don’t fiddle with it now. Off you go, that’s it, off you go, goodnight.’
Gabe took a fresh set of whites from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. Tying his apron he went out on the floor. The night porter drifted quickly and silently out of reach. Gabe got to work. He diced onions, carrots and celery. The mirepoix in this kitchen was never prepared properly. This was exactly the way it should be done. He heated some oil over a medium heat. There was always a burnt undertaste to the jus de veau lié because they coloured the meat and vegetables too quickly. Always in a rush. He put the veal and the mirepoix in the pot and adjusted the flame.
How long since he’d cooked from scratch like this? If he came up with one new dish every week before the restaurant opened, tested them in the dining room, and selected the best half-dozen …
He stirred the pot.
Suleiman came up from the locker room in his civvies heading for the exit but backed up when he saw Gabe.
‘Chef,’ he said, ‘do you require help with anything?’
‘No,’ said Gabe, ‘just cooking. You go on home.’
Suleiman bent briefly at the waist, nodding with his whole body. He turned to leave.
‘Hang on,’ called Gabe. ‘I wanted to ask you something. Did you … is this something you always wanted to do? To cook?’
‘Chef?’
‘You know, when you were a kid? Did you decide this is what you’d do? Or did you sort of end up … I don’t know.’
Suleiman in his smart cheap overcoat, woolly scarf tied at his neck, stood at attention. His hair clung in a slick black circle to his skull. ‘It was decided. Most definitely. Of course.’
‘You decided, that’s right. When? How did you know?’
‘Chef, something is wrong?’
‘Why should it be? No, nothing. Taking an interest, that’s all.’
‘Padma Sheshadree Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary,’ said Suleiman, drawing himself up to full height. ‘In my home town of Chennai. Eleventh grade. It was decided in discussions with my father. He owns three teashops and he is very future-thinking regarding tourism in Tamil Nadu. After taking the CBSE matriculation, I attended the Sri Balaji College of Hotel Management and Catering Technology in Trichy where I received a Diploma in Hotel Management. It was a three-year course and equivalent to Bachelor of Science degree. Afterwards one year spent in Switzerland for purpose of gaining international experience and also first-rate cooking skills. Eighteen months to two years to be spent in UK for gaining fi
rst-hand knowledge of large-scale operation, banqueting function, and also improving English. On return to Chennai, these skills to be put to application in first instance through senior employment opportunity in major hotel chain. Thereafter my father and his associates will make significant investment for new resort and complex, with eye to western tourist market, in location to be later decided but most likely in Kanchipuram, Kanniyakumari or Coimbatore.’ He squinted anxiously at Gabriel to see if he’d passed the oral. His scarf, leavened by the heat, had fluffed up over his chin and lower lip. He tried to squash it down.
Gabe added tomato purée to the pan and leaned in to catch the rich sweet smell. ‘Have you read Larousse?’ he said. There was a lot he could teach this boy. ‘Have you read Elizabeth David? She makes it all come alive. Read Brillat-Savarin, I recommend him. I don’t know what for. Zola wrote about Les Halles and I read it when I was working in Paris and I can’t remember exactly – but Zola, he’s worth a look. Come to me, though, for recommendations. I can see you’re serious and that’s what I like about you.’ He was babbling and he knew it. ‘What about Balzac on gastronomy, oh yes, I was serious like you and I was always reading when I was your age. You get ideas, you see, inspiration, though mostly it’s plain hard work. I read Hemingway on the subject of fried fish on the Seine.’ There was a point he wanted to make. What was it? It was in his head, he could feel it pressing, but when he opened his mouth it stayed trapped and all these other words came out. ‘Anyway, mustn’t keep you.’ He stopped talking and needlessly rattled the pan.
‘I will try to procure these books,’ said Suleiman. ‘Which one should I start with?’
‘Oh, you’ll do just fine,’ said Gabe. He added the veal stock. He’d use the jus for a chardonnay and leek sauce, and he had an idea to try a little fresh fennel instead of the usual mustard seeds.
He bent down to look in the fridge, deciding he’d take the first three ingredients on the top shelf as a starting point to make something surprising and fresh. When he was in Lyon they did it sometimes, the chef giving them all three items to be included and thirty minutes to come up with a new dish. The best one, if it was good enough, went on the menu for the day. It was fun, it kept all the lads competitive, and maybe he should do it tomorrow first thing when everyone arrived.
A fig, an avocado, a chilli. Gabe lined them up on a chopping board. He rubbed his hands.
Suleiman cleared his throat.
‘Ah,’ said Gabe, ‘I thought you’d gone.’
‘Should I go?’ said Suleiman.
‘Yes, yes. Go.’
Now, where was he? He’d thought of something good, it was forming, before Suleiman interrupted him.
What he should do was read more. He never had the time. When he worked abroad he’d lie on his bed between shifts with a book, if he couldn’t get a girl. Cookery books, of course, but all sorts of stuff too, he liked books about the Second World War, scoured from second-hand stalls back home. Food writing. Anton – God, he hadn’t thought of him in years! – Anton, in his intellectual phase, had lent him elegantly tattered volumes, which he’d inscribed ‘ex-libris Anton Durlacher’ on the title page with purple felt-tip pen. Novels. Whatever was left behind in the guest rooms, ghost stories, war stories, love stories, adventures on the Nile. He’d read them and enjoy them, mostly, even the love stories, but he could never remember them by the following week so it felt like something wasted, something lost.
Charlie, now she was someone who always had a book on the go. When they went on holiday he’d sit on the beach with a popular science book, learning about quarks or atoms, and she’d lie, all carelessness and curves, across a sandy towel, saying why don’t you read a novel, there’s more truth in fiction than in fact.
In Lanzarote she’d made him read a book and he couldn’t remember the title, couldn’t recall anything about it except that it featured a conman who had a job as a liftboy in a Paris hotel. What do you think, she kept on saying, isn’t it brilliant? He said he liked it but that wasn’t enough. It’s not just a funny story about a conman, she said. This was news to him. So tell me, what? Oh, she said, can’t you see it? Like it was his fault.
Gabriel de-seeded and sliced the chilli. He tasted a tiny sliver along with a slice of fig. Yes, something could work out.
He skimmed the stock.
But what was he doing? Why was he doing this? Had he forgotten what the restaurant would be? Classic French, precisely executed. Rognons de veau dijonnaise, poussin en cocotte Bonne Femme, tripes à la mode de Caen. Not dishes thrown together like a TV celebrity-chef challenge, like a trainee competition, like an anything-goes-with-chilli-and-balsamic school of cuisine.
Fuck it. God damn. He’d touched his eye. He hadn’t washed his hands after slicing the chilli. Oh my God!
He gripped the worktop ledge.
How could he make such a stupid mistake?
Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t meant to be a chef.
He could have done anything. Could have been anything. Dad kept saying. You’re a clever lad. Don’t waste it, son. He should have stayed on at school. Should have gone to college, to university. Everything done and not done to spite his dad.
Jesus. Oh, Christ. He tried to rinse his eye at the sink, managed to make it worse because he still hadn’t washed his hands. His hands. Wash his hands!
He soaped them carefully. His eyeball fit to burst, the pain drilling back in his brain.
Anyway, it wasn’t true. He loved cooking. When you love something …
Nothing comes down to a day, to a moment. Life doesn’t dangle by a thread.
He’d sided with Mum. That was natural, the way Dad treated her.
He dried his hands.
The pain was exquisite. Jesus. He’d had a shard of glass in his eyeball once, bounced up from a shattered plate, and that was less painful. If he had to choose – glass or chilli – he’d choose the glass.
She was wonderful. Dad never appreciated her. Even if she was ill that was no reason, no excuse. It was always an adventure being in her world. Running back from school to Astley Street, falling through the door into another dimension, never knowing what he’d find. One time he’d discovered her in the bedroom in a crinoline and she’d ragged her hair. Gave her a pincushion, knew she’d love it, a daisy in the middle, her favourite flower. They danced in the kitchen to anything that came on the radio, Val Doonican, the Beatles, the Stones. She’d whirled and whirled him until he was giddy. She could be over the top sometimes. You never knew with Mum which way it was going to go. It was a bit of a relief, probably, when Dad and Jen got home.
He’d made his own bed.
What angered him, really angered him, was how other people, less talented, had got ahead.
He was forty-two.
Other people got lucky breaks, they married money, they sold their souls to television, they got in league with footballers, they jumped on fads and trends.
Oh, sweet Lord! The fire in his eye was getting worse. He was going down in flames. Half-blind, he staggered to his office and crash-landed on his chair. Leaning back, legs extended, he gripped the arms, neck stretched, mouth open in a mighty soundless roar.
All he’d wanted, all he’d ever wanted, was his own place, nothing fancy, nothing flash. What was so hard about that? He should have done it long before now. At Guy Savoy he’d been the one. He was quickest, smartest, best. He got in earliest, stayed latest, worked on his day off. He charmed his way round the chefs, ate his way round the markets, and chewed up a million books.
At twenty-four he was there in a two-star in the middle of Paris and he kept his head.
But what about Le Chevalier? He hadn’t been so sober then. Anton had called him from London. Rapscallion, little rascal, mate. Fancy a whirligig around the wheel of fortune with your old comrade-in-arms? Three months he’d been with Guy Savoy. It seemed like long enough. They’ve made me general and I’ll make you colonel. Bring your sash and your three-cornered hat and your ceremonial sword. Twe
nty-four, he was, and Anton twenty-five. They’d take all comers. They took a shitload of drugs. Anton had finished with his intellectual phase. He was into action now. They played Jesus and Mary Chain in the kitchen, snorted coke off the cutting boards, and fucked the waitresses, when they were amenable, on the flour sacks. The food started off pretentious and nouvelle and went swiftly downhill from there. Nobody seemed to notice. The place was hot for a while. It ended predictably and badly and Anton – honour and valour deserting him – vanished, leaving Gabe with a cavernous hangover only partially induced by the sudden withdrawal of his evening cocaine wrap.
The truth was, no avoiding it, that this was what he was like: weak-willed, unfocused, spineless. Unable to commit. It wasn’t the only time that he had let things slide.
Everything was going to hell. Just look at him now. Fucking things up with Charlie, drinking and smoking in the locker room like a teenager, getting his rocks off with a—
He pulled himself up straight. His private life was a bit scrambled, but it hadn’t knocked him off course. He was a steady sort of bloke.
Was he? He didn’t think so a moment ago. At his core, though, he was … what? He couldn’t think clearly, too much crowding in, too many notions, a sugar rush of thoughts.
You could make fantastic shapes out of sugar; he’d won a competition once. Spin it any way you wanted, all in the wrist action, make it look like anything.
Gabriel snapped forward on to the desk and laid his head on his arms. He hadn’t been sleeping well. If he rolled his brow across his sleeve exerting a small amount of pressure it eased the pain in his eye. He concentrated on this and a few minutes later melted into a caramel sleep.
He woke around four thirty, brittle and thirsty, a crick in his neck. After drinking some water he went out of the kitchen and upstairs. Since he’d witnessed Gleeson and Ivan’s assignation in one of the empty guest rooms he had been meaning to check it out. Now would be a good time, no fear of being disturbed.