by Monica Ali
‘What reasons?’ said Gabriel.
‘Look, we have to think about what business wants as well, and what consumers demand. Even if the bill does go through, it won’t be a panacea.’
‘But it would be better than nothing.’
Fairweather made a dismissive gesture. ‘Here’s the real issue. There’s a constant pressure to decrease costs. The old union model of labour is dead and gone. You’ve got longer and longer chains of sub-contracting and outsourcing, and employers want to buy labour as they buy other commodities – supplies which they can turn on and off as necessary without raising the unit price. So you see, if you want to be a crusader you’ve really got your work cut out. I’d drop it if I were you.’
‘I want to drop it,’ said Gabriel. He was so tired at this moment he thought he could sleep like a horse, standing up. ‘I don’t even want to think about it.’
‘Well, you’ve said that your conscience is clean. That’s what matters in the end.’
‘I didn’t say that.’ His conscience was clean, but he’d say it if and when he wanted to.
‘Didn’t you?’ said Fairweather, his demeanour changing, like he’d stepped out of the office and loosened his tie.
Was it his greatest political asset, this amiable vagueness, more useful than the sharpness contained within? It was largely impenetrable, it seemed non-threatening, and it swept you along.
‘Didn’t you?’ repeated Fairweather. ‘I’d rather thought you had. Maybe you should, you know. Have you heard of neuro-linguistic programming? Say something often enough, you start to believe it and lo, it shall come to pass. Let’s say you feel guilty about something. Keep telling yourself you don’t. It’ll do the trick in the end.’
‘Isn’t that – I don’t know – psychotic behaviour? If you tell yourself things that don’t relate to reality.’
Fairweather’s laugh echoed around the naked room. He put his arm across Gabriel’s shoulder as they headed for the door. ‘Lot of psychopaths in Westminster, then. Ha, ha, I should say. Goes with the territory.’
In his hot tight cell, his legs crammed under the desk, Gabriel sat thinking it wouldn’t be any worse doing solitary in a Bangkok jail; and he was thinking, too, that his mind kept wandering and ought to be dragged back to the task in hand, whatever that was, when Oona, all bustle and creak, installed herself in the corner, cradling a towel-swaddled object in her lap.
Gabriel wanted her out of there. There wasn’t enough oxygen for two. ‘Oona,’ he said, ‘what’s that you’ve got? A severed head?’
‘Hooh,’ said Oona, giving herself body and soul to her laugh.
‘I’m in the middle of something, actually,’ said Gabe.
Oona clucked and shook her head. ‘Halways busy.’
She took up too much space. When she sat somewhere it was like she’d put down roots, would stay until her children, her grandchildren, were grown. You expected to trip over her knitting or the babies that would crawl out from under her skirts.
‘That’s right,’ said Gabe.
‘Brought you someting,’ said Oona, creasing her almond eyes. ‘Look how thin you got!’
Gabe nodded. He wished she would go. He closed his eyes and wished her away.
‘Hexhausted, too, m’mm.’
What did she think this was? Who did she think he was? A housewife whose children were running her ragged, gossiping over the fence?
‘Nice bitta stew and dumplin’s, in a nice clay pot,’ said Oona, ‘thirty minutes at one hundred and eighty, darlin’. Know how it is when you only suppose be cooking for one. Easy to go without.’
Gabriel opened his eyes. He felt them bulge out of their sockets. Oona put the swaddled pot on his desk. On his papers, on his lists, on all his important stuff!
‘Oona,’ he said, choking with indignation.
She stood there making broody noises deep in her chest.
‘I …’ said Gabe. ‘I …’
‘Ho,’ said Oona, ‘don’t need no tanks.’ She folded her hands in front of her and began to move her lips silently.
What the hell did she think she was doing? Was she saying a prayer? He caught the last line as she shuffled off on leaden feet. God bless us and Amen.
He ran straight up to Human Resources and said that she had to go, he couldn’t work with her any more. Gross misconduct, said the HR lady. Fill in this form. He sat and chewed his pen. What could he put? Praying while on duty? Offering unwanted casseroles? He’d already given her one formal warning. Couldn’t he add another, for being late or something, and then that would be the end of it? The HR lady consulted her files. There’s no record, she told him. Has to be a record or it doesn’t count. He protested. He pleaded. The HR lady tapped her pen. Gabe, undefeated, suggested redundancy. The HR lady said no. Not unless it was in Mr James’s ‘restructure initiative’. Gabriel said thanks very much for your help. She smiled and said, any time, and about the goods-in porter, don’t forget to deal with him.
During dinner service he prowled the kitchen. He watched the dishwasher stacking plates and scouring pans. This one was from Somalia. The other was from Sudan. Or maybe the other way round. The man wiped his hands on his overalls and hosed down the sink. He dragged a massive stockpot over, ran the water and started scrubbing, nearly up to his armpits, his head sunk low as if doing his best to hide. As a dishwasher it wasn’t good to be noticed. The only time you were noticed was if you’d done something wrong, dropped a tray of glasses, or left some grime in a pot.
Gabriel drifted away to the heart of the kitchen.
‘Jeez,’ said Victor, wheeling. ‘Didn’t hear you come up. You’re like a ghost or something, man.’
He watched his boys, Benny and Suleiman, busy at their stations. Nikolai, too old for this work, pressed a hand to the small of his back. Ivan stoked his fires.
A waitress came to say that a customer had a complaint and wanted to see the chef.
‘About the food?’ said Gabriel.
The waitress didn’t know. She led him to the table and turned on her heel.
‘Hello,’ said Gabriel. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I’ve got a complaint,’ said the man, ‘I’m sorry to say.’ He looked all right, shirt and chinos uniform, probably a corporate lawyer on a dress-down Friday, but not too full of himself.
‘Sorry to hear it,’ said Gabe. ‘Hope I can put things right.’
‘Take a look at my plate,’ said the customer.
‘You don’t like the steak? Is it overcooked?’
‘Steak’s fine. But the plate. Look at it.’
The man’s girlfriend pressed her fingers to her lips.
Gabriel leaned down and examined the plate. ‘You’d like a different one?’
‘See that,’ said the man, pointing with his fork at a trace of something on the rim, ‘that’s not been washed properly. That’s a bit of old cack on there.’
The girlfriend smiled beneath her fingers. It seemed to egg him on.
‘When you’re paying well over ten quid for a main you might expect a garnish, but you don’t expect it to be made of old cack.’
The girlfriend sniggered. The man leaned back swelling his chest, splaying his legs as if his balls had suddenly grown.
‘I’ll change your plate for you, sir,’ said Gabriel. ‘I’ll get you a fresh steak as well.’
‘I mean,’ said the man, enjoying himself too much to stop, ‘you’re serving this lovely meal, and it’s decorated with sick-up. Could you have a word with whoever’s responsible?’
‘OK, David,’ said the girlfriend, her back stiffening, her eyes on Gabriel.
But the man was dining out now on the sound of his own voice. ‘Is it too much to ask for a clean plate, for a bit of spit and polish? Is it? I mean, come on.’
‘Certainly,’ said Gabriel. ‘I’ll do it myself, right away.’ With a flourish he removed the man’s plate and raised it close to his mouth. He spat on the rim. ‘There, sir, that’s the spit. Now for the polish.�
� He gave it a vigorous wipe with his sleeve.
He returned the plate to the table and bowed. ‘Enjoy your meal. Bon appetit.’
‘Have you finally taken leave of your senses?’ said Gleeson. He closed the door to Gabriel’s cubicle and leaned against it as if Gabe might seek to escape.
Gabriel shrugged. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘Have you gone mad? Are you crazy? Shall we get the straitjacket out?’
Gabe chewed a fingernail.
Gleeson adjusted his cuffs. ‘Do you realize everyone saw? Do you know everyone was watching you?’
‘So?’ said Gabriel.
Gleeson quivered with bright-eyed righteousness. ‘I had to sort out your little mess. It took quite a while to calm him down.’
‘I didn’t ask you to do anything.’
Gleeson continued to bristle then he dropped it, advancing with a conniving smile, dripping snake oil all over the floor. ‘Shall we just say, in that case, that I’ve done you a favour. One gentleman to another, a good deed, a good turn that may deserve another, should you so choose, at some future date.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Gabe.
‘I smoothed things over,’ hissed Gleeson. ‘I could have got you fired.’
‘Sorry you missed that chance?’
Gleeson crackled with hostility. It hung around him like static. ‘You are crazy,’ he said. ‘You’ve lost it. You’re bloody mad.’
Gabriel jumped to his feet as Gleeson flowed out of the door. ‘I see right through you,’ he shouted. ‘You’re not a gentleman, you’re totally …’ he could barely get his words out, ‘… fucking … fake.’
Gleeson put his hands to his tailored hips and turned out a shiny shoe. ‘Fake?’ he said, in his most affected drawl. ‘And what, pray, are you? A genuine what? Do tell.’
In the morning Gabriel went up to see Mr Maddox without an appointment. He knocked once and went in without waiting for a reply.
‘Come in,’ said Maddox, ‘don’t stand on ceremony. Why don’t you come right in and make yourself at home?’
‘I need to speak to you about something,’ said Gabe.
Mr Maddox waved him over to the sofa in the corner of his office, and turned back to Mr James who waited by his desk like a schoolboy in fear of the cane.
‘Explain to me again, Gareth, why I have to get involved.’
‘It’s like this, Mr Maddox,’ the deputy manager began.
‘Problems,’ said Maddox, rubbing his jaw, ‘why do you always bring me problems? Can’t you bring me a solution once in a while?’
‘If I could just outline for you—’
‘I don’t want a bloody outline,’ said Maddox. ‘What will I do with an outline? Colour it in?’
Mr James smiled and said nothing. He lowered his head and his gaze.
‘What do I employ you for?’
Mr James carried on smiling.
‘Go on, remind me. Because it’s not at all obvious.’
Gabriel pretended to look at a magazine on the coffee table, but kept watching Mr James. His smile was painful to see. It was the same way he always smiled and it was nervous, involuntary, like the twitch in Damian’s right eye.
Mr Maddox passed his hairy fingers over his face. He lost interest. Didn’t go for the kill.
‘Go back to Marketing, Gareth. Say you’ve had a word with me. See if you can sort it out.’
Mr James went off clutching at his clipboard and his dignity.
Mr Maddox left his desk and took up the leather armchair opposite Gabe. It seemed to shrink as he sat down.
‘I’m trying to curb it,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
Maddox rolled his head then grabbed it between his hands and twisted in either direction until his neck clicked. ‘Came up the hard way, Chef. Old habits, you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Gabe. He’d come to talk about Gleeson and Ivan, the fact that they were using – still using, Gabe had kept intermittent watch – the guest room without authority.
‘Back when,’ said Maddox. His eyes went far away. They came round again. ‘Respect, you see, was something you had to earn. Usually by beating the shit out of someone.’
Gabriel looked at Mr Maddox’s brow. You could use it for hammering nails. Maddox had probably hammered a few heads with it in his time. Maybe it would be better not to say anything about Gleeson and Ivan at the moment, better to wait until he had a solution, or at least knew exactly what the problem was.
‘Anyway, had a little lapse there with Gareth. I don’t know.’
Gabe wondered what reason he could give for coming up and bursting in.
Mr Maddox, though, seemed in no hurry. He offered Gabriel a cigar. ‘My grandfather,’ he said, ‘was in service, and my great-grandfather and his father before him, back and back. Servants, every one.’ He paused for a while. ‘What do you think of the smoke, by the way?’
‘Good flavour,’ said Gabe, ‘red meat, roasted nuts.’
‘Sometimes,’ said Maddox, ‘I think I’m still in their footsteps. Think I haven’t put enough distance … inspecting bedsheets in the penthouse, a couple of hours ago. How’s that for a chip on the shoulder? Impressive or what?’
‘It was common enough, in those days,’ said Gabriel, ‘to be a servant. My family were all in the mill.’
‘Interesting fact for you, Chef. As many people nowadays in service – cleaning, cooking, nannying, gardening – as there were in the 1860s. Progress, eh?’
The cigar was making Gabriel a little light-headed. He kept forgetting not to inhale. He nodded along.
‘My granddaughter,’ said Mr Maddox, ‘she’s ten years old. She said to me, Granddad, why are you angry all the time?’ He stirred his feet and pulled at his trousers. ‘Well, what could I say? I said, pickle, I’m not angry. I said, I’ve never been angry with you.’
‘And? Did she believe you?’
‘She’s bright, you see,’ said Maddox, ‘she’s top of the form.’
‘Good for you,’ said Gabriel. ‘Good for her.’
‘She’s set up a swear box. Keeps the takings. Fucking raking it in.’ He laughed unhappily. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘what was it that you wanted to talk about?’
‘Oh,’ said Gabriel, ‘I wanted to tell you that all-night room service is starting up this week. Benny’s going to do the first shifts.’
He’d sort out Gleeson. He didn’t need to take it up with Maddox. What he needed to do was act, force a confrontation, stop burying his head in the sand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SPRING WAS COMING. IT WAS IN THE SNAP OF BLUE SKY BETWEEN the buildings, it was in the gently ruffled air, it was in the passers-by who lifted hopeful faces to the light. Gabriel was reminded, as always, of the ski season he’d worked in some wainscoted Tyrolean town. One morning he’d woken and heard ticking, the rooftop snow counting down the moments before it slid with a whoosh to the ground. When he looked out of the window he saw in the spangled white garden a miraculous little trapezium of green.
Cinnamon rolls, he thought, stepping lightly down the street from the back entrance of the Imperial. Must have made a thousand in that place. He could smell them still. He pulled up short on the pavement, bobbing on a wave of nostalgia for a kitchen and colleagues he could barely recall.
Across the road a demolition team in fluorescent vests flagged the all-clear to the crane. A young woman click-clacking down the road saw the builders and grew defensive. She folded her arms. The crew took no notice. She glanced around.
The hoardings shook as the crane ground forward. A thin shout went up. The unlovely houses gaped open, snaggle-toothed with doors here and there. Gabriel watched the crane’s arm swing. The wrecking ball swept back, gathered itself in thought for a moment and then it was on its way, a long and languorous journey filled with mild encounters, remembered in ghostly white clouds.
The rucksack weighed cosily on Gabriel’s shoulders, packed with food from the fridges and larders at work. He was goi
ng home after lunch service to spend the afternoon with Lena, and to cook a civilized meal. So many things to do. The important ones came first. You put in the foundations. You selected cornerstones. Last night he had been convulsed by thoughts of Gleeson, as if the straitjacket had been no mere taunt, as if he were bound and tied by rage. He’d struggled free. Gleeson was on his list. List upon list. Give the lists a structure, see how they stacked up, joined. See it, visualize it, hold it in your mind. Some tasks supported others, laid the groundwork, some ran together in an arch. It was like building a house. Let in light, generate heat, keep the rain off your head. It was a matter of architecture and food was no different, the molecular structures, the way you ordered a plate, you had to build, and when you organized a kitchen, pulled together a team, you had to see the architecture, have a blueprint, keep it tight and strong.
Before he turned the corner Gabriel looked back at the site. As he watched, a wall collapsed in slow motion with a vague, protesting sigh.
The flat was empty when he got home. Lena must have gone to the shop. He waited for fifteen minutes and then he rang her mobile. He left a message and made a cup of tea. He went down to look for her. He tried her mobile again.
He stood by the long sitting-room window and every moment expected her to come into view. Then he grew superstitious and thought she would not come as long as he stayed there. Sitting on the sofa he stroked his knees and waited for the sound of the key in the door.
She would come exactly at the point he had stopped thinking about her. That was how these things always were. She might have gone to the cinema. She had done that once or twice and told him about it. He had encouraged her.
He jumped up and went to the bedroom and flung open the wardrobe doors. All the dresses he had bought her were there. To be sure he opened the drawers.
Back in the sitting room he paced steadily. The more he looked at the furniture the less familiar it felt. The hard green sofa belonged in a waiting room, the black chaise was hideous, the lacquered shelves were empty and the white-cube coffee table was pretentious beyond belief. Who would want to live here? Who could call this place a home?