The Dish

by Stella Newman

  ‘Omelette and beans, Madame,’ he says, looking down modestly at his work of art, then pulling up a barstool next to me.

  66. Sophocles said The First Taste is With Your Eyes: worth passing on to whoever plated up tuna ceviche with deranged brown smears zigzagging over the plate, like Jackson Pollock’s toilet exploded.

  ‘Adam, is it ever so hectic at your place you don’t have time to make things look as pretty as this?’

  I look at him closely though what am I expecting to see? The word guilty to flash on his forehead in neon? A hastily written confession, admitting he was in the cold store room shagging a waitress on a bag of Puy lentils?

  Not a flicker. ‘The whole point of a well-run kitchen is consistency. You should have enough time, otherwise someone’s not doing their job properly. You’re not allergic to baked beans are you, Laura?’ he says, looking suddenly worried.

  ‘Love them,’ I say, dipping my fork in and taking a mouthful, then another, then a third. ‘Oh my goodness . . .’

  ‘It’s just a few quality ingredients.’

  ‘But how are you getting such a deep base flavour?’

  ‘Oh, the soffritto – I cook it for, like, four hours . . .’

  ‘Four hours? And is that green drizzle chive?’

  ‘Smoked chive oil – it just lifts it.’

  ‘And there’s something else smoky as well as bacon – is it bourbon?’

  ‘I’m going to have to get up pretty early to get anything past you! Are you sure you’re not a secret Michelin inspector?’

  ‘That photo?’ I say, craning my head back to the fridge.

  ‘That’s my favourite restaurant in the world, in fact it’s named after you, Da Laura.’

  ‘How nice of them! Is it in Italy?’

  ‘Yup, the next town along is Portofino, which is wall-to-wall douche bags wearing Hermès – but San Fruttuoso is tiny – three houses and an abbey, and Da Laura’s this shack on a pebble beach, rickety wooden steps, paper tablecloths, ten seats. They serve the thinnest home-made lasagne sheets, covered in incredible fresh pesto. It’s so simple and so low key – I’d love to take you there because I’m not doing it any justice in words. I know it sounds cheesy but they cook from the heart.’

  ‘Can we go there please?’

  ‘Would you want to go there with me?’ he says, pulling back to look at me.

  ‘Absolutely!’ You’re not sure if I like you? Perhaps you did not actually see me just now, miming ‘I love you’.

  ‘I’d better show you those pastries before you go,’ he says, abruptly getting up and clearing the plates away.

  ‘I’m going now, am I?’ A lump of unease lodges in my gullet like gristle.

  ‘It’s five to one,’ he says, checking his watch.

  ‘What are you up to again?’ I try to make my voice sound breezy but it has to work its way round the lump in my throat and ends up sounding like a strangled accusation.

  He pauses as he bends over the oven, then slides the tray on to the counter. ‘Got some stuff to sort out with my mum. Right, so here we’ve got three savoury Viennoiseries – a Parmesan and bacon brioche; a Welsh rarebit and wild mushroom double-layered croissant and a caramelised leek, shallot and Gruyère spiral. So listen,’ he says, hurriedly placing the pastries in a box, then straightening them up carefully, as though the thought of closing the lid on them when they’re not in perfect rows would pain him. ‘I’m putting three of each in – they’re actually not at their best piping hot anyway, and then when I see you on Thursday you can tell me what you think?’

  ‘Thursday?’

  ‘I thought I’d pop over in my split shift, around teatime?’

  ‘We’re doing tea now, are we?’

  ‘Do you not want to?’

  ‘No, I do. I just . . . it would be nice to see you for more than an hour snatched here and there.’

  ‘Er . . . next Sunday night? Let me see if I can move things around . . .’ he says. ‘Laura, I feel so rude shoving you out of my house but . . .’

  ‘No, it’s fine. It’s like a proper restaurant with a very fast turnaround.’ Though seriously? It is the opposite of fine!

  On his doorstep I feel the lump still sticking in my throat. If I don’t get it out now I’ll choke on it.

  ‘What time?’ I say.

  ‘What time what?’

  ‘Tea. On Thursday?’

  ‘Oh, four p.m. Sorry, Laura, I’m a bit distracted . . .’

  Yeah, I can see that. And I can go home and waste my time angsting about why that might be. Or . . .

  ‘Adam, can I ask you a question?’ Though why even ask? If he’s anything like Tom, he’ll just lie.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Are you seeing someone at the moment?’

  ‘What? A shrink?’

  Why would you be seeing a shrink? ‘I meant another woman.’

  He laughs. ‘My goodness, no, definitely not.’ He looks me straight in the eye when he says it. I know what a lie looks like: this isn’t one.

  ‘Are you seeing a shrink then?’

  ‘No – I just didn’t know what you meant by seeing someone. Listen, I know we never seem to . . . I want to spend time with you, I know it’s odd right now but things will clear up soon.’

  ‘I just have this weird feeling . . .’

  He pauses. ‘Look: there’s some on-going stuff but I promise you, I’m not seeing another woman.’ He puts his hands on my shoulder. ‘Can you bear with me? In a couple of weeks I’ll be in a better place all round.’

  He smiles and I smile. We stand on his doorstep, his hands still resting on my shoulders. He moves them down my arms, then pulls me towards him and kisses me tenderly. His mouth is so perfect I could kiss him for hours. My body leans in to his but after a minute he pulls away, looking sheepish.

  ‘Adam, you are quite sure it’s your mum coming round now, not your one o’clock girlfriend?’

  He looks over my shoulder and breaks into an awkward smile. ‘If you don’t believe me, you can see for yourself.’

  Behind me, an attractive brunette in her early sixties stands at the bottom of the stairs, carrying two heavy cloth bags. She looks surprised, then glances at Adam, nods, and smiles.

  ‘You must be Laura!’

  20

  This place would be perfect for Second Helpings, I think, as I sit waiting for Will and Sophie at Darband, a tiny Persian den off Edgware Road. It won’t win any awards for decor – the walls covered in yellow plaster, the floor in peeling lino – but it’s one of my favourite restaurants ever. Yes, the food is brilliant – but it’s the owners that make it special. They are generous and hospitable and make every guest feel equally welcome.

  I stumbled across it walking back from town one day. I smelled chargrilled meat and when I crossed the road for a closer look, I saw a chef in the window, working a gigantic disc of dough, spinning and slapping it between his palms like a meditation. Ten minutes later, I was sitting inside, mourning all the meals I’d already missed here. That bread! Light, crispy, buttery bread that anyone with eyes, a mouth or a pulse would demolish. (It would give Amber a panic attack.) And their rice! Mountains of lightly buttered basmati, each grain separate and fluffy, delicate and comforting – people don’t get excited enough about rice!

  ‘Laura, I’m so sorry, we lost track of time,’ says Sophie, as she bustles in, arm in arm with Will. These two are a great couple to hang out with – they never make you feel left out or grossed out. On the rare occasions Mark visits Amber at the flat, they’re either licking each other’s faces or bickering; Amber once claimed they’re the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton of West London. Sometimes I admire Amber for being able to look through rose/frankly black tulip-tinted spectacles to see Mark as Richard Burton, when the facts might suggest otherwise: a paunchy forty year old who farts all the time and blames it on poor Annalex.

  ‘We brought some plonk,’ says Will putting down two bottles of red.

  ‘Thought you might need a drin
k after your hot date . . . what? No action?’ Sophie sits down heavily, my disappointment weighing as much on her as me.

  ‘Should I pop to the offie for a third?’ says Will.

  ‘Don’t worry, Will, it wasn’t bad, just odd.’

  ‘What happened?’ she says. ‘Hang on, can we order first?’ Sophie cannot concentrate in a restaurant until she knows food is on its way.

  ‘The usual?’ I say.

  ‘The usual?’ She turns to Will, though it is a rhetorical question.

  Will nods, fills our glasses and raises his for a mini cheers. ‘And extra bread.’

  While we’re waiting for our food I tell them what happened – how flirty Adam was, but yet made no attempt at a real move.

  ‘He almost groped you in the bathroom?’ says Sophie.

  ‘It wasn’t a groping! More a casual rub – like he didn’t realise he was doing it.’

  ‘Didn’t realise he was doing it!’ says Will, looking at me like I’m from a different species.

  ‘It wasn’t a move kind of move, Will. It’s weird – it feels like he’s holding back . . .’

  ‘Has it occurred to you,’ says Will, leaning back in his chair as the waiter descends with a basket of breads so large they’re draping over all sides. ‘This guy might actually be honourable?’

  My hand freezes inches from the warm flatbread. Honourable? He might as well be speaking Farsi for all the sense he’s making. I have never dated a man of honour. If a guy on Tinder is not texting me about a threesome before we’ve even met for a coffee I now assume he’s asexual.

  ‘Don’t look so dumbstruck,’ says Will.

  ‘Will? Have you ever tried dating men in London?’ I say, ripping a piece of bread and popping it into my mouth.

  ‘Not recently . . .’

  ‘Don’t. I have: online, offline, friends of Jess . . . I can safely say the concept of honour is not one I’ve encountered in the last four long years.’

  ‘Soph, tell her to stop being a cynic. Perhaps this guy wants to get to know you first? Perhaps he doesn’t know if you’re interested in him?’ he says, looking shyly at Sophie.

  ‘This one took forever to make a move,’ she says.

  ‘This one was being a gentleman,’ says Will, taking her hand.

  ‘You two worked together, it’s different – you have to wait until the Christmas party to jump colleagues. Why do you think Adam isn’t asking to see me after he finishes his shift?’

  ‘You’d find a two a.m. booty call more romantic?’ says Sophie.

  ‘I’d find it more normal!’

  ‘Just give him a chance, it’s only been two weeks,’ says Will, moving the plates aside so the waiter can set down the metal platter of chargrilled chicken and lamb. ‘I’m popping to the loo, if you’re still talking about this when I return I’m going into the back room to watch football.’

  ‘It’s probably a good thing you’re not getting a chance to shag him yet,’ says Sophie. ‘You might get lost in the hot sex cloud, all that oxytencin.’

  ‘The spot cream?’

  ‘Oxycontin, oxytocin, floods your brain, clouds your judgement.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. Oh my God, and I finally ate his food!’ I whisper, though Will is nowhere within earshot.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Ridiculous. Literally the best thing I’ve eaten this year, better than the crab ravioli at Galvin, better than that beautiful prawn dish we had at Moro . . .’

  ‘He pulled out all the stops for you!’

  ‘Soph, it was beans on toast and an omelette. But he’d sweated the background veg in the beans for four hours – most people would do that for twenty minutes. That’s a genius idea, but you’d only do it if you were a perfectionist. And his plating, this oil he put on top – the colour of it was like an emerald – his ideas, the execution . . . flawless.’

  ‘So you’re going back?’ says Sophie, refilling our glasses to the brim and in the process creating three red circles on the paper tablecloth.

  ‘I have to. I just hope Roger won’t freak . . .’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well . . . in theory he might be OK, some American newspapers send their critics back multiple times – but they have bigger budgets – and I’m talking about a restaurant that charges sixteen pounds for eight quadruple cooked chips . . .’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘But it’s more that. I made such a fuss about having boundaries between personal relationships and work . . .’

  ‘But if you slate the food and every other critic praises it, won’t that be weird?’

  ‘Exactly – it’s my credibility on the line too.’

  ‘What are you whispering about?’ says Will, sitting back down, eyebrows shooting north as he sees we’ve devoured all of the lamb and half the chicken.

  ‘There’s loads of green pepper left,’ says Sophie.

  ‘Yeah, I came here for the green pepper,’ he says, laughing.

  ‘I didn’t even tell you – I met the mother,’ I say. ‘I was saying goodbye and she turned up . . .’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Lovely – one of those women who instantly makes you feel comfortable.’ My ex mother-in-law used to blanch if I didn’t move my soup spoon to the outer edge of the bowl while eating her consommé. ‘And she knew about me!’

  ‘He’s told her about you,’ says Sophie, clasping her hands to her chest and looking at Will. ‘Told the mother, already! So did you have a cup of tea?’

  ‘Well, no. It was kind of weird. She said she’d love to meet me properly, but said they had family matters to talk about, and gave me a look that was kind of . . . I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Enough with the paranoia. Meanwhile, guess who’s put in an order for their “Fortieth” with me?’

  ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘Dolly-bird celebrity chef, face of Fletchers’ Fat Bird range . . .’

  ‘If Celina Summer is forty, I’m still doing my GCSEs – do GCSEs even exist anymore?’

  ‘I’m not sure if I should take the job,’ she says, frowning.

  ‘Tell her to stop being an idiot,’ says Will.

  ‘It’s not the fact she’s insufferably smug and pretends to eat like a normal woman but doesn’t. It’s two things – firstly, she wants New Ideas – which she’s blatantly going to steal . . .’

  ‘Fletchers rip off your ideas every six months anyway,’ says Will. ‘All they have to do is look on your website – sincerest form of flattery and all that.’

  ‘I’m a one-woman business and they’re a giant supermarket, so I don’t see it that way – but it’s not just that. It’s three hundred guests, August Bank Holiday – plus goody bags, it’s full on.’

  ‘And that’s why she’s offering you a healthy chunk of change,’ says Will. ‘And you’ll get new clients.’

  ‘I can’t do it on my own, though.’

  ‘We’ll help you,’ I say.

  ‘But I’ll need full-time help the whole month before. It’s massive on top of the day job.’

  ‘Say yes now, worry about it later,’ says Will.

  ‘You would say that,’ she says, laughing. ‘You’re a man.’

  After dinner the three of us walk home together, stuffed with carbs, humming with red wine. How wonderful to eat like a king, then lie down next to someone you love, I think, as I kiss them goodbye outside our front doors.

  How un-wonderful to rattle round your landlady’s bathroom with mulberry-stained lips, knocking over tubes of overpriced serums, playing over the embarrassments of your afternoon – all three of them.

  God, that ‘I love you’ mime was awkward.

  And Adam’s mum turning up when we were snogging on the doorstep was not ideal either, as first impressions go – but she seemed cool about it.

  But I am most tormented by the shame of grilling him about another woman. It was utterly insecure. I should have hidden that side of myself better – there’s nothing more unattractive than neediness.

  I d
rag a warm, wet flannel across my face, wipe it clean.

  He is not Tom.

  Not all men are liars.

  The only way I’ll stay sane is if I trust him.

  21

  ‘Good weekend, Roger?’ I say, as we’re heading to the boardroom on Monday morning.

  ‘I finally managed to FaceTime Gemma at midnight,’ he says, wearily. ‘She’s found herself a job on this tiny island they’re staying on – some sort of a beach bar . . .’

  ‘Oh Roger, it’s only for a few months. At least she’s actually working.’ Rather than scrounging off you, like she normally does. ‘Listen – can I have a quick word with you after Conference?’

  ‘If we make it out alive.’

  Heather and Sandra are already in the room, heads close in conversation, and Azeem and Jonesy turn up a minute after Roger and I do. Before I’ve even finished pouring the coffee, Jonesy’s chomping at the bit. ‘So where are we at with the cover, on or off?’

  ‘I thought I’d been extremely clear about the fact this issue will be embargoed till day of sale if Bechdel’s on the cover?’ says Sandra, frost in her voice. ‘Bechdel is represented by Manderbys. If Manderbys get wind of it they’ll slap an injunction on us before it’s out the door. Obviously we’ll need to be watertight on leaks, it’ll be going into the chain at the last minute – no internal copies.’

  ‘Yeah I know all that, Sandra, I’m not a novice – what I’m asking is – are we running the Bechdel or not?’

  ‘We’ve been through the revised draft on Friday,’ says Heather.

  ‘There are half a dozen allegations that still need going over with a fine-tooth comb,’ says Roger, his hand inadvertently forming a fist, which taps his mouth.