The Dish

by Stella Newman

  ‘We’re not yet in a position to call it either way,’ says Sandra, straightening up in her chair. ‘Currently the risk of litigation is too high. The possible resource in cash and time that a libel case from the Bechdel camp would demand is prohibitive. The last time he took a paper to court it was a five-year battle. He lost, but we cannot afford to enter those sort of battles.’

  ‘If we can’t get the former account director at the charity to talk on record, we can’t touch the charity stuff,’ says Heather.

  ‘Why won’t she talk?’ says Jonesy.

  ‘Her boyfriend still works for Bechdel, she’s scared it’ll come back on him.’

  ‘She’s probably right,’ says Roger, shaking his head in disgust. ‘What else have we got?’ He picks up a piece of paper from his file and I hand him his glasses as he scans down the list. ‘Right – charity fraud, still relying on an un-named source,’ he says. ‘The proclivities –Heather, no way the ex-wife will be persuaded to talk?’

  ‘Sitting by the pool in Monaco with eighteen million reasons to stay loyal.’

  ‘But we could still get the lifestyle angle from the London or Oxfordshire staff?’

  ‘Hearing back from the chauffeur’s lawyer at three p.m.,’ says Heather. ‘If we get the chauffeur, we get the housekeeper – then we get the Berkeley Square townhouse. We’ve got all the transcripts, it’s just not on the record yet.’

  ‘We’ve got the hotel on record, so we’ve got the escorts, and at least four household names.’ Roger throws the list back down on his desk. ‘Right – we start with the money, that’s watertight. The property portfolio, the trading anomalies and the tax avoidance. You put that lot together, that’s front-page news in itself, and more than anyone’s got on him before. We’ve got witness corroboration and the ex-employee testimonial. Work on the basis that’s all we’re getting and let me see how that looks in layout,’ he says.

  Roger, Sandra, Heather and Jonesy spend the next twenty minutes having a heated debate about whether they should do a sidebar on Bechdel’s younger brother. He’s MD of one of the biggest ad agencies in London – and allegedly has two ex-members of staff on permanent paid leave, nursing toddlers who look remarkably like him, poor things. His wife is in the shadow cabinet, and is vehemently pro tax breaks for traditional families.

  ‘I don’t give a monkey’s where he puts his todger,’ says Roger, ‘it’s about the wife’s hypocrisy in lambasting single mothers, when her husband’s affairs aren’t clean.’

  ‘The wife possibly doesn’t know?’ I say.

  ‘The wife always knows – at some level,’ says Sandra.

  ‘If you attack the brother you’ve got twenty blue chip clients at his agency who’ll pull their bleeding campaigns from the mag for the rest of the year,’ says Jonesy.

  ‘So shall we just run editorials that praise the scions of our most corrupt media dynasties? Perhaps we should print a hagiography of Stalin while we’re at it?’ says Roger.

  ‘What the fuck’s a hagiography?’ says Jonesy.

  ‘A book about Sandra,’ Azeem whispers to me.

  ‘Roger,’ I say, checking my watch. ‘You’ve got a twelve thirty with Sandra and the auditors – they’re probably waiting in reception. Do you want me to go and babysit them for twenty minutes?’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ he says. ‘Team – let’s take a view tomorrow. If we get the housekeeper and the chauffeur, we drop the sidebar on the brother, if not, Jonesy, you’d better polish your shoes because you’ll be pounding those streets, hustling. Laura, go fetch them – and grab me a cup of sweet coffee on the way back up, I need some caffeine.’

  ‘You look exhausted,’ I say, quietly.

  He waves me away. ‘Time difference, Thailand. Stop fussing.’

  It’s peculiar, it’s 2.15 p.m. and Roger should be out of the auditors’ meeting he was just in with Sandra and Jonesy, but there’s no sign of him, even though The Laminator’s back at her desk crunching on Ryvita, and I saw Jonesy leave for a lunch a while ago.

  I do a thorough check of the building, try Roger’s mobile twice, then pop round the corner to The Eagle where he sometimes disappears for a pint after a confab with Jonesy – but he’s nowhere. Eventually I’m forced to ask Sandra if she knows his whereabouts.

  ‘Last time I looked at your job spec you were in charge of his diary,’ she says, scraping a smidgen more fish paste over her cracker.

  ‘Sandra he’s meant to be in his office, and he’s got a two-thirty with the Press Association. You were just with him earlier?’

  She shrugs.

  ‘Did he say where he was off to after the meeting?’ Perhaps he went to buy a sandwich, though it’s hardly like Roger to do the practical things like feed himself. He might have popped out for some fresh air.

  An hour later he texts me:

  Can you shift today’s appts to tmrw please?

  You’re at a seminar all day tomorrow. Where are you, anyway?

  Shift the appts to Wednesday then, ta. Fancied a round of golf.

  Which is sort of a strange message.

  Because not only has it started to rain. But when I go back into his office to double-check, I see his golf bag, standing in the corner in its usual resting place.

  22

  Roger is at an all day Governance seminar on Tuesday but he phones at noon.

  ‘Manning the fort, Parker?’ he says, cheerily.

  ‘It’s so quiet – Heather and Azeem are up in planning, Jonesy’s out to lunch.’

  ‘Hold the front page . . . Any messages?’

  ‘Elizabeth rang about Gemma’s allowance, and the Head of the BRC wants to move your lunch to next week, if you’re happy, I’ll change the booking?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And . . . Dr Fabelman’s secretary rang. You left your umbrella in their waiting room . . .’

  There’s a pause. ‘You wanted to ask me something yesterday? We never got round to it.’

  ‘Oh – it can wait, I’d rather ask you in person. Though actually – would you mind if I took a couple of hours off this afternoon? There’s something I’d like to do.’

  About nine months after I started writing The Dish, shortly after I won my first award, I received an anonymous note in the post: it wasn’t a love letter. It said I was totally unqualified and was doing a shit job: ‘Stuffing your gob for a living isn’t hard.’ Of course they were right: my job isn’t hard – being a nurse or a soldier is hard. Being a food critic is not entirely easy though.

  The palate part’s fine: I eat a lot, I think about food and read about it a lot.

  The being secretive part I’ve always found tough – particularly these last three weeks.

  The memory part can be tricky. I don’t take notes or photos. It draws attention, but it’s more than that. Call me a grouch but I think interrupting your meal to adjust your Bratwurst for Instagram, like some culinary Terry Richardson, is rude to your fellow diners, plus it puts a filter between you and the experience. (It reminds me of when Dad and I went to see the ‘Mona Lisa’ and all I saw was a swarm of iPhones.) So I don’t drink on the job – sure, it enhances your enjoyment, but it clouds your brain; try remembering which five micro leaves were in your starter when you’re halfway past pudding and two bottles of red.

  But the hardest part? It’s also the most fun part: bread. Trying to describe bread in a new way every time is not a piece of cake. And I always eat the bread because if you can’t get your bread right, you probably can’t get your ballotine or your en cocotte right. You have to think pretty hard how to describe the texture of the inside of a roll for the 150th time.

  So after I’ve cleared it with Roger, I divert my phone and hop on the Tube to Edgware Road.

  ‘Back again?’ says our waiter from Sunday, as I walk into Darband after the lunchtime rush. Two old men sit silently smoking shisha pipes by the window, their strawberry smoke mingling, not unpleasantly, with the smell of chargrilled meat.

  ‘I’ve come to as
k you a small favour.’

  ‘You want the recipe for the bread?’ He shakes his head. ‘Family secret.’

  ‘I wondered if I could watch you making it?’

  He looks at me like I’m some sort of gluten pervert, then shrugs.

  ‘Nima – show the lady the bread!’ he shouts to the cook standing in a grease-stained apron in the small open kitchen.

  The chef takes a springy dough ball from a selection resting under a tea towel, dips one side in poppy seeds, then rolls it on the floured counter till it’s barely a millimetre thick. He grabs an oversized flattened pincushion from under the counter and delicately drapes the tissue-thin dough over it, then turns to the clay oven, an Ali Baba style pot with a circular opening at the top, a fiery furnace below. With one hand he takes the dough-draped cushion and thwaps it hard against the inside wall, so the dough sticks to the pot like a cartoon character who’s just run into a wall. He whips away the cushion and the bread stays happily stuck to the side of the baking hot clay for thirty seconds, at which point he plucks it out and brushes it with melted butter.

  He gestures for me to sit while he slides the giant circle on to a plate, prepares a small side dish of yoghurt, another of radishes, and pours me a fresh mint lemonade.

  The waiter watches from the corner with quiet satisfaction as I tuck in.

  ‘So what is in it?’ I say.

  He laughs. ‘Flour, water, poppy seed and nafas.’

  ‘Is that a spice? Like sumac?’

  ‘Nafas? We put it in all our food, but you don’t buy it, you create it. The word means breath . . . but more than that, it is a quality, like love or soul. You can taste it, can’t you?’

  I finish the last bite and take a fiver from my wallet.

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s on the house.’

  ‘I insist.’

  ‘And I insist,’ he says sternly. ‘Today you are my guest – tomorrow I may be yours.’

  Now that’s what I call good service.

  Back in the office it’s still a ghost town, so I set to work thinking about how best to describe the bread. Its surface is cratered and dimpled like the moon, but coloured in shades of cream and brown, and pockets of charcoal. Its texture is three different things simultaneously, chew and crunch and soft, like a great southern Italian pizza, but without that small millimetre of slightly wet dough you get at the front of your teeth when you bite into it.

  Sandra reappears from upstairs at 5.30 p.m., and gives me a suspicious look. For the next two hours she sits, twitching and occasionally looking over her monitor to see if I’m making any attempt to move. It will physically pain her to go home before me – she would rather sleep in her chair. She wins – at 7.45 p.m. I realise I’m hungry again. I email the document to myself so I can carry on at home. I’ve finished Darband, and am halfway through writing up the old Thai café near Wormwood Scrubs prison with the amazing papaya salad!

  As I shut down my computer and say goodbye, a flicker of relief passes over her face.

  23

  There’s been a constant stream of visitors to Roger’s office all day – but at 5 p.m., I seize the opportunity of a gap in his schedule, arm myself with two cups of tea and find myself hovering on the threshold of his doorway.

  ‘Parker, am I supposed to be somewhere?’ He looks up wearily.

  ‘Have you got a minute?’ I say, biting the inside of my cheek as I notice the wall behind him. April’s page layouts are up and my two pages have now been typeset and pinned in pride of place behind Roger’s head. The photo of the toilet has been dropped in and the designer has pulled out a quote in bold next to it: ‘GREED, PRETENSION, VULGARITY.’ It’s not exactly ambiguous.

  ‘Looking good, isn’t it?’ he says, proudly. ‘And for a headline Kiki’s suggested “Bog Standard” or “Nightmare on Eel Street”, though how about “Flash In The Pan”?’

  ‘Very good,’ I say, taking a deep breath. ‘Roger: I wanted to ask your advice.’

  ‘Ooh, I like giving advice. A bit like an insult, more fun outbound than in.’ He holds his palm out for me to take a seat.

  ‘OK. So the thing is, the night we went to LuxEris, I’m almost positive Adam wasn’t on the pass, and I think his sous-chef mucked up the entire meal.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Adam cooked for me at the weekend and I’m convinced he’s hugely talented, is a perfectionist to the point of being anally retentive, and that the night we ate there was an anomaly.’

  Roger says nothing, but turns to look at the layout behind him.

  ‘And I’m aware I have a personal relationship with him,’ I say, blushing. ‘And I’m even more aware heaven and earth have been moved to give me extra space which I’ll need to fill.’

  ‘Keep talking.’

  ‘And I’ll pay for it myself, but I think the food deserves a second chance. Not the toilet, not the pricing, just the food, because it’s his reputation on the line, but it’s also mine.’ Please, please, please . . .

  Roger closes his eyes briefly, then opens them and smiles gently. ‘The thing about advice is, no one ever actually listens to it, do they?’

  ‘I’m asking because your opinion matters to me more than anything. If you think I’m doing a Fergus . . . thinking with my penis . . .’

  ‘If you do have a penis, perhaps you’d like to write about it for May’s issue?’

  ‘If you think I’m letting my feelings cloud my judgement, please say, because I don’t want to do a Fergus. But I think this scenario is different. And if the food is terrible second time around I’ll say it is, Roger, I won’t fudge it.’

  ‘Laura – I worked with your mother for a decade, I’ve worked with you for nearly half – you’re cut from the same cloth.’

  ‘And we can also run the noodle bar copy which is done, and fill the space with one of these?’ I say, handing him my work. ‘The Persian’s the strongest.’

  He gives the pages a glance. ‘Laura, I’m sure these are good. Regardless: my advice is to sleep on it. What you’ve written,’ he points behind him, ‘is the most original copy you’ve done – it’s powerful, it’s sharp and it has impact. I can see you’re worked up about this, but I would take a moment to consider what you’re throwing away here.’

  ‘OK . . . and I’ll come back to you tomorrow?’

  ‘Make it Friday, tomorrow’s wall-to-wall turkeys.’

  I do the calculations: I don’t want to revisit on a busy Friday or Saturday. They’re shut Sunday, so Monday.

  ‘If I do go back—’

  ‘Don’t ask me to come with you,’ he says, half-smiling.

  ‘Please?’

  He buries his head in his hands. ‘I must have done something truly terrible in a former life.’

  ‘Thank you, Roger,’ I say, getting up to leave. ‘Oh – by the way, how was your seminar?’

  He brings his hand to his throat and pretends to choke himself.

  ‘As good as that?’ I say. ‘And golf, on Monday?’

  His smile remains on his face but I can see it’s being held up.

  He nods, and I nod back. His nod seems to say: some secrets are secrets for a good reason.

  ‘Hey babe, you’re home,’ says Amber as I walk in and find her lying on her yoga mat wearing a pink vest and a silver thong. Annalex, also in a pink vest which says ‘Downward Dog’, sits by her feet, occasionally licking one of Amber’s tangerine-painted toenails.

  ‘How was your day?’ I say, kneeling to pet Annalex. She looks at me plaintively from under furry grey brows, as though she’s scared that one day Amber will humiliate her further by dressing her in a matching dog-thong.

  ‘Exhaustifying.’ Amber rolls on to her stomach and stretches out her arms like Superman. ‘I had a meeting at Berners Tavern for like two whole hours. Then I had to pop to my atelier, then I saw my therapist,’ she says, her perfect mouth forming a pout.

  ‘And?’ I stay standing. If I dare sit Amber will have me trapped for the evening.

  �
��She thinks the whole argument was because Mark can’t express his hurt child.’

  ‘I thought Mark had a hissy fit because you broke his juicer?’

  ‘She says I need to visualise everything I want Mark to say – and then it will happen.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I say, nodding in wonder at how Amber’s therapist manages to squeeze Amber like an orange for £150 an hour in pursuit of Amber’s Higher Purpose. I wonder if her methods work for the Grand National?

  ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ says Amber sagely, as if this is the first time she’s used this phrase, rather than the first time she’s used it tonight. She rolls herself up from the mat in one elegant curl, scoops Annalex under one toned arm and heads for the bathroom.

  The only time Amber and I ever had an actual argument was when we were watching footage of a typhoon a few years back. The reporter had done the dummies’ guide to what causes cyclones and then the footage had switched to heart-breaking images of crying orphans. The death toll was in the thousands and Amber had piously said, ‘Everything happens for a reason.’

  ‘What possible reason would that be?’

  ‘It’s too early to tell.’

  ‘Amber, you just heard them say it happened because of atmospheric pressure in the North Sea. That’s the reason.’

  ‘Everything happens for a reason means it’ll turn out for the best.’

  ‘It is often used in that way, but it’s not what those words literally mean.’

  ‘Laura, it will have a Higher Purpose.’

  I’d pointed at the woman on the screen standing in wreckage, tears streaming down her face. ‘Tell her about your Higher Purpose.’

  ‘Everything happens for a reason means make the best of the situation.’

  ‘It doesn’t. What those words literally mean is: causes make things happen: you drop a glass and break it because your hand is slippery, not because God wants you to have better glassware.’

  ‘No, babe, er, no.’

  ‘OK, take us: the reason I live with you is because my old flatmate sold her flat.’

  ‘That’s so simplistic: a Higher Purpose is at work. People enter your life for a reason, a season, a lifetime . . .’