by Albert Able
“I’m the General Manager; Juan is off duty until three-o’clock.” Somehow, he managed to say without laughing at the pathetic sight before him.
“The General Manager eh?” The cherubic little Princess suddenly cheered-up, dropping the dressing gown to the floor to stand naked in front of Marcus. “Then perhaps you can solve my problem?”
Marcus was speechless as the squat olive skinned figure of the Princess edged forward holding out one pendulous mammary in her hands.
“I don’t know what sort of help you need but I think you had better wait for Juan, I think he will be more understanding.” Marcus backed to the door and literally ran down the corridor.
When he told me what had happened, I laughed till the baby kicking inside me forced me to stop.
Chapter 15 - Marcus
Over the next two years, I struggled to keep pace with The Riverside, the European hotels and our new project not to mention Jasmine, the bouncing new member of our family.
The new hotel, intended as our landmark property was named City Express Hotel; the still embryo plan, was for future purpose built hotels to be located on arterial and approach roads to towns and cities nation wide; these were to be called Highway Express Hotels and the construction all future hotels would be to a standard design using innovative and economic module construction methods.
The development of the first hotel however was slowly turning into a nightmare as more and more construction problems raised their ugly head.
There was I discovered one advantage however, in that the conversion of the old Victorian buildings would allow us to create a special suite on the new ‘Top Floor’ with its own private access.
Graham Radshaw regularly called to check on progress and was clearly excited by the new super secure ‘Top Floor’ facilities for his ever-growing list of devious clients.
What he did not see was how we planned to install secret equipment to record some of the more erotic activities favoured by many of his clients. I only decided to do this after, that occasion when I had asked Graham for assistance with our planning application; having endured his threatening vitriolic outburst and noted several of the veiled threats he made, I realised just how vulnerable we had unwittingly become.
Video was not widely available at that time and so the sixteen-millimetre camera, backed up by a separate sound recording system was all carefully concealed in the ornate ceiling fittings and accessed from a panel in the linen room adjacent to the suite.
Originally, I had planned to create a nightclub in the basement of the property and would have willingly invited Max Harris to take the concession but it became obvious during the renovation work that it would be impossible to make the old Victorian structure sufficiently sound proof for a Nightclub.
Max however was not at all disappointed having recently been extending the restaurant facilities into all his Clubs and was now more interested in branching out into ‘franchise’ catering. “I want to see my brand on every High Street in the country!” He slapped me cheerfully on the back.
I was also implementing a plan to use contract room and hotel cleaners, in order to reduce the liabilities of employing so many staff. The owner of a local office cleaning company had jumped at the idea as a way of expanding his own business.
The advantage for me was that we could pay a one off fee to clean and service a bedroom, without the need to invest in sheets or towels, which traditionally were regularly damaged or stolen. Nor did we have to employ anyone for that department, with all the administrative problems associated with it.
So the idea of contracting out all the catering also appealed; allowing us the opportunity to charge the ‘franchisee’ a fee for the use of the facilities, without the need to invest in an army of catering staff. Naturally, I offered the contract to Max, which he enthusiastically accepted.
Keen to experiment with any systems, which improved efficiency and which could be easily implemented across several units, we pressed ahead with both contracts; it all worked amazingly well; well almost amazingly.
Eventually all systems were up and running and whilst considerably over budget the first eighty bed room ‘City Express Hotel’ was ready for business.
On the opening day, a local Councillor was invited to mark the occasion and deliver a few platitudes and whilst beaming for the cameras of the Catering Magazine and a local newspaper, he performed the opening ceremony with a simple cutting of a ribbon at the front door of the first ‘City Express Hotel’.
Max had arranged a special luncheon, as much to test the new restaurant and the ‘team’ as to entertain the invited special guests.
A simple menu starting with a fan of melon with seasonal fruits as described on the ornate ‘Celebration Menu’ to be followed by a choice of Guinea Fowl or a Rib Eye Steak.
The corpulent Councillor opted for a ‘medium rare’ steak which was eventually delivered with a flourish by the over acting headwaiter.
Eyeing the feast in anticipation, the Councillor picked up his knife and fork sliced off a generous piece of meat and munched with enthusiasm.
Suddenly his mouth sprang open with a scream of pain, spluttering minced food, including several shiny lumps of metal and splinters of broken tooth, which clattered onto his side plate and around the table.
Tony the headwaiter recoiled in horror and ignoring the anguished Councillor headed angrily to the kitchen. “What have done to the steak you stupid idiot?” he shouted at the second chef who was busy hacking at a chicken with a meat-clever.
“Who’s a stupid idiot?” The offended chef shouted back testily, the meat cleaver cradled menacingly in his arms “What’s wrong with it anyway?”
It turned out, that someone had forgotten to take the pre-cut steaks out of the deep freeze in time for the lunch and so with the head chef’s temper already on the verge of exploding, his enterprising underling reasoned, that passing the frozen steaks through the meat tenderiser, should easily solve the matter.
The problem with that apparently simple solution; was that the cast iron cogs were designed to gently grind a steak, reducing any tendon to a chewable condition. Mincing into a solid block of frozen steak, was way beyond the machines capacity and had simply stripped the teeth from the grinding cogs leaving them embedded in the steaks, resulting in the Councillor loosing his lunch and some of his own teeth.
This proved to be the final straw for the Head Chef. “Yes you are a stupid bastard” he shouted as his finally temper boiled over “and you’re fired.” He added gesturing with a flourish towards the door.
“You can’t sack me for that, it’s not my fault you prick; you should have taken the steaks out of the deep freeze last night.” The second chef shouted back.
The head Chef’s face boiled into a deep crimson and on the verge of apoplexy, grabbed the meat cleaver from the second chef’s hand and with a smooth swing, planted it firmly through the chef’s tall white toque and into the middle of his head.
As the second chef, momentarily stunned by the blow staggered, with blood slowly blossoming through the flattened toque and over his hands; holding his head, with the meat cleaver still firmly stuck in his skull he barged through the swing doors into the restaurant screaming “He kill me!”
In the meantime and in spite of some of the other special guest’s best efforts to placate the Councillor, he was inconsolable and stood up from the table shouting abuse and shaking his fist in my direction.
Unfortunately he mistakenly grabbed the linen tablecloth instead of the napkin to hold to his bloody mouth, sending a shower of glasses, plates and cutlery, skidding all over the floor.
Moments later, the hideous site of the bleeding second chef, complete with meat cleaver firmly implanted in his head, appeared in the restaurant and ploughed into the carnage of cutlery plates and broken glass; as the unfortunate man rolled in a dramatic display of flaying arms and legs the meat clever fell from his skull and clattered noisily to the polished oak floor.
Max and
I were frozen to the spot, neither of us wanting to admit that the scene before us was real and not some awful dream.
Once again it was Connie who took instant charge of the situation. Leaping from her seat at the head of table, she ordered the two kitchen staff that had followed the bleeding second chef into the restaurant, to “Get him back into the kitchen this instant.”
They obeyed without question then she turned to me. “I think you had better sort that lot out?” Connie pointed at the departing figures as they vanished through the swinging kitchen doors
I didn’t hesitate; glad to have been kick started into action as Connie turned her attention to the Councillor.
It took all her diplomatic skills to calm the furious Councillor who by now had threatened to do everything possible to ensure that “This restaurant never serves another customer again,” he shook his fist at Max spluttering “not as long as I live.”
Connie eventually guided him to a quiet corner and fed him a quadruple Cognac trying to calm him down.
Oddly enough, the rest of the guests resumed their seats and waited patiently for their food.
When Max slipped quietly into the kitchen, I was leaning over the bleeding chef, holding a kitchen cloth to his head to quench the bleeding, the other staff gathered around staring in awe. “By the way what’s your name.” I asked.
“Raymond.” He smiled meekly up at me.
“Never mind him guys, we’ve got a lunch to serve,” Max urged them “come on lads let’s get it done.”
They hesitated for a moment and then, relieved to be free of any responsibility for the fracas, returned to their allotted tasks.
Max rolled up his sleeves and between them all; the rest of the lunch was delivered with out any further incidents.
The head chef vanished during the turmoil and was never seen again; by some miracle Raymond’s skull was not seriously damaged, in fact he suffered nothing more than a severe headache and the inconvenience of a dozen stitches. Raymond was surprisingly philosophical about the incident and elected not to take any action against the chef or the hotel. In fact he went on to become the corporate food and beverage director and one of the longest serving members of Max’s team.
In spite of the calming effects of the Cognac, the Councillor was proving to be much more difficult to placate. That was until Graham Radshaw who happened to be one of the guests that day, whispered something in his ear.
It turned out that the Councillor was the frequent mystery visitor to entertain a certain female politician at the Riverside Hotel’s ‘Top Floor’. A little reminder of the fact, plus the promise of a free trial of the new ‘Top Floor’ facility, seemed to have an instant effect and he finally left the party quietly via the rear exit.
The launch of our first hotel and Max’s restaurant chain was therefore something of a unique occasion but it wasn’t quite over yet, because amongst the first guests to register into the hotel on that day was an elderly couple.
The husband was in London for a few days rest, before entering the nearby hospital for some new form of heart surgery.
At around seven-o’clock that evening, the man decided to take a bath before dinner. Not having heard anything from the bathroom for a while his wife looked into check on him and was shocked to see her husband lying back in the bath apparently unconscious. As she reached out to touch him, when her hand was a couple of inches away, she received a severe electric shock.
The terrified woman ran to the bedroom intercom; there was no such thing as room telephones in those days, and screamed for help. “My husband has been electrocuted.” She sobbed.
I was in reception at the time and raced to the room. I stepped cautiously into the bathroom. It appeared that the man was not dead but was sitting up with a wild expression on his face.
“The bath is alive,” he muttered barely moving a muscle.
I reached out and gently touched his arm. There was no reaction; I touched the bath water, still nothing. “Seems to be okay, here let me help you out.”
I eased the old fellow out of the bath and left him to dry himself; his distraught wife could not believe it when I told her he was alive and well and so slowly easing opened the door she squeaked with joy when she saw the scrawny figure of her man towelling himself down.
“I definitely got a shock.” She turned to me in a whisper.
“Well I couldn’t find anything” I assured her.
The next morning however when the guests were away from the room I got the electrician to double-check everything in the room, he tested everything and could not find any fault.
As a symbol of excellence and looking to improve on the typical linoleum covered floor, we had elected to carpet all our bathrooms, using nylon carpet to combat the natural dampness of a bathroom and the electrician, in the absence of any other clues came up with the idea, that it could be static electricity being generated in the nylon carpet.
“If we run an earth wire under the carpet, it should stop any static and ensure that it doesn’t happen again.” The electrician assured me confidently.
Not being mechanically minded I am constantly at the mercy of ‘experts’ and so somewhat suspiciously agreed.
Within the hour the wires were installed and when the old couple returned I confidently advised them of the remedy.
That evening the old gentleman with his courage in both hands touched every metal object in the bathroom until partially satisfied that the cure was working he climbed suspiciously into his bath.
Gradually and he relaxed in the hot bath generously mixed with the scented oil we had presented them as our gesture of care, his courage returned.
Eventually the water-cooled and he reluctantly hauled himself from the tub and towelled himself dry; before leaving the bathroom, he leaned forward to let the water out and flicked the chain holding the plug.
The blood-curdling scream forced his wife to leap out of her chair; she barged into the bathroom to find her husband sagging against the wall, shaking his hand and nursing his fingers.
“What happened this time?” She demanded.
The petrified husband could hardly speak. “The plug, it’s the bloody plug” he gestured.
The wife gingerly tapped the bath with her index finger. Nothing, she tried again on the tap still nothing.
“The chain, try the chain?” He pleaded.
Cautiously she touched the chain but there was no sign of electricity.
Unconvinced the husband moved out of the bathroom clutching his chest.
“Are you okay?” His wife queried anxiously.
“What do you think?” He snapped. “I‘m supposed to be relaxing before my heart operation and this place is a torture chamber, I’m getting out of here before I die of an heart attack or I’m electrocuted!”
Nothing I could say would convince the couple to stay, so as soon as they had vacated the room, I called the electrician once again. He tested the carpet and anything and everything metal in that room but without the slightest trace of electricity.
I was not convinced so made him do it all over again by the time we had meticulously double tested every possible source of the problem it was dark and raining outside again.
Exasperated, we were about to give up when a particularly heavy squall rattled the windows in the same moment the arc light, mounted on the wall outside the bedroom to illuminate the car park, flickered and caught my attention.
The electrician had also seen it and ducked back into the bathroom casually tapping the bath with the flat of his hand.
“Christ!” he exclaimed nursing his hand “the whole fucking place is alive!”
It turned out, that the outside light had a crack in its waterproof cover and when the rain was heavy enough, a minute amount of water dripped into the lamp fitting, momentarily shorting the live and earth, which in turn because it had been wrongly connected to the bathroom earthing system sent a few volts of, thankfully fairly low amperage electricity, to the cold water pipe attached to
our guest’s bath.
Interestingly enough, I learned later that when the old gentleman reported to hospital the following week, he was re-diagnosed and it was considered that his heart condition no longer warrant the intrusive surgery planned.
Apparently, he lived another ten years, well into his nineties.
I often wondered if that little episode had anything to do with his return to such remarkably good health.
Chapter 16 - Connie
We did not leave the Riverside Hotel we sort of drifted away. With Marcus spending half his time travelling between the group’s European hotels. It was inevitable, that he should want to spend the remainder of his available time running our own hotels.
This gave the Riverside Hotel’s manager Juan Cardinal the ideal opportunity to prove his suitability for promotion to General Manager and so to ensure that I was kept fully aware of his skills he regularly reported to me in Marcus’s absence.
Jasmine was only three months old and Conchita was always delighted to baby sit so that I could do my routine rounds of the hotels.
Conchita had been working late on that disastrous night, which really meant she was entertaining one of her regular clients but she promised to get away no later than ten o’clock to baby sit.
Looking after Jasmine was even more important to Conchita than her ‘extra earnings’ and so in order to get away in time, she would have to cut her visit short, telling the young suitor as they drove to the hotel. “I am sorry but I am not well, have to go home early tonight.” She tried looking forlorn and held her stomach.
The man however, was not at all pleased with her plan to go home, protesting that he had spent a considerable sum on a West End dinner and reminded her that she had agreed to spend the rest of the night with him.
The taxi dropped them at the Riverside Hotel. “Come on.” The man insisted “just one drink at the club?”
The man guided her towards Max’s nightclub entrance but after a few paces, Conchita kissed him on the cheek and pulled away “It no good, I sorry but you’ll have to wait until your next visit; then we have drink and lots of nooky okay?” She pouted and turned on her heel to leave.