Dinner at Mine

by Chris Smyth

Marcus didn’t have a local fishmonger. Normally this bothered him only in an abstract sense. He’d considered phoning the one in Islington that was always in the papers, but then thought how much better it would sound if he was able to say casually, ‘This? Yes, it should be fresh – I picked it up at Billingsgate Market this morning.’

  Which was why his alarm had gone off at six o’clock and he had pulled himself out of bed with Sarah groaning semi-consciously beside him. Marcus was usually an early riser at weekends anyway; once he was awake, however briefly, things started turning over in his mind and he could not go back to sleep. His usual Saturday ritual was to leave Sarah snoring and go downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee and read The New Yorker, to which he had a subscription.

  Instead, he downed a quick shot of espresso before heading out to one of the car club bays round the corner. Once he was outside, Marcus always enjoyed being up early. The peaceful, empty streets gave him a sense of being ahead of everyone else. He let himself into a hatchback with his touch card, set up the satnav and, with almost no traffic, was pulling into the stolid shadow of Canary Wharf in less than forty minutes.

  Billingsgate Market squatted almost resentfully beneath the high, gleaming blandness of the Barclays and HSBC towers. Marcus delighted in the juxtaposition as the boxy glass buildings cast long shadows over the market in the early morning light.

  The morning’s peace was shattered as soon as Marcus entered the market, the icy air filled with shouting and the squeal of rubber on wet concrete. Marcus stopped to get his bearings. A porter pushing a trolley of prawns barged past him, swearing under his breath. Marcus was too taken aback to respond, and even more aghast when he realized that the porter had called him a ‘fucking tourist’.

  He decided to keep moving. The stalls were all the same: thick banks of white polystyrene crates laid out in long rows beneath the cavernous corrugated roof. Marcus hurried quickly between them, not wanting to dawdle and stare at the amazing variety of fish in case he was taken for a gawper on a coach party. He was there, like everyone else, to buy some rare fresh seafood at a reasonable price.

  After a while the fish all began to look the same. Row upon row of glazed eyes set in shimmering rainbow flesh. Marcus walked up and down each row several times. Eventually he thought he saw what he needed tucked away at the back of a stall. He craned round to look as he went past.

  ‘Watch where you’re fucking going!’

  Marcus jerked back round to see that he was about to collide with a fat man carrying a tray of eels. He threw himself backwards as the man kept moving, staggering until he heard a loud splash below him.

  Marcus felt freezing water begin to seep over the top of his Campers. He yanked his foot out of the puddle, but too late to stop the dampness spreading through his right sock.

  Somewhere off to his left he heard someone laughing.

  Marcus shook the loose water off his shoe. This was good. It was real. It showed this was still a proper, working market, not just a tourist attraction.

  Marcus looked at the stall again. There it was. He was right. It was definitely an octopus. The stallholder held it up for him to inspect. Close to, it was slightly wizened, and the row of suckers down one tentacle was missing.

  But that was OK, because it gave Marcus the opportunity to ask the question he had been looking forward to all morning.

  ‘Have you,’ he asked as matter-of-factly as he could, ‘got any of the Mediterranean double-suckered variety?’

  The stallholder did not blink.

  ‘No, mate,’ he said, as if it was a perfectly ordinary question. ‘We had some earlier, but they all went. Got to get here early. Last of the day’s catch, this. Give it to you half price.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Marcus walked away, his success hollow. He knew he should have got up earlier. To wake up at six and still come home empty-handed because you’d left it too late would be infuriating.

  He tramped up and down the stalls. Maybe he should try something else. Maybe one of the eels. He stopped in front of the stall. He could do it in aspic with paprika or something. A Spanish-inflected version of jellied eels. That would be good. They’d have to be impressed by that. Marcus peered closer into the beast’s gaping jaw, ringed with tiny sharp teeth.

  He couldn’t help being slightly intimidated by it. It looked complicated. He didn’t have a recipe for eel, and how easy would it be to find one?

  But no, it was too high risk. If you were going to serve people eel, you really couldn’t afford to fuck it up. You’d look ridiculous. Marcus walked on.

  What about some of these other ones? He studied a fat, aggressive-looking fish with a pilot light above its eyes. It lay on its side on top of a crate of smaller, silvery fish as if it had personally landed them all itself.

  But who knew what it would taste like? And what was the point of buying something like that if by the time it was cooked it was basically indistinguishable from cod?

  Some of the stalls were beginning to pack up now, and the waft of rotting stock began to cut through the salty freshness. Marcus twice had to jump back sharply as traders sluiced down the concrete with buckets of water, sending heads, fins and bones skittering towards the drain.

  Marcus did a last tour of the perimeter. If all else failed, he could just get some swordfish. As long as they gave him the sword, it would still look impressive enough.

  Then, in the far corner of the market, Marcus found a man putting six small octopuses into a box. With a small but definite thrill, Marcus saw that they had two rows of suckers running up each tentacle.

  ‘Are these Mediterranean ones?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, mate. Can’t you see their beach towels?’

  Marcus grinned politely. Banter. Right.

  ‘Just as well I didn’t ask anything about double suckers, then!’

  The man stared at him blankly. ‘Do you want them or not?’

  ‘How much is it for one?’

  ‘Six for fifty pounds.’

  ‘But I only want one.’

  ‘It’s bulk here. Six is minimum. Give them to your friends.’

  Marcus looked at the tentacles laid out in the box. Could he freeze them? How often, realistically, would he feel like defrosting an octopus?

  ‘Come on . . . mate,’ Marcus said, tripping over the unfamiliar word. ‘You’re clearing up for the day. You’re not going to sell any otherwise. I’ll take that fat one there.’

  The man sighed. ‘Twenty-five quid for one, then. But hurry up about it.’

  Marcus hesitated. Was that a lot? Should he try to bargain? Was that insulting? Or would the man think he was an idiot if he didn’t haggle? He wished he’d Googled all this etiquette earlier. It was too late to get out his iPhone now.

  ‘That’s a bit steep,’ he said. ‘How about fifteen pounds?’

  ‘Twenty-five, mate. Take it or leave it.’

  Marcus girded himself. The principle was established now. ‘Twenty, then. Split the difference.’

  The man paused, nodded, picked up the octopus and held out his hand. Marcus put a twenty-pound note in it, and the man thrust the octopus at him. It dripped seawater on to the concrete.

  ‘Have you got anything to put it in?’

  The man sighed again, but found a plastic bag, which Marcus wrapped carefully round the octopus before putting it in his canvas tote.

  Walking away from the stall, Marcus swung the bag almost jauntily. The morning was a success. The squelch in his shoe didn’t matter any more, because there was an octopus in his bag. How many other people could say that before eight o’clock on a Saturday morning?

  As planned, Marcus headed for one of the cafés round the edge of the market to reward himself with breakfast. It had plastic tables with plastic chairs bolted to the floor, which normally would have made Marcus leave immediately, but here, he decided, it counted as authenticity. He ordered some strong tea, because he felt he should, and kippers with scrambled eggs. He had been looking forw
ard to this bit too, hoping to be able to say to people in the future: ‘You should try it. It’s London’s version of eating sushi at Tokyo central fish market.’ So even though he actually found the kippers disappointingly greasy, he persuaded himself that this must be because they were so fresh.

  Leaving just under half on his plate and his tea more or less untouched, Marcus went back to the car and drove west. There was a bit more traffic about now, but it was still before nine thirty when he arrived in Finsbury Park.

  He parked the car in a side street and consulted the scrap of paper on which he had written the address. It guided him past a row of off-licences, takeaways and bagel shops on the main road, then along a one-way street opposite the mosque. Marcus stopped outside a battered black door. It was set in a red-brick wall with narrow windows too high to see through. There was no number on the door. Could this be it?

  Marcus consulted the crumpled piece of paper again. L&M Wholesale. 79A. It was in the right place anyway. A Spanish colleague, Angel, had told him about it. They had been talking about the difficulty of finding good tapas in London, and Marcus had said that at least at Asturia you could pick up proper Spanish ingredients to take home. Angel had sniffed. Asturia? Yes, it’s OK, but . . .

  Marcus was mortified to be on the receiving end of a patronizing shrug. But Angel had made up for it by giving him the name of L&M in Finsbury Park. They were wholesalers, didn’t do retail, but if you phoned up and asked nicely, they might let you come round and pick up some ingredients of superb quality at almost Spanish prices. Ever since, Marcus had been itching to try it. He had phoned up on Tuesday to place his order, and a bored and surly man had conceded that he could come by on Saturday morning.

  He stepped up to the door and inspected the bell. L&M, it said, behind a layer of grime. Marcus was delighted. You didn’t get much more authentic than this.

  No one answered for some time. Finally a voice said, ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Marcus Thompson. Here to collect—’

  ‘Hold on,’ the man interrupted.

  Marcus waited on the doorstep. From across the street, a youth in a hoodie eyed him incuriously.

  The door jerked open and an unshaven man in a faded tracksuit gestured at Marcus to come in. He didn’t look very Spanish. The man led him into a tatty office with three battered desks. This wasn’t quite what he was expecting.

  Then the man disappeared. Marcus could hear one of the three elderly computers grinding away under the desk. He sat down on a swivel chair and a strip of foam bulged through a tear in the fabric. Where were the shelves groaning with tempting produce, the legs of jamón dangling from the ceiling?

  The man came back with a single plastic bag.

  ‘That all?’ he asked, with obvious contempt.

  ‘Yes,’ Marcus said.

  The man exhaled loudly. ‘Forty quid,’ he said.

  Marcus peeled off the notes.

  Outside, he inspected the jar of smoked paprika and squeezed the greaseproof packages of ham. They bulged enticingly. Already he was feeling happier. Mentally he began reconfiguring the experience so that the dirty office only underlined that this was not somewhere ordinary customers went. Once he had done this, the man’s rudeness was simply a sign of the efficient way he was used to dealing with busy buyers.

  ‘Farmers’ markets?’ Marcus practised saying in an offhand tone as he returned to the car. ‘Yes, they’re all fine and everything, but if you really want proper high-quality ingredients at reasonable prices these days, you have to go wholesale.’

  The rest of the shopping was pretty routine after that: to the butcher’s to pick up the oxtail and kidneys, then a sweep of the greengrocer’s. He was back home at about the time he normally left the house on a Saturday.

  Marcus drained his coffee and returned to the kitchen worktop full of vigour and purpose. Oxtail next, he thought. Let it simmer for the rest of the day. He tossed the meat in flour and let it stand while he chopped up root vegetables and celery. That done, he browned the meat quickly in the bottom of a big Le Creuset pan, took it out again, and began building up a rich base of braised vegetables, stock and wine. When they had formed a satisfying broth, he put the meat back in, along with a muslin parcel of star anise, orange zest and an array of other spices.

  Soon it was bubbling away nicely on a low heat. For this dish, more than any other, Marcus was hoping someone would ask him where he got the recipe. He wanted the chance to say, ‘This? I adapted it from a Heston Blumenthal one, with some suggestions by Mark Hix. Do you think it works?’

  With the oxtail done, Marcus felt he was making excellent progress. It was time to tenderize the octopus.

  He pulled the creature out of its bag. With the seepage of water it had deflated, and it sprawled, shrunken and grey, on the worktop. Pushing aside the tentacles, Marcus groped tentatively into the hollow of its body. The hard, slimy flesh gave way to something gooier.

  ‘First, turn the octopus inside out,’ the recipe said. Of course. Simple, really. Marcus pushed down on the soft domed head from the outside and tried to force it through the hole in the bottom. The head buckled and then the forces balanced for a moment, until Marcus shoved harder and the creature popped, its head bursting out through the bottom of the body, sending a fine mist of entrails and fat flying across the kitchen.

  Never mind; clear it up later. Marcus carried the octopus carefully to the sink, and began hacking out the internal organs now dangling precariously on the outside.

  It was unpleasant work, particularly scraping off the encrusted deposits of gelatinous yellow fat. But even as he felt his gorge rising, Marcus was grimly satisfied. Cooking did not get much more real than this.

  When he had cut out the eyes, Marcus put his largest pan on to boil and washed the octopus thoroughly. Its top half was looking very battered by now, but that was probably OK. He scooped up the tentacles trailing over the side of the sink and cleaned each one thoroughly, letting them drop into the bowl with eight pleasing thuds.

  When the water in the pan had risen to an angry boil, Marcus hooked the creature with a wooden spoon, raising it up so that the tentacles hung to their full length – almost two feet. Pausing for a second to admire it, Marcus plunged the octopus into the boiling pot.

  The water became suddenly still, and Marcus watched the end of a tentacle moving slowly in the hot eddies below the surface. Gradually, the bubbles returned. When the pot was boiling fiercely again, Marcus reached in with the wooden spoon and some salad tongs, and hauled out the octopus.

  It came out wreathed in clouds of steam, re-inflated and magnificent, the supple skin white under the spotlights. Marcus laid it aside to cool, and when it was lukewarm to the touch he plunged it back in.

  He repeated this several times until the kitchen was full of salty steam. On the fourth go he left it in there, and turned the heat down to a simmer. Happy with his morning’s work, he decided it was time for some lunch.

  ‘. . . And then Dave actually started taking his shirt off on the dance floor,’ Louise said. ‘Everyone was cheering, of course, but he didn’t realize they were taking the piss, so he whipped it off and started whirling it round his head like some sort of arthritic Chippendale.’

  Charlotte started laughing as she raised the cappuccino to her lips.

  ‘So there he was, flab flying, everyone whistling, and someone shouts, “Get ’em off!” And he starts undoing his belt. You could see the faded elastic of his boxers and everything. I swear he would have got completely naked right there if he hadn’t tripped over his own trousers and landed flat on his face. The bouncers had to carry him out.’

  Charlotte snorted into the coffee and felt frothy milk surge up her nose.

  ‘You should have come,’ Louise said as she pushed back her chair. ‘It turned into a pretty good night. Although I do feel terrible today. Do you want to share a muffin when I’m back from the loo?’

  Charlotte wiped the froth away with a napkin and nodded. Louise picked up her h
andbag and headed towards the Ladies’. Charlotte did feel a little disappointed to have missed out. It sounded much better than usual.

  Still, even if she’d missed a good laugh, and spent a dull evening in front of the TV watching an old episode of Inspector Morse, the main aim had been achieved. Charlotte felt great. She had slept for ten hours, and had not the slightest hint of a hangover.

  Shopping with Louise, Charlotte had felt bright and alert, despite the crush on Oxford Street. But Louise, it was obvious, was suffering. Her eyes had that creased and sunken look that Charlotte recognized so well from the mirror. They had bought a couple of tops and Charlotte a pair of burgundy ankle boots before Louise said she had to stop for coffee.

  Charlotte took another sip of cappuccino, keeping it all in her mouth this time. With an empty chair opposite her, she instinctively took out her phone. No calls, no messages, no e-mails. Charlotte kept it out anyway, preferring to fiddle with something rather than stare awkwardly into space while passers-by looked in at her through the window.

  She was even looking forward to dinner at Marcus’s house. No, that was putting it too strongly. But she wasn’t resenting it. After last time, it was going to be entertaining. For her, at least. It would be excruciating for Justin and Barbara. And all the better for that, obviously.

  She almost regretted leaving early last time. She hadn’t really wanted to, but Rosie had insisted she take the first taxi. She had wanted to wait until Matt got back, but there was no way she was going to admit that to Rosie. On the way home, she had sent him a text, but he hadn’t replied.

  What had happened afterwards, though? She had wanted to have a proper gossip with Rosie about it in the office, like they used to, but Rosie didn’t work on Mondays, Charlotte was in meetings all day Tuesday and Wednesday, on Thursday Rosie was ‘working from home’, and Friday was her other day off.

  The thought immediately gave Charlotte something to do with her phone. She snatched it up, found ‘Rosie Mob’ and tapped out a text.

  Did Barbara come back last Sat?

  No. She ddnt come bck at all!