by Con Riley
“This is nice,” he said, lifting his camera and checking the light before he took some shots. “Very nautical.” He moved some of the seafaring objects that Lou had used as decoration. “That blue is a lovely contrast.” He tugged at the fabric Jude had placed at the end of the huge bed. “It’s the same colour as the sky out of the window.” He stood, considering before saying. “Come here.” Before Jude knew it he was shaking the sarong out over and over while Ian took photos of the fabric spilling from his fingers.
“You sure you want me in these photos?”
“Might as well showcase your business’ best assets.” Jude frowned, so he added clarification. “If Guy writes a review, a lot of readers will get to see that the Anchor has some eye candy.”
Eye candy? Jude couldn’t help laughing. “Me? You should photograph my boy—” Flustered, he quickly changed course. “I mean, my business partner.”
Ian ignored Jude’s last sentence. Instead, he revisited his first one. “So you finally hooked up?” Ian took some shots from the window, making sure the pub sign was in view with the harbour behind it. He said, “I could see he had the hots for you during the contest,” oblivious to Jude reeling at how easily he’d almost applied the boyfriend label to Rob.
Jude led the way to Louise’s old room. “I guess you could say that he’s persistent.”
“Persistent enough to find out why you bailed on the contest?” Ian took a couple more shots before walking farther down the hallway. “Why did you?” he asked, his hand on the latch to Jude’s parents’ bedroom door.
“Not in there,” Jude warned, tone much sharper than was maybe needed. Ian held up his free hand in supplication. “Sorry….” Jude raked a hand through his hair. “That room isn’t for customers.” His voice lowered as he took the latch in his own hand for the first time since returning. “It’s my parents’ room.” When Ian only let out a small sound of interest, Jude found himself continuing, the door creaking as he unlatched it. “I bailed on the contest because they….” Beyond the doorway, his parents’ bedroom looked just as they left it, a riot of colour and knick-knacks, every surface cluttered. “They were lost at sea.”
“Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—”
“I didn’t exactly stick around long enough to explain. Getting home from London, and then going to look for them seemed a lot more important. I only got home a few weeks ago. I didn’t recognise the place.” Compared to the other bedrooms, this one was a chaotic muddle that Jude drank in, crossing to his mum’s dressing table to pick up her perfume bottle. His inhale was staggered—his mum so present in scent form that he didn’t catch the click of the camera shutter or Ian’s next question. “I-I’m sorry. What was that?” he turned just as Ian took another photo.
“I said,” he repeated, his tone so much softer than Jude could deal with while maintaining eye-contact. “Did you find them? Your parents?” Maybe Jude’s silence was enough of an answer. “I am sorry,” Ian said quietly before tagging on another question. “So how come Rob ended up here after winning? I thought he was set on taking over the Martin empire.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“From his dad. Several times. Right the way through the contest. He’d tell anyone who’d listen.”
Jude didn’t explicitly answer. “Rob’s been amazing,” was all he said aloud. “I didn’t expect to find him here when I got back,” he said, honest as he added, “Now I can’t imagine this place without him. He’s been so generous to both me and my sister.”
“Generous?”
“Yeah, with his time, and frankly, with his money.”
“The prize from the contest? But that wasn’t exactly a life-changing amount, was it?”
“Maybe not to you,” and in truth no more than a few months’ rent and start-up costs for a city restaurant. “But it stopped this place from going under.” He said what he’d thought so often lately. “He gives and gives and gives and doesn’t expect much back, to be honest.”
“Maybe that’s what you do when you’re in love?” Ian wondered. “Give when your partner needs it.”
“I wouldn’t know about love.” For some reason, Jude’s heart pounded. “But I do know he must be downstairs in the kitchen right now waiting for your boyfriend’s lunch order. You been together for long?”
“Ages. He’s it for me, but he’s always so busy…” Ian was rueful. “Deadlines. Comes with the territory. And social media. It takes up so much of his headspace. Not sure he’s got enough room left for me, long-term.”
They left the bedroom together just as Louise crested the top of the staircase looking stricken. “What’s the matter?” It must’ve been bad news; she didn’t even seem to notice that Jude wasn’t alone, Ian standing just behind him.
“He doesn’t want Rob’s signature dish.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think?” she almost shouted before gathering herself and saying, “That bloody critic.”
Maybe Ian was used to hearing Guy described so baldly. He slipped past them both and headed downstairs, leaving Jude with his sister more angry than he’d ever witnessed. “He won’t eat it?” Lou shook her head. A tear of frustration slipped free. He held her by both shoulders. “Tell me exactly what he said.”
Louise was furious, or maybe desperate; her hands shook as she dashed away another tear. “He said, ‘If I wanted to eat second-rate food, I could have stayed in London.’”
Second-rate food?
Surely he had to be joking. Jude hadn’t kept up with the contest, but to win, Rob must have cooked his heart out. Second-rate food would never have cut it.
Louise continued before he could protest, and yes, it was desperation rather than rage that next seeped out, dripping like the tears she wiped at. “Jude, he says if he isn’t served something prize-winning in the next hour, he’ll tell everyone not to come here. He wants exactly what Rob cooked to win the contest, down to the last detail.”
Her voice cracked.
“But Rob says he can’t do it.”
21
Jude had taken the stairs up to the bedroom two at a time, but he descended so much faster, feet barely making contact as he lurched forward, intent on getting to the kitchen. He only paused for a second at the bar doorway, catching sight of a happy tableau so far from his sister’s distress that he almost faltered.
How could Guy Parsons sit there as though nothing had happened, smiling as Susan showed him photos on her phone?
How could he tip his head back to let out a bark of laughter after declining Rob’s best effort?
Jude took a step back rather than interrupt the man who now listened as Susan spoke in hushed tones, his too-long hair falling across a forehead that creased as if affected by her story, his mouth a moue of concern that could pass for genuine if he weren’t actually a huge arsehole. Of course, Ian taking some candid photos of him looking human for his column was his driver.
There was no point in insisting he try the food that Rob had worked so hard over; no currency in demanding. If there was any way to salvage this one chance to save the Anchor, he’d have to let it wash over his head rather than reacting.
He heard his dad’s voice then, as clear as if he stood beside him, teaching him how to survive in deep water. He’d thrown him and Louise into the harbour over and over as kids telling them not to fight the current, and to save their energy for what really mattered. Only this time, instead of their mum sitting on the harbour steps, cheering each time he and Lou broke surface, all he saw was the hallway clock—ten minutes gone already from Guy Parsons’ feed-me-excellence deadline.
Take a deep breath, his dad had ordered.
Tom’s voice was another remembered whisper.
It doesn’t matter if clients act entitled. Your job is to make each plate look priceless.
He could do that, he knew, after months of rich, demanding clients.
He could bend to Guy Parsons wild whims, even if Rob couldn’t.
Rob
had his back turned when Jude pushed into the kitchen, a plate of food cooling on the bench beside him. “What’s wrong with it,” Jude asked, brusque, already tying on his mother’s apron. He yanked the plate his way, inspecting each component. The sauce was butter-rich and glossy, the meat a pink shade of perfection. He leant over it and sniffed the base notes of fresh herbs and garlic with a top layer of truffle, flecks of it speckling the edge of the bone-white china. “What did he say when you served him? What didn’t he like about it?”
Rob said nothing for a long second. His confession was reluctant. “He hasn’t even seen it.”
“Why not?” Jude dragged his gaze away from a meal that looked more than good enough, in his opinion, to see that Rob’s hands were fisted, knuckles as white as the serving dishes he’d picked up at auction. Was he panicking right now, imagining that everything in this kitchen would end up at the same destination, his pots and pans getting snapped up for pennies, if Guy’s review was scathing?
That wasn’t going to happen.
The Anchor had survived one storm already, lost her first crew in another. What she needed right now was someone trained to hold their breath and then come up swimming.
“Rob,” he barked. “What is it that he wants exactly?”
“Th-the dish I cooked to win the contest.” He still didn’t make eye contact.
Jude pushed the plate back towards him, exasperated. “Well go and give it to him then, for fuck sake. No point it getting cold in here if this is exactly what he ordered.”
Rob didn’t move a muscle. Jude took another deep breath. “Either you take it out to him, or—” he looked over his shoulder for Louise, but they were alone in the kitchen. “Or I will. This is what he asked for, right? We practised together, so I know this is exactly what you cooked in the final.” He dipped a spoon into the saucepan and tasted. “It’s good, so he can’t slate it. It’s already won one contest.”
“It didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
Outside, the hallway clock struck the half-hour.
In the kitchen, Rob turned oh-so-slowly to face him. “Win.”
“What?” Jude struggled to make sense. “Rob…?” Forming the right question was impossible while Rob looked wretched, pale when his cheeks should be heat-flushed. Rob pulling his phone from his trouser pocket didn’t make anything clearer.
“Look,” Rob slid the phone along the stretch of counter between them.
“At what? Why?”
“Please.” At last, Rob met his eye for the briefest of moments. “Please, just look.”
Jude picked up the phone and did as Rob asked, scrolling through a photo album showing a very familiar dish, the meal Jude had planned to cook for the contest final that he hadn’t turned up for, already far from London by then. “Did you take a photo of one of our practice runs?” He zoomed in. “Hang on. This isn’t how I plated it.”
“No.” Rob’s swallow was audible. “It’s how I did.”
“When?” Jude repeated the question. “When, Rob?”
“During the contest. The final,” he said hoarsely. “This is what I served the judges.”
“You cooked my dish.” Jude floundered, gaze darting between the phone and the plate that now sat on the counter, cooling. There was no way of mistaking Jude’s simple sea bass dish for Rob’s flashy creation. “You served mine instead of your own?”
Rob’s nod came with another quick swallow.
“Why?”
Rob’s head shake was just as swift, a flush now staining his throat, crawling upwards so fast Jude could track its scarlet progress.
Jude put down the phone before he succumbed to the urge to throw it. He shoved it too hard instead, ignoring Rob’s wince as it slid close to the bench edge. “This is what he’s waiting for, out there? Why didn’t you— Fuck it. I haven’t got time for this.” Jude broke off and crossed the kitchen, yanking open the huge fridge.
Carl’s gift of that morning might be their lifeline.
“Jude? I can explain.” Rob sounded shakier than Jude had ever heard him, but he had too much to process right then to answer. If he tried to they’d all drown, Guy leaving before they had a chance to wow him.
“Jude,” Rob repeated as Jude lumped the crate over to the sink, already weighing up which fish to fillet, and yes, thank God, there was some samphire and mussels.
“Please—”
Jude couldn’t look directly at him. He thrust the samphire in Rob’s direction. “Wash this, then wash it again. Make sure to get all the grit off.” He plucked mussels out of the crate too. “Tell me we still have fish stock.”
“Yes.”
Jude closed his eyes. “Then it’s not hopeless.”
“You’re gonna cook for him?”
“No.” He pulled a filleting knife from the magnetic strip on the wall. It flashed in the bright new lights Rob had fitted. “I mean, yes, of course, I’m gonna cook, but I’m doing it for Lou.” He took a breath, breaking the surface of his confused anger. “And for Carl and Susan.” Their acceptance felt precious; brand new and fragile, and he was so grateful for it. He sliced careful and quick, the flesh of the sea bass white with a faint pink tint as he lifted it away in one piece. Perfect. “Get some pans on the heat. Start a white-wine reduction. Enough for three portions.”
Rob worked beside him in dead silence, apart from a quiet “Ah,” when Jude fried off dried dulse, red seaweed flavouring the oil before he laid down each fillet. He fetched the rest of the ingredients without speaking, passing him a bottle of brandy. For once, he kept his cognac jokes to himself, head down as Jude added a splash to his pan. He only said, “These are ready,” when the mussels opened their shells to reveal their tender insides.
Jude felt just as stripped bare.
Louise arrived, fresh makeup a poor coat of armour that strengthened once she saw what Jude had produced. Her back straightened as she took two plates. “If he turns his nose up at this, I’ll push him into the harbour.” She inclined her head at the third plate. “Could you bring that one, Rob? I never mastered carrying more than two at a time.”
Rob hesitated.
“Go on.” Jude piled pans in the sink, back turned to them both. “I’ll need to finish up here.” Water splashed the front of his apron when he turned on the tap, but Jude didn’t notice. He was too lost in thought, wondering what the hell had just happened.
22
Jude’s thoughts didn’t settle as he cleared down. Everywhere he turned, evidence of Rob was right there, impossible to get away from. The fridge held a tray of desserts Jude knew would taste delicious, the last of his mother’s blackberries stewed into dark-red glossy sweetness in a jug beside them, showing just how hard Rob listened.
That was the man Jude knew—thoughtful and creative—not someone who’d need to steal ideas to win a cooking contest.
The plate of Rob’s food congealed under the light of the warmer.
It was good enough to win too, so why had he cheated?
Cheat was a strong word that didn’t ring true, Jude acknowledged knee-deep in confusion that kept on rising, flooding him with questions. Why hadn’t Rob told him that he’d copied his final menu? And what would he have done if Jude had stayed in London? Served the same meal as him?
Who would the judges have believed came up with it first? An unknown who’d learned to cook in a pub kitchen, or the son of an established restauranteur with Michelin stars to his name?
A strand of doubt tugged at him—was stealing his ideas the sole reason Rob had paid him any attention in the first place?
That didn’t ring true either.
Louise backed into the kitchen with a pile of clean plates. “You smashed it!” Her eyes sparkled without tears, this time.
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yes. I think we’re safe.” She placed the dishes by the sink. “He wants to speak to you. He can’t stop smiling.”
“Rob?” Was he out there acting happy after keeping this truth from t
hem, and coming so close to dropping them all in it?
Lou set him straight before the spark of anger could flare any brighter. “No, the critic, silly. Guy,” she said as if he was a friend instead of someone who could tank the Anchor. “He didn’t even pretend to turn his nose up, so I don’t know why Rob’s still looking so worried.”
“He looks worried?”
“You know,” Louise said as she wiped water droplets from the front of his apron, “you can just keep repeating what I say like a parrot, or you can go dig Rob out of the hole he’s digging. I don’t know if he’s grasped that every word he’s saying is being recorded—”
The kitchen door swung closed behind Jude before she finished speaking. When he got to the snug bar, Rob’s back was to him, and if Guy Parsons saw him in the doorway, he didn’t give any indication, simply nodding as Rob spoke, and asking a pointed question.
“So you’re telling me that wasn’t your recipe in the first place? You didn’t think passing it off as your own like that was dishonest?”
“I didn’t much care, to be honest. I just knew that I….” Rob blew out his breath in a long gust. The candle at the centre of their table flickered. “You know how it is when you do your job day after day and it’s okay, it’s fine, but then you meet someone who knocks you out of the rut you’ve been ploughing without even trying? They’re so good at what they do, you race to keep up with them?”
Guy Parsons’ gaze flicked in Ian’s direction before returning to Rob. He peered down his long nose, haughty. “I might. But that doesn’t mean I’d pass off his work as mine.” That judgemental look was gone for only a moment, just long enough for him to sound honest. “No one would believe it; Ian has far more talent.”
Ian ducked his head over his camera, but not before Jude saw the surprised curl of his smile.
“So does Jude,” Rob said. “Have more talent than me, I mean. And it blows me away how well he works under pressure. But when I found out why he left…” He shook his head. “It wasn’t fair for me to win when his food was so much better. Everything on his menu was about his connection with this place. About his home. He put his heart and soul on a plate. Everything on mine… well, it’s what my dad suggested.”