The Chef, the Bird and the Blessing

by Andrew Sharp

  ‘You did the right thing,’ she said, ‘they would have dumped you as soon as they finished their marketing. I know about these things … I’m in marketing.’

  ‘You know, for sure.’

  ‘Look, I’ve spoken to a friend’s father. He owns Plume de Paon —a poncey restaurant in Knightsbridge. He says that if you’re free tomorrow evening you can observe in their kitchen. He says it’ll be an experience for you.’

  ‘It’s a top kitchen?’

  ‘It’s one of the top ten restaurants in London according to Tom Barstow, the celebrity food critic.’

  ‘He’s well known.’

  ‘Oh yeah, very. He’s even been on Strictly. I’m just sorry they’re not giving you a job. Perhaps if you offer to be helpful, something will come of it.’

  My heart kicked. ‘They’re likely!’

  I thumbed up to my bird. I had been vindicated in turning away from Party Places, in refusing to lower my standards and become a kids’ party promotional. I would never accept rock-bottom. At the top restaurant in London I would certainly impress. The dawn would break.

  I thanked Miss Camlyn for not forgetting me and went to enthuse with my akalat and, in truth, I could not sit for runaway excitement but walked back and forward in the narrow gap beside my bed.

  ‘Now that I’ve been gifted opportunity, my destination’s very close. This is it! Super! Sharp-sharp!’ I allowed myself to jabber. I was experiencing the sensation of thrill.

  I texted Dorothea, my hands almost uncontrollable with dignified euphoria. ‘High end kitchen tomorrow! Your faith is rewarded!’

  There was no reply. Perhaps she had run out of credit. Perhaps she was waiting for remuneration. This would surely be forthcoming.

  Chapter 16

  I paraded to the famous London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea attired in my matrimonial suit with a purpose-making bearing, my shoes reflecting the bright and prismatic lights of the beautiful city. I was about to take up that lifetime opportunity in the famous kitchen of my destiny. There are perhaps only three days in a life that are truly exceptional, pivotal and singularly memorable, standing alone above the mundane run of days, and this day would be the most notable of those three. That was for sure.

  Plume de Paon was positioned on a gardened square of stone buildings with tall doors and imperious windows, which would surely stir the public’s respect for a thousand years. A sober-grey dome announced the entrance to the restaurant and a pulpit displayed a glass-protected menu, written in an ancestral font, perhaps with a quilled pen plucked from the fancy fowl that was depicted on the menu, every letter trailing tendrils like a climbing plant.

  Finest Traditional English Cuisine

  The menu presented many delicacies. Breast of Pigeon in Brandy; Great Yarmouth Grilled Bloaters; Cauliflower and Fennel Soup; Lamb Cutlets with Laverbread Cakes; Devonshire Junket; Baked Custard Tart and more. All reassuringly expensive. Yes, they served the ultimate colonist cuisine. I would not find better. The quotes of newspaper pundits were framed on a side stand. A rich and refined banquet; Dining at its most royal; Restores the English food tradition.

  The door was locked and so I pulled politely on the golden tassels of the bell call. In point of veracity, I pulled politely three times before I heard from a discrete speaker by the door, ‘We’re not open until seven, can I help?’

  ‘My name is Chef Mlantushi. I’ve been assigned to your kitchen tonight.’

  I heard him call out, ‘A man at the door says he’s expected this evening. Jeffman Tooshy, or something.’

  Someone shouted back, ‘Oh god, not tonight. Mr Fairbrother mentioned him. Better let him in.’

  A Chef Arthur —a commis chef, he informed me— escorted me through the restaurant, and what a passaging it was. All was deep-buttoned cattle hide, knotted timber panels, gold picture frames as big as rafts displaying dark portraits of pheasant fowl, hunting dogs and horses with proud faces; also Queens with waists as thin as a wasp’s and well-fed button-straining Kings. Velvet curtains waterfalled in royal blue and crown gold and chandeliers made starry constellations above. The tables were draped in white silk and sanctified like high alters by silver candle sticks. The crystal-bright cutlery was hallmarked for sure. Two giant lion heads in black stone guarded each side of the cave-like fireplace where logs glowed behind iron spikes. It was truly a dining environment for monarchs, presidents, heads of states, served by the best chefs in the world, indeed the archbishops of the culinary catechism.

  To avoid any doubt or misunderstanding, I informed Chef Arthur of my top credentials and cited testimonials from my diners, explaining that I had chefed clients who paid five hundred dollars each to eat at my table, including a supplementary guided walk in a local park.

  ‘Very impressive,’ he said, and I agreed.

  When I entered the kitchen, I was arrested in my step and was minded to ask how they had exact-copied my dreams. They had done so without my permission! (This is a jest, of course). All gleamed in stainless steel: the preparation surfaces, shelves, trays, hooks, air extraction, electric sockets, scales. Chefs laboured in whites and strenuously ironed aprons of blue and white stripes, tied with bows.

  ‘This is Jeffman,’ said Chef Arthur to the head chef.

  The head chef pulled a tray of the puddings from Yorkshire from an oven. He hurried with the tray to a surface. ‘If you stand over there you’ll not be knocked over. We’re two chefs down tonight. We’ve a full house. I can’t give you any attention this evening. You’ll just have to watch.’ He shouted, ‘Margery, pastry egged?’

  ‘Yes, chef,’ she shouted back without hesitation. She had watched MasterChef.

  Chef Arthur found me a corner and said, ‘Stand there. I’ve got to move.’

  Another chef shouted, ‘Chef, oven two’s on the blink again.’

  ‘— it! What else will go wrong this evening?’ The head chef went to investigate. ‘I’ll give it a kicking, it worked last time.’

  Standing in the corner, ignored, I was thinking that surely my best lifetime opportunity was at risk of becoming compromised. Would I be invited to cook? To what purpose was the singular day if I did not deliver my dishes? Notwithstanding this, I was like a river bird watching the water without blinking, without motion, imperceptible in breathing. Over the following twenty minutes I noted the locations of every ingredient, implement and plate, the controls for the ovens, grills, hot plates and blast freezer, where the orders would arrive, where the food was plated out. Nothing escaped my sharp and obstinate gaze.

  ‘Chef, we’ve no chestnuts for the stuffing. They’ve not been restocked.’

  ‘— it! I’ll strangle young Harrison.’

  They all sweated too much. They were all of a certain mature and complaining age and I surmised that they had not left that kitchen for decades. They needed me. I had to be bold. I left my corner and stepped up to the plate, so to speak. ‘Head Chef, I can help. I’m also a head chef. I’ve cooked fine cuisine for VIPs. They were kind and honest enough to say—’

  ‘Can’t you see? I’ve no time to supervise you.’ He groaned. ‘Edward, I have a migraine … I’m losing my vision.’

  He staggered and then tripped, dropping a roast loin of pork. It exploded hot fat across the floor.

  The chefs ran to give assistance. ‘You have to go home,’ they said.

  ‘— it. I can’t! Not tonight. I’ll be alright. I’ll lie down for a moment.’ They led him to a door at the back and I heard them resting him down and then they returned to rush, rush, rush, shout, shout, shout. There was much ill-disciplined and unnecessary language in that kitchen. Chopped onions and carrots danced under thrashing knives. Spittle and sweat flew.

  I was rising and falling on my tiptoes to assist. A failed pan was emptied into a bin. The sprouts from Brussels had been left to steam too long. Panic was rising. Chef Arthur conferred urgently wi
th Chef Margery and Chef Edward. Then he came to me.

  ‘Alright, we’re desperate. You’ve been watching. The menu’s up on the wall there. You claim to be good … see what you can do. Get on with it, chef. Then show it me. It better be fantastic. It must capture our traditional and revered style. Don’t deviate from what you’ve seen.’

  At last! All my studies, my experience, my dedication, my unbreakable belief in my destiny were to be tested in a master dish. This was the task of my life, the entrance gate to my final destination. It would indeed be the most memorable day of the three of a lifetime. I felt that I was even acting as the head chef due to the infirmity of the incumbent. I had experienced an exact parallel situation at the start of my career. Had not the chef at the Tom Mbolo Overnight Motel (Cash Only) had to lie down and let me take over when he was incapacitated? And had I not made superlative dishes in the bush in Mr Bin’s kitchen that was only one up from a campfire, the power having to be sparked on, the ingredients hard to source, surrounded by crawling creatures and a bare-footed employer? So I set to with a calm and light heart. It would be a piece of cake in the kitchen of my dreams.

  Whilst the quilled menu was fine in its own paradigm —the glass cabinet outside the front door— my observations of the dishes that the chefs prepared had not inspired me. I would cook instead as if for favourite diners such as Miss Camlyn and Mr Summerberg, for they had been a queen and a king. What was unsurpassed for my VIP guests would certainly be sufficient for the diners of Plume de Paon.

  My main was premeditated to guide the taste buds through multitudinous simultaneous sweet memories, technical complexities and indescribable ecstasies. In a calmly enacted frenzy of motion, I created my dish. Mangetouts, roasted red groundnuts, star anise, caraway seeds, duck breasts, kumquats, red chillies and more, I hardly remember. Heating, cooling, seasoning, slicing … I was in a zone, a trance. The cursing and clatter of the kitchen fell away from me. I was touched by the hand of an Almighty. I was a channel for the pouring out of perfection and glory. I was Master Chef.

  The chief maître, stiff-gaited and attired in black and white like the conceited fowls I had seen in Kensington park, came to the order window.

  ‘Table four’s arrived and Ted Barstow is with them,’ he said fearfully and remorsefully as if breaking news of the loss of a loved one.

  ‘Not tonight, surely,’ said Chef Arthur. As he passed me, he said, ‘He’s the most influential food critic in London, but a right barstow.’

  I was of course delighted. Every star was aligned for great success (although I did not nod to astrology). Mr Barstow was my dream diner. A famous pundit with a discerning palate. I would rehearse the superlatives he would write in the national presses when I got home in the early morning, but now I had work to do.

  The orders came through. The chefs ran about but I completed in calm and without sweat. Still the orders went out from the menu, no one came for my dish. I was about to politely admonish Chef Arthur when the maître came again to the window. His face was as pale and drained of health as skimmed milk.

  ‘Ted Barstow has sent back the main. He says it’s burnt. Incinerated was his specific judgement.’

  ‘Oh — ! It’s that oven two,’ said Chef Arthur. ‘What else is ready? Haricot mutton ready, Margery?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes, chef.’

  I said to Chef Arthur, ‘I’m geared to plate right now. Let’s not delay.’

  Chef Arthur was paralysed, staring at my pans.

  ‘He’s in no mood to wait. What shall I tell him?’ said the maître.

  ‘Kindly inform him that we have a special,’ I said.

  ‘But what is it?’ said Chef Arthur. ‘It’s not on the menu.’

  ‘It’s Breast of Duck with Kumquat and Chilli Marmalade accompanied by Minted Pea and Roasted Red Groundnut Salad. But its presentation and taste will be worth a thousand words.’

  ‘Not on our menu,’ said the maître, eyes sunk in deep woe. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to explain it. His table’s gone quiet. He’s stabbing his fork into the tablecloth with impatience. Even his companions are terrified.’

  ‘If he won’t wait, we’ll have to serve Chef Jeffman’s,’ said Chef Arthur. ‘Tell him it’s on the house. Tell him it was a favourite of Thomas Cromwell’s grandmother.’

  I plated out in one minute thirty and the maître took it, muttering, ‘Oh no, oh god no.’

  I hummed one of Dorothea’s songs of blessing to myself.

  For dessert I created orange pistachio pastries, soaking the oranges first in Amaretto before mixing pistachios, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom in a particular and necessary sequence with aerations and blanchings to cause the receiving tongue to linger in intoxications and ravishments, past lovers brought to mind. I baked the pastry squares in oven number one until a light golden in colouration, in layers as thin as gold leaf and dipped in maple syrup, orange albedo and nuts. I scattered the completed creation with fresh shredded mint leaves.

  When the desert orders came through, I was ready and already plating. The head chef reappeared from his lie down, recovered somewhat. He came to my plates.

  ‘What are you playing at?’ he said.

  ‘It tastes heavenly, sir chef. It’s a big deal with VIP diners.’

  He put his hand to his forehead as if I had recurred his migraine. ‘That’s not a Plume de Paon dish. Bin it!’

  ‘But—’ said Chef Arthur.

  ‘Bin it! I’m not having our reputation trashed.’ He regarded my dish as if I had plated a Safari Cub menu from Party Places. Lion Claw Nibbles or Tiger Tasties. ‘It’s horribly gaudy.’

  ‘But Barstow—’

  ‘It’s voguish, it’s fashion conscious, it’s upstart. It’s too … frivolous.’

  ‘But Barstow—’ pleaded Chef Arthur.

  ‘Offer Barstow our traditional vanilla ice cream with grilled peach. On the house. Who let this amateur cook loose in the kitchen of the great Plume de Paon?’

  He snatched up a spoon and scooped up a corner of my dish, his hand shaking. He tasted. Surely he would be blown away, he would be silenced, he would drop to his knees in apology. He would offer to employ me. I had poured my very soul into that desert.

  No, he gagged. He lifted a tea towel and wiped his tasting into it. ‘Vomitable!’

  I remembered the sicking bird that had troubled Miss Camlyn. My dish tasted of gizzard food?

  He scrubbed his lips clean and turned to me. ‘You’ve got a — cheek, Jeffman, after I ordered you to stay out the way. There’s no excuse. Four hundred years ago I’d have petitioned to send you to the tower.’

  There was a hush in the kitchen at his words and clandestine glances over the beating of the creams and the stirring of the sauces. There also came a bottomless hole in my heart into which my only chance and my grand hopes slid. I excused myself in a somewhat high voice and departed, exiting the kitchen of my dreams, passing through the high-end-dining where those who noticed me gave me a hard stare as if I alone was responsible for their unfortunate dinner.

  A thin rain smeared my shoes on the long walk back to my room through the abandoned, cold, slimy city suburbs; their closed curtains and doors as unseeing as shut eyelids. Crossing a road, I almost collided with a late-night bus that loomed as big as an elephant and splashed me as it passed. I tried not to dwell yet on what had transpired that evening. Nobody should howl out in a public location. No one should howl like a lost soul falling into a bottomless abyss. I would wait until I got to my room where I might utilise a smothering pillow if I lost control of my vocals. How had I come to this, that I planned how to release feeling without dignity? To lose decorum. It was surely because of this: I had been butchered in the beautiful kitchen. Was it my father who had said, It’s only a stupid goat that rejoices at going to a beautiful abattoir?

  Chapter 17

  The dimly lit entrance h
all to Lochview with its dark textured wallpaper was a grave with pitted and eroded walls from which I would never escape. But I was mistaken. Post awaited me on the desk. I took it with automatic hands and opened the envelope as I wearied up the stairs. It was a ‘Dear Mr Tushi’ letter from Party Places, Going Places. I was directed to check out of the guesthouse by said date, which I noted was that very next day. They had additionally reissued my return air ticket, giving me a replacement for two days’ time, with no provision for the interim. It was signed by Company Accounts. There were no felicitations.

  Despite the forthcoming accommodation difficulty, it was in no way centre-mind. I sat feeble-bodied on the end of the bed in the brown gloom of the room’s economy light bulb, close to my bird, with my head near the cage bars so that we could converse in confidence, one to one. This was a private matter, but my bird had what I imagined was, by public convention, the qualities of a friend, namely discretion and a propensity to listen without prejudice. It would not blab to anyone; of that I was sure.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb your sleep,’ I said, ‘but I beg your ear. I must speak veracity to you … my akalat.’

  I needed to logic and in small steps so as not to come to an irrational conclusion.

  ‘These are the facts. Number one: I endeavoured to help. Number two: I enacted my uttermost. Three: I thought my dishes superlative. Four: my creations were not appreciated.’ The bird still listened. ‘Why?’ I could hardly verbalise the next logic. ‘They were not good enough. I was not good enough. Yes, my dishes were only fit to be sicked-up for birds.’

  The bird did not catastrophise or get excitable to hear the worst. It stayed calm. ‘This then is the conclusion of my analytic. I’m not a high-end chef.’

  I heard Mr Makata’s nonchalant opinion. ‘Potato scrubber. Sandwich cutter.’

  The next logic was not easily discovered. It required the knight’s move of a chess master and the intuition of a solver of a mathematical theorem.

  ‘If I’m not a high-end chef … then I’ve been living an illusion. A fantasy. Yes, living a fantasy.’