Songs from the Violet Cafe

by Fiona Kidman

  And when she told her, the woman looked pleased in a way Jessie couldn’t read. John, the young man in the apron, took Jessie’s suitcase as if she were a hostage.

  ‘Give her something to eat,’ Violet instructed him, and turned back to her reservations book as if there were nothing further to discuss.

  ‘This is the kitchen,’ John said. Pristine counters gleamed in two rows before her. A large pot simmered on the stove. On one side, the food preparation had begun, little mounds of uncooked ingredients stacked side by side in china bowls: potatoes pared of their skins, mushrooms with their spiny hearts gutted and open, staring at the ceiling with their one vacant eye, a satin-red capsicum and moss-like mounds of parsley and thyme. In a separate glass bowl she saw what looked like three lumps of coal covered in warts.

  Gently touching one of these, John said, ‘One of the rarest ingredients in the world, pity they’re so ugly.’ He lifted the lid of the pot. ‘See this chicken, it’s got morsels of them packed under its skin. We’ll serve this chicken cooled a little as an entrée, with a touch of mayonnaise.’

  ‘What are those things?’

  ‘Truffles.’

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  He touched the side of his nose with his finger and gave a little whinny of laughter. ‘That’s the secret. You’d have to ask the pigs. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’

  It was true, of course, she didn’t understand a thing. This sweet-looking funny young man, with his slightly bookish way of speaking, made no sense to her at all.

  ‘Truffles are a type of little fungus that grows underground on the roots of oak trees. They smell very strong, like perfume I think, although you might disagree. The farmers use pigs to smell them out when they’re ripe. You send a sow after them, and the smell of a black truffle is the same as that of a boar, so the sow goes on heat when she’s looking for truffles, wondering where her lover is hiding.’

  ‘So they’re under just any old oak trees?’ She did know about truffles. Third-year French, after you’d learnt the nouns and the grammar. There was no harm in having him on a little too.

  ‘Oh no. Not at all.’ He looked alarmed and evasive, as if he had given away far too much. ‘Truffles come from France. Mrs Trench lived in France and Italy, so she has European ideas about cooking — not that the peasants round here have a clue. We have to cater for everyone in this backwater.’

  ‘But you’ve got truffles all the same.’

  ‘Tins,’ he said, ‘Mrs Trench’s father was in tin canning. About the dishes — that’s what Belle does, washes dishes — it’s a complicated job. You have to have enough pans ready when we cook. It’s not the plates that matter most, the customers can wait a few minutes but the cook must have four pans on the go at once, and soon you’ll need even more. I’m in charge of the kitchen here.’ He stopped, correcting himself. ‘Hester and I, that is.’ Jessie sensed reluctance, as if he would rather be in sole charge. ‘I can’t take it if there aren’t enough pans. They’re the top priority, you understand.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good, I can’t cook without them. Will some scrambled eggs do?’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. The sense of having been captured was growing stronger. He led her back into the restaurant, showing her a seat. Something filmy clung to him, the smell of garlic and a feeling of heat. Jessie had never been in love though she had thought of love’s possibilities. Only, whenever she did, she thought of her mother and felt desolated. Her mother had once told to her that she was not to worry if she didn’t get married. You’re clever, darling, that will see you through.

  Jessie took the table beside the window John had taken her to, and gazed out at the darkening lake. While she waited for her food, she looked at a menu, even though she hadn’t been offered one:

  Soup of the day

  Entrées

  Foie de Volaille au Beurre

  Chicken livers delicately sautéed in butter

  Fritot de Cervelles

  Fritters made of brains marinated in lemon juice, cooked in a pale ale batter

  Quiche au Crabe

  A delicately flavoured crab quiche

  Mains

  Fish of the Day

  Tournedos Henry iv

  Fillet steak served with sauce béarnaise, accompanied by French fried potatoes and salad

  Escalopes a la Crème

  A melt in the mouth veal fillet, served with cream and flaming brandy

  Coq au vin

  Violet especially recommends this classic chicken dish, made with mushrooms and tiny onions.

  We use only the finest cognac

  Desserts

  Crème Brulée

  It speaks for itself, ours is incomparable

  Tarte Framboise

  Please do not ask our waiting staff for wine.

  Sadly, it is illegal to sell alcohol on these premises. C’est Nouvelle Zélande. Bon appétit.

  It seemed that one must be in the know to ask for truffles.

  CHEFS

  John had propped open the swing door between the kitchen and the dining room, so that he could see the girl. She was like an awkward gazelle, and he found himself liking her without knowing why.

  From the moment he began working here, John felt he fitted into the Violet Café. He felt half in love with the woman who employed him, although he couldn’t explain this to himself, didn’t understand why he liked to be near her. It was important that he pleased her because she was the best thing that had happened to him so far. She treated him more like a business partner than her cook. The business had grown from two or three of them, including Hester, to a staff of six. There were days when he wondered whether Violet hadn’t let the business become too big, because the girls who worked there were a lot to handle. But difficult rebellious girls were the kind Violet seemed to like having around her, as if she could mould them into something different.

  And, looking out of the shadowy kitchen, he guessed that Jessie was about to be subjected to the same kind of makeover, although Violet would have been more inclined to describe it as a chance to make the best of herself. Something more than physical appearance, a remoulding of the spirit, as had happened to him when he came to work for Violet. Now that he’d been remade though, he’d begun to wonder whether all his life would be spent cooking at the Violet Café. He didn’t want admit to his sense of restlessness but, just lately, in the moments before sleep, a question had been flashing through his brain. What happens next?

  She’s too gullible, John thought, engulfed by a wave of tenderness for the girl with her pale face and freckles, her wrinkled tan hair. She needs someone to look after her.

  This was the moment when Jessie might have got up and left, when she could have gone to the kitchen and demanded that her suitcase be handed over at once, and turned and gone back the way she had come. But already she knew that she didn’t want to go back. It was the moment, too, for John to return with a dish of scrambled eggs, sprinkled with croutons, and a small yellow glazed bowl of salad. He placed a glass beside her plate and half-filled it with golden wine, poured from a china teapot. She felt a thrill, a frisson of something illegal. When he laid the food on the table, John’s fingers looked like bamboo stems. The scrambled eggs were stained with some unidentifiable flecks, the texture of mushrooms. Each mouthful was accompanied by a scent, like nuts, or musk, perhaps like vanilla, or again, something darker and earthier, more like buried rubbish, which would have made her recoil had she not been so ravenous. She felt dreamy, as if she had been drugged. You heard of things happening to girls when they went travelling. Carefully she sipped the cold unaccustomed wine; it ran like a sweet riff beneath her breast bone.

  ‘You like that?’ asked John, hovering over her. Shouldn’t he have been out in the kitchen?

  ‘It tastes strange,’ she said, ‘not like scrambled eggs.’

  ‘Les truffaux. They smell sexy, don’t they?’ His accent wasn’t French, but not exactly K
iwi either. Each word was perfect, yet sly with long vowels, as if he were mimicking language itself.

  ‘You mean I’m eating those black things?’ Although of course she knew without asking.

  He laughed, a high sound in the back of his throat. ‘I fancy you,’ he said. ‘You’ll die of love for me before the night’s out. You need to get ready for work or you’ll have Mrs Trench on your back. You always call her Mrs Trench. Always.’

  As she stood, Jessie felt a wave of nausea and for a moment the room swam. It felt as if John was poking fun at her, yet she couldn’t be sure.

  Marianne and Evelyn, and Hester the other cook, arrived in that order, one by one. Jessie thought Marianne might be about her own age, with skin that appeared transparent and sharply etched cheekbones. She dug her hands into the pockets of a wide flowing black skirt with black and gold flowers embroidered all over it; she carried a bag slung casually over her shoulder, her chin slightly tilted.

  ‘Right on time tonight, Marianne,’ said Violet Trench, with a note of approval. Jessie supposed immediately that Marianne was her favourite — you could tell who the bosses liked. But Violet’s pleasure contained a reproach as well. ‘I do wish you’d get changed before you come.’

  Marianne disappeared through a door and reappeared a few moments later, wearing a dark green waitress’s dress, partly obscured by a green and white checked apron. She still looked beautiful, her waist tiny beneath her heavy breasts, her hips swaying in a way that struck Jessie as insolent.

  Evelyn was already wearing her uniform when she arrived. This girl had such black hair that there was something almost swarthy about her. Her dark glittering eyes showed no sign of welcome. She acknowledged Violet by raising one eyebrow, so thick and straight it might have been a man’s, as if she didn’t really belong in this place.

  The last to arrive — for the time being at least — was Hester, a woman of indeterminate age, although her moist face was youthful at first glance. She was the younger of the two women from the bookshop.

  Hester bustled through the café, brushing her hair behind her ears, her face pink and fraught.

  ‘Hester, meet Jessie, our new dish-washer.’

  ‘Where’s Belle?’

  John shrugged. ‘Vamoose. Who knows?’

  Hester studied Jessie, a tired frown resting between her eyes. She gave no indication of having seen Jessie before, except for a puzzled flicker of recognition, but yet Jessie felt that in the space of an hour or two, she had moved into another world where she was already known and knew others. Hester spoke past Jessie, as if she wasn’t there. ‘Mrs Trench won’t get rid of Belle that easily.’

  ‘You could say mercy is in short supply,’ said John and laughed, another of his curious high musical peals.

  Hester looked pained, finally acknowledging Jessie’s presence. ‘You can wash dishes, can you? I mean, you have had experience?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jessie.

  ‘You have to polish everything, not just a rub and a swipe.’

  ‘Plenty of clean pans,’ Jessie said.

  ‘Exactly’ Hester wiped her arm across her forehead, displaying a wet armpit. She seemed reassured.

  ‘You’ll have to roll up your sleeves,’ said Marianne. Hester had immersed herself in a conversation with John, their heads bent over a list, John speaking rapidly, as they planned the specials for the night, and about something else that made them lower their voices. ‘You do get your hands wet,’ Marianne added. There was a touch of malice in the way she spoke, a sort of anticipatory glee as if she foresaw Jessie’s downfall. Marianne and Evelyn adjusted their waitresses’ uniforms and straightened their curved caps. In the café beyond, the sound of voices rose as people greeted one another and chairs were pulled back, then moved into place. The staff in the kitchen stood poised with an air of readiness. This was the moment Belle chose to come racing in the door, fair ponytail askew, her prominent blue eyes frantic. ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ She threw her jacket over a hook.

  Hester spoke to her with a mixture of relief and reproof. ‘What are you doing here, Belle? I heard you were sick.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘Your mother,’ John said.

  Belle blinked rapidly. ‘Why does she do this to me?’

  ‘Because she thinks you shouldn’t be here,’ said Evelyn, who had hardly spoken a word to anyone. ‘She doesn’t think you should be down in the muck with people like us.’ Her tone was sarcastic and mocking, as if she believed what she said, but not about herself.

  ‘She thinks we might defile you,’ Marianne said. ‘Belle’s a Christian, you know,’ she added, for Jessie’s benefit. ‘She should pray for her job, don’t you reckon?’

  ‘No,’ whispered Belle, ‘she wouldn’t do that to me.’

  ‘I’ll pray for you. Lord have mercy upon us,’ Marianne cried, throwing herself into a dramatic swoon on the floor, one hand trailing across the bench above her. ‘La belle dame sans merci.’

  Hester’s hand flew up to cover her smile. ‘Stop it all of you. The point being, who is going to do the dishes, Belle or Jessie?’

  Violet’s face appeared at the door. Marianne scrambled to her feet, less gracefully than she had fallen. ‘I can hear you in the café,’ Violet said. ‘The first person who speaks another unnecessary word this evening can leave at once. I mean it. Hester, I thought you had more control over the staff.’

  Hester flushed deeply. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Trench. Ma’am.’

  The room had gone quiet; the tension in the air was so palpable it felt as if something would break. Violet’s eyes settled on Jessie. ‘The girl I was going to interview tomorrow can’t come. I’ll try you out as a waitress. If you drop anything in a customer’s lap, I’ll dock your pay.’

  Jessie collected herself. This was her last employer’s trick — a little intimidation, a threat, the prospect of a shattered treasure on the floor reaping punishment. Miss Early had called her clumsy so often that she had come to think it must be true. The atmosphere in the room deepened. Jessie guessed that if she said no, that she was leaving, they would all suffer Violet’s wrath. Much later, when she believed that her life was entwined with that of Violet Trench, she would think these were acts of protection. In all the times she would recall that scene in her head, she never remembered a phone ringing, or someone coming into the café to speak to Violet. So she couldn’t think how Violet might have received a message in those few frozen moments. But then in that dreamy haze, an evening spent somewhere between her appalled astonishment at her flight from home, and fascination with her new surroundings, anything could have happened. She would learn, through something like osmosis, the way Violet held young women in the palm of her hand, and the power she had to make a difference in their lives.

  For a moment, Belle’s desperation, as she stood quivering beside the bench, infected everyone in the kitchen.

  ‘I guess experience costs,’ Jessie said.

  She did, she told herself, have a brand-new life.

  ‘Give her a uniform, Hester, if you’ve got one long enough, and a cap,’ Violet said, when barely a beat had passed between her and Jessie. ‘As for you, Marianne, you’re behaving like a child. Get out there and take some orders. You’re on a last warning.’ She turned and walked back into the café. Belle tipped soap flakes into a stream of running water.

  Hester took a uniform from a folded pile at the end of the bench and threw it to Jessie. ‘We’ve got a table for eight coming, they’ll all want their orders served at once. Marianne and Evelyn will take those — you can do the small orders. We’ve got a special guest coming tonight. He’s a friend of Mrs Trench, her oldest friend in the world. It’s his eighty-fifth birthday. He has a seat by the window overlooking the lake, the one you were sitting at when I came in. He’s patient, he won’t mind if you take a little while. All the same, everything must be done exactly right.’

  Evelyn reappeared from the café. ‘I don’t want to do table six,’ she said to Hester.

>   ‘Neither do I,’ said Marianne at almost the identical moment, holding a sheaf of dockets from her first orders.

  ‘Why?’ said Hester.

  ‘My father’s out there.’ Evelyn’s enigmatic face faltered for the first time.

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ snapped Hester. ‘He’s usually here.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Evelyn said in a hopeless way.

  ‘Poor Evelyn, always misunderstood,’ Marianne said, almost too softly to be heard.

  ‘But my mother’s out there too, at table nine.’

  ‘Girls,’ said Hester, ‘haven’t you had enough warnings for one night? You’ll go where you’re told.’

  ‘God’s truth,’ said Marianne.

  Belle said then that Marianne shouldn’t talk about God like that. Now that she was elbows deep in suds she seemed to have recovered. Her prominent eyes had acquired confidence since Violet’s intervention. Out in the café, the noise level was rising. Marianne offered Evelyn an awkward hug, as if to say she was sorry.

  AUTHORS

  Outside, dark had fallen, blotting out all but a shimmer over the lake; inside, creamy lamps had been switched on. The café was full of humming life; to Jessie it looked like the set of a movie, full of people in a foreign place where everyone on the set spoke the language, but those off stage could only stand and watch.

  ‘Could you start taking orders?’ Marianne said urgently. ‘Is that woman off her head?’ Referring to Violet Trench. ‘You don’t have a clue, do you, Jessie? Did Hester tell you the specials?’