Splat. A half-pint of Coca-Cola flew through the air and caught him on the left temple. As he turned to see who had inflicted this humiliation on him, another measure of lager flew from behind and washed the back of the dinner jacket he’d worn on from some fools’ dinner or other. Madeleine Bethany, caught in the crossfire, had retreated from harm’s way and was dabbing at her dress.
Then Harriet started to laugh. Grabbed me by the arm and pointed, blatantly, at Simon as he trickled onto the flashing neon lights.
And then I, too, began to laugh. Bubbling up from somewhere inside, the bully’s hilarity overtook the scream, brought it roaring to the surface. I staggered, I choked, I coughed, and finally, a sort of cross between a howl and a guffaw crashed through the defences and the tears began to spill. Jaw pulled open, I stood and allowed them to roll as I held my belly and shook. You might not call this laughter, but it was the first time that I could remember that I’d done anything in public.
Simon Clamp, eyes popping as even Madeleine joined the cackles, ducked once more to avoid a flying screwdriver. He was as sticky as a stick preserved in honey. Clutching Harriet’s arm, I sobbed with laughter, wept with laughter, wailed, bawled, keened and whimpered with it. And as she led me towards the door, Simon Clamp, as the DJ realised that something was going down below him and killed the music, stamped a foot and, in a voice full of rage, fear and tears, cried, ‘Why? Why are you doing this to me?’
We slipped out into the night as the bouncers moved in to break things up. I don’t think they minded so much about what was happening to Simon – he was an arrogant shit who was well known for never looking barmaids in the eye – as much as the cost of cleaning up 150 flying beverages. In the night, clacking down the alleyway arm in arm, I continued to laugh until I had another entirely new experience and was sick in public, in a waste bin, in a shopping centre, in the middle of the night after a big night out. Harriet mopped me up with a roll of bog paper she produced from her handbag, helped me totter along in my borrowed heels while I said, ‘I don’t understand. What happened?’
‘Aah, come on,’ replied Harriet. ‘There’s nothing someone like Simon Clamp can dole out than can’t be sorted with a bit of Sellotape and a sign saying “Soak Me.”’
Our lovely Shahin. Always comes up with a solution when something sneaky is needed. Harriet stays out in the kitchen while I help Roy fetch brandies and malts and Benedictines from the bar, and when I finally come through, the two of them are hunched over the coffee tray, on which Shahin has put three cups of filter coffee, two espressos and a cappuccino. Harriet is, as ever, digging in her bag.
‘Keep an eye out,’ he says. ‘If you see Roy coming, let me know.’
I go over to the door and stand by the round window, half looking out, half looking in.
‘Ah!’ Harriet’s face lights up and she brandishes the bottle of eyedrops. ‘Found them!’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I want him out of here,’ she states baldly. ‘I don’t want him here.’
‘You’re not going to get violent again, are you?’
Harriet shakes her head. ‘Trust me. I promised last time. We’re just going to get rid of him. He won’t even know it was us.’
She unscrews the lid of the eyedrops, hovers over the far right-hand coffee cup.
‘How many?’
‘Four or five should be enough.’ Shahin rests his ladle on his shoulder and glances over at me.
‘This is your idea?’
‘But of course.’ The ladle flies through the air as he gesticulates, and droplets of mulligatawny end up on top of the extractor fan. ‘We used to use to get rid of polisman when he come to our house. Everybody know that, don’t they? Eyedrops are giving people instant sheets.’
‘Instant sheets?’ It takes me a moment to translate. Then, ‘Oh. How instant?’
‘Five minutes, ten minutes. Much faster than salmonella, much faster than botulism, much faster than senna tablet. Only one person, no one else affected. They think it something they eat earlier. Have a test, nothing show up. Easy.’
‘Christ,’ I say. ‘Roy will kill us.’
‘Well, don’t tell him,’ says Harriet.
‘I’m not going to be able to stop you, am I?’
The two of them grin evilly and shake their heads.
And then I think: I’ve never really had my own revenge. Maybe it’s time I did. So I step forward, give the coffee a stir. ‘Mind if I have the honour?’
Harriet grins, pats me on the shoulder. ‘Be my guest, old bean. Be my guest.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Customs and Excise
I hold the door open and keep my disciplinarian’s pout fixed as the last of the party of twelve in the name of Prescott shuffles gingerly through the door and into the night. Simon Clamp is long gone, buttocks clenched, but his friends have sympathetically made a night of it. ‘Thank you,’ they say as they pass. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ ‘You’ve all been very naughty boys,’ I reply, ‘and I expect to see you back in my study very soon.’
‘Yes, miss,’ they say, and at least one rubs his arse and looks like he’s a returner. They’ve spent over a thousand pounds and tipped heavily. I want them back and so will Roy. But right now I want them to sod off. I count to ten as they wobble off down the street, then shoot the bolt on the front door, turn round and lean against it. There’s one blissful moment in restaurant life, a moment of meditative calm, of rushing relief and idyllic happiness, and it’s the moment when the last customer leaves and you’re all alone at last. Of course, it’s only a brief moment, and then you have to clear their table, balance the till, clean out the coffee machine.
Shahin is sitting at the bar. ‘Holy Cow,’ he says. ‘I was beginning to think they are never going to live.’
I’m not entirely sure which verb he’s actually aiming for. This particular party has taken so enthusiastically to the idea of corporal punishment that I’ve wondered myself. My caning arm aches.
Harriet has her hands on her hips again. Roy has gone down Columbia Road and replaced the late lamented window display.
‘If any of those plants die,’ I say, ‘I’m telling.’
‘You promised me,’ says Harriet.
‘I didn’t. I promised I’d try to persuade him not to, but I didn’t promise I’d succeed. And anyway, he’s got a point. We need something in the window. You can’t just have an uninterrupted view from the street.’
‘But I—’
‘No,’ I say firmly. ‘Harriet, if you do, I swear …’
‘Can’t he just – why can’t we have things that flower? It’s not natural. It’s horrible. Plants are meant to do things. They’re meant to produce flowers and fruit and berries and shit. They’re not meant to just sit there being …’
She pulls a face, whacks at a large, glossy spade-shaped leaf with the cane and utters the word.
‘… variegated.’
Shahin and I exchange looks. ‘How’s the kitchen?’ I ask. ‘Did you change the fan filter?’
He nods.
‘Right, well, you might as well go,’ I say. ‘Thanks for staying.’ It’s always more difficult getting rid of stragglers when Roy’s gone; that looming masculine presence at the bar is pretty essential.
‘Welcome,’ says Shahin, drains his glass of Coke. I’ve never known anyone get through so many sweet fizzy drinks as Shahin. Must be an Islamic thing, I guess. I empty the tips pot and hand him his share. He counts it, looks pleased.
‘I’m going for a drink,’ he says, happily fingering his fifty quid. ‘You coming?’
Harriet shakes her head. ‘Can’t. Sorry. I’ve got to sort out the cellar.’ The Health and Safety people are coming tomorrow and sorting out the cellar is her penance for taking time off without notice. Me, I’ve got to input the last month’s incomings and outgoings on the spreadsheet for Roy to take to the accountant the day after tomorrow. He may have his benign moments, Roy, but you always end up paying later.<
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‘Do it tomorrow,’ he orders. ‘I want to try out that new place that Laurence is managing. The Amish Bar.’
‘What’s that, then?’
‘Apparently all the staff have had to grow big beards,’ says Shahin, ‘even the ladies.’ And curls up laughing.
‘I’m not sure why you find that so funny,’ says Harriet, ‘considering the moustaches on the birds where you come from.’
This makes him laugh some more. Shahin is nice to have around; it doesn’t take much to raise a giggle from him. ‘So you come,’ he says.
Harriet demurs again. ‘Darling, I’d love to, but they’re due at eleven tomorrow, and I think I might be going down with something. I can’t risk not being able to get up at seven to do it.’
Shahin shrugs. ‘Up all night, then.’
‘Probably.’
‘Hokay.’ He jumps down from his stool. ‘I will go anyway. You change your mind, you know where to find me.’
He shambles out through the kitchen. The alleyway door bangs to behind him. Harriet sits down at the recently vacated table, puts her head in her hands.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ she says. ‘Well, I’ll be fine. I just feel a bit groggy, that’s all.’
I go over to look at her, and she turns a face to me that has a positive tinge of green about it. ‘Christ,’ I tell her, ‘you look awful. When did this come on?’
‘It’s sort of been building all night,’ she admits.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ I feel her forehead, and it’s warm and slightly clammy. ‘I think you’ve got a bit of a temperature. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t want to let anyone down,’ she says. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise I was going to end up feeling like this.’
I sit down opposite her, take her hand. In contrast with her forehead, it is slightly cold and clammy. I don’t think she’s going to die, but she must feel awful.
‘You’re really not well, sweets. You must go home.’
‘I can’t,’ she insists. ‘I’ve got to do the cellar.’
Oh, dear. I know I’m going to regret this. ‘Don’t be silly, honey, you’re ill. I’ll sort it.’
There. I regret it already.
‘No, Anna,’ she protests feebly, ‘I can’t just dump it all on you.’ And then she shivers. A strand of hair has worked loose from her schoolgirl ponytail and clings limply to her forehead.
‘Just accept this, Harriet,’ I reply firmly. ‘You’ve got to go home. You look like shit and you obviously feel like shit and I don’t want you getting any iller than you can help. Come on, love.’
She looks up with large, wounded eyes, and her lower lip wobbles slightly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and because she’s ill, she says it slightly tearfully. I give one of those half-laugh-half-sobs as I look at her; the sight of someone else in trouble always fills me up. ‘I really don’t feel well,’ she finishes.
I squeeze her hand, brush the strand away from her face. ‘I know, darling. So go home.’
A tear drops out of one of her eyes and she wipes it away with the back of her hand. ‘Stupid. Sorry. Bugger. Pathetic.’
‘Come on. Go home. Stop worrying about it and get into bed. I’ll see you in the morning.’ I help her to her feet, put her into her coat. It’s like dressing a small child. I get the tips pot and press the contents into her hand. ‘And take a taxi,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t want you walking, do you understand?’
She sniffs, apologises again. Then with heavy feet she trails out through the kitchen and the alley door bangs behind her.
I switch the Gaggia back on and wait for the steam to build up. I reckon a quadruple espresso should do it. At least until four in the morning. While I wait, I cash up. Not a bad night. We’ve taken nearly two grand despite the fact that huge tables usually mean that everyone else leaves early. Maybe I should think about opening a restaurant of my own when my trust comes through; if you’re successful, it’s practically a licence to print money. I stuff the cash in my money belt and take the credit-card slips downstairs to add to the shoeboxful already there.
It doesn’t get any better, the cellar. Something scutters away into a corner when I switch on the light; I don’t know what and I don’t want to know. Eyeing the cobweb by the fusebox, I feel my way down the stairs and click on the anglepoise on the desk. Boot up the computer. It grunts. I sit down. I can’t even kick off my shoes. If the punters could see the damp in here, they would never order another drink again. The quiet hum of computer and freezer scarcely disguises the fact that this room is unnaturally silent, oppressive, full of shadows. Everything in here seems to throw a shadow; the freezer, the bottle racks, the piles of spare crockery, the basket from the dead deep frier, the crossed lacrosse sticks over the box files. Joy of joys.
The computer beeps to let me know that it’s finished booting up and I open the shoebox. Rest against the chair-back and start to leaf through the receipts within. Roy’s been stowing the incomings and outgoings in the same box again, damn it. I sigh, take a slug of coffee and settle down to separate them.
Boring, boring, boring. There must be a better way of raising income than this thing that combines excruciating tedium and gnawing terror in equal quantities. The combined hours wasted nationally on sorting pieces of paper into in and out, taxi and bus, vegetable and mineral, electricity and telephone would probably fund the entire NHS on their own. I hate it. I hate Customs and Excise and their right to come into people’s premises whenever they feel like it and subject their lives to humourless scrutiny and wordless accusation. I hate that gnawing dread that starts up a month before the returns are due in. But most of all, I hate the boredom. If I could sue the government for the amount of boredom they’ve caused me in my life so far, I’d be a millionaire.
By the time I’ve got to box two, my eyelids are drooping. It’s two in the morning already, and there are five screens’ worth of dreary figures glowing ghostly white before me. The weight of the house above me seems to be pressing down on my back in the thick air, and my concentration is shot to shit. Picking up a handful of already sorted receipts, I realise that I’ve been assigning them randomly, simply staring dumbly at them and then dropping them on whatever pile my hand had drifted towards. I yawn, rub my neck, sip cold coffee and feel the tears of boredom begin to slide.
I’ve got to do this. Come on, Anna. Do this and then you can go home.
Perhaps just a little nap.
Come on. Pull yourself together. Arcoroc glasses, six dozen …
Just a small sleep. Will concentrate better when …
I pinch myself. Come on. You stay up much later than this without trouble when it’s fun. Come on. 28 June: Table 6: dinner, 4 pers, 117.75 …
Just a bit. If you laid your head down on the desk and closed your eyes …
I can’t help it. Bundling up my jacket for a pillow, I rest my cheek upon it for a few moments and everything goes black.
At first, I don’t know what’s woken me. I’ve been so heavily asleep that I haven’t even been aware that I was, and finding myself in the cellar comes as an unpleasant surprise. Even more unpleasant is the discovery that I’ve been drooling, and my cheek and the shoulder of the jacket are smeared with stale-smelling sog. I smack my lips, raise my head and groan. Damn it. What time is it?
The computer says that I’ve been asleep fifteen minutes. I don’t feel even slightly better for it; feel heavy and grimy and deeply depressed. Funny. I usually sleep for forty-five minutes if I take a nap. Wonder what woke—
Footsteps. That’s what woke me. There’s someone in the kitchen. Shahin forgotten something and come back half-cut to get it, maybe, or Roy come down to check on me. Ah, well: might as well make another coffee while I talk to them. I pick up my mug and get to my feet, and as I get to the bottom of the stairs, I’m about to call out. And then I hear the footsteps again, and stop.
That’s not the footstep of someone pissed. That’s a furtive footstep
. There’s someone up there, but they don’t think they should be.
Oh, yeah, I’m awake now. Freezing cold and perspiring at the same time. Oh, shit. There’s someone up there. I didn’t lock the back door and now there’s someone in the kitchen, and they’re making their way towards the restaurant.
Slowly. It’s, like, footstep, pause, footstep, pause, two steps, longer pause. Whoever they are, they’re in no hurry. They’re being careful. And me in the cellar in nothing but a gymslip.
Oh, God. What do I do?
The shadows close in suddenly and my temperature drops another couple of degrees. I know what I want to do. I want to run away. But there’s nowhere much to run from a hole in the ground whose only exit lies in the path of the intruder.
Maybe he’ll go away. Please, God, make him go away.
A stealthy new approach towards the kitchen door.
Fuck. He’s going to come through in a second and see the light shining out under this door. I have to do something.
What? What? Oh, for God’s sake don’t make me have to go up there.
To my astonishment, my feet seem to have made the decision for me while my mind was panicking. I am creeping up the cellar steps and I want to scream. Please, God. If you exist. I’m sorry I said you didn’t exist. Please.
Two steps from the top, I stretch out as far as I can reach and take the old-fashioned button switch between thumb and forefinger. Slowly, slowly, millimetre by millimetre, I pull it downwards. Don’t let it click, God. Just let it cut the connection and set me free.
Virtue Page 21