by Sue Townsend
I rushed down the passageway, and slammed the door shut. I came back to see Malcolm, the washer-upper, unzipping his blouson jacket. He was visibly upset. I asked him what was wrong.
‘Tha’s out of order,’ he said, nodding towards Luigi’s feet in the sink. ‘Tha’s my territory, that sink, an’ whadif the ‘ealth inspect us, eh?’
Luigi screamed, ‘I been working in restaurants for twenty-seven year. I served Princess Margaret and Tony, an’ Cassius Clay an’ Tommy Steele. These are personal friends of mine. Sophia Loren came to see me whenever she was in London, and once she said to me, “Luigi, I gotta word of advice for you. Always look after your feet.”’ Luigi swung his feet out of the sink and dried them on a couple of clean tea towels.
Malcolm said, ‘As if!’ and wrapped himself in his grease-stained apron.
I busied myself with defrosting the ox liver. I don’t involve myself with the constant kitchen rows. I am called Head Chef but this means nothing: I am low down in the pecking order at Hoi Polloi. I am employed solely for my pure English genes, and my authentic working-class food background.
Savage emerged from the lavatory after ten minutes, looking bright-eyed and happy. I pointed out to him that he’d got talcum powder on the end of his nose. He laughed and said, ‘Missed a bit, eh?’ and went into the restaurant to unlock the front door. The waiters, Kenneth and Sean, were half an hour late, and where were my assistant cooks, Sasha and Aziz?
It was fifteen minutes to ‘dishing-up time’ when Jimmy the Greek came into the kitchen from the taverna next door. He said that the Greek community in Britain voted Labour because of a promise made by Neil Kinnock twelve years ago that the Elgin marbles would be returned to the Parthenon as soon as the Labour Party gained power. Jimmy had come round in the hope of seeing a famous Labour Party face… one that he could petition.
As I turned the spitting slices of ox liver in the roasting tin, I said, ‘I didn’t know you were interested in historical artefacts, Jimmy.’
‘We was stitched up by Lord Elgin and the Turks,’ said Jimmy, flicking cigarette ash into the sink. ‘I want justice for my country. I would die for Greece!’ he added, melodramatically.
‘I wouldn’t die for England,’ said Malcolm. ‘It’s never done me no favours.’
‘Well, thanks to Nato and the nuclear deterrent, neither of you will be asked to lay down your lives,’ I said. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got sixty-two people waiting to be fed, and no staff!’ I threw a fish-slice across the kitchen. I occasionally indulge in fits of bad temper. People expect it of a Head Chef, and it reduces my stress levels, according to my ex-stress counsellor, Sky Lupin.
Malcolm said, ‘I’ll help you out with the waitering, but I ain’t doin’ it for three quid an hour.’
I said, ‘Malcolm, look at yourself. You are seriously unkempt. You were born to live behind the scenes.’
To my amazement his eyes filled with tears. ‘Yeah, well, that’s what you think, Moley. Tony Blair’s gonna look after me from now on. I’m workin’ class, an’ Labour ‘as always looked after the workin’ class.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘but they’re not going to provide free grooming and elocution lessons for you, are they?’
‘No, but I’ll get an education, won’ I?’ he said. ‘Tony promised, he said it three times.’ He spoke of Mr Blair as though he were a personal friend.
‘You’ll have to learn to read before you get an education,’ I said. I regretted these words the moment they were out of my mouth.
Malcolm said, ‘That’s the education I’m talkin’ about. Tone’s gonna teach me to read.’
I began to slop chilled prawn cocktail from a catering pack into sixty fruit sundae bowls (two of the diners were allergic to shellfish). Savage came into the kitchen shouting, ‘Where’s the f------ starter? I’ve got Michael Jackson waiting for his f------ dinner out there, on table twelve.’
Luigi said, ‘Why’s crazy Michael come to Hoi Polloi? I heard he only eats mung beans and bean-sprouts in a oxygen tent with a trained nurse standing by an’ a helicopter hovering.’
Malcolm said, ‘As ‘e got Bubbles,’ is monkey, with’ im?’
As soon as Savage had gone back into the dining room, there was a stampede to the swing door and we all jostled to get a look at the singer and plastic-surgery victim. However, table twelve was devoid of a man with a plastic nose or a monkey. Four men in Armani suits were deep in conversation.
Luigi looked in the reservations book. One of the men was Michael Jackson, the newly appointed head of Channel Four. I sent Malcolm upstairs to the flat to bring down the synopsis of my twelve-part comedy-drama series, The White Van, which is about a man, Godfrey Hetherington, who by day is a BBC accountant but by night is a serial killer. Godfrey drives around the Home Counties in a white Bedford van, murdering women.
The BBC turned it down in February.
THE WHITE VAN – A SYNOPSIS
The White Van is a television comedy drama in twelve half-hours.
The hero is Godfrey Hetherington (Harry Enfield), who by day is a BBC accountant and by night is a serial killer who drives around the Home Counties in a white van, murdering women.
The comedy arises from the fact that Godfrey’s wife Gloria (Pauline Quirke) knows nothing of her husband’s nocturnal activities. She thinks he’s on a charity soup-run for the homeless.
The laughs come thick and fast as a blundering police inspector (David Jason) comes close to catching Godfrey, only to see him make his escape yet again.
There will be twelve glamorous victims who perish by twelve ingenious methods. The British public enjoy a good laugh, and also (perversely some might say) are fascinated by serial killers. The White Van is an ingenious fusion of the two.
To be shot at BBC White City and various Home Counties locations.
The White Van is a parable of our times.
A. A. Mole
(Note: the above actors have yet to be approached.)
END
Kenneth and Sean turned up just in time to help garnish the prawn cocktails with sprigs of not-so-fresh parsley. They claimed they were late because they’d been stuck at Mornington Crescent on the Northern Line for an hour and a half in the dark. I asked the reason for the delay. Sean said, ‘Rats had chewed through the electrical cables and stopped the train.’ I asked him how he knew. He said, ‘I looked out of the carriage window and there was this rat, as big as a dog, it was, staring back at me, and, I swear on my mother’s life, it had a piece of cable hanging there in its fat chops.’
Kenneth said, ‘You lying Irish toe-rag. I saw no rat, no, it was a suicide. It always takes an hour and a half to scrape the body off the line. You could set your watch to it.’
‘Probably somebody what voted Conservative,’ said Malcolm, attempting and failing to make a joke.
We discussed possible reasons for the no-show of Sasha and Aziz. The consensus was that they’d been rounded up by the immigration authorities, which is a constant hazard in the catering industry. It makes long-term planning impossible, and certainly screws up holiday rotas, etc.
Malcolm formally asked to be promoted to kitchen assistant. I said I would talk to Savage when he was sober (never). Malcolm then started banging on about a minimum wage, and rights and conditions. I warned him against such dangerous talk in the kitchen, though I said it kindly, to show him that I was sympathetic, in principle, to improving our terrible working practices at Hoi Polloi.
Without Sasha and Aziz, Savage was forced to help me out as I plated up the sixty-two ox-liver dinners. Malcolm was given a wooden spoon and entrusted with warming up the gravy in the cauldron on the stove.
At 10 p.m. Kenneth and Liam reported that the diners were becoming tired of waiting for their main course, and several had complained about the withered condition of the parsley garnish.
Savage roared, ‘Tell the f----rs to go to one of the Conran joints if it’s freshness they want.’
Eventually, when all the d
iners were chewing on their ox liver (it had emerged from the oven slightly tougher than I had intended), I stood at the interconnecting door and scanned the dining room for famous faces. Mr Mandelson had his usual table in the far corner: he likes to have his back to the wall. Harry Enfield was eating with Edward, his father, and also at the table was Richard Ingrams, who is the editor of the Oldie, the magazine for old people. I have been a subscriber for a year. My subscription was a thirtieth-birthday present to myself. Some people scoffed at the time. (My wife Jo Jo is convinced I am the reincarnation of an ancient African woman, and indeed my grandmother used frequently to say to me, ‘Adrian, you were born old.’ It’s true that we used to share many of the same enthusiasms: Radio Four, Jif Lemon, Yorkshire pudding, correct punctuation, etc., etc.)
Savage was dining à deux with a slim blonde woman, who was pushing pieces of liver around her plate with a look of disgust.
Kim Savage entered via the kitchen entrance. She joined me at the door to the restaurant; her perfume almost made me swoon. ‘What’s your scent called?’ I asked.
‘Poison,’ she said, narrowing her eyes as she watched Savage clinking glasses with the blonde woman.
Kim tossed back her mane of black hair. In 1987 she was voted Miss Flower by readers of Floristry Today.
I examined Savage’s companion. ‘Who is she?’ I asked.
‘Bridget Jones,’ spat out Kim. ‘Her diaries have been in the bestseller list for months.’
‘Her diaries?’ I checked. ‘But she’s not famous, is she?’
‘No,’ said Kim, ‘although she might be if Savage makes her his fifth wife.’
But, as I watched, Bridget Jones got up from the table and left the restaurant abruptly.
Savage shouted after her, ‘Yes, your bum does look big in those bloody trousers.’
Kim said, ‘Tell that fat bastard he owes me three months’ maintenance.’ And left.
Savage saw me at the door and shouted, ‘Get back to the f------ kitchen, Mole.’
Mr Ingrams looked at me sympathetically before I turned back to my lowly duties.
I dished up the jam roly-poly, and was angered when I realized that Malcolm had puréed all the lumps in the custard and thrown the skin away! There it lay in the pig bin, like a large withered yellow balloon. Luigi scooped up the skin between two fishslices and washed it under the hot tap, saying, ‘Nobody ain’t gonna know it’s been in the bin.’
I watched in shocked silence as he divided the custard skin into four pieces and took them out to table twelve: a special request, apparently, to celebrate Mr Jackson’s new, exalted position.
In the lull between the pudding and the Nescafé-and-After-Eight course, I phoned Wisteria Walk. My mother answered. ‘Your dad’s got something wrong with his scalp,’ she said.
‘He’s always had chronic dandruff,’ I reminded her.
‘No, this is something else,’ she quavered. ‘He saw the back of his head in the bedroom mirror and went hysterical. I had to call the doctor out.’
‘What’s wrong with him, then?’ I said. ‘Apart from the fact that he’s being cuckolded.’
She ignored my mumbled reference to her probable infidelity.
‘His scalp’s gone black,’ she said. ‘It’s especially bad on his bald spot. Dr Chaudri’s baffled. It looks like gangrene,’ she added.
‘Gangrene!’ I shouted. Malcolm and Luigi looked up from distributing the After Eights on the coffee saucers. ‘If it’s gangrene he’ll have to have his head amputated,’ I said.
My mother didn’t laugh, but Malcolm and Luigi did. They laughed themselves stupid. They were still laughing when Savage announced that the politically incorrect notice in the window had been torn down by a delegation of journalists from the Daily Telegraph. Another sign that the formerly right-wing paper is slowly but surely moving towards left of centre.
Saturday May 3rd
My father’s gangrenous bonce is better, according to the latest medical reports.
After a restless night, he was persuaded to lie in a warm bath that had been infused with an essential oil (marigold). He massaged his scalp with seaweed and conditioned the little hair left on his head with a purée manufactured from an Irish bog plant. When he emerged from the bathroom, his scalp, according to my mother, was ‘it’s usual nice pink’.
My mother sees this episode as a glorious victory for the powers of plant therapy. I hope she never finds out about the felt-tip pen. She has been disillusioned too many times in her life.
Kim came round this morning with two beefy blokes, and removed five crates of champagne from the cellar. ‘Tell Savage it’s part payment for the money he owes me,’ she said.
I couldn’t work out why she had aged so dramatically overnight. Then I realized: it was the first time I had seen her in the cruel light of a Soho day.
Sunday May 4th
After cooking lunch –
Scrag end of lamb
Roast potatoes
Turnip chunks
Boiled cauliflower
Damp Yorkshire pudding
Plum Duff
Tinned Carnation milk
Nescafé
After Eight Mint
– I left Malcolm toiling over the tins in the sink, and went upstairs to the flat. I worked all afternoon on my television series, The White Van. I made good progress on Part Three. I really feel that I have found my ‘Voice’. What a joy it is to hone my craft, and lose myself in the world that my characters inhabit. I got up and looked moodily out of the window. I expect that from the street below I looked like a character (a writer perhaps) in a French film. I was dreading the next day. I always hated Mondays. Tripe day. I have begged Savage to take it off the menu, but to no avail.
Monday May 5th
Bank Holiday, UK and Republic of Ireland
I saw Will Self today. Talk about street cred. The man has everything. Height, looks, dress sense and the biggest vocabulary in London, if not the country. Also, he has written a ground-breaking book where a tramp has sex with a dead dog, or a dog has sex with a dead tramp, I forget which.
Tuesday May 6th
The staff toilet floor was sprinkled with talcum powder when I went in tonight. Savage was the last occupant before me. What does he do in there that necessitates the use of talcum powder? I shudder to think.
Wednesday May 7th
Muslim New Year
Pandora and her fellow Blair’s Babes were photographed with Tony outside Parliament. Pandora showed the most teeth, cleavage and leg, and managed to position herself next to Mr Blair. In one photograph she has an arm draped casually around his shoulder, as though they were equals.
After work tonight I went to the exclusive opening of Large Alan’s new drinking-club venture, The 165, which is named after the remaining Tory MPs. It’s in a basement in Brewer Street.
Justine was there in the role of Alan’s hostess. She seemed to know most of the MPs by name.
If pinstripes were water, I would have died of drowning.
Nicki Hasnun, designer of The 165, was there. He was banging on about his influences – which apparently include Pugin and what he called dictator kitsch! He is a friend of somebody called Mobutu.
If forced to describe the décor, I would have to say, ‘Gothic classicism with animal prints, or St Pancras station meets Whipsnade Zoo.’ The effect was horribly unsettling. I asked Large Alan how he managed to get the builders in and out in only five days. He looked down at me from his great height and said what sounded like ‘kneecaps’. Though I may have misheard him – there was a high level of decibels in the cramped space.
Some of the noise was caused by a loud argument being conducted by a knot of Tory MPs, about the appointment of their new leader. Half favoured Michael Howard (the Extra Virgin of Smarm) and the others fancied William Hague (whom privately I believe to be Margaret Thatcher’s Love Child).
Thursday May 8th
World Red Cross Day – Ascension Day
Let’s
examine the facts that inform my Thatcher mother/Hague son theory.
1. Hague was christened William. Presumably after William Pitt, one of MT’s heroes.
2. Hague’s so-called ‘parents’ manufacture and deliver fizzy drinks and cordials.
3. Margaret Thatcher’s father sold fizzy drinks and cordials in his shop.
4. During the last four months before William Hague’s birth on March 26th 1961, Margaret Thatcher was mysteriously out of the country in Switzerland. An obstetric centre of excellence.
5. When William Hague addressed the Conservative Party conference, aged sixteen, Margaret Thatcher listened to him with rapt maternal pride. I know, I’ve checked the video. Hers was the face of an adoring mother.
6. They have the same hair colour.
7. The same colour eyes.
8. They are both going bald.
9. They both read Hansard for pleasure, in bed.
10. There was another important fact, but I’ve forgotten it.
Friday May 9th
Zippo Montefiori, the managing director of Pie Crust Productions, was thirty years old today, and he chose to celebrate this landmark by taking over the whole of Hoi Polloi for a private party.
The good-luck fairy must have spent longer over his crib than she did over mine. He is what I heard one woman describe as ‘devilishly good-looking’, with black floppy hair and eyes like a Labrador. He is never seen without his black Armani overcoat – yet he never sweats. He speaks slowly with a voice as smooth as a conker, and he looks into your eyes as though searching for your soul.
There is reputed to be a waiting list of women wanting to go out with him.
He is a great fan of institutional food – he went to Harrow. The menu included some of his offal favourites. I also threw a few plastic caterpillars in the salad for public-school authenticity. At the end of the evening Zippo came into the kitchen to thank the staff. ‘Fab scoff,’ he said, ‘and the caterpillars were a hoot.’ After a bit of a chat about where I had ‘sourced’ the caterpillars (a joke shop in Leicester), he asked me if I’d ever thought about appearing on television!