by Mark Dawson
“Rather be in the jungle?” Jimmy called out.
“This is hotter than the jungle,” he said, “but at least I’m not being shot at.”
“Not yet!”
By the time midnight came Edward had been on his feet for twenty hours with barely any respite. He trembled with fatigue. “Keep going!” Jimmy yelled out.
At a half past twelve the last table cleared the pass. “Finished,” Jimmy shouted above the din. “That’s it.”
* * *
IT WAS GONE TWO BY THE TIME they had finally wiped down, stored the ingredients that they hadn’t used and cleaned the kitchen. They had been awake for twenty-two hours. They retired to the side exit, sitting against the wall and bathing in the coolness of the night air. Dog-ends were scattered around and an empty bottle of house wine was smashed in the gutter. Cockroaches skittered around the overflowing bins and hungry mice surfaced from the drains. The smell was overpowering: acidic like ripe tomatoes, yeasty like stale beer, pungent sweat coming off them damply. Edward was tired to the marrow of his bones, light-headed from exhaustion and cheap booze. The cold night air felt wonderful on flesh that was sore, scalded, steam-burned. He rolled two cigarettes and they smoked them in silence. It was a respite from the furnace heat of the kitchen, the yelling of cooks buckling under pressure, the crazy noise and exertion of the line.
Soho wound down around them, illegal shebeens and spielers offering late night drinks but the legitimate trade ending for another night. Drunks staggered through the alley, dragging their feet, wending left and right and somehow maintaining their balance. Neon signs buzzed until they were switched off for the night. A pair of policemen nodded at them as they passed. They looked like casualties of war, or murderers, their whites covered in blood and grime, sweaty hair plastered to their heads, nicks and scrapes covered by hastily applied sticking plasters.
“You need more help,” Edward said, finally.
“Can’t afford it.”
“Can’t keep that pace up.”
“We have to,” he said.
Edward sucked smoke deep into his lungs.
“Is it always like that?”
“More or less.” Jimmy grinned, a strained wild-eyed grimace that spoke of how thinly he was stretched. He had been working two shifts in the kitchen every day for eight months straight. His last day off had been imposed on him by Gordon, fearful that he was on the edge of a breakdown. He couldn’t have been closer to the edge than he was that night but now, with the kitchen staff at a bare minimum, there was no way that he could be spared.
“How much did you take?”
“Not enough.”
“But it was full.”
He laughed bitterly. “You know how many people paid?”
Edward shook his head.
“Half. How can I argue with them? The food’s not fit for a dog.” He sighed out, long and beaten and depressed. “We’re busy, yes, but they’re only coming because of the reputation the place has. That’s your father’s legacy, and we’re pissing it all away. No-one who came here tonight is coming back. That’s obvious. Eventually, word will start to get around. ‘I had dinner in the Shangri-La last night––it used to be something special, but now, my goodness, it’s a disgrace.’ You know what they’ll say. If we can still fill that room in three months I’ll be surprised. And every seating we don’t fill is another step closer to the end of the road. It’s pointless, Edward. It’s a losing battle.”
Edward knew that his uncle was right. Even terrible ingredients were expensive, and they couldn’t charge customers the prices they needed to break even. He’d heard about the walk-outs tonight, and the customers who had refused to pay full price. Money was tight and there was the rent to pay, and wages on top of that. Revenue was already insufficient to cover the outgoings. The future promised a long, slow, decline until the funds ran out.
“I’m going to see my father tomorrow,” Edward said.
Jimmy nodded quietly.
“How bad is he?”
“Not good. I don’t go as often as I should. It’s difficult. It’s hard to see him now.”
Jimmy leaned back against the wall, the two of them laid out like corpses, and blew smoke into the night. Edward closed his eyes and found his thoughts drifting. This was not the return to London that he had been dreaming of. He would help his uncle but he couldn’t do it by staying here. He would have to leave the kitchen. Jimmy needed money, and Edward stood more chance of finding it for him if he returned to the things that he was good at. He had a particular talent and he knew that it was the only chance they had to get the things that they needed and the things that he deserved. He was going to have to start from scratch, but that was alright; he had done that before. All he needed to do was to find the right mark.
5
EDWARD CAUGHT THE BUS to Bramley from Victoria. It was a pleasant day, early summer, fresh and bright, and he sat at the front with a sandwich and a thermos of tea and enjoyed the drive. It took a couple of hours to reach the sanatorium. The bus drew up in a quiet lane, the verges bright with spring flowers. It was housed in an old manor house and set within several acres of parkland, a grand old building with seven bays on two floors, with a three-bayed elevation surmounted by a pediment. The light glittered against a grand Venetian window set within the central bay. Edward disembarked and signed in at the gatehouse. He followed the path inside the grounds and paused on the broad terrace, taking it all in: lawns and flower-beds were arranged around the building, rows and avenues of trees set out beyond them. Smaller terraces were bright with flowers, shaded by fruit-laden apple trees, and the facility was surrounded by a high wall, then farm lands and, beyond them, an encircling belt of dark fir. He made his way towards the building, passing the kitchen-garden and the ordered rows of vegetables being tended by a pair of patients. He paused at the door to the main building until it was unlocked and opened. He greeted the guard as he passed inside, and, after asking for directions, made his way directly to his father’s room.
The sister was at her desk at the top of the corridor. Two orderlies sat nearby.
“Good afternoon,” she said.
“Good afternoon, sister. I’m here to see Richard Stern.”
“And you are?”
“I’m a friend of his son.”
“Your name?”
“Peter Broom.”
“I don’t think we knew he had a son.”
“He’s been in Burma. The war. I served with him. I was demobbed last week.”
The nurse warmed visibly. “Bless you,” she said. “You boys don’t get the credit you deserve.”
“Thank you.”
Her smile became sad. “I’m afraid your friend’s father is not a well man. He has a progressive disease. We do our best to make him comfortable.”
“It’s his birthday today,” Edward said. “His son asked me to bring him a cake. I’ll give him a slice now if that’s alright and leave the rest next to his bed.”
“You know you won’t be able to take a knife into his room?”
“Oh, no, of course not––don’t worry, I sliced it last night. I wonder if you’d be so kind to ask one of the nurses to give him another slice for his tea?”
“Of course,” the sister said. “I’ll let the girls know. Here––let me take you to him.”
She led the way along the corridor: half a dozen rooms were arranged on each side, the open doors betraying the smells of urine and disinfectant. It was quiet, save for the mumbling of an old man who sat on the edge of his chair, rocking gently. His father’s room was at the end. There was a fire in the grate and the remnants of a meal––a dirty bowl, an empty cup––rested on a small table next to an armchair. The walls were painted in pastel shades, the furniture looked comfortable and the early afternoon sunlight poured in through the wide window. His father was in bed, propped up by pillows. His eyes lolled hopelessly, never focussing, and a streamer of drool dripped down from the corner of his mouth. Edward took out his
handkerchief and wiped it away.
“It’s a side-effect of the drugs,” the sister told him. “I’ll leave you together.”
His father was wearing a dressing gown over a pair of pyjamas. Spilt soup from his lunch had spattered across the fabric. He had not shaved, and his whiskers––white, the same colour as his wild shocks of hair––lent him an unkempt, dishevelled air. He wore a pair of spectacles with thick lenses, the glass magnifying his eyes so that they seemed to bulge from their sockets. The old man looked as if he were about to say something but frowned with confusion again, the thought passing unsaid.
“Happy birthday, father,” he said quietly, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. The old man said nothing, chewed, his eyes unfocused.
Edward opened his bag and took out the cake tin and the carton of candles. He opened the tin, and took out the cake; it was a Victoria Sponge, a recipe he had clipped out of the Sketch. The first effort had been a failure; he’d used normal flour rather than self-raising and the mixture had failed to rise. The second effort was a little better. He planted a handful of candles around the edge, lit them with his lighter and lifted the cake closer to his father’s mouth. The old man looked at it, dumbly, as if unsure what it was; the candles flickered in and out with his breath. He coughed for a moment, his breath thin and reedy. Edward blew the candles out for him, set the cake down on the bedside table, unwrapped the skirt, and took out two slices. He took one and held it to his father’s mouth. The old man took a bite, chewed absent-mindedly, crumbs showering onto his day blanket. Edward bit into it. It was brittle and dry, a bit flavourless. He hadn’t been able to afford the vanilla essence the recipe suggested and the cake missed it. He was no cook, that was for sure, but it’d have to do.
The old man turned his head and gazed out of the window onto the pretty garden beyond, his eyes glazing and, as Edward watched, bubbles of saliva gathered at the edge of his mouth and slowly trailing their way through the bristles on his chin. Edward took a handkerchief and dabbed the spittle away.
Edward said, “How’ve you been?” The old man looked at him, nothing in his eyes. “Did you get my letters?” Nothing. “I’ve been abroad. I’ve been in Burma, fighting the Japs. Jimmy has been writing to me, though, so I’ve been kept abreast of how you are. And I sent you cards at Christmas and your birthday. I expect the nurses put them up for you? I’m sorry it’s been so long. You don’t mind much, do you? I know you understand––you always wanted me to join the army, didn’t you? Anyway, I’m getting you a nice new pair of slippers for your present. Good ones they are, proper fur inside, look nice and comfy. They’re in the shop, I’ll bring them when I’ve saved up the rest. You can wear them when you go to the bathroom.”
The corridor outside was still: the other patients were either asleep or out in the grounds with their relatives. Wan sunlight filtered through dusty windows; Edward watched motes of dust turning in the shafts. He would be his father’s only visitor today. Save Jimmy, there was no-one else. It was just the three of them now.
He kept talking. “Things are hard at the restaurant. Ingredients are hard to find what with all this rationing. I think Jimmy has been having a tough time of it. I’m back now, though. I’ll find some money for him.”
His father sat quietly. The change in him had been rapid: he’d been a big man, before, played prop forward on Sundays, but Jimmy said that within six months of the diagnosis he’d lost his weight and all his muscle. He was just a husk now, unrecognisable. His father turned his head away, nodding. Edward felt bad leaving him stuck here but there was nothing else for it. He had provided Jimmy with a lump sum before he left the country, but that had run out months ago. Jimmy had somehow found enough to keep the hospital sweet, but it was a constant battle. Edward was going to have to find money from somewhere. Better care––a room of his own, more comfortable surroundings––he couldn’t even begin to think about things like that yet.
There was a gramophone record on the sideboard. Edward had remitted the money for Jimmy to buy it––his father loved music and it seemed as if it was the least he could do. The old man had always had a particularly fondness for Beethoven, and Edward slipped Symphony No. 5 from its dust jacket, rested the phonograph on the platter and lowered the tone arm. The ominous First Movement played, the famous main theme opening loud and dynamically, the crescendos and diminuendos putting Edward in mind of tension, stress and a feeling of impending doom. He tried to ignore it but he could not. He needed to hear something optimistic, something creative. He would have chosen something by Vivaldi––the Four Seasons, perhaps. He was in a difficult spot. He was in need of optimism.
“Alright, Dad,” he said, standing. “Got to run. I’m helping in the kitchen again this evening.” He took his jacket and put it on. He took his hat from the hatstand and set it on his head. His father’s rheumy eyes wandered across him, flickered to the window. “I’ve told the sister it’s your birthday today, she’ll get the nurse to give you another slice for your tea. You’ll be alright, won’t you? I’ll come and see you again on Monday.” Edward put the rest of the cake into its tin, replaced the lid and left it in the bedside table. The record kept playing. “Happy birthday,” he said as he leaned in, kissing wrinkled skin that smelt of the ointment he had sent two months ago. His father’s face suddenly broke out into a wide, open smile. While it lasted, its warmth seemed to peel away the canker of the illness and age and Edward saw him as he remembered him. The moment did not last and he felt an empty feeling of helplessness as he smiled to the nurse on the way out. His father was dying before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to make it easier for him. Even the meagre comfort that they had managed to find for him was under threat. He needed money.
6
EDWARD SLEPT IN THE STORE CUPBOARD for a week but it was obvious that things could not go on as they were. The restaurant could not afford to pay him a salary and so he drew 15s. 3d. from the taxpayer instead. This required a weekly trip to the Pentonville Labour Exchange, a vast one-storey barn that was permanently surrounded by a four-deep queue of bad-tempered, foul-smelling men. It often took several hours for him to reach the counter where applicants were required to sign the book and make themselves available for the array of menial jobs that required filling. He did not disclose that he was working at the restaurant, for that would have disqualified him from receiving aid. The Exchange put him forward for several unsuitable posts. In order that he might perpetuate the lie that he was actively looking for employment he endured several embarrassing interviews during which he made no effort whatsoever to evince the enthusiasm that might make him attractive to potential employers. He was rejected for positions as a hotel doorman, a cleaner, and then, most embarrassingly of all, as the pot boy in a restaurant around the corner from the Shangri-La. The clerks at the Exchange must surely have realised that he was abusing their best efforts but he wasn’t alone in that and, thankfully, his pitiful income was never interrupted.
He took a room for 6s. a week in a boarding house on Brewer Street. It was a terrible, dingy place, a sorting-office and clearing house for the jails, the casual wards, the lunatic asylums and the mortuary slabs. The place belonged to an ancient theatrical agent, a superannuated old queen who, Edward suspected, rented rooms to young ex-soldiers in the hope that a romantic entanglement might ensue, or, more achieveably, so that he might bump into them after they had bathed in one of his two filthy bathrooms.
Edward was allotted the attic. It was reached by way of a bleak staircase with linoleum steps smelling of wax, the grey-striped wallpaper stained with damp and peeling. It smelt of stale frying, with a dirty old gas cooker in what little space there was and a couple of penny-in-the-slot meters. It was long enough to lie down in but would not have been wide enough for that purpose and it was too low for him to stand. There was a narrow single bed, a washstand with a jug and basin on it and a little trunk in which he stored his meagre possessions. The ceiling was painted in a checkerboard of pink and ye
llow, the colours weighing down on the small space. There was a window through which he could scrabble out onto the roof and he would sit on the foot-wide parapet that ran around it and gaze out across the snaggle-toothed Soho rooftops, smoking a cigarette and miserably contemplating his lot.
If he was careful Edward was able to spread his tiny income to just about cover his vital needs. He would buy a loaf of bread, a pint of milk and a hunk of black chocolate so hard that the confectioner could only break it with a small axe he kept solely for this purpose. He would consume his feast lying down on his tiny bed, sucking each bitter square of chocolate to make it last longer.
* * *
THE SUMMER PASSED SLOWLY. Edward spent his days in the restaurant, arriving at six to begin the day’s preparation and often staying until midnight. The work was difficult, tiring and unremunerative. They would tally up the takings after they had closed the doors for the night. A good day would be enough to keep their heads above the water. A bad day would see them sink deeper into the financial mire, relying on the continued goodwill of their bank manager for the restaurant’s existence as a going concern and the payment of Dickie Stern’s hospital bills. Unfortunately, the bad days came more often than the good ones, and the letters from the bank grew ever more concerned.
Edward settled into this dispiriting routine. The longer it went on, the more difficult it was to escape. He was essentially providing the restaurant with free labour. It allowed Jimmy to save money by trimming the hours of the other staff, something he was loathe to do (for none of the others were earning enough to live comfortably) but it was unavoidable if they were to keep going. As the accounts grew graver and graver, Edward’s labour became more valuable. He knew that if he left, the business would fail.
Even with Edward’s budget cut back to the bare minimum, his expenses still outweighed his income. The state of his finances worsened until he was left with no recourse but to attempt desperate measures. One afternoon towards the end of June he found himself hauling his only suitcase outside MacCulloch’s, an establishment halfway down the Tottenham Court Road. It shared the same characteristics as all pawnshops: austere, with a pitiful collection of goods arranged in the window and a sense of bitterness in the air so thick as to be almost cloying. He paused and regarded the shop front. This one had the usual array: second-hand fountain pens, engagement rings, musical instruments, silver candlesticks and cutlery. There was a doorway for buyers and a doorway for sellers, one grand and the other plain. He opened the shabby door and went inside.