Chop Chop (15 page)

“Deep fryer,” smiled Kevin. “You'd be amazed what it can do.”

The Brewer's was a dismal barn of a pub that caught the high street workers as they spilled out at six o'clock. People arranged themselves on roomy sofas or in large armchairs opposite, and once the house music reached its evening volume it was impossible for anyone to hear a word anyone else was saying. You could not help but admire the sleekness of the long marble bar while you waited indefinitely to be served. To drink in The Brewer's made you need a drink; to socialize in The Brewer's made you want to scream. Yet the place had no such effect on hunger. Mostly alone in the tiny basement kitchen, I watched the hours pass. A burger here, a suspect chicken sandwich there. I thought often of The Swan, of its handmade pastas and freshly baked breads that I had taken for granted. There, we had controlled everything that went on the plate; it was all, more or less, from scratch. Here, we controlled nothing. It was all out of a packet. Gray mince patties shipped in icy blocks. Frozen roasted potatoes reheated in the fryer. A barrel of cheese sauce. How had it come to this? And Tod Brightman, man of letters, my age, flew around the world giving talks to aspiring authors.

I fumed over the ascension of this young writer whom I hated, this tawdry scribbler who spent life at lunch with his publisher or explaining Maupassant to beautiful women, who had no scars on his hands or bags under his eyes, who woke late and counted his lie-in as contemplation, had no vegetables thrust against his rectum unless requested, no sapping father, no unrequited passions, no One-Eyed Bruce. I prayed he might destroy himself with a novel of staggeringly poor judgment or a tell-all memoir. Oh Lord, for another
Answered Prayers
! And I would be there at his end, as Gore
had been for Truman, to proclaim his death “a good career move.” Yes, they were bitter thoughts—the boredom of my new job reviving bad old habits—though I cannot pretend I did not take pleasure in them.

I imagined my own literary triumphs. Walking into a meeting with the bigwig publishers and throwing a single sheet of paper down in front of them. The first page of the book I would one day write, which they would read aloud with tremulous wonder. I would sit there casually, examining my fingernails for dirt, while they bid themselves into a frenzy. We would settle on a million, a nice round number. Out of modesty I wouldn't let it go any higher. The publishers, overwhelmed with gratitude, would raise me up on their shoulders and carry me aloft from the meeting room, to cheers from the chief execs. Rachel Parker, who had managed to scrape an unpaid internship at the same publishing house, would look up from her photocopying to see me riding past, using her superiors as a divan. I would smile at her, graciously, to let her know I had forgiven her for the harsh and foolish things she had said to me on the university bus. Then I would buy a suit of the finest material, and a monkey for Ramilov, and stride purposefully into the kitchen and whisk Harmony away to the restaurant on Parkway I couldn't afford where we would order everything on the menu and feed each other quail. When the bill arrived I would show the pretty waitress the first page of the book and she, with tears in her eyes, would insist I should not pay. She would try to kiss me, but I would politely refuse, explaining that Harmony was the only one for me. . . .

Then, a few days into the job, a phone call out of the blue. The hoarse, hysterical voice of Ramilov, carrying the news I had been waiting for.

“
Is that the residence of An Extraordinary Cunt? The Swan is rising from the ashes and we need our trusty bitch.”

“
It's reopening?”

“
Correct, numbnuts. We're putting the band back together. All except that fat fuck Bob anyway. The brewery's made Racist Dave head chef, and I'm sous.”

“
Are we all getting promoted?”

“
No, you're still the bitch. But a loved bitch. I'm calling all the waitresses too.”

“
Everyone's back in?” I did not mention Harmony, though I was thinking it.

“
Yeah. Bunch of unemployable cunts apparently. Everyone except Dibden, believe it or not.”

“
Dibden said no?”

“
He's got a job in an S&M café in Euston. He thought it stood for sausage and mash but it stood for S&M. They've got a torture dungeon downstairs. You can get whipped while you drink your coffee. If you want you can get your coffee poured on your nipples. They've got all the extras on the menu.”

“
That sounds awful.”

“
No shit. Dibden doesn't know where to look. He hates it. Poor bastard craps his pants every time someone orders a jam doughnut. But he made his choice. What do you choose?
”

T
he back gate is unlocked. The chain screen is reintroduced. The lights stutter and glare. The switch that says
IF THIS IS
OFF
THEN WE ARE ALL FUCKED
is flicked back on. The stoves are fired up. The fryers are filled. The steel-toed boots are unearthed. The laundry is found, unwashed. The accounts are reopened with the suppliers. The mats are laid out. The deliveries are put away. The fridge is restocked. The bins are lined with new bags. The fans whir. The hi-fi is resurrected. The knives are sharpened. The fox is brought back from its Siberian exile. The kitchen returns to life.

Lovely bit of bream.

You're holding it the wrong way.

They should put you on TV, middle of the night, for people who can't get to sleep. They could just watch you chopping that carrot.

Have they unlocked the doors out there?

Took home a dyslexic bird last night. Got my sock cooked.

Like all life, it was order in a system of disorder, a stumbling through, an ignorance until proven guilty. But compared to the reign of Bob, where we toiled in fear of everything, or The Brewer's, where there was neither toil nor reward, those first few weeks back at The Swan were heaven. There was Racist Dave chopping and filleting with aplomb. Here was Harmony, still beautiful and unreadable. In the plonge, Shahram was doing his skittish dance and singing his Hindi songs while Darik squealed with laughter. There was no Bob to silence them. Rumor had it he was working as a line chef in the Leicester Square Garfunkel's. As for Ramilov, the
promotion to sous chef was a proud moment, and he announced to what remained of the kitchen staff that from now on there would be no more easy listening or “Cage of Pure Emotion.” We would subsist on a nutritious diet of musicals and rap.

Racist Dave moved into the flat above the restaurant that Bob and his terrible wife had shared. We climbed the stairs to look in wonder at the palace of the fallen emperor: the silver curtains still hanging in the living room, the portrait of a dog's ear above the mantelpiece, the little reminders stuck to the fridge that made Bob seem almost human, and the mirror on the ceiling of the bedroom that sent a shiver through all who saw it. Ramilov also took a souvenir of the old tyrant: a pair of Bob's wife's knickers discarded beneath the bed.

“Trowelface,” he said solemnly, clutching the knickers tightly in his hand.

—

Business was slow. Even Glen had tramped on, leaving the alleyway for pastures new. Word had got around about the restaurant inspector's report and the pusbucket Gloriana. When a restaurant is “in,” diners swarm around it unquestioningly. They will tolerate fantastic rudeness and two-hour waits for food without a murmur. Mediocre signature dishes will send them into raptures. When that restaurant loses its sheen, however, they suddenly recall those waits, the rudeness, the mediocrity of that dish after all, and use it as grounds to trash it.
It was always awful
, they tell their friends. On top of all this it was winter—a lean time for any restaurant. When it is already dark at four
P.M.
, snow and slush underfoot, when there is a sharpness about people that reflects the weather, few think of going out for dinner. The Swan was desperately quiet. Fish clouded over in the fridges. The perfume of the lemons became hoochy, illicit. This
was a shame in The Swan's case, as Racist Dave was cooking out of his skin, trying to prove that the brewery had not made a mistake in reopening the place, or in promoting him.

Without Dibden the pastry section was disbanded, with just a few ice creams left on for Ramilov or me to put up. And though I remained the bitch in all senses, as Ramilov had promised, I found myself taking care in my work for the first time. I began to clean up my section as I went along, to save the scraps for the stockpot, to label containers correctly. I tidied up when I was not busy. If we were low on something I made a note of it. And more than that, I started to notice the food. Real food, which had been so scarce at The Brewer's. The dry skins of the onions crackling as I handled them, the scent rising from a crate of oranges, the bouquets of herbs releasing their essence between forefinger and thumb. I marveled at the darkness of the meat hanging in the walk-in, at the brightness of a fish eye, at the flavor a few bones could impart to water. I noticed how the vine of the tomato had a stronger smell than the fruit and saw the wisdom of leaving it in soups and sauces as they cooked. I learned the language of food: how you “gorged” onions and “tempered” chocolate, how pasta became “claggy” unless you “let it down,” how “brunoise” was a French specification of size referring to the head of a match.

It seemed there had never been time to see these things when Bob was in charge. In those days there was only ever the service, blind and unquestioning. Now I saw the greater purpose, and the greater purpose was food. How it looked and smelled and felt and tasted, the excitement and luxury and abundance of it . . . Once, when ordered to add white wine and herbs to a fish soup, I caught a smack of aroma so good I was compelled to stick my head into the pot to keep on smelling it. Harmony caught me doing this, my whole head obscured from view, my eyes closed, savoring the aroma,
and asked me what the fuck I was doing. How I'd missed that sharpness! “What the fuck are you doing?” Wasn't that an eloquent way of putting it? No fat on that statement, nothing wasted. A Hemingway statement. Literature when it came from her mouth, not so much when it came from Racist Dave's. Embarrassed that I had nothing smarter to say to her, I mumbled that I loved the smell of it.

“Oh,” she said. “That's all right, then.” She looked surprised—another expression, like happiness, that she wore agonizingly well.

I tasted everything. I watched everything. When I was given a long and monotonous job to do such as chipping potatoes or chopping carrots I would pretend to be Ramilov or Dave and stand with my legs wide apart, sharpening my knife until it sang, my section spotless. Then I would slice with brisk, precise movements as I had been shown, the first set of knuckles against the blade, the fingertips always behind, rocking the steel on its curve in a bowing motion, letting the weight of the knife do the work. Ramilov noticed my new enthusiasm and commended me.

“The person who abuses the vegetables is the arsehole of the kitchen,” he explained. “You're still the bitch, but you're not an arsehole anymore.”

This distinction made me uncommonly proud.

“Of course,” Ramilov went on sadly, “Dibden will always be the true arsehole of this kitchen. No one could hold a candle to him.”

This was undoubtedly true. Dibden was much missed by everyone.

With my new hunger came new responsibility. Twice a week, on busy nights when no one else had the time, I was given the duty of preparing the staff meal. I am sure this doesn't sound like much, and perhaps it wasn't, but I fell upon it with zeal. I would plan my menus days in advance, thumbing through the kitchen's cookbooks
and sauntering in a self-important manner around the fridge and the dry store. Scallops wrapped in Parma ham could be nice. A leg of lamb slow-roasted with vadouvan spices until the marbled fat around it was a hard gold and the meat fell apart with the gentlest insistence of a spoon. Great bowls of crisp French beans and toasted hazelnuts in a light, sharp vinaigrette. Grilled sea bass, their skins blistered with salt and heat, on a bed of garlicky greens. The slick, unctuous richness of an oxtail stew. The seductive wobble of a lemon pie. I dreamed of food, dreamed with my eyes open, and everywhere I looked the dream seemed to be real.

Not that my lavish schemes ever got off the ground. There was no time or money for such luxuries. Staff dinner was usually constrained to whatever mise Dave had decided could no longer be fed to the customers. Rubbery roasted potatoes that tasted of the fridge. Limp salad. Cucumbers that were all seeds. Pork with a metallic undertow. Anonymous sauce. Still, I loved more than anything else those moments when I stood at the solid top, Harmony on my right, Dave to my left, mimicking the professional ease of my fellow chefs, their casual flicks, their fluidity, their gestures I had watched a million times. I liked to see myself cooking, part of the machine. For the first time I could see the joy of assemblage.

“Well done,” said Ramilov. “You've finally earned a promotion to a job no one else wants.”

Ramilov was right on this point. It was a lowly and thankless task, but I did not care. It was mine, and in this new operation I took immense pride. I was forever asking people what they thought of my food, pestering the eternally hungry dishwashers who would have eaten anything, inquiring of the waitresses who hid their food distrustfully beneath the condiment station until they were less busy. Had they enjoyed it? Did they think there was too much tarragon? But the harried waitresses had not tried it and Darik and
Shahram did not care, did not know what tarragon was. I did not dare ask Ramilov or Harmony or Dave, they were still not in my orbit; yet I felt that I had taken a step closer to them all the same. Thus began a new era, the era of flies.

It should have been an era of greater freedoms—yet always the past was at our backs. We were barely up and running again before history poked its face in at the door. One afternoon, as I attempted to tunnel-bone a leg of lamb (a recent addition to my tasks, which Dave had reluctantly allowed me), my concentration was broken by the silky touch of Camp Charles's hand against my buttocks.

“Having a little
perv
?” he asked. A strange question, when it was his hand on my arse. I told him I didn't know what he was talking about.

“I saw you,” he whispered, “looking at
her
.”

Was it that obvious? I suppose I had been staring at her a bit. Only to break the monotony of the mise, you understand, for the benefit of my eyes, as such. I didn't think anyone had noticed.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Your
dad
is at the bar, Monocle,” he said coyly. “He says you'll pay for his
beer
.”

Ramilov overheard this and began cackling, asking was my father called Glen, did he shit in the alley, et cetera, and Dave was of course delighted to join in, adding a few thoughtful interjections of his own.
Bum. Crapper. Gash dad.
If their suggestions had been a little further from the mark, perhaps we could have laughed about it together. But they did not see him as I did, the well-thumbed betting slips that fluttered from him every time a pocket was turned out, the pronounced disgust for the dirt and desperation and loose virtues of the city, in perfect counterpoise with the hopeful packet of Blue Zeus beneath his pillow . . . Did he think I hadn't noticed? Even then, in the singular confinement of Mrs. Molina's guest
bedroom, I tolerated his ways; but this intrusion at work, the one place I was able to forget him, was not a laughing matter.

I stuck my head round the corner of the pass and took him in. Squinting closely at the
Racing Post
, in anticipation of gratuities. Checking dentures of gift horses. Memory, reaching forward, always threatening to derail me. Yes, officer. That's the man. Already known to you, is he? You do surprise me.

“Just one,” I told Camp Charles. “But that's all.”

“Aren't you going to
come out
?” he said. The man was a veritable factory of innuendo.

“No.”

Ramilov and Dave, when they saw I wouldn't go out to greet my father, stopped laughing and tried to take me out into the yard for a man-to-man talk about “family shit” and how they all had it. So keen to dispense their dubious wisdoms, those two. For once I believed their intentions were good, but I didn't want advice on the subject; it had kept me company all my life. No thoughtful chat was going to make the man at the bar, with his great appetites and empty pockets, disappear.

But as my gruesome editorial duo remind me today, my father was far from the worst thing at our backs. London was full of people looking to take advantage, as my mother had warned. Other, darker forces were beginning to circle us, forces that would threaten all our freedoms in ways we had never imagined.