High Season (19 page)

The shifts at the London were split, which is always a drag. It meant that after lunch service I would have two or three hours where, if I didn't have to work through to dinner service in order to get my section up to speed, I would have to kill the time either by sitting at the bar in another pub down the road or falling asleep in the storeroom or . . . getting to know one of the waitresses. We were blessed at the London with some spectacularly well-presented waitresses who were all blind to my defects of character. Not since the Bondi Hotel had I been so in Cupid's gaze. Then something happened which changed any expectations I had about how rosy my future was beginning to look.

The new girl, who had just come back from Britain and was all milky skin and Laura Ashley, disclosed to me that she was running a habit that she just knew I would be able to help her out with. And I know blaming anyone for your problems in life is piss-weak, but Caroline . . . well, she was trouble with a capital C. In about eight days I'd gone through whatever bank I had got together and was running around Kings Cross M.A.D. It was like I'd never left. And then to compound things Andrew decided to leave the London after he had an ‘awakening' in the form of a vegetarian meal. He decided it was now his destiny to master the nether regions of veganism. And the worst of it was that everyone thought I'd make a great new head chef. Andrew was keen to move quickly so he thought I'd do just fine too, and before I could find a good enough reason to say no, I was back in control of a busy kitchen. I had a serious habit again and a very confusing love life, given my relationships with several other waitresses were all ongoing while I maintained a drug-fuelled and hateful, junkie-blaming scene with Caroline.

Caroline had a brother with whom she played in a band. And he loved her very much and seemed constantly worried about her. When he sniffed out I was seeing her at least a couple of nights a week, he decided that it was my fault she had decided to use again. He refused to believe that it was actually her personal flaws that saw me using again; he was just looking for someone to blame when she didn't turn up to band practice. The thing was, despite Caroline's fresh appearance and knowing smile, she was an alien-fucking, psycho-candy smack fiend who set an absolutely cracking pace. Pretty soon, despite my increase in pay as head chef, I was broke ten minutes after payday and took to doing some scams that neither of us should ever talk about again. How things could go from relatively smooth and organised to utter fucking chaos was a mystery to me. It was like I had turned into some sort of lightning rod for bad shit happening.

At the time I was self-destructing, again, the early nineties recession hit. Businesses all over Balmain started throwing ‘gone broke' parties and closing the doors. Lunches began to slow and the owners of the hotel were increasingly looking to value-add in order to keep the customers they had. As such, I was working harder and longer the quieter the joint got. And the food was good. Everyone was happy with the direction of the menu which, frankly, wasn't that different from what Andrew had been doing. I brought in some twists and turns and pushed the New British thing a little further through the pastry section and with the
amuse bouche
. We were baking bread, taking apart whole fish, using off-cuts of meat and rolling pastry. Wherever we could save a buck we did, and whatever we could do to keep things moving and turning over we did.

On the day I walked past Darling Street Café and saw it closed, two other restaurants in Balmain also closed. It was distressing. Hospitality is one of the first industries hit when the economy slows down and this recession was proving to be no different. Every day, chefs would phone the London looking for work, and we didn't have enough to keep the chefs we had.

As the end of the year approached the owners of the hotel became increasingly keen to infuse the place with a little festive cheer and goodwill, which meant everyone in the kitchen working even harder, doing courtesy bar snacks and more elaborate canapés and a longer list of petits fours that were given away to just about everyone who walked into the joint.

I'd taken on a couple of flatmates in order to ease the rent burden of the house in Annadale. They were both complete and utter drunken stoners. Every night would end in such an elaborate display of empties—empty bottles, bongs, ashtrays, fits and foils—that the used containers would become a work of art, a landscape of the impossible. And it was impossible in the sense that it wasn't possible that so few people could consume so much alcohol and so many drugs and keep their shit together. You could smell the end and this time . . . well, I was just glad I'd taken on a couple of hostages.

New Year's Eve is a date I don't forget any more, infused as it is with the end of things.

After working flat-out for weeks in the lead-up to Christmas and New Year's Eve, Caroline and I decided it was time for a celebration. We agreed to meet up at a club in Kings Cross after work. Given that I could get out of the kitchen sooner than she could finish on the floor, we agreed that I would go score and then we'd hook up. The problem was, there was no dope. Kings Cross was dry, and to say the atmosphere was fraught would be to do an injustice to the palpable sense of murderous rage and blackness that undercut everything else on the neon strip that night. The night-trippers and westies doing their drive-bys weren't aware of how things really were, but to the regulars this was a brave new world. No one could adequately explain what had caused the drought and everyone was blaming everything from the Thai police to Sydney's wharfies to the undercover cops and communism. It had to be a grand conspiracy. There were faces on the street that night that would usually never venture forth, leaving, as they did, the day-to-day running of their business to the working girls and other minions who also took the rap when things turned to shit. But it was like everyone had to check out this bizarre, drugless landscape, in order to see what the strip looked like without the bluster of a ton of smack being exchanged, shot up, and generally moved from A to B.

I don't know why I survived to tell the tale of that particular countdown to midnight fifteen years ago. The doctors said I shouldn't have, but at the time the everyday madness of things seemed so normal. And I still regret not taking the bright yellow envelope that the doctor pushed towards me.

There were a couple of unique things about starting work the morning after an overdose. The first thing was that I got real tired, real early. Primordially, trapped-in-the-swampy-shallows tired. Another thing was that despite my determination never to drink, use drugs or smoke again, I had failed at each ambition by the end of lunch service. And because New Year's Day finds everyone else hungover, there's not a whole lot of the sympathy or understanding that the nearly dead feel is owed to them.

Caroline was upset that I'd stood her up. She wasn't open to the idea of politely sidestepping that reality; she really wanted to talk about it. I was fortunate in that she didn't start work until dinner service and I had a couple of hours' sleep in one of the empty hotel rooms upstairs before I got to tell her why I hadn't showed at the club. It was the hope that I'd hand over the drugs she'd paid me for the day before that meant she stayed long enough to listen to my story of chewing gum and footpaths, ambulance lights and emergency wards. And while she was pleased I hadn't used her deal, she was antsy in a way only a junkie having hung out for nearly twenty-four hours can be.

My job as head chef at the London was becoming more tenuous by the day. My sous-chef had left a few weeks ago, and when I employed Stuart to replace him I knew it wouldn't be long before Stuart replaced me. Stuart had been around the block longer than I had and was a nice guy to boot. He could read the signs at the interview: settle in as sous-chef for a few weeks and then, when this stoner blows it, take over as head chef. What was nice about Stu was that he was in no particular rush to be the king. He didn't mind being sous-chef; he even seemed to like it. But when the other chefs on the line started showing him more respect than me . . . well, I wasn't one to go down without a fight, so I cut his shifts.

There are few things in life more fucked than living in a house as the essential services get cut. The phone is always the first to go, followed by the electricity, and then the gas. After it has happened a few times in various houses you think you'll be prepared for it next time; like,
yeah, yeah, whatever
. But when it began happening in the house in Annandale, it wasn't like that. It was really disappointing.

When the owners of the London sat me down for the inevitable chat, they at least had the grace to do so with a reasonably fat envelope waiting on the table. They seemed genuinely concerned for me. There's a weird thing that happens when you're a young junkie that is impossible to understand until you're a slightly older junkie. You think you're invisible; that your using is some great secret, and if the rest of the world ever found out they would be utterly shocked. But Mathilde—the brassy French dame who owned the London with her husband Bill—crashed through that youthful fantasy with her usual élan.

‘You're a junkie,' she said.

‘No!' I responded, shocked.

‘Yes, you are,' she insisted in her thick French accent.

‘I—I'm just . . .' I couldn't quite say what I was.

‘You're just a junkie,' she said. ‘What did you think? We didn't know? It's a pity, too, because we like you. We think you're a good chef but not now. Now it's too late. You go too far!'

And this scene with Bill and Mathilde was the most no-bullshit scene I'd had in a long time. As such, I felt compelled to defend myself, to explain that I wasn't really a junkie but actually a really good chef who was keen to get over some personal problems. I was actually disgusted with myself when I found it impossible to stop my weak and wilful eyes glancing at the envelope.

‘It's all there,' said Bill.

‘That's all you care about? Money for your next shot?' Mathilde demanded.

‘Is Stuart taking over?' I asked.

‘Of course,' Mathilde replied. ‘He's a good chef. He likes you but he can't stand to see what you're doing to yourself.'

‘I'm just having a bit of a rough trot . . .'

‘Oh, please!' Mathilde rolled her eyes.

Despite my youthful, disaffected, drug-induced haze, it was difficult not to get the impression that they'd known for some time about my evil ways. Difficult not to believe that everyone I worked with actually knew me better than I knew myself.

‘I hope you manage to get some help, Jimmy,' Bill said.

That was enough for me. I reached for the envelope and got up out of the chair.

‘I'll just get my knives.'

And that line, it was like I'd said it a million times now: like getting my knives was what I did rather than use them to any great effect. I didn't have much capacity for shame left, so seeing the other boys didn't bother me. I knew they didn't hate me as a person; they just wanted to get on with the business of cooking a decent menu without some stoner shooting up in the storeroom for morning tea.

And speaking of morning tea . . . I figured I could be out the door and up to the Cross in about seven minutes, which at the time brought a small but discernible spring to my step. I should have been remorseful, mortified and worried about the future, but I wasn't. I was unexpectedly rich, free and feeling wild.

25

Soda, Choc and I sit inside the circular Moroccan hut out by the pool at the back of Rae's. All that remains of our steak and mushroom lunch are the dirty plates.

Alice sends a text message that reads,
I'm worried.

Soda has pulled out a very cold can of Red Bull for each of us from his secret stash. It's a stash I've looked for in the past and been unable to locate. Now I'm just grateful he has one.

I text Alice back:
I'm way ahead of you this year.

‘That was good, Chef,' Choc says.

‘Yeah, fucking awesome, Chef,' Soda seconds.

‘Nice piece of beef,' I agree. ‘What's the time, Soda?'

‘Ten to four, Chef,' Soda replies.

‘Okay, here's how it's going to play out this afternoon . . . When Jesse gets back in ten minutes,' I say, as if the thought of Jesse arriving back to work late hadn't crossed my mind, ‘I want you to help him box his section for half an hour, Soda.'

‘Yes, Chef.'

‘I'll get started over on our side. My section isn't too bad. I've got to portion some steaks—those fucking things are selling like hot cakes.' I look at our dirty plates. ‘And I've got to cook off a green curry.'

‘Yes, Chef.'

I pause as another text from Alice comes through:
Have you left?
I type out a quick reply:
No, but check out the job in the paper
. . .
in town.

I turn back to the boys. ‘At four thirty, slide back over to woks and just nail it. I really don't think it's too bad but I know you have to clean some more soft-shell crabs, prep some squid and marinate some more whole fish. I'll do a list with you after you pull your section apart.'

‘Okay, Chef,' Soda says.

And I'm secretly stoked that I've been able to read the signs about when it's time to leave before Alice had to lay everything out for me. Maybe this is the year I've finally come of age.

And then Jesse wanders in through the back gate.

‘Well, here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Jesse fucking James,' I say, trying to conceal my delight that Jesse has returned.

‘Sorry about today, Chef. I've just got a bit going on for me with the move and everything,' Jesse says.

‘That's okay, Jesse. How did you go with that room?' I ask.

‘Yeah, no worries,' he replies. ‘All sorted.' And then, rather than stop and chat for a minute with the rest of the crew—like everyone expects him to—Jesse strolls off towards the kitchen.