Julius (18 page)

She stared at him, twisting her hands, distressed she knew not why.

‘I don’t know why you want to make the shop large,’ she said; ‘it means such an expense and the work is doubled. Why, with the savings you must have given to buy it up we could have gone away perhaps, now that the hot weather has come. Somewhere by the sea.’

‘We can’t afford holidays,’ he told her abruptly, not bothering to look up from his paper of calculations. ‘During this heat we shall have to work harder than before. August is a slack month. I’ve got to get all the repairs finished and done, both shops painted and re-decorated before September. We’ll be ready then for a busy autumn and winter.’

Her heart sank at his words. She knew what it meant. Workmen about the place continually, the smell of paint, and they themselves doing much of the work so as to save money. Then, business starting briskly so soon as everything was finished, standing from morning till night - on - on - never ending this craze of his for efficiency, for speed, for enlargement.

Now, with the extra building and the improvements she would have help under her, of course, but instead of her position becoming easier as its importance grew, she found there was more to do than before, the day’s work was one endless strain, one continuous effort to keep to time.The bakery was run simultaneously with the catering for meals, and the care of the confectionery was still in her hands. Not for any moment in the day would she be away from the smell of food, from the glare of the ovens, and from the grumbling, impatient women who served under her. She could not see that this passionate turmoil was leading anywhere.They were none of them happier than before. Life was certainly no easier than it had been. Julius and she still lived shabbily and meanly in the poky rooms at the back of the building. Only two rooms now, the bedroom and kitchen, their sitting-room having been seized for ‘space’ for the shop. Besides her time in the confectionery Elsa had to tidy and clean these two rooms, she had to see to their own meals, frugal enough as it happened, but even so the labour was heavy on top of the work for the shop.

‘Do you think, now we are doing better, I might have a woman in to clean and cook for us?’ she asked.

He looked at her in amazement. ‘Haven’t you got hands?’ he said.

‘Yes - but - what with the confectionery ...’

‘Oh! I see,’ he taunted her, ‘you want to sit and be idle. You want to lie down on cushions and be fanned. Why don’t you go back to Alger where you belong? Lazy little prostitute.’

‘Julius - you don’t understand.’

‘I understand one thing. I never rest myself and I don’t expect the people who work under me to rest. Put that into your head and don’t argue. If you don’t like it, you can go.’

No care, no tenderness. He considered her only as someone who worked under him. Someone he employed. Stung to anger by his sneers she let her tongue run away with her.

‘Since you think of me as one of your servants, why do you expect me to work without wages?’

At this he threw back his head and laughed.

‘You can go to-morrow, if you like,’ he said. ‘I could fill your place without the slightest difficulty. Come here.’

She went to him at once.

‘Well - are you going to leave me?’ he asked.

She took her hands away from him, she knew he was playing with her.

‘Sometimes I believe you hate me,’ she said slowly; ‘it can only be hate that makes you act in this way.’

He laughed, and drew her on his knee. She hid her face in his shoulder, and he went on jotting down figures and calculations on a piece of paper with one hand while he caressed her with the other.

‘Ten, fifteen,’ he murmured. ‘Say fifteen tables in the new building and ten here, twenty - one assistant to five tables, lunch twenty minutes, tables for two, twelve o’clock till two . . . forty maximum . . . shilling charge - say one-and-three - what did you say, Mimitte?’

‘You don’t love me,’ she repeated; ‘why do you have me?’

‘Because there’s nothing to pay,’ he said. ‘Forty maximum in half-an-hour, two pound ten - not good enough, make tables for four, throw out two top rooms, say fifty, sixty - three, six, twelve pounds - don’t cry down my neck; it bores me - can’t you find something else to do?’ he said.

What fools women were, only one thought ever in their heads. He watched her back as she moved away from him, drooping, dispirited, how different she was from the laughing, gay child in the Kasbah; she seemed to have no life in her nowadays. These Southern girls got old quickly, always ailing too. ‘You’re coughing again,’ he said, ‘you’d better get another box of those lozenges. Can’t have you laid up.’

She did not answer him, though. She was only like a kitten after all, she had to be coaxed and petted before she put in her claws and clung to you.

‘I was only teasing you, you silly little thing,’ he called softly; ‘think I’d have any woman but you? I’ve nearly done these accounts and then I’ll tell you things. Little nonsense - little stupid love. Don’t sulk, Mi-Mi baby.’

She flung him a smile over her shoulder. He went on with his figures, forgetting her at once.

The throwing of two shops into one was a success from the start. The fresh paint and the clean appearance of the building drew the eye at once, the stock in the windows looked fresh and appetising and the cleverest touch of all was the low-priced menu stuck well to the front in the glass above the door. The service was quick and efficient, there was something smart about the marble-topped tables free from the last-comers’ stains and crumbs, and it was a noticeable improvement to find oneself able to lunch well and thoroughly under half-an-hour. ‘Lévy’s’ was a great novelty to find in a busy, congested area such as Holborn. The numberless clerks and poorer City men who gained their daily bread in this quarter of the City were agreeably surprised to come across this place that provided a quick, cheap, midday meal. They came once and came again, they told their fellow clerks, passers-by tried it, as ‘a change,’ and then made lunch at Lévy’s a habit. The place was succeeding as Julius knew it would succeed. The upper rooms of the second shop, which had been furnished as the rest with tables, chairs and counter in case of congestion below, were in use almost from the outset. There was never a moment between twelve o’clock and two when one of the tables was not filled, either below or upstairs, and it was not long before teas, served between four and six, became part of daily routine. The original bakery, from which the shop had sprung, held now a very secondary importance compared to the new café, as the owner termed it. The work continued, of course, the old customers were supplied daily as before, but the back premises of the shop were extended; what had been the baking house was now fitted up in superior fashion for cooking and serving. Julius had a lift installed to lead to the upper floor.

It seemed to Elsa that never for a moment now was the building free from workmen making some alteration. First the shop, then the upper floor, then the kitchens. Scaffolding erected in front of her bedroom window - the only spot of privacy left to her - and the sound of hammer and saw. Every month there would be an improvement to make. According to Julius, there must be greater efficiency in the kitchens, the service must be speeded up, this assistant discharged for one more capable. The two buildings were not large enough to hold the overflow of customers, he would have to take in the adjoining store - only a drapery business doing poorly. He would buy the fellow out, sell up his stock for him and make a small profit on the deal perhaps. He must have a kitchen on each floor in future to ensure rapid service and hot food. Those lifts took too long - have each floor working separately and independently but to time, with its own servers and cook.This present staff were overworked; not enough of them, he must add, improve, enlarge, change this, alter that, a new idea here, a change of policy there.

Julius never lived in the present, he was always six months, a year, ahead. The growth of his café business, as he termed it, was never too much for him. He never sat down, or paused and thought to himself, ‘I’m doing very well, now stop a bit, now wait and see.’ It was too easy, it was like a toy in his hands. Little simple matters like hitting on the idea of orange sun-blinds let down from the open windows in the summer were a relaxation to him and an amusement, and the braziers outside the doors in winter as he remembered them, when a child in Paris, would run through his mind suddenly for no reason and be put into practice without effort.

He would stand on the big ground floor of the café during the rush hours - one o’clock till two - his eyes never still, alighting upon one thing, then another, and making a mental note of the fact. ‘Tables a little too congested in one corner, half a dozen people were cramped unnecessarily - he must alter that. Why not stools up against that counter? - good idea - run that as a new scheme next summer when he took in the next block; keep a section for drinks and ices in the summer: run it separately and unconnected with the lunch - Elsa could surely manage that if she can’t do anything else . . . Hello! - that new fellow has smashed a tray, must sack him for incompetence or give him chance of paying for damage out of his own pocket ... Rooms upstairs filled, good - table empty in one corner; why doesn’t that idiot tell ’em below there’s heaps of space for anyone waiting? ... That ham is perfectly fresh - will do very well to-morrow in sandwiches - must tell ’em never to throw food away when it can be used up differently ... That fellow at the pay desk looks efficient, I’ll send him below. He’s wasted in this smaller room . . . Who’s complaining about the coffee? - too much chicory, I suppose; that’s the cheaper brand, I must go back to the other, not worth fighting over two shillings . . . Go on, you slow-witted bastard, help that customer with his coat, politeness above all things in this business - good idea - make a speciality of attention at Lévy’s, start a No Gratuities with the New Year, no harm in trying ... There’s lettuce being carried out quite untouched, make a sandwich of it, sardine and salad on toast - use up these leavings and make ’em a popular feature every day; egg and cheese, ham and tongue ... That fish is off, I can smell it, no use putting that over, lose customers, silly idiot in the kitchen, give her the sack if she can’t use her nose . . . Rooms are full up and a young fellow’s being turned away - God in Heaven - this English climate ... Why can’t I make a roof garden, they’d bring their women here then; tables for two under umbrellas - damn, damn, why live in London? ... Somebody asking for sausages in midsummer, say we’ve got ’em, don’t shake your head, you silly sheep, something can be produced to look like a sausage, never deny a customer . . . Speed it up, speed it up, fellow’s finished his chop, be ready to take away the plate . . . give him strawberries and cream, we’ve a surplus to-day and they’ll only rot, put it before him and disappear, he’ll eat it, he’s the dithering sort . . . Not enough cloakroom space, must take in more room for two extra w.c.’s, somebody waiting in the corridor and getting impatient . . . There’s too much water in those ices, it’s flavouring they need and colour.’

On and on, his thoughts travelling like a flash of lightning amongst faces and tables and food, below, above, in the kitchens, missing nothing and being everywhere at once.

Two years, three years, four years and Lévy’s growing and improving every six months, a big popular café spreading itself from a humble baker’s and confectioner’s. The little everyday clerks of the City who pushed each other along the pavements at midday, with their Gladstone bags and their folded umbrellas, the smug self-satisfied conventional fellows who sat year in year out on their round stools in their dusty offices, they poured in to Lévy’s as though it had always been - they accepted it as part and parcel of their natural lives.

Nor did they notice, so skilfully and unobtrusively was it done, that the menu eventually arrived at one-and-three and one-and-six. That besides the set course it was possible to choose dishes from a bill of fare whose price was not a whit lower than that of any other eating-house in the City; in their ignorance they fancied themselves to be saving money and time by these meals so smartly served on marble-topped tables by smart assistants who were forbidden to take tips. ‘Something for nothing,’ they thought, ‘something for nothing,’ which was just exactly what Julius Lévy intended them to think, and he pocketed his profits with a smile on his face because this whole business of exploitation and easy money was surely almost too facile an undertaking altogether.

For Elsa, who had cried with the cold in that attic in Clifford Street, the development of the café was something to be feared and hated. It was too big for her, she was swallowed up in this atmosphere of slick efficiency, of a staff working to order and to time; and she, once the humble baker of cakes over a little stubborn fire, must now be pushed out of the way to make room for skilled cooks trained to their work. She was turned over from one room to another, she was told to serve behind a counter, to attend to a certain number of tables, to look after accounts at a pay desk, and at each of these she failed in turn. She was not quick enough, she forgot the orders, she fumbled with dishes, she muddled her change.

She had never learnt English properly and this was her great difficulty, at any sharp word or quick sentence she was lost. She dreaded the appearance of Julius, for should he come near her when she was working she became flustered immediately, she tripped over her words, flushing in distress. She made one mistake after another and dared not raise her head lest she should meet his eyes, cold and scornful, and should see that tap-tap of his finger on table or counter, the sign of his anger that she knew and feared.

‘It’s no use,’ he would say at the end of the day when they were done. ‘I can’t have you in charge in the upper room. You keep everything back. I shall have to put somebody in place of you.’

She would bow her head, sensitive and wounded, unable to excuse herself.