The Devil's Larder (2 page)

She has bush meats, as we’d expect, she says. Some snake which she’ll kebab for us, some poacher’s treats like mountain cat, and dried strips of any flesh or glands we’d
dare to name. She has, she says, though it’s expensive, parrot meat from a species that is virtually extinct.

What else? To start, hors d’oeuvres, she has soft-bodied spiders, swag beetles, forest roaches, which taste (according to one of our number) ‘like mushrooms with a hint of gorgonzola
cheese’. To drink? She offers juice or cans of beer or water flavoured in some unexpected ways.

But we have come – as well she knows – not for these rare dishes but for Curry No. 3 – the menu’s hottest offering, the fetish of the hill. Back in the town, if Curry No.
2 appears on menus, then it’s clearly understood that mountain chicken is on offer, that’s to say it’s curried
cuissardes
of frog. But we are seeking something more extreme
than frog, something prehistoric, hard-core, dangerous, something disallowed where we come from. We mean, at last, to cross the barriers of taste.

So she will bring us Curry No. 3 in her good time. It isn’t done to ask what she will use for meat, although the boy is eyeing us and could be bribed, with cigarettes, to talk. We simply
have to take our chances. There might be lizard in the pot or some unlisted insect, in no book. We are prepared for monkey, rat or dog. Offal is a possibility, a rare and testing part we’ve
never had before, some esoteric organ stained yellow in the turmeric. Tree shark, perhaps. Iguana eggs. Bat meat. Placenta. Brain. We are bound to contemplate, as well, the child who went astray at
the weekend, the old man who has disappeared and is not missed, or the tourist who never made it back to her hotel; the sacrificed, the stillborn and the cadavers, the unaccounted for.

And we are bound to contemplate the short fulfilment we will feel and then the sated discontent that’s bound to follow it, that’s bound to come with us when we, well fed, begin
descending to the coast, not in a group, but strung out, five weary penitents, weighed down by our depravities, beset by sulphur clouds, and driven on by little more than stumbling gravity.

How silent the forest is, now that our senses have been dulled by food. How careless we’ve become as we devour the path back to the river and the road. How tired and spent. We are fair
game for any passing dogs or snakes. Those flies and wasps are free to dine on us. Those cadavers can rise up from the undergrowth and seize us by the legs if they so wish. For we’re not
hungry any more. We found the path up to the restaurant and it was punishing.

N
OW
I
WILL
tell you what to eat outdoors when it is dark. Cold foods will never do. The key to dining without light is steam.
And cold food does not steam, excepting ice. No, you must warm the night about you with the steam of soup, a dozen foods in one. You cannot tell the carrots from the beans until you have them in
your mouth. You cannot, even then, distinguish what is leek from what is onion.

The bowl should not be shallow, but deep and lipped so that what steam there is must curl and gather at the centre. The steam contains the smell. And so you warm your nose on smell, and warm
your mouth on flavour, and warm your hands on bowl. You should, of course, be standing and your coat should have its collar up. You do not talk. There is no time. You have to finish what you have
before the steam has gone.

Once you have finished, there is a chilling residue of steam. It cowers in the bowl. It dares not chance the darkness and the cold. And if you do not take your hands away, and if you press your
face onto the rim, and if you close your eyes so tightly that your darkness is complete, the steam and smell will kiss your lips and lids and make you ready for the slow digestion of the night.

I
F THOSE
children had been mine I would have shouted out and stopped them. But they were strangers, only passing through, and I was irritated. So I
stood and watched. They’d find out soon enough.

The family had pulled their car into my field, as if the farmland had been set aside for picnickers. Their mum and dad had spread their blankets in the shade of our horse pine, with its inviting
mattress of orange needles, and sent the children off, across my land, to stretch their legs.

I’ve seen it all before, a dozen times. What child of five or six – as these two seemed to be – would not be drawn to our fine crab? In every way but one it is a grander tree,
dramatic and more showy than any of its sweeter apple cousins on the farm. That day, as he and she in all their innocence went hand in hand across the field, the fruit was at its best, in clumps as
tightly packed as berry strigs, and ripening unevenly on its crimson pedicels through all the blushing harvest colours, yellow and orange to purple-red.

My crab’s a vagrant, seeded more than thirty years ago, by some rogue animal no doubt, and not put there – as all the creaky grandads claim – by a bolt of lightning souring
ground where lovers from opposing villages were kissing. ‘That’s why the fruit is bitter,’ they say. And that explains the blush.

To these two youngsters, as they reached the crab, it must have seemed they’d found a magic tree, with all the warmer tints and shades of a paintbox or Christmas coloured lights or some
exaggerated textile print, and with such low branches that all they had to do was help themselves.

I watched them reach up to the lowest fruit and hesitate, a warning trapped behind my teeth. At first they touched but did not pick. This surely must be theft. Such tempting treats could not be
free. Besides, they were not sure what kind of fruit it was. They’d not seen these on supermarket stands or in their gardens. Too small to be an apple, too large to be a rosehip. Too hard,
despite its cone-like oval shape, to be a plum tomato. The open bases of the fruit were hairy and protruding like on a pomegranate. Yet these were clearly not pomegranates. At last, they pulled the
fruit down from the tree. Here was their perfect contribution to the family picnic. Their harvest would, they knew, be irresistible.

But first, of course, they each rubbed an apple against their clothes, to get a shine, and (almost at my silent prompting) tasted it. My mouth was watering. I saw the children shake their heads
and spit. They’d never pass a crab again without their unforgetting mouths flooding with distaste.

I did not stay to watch their picnicking. There’s always work to do. But I imagine that, when they sat cross-legged on their fine blankets beneath the pine while mum and dad dished out a
harmless meal from plastic containers, tin foil and flasks, the children brought the food up to their mouths with just a touch of fear and half a glance towards the tree that had betrayed their
hopes. Here was a lesson never to be forgotten, about false claims, and bitterness, and trespassing.

Sometimes, in a certain mood, I walk down to the bottom fences of my land, where my gate, ever open on to the road, gives access to picnickers, and find myself a little sad that no small child
is running, full of hope, across the field. Then the small child that still survives in me shoves me in the back. I walk across to taste the fruit of that one crab for myself. I never swallow any
of the flesh, of course. I simply plunge my teeth into the tempting bitterness. Even after all these years – misled, misled, misled again – I like to test the flavours of deceit. And I
still find myself surprised by its malicious impact in my mouth. It’s bittersweet and treacherous, the kiss of lovers from opposing villages.

I
T WAS
M
ONDAY
, almost noon, and he still suffered from the aftermath of Sunday’s garlic. Bad breath and a stinking
conscience, too.

He walked about the offices as usual, distributing client folders and the gossip, leaning over colleagues at their desks. He noticed how their heads went back, an instant recoil from his face,
his speech. He noticed how their hands went up to hide their mouths and noses. He noticed how they frowned at him.

Was there some unexpected tangent from his working life that touched the private circle of his friends? He racked his brains and found no link. They could not possibly have heard how badly
he’d behaved the night before, how slyly and how grossly. They could not know what harm he’d done. No, the disapproval that his colleagues were so obviously displaying had to be
intuitive, instinctive, from the heart. The evidence of his misdeeds was hanging round his shoulders like a heavy, garish shroud, he guessed. He shrugged it off. Raised his voice. Would not lose
face.

O
UR MERCHANT-TRADERS
’
CLUB
behind the warehouses is still better known to members as ‘the Whistling Chop’.
Here’s why. Soon after it was founded in the 1870s by the great-grandfather of our present mayor, the resident manager came out of his office one evening to find a waiter in the corridor
carrying a tray of food. A not unusual sight. Except that this waiter had gravy on his chin. The man had helped himself to some of the cut chicken breast intended for the members in the dining
rooms. ‘Not only is this common theft,’ the manager said, ‘it’s also unhygienic in the extreme. If the gentlemen had required dirty fingers in their meal, they would have
ordered them. And had they wanted you to join them here for dinner, they would have had a card delivered to your home.’

The waiter lost his job, of course. But sacking him was not enough for the club manager. He was a man who prided himself on his systems. And clearly these were failing. How many waiters helped
themselves to members’ food? he wondered. How many meals were so diminished and defiled before they reached the tables? How could he put an end to it?

He chuckled when the answer came to him. A sharp idea. A witty one. He added his new rule to the list on the staffroom door: ‘During their passage from the kitchens to the dining rooms
with members’ orders of food and drink, all waiters are directed to whistle. Any break in whistling longer than that required to draw breath will attract a fine or a dismissal.’

Now he could sit inside his office, the door a touch ajar, and monitor the traffic to the dining rooms. He got to recognize the waiters from their whistling. There were the warblers, who merely
offered a seamless trill without a melody. And then there were the songsters, addicts of the operetta and the music hall, or country lads with harvest tunes. One waiter specialized in hymns.
Another always piped the wedding march, a touch too fast. There were, as well, the irritating ones, who sounded either as if they’d lost their dogs, or as if they were impatient
stationmasters.

Nevertheless, the manager adored his latest rule. It was the cleverest control he’d ever exerted over his employees. He’d stopped them eating members’ meats for free and also,
he judged, he’d caused the waiters to appear a little foolish to themselves. And that was no bad thing.

The members liked the system, too. It jollied up their club. And there was always early warning when their food was on its way. A risqué anecdote or some recent slander could be put on
hold until the waiter had come and gone. A gentleman, dining quietly in a private room with someone other than his wife, might be glad to hear the wedding march approaching and be grateful for the
chance to disengage.

All very satisfying, then, until the day the manager discovered gravy on the palm of his own hand and on his shirt cuff. Still slightly warm. It smelled – and tasted – of lamb, that
day’s select dish. It was a mystery. He’d not been in the kitchens for an hour or so. He’d not been in the dining rooms. He’d only been upstairs, replacing magazines and
newspapers in the reading lounge. He retraced his steps, but found no clues until he was coming down again and held on to the bottom stair-post to swing himself into the service corridor, like some
hero in a play, his private vanity. Again, his hand was dark with meat.

It was not clear to him at once why there should be fresh gravy on the flat top of the post. It was just possible, he supposed, that there was some innocent explanation, a spill perhaps. But,
still, he would be vigilant.

For the next day or two, he took to stepping to his office door and peering down the corridor whenever he heard whistling. At last his worst fears were confirmed. A waiter passed, a tray of
lunches poised above his shoulder. But still there was the pungent smell of pork hanging in the corridor. The man had left a nice chop on the stair-post. He would have eaten it during his
unwhistling return had not the manager waylaid him with his dismissal papers and thus robbed the club of selections from
The Scarlet Veil
.

A tougher system was required, of course. The waiters were now called upon to whistle on their way back to the kitchens with their empty trays as well as on their journeys out. It was a step too
far. The service corridor was bustling now with competing and discordant tunes. The members seemed discomforted as well. One wrote an unsigned paragraph in the complaints ledger. He said the club
had begun to sound ‘like a public alleyway’ and not a refuge where merchants and traders might come to find a little peace. Another told the manager, ‘You’ve turned the
place into an orchestra pit.’

The manager had one last card to play. He could not ask the waiters to whistle without cease whenever they were working. They served nine-hour shifts. Nor could he sack the waiters and require
the members to collect their meals themselves. That might suit the spirit of democracy, which was fashionable in the town at that time, but would not please his businessmen. Instead, he took upon
himself the job of carrying dishes and servers of meat only along the corridor into the dining rooms. The members could then help themselves to as much as they wanted, as many chops, as much carved
beef, as great a number of chicken wings as they could despatch at one sitting. So they were satisfied.

The waiters provided all the other services, of course. The manager could not do everything, nor could he be expected to have eyes in the back of his head. He had to trust his waiters
ultimately. He was past caring if they helped themselves to vegetables on the way along the corridor, or poked their tongues into the soups. His main tasks had been to save the flesh and stop the
whistling. He had succeeded, too. He was, though, once in a while and much to his alarm, tempted himself in that dim corridor by all the smells and flavours of the meat. And, at those times, a
colleague on the staff might catch him whistling, as small boys do to help them cope with their remorse.