The Food of Love (36 page)

had reversed into the road without looking and was now blocking

the street as it tried to straighten out. The driver of the cart shouted something: the Fiat’s window was wound down and the

young man at the wheel retorted that he would only be a

moment, and in any case the cart-driver might like to use the

time to make love to the horse, who was probably also his mother.

Laura laughed. Kim took her hand. ‘Thank you for not minding,’

he said quietly.

‘Mind? Why should I mind? It’s—’ She had been about to say,

‘It’s the best bit,’ but thought better of it. ‘It’s just one of those things,’ she said tactfully.

The cart-driver had obviously come up with a suitably inventive

response, because the Fiat-driver had abandoned any attempt to

unblock the road and was now telling the cart-driver what he had previously done to the cart-driver’s sister, who was apparently

famous throughout Rome for the enthusiasm with which she

gave blow-jobs to complete strangers. In case the cart-driver was not familiar with his sister’s technique, the Fiat-driver helpfully mimed it.

‘You know what?’ Laura said. ‘This might take a while.’ Others

were being drawn into the discussion. The man whose courtyard

the Fiat had been reversing out of had appeared, and was now

proposing to make the cart-driver back up a few feet so that the Fiat would have room to turn. The cart-driver was refusing to

budge. From a window above their heads a woman was complaining

about the noise, at full volume. The Fiat-driver’s response

was to drown out her words with his horn. The horse, far from

being startled, appeared to be asleep. Then it suddenly opened its eyes and, ducking its head, ate one of the potted geraniums that lined either side of the doorway, causing further protest from Fiat driver’s Friend.

‘Ghastly,’ Kim said again. ‘Rome’s wasted on these people.’

‘Let’s walk to the end, then get a taxi,’ Laura suggested.

Kim’s mood was quickly restored when the taxi deposited them at

the door of Templi. Alain’s establishment had lost none of its graciousness, and from the moment the man whose sole job it was to

open the door to them opened the door to them, Kim was in

heaven. Nor was the cosseting provided by Templi the only soothing influence. Kim had pulled out all the stops. As they greeted

their friends in the bar, a barbershop quartet dressed in dinner jackets sung Puccini arias, their mellifluous voices mingling with the quiet hum of conversation.

Laura suddenly had the sensation that she was waking from a

dream. The dream had been quite pleasant, but like a sleepwalker who suddenly wakes up and knows where they are but not how

they got there, it was a complete mystery to her how her life had come to this point.

‘Kim,’ Laura said carefully. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

‘What is it, caraV

‘What you’re going to ask me later - if it’s what I think you’re going to ask - I’m so flattered and pleased, and you really are

special to me, but - well, I just need much more time before I’m ready for something like that …’

Kim’s eyes flashed, but he said mildly, ‘I’ve told you before,

Laura: you’ve got to learn to be more spontaneous. Don’t be so

American. Just go with your heart.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘It’s your last night in the Eternal City. What better place to

pledge eternal love? Ah, here are the flowers I ordered.’

A waiter was bringing over the largest bunch of roses Laura had

ever seen. They were, she noted, the exact same shade as her

dress. The other diners, having realised by now that something

special was happening this evening, started nudging each other

and looking expectant. Laura, who had gone as red as the roses,

tried to accept the flowers in a way that looked grateful but not engaged. Definitely not engaged.

It is hard to carry a bunch of thirty-six long-stemmed red roses and maintain a conversation at the same time. By the time the students and staff moved to their table, Laura felt like the statue of

Daphne in the Villa Borghese, caught at the very moment she

turned into a tree. Finally, she managed to persuade a friendly

waiter to take the flowers away on the pretext of putting them in some water. By this time Kim and some of the others were having

earnest discussions about which wine to choose, and she was able to look around.

I guess tonight’s a big night for you,’ said the man on her right conspiratorially. ‘Kim’s a lucky guy.’

It dawned on Laura that Kim had already told some of his colleagues what he was intending to do. He must have been planning

it for days, weeks even, without saying anything to her. If she

turned him down in front of all these people his vanity - never

inconsiderable - was going to be horribly punctured. He would,

in fact, be totally humiliated. Did she really want to do that to him? Or was there some third option, such as saying she’d think

about it, or saying yes but then changing her mind a few days

further down the line?

She sat there, sick with nerves, trying to think of a way out of this. As a result, she was the only one of the party not to eat any of the amusegueules that were being passed around the table and loudly exclaimed over.

In the kitchen, a second plate of amusegueules was waiting at the pass when Alain suddenly strode over to take a closer look.

‘What are these?’ he demanded. No one answered him.

Bending down, he tasted one. For a long moment, as he ate it,

his face took on the distant look of a man who has seen beyond

the mortal world and witnessed seraphim. He turned towards

Bruno. There was no need for either of them to say anything.

There was only one person in the kitchen who could have been

responsible for what was on that plate.

Alain stared at Bruno. Then he took the plate and tipped it into the bin. ‘Do these again,’ he said quietly. ‘No, not you,’ he added quickly as Bruno reached for his pastry knife. ‘You.’ He nodded at Hugo, who shrugged and prepared to do as he had been told.

‘Orders for table twelve,’ Karl called. ‘One salmon …’

Table twelve. That was the Americans’ table. ‘… one scallops, one veloute, one caviar—’

‘Oui, chef, oui, chef, oui, chef,’ Bruno was calling as he scrambled to claim all the orders for himself.

With two long strides Alain was standing in front of him. ‘What

in God’s name are you doing now?’ he snapped.

‘Cooking,’ said Bruno, to whom the answer was obvious.

‘Not in my kitchen, you’re not. Get out.’

‘But you said—’

‘—nothing at all about you coming in here and destroying the

discipline of my brigade. Get out, before I have someone throw

you out.’

Stunned, Bruno picked up his knives and went. He couldn’t

believe it. Just when he’d got everything organised at last, it had all gone horribly wrong.

He blundered out the back door and straight into a waiter. ‘Scusi,’ he mumbled, his head still down.

‘What’s up, Bruno?’

He looked back. It was Tommaso, dressed in his old Templi

uniform. ‘See? Still fits,’ his friend said, pulling at the sleeves of his jacket. ‘Though not as well as hers.’ He pointed to where Marie

was emerging from the changing room, trying to make the uniform

she was squeezed into look like it belonged to her instead of

to a short Italian man several sizes smaller.

‘What are you two doing here?’ Bruno said.

‘We brought you a pizza. Thought you might be hungry.’

Then, when he saw Bruno was in no state for jokes, Tommaso

added, ‘That is, we thought you might need some help.’

Bruno sighed. ‘Thanks, but it’s no use. I’ve been thrown out of

the kitchen.’ He explained briefly what had happened with Alain.

‘And where is the head prick now?’

‘In the kitchen, supervising the service.’

‘Any way we can get him out of there?’

‘Absolutely not. He never leaves the kitchen during service.

Not for anything.’ A thought occurred to Bruno. ‘Apart from

when he throws people out, that is.’

‘Excellent.’ Tommaso delved into the pocket of his waiter’s

jacket and came up with an order pad. He scribbled something on

it. ‘You two wait here, and get ready to lock him in the coat cupboard as soon as he comes out.’

Tommaso walked up to the pass and handed the slip to Karl, who

glanced at it and froze.

‘What is it?’ Alain snapped.

‘Table twelve. One of the Americans has asked for,’ Karl lowered his voice, ‘steak with ketchup.’

‘Has he indeed?’ Alain said icily. ‘Hugo, come with me. The

rest of you, get on with your work. This won’t take a minute. And cancel all the orders for table twelve,’ he called over his shoulder as he walked towards the doors.

Seconds later, Alain and Hugo were safely incarcerated in the coat cupboard. ‘Now what?’ Tommaso asked.

‘Now I have to talk to the others.’ Bruno walked back into the

kitchen. ‘Listen to me, everyone,’ he called.

Instantly he had the attention of the room. But now that all

their eyes were on him, he wasn’t sure what to say.

‘It’s like this,’ he began. ‘There’s a girl here tonight, on table twelve, and I want to cook her the best meal she’s ever had. It

means changing the menu, because I know this girl, and the kind

of food she really loves isn’t Alain’s food, good though that is. It’s Roman food, the kind of food I like to cook. But I can’t do it on my own, not at this level. We’ll have to prep an entire menu from scratch, right now, and that means I need all of you to say you’ll help.’

There was a long pause. Then Karl said, ‘Where’s chef?’

‘Locked in the coat cupboard.’

There was another long pause. ‘He’ll fire us,’ someone said

nervously.

Bruno shook his head. ‘No, he won’t. If you all agree to help,

how can he pick on any one of you? And if he fires all of you, he wouldn’t be able to open tomorrow, any more than I can cook

tonight without your help. The truth is, he needs you more than

you need him.’

Karl said, I liked that Roman dish you showed me how to cook

when the mafia turned up. And I’ve been calling out that idiot’s orders long enough anyway. It’s time we had some fun. I’ll help you.’

‘What about the rest of you?’ Bruno said, looking around.

One by one, with various degrees of enthusiasm or reluctance,

the kitchen brigade nodded.

‘Right,’ Bruno said. ‘Let’s get to work. You,’ he pointed at the sous nearest to him, ‘get me some whites.’

‘Yes, chef

‘The rest of you, listen carefully.’

‘Hi,’ Marie said brightly to table twelve. ‘Has anyone told you

guys the specials?’

‘We’ve already ordered,’ someone pointed out.

‘I’m afraid what you ordered is off

‘AH of it?’

‘Pretty much. But we do have, uh, carpaccio of pan-fried capretto with a sleepy margherita jus and line-caught radicchio,’ she said, rattling off the ingredients very fast since she actually had no idea at all what Bruno planned to cook.

‘Sounds good to me,’ said the young man nearest to Marie’s

breasts.

“Me too,’ said the girl next to him, who couldn’t remember

what she’d ordered in the first place.

‘Good. Chef’s specials all round. And let me get you some

more of that wine,’ Marie said quickly, bending low over the table to pour the last of the bottle into Kim Fellowes’ glass.

‘Does the chef’s special have carbohydrate in it?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Absolutely

not,’ she assured him. ‘It’s one hundred per cent

organic’ She was gone before he could ask her to explain. At the next table, Tommaso was also busy explaining that the menu had

been unavoidably changed at short notice.

The kitchen staff at Templi had never worked so hard under

Alain’s dictatorial rule as they did now for Bruno. Dishes that

should have taken hours to prepare were being turned out in a

matter of minutes.

‘It’s going great,’ Tommaso confirmed when he came back for

more plates. ‘Just keep the food coming.’

‘I’m doing my best,’ Bruno muttered.

“I need your best, but faster. There are people in there who’ll

start to get hungry in about ten minutes.’

Bruno cooked faster. Soon a stream of dishes was being carried

out to the dining room, but he had no time to rest. He immediately got the kitchen to work on the secondi.

Something strange was happening in the dining room. The kitchen

staff became aware of an unfamiliar hum, like the buzzing of a

swarm of bees, coming from beyond the swing doors. One or two

of them, who had been present during the night of the eels, looked up apprehensively. Then a waiter pushed through the doors and

the sound, previously muffled, suddenly came into focus. It was the hum of animated conversation. And not just conversation. Mingled with it was the sound of laughter, laughter of every sort - amused, bawdy, raucous, jovial, and even that of one unfortunate lady

whose laugh sounded like the honk of a goose.

At table twelve, only two people remained immune to the

changing mood. Laura, sick with nerves, wasn’t eating a thing.

And Kim, rigidly adhering to his diet, was looking increasingly

puzzled as all around him his fellow diners became more and

more animated.

Kim’s barbershop quartet filled the interval between courses with their own mellifluous arrangement of a theme from Rossini. But

Tommaso was having none of that. From his pocket he took a