The Belle Hotel

by Craig Melvin

  ‘So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Don’t try twisting my arm to help you get back with Lulu, you know what happened last time.’

  ‘Nothing like that, Roger. Actually, it’s about business.’

  ‘Business. You. Business. Well, that is a turn up.’

  Roger reached for the bottle of health tonic chilling in the ice bucket on the low table.

  ‘Yeah. I’m wondering if you’d like to invest.’

  ‘Invest. Invest in what, Charlie?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Ah. It’s like that, is it?’

  Roger stood and paced across to the railings at the side of his boat. He tutted. ‘Look at this, some spoilt bastard has bought a powerboat, left the cover off and now the rain has got in and it’s sinking. I mean, who the hell would do something as stupid as that?’

  ‘Beats me, Roger.’

  ‘Lottery winner, probably. They have no respect for property. I’ve laid carpets for a few of ’em. Ghastly silk things at a grand a square foot. No style, some people. So, investing in you? How?’

  ‘Well. And you’re the first to hear this… I’ve bought a ten-year lease on this amazing restaurant in Portobello.’

  ‘Italy?’

  ‘No, London. Well, strictly speaking it’s North Kensington, but you can walk there from Portobello. Amazing place, huge.’

  ‘I think I know it. Didn’t Worrall Thompson have it, then it went bust? Been Brasserie this, that and the other for years.’

  ‘Yeah, well now it’s gonna be Portobello Belle.’

  ‘Is this what you’re asking me to invest in?’

  ‘No. All I’m asking for is working capital. I’ve already fitted out London, she’s due to open once I get a licence. This is working capital for the mother ship, Belle Brighton, I’m taking about.’

  ‘I don’t know, Charlie. I’ve made a lot of charitable commitments lately.’

  Charlie came a step closer to Roger.

  ‘All I’m asking for is working capital to help me expand, you know, like Franco did for you back in the day. I can pay you back in instalments, if you like.’

  Roger looked back down at the sinking ship and shook his head.

  ‘This is against my better judgement, and I’ll be sending Lulu in to keep an eye on my investment, right.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘An eye.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Stay there, I’ll go and get my chequebook. I take it this is urgent.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’

  ‘You’ll need to provide me with a full receipt. For contracting services, or something like that.’

  ‘Bring me a pencil and paper, I’ll write you one out now.’

  ‘On Belle Hotel headed paper, with an official company number and VAT registration number. You do know what those look like, don’t you?’

  Lulu paid two visits to Belle Hotel to look in on her father’s investment. As he’d made her promise to. There was no need to visit the London premises. Everyone in the restaurant trade knew that place was condemned and needed at least half a million chucking in before it could be re-opened. Also, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea turned down Charlie’s application for a liquor licence. Something to do with a criminal record. So, for the ten years until his break clause, Charlie had secured himself a very draughty pied-à-terre near the Shepherd’s Bush roundabout.

  Her second visit, unannounced, confirmed her worst fears. Charlie, she was informed, was entertaining half the cast of Riverdance in room 20 while ten or so unsmiling diners waited impatiently for a lunch being reheated in the microwave by an equally unsmiling teenage waitress.

  Charlie Sheridan

  Belle Hotel

  Brighton

  March 2006

  Dear Charlie,

  Well, a year has passed since you extorted the £100,000 from my father. It is only due to his affection for Franco and Belle Hotel that you haven’t heard from his solicitors.

  I thought I should let you know that, after over a decade in London, I’m ready to come home. As luck would have it, I’ve been offered food and beverage manager at Hotel Epicure on Ship Street. I’ll be working with their executive chef, Graeme. Remember him? The guy you beat to go to Switzerland. How times change, eh? The money isn’t quite London rates and it’ll be strange being so close to you, but I’m sure we’ll get used to it.

  Charlie, you being you means I’m sure you’ll take this news badly and assume that I’m doing this to get back at you in some way. Just like you did at Franco’s funeral. I’d have been happier at The Grand, or somewhere cool like Pelirocco, or Blanche House, but this is the job that came up. If it helps you, imagine that I’m having to take the job because you blew the hundred K that was going to be mine from Roger to set up my own business.

  In fact, imagine what you like.

  Lulu

  P.S. The Guild awarded me ‘Young Restaurant Manager of the Year’ at last night’s awards. Nobody mentioned you.

  Charlie did indeed take the news badly, and assumed that she was doing it to get back at him. All lies, just like that bullshit about Franco not being his grandfather. He’d opened the letter, scan read it, shoved it in Franco’s book and then fumed for days. But then other problems took over. The 0% interest credit-card deals he’d been enjoying for the last few years, slam £20K on MBNA for six months, when that expired roll it over to Santander, had ended. Something had happened to rattle the banks. Something they weren’t saying and it can’t have all been Charlie Sheridan racking up eighty-eight G on plastic that made them baulk, though if everyone was at it, reasoned Charlie, that’s a lot of unsecured mullah sloshing about.

  Good Friday 2006

  Midday

  Tick-tock, everyone’s spending on the knock.

  With a full restaurant for Easter Sunday and no way of paying Brampton’s Christmas bill, let alone finding the lolly for lamb he wanted up front, drastic action would need to be taken.

  ‘Right, fellas, you’ve got to get entrepreneurial. You’ve seen The Apprentice, think like Sir Alan. Fish, I need six hundred oysters. Meat, six sheep.’

  ‘But, what if?’

  ‘No use bleating to me. Fish, there’s a perfectly good powerboat sitting in Brighton Marina. All you need to do is get the thing going again, buy a fishing rod, net, whatever and bingo, let the oyster catching begin. Meat, I’m gonna throw you a lifeline. I’ll lend you the Jag. But if I even get a whiff of sheep shit when you bring it back, you’re sacked. Those bastards at Hotel Epicure are fully booked the whole weekend. Lulu and Graeme. Grey ham, more like. Right. Let’s go to work.’

  Charlie turned up the volume on his Pioneer Hi-Fi and went back to chopping mint. Oasis blared from the one remaining speaker that had not fallen into the deep fat fryer. He’d given himself the hardest task. The mint had been growing under a patch of nettles in the caterer’s graveyard and Charlie had had a nasty couple of stings getting the green stuff out.

  He sat with his back to Franco’s grave with the mint across his lap, scratching his hands.

  ‘Franco, old man. Grandad. If you can hear me, I’m sorry; I’ve really fucked things up. I’m not as strong as you. Know what, I’ve not even got the cash for mint sodding sauce. I’ll be nicking vinegar from the chip shop on the way back. Do you remember how we used to do Easter? Back in the good old days? You out front, me out back. Christ, I miss you, Franco. And I’m letting everyone down. I just, just can’t stop myself. I know, I know… stop yer blubbering, pull yourself together, we Sheridans don’t cry. I’m screwing up, Grandad, and I get so, so, angry. Keep thinking I’m gonna lash out and won’t be able to stop myself. Do some real harm. We just… find it so hard without you. And now Lulu’s stuck the knife in. Trying to say you’re not my grandad. She’s gone to work with the enemy, too. Are you listening, Franco? I love you, you old bastard. There, I’ve said it. Right, back to work. Lunch isn’t going to cook itself.’

  Easter Sunday 2006

  4am
>
  Tick-tock, Franco’s clock chiming loud enough to wake the dead.

  Bong. Charlie rose again and raised the Jolly Roger his mother had given him as a present up the flagpole of Belle Hotel. Franco’s Union Jack, though tattered, would wash and be cut up for cleaning rags. Made do and mend. The old man would have been proud.

  Bong. Meat got off on the sheep-rustling charge. Pleading coercion and Charlie paid the fine, eventually.

  Bong. They butchered and cooked so much sheep that weekend that Belle Hotel’s drains clogged up with fat and biblical amounts of dirty water rose up from the basement and sloshed over diners’ ankles as they sank their teeth into the South Downs stolen property.

  Bong. Fish was less successful. He managed to start the powerboat, borrow an oyster catcher, and soon was hauling in masses of the molluscs off the sewage outflow pipe half a mile out from Rottingdean beach. Not that Fish knew that he was bobbing above the shit pipe. He thought he’d just got lucky. Wrong.

  Brighton Council Environmental Health Department

  1 May 2006

  Dear Mr Sheridan,

  We write with reference to the recent norovirus outbreak at Belle Hotel. We have received complaints from 167 diners at your restaurant and have taken ten stool samples, including your own. Unfortunately, your stool sample turned out to be 100 per cent Nutella when we’d had it analysed in the lab, so it will not count as part of the sample.

  You will be sent details of the fine imposed and we advise you not to speak to the press about this matter until the case is settled. The articles in the Argus and national press have no doubt had a negative impact upon your business and we advise that you keep silent until the matter is settled.

  Yours,

  Mr Spores

  Ms Messer

  Brighton Council Health Officers

  *

  HM Courts Service

  Summons

  Offence: GBH

  You have been summoned on the charge of GBH for the second time. It is alleged by witnesses that you stabbed Ian Hunter, aka Fish, in the left buttock with the tip of your ten-inch knife on 16 April 2006 in the kitchen of Belle Hotel. Although Mr Hunter is keen not to press charges, Brighton Council wishes to prosecute you under the Crimes and Misdemeanours Act of 1973.

  Court Date: 5 January 2007

  *

  Hookes Bank

  Charlie Sheridan

  Belle Hotel

  Ship Street

  Brighton

  5 January 2007

  Dear Charlie,

  I know you have a lot on your plate right now, what with the court appearance and a number of reputation management issues relating to Belle Hotel.

  This letter is an informal warning that you cannot keep extending your overdraft ad infinitum. There is a tipping point about to hit you at which the estimated sale of Belle Hotel, all its assets and business goodwill will be less than the figure that you are currently overdrawn.

  If I were a less optimistic man, I’d also factor in a reduction in business goodwill of 50 per cent due to your mis-management of the business for the last seven years.

  I have spoken to Janet informally about this matter and she will receive a copy of this letter. Do not destroy this warning, file it in your grandfather’s book and think on it.

  Best Wishes,

  Paul Peters

  The movie at the Odeon was good, hard men and soft women, just what Charlie needed to take his mind off things. While the good guys won, Charlie’s mind wandered back up the twitten and he started counting containers in the walk-in. Béarnaise sauce, okay. Chopped shallots should get him through. Oh hell, did he do enough crème caramel? Shepherd’s pie special today, thirty portions. Might get Janet to put it on the board in the pub tonight. Nice of Lulu to invite him over for supper with the competition. Totally unexpected. Hope Graeme, that arse of an exec chef isn’t there. Must fix a time to see his father.

  Charlie had been so wrapped up with his own demise that Johnny seemed dead already. Last time he’d swung by to see him at The Savoy en route from Hookes, when was that, dead already dad’s final words had haunted Charlie. It’d taken him until Haywards Heath to latch on to what his father may, or may not, have been saying.

  ‘Sorry, Charlie, I can’t help you on this one. Bit stretched myself until the court settlement with Doreen is finalised.’

  ‘But I just need you to countersign it. Come on. It’s not much to ask. This is Belle Hotel we’re talking about.’

  Johnny looked up. Charlie looked away. The lobby of The Savoy ebbed and flowed around them.

  ‘There’s a rumour we’re shutting down.’

  ‘What, The Savoy… never.’

  ‘No, restoration. The cracks are beginning to show.’

  ‘Tell me about it. And anyway, you’ll be okay, you’ve been here so long you’re part of the furniture. Get a payoff, won’t you?’

  ‘Charlie, I’ve got something important to tell you.’

  ‘What, look I’d better—’

  Ashen-faced, Johnny opened his mouth to speak. Almost as hard talking to the boy as it was to Franco. He had to tell him, especially now that Franco was dead. Then, on cue, the fire alarm spontaneously erupted and the contents of the mahogany-clad lobby scattered.

  ‘Saved by the Belle Hotel.’

  Johnny forced a smile at the old Franco joke hanging on Charlie’s lips and the two men parted. Strangers.

  HM Courts Service

  Court Order

  Charlie Sheridan

  Sentence: Eight weeks anger management

  Weekly two-hour session

  Completed to the satisfaction of the therapist

  The judge leaned into the microphone. The jaded hack from the Argus licked his pencil. Charlie crossed his fingers.

  ‘While I accept that your caution in, let me see, December 1999 for branding Anthony Clarke acknowledged your age, position, good character, the nature of kitchen labour and the pressures of work, I cannot accept that now, six years on from that offence, you are still using cruelty as a tool in the workplace.’

  ‘He slipped, your honour, said as much—’

  ‘Silence. All rise. I am sentencing you to an eight-week anger management course, to be completed within eighteen months of today’s date.’

  Mondays had to be the day and he’d dragged it out for as long as was humanly possible. As ever, Charlie was running late.

  ‘Fuck, late. Sorry, fuck.’

  Up past Churchill Shopping Centre, Winnie would be proud. Franco and Larry used to bang on about it often enough over a tot of Hine Family Reserve.

  ‘A goddamn concrete carbuncle, just like the National. Cheers, Franco. Down-the-hatch. Churchill loved That Hamilton Woman, y’know. Always said it was his favourite picture. Goddamn carbuncle.’

  Larry, Winnie and Franco were already dust when they had knocked down the concrete and replaced the rubble with a covered mall. What did Brighton want with a covered mall? No time to ponder, and on his final warning from Ernest, the very lenient therapist, Charlie surged past the ten o’clock shoppers, froggered through the buses and up into Queens Square.

  Five-foot-flung flights and the celebrity-chef with a reputation burst into the cushion-strewn room.

  ‘Hey, Charlie, man, here you are. Perfect timing, we were just getting started. Parvez is about to tell us what’s on his mind and we are going to listen with open hearts and offer nothing other than positive affirmation.’

  Yuk, thought Charlie, grimacing into a positive affirmation like his career depended on it. Which it did. Week seven, shame to blow it now after wasting two hours of his only day off since what had seemed like summer. Back then, stuttering introductions had been made. No need for second names, especially in Charlie’s case, when the Argus and ten members of the national press, thanks to the snapper behind the wheely bin, had immortalised his name in their pages:

  BRIT-FOOD SENSATION SERVES UP HUMBLE PIE

  Bastards, it was years since he’d be
en on TFI Friday and taught Chris Evans how to flip that five hundred quid truffle omelette. The rest of his group had seemed a placid lot. Until they told their stories. Anger, rage, shame, frustration. And that was just week one. Ernest would peer through his round glasses, rub a hemp-soaped hand along the weft of his corduroyed thighs and sigh in deep understanding. What about Charlie? Did he want to share anything with the group? No, he did not. How much, or how little did one have to say to get through this? Nodding, Ernest gave little away.

  Charlie’s breathing slowed down to something near normal. Now he wanted a fag.

  ‘So, as we achieved last week, feel free to enter the sacred space, with Parvez’s verbal consent, and hold him. So: are we ready?’

  Charlie gazed out over Parvez’s greasy head to the glittering sea beyond. Freedom. There had been six inmates at the start of the programme, quickly going down to five when the lone single-parent female claimed discrimination. Shame, it would have been nice to hear what she was here for. The rest of them seemed like a nice enough lot. To Charlie the kitchen knife criminal, anyhow. There was Brian, a Leo Sayer look-alike divorce lawyer who had lost it when his wife had committed adultery with one of his clients.

  ‘I even liked the guy. We were in the Haywards Heath Male Voice Choir together.’

  Ian, an overweight, overwrought bankrupt was doing his eight weeks for slapping his business partner in the face with the pair of the hair straightening tongs he’d forgotten to patent. Charlie had nodded his understanding in week three, silently hoping for Ian that the things had been plugged in.

  Now it was Parvez’s turn to speak. Again. As far as Charlie could make out, Parvez had taken most of the airtime to date. Not that he, or Clive the easy-going yob puncher, seemed to mind. Neither Parvez nor Charlie had acknowledged that they’d once been friends at school and the co-owners of absent dads on that long-ago fishing trip.

  Parvez was handed the programme as a step back to seeing his kids. Happy almost arranged marriage to unarranged affair with the Saturday girl had sparked his angry behaviour. So he said. Charlie groaned quietly as Parvez started up. Ernest, taking this as a sign of mutual understanding, gestured him to join Parvez in the circle.