The Belle Hotel

by Craig Melvin

  Lunch found Charlie back at the Odeon watching sci-fi. He couldn’t focus on the movie, but was finding it hard to admit to himself that he felt nervous. Janet was up in her flat watching her chat show. She felt it too, but for different reasons.

  At half-past two Charlie pushed his way into the kitchen – why did Fish always leave the veg boxes there? – talked numbers with his loyal sous and set about making Lobster Belle Hotel.

  He fetched the sleepy Scottish sea creatures and sat them on the counter next to Franco’s book. He needed a piss. On his way to the toilets he spotted John, Johnny, Dad’s narrow head though the stained-glass window. In the early afternoon light, Charlie saw his hair had lost its darkness and was almost pure white against the precision cut glass. He was early. Damn. Charlie back-tracked to the kitchen contemplated relieving himself in the hand basin that health and safety had insisted he install three years earlier. At least it’d be getting some use.

  One of the lobsters had made a break for it and was halfway across the table to freedom via Ship Street. Oh no you don’t, Jimmy. Come here. Time to put on the lobster pan. Charlie hauled the high-sided pot from under the counter, filled it with bouillon and whacked it on the back burner to boil. In his escape attempt, Jimmy the lobster had floored Franco’s book. Charlie picked it up and glanced at the recipe, for old time’s sake more than anything. He knew Lobster Belle Hotel like he knew the back of his hand. From Franco’s hand to the sous chef at L’Escargot, to Le Gavroche and finally Charlie’s own lobster dish. The summation of all those skills and mentors. The one that had earnt him his star.

  Charlie gathered his ingredients on the counter – say hello, boys! – and knew without looking that his bouillon had come to a rolling simmer. Jimmy first, for the attempted escape, then Dozy. In you go. Charlie had plunged so many lobsters he hardly heard their screams. He’d stopped knifing their brains out after the bad Good Food Show in the nineties. Out came the eight-inch knife and a large pair of tongs from the rail above his head. He knocked up sauces in the time it took his lobsters to die and cook.

  Charlie cut the heat, fished them out of the bouillon, shook each over the sink and set them down on the chopping board. He crossed himself, then brought his blade down lengthways through Jimmy with a satisfying crack. He took out his stomach sac and cut and rapped both knuckles then removed the tail meat that smelt so good, and cut it into medallions which he sat in Jimmy’s empty shell before applying both sauces.

  Dozy next, and Charlie flung a packet of wild rice into the re-ignited bouillon on the hob. Steam a bit of sprouting he’d picked at the allotment first thing, and Bob’s yer uncle. Right. Time to face Johnny.

  ‘Hello, Johnny, how are you?’ Charlie stretched out his unwashed hand.

  ‘Not good, Charlie. I’m about to die.’

  Was he serious? ‘Not before lunch, I hope. Come through and have a glass of champagne. I’ll let Mum know you’re here.’

  Janet came down and popped the bubbly. Charlie flash-grilled his Lobster Belle Hotel and served it with the dome of wild rice. While they ate, Johnny told them what he’d come to tell them. He was serious about going to meet his maker. The big C. Advanced stages. Time to put his house in order. So here goes. His secret.

  Johnny handed Charlie a gossamer thin piece of paper.

  ‘Here, you’d better put this in Franco’s book, where it belongs.’ Janet made to stop Johnny. But he raised his hand.

  BIRTH CERTIFICATE

  BRIGHTON REGISTRY OFFICE

  NAME: Jonathan Sheridan

  MOTHER’S NAME: Vera Sheridan

  FATHER’S NAME: Nathan Barrow

  DATE OF BIRTH: 19 March 1944

  ‘I’m seventeen and about to go to Switzerland, you know Franco sent me there too as well as setting up The Grand bellboy thing. I ask Mum, your gran, for my birth certificate. Got to go to the post office and get myself a passport. Franco is on the trains and mum is busy with her sewing. So she hands me the lost and found paper. This is 1961, so not much to look at in the queue, and eventually I am bored enough to look at my birth certificate. I look at Mum; name, date of birth, occupation. What is a milliner when it’s at home? I look at Dad. And it’s not Franco. Nathan Barrow, born in the nineteenth century, pawnbroker. I know what one of those is. Franco is not my dad. My dad is called Nathan and my mother never told me.’

  Charlie looked at his mother. This was too much to take in, in one lunchtime. Too much, perhaps, in one lifetime. What Lulu had said was true. Janet shook her head; she never knew. Never knew, Johnny. What chance did they have? Johnny looked at the linen, Nathan’s white hair there for all to see. Then he looked up, Nathan’s brown eyes glazed with salt water.

  ‘I wasn’t his son. Made in the war while the cat was away. Then suddenly it’s VE Day and Franco’s back from the war. Peace reigns. A time to forgive and forget. Foster the boy in a spirit of reconciliation. But he never could reconcile himself to what she did. Never could forgive her. Then the hotel. Making of Franco, breaking of me. Good man, your grandfather. We became friends, you know, towards the end. Used to visit me on his trips to London. Good man. Tough luck.’

  Johnny looked down once more.

  ‘So now you know.’

  Janet shook her head once more. The phone rang, and was ignored. Silence.

  The three of them remained at the table. It was the end of a good meal. Though Johnny had barely had a bite. Lobster eating implements lay scattered among the empty claws and shells. An upturned bottle of champagne sat in a frosted bucket. Just three people, seated together, after lunch. Janet wiped her eyes on a napkin and left the room. Charlie put his arm awkwardly round the shoulder of his father. A couple of tears fell on the flimsy piece of paper.

  Janet returned with three coffees. Charlie got up and made his way over to the trolley of liqueurs. He poured three balloons of cognac, then removed and clipped a broad gauge cigar from a walnut box with a red collar, Partigas Series D. Johnny drew a flash of gold from his suit pocket. Blue flame toasted the cigar end and a wisp of smoke crept up to the ceiling. The lighter was returned to its hiding place and the clipped top of the Cuban cigar drew properly. Its charred end glowed deep red and smoke engulfed the little scene.

  ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you about Franco not being my father. It’s just that, after the war, secrets were easier to keep. And once they’d been kept they became harder to tell. I did tell Lulu, years ago, but I knew she’d keep my secret. So, this is it. I’m riddled with tumours. Pancreas, spine, lungs,’ Johnny saluted them with his cigar, ‘and I want out. I’ve come home to ask you to help me die.’

  Charlie and Janet said nothing. Charlie’s face drained of colour, Janet’s went bright red. Both stared at Johnny, neither daring to catch the other’s eye.

  ‘One of the Arab doctors who stays at The Savoy, a regular guest, got me the cyanide.’

  Johnny reached into his breast pocket and fished out a tiny, snaplock plastic packet. The transparent square contained an innocuous-looking pill.

  ‘Cyanide. Death. Turns out Dr Ahmed lost his wife to cancer a couple of years ago, so he’s more than happy to help me on this occasion. This is a relic from the Cold War. Brutal, swift, effective. Nought to death in ten seconds on an empty stomach. Plus, he owes me for turning a blind eye to the comings and goings to his suite in the small hours all these years. Will you help me? All I need is your blessing and a room key. We didn’t have this conversation. Help me. I have nobody else.’

  Johnny took himself off to the loo. Even the near-dead need to relieve themselves. Janet let out her longest sigh.

  ‘Well, that explains a lot. Poor Johnny. Why didn’t he tell me?’

  ‘What are we going to do, Mum?’

  ‘Help him. If we don’t he’ll only do it anyway. I’d rather he rest easy than go to his grave angry at us too.’

  ‘Do you think he ever told Franco?’

  ‘No. Some things are better left unsaid.’

  ‘Like, hello Dad,
I know I’m not your son. Fuck, I’d rather know. It messes with your head, not knowing who you are. Franco should have told him when he was a little boy. Which room are you going to give him?’

  ‘Yours, that way we can cause as little disruption as possible.’

  ‘Oh, thanks a bunch. Dead dad in my bed. That’s just what I nee—’

  Johnny came back, picked up his smoke and pulled. For a man about to end it all, the ash on his last cigar stayed remarkably still.

  ‘Johnny, Dad, are you sure about this?’

  ‘More sure than I’ve ever been about anything ever before. I want to be put out of my misery. I’m sorry I’ve been such a fucking useless father. You got any more brandy?’

  The three of them sat there for what to Charlie seemed like a lifetime. Finally, Claire and Emma turned up to set the restaurant for dinner. Forty booked with a likely same again as walk-ins. There was a medical conference in town. Business as usual for Belle Hotel, no point in committing commercial suicide, too. They stood in the lobby to say their goodbyes.

  ‘Well, Dad.’

  Charlie welled up. The tight feeling in his chest was back. Suddenly it was the day Johnny left again. Franco standing there holding both Charlie and Janet, saying there there, we Sheridans don’t cry. Charlie looked from his mother to his father. Both his parents were crying silently, tears pouring down their cheeks.

  Janet handed Johnny his key.

  ‘Top floor, end of the corridor. Room twenty. It’s Charlie’s room now.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  Johnny turned at the first landing and raised his hand in a stiff wave. Charlie and Janet, aware of the staff present, tried to casually wave back.

  ‘He’s just going for a nap, Charlie love, remember that. Oh Johnny, what a way to go.’

  They set off to their respective places of work. Janet turned at the door to the bar. She hesitated.

  ‘Charlie, come in to see me once you’ve set up. There’s something important I need to tell you.’

  What now? Charlie thought.

  Johnny walked slowly to his fate. His back and lungs ached and he’d passed blood into the urinal earlier. Better to end it this way than a slow, painful death somewhere lonely. Lonely. It felt good to have told them both his secret. Not Franco’s son. It was out now. Johnny was ready to meet his maker. About fucking time. Nathan Barrow, you’ve got some explaining to do. Johnny paused on the second landing and gazed out to sea through the rubber plants and rose-tinted widow. He had never loved this place like the rest of them. Give him the severe art deco of The Savoy over this Belle Epoque nonsense any day. Any day. Funny, really, what he was about to do made that into rather an odd expression. That one hollandaise sauce had changed the course of Johnny’s life and he was grateful to Franco for forcing freedom upon him. Up in the corridor in the eaves, Johnny unlocked the door marked twenty. Jesus, was this how the boy lived? He felt as if he barely knew him. As if he wasn’t his. The shock of finding out that Franco wasn’t his father had made it hard to be a father to Charlie.

  Johnny sat on the edge of the unmade single bed and opened the plastic packet.

  The new council-funded trainee was shaping up well. Charlie liked the way he handled food, there was a lightness to his touch that signalled a born chef. All Charlie had to do was hold his temper. The anger management classes were helping. He remembered to breathe when he felt himself losing it and found taming the rage brought better results than succumbing to it. Whatever. Charlie knew that if it happened again there’d be no Fish to cover for him. It’d be chokey, for sure. The thought of prison food alone was enough to keep him in check. Now, he found himself wondering what the anger management group would make of the afternoon’s surprises. He also wondered if his father was dead yet and did his damnedest to keep his emotions in check. When Franco had passed, life drained of all flavour, but with Johnny gone Charlie wouldn’t have much to miss. Or would he? What did he have now that he knew for sure that Franco wasn’t blood. He watched the lad batoning carrots. This. He had this.

  ‘Good job, son. Keep the knife straight. That’s it, then you can chop ’em all at once.’

  Janet polished her glasses. A crack, and a second pint halved in her hands. Hardly surprising, her ex-husband was four floors up and rising. She polished, poured, drained and waited. This was it. For sure. He’d be gone now. It was quick, cyanide, wasn’t it? She’d seen enough films, and didn’t Hitler go that way? Janet fed a fiver in pound coins in to the jukebox and filled the empty bar with Sinatra. Her hand went unconsciously for the nuts and she found herself humming along.

  ‘She gets too hungry for dinner at eight…’

  Hell, she’d have to tell Charlie. Too late for secrets now, look what keeping secrets did to Johnny. And anyway, it didn’t matter any more now that Johnny was almost certainly dead. Janet poured herself half a lager, sploshing a shot of lemonade onto its head. All that champagne and brandy had given her a thirst. She downed the fizz in three mouthfuls, wiped her sleeve across her lips, reached behind the boiler for her own secret piece of paper and waited for her son.

  A party of gynaecologists pitched up for supper. With startling ease, Claire and Emma sold them the Chateaubriand concept: amazing what can be done with a bit of peer pressure and a NHS Hospital Trust Amex card.

  ‘It’s for moments like this that we pay our taxes.’

  ‘You don’t pay any, Charlie.’

  ‘Shut it, Fish, get back to the Béarnaise.’

  He popped through to see his mum to put her off telling him her news, gazing up as he crossed the landing, half expecting to see Johnny’s ghost appear. There she was, feet in Franco’s pit, leaning on the zinc, finishing her crossword.

  ‘“Da, da, da, da, Chicago…” Hello, love.’

  ‘Hi, look, can this wait, I’ve got three threes coming in ten minutes.’

  ‘No, it can’t, Charlie. This has waited long enough and with him gone I want to tell you the truth about your father. Come with me.’

  She led Charlie by the hand to the boiler room. He felt a bit awkward going in there with his mother. The Soho Boho had flicked off her G-string somewhere near the fuse box. Charlie knew what was coming next.

  ‘This is where you were conceived. Your father and I made love standing up. Quietly in the dark.

  ‘Thanks, Mum, I’ve always wondered.’

  The sarcasm didn’t put Janet off her stride. Today was a day of revelations and she was about to top Johnny in the paternity stakes.

  ‘I know your birth certificate in Franco’s book says you’re Johnny’s son. You know I conceived you at the opening party for Belle Hotel. Well your father, Johnny, was sulking in the kitchen when it happened. He’d accused me of flirting with Roger Hardman, Lulu’s dad. As if. Well, I was working hard and when the offer came, I took it.’

  Charlie stared wide eyes at his mother. The cogs turning fast.

  ‘Charlie, you’re not Johnny’s son. You’re—’

  ‘No, mum. NO, NO, NO. You didn’t? Not him. How could you? Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve fucked up my life.’

  Then he was gone. He knew what she’d done. Betrayed Johnny with Roger. Betrayed Charlie. Worse still, made it impossible for he and Lulu to ever get back together. He’d always, on some level, known it. That was why it was all so fucking weird between them. What was the word, incense, something like that. Damn his education. Fucking Deliverance, banjo playing whackjobbery. That’s what it was. Charlie ran back to his kitchen to bury himself in work. Janet gazed at the slammed door and let herself remember.

  The opening party, 1973. Their first big function and things were going swimmingly. Janet had been at the sherry and her surly man-child of a husband was sulking through the washing-up. He came into the boiler room just as she stacked the last crate.

  ‘Here you are. I’ve been looking all over.’

  Janet stumbled slightly as she made to leave. He reached out to catch her arm. She looked at him, face tilted inches awa
y from his. Lip to lip. What happened next was as natural as the birds and the bees, as natural as an Axminster carpet. With a flash of an expectant smile he gently shut the door and turned off the light. Before she knew what was happening, she was committing adultery. Delicious adultery in the boiler room. A couple of minutes later the lights were back on and he was pressing his finger to his lips. ‘Never again,’ was silently sworn between them and up she went, with a little bit of him still inside her.

  That little bit became bigger and soon she was starting to show. Janet made a point of making up, and making love, with Johnny as soon as she suspected, but she knew. She knew her baby was his. And she knew it was wrong. Even though it never happened again. She’d known it was wrong all these years.

  Why hadn’t she told Charlie sooner? This anger at untold secrets may have saved them all a lot of pain. For Franco and Johnny, it was too late, Franco was pushing up daisies behind the station, and Johnny would soon be joining him. But at least Charlie knew that Johnny wasn’t his father. She’d let out her secret. Janet sank to her knees and sobbed. Sobbed for her younger self. For her son. She went to blow her nose on the green lace handkerchief that lay at her knees… but it wasn’t a handkerchief, it was a pair of knickers. How the hell did they get there?