In the Kitchen

by Monica Ali

  ‘Carrots, Chef.’ Gabe let him writhe a short while. ‘Fine dice, standard or large cut? What are these?’

  ‘Standard?’ said Damian, beginning to puff.

  The boy was useless, even at breathing. ‘They’re not standard,’ said Gabe, slowly. He wrapped an arm round Damian’s shoulders. ‘I’ll tell you what they are. They’re shit is what they are. Get the bin, throw them away and start again.’

  ‘Was I too hard on him?’ he said to Benny, on the way back to his desk.

  ‘To be honest with you,’ said Benny, ‘no.’ Benny was a natural-born peacekeeper. They could probably use him in Rwanda, or wherever the hell he was from. ‘In my country we have a saying: the empty sack doesn’t stand up.’ He wiped his board and replenished his towel stack. ‘I never saw you give harsh words with no reason. You’re fair. If you’re asking me, I’ll say that you stand up.’

  Gabe made a detour through the pastry kitchen. The light, operating-room bright, made the space look like some sort of clinic. He could almost hear the sigh of rising dough, neatly tucked beneath hospital-white cloths. Chef Albert moved a toothpick through pink icing with laser precision and speed. He was working his way across a tray of biscuits, writing ‘Sirovsky’ on them all.

  ‘Look,’ he said, pausing a moment and holding up his hand. ‘No – how do you call? – tremor. Absolutely none.’ He patted his breast pocket and Gabe heard the rattling of pills. ‘Beta blockers. What miracle! Magnifique. I have stress, I am stressed, my muppet – he muppets around – but all the time I remain calm, absolutely calm.’

  ‘These are terrific,’ said Gabe. He wanted to get away from the yeast smell, and Chef Albert’s shiny, sugar-glazed face.

  ‘Yes,’ said Chef Albert. ‘Beautiful. But you know what will happen to my little work of art? It goes into the mouth and – a few hours later – it comes out of the arse.’

  ‘Such is life,’ said Gabriel. ‘If you need me I’ll be at my desk.’ He almost ran back to his office and found a fresh pile of paperwork on his in-tray, peppered with Post-it notes from Human Resources.

  ‘It all witchcraft and wizardry,’ said Oona, blowing into the cubicle and cackling over his shoulder. ‘It all about the codes.’

  ‘I thought F17 was the sick-pay code,’ said Gabe. ‘God, it’s the second time I’ve filled in these forms.’

  ‘Want me to do it for you, darlin’?’ said Oona, squeezing into a seat.

  It was why he had kept her on in the first place, he supposed; why the chefs before him had too. Oona’s knowledge of the Imperial’s by-laws and footnotes was encyclopedic. He used her to fend off red tape.

  ‘A ting I need to arks you, sweetheart … it OK with you I take tomorrow afternoon off? I can swap a half-day holiday with Benny, he suppose be home tomorrow but he can come. Oh, no, not Benny, I mean it was Suleiman and then he gonna trade half a day with … wait … now I’m getting muddled but it work itself out in the end.’

  ‘No,’ said Gabe. He handed her the sheaf of paperwork.

  ‘I wouldn’t arks but …’ said Oona, one hand sinking into her breast.

  ‘No.’

  Oona’s eyes twinkled, because she knew he was pulling her leg.

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Gabriel. ‘The holiday rota is fixed. It doesn’t work itself out. I work it out and that’s that.’

  ‘Ho,’ said Oona, sagging. ‘Well.’ She slipped off her shoes and rubbed her feet together like a praying mantis. ‘What about Mr Maddox’s little meeting, in the Roosevelt? Want me to rustle up some nice tasty plates?’

  Shit. He’d forgotten all about it. He’d have to divert Suleiman for a couple of hours. ‘Thanks for reminding me. Consider your part of the job done.’

  ‘Harn’t you lovely?’ cried Oona, leaning forward and, for one alarming moment, seeming to prepare for a hug. ‘I’ll whip up some nibbles quick enough.’

  ‘Oona,’ he said, ‘no offence, but that’s not a risk I’m prepared to take.’

  Ernie nearly ran him over with a fork-lift piled to invisibility level with cartons of milk and cream.

  ‘Driving blind today?’

  Ernie parked the trolley. He scratched his head. ‘There’s no motor on it. Ah’m just pushing it along, you know.’ For a poet he could be somewhat literal-minded.

  ‘How’s the world of goods-in?’

  Ernie thought. ‘Not bad. Not bad at all. The goods come in and Ah put ’em away. That’s how it works, you know. Ah cannae complain.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Chef,’ said Ernie, sliding a plastic folder out from between cartons of organic full-fat. ‘Chef, would you be interested in buying a valentine poem? It’s a new business. Three pound for two verses, six pound for four.’ He extended and retracted his scrawny neck.

  ‘Valentines? It’s only November, Ernie.’

  Ernie blinked proudly. ‘Aye. Ah’m ahead o’ the game.’

  Ernie’s trousers were too short for him. His socks showed and the elastics were gone. His haircut was an institutional scalp job and there was something defective about the way the Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. Gabe flicked quickly through Ernie’s folder, time running through his hands. In this job, sometimes, you had to play social worker, whether you liked it or not.

  ‘This one you’ll like,’ said Ernie. ‘See what Ah’ve done? That’s what you call an acrostic – see – it spells VALENTINE down the side of the page. Ah reckon to sell ten a day, say for the next month, and Ah’ll be adding more, you know. Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day … You’ve got a Day in every month, at least.’

  ‘Good plan, Ernie,’ said Gabriel. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got to run.’

  The phone was ringing in his cubicle. Gabe snatched it up.

  He was just hanging up again as Mr Maddox filled the doorframe. ‘Good news,’ said Gabe. ‘That was the inspector.’

  Mr Maddox was still blocking the door, so that his deputy was forced to stand meekly behind.

  ‘We can just about squeeze the three of us in here,’ said Gabe, offering his own chair.

  Mr Maddox took up his offer and Mr James scurried in. ‘Ah, there you are, Gareth,’ said Maddox. ‘Thought I’d given you the slip. Keeps following me around like a doggie. Can’t imagine why.’ He gave his humourless laugh.

  The general manager, Gabe decided, liked to pretend to be a bully, to disguise the fact that he really was.

  ‘Actually,’ said Gabe, ‘Parks said he was wrapping things up.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Mr Maddox, ‘I know. He called me first.’

  There was a silence, which Gabe resisted the urge to fill.

  ‘Gareth,’ said Mr Maddox, ‘our executive chef is wondering why we’re here. Does either of us know? Do you have it written on your clipboard, or is that your shopping list on there?’

  Mr James fingered his tie anxiously. ‘Meetings at the Imperial are generally insufficiently minuted. We’ve agreed to tighten up.’ If it weren’t for his officiousness, Gabriel would have felt sorry for him. ‘The directors’ meeting lunch—’ he continued, before his boss cut him off.

  ‘Taken care of?’ said Mr Maddox. ‘I’m assuming yes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gabriel. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not just a pretty face, is he? Now, I’ll tell you what.’ He picked a stapler from the desk and punched a few staples on to the floor. ‘This business with the porter, it’s been cleared up – all well and good. Pretty much a formality now, is what I understand. Which is good, because if it had played any different – do I even need to tell you?’ He tossed the stapler aside. He pulled out the top drawer and closed it, pulled out the bottom one and kicked it shut. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just thinking.’ He smoothed an eyebrow. ‘What I’m thinking is this. You’ve been here – what? – five, six months now, Chef, long enough, I’d say, to start noticing anything that smells wrong. If there was no funny business with that porter, then marvellous, pleased as fucking punch, me and Gareth, you can tell he’s pleased by the way he’s clenching his but
tocks, that’s a sign of happiness.’

  Mr James was, indeed, smiling. Though he had made no marks on his pad, Gabe imagined he was taking mental note of the torsion technique Maddox applied to his staff, twisting in two directions, to get the best out of them. It was a technique that was bound to come in useful when Gareth became a GM himself.

  ‘But there’s only two things certain in hotel life,’ Mr Maddox continued. ‘Number one: to make your margins you screw every last drop of blood from your workers. Number two: they screw you right back.’ He paused and locked his missile gaze on Gabriel. ‘So we know there’s something going on, always is. What I need from you, Chef, is the who, when and how. You with me? Good, well, you know what they say.’ He rose. The meeting was over. ‘Gareth,’ he roared. ‘For fuck’s sake, don’t tell me you’re taking a minute. Jesus wept!’

  The who, when and how, thought Gabriel. I could give him the who. Maddox wanted dirt. If you’re not with us, you’re against us; that was what he said, or didn’t say.

  He was more than half an hour late for his regular sit-down with Stanley Gleeson.

  ‘Nice of you to come,’ said Gleeson. ‘Better get straight to business – shall we run through the specials, or shall we talk about tonight first?’ Gleeson’s new frostiness at least served as a reminder – if reminder were needed – that Stanley was not a man to trust. Gabriel ran through the specials, and in his mind ran over the scams which were stocked like basic ingredients in any London hotel. Gleeson would have something going with Pierre, the bar manager, topping up vodka bottles with water, pouring singles instead of doubles and splitting the dividend. Pierre, who clearly took his own medicine, dealt marching powder to his regulars and Gleeson would take a cut. Sometimes he ‘rushed’ a handwritten dinner order to the kitchen, which doubtless bypassed the till and ended up in his pocket. There’d be kickbacks from the alcohol suppliers, of which Pierre and Gleeson retained charge. And if Gleeson didn’t ‘comp’ his friends in the restaurant then Gabe didn’t know his elbow from his arse.

  ‘Ah,’ sighed Gleeson, as the waitress cleared the coffee cups, ‘if it weren’t for the sexual harassment laws this place would be heaven on earth.’

  In other words, nothing. There was nothing going on, as far as Gabriel knew. No more than Maddox would guess as a matter of course. Yet Gleeson had whined like a lobster on the grill over Yuri. There had to be something else.

  It could be anything, any number of reasons why Gleeson didn’t want the police around, not necessarily connected to the porter, but something he didn’t want them stumbling on, something more than a pilfered bottle of vodka or brandy, which Gleeson would be only too happy to brazen out. Gabriel tried to imagine, tried to make up a story with Gleeson at its dark heart, but he couldn’t make anything stick. Anyway, it was futile, there were things that went on that you could never imagine; he’d never have believed that mess at the Dartington, unless he’d been there and seen it with his own eyes when the police and the environmental health scooped up the Ghanaian sous-chef. They’d traced the bush meat from Hackney market back to the Knightsbridge hotel, and Gabriel had stood behind them when they broke the lock on the spare chest freezer, peering in at the gorilla steaks, smokies and grasscutter rats.

  ‘I’ll let you skedaddle,’ said Gleeson. ‘I can see your mind is racing to pastures fresh.’

  ‘You know what it’s like,’ said Gabe, in spite of himself slipping into a faux-Gleeson drawl. Gleeson was a fake and a phoney. He affected an upper-class manner, like a butler who believed himself part of the world which was his only to serve.

  For lunch service Gabriel folded Nikolai back into the crew, dunking fresh pasta and working the skillets of frittata for those docile enough to take the special, the same punters who ate all the breadsticks and asked for water out of the tap.

  ‘Yuri loved my omelettes,’ said Nikolai. He ceased his labour for a moment, letting the egg whisk rest in the bowl.

  Gabe picked up the whisk and watched the viscous slide of yolk.

  ‘Very simple,’ said Nikolai, ‘tomato, parsley, salt and pepper, and of course the eggs.’

  Gabe stirred briefly and stopped.

  ‘Really, it was his favourite,’ said Nikolai, modestly, patiently, as if he would hate to influence anyone’s opinion but was honour-bound to state the facts.

  Gabe wondered if Nikolai had gone down to the catacombs and cooked on the gas burner, had raided the kitchen stores, or brought the food from home. Not that it mattered anyway, not that he wanted to think about it at all.

  ‘A little caviar and sour cream to go with it, that’s what we needed, but Yuri was too much of a gentleman to say a word about that.’

  Gabriel started beating. The whisk against the metal bowl sounded good. It occurred to him that Benny too had known about Yuri’s bunk hole, had been paying a quick visit when he’d found him on the floor.

  Nikolai didn’t say much in the kitchen. He had the ability to keep his mouth closed, a quality which Gabriel liked, though now that he came to think of it, sometimes it made him uneasy, as if Nikolai were watching and judging and waiting for the opportunity to report back.

  Report back on what, to whom? Gabe beat the eggs harder, too hard, getting too much air. He’d just got rid of the Yuri problem, he didn’t want to be thinking about him now.

  ‘His daughters,’ said Nikolai, ‘they were—’

  Gabriel forced himself to stop beating. He wiped his hands. He folded his arms across his chest and waited for Nikolai to go on.

  Nikolai shook his head.

  Come on then, thought Gabe, come on. There was something odd about Nikolai, the way he refused to move up from a lowly grade. The man was clearly intelligent. He was like some overgrown student, no, some underground revolutionary leader, watching and waiting, biding his time.

  ‘His daughters,’ said Gabriel. ‘What?’ He issued it like a challenge, because he’d had enough of Nikolai.

  ‘Nothing, Chef.’

  Gabriel smiled at Nikolai, to show there was nothing difficult between them, and then went back to the pass, dismissing Oona with another smile.

  Lunch was brisk but not catastrophic, they easily held their own. Tonight – let’s face it – might be a bloodbath, but they weren’t on the run just yet. In a lull he leaned with his hands behind him pressed to the hot shelf, secretly revelling in their toughness. Breathing a little deeper, he was forged afresh, benign. He knew it would not last. He was like a general on a brief tour of the front line who, receiving a valiant and superficial wound, feels at one with his men. Still, he looked at his kitchen and brimmed with something that he wouldn’t say was love. It wasn’t love but it was something, when he took in his brigade, a United Nations task force all bent to their work.

  Every corner of the earth was represented here. Hispanic, Asian, African, Baltic and most places in between. Oona had taken on a new dishwasher, from Somalia or somewhere pretty much like that. The other one was Mongolian and the third was from – where? – the Philippines? Gabe had worked in places where porters came as a job lot, the first getting along a cousin who recommended a brother-in-law who also brought his friend. Before you knew it there was a gang of them, and that only spelled trouble ahead. The room-service guy was fresh from Chile and Gabriel doubted that his English extended beyond fries and burgers and whatever else was on the menu. He’d fitted in all right. It was touching, really, to watch them all, every race, every colour, every creed.

  In Blantwistle there were only the Asians, or the Pakis as they were called then, maybe still were. They did only the night shifts at the mill, were just coming out as the morning shift went in. That was the way it was at first. Gabriel remembered the journey on the number 72, going down from the heights of Plodder Lane to the market square and across the coccyx of the narrow streets that lay like old men’s backbones, decaying, grinding down. Michael Harrison’s family lived there, ‘marooned’, said his father, among the Asians, and when the bus pulled in at the bus stop
the conductor shouted ‘Khyber Pass’ and rang the bell. People said things about the Asians. They never scrubbed their doorsteps, the children pissed on the flagstones, they made curry with Pal dog meat. Gabriel played a game with Michael, walking behind them making monkey noises, he didn’t know any better then.

  When the kitchen had dispersed for the afternoon break – to the betting shop, the pub, or any warm quiet cubby hole for a sleep – Gabriel went down to the catacombs to fetch the money for Lena. He passed the dry-goods store and the old fish room, turned to the right and passed the rubbish chutes and breathed through his mouth to combat the smell. He had a girlfriend once who was a mouthbreather. That was nearly all he remembered about her, blocked sinuses and musty breath, and the mouthbreathing which he couldn’t tolerate in the end.

  After her there’d been Catherine. He’d given it a good try, moved into her Putney cottage, with all the retro floral prints and lime-washed pine. What had happened? They wanted so much from each other that every day was like being eaten alive. His parents, their generation, their friends, he’d seen them, they never expected that: to drink lifeblood from a spouse. It was enough to rub along after the honeymoon period, to knit together slowly like a broken bone, and to do it over the chores and children or in the allotment pulling weeds. And if they found that they hated each other, well, that was something they had in common, stuck in a life they did not want.

  With Catherine, they’d suffocated each other, too many needs, too imprecisely defined. Charlie was different, anyway, independent, light on her feet. It was a bonus of marrying late when they both knew their own minds.

  Of course he was going to marry her. He’d known it for a long time, without putting it into words.

  He’d taken a wrong turning. He would have to double back. The corridor here was so narrow his wrists scraped on the walls. A more fertile imagination would place skeletons behind these rusty-bolted doors.

  On an early date with Charlie she took him to meet a potential manager, an unexceptional man in coach-driver slacks and sleeveless jumper who spoke quietly and respectfully and stood all their rounds in the bar.