In the Kitchen

by Monica Ali

  They were moving at a brisk pace down Alderney Street. Gabe could see the plate-glass window where the florists had once been and the restaurant would be soon. ‘Not had the inquest yet. I suppose we’ll find out more … What was that about bonded labour? What do you mean by that?’

  ‘A form of slavery,’ said Fairweather, ‘for the twenty-first century. Taking away passports, debt bondage, threats of violence, that sort of thing. The gangmaster stuff you’ll have read about in the newspapers. The pressure groups like to call it slavery, sounds more impressive, and we’re really world class at that because we’ve gone so big on deregulation, you see.’

  ‘But there are new laws,’ said Gabe. ‘After the Chinese cockle pickers thing.’

  ‘The Gangmaster Licensing Act.’ Fairweather stopped at the shopfront, put his hand to the glass and peered inside. ‘You know, I think Lucinda’s designs aren’t bad. She’s had an idea for the fascia I think could really work. You have a touching faith in government, by the way. The GLA set up an authority that is tiny and self-funding, it will hardly scratch the surface, but I guess as long as we don’t have more mass drownings or other spectaculars, then nobody’s really going to notice or mind. Nobody’s in favour of rising food prices, you know.’

  ‘I don’t know about Yuri,’ said Gabe. ‘He came through an agency.’

  Fairweather stood shoulder to shoulder on the pavement with Gabriel. The plate glass held their reflections, suspended in the dark like two souls lost in the fog. ‘Shall we go inside?’ said Fairweather, moving for the door. Lingering for a moment, Gabriel examined the figure in the window, the all-purpose jeans and anonymous zip-up jacket, and thought how bland he looked, how indistinct, like a featureless mannequin, every characteristic obliterated or obscured. He leaned forward to find a different angle, to get his face to show, and then the lights came on inside and he vanished and there was Fairweather beckoning him to go in.

  Halfway through dinner service Gabriel had to send Damian home after he’d urinated in a bin full of peelings and lain down in the prep area with his flies open and his hat across his face. Gabe sniffed the glass from which Damian had been sipping all evening. He tasted the contents and spat the vodka out. Suleiman and Benny returned from their mission, having poured Damian into a black cab.

  ‘Chef,’ said Suleiman, peering up at Gabriel earnestly, ‘I am thinking this boy is very much in need of help.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gabe. ‘I’ll sort something out.’

  Suleiman nodded; he almost bowed. He was so deeply serious, as if he had every faith in Gabriel’s words.

  Victor swaggered up with his flies undone and a leek hanging out of his pants. ‘Suleiman,’ he said, ‘Benny! Help me, please!’

  ‘You’re having a problem with this vegetable?’ said Suleiman.

  Benny attempted to lead Victor away from Gabe, saying, ‘Now we have to get on with our work.’

  ‘Oh, man,’ groaned Victor, ‘tuck me into my pants, you big, strong boys.’

  Suleiman rocked anxiously on his feet, his little legs bent out. ‘He very much likes to joke.’

  Oona, on the pass, called an order. The kitchen was like a steam bath, several of the extractor hoods on the blink. Ivan had taken a knife and sliced air vents in his trousers and down the chest of his whites. Work went on at a furious pace, the boys shackled to their stations, without speaking or raising their heads, all except these three, this joker and the two who had stayed to protect him, both of them wringing their hands.

  Gabe took a step towards Victor, who jumped away and dodged round the corner. Gabriel let him go.

  ‘High spirits,’ said Benny. ‘This is something we cannot help in our youth.’

  ‘Am I unreasonable?’ asked Gabriel. ‘Am I an unreasonable man?’

  He walked round the kitchen without chivvying or prompting or tasting, simply observing his brigade at work. Nikolai’s back was covered in sweat at the steam table, his face glowing red as his hair. A watery blister swelled on Ivan’s thumb. Suleiman, beneath the little shrine he had erected to Ganesh, toiled devotedly, and Benny, taking on the additional burden of Damian’s duties, concentrated on his activities with an uncomplaining hum.

  Gabe stepped lightly in and out of the gangways, crossing and recrossing the kitchen, hovering momentarily behind each worker, his presence sufficient to fine-tune the performances, to turn elbows and wrists to full speed. Satisfied, or at least mollified, he joined Oona as a waitress returned from the dining room with an armful of plates on which the food had hardly been touched. The girl went past and crashed the plates down in the wash-up area and a porter began to scrape them off.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Gabe, intercepting the waitress, ‘was there a complaint?’

  The girl wiped her hands across her backside. ‘No.’

  ‘They weren’t sending it back? They’d finished?’

  The girl looked around, as if seeking someone to save her. ‘Maybe they weren’t hungry. I don’t know. Do you want me to go and ask?’

  ‘No.’

  He began to watch the plates and dishes coming back, and to calculate the amount of food going to waste. He abandoned Oona and joined the porter, lifting the lid on the slop bin and taking a good look inside. This terrified the porter, who began to drop things on the floor.

  Gabe drifted into the dining room, to the plush tinkle of laughter, the artful cascades of light, the smoky images flickering across the gilded mirrors. He took a seat at the bar, ignoring the heads that turned towards him, watching instead the play of water in the fountain across the room.

  ‘Get you something, Chef?’

  He told the barman no. He looked at the diners. He watched plates being served and plates being cleared. When he looked up at the ceiling he saw in one of the recesses a smattering of stars.

  Returning to the kitchen he ran into Gleeson and Ivan, loitering in the passageway. Ivan, low-voiced, growled something to his co-conspirator, pushed his heel off the wall and turned without acknowledging Gabe.

  ‘Dining-room inspection completed, Chef?’ said Gleeson, so chirpy he practically sang. ‘Think you’ll find I run a tight ship.’

  Gabriel loathed the sharp line of Gleeson’s parting, the gloss of his hair, the too-snug fit of his trousers, the silky tie, the shine of his shoes, the snip of his tongue, the snaky look in his eyes. He loathed this man.

  Without answering he moved on and went to his office. It was hotter than the kitchen in here. He pressed the down button on the air-conditioning, which appeared to have jammed. He banged the box with the side of his fist. Then he pressed the up button to see if it responded or if the whole thing had died. There was a beep and the vents began to blow hot air. Gabe wiped the back of his neck. Sweat trickled down his chest. He went out to the loading bay for a cigarette, from the packet he’d bought on his way back to the Imperial.

  * * *

  It was a clear cold night and he shivered, standing against a wall. He’d stop smoking when he wanted to; when he decided the time was right. Fuck, it was cold. He’d smoke in Ernie’s shed.

  When he pushed the door open he saw Ernie, unmistakable even in outline, lopsided and scrawny, sitting in the dark.

  ‘How’s it going, Ernie?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ said Ernie. ‘According to plan.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘How’s it going wi’ you?’

  ‘Great,’ repeated Gabriel. ‘All going … according to plan. What is it you’re doing? Why haven’t you gone home?’

  ‘Ah’m composing,’ said Ernie. ‘In ma head. Somewhere quiet and dark is all Ah need. Compose it in ma head before Ah write it down.’

  Gabe took a final drag on his cigarette and put it out in a mug on Ernie’s desk.

  ‘Won’t disturb you then.’ He pulled the door behind him then pushed it open again. ‘Ernie, come and see me first thing in the morning. There’s something we’ve got to discuss.’

  Before service there’d been no time to check the stock room
s. Gabe decided to do it now. In the basement, in the dry-goods store, running his hand along the shelf of pulses and beans, he remembered that first glimpse of Lena, the way she’d stood in the doorway, light from the naked bulb dripping dankly around her, the look she’d given him. She’d come to him. She had come to him. Keep that in mind. He didn’t keep her locked in the flat. He hadn’t stolen her identity. She wasn’t in his debt. There was no debt bondage here. And anyway, he loved her. Why shouldn’t he? Was there a law against that?

  He loved Lena. He loved that stupid girl. Something, a little sound, bubbled from his lips. He wiped his eyes.

  Dad had to meet her. She had to meet Jenny. She had to meet Dad before … and Gabe would tell him everything, he wouldn’t cover anything up, because he wasn’t ashamed of her. Be a man and tell the truth. Hands out of yer pockets. Stand up straight. Be a man. And tell it like it is.

  He was ten years old, hands deep in the pockets of his Bedford cord flares, leaning against a locker in the tacklers’ room sucking a Spangle, getting it proper thin and sharp, when Dad flamed through the door and set Gabe’s cheeks alight.

  ‘What the bloody hell were you playing at?’

  ‘Me?’ said Gabriel. ‘What?’

  ‘Get yer hands out of yer pockets.’

  Gabe yanked his hands out.

  ‘You cut them threads.’

  ‘I never,’ shouted Gabe. Thinking on his feet he added, ‘What threads?’

  ‘I should give you a bloody good hiding. Wasting my time like that.’

  Dad’s ears were a dangerous colour, his lips as thin as a wolf’s. The tacklers on the benches looked up from their papers and their smokes. Mr Howarth coughed.

  ‘What’s ’e gone and done?’

  ‘Got some bloody scissors and bloody snipped the warp on number twenty-five.’

  Everyone laughed. What was so funny? They were laughing at him for being such a baby. They were laughing at Dad for showing himself up. It wasn’t funny. Why didn’t they shut it? What did it have to do with them?

  ‘I never did,’ yelled Gabe.

  He got the blame for everything. Dad shouldn’t have brought him in if he didn’t have time for him. He’d disappeared for ages and left him standing by a loom. Gabe hadn’t done anything, not for ages. The loom wasn’t even on. There was nowt to do. Somebody (they weren’t getting in trouble) had left them scissors lying around. He hadn’t meant to do it and he’d only cut a bit.

  ‘I know you did it,’ said Dad. He was laughing now, to make it all of them against Gabe. ‘I’ve just spent best part of an hour piecing together and them’s not broken ends, they’d been cut. Let’s hear the truth and no more said about it. Be a man. No waterworks. Tell it like it is.’

  Gabe wanted to get the bus home. Dad said no. He said to shake hands. Gabe said no. Dad pretended like everything was back to normal (as if that could ever happen) and Gabe wished Dad was dead. He wanted to go home and see Mum.

  Trailing after Dad round the weaving shed he shot lethal rays out of his eyes. Exterminate. Exterminate. Hadn’t even said sorry. Laughing. How would he like it?

  ‘Right,’ said Dad, bending down, all casual, breathing over Gabe. ‘This here’s a dobby loom, one of the old ’uns, see the wooden shuttle, the picking stick, you’ve got the electric motor right there what powers it across.’

  Gabe nodded with a high degree of sarcasm that was only wasted on Dad.

  ‘I’ll show you the Northrops. You coming or what?’

  As if he had any choice.

  ‘The newer sort, they’ve got the airjets and rapiers now. Know what they are?’

  Gabriel couldn’t care less.

  ‘Northrop’s been a big innovator, all these is Northrops what you see. This machine here’s got a top speed of 260 picks per minute, meaning the rapier goes across that many times. Remember what I was saying? Aye, it takes the weft across, like the shuttle in the dobby loom. That’s weaving. Weaves between the warp, like I said.’

  Boring. Boring. Exterminate. Exterminate.

  ‘Ten year ago, you’d have been looking at a simple battery here on’t side of the machine, what contained the pirns. The bottom part of the pirn had an amount of weft, what’s called a bunch, that was needed to go across three times.’

  Who cared? When they got home Dad would say it was too late to play out. It wasn’t fair. Jenny never got dragged in here.

  Dad stroked the side of the loom like it was a wild horse, like he thought he was some kind of cowboy, going to break it in. ‘Then this little beauty come along. The Unifill. See here, this is a winding head, and this here’s the magazine.’

  Honest to God, he wished Dad would drop down dead. He was rattling on just like a bloody loom.

  ‘… specialist weaving, complex stuff they’ll never be able to do abroad … insulation for electric cables what go under the sea …’

  ‘Dad. Dad! Can I go home now? I feel sick. Me tummy hurts.’

  Dad stopped talking. His mouth lay straight across his face like a ruler. He lowered his head to Gabe’s. ‘We’ve not got to the exciting bit yet. Don’t you want to have a go on the Dacty machine? I’ll let you punch out some cards.’

  Gabe looked over the metal-and-fibre sea, to the horizon of the wall. There was no escape. ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘Good lad. Stick close, we’re taking a tour of the jacquards first.’

  Gabriel cricked his neck staring up at the yellow harnesses and stayed in that position like he was really, really amazed and couldn’t stop looking at the machines. Dad droned on about the width of the beam and the harness and the reed having to be exactly equal and the warp going through the pirns and the healds lifting up the warp to make the pattern. And Gabe bet that Michael’s dad never made him go to work with him. Michael’s dad never made him do anything. His dad didn’t even have a job. Michael was lucky. In his house they always had the TV on.

  ‘Gabe, go back and wait for me in the tacklers’ room.’

  ‘What? Why, where you going? Can I go home?’

  ‘Up there,’ said Dad, pointing to the girders. ‘I’ve got to get up there.’

  ‘What you want to go up there for?’

  Dad laughed. ‘I’ve got to see to the jacquard.’

  ‘How’d you reach it?’

  ‘With a ladder, soft lad. Then I stand on the girder, like a bloody acrobat.’

  Gabe kicked up a pile of lint with his toe and edged it across the floor. It started to roll up nice. By the time he got to the tacklers’ room he had a wodge of it the size, if not exactly the shape, of a football. There was nobody in the room but him. He threw the lint ball in the air and caught it over and over until most of it was stuck to his T-shirt and cords and hardly any in his hands. He tried to dust himself off. He did handstands against the wall. Then he sat on the bench. He lay down on his tummy, had a coughing fit and fell asleep.

  When he woke he reckoned Dad had gone and forgotten about him because it was dark now and nobody had turned on the lights. Probably everyone had gone home and the whole mill was locked up and he’d have to stay there all night. Most boys his age would probably cry. Gabe wasn’t even scared, wouldn’t be even if all the lights had fused and he had to stay in the dark.

  He got up, crossed the room and felt for the light switch. He flicked it and the lights came on. Rubbing his eyes he pulled open the door and for some weird reason he could hear the looms. He kicked along the short corridor towards the weaving shed where he’d left his dad. He’d forgot about the night shift. The mill stayed open all night.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked somebody passing in the opposite direction.

  ‘Nearly five.’

  Was that all it was? But he’d been asleep for hours!

  When he ran into the weaving shed he saw Dad lying on the floor beneath the girder, like he’d fallen off. Mr Howarth was crouching over him. Dad wasn’t moving, and when Mr Howarth looked up Gabriel saw the panic in his face and decided Dad – what a bastard! – had gone
ahead and died.

  Mr Howarth started towards him but Gabriel ran out of the weaving shed, out through the cobbled courtyard and wrought-iron gates and struck out on his own for home.

  He swung round at the touch on his shoulder, still holding the dried beans shelf with one hand.

  Suleiman’s clerkish face bobbed deferentially. ‘Chef, excuse me for troubling, but you may wish to know – there is a fight.’

  ‘Who?’ said Gabe, though he knew the answer.

  ‘Though my line of sight was partially obscured,’ said Suleiman, ‘I believe it is Victor and Ivan.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MARCHING ON THE SPOT, SOME KIND OF VICTORY RITUAL, IVAN clinched Victor’s head between his ribcage and bulging bicep. Gabriel pushed his way through the cooks. Ivan staggered forward as Victor’s body, a flailing mess of arms and legs, was propelled out from behind a worktop. This did little to allay Gabe’s expectation that, any moment now, the grill chef would grab a fistful of Victor’s hair and dangle his head aloft.

  Everyone had gathered round at a respectful distance. Fivers were changing hands. Benny, still at his station, close to the site of the action, folded white kitchen towels and stacked them neatly and quickly as if preparing emergency medical supplies. Suleiman, studious as ever, watched closely in case the subject should one day come up in an exam. Oona was speaking under her breath, no doubt offering prayers, and occasionally clucking out loud. It was time to put a stop to this show.

  Gabriel, though, held back because a part of him, some mean streak he’d have sworn he didn’t possess, was enjoying it, the raspberry red of Victor’s face. At the very moment he was about to finally open his mouth Victor jerked himself free. Gabe waited to see what would happen. If he stayed quiet he might learn something about this feud.

  Victor, the blood still in his face, charged at his opponent bellowing, head down like a bull. Ivan merely stepped aside. Victor ran into the desserts fridge with a clang. There was a catcall and a splatter of applause. Victor got back in the ring. He raised his fists this time. Ivan threw a punch that glanced off Victor’s cheek; Victor answered with a kick to the balls. The look in Ivan’s eyes made the spectators shuffle back a step or two.