Lunching at Laura's

by Claire Rayner

  By the same author

  Sisters

  Reprise

  Sisters

  Family Chorus

  The Virus Man

  LUNCHING AT

  LAURA’S

  Claire Rayner

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-84982-041-7

  M P Publishing Limited

  12 Strathallan Crescent

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  © Claire Rayner 1986, 2010

  All rights reserved

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  e-ISBN 978-1-84982-041-7

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  1

  ‘Lunching? At Laura’s,’ said the heavy voice at the other end of the phone. It was almost possible to smell the cigar smoke that had thickened it. ‘Where else should I be? I’ll see you there, if you like. I got a man coming in from LA, but I can see you there, five minutes, ten minutes, around half past one. Maybe we can come to an arrangement, who knows?’ And the phone clicked in the young man’s ear, and he put it back on the desk with a thump and sat and scowled at it.

  Bloody Braham, bloody, bloody Braham; he knew perfectly well that someone in shoes as new as his wasn’t up to getting a table at Laura’s; he’d only been in the business a year or so, only made one decent commercial that got a mention in ‘Campaign’. Who was he to have the clout to get a table at Laura’s for lunch? But not to be there today would be professional suicide; to make a series of commercials for ‘Setalight’ would be the biggest thing that had happened to him since leaving the Film School. Get that under his belt, and he could start hawking his script around, maybe get some development money – and with visions of feature films dancing in his head the young man pulled the phone towards him again and checked the number of Laura’s; maybe he’d be lucky?

  Just let me get through, please, he prayed, as he keyed the phone and the sounds clicked softly in his ear; just let me get through. But the line was engaged, of course, and went on being engaged. And on and on –

  Because everyone in London, it seemed, was trying to get a table at Laura’s this morning. Secretaries in editors’ offices and film and television studios and publishing houses failed again and again to get anything but the engaged tone, and for everyone who eventually managed to get through, a dozen failed. And even those who to their amazement did get a ringing tone and then the familiar light husky voice that said only ‘Hmm?’, which everyone knew was Laura herself, for no one else at the restaurant was allowed to take bookings, had to swallow their disappointment as best they might for Laura’s was fully booked and had been since eleven that morning. Even Braham of ‘Setalight’ was turned away, a fact which would have much warmed the eager young man’s heart, if only he’d known. But he didn’t, and like everyone else who wanted a table at Laura’s and couldn’t have one, he finally slammed down the phone and rang Langan’s instead. Getting a table there was much easier –

  ‘Here,’ Maritza said firmly. ‘Here you’ll never make a living.’ And she hitched Kati more comfortably on to her right hip and with her other hand rubbed her aching back beneath the thick cloth of her heavy over-coat, and her stays creaked with the movement. Her belly pushed against the whalebone, and she breathed as deeply as she could and then set her hand on her front. She was so round and full with this pregnancy that it seemed to tip her backwards; maybe this was a good sign? Maybe this baby would live, please God, and be a little brother at last for Kati?

  ‘Listen,’ Viktor said, trying to sound authoritative and knowing he sounded pleading as he always did; how a man his size could be put in his place so often and so thoroughly by so ridiculous a little thing as his Maritza never ceased to amaze him. ‘Listen, dolly, old Ari, he made a living here, didn’t he? Three years I been working for him, ever since we got off the boat from the old country, and hasn’t he paid me my wages regular enough? So why –’

  ‘Paid your wages!’ Maritza exploded. ‘That mumser, that Greek gunif, paid your wages? You’ve worked yourself to a shadow for him and all for peanuts, peanuts, you hear me? And now because he says jump you want to jump and give him what little I managed we should save out of the peanuts and what we brought with us? You got peanuts for a brain, Viktor Halascz, that’s what you’ve got. Peanuts for a brain!’

  ‘But dolly, the opportunity –’

  ‘It’s an opportunity like you’re the Prince of Wales, you schlemiel! Opportunity – look at the place! It sits here like a bug under a bed so no one should ever see it –’

  ‘But like a bug under a bed, it makes itself felt. It makes itself felt!’ And Viktor began to laugh, fatly, pleased with himself and his joke. But not for long.

  ‘Oh, sure, sure it does!’ Kati began to wriggle in Maritza’s arms and she set her down on the cobbles and let her run off and then turned and stood in front of her husband with her head tilted so that she could look up at his face, fully a foot above her. Her curly hair was escaping from her bun as usual under the ostrich-feathered hat and was springing around her head like a ridiculous crown and her chubby face was flushed with rage as she chattered at him. ‘Sure it does! Six or seven schlemiels, fools and gamblers like the pair of you, they come and they eat and they never pay, they only play cards, win their dinners, lose their dinners, and this you call making itself felt? This you want to spend our money on, to buy such a place as no one except a meshuggeneh would ever think of buying –’

  ‘Who said buy?’ Viktor said mildly. ‘Did I say buy? Did I ever use such a word? Did anyone hear me say buy?’ And he stared piously at the heavy grey January sky that peered down between the buildings into Little Vinegar Yard as though he confidently expected an answer.

  She blinked at him and then rubbed her face with one small hand, brushing away the drizzle that was beginning to seep everywhere. ‘You said –’ she began uncertainly.

  ‘I said, we should use our money to run the place. This is what I said. We got some money, you’re always telling me we got so much – twenty-three pounds you’ve saved, a lot of money, and I said we should use it, make it grow for us. Use it here – make it a better restaurant. Greek food – such garbage you couldn’t sell to anyone but ignorant spielers like Ari and his crew – but good Hungarian food, the way I cook it? Now, there’s a different piece of fish!’

  She said nothing, staring at him with her eyes glittering a little and he laughed again, and began to relax. ‘You see what I mean, dolly? Good Hungarian food, a bissel goulash, a few galuska, jellied carp come the holidays – we could make money here.’

  ‘So what happens to Ari? The Greek mumser, what happens to him? He sits there and smiles and nods at you, you should cook Hungarian instead of his rubbish? What happens to Ari?’

  Viktor shrugged and seemed to expand with self satisfaction as he relaxed. He had her where he wanted her now; at last, it was time for a husband to assert himself. ‘Ari? I should worry about Ari! Let Aristotle worry about Ari! A bit of philosophy – it’s what he’ll need. He’s going back to Athens, that’s what he’s doing –’

  ‘Back to –’ She whirled then and stared at the little shop behind them, at its grimy windows and the battered board over them on which was painted in uncertain lettering Arist
otle Popodopolous. Good Food. Good Drink. ‘He’s just walked out and left this place? Just like that?’

  ‘You could say that.’ This was getting better and better, Viktor decided, grinning so widely that his beard seemed about to fall off his face. ‘You could say that. Anyway, it’s mine now.’

  ‘This place is –’ She turned back to him, her eyes sharp as she narrowed her lids a little. ‘It’s not so easy. I may not be a great genius, but this I know, you got to have papers, proper papers –’

  He reached into his pocket and held out to her the big envelope full of paper. ‘Here it is,’ he said simply. ‘The papers. I tell you, it’s ours, dolly. See? Look at this one –’ He pulled out one of the documents. ‘See? Dated and signed, all proper. Aristotle Popodopolous, January 1st 1893, to Viktor Halascz. All signed proper. We just got to spend a little, fixing the place up. Buy the food to cook, get the rooms upstairs fit for us – you and me and Kati and, please God, the new one – and we’ve got our own business and a new flat into the bargain. Better than that hole in Flower Street – at last, Viktor Halascz is a mensch, a real person, a man of affairs, no more a stinking waiter in a Greek bit of rubbish, but his own man –’

  There were tears slithering down her round cheeks now as she stared at him and she opened her mouth and shook her head and tried to smile and could only hiccup and he leaned over and hugged her close, and Kati, across the yard, catching the emotion in the air, came running across on her chubby six year old legs, her gaiters half-unbuttoned as usual, and tried to push herself between them.

  ‘He just gave it to you? That lovely man, that Ari, he gave you such a present as his lovely restaurant, this beautiful place?’

  He was still hugging her close and he spoke softly into her hair which was just beneath his chin as her head fitted so neatly into the circle of his throat as it always did, but she heard him.

  ‘No presents, dolly. It’s mine by right, believe me. I won it all above board.’

  There was a sharp little silence that almost creaked with tension and then she pulled back and stared up at him, and even in the fading light he could see the way her eyes glittered. ‘You did what?’

  ‘A bissel poker, dolly. A bissel cards. I got me a straight flush and he got only –’

  ‘You gambled –’ she said softly. ‘You gambled? Tell me, what was the bets you was making? What was you using you should play this game for such winnings?’

  ‘Me?’ he said uneasily. ‘What does it matter, dolly? I won, didn’t I?’

  ‘I want I should know all about our new business, the business that makes such a man of you, from the beginning. I want I should know everything. What was it you played with?’

  ‘I told him we had twenty-three pounds and –’

  But he couldn’t say another word. She was hitting him, beating his chest with her small fists and with all the strength there was in her body and shrieking so loudly it made his head ring. He never would understand women, he told himself, as he tried to dodge her blows without hurting her – not easy with that great belly on her – never, if he lived to be the oldest man in Soho. Hadn’t he got them their very own restaurant? What was she so mad about? He’d never understand her, not ever.

  Quite when Laura’s had first achieved its special place in the pantheon of London restaurants none of its regulars could quite remember. It was rather like Eros or Selfridges or the Tower of London; something that had always been there, and run in the same sort of way, and certainly always would be. It was the only London restaurant of any standing which refused to take lunch bookings from anyone until the morning of the day the table was wanted; the only London restaurant which was so hidden away in the tangle of Soho streets that you couldn’t possibly find it without first being taken there by one of the cognoscenti; the only London restaurant which had Laura herself. Laura with her round face with its pointed chin and the curly hair which stood up all over her head like a child’s, and her neat compact little body. Laura who said little but saw much, and who knew everyone of her regular customers not only by name but by the sort of private details that would have startled and worried them had they realised the depth of her knowledge. Laura, who was the most discreet and most sensible and most successful restaurateur there had ever been.

  She had always been there and always would be, people would tell each other, except for the few very old customers who had been eating there for so many years that they had known her father, old Tibor, when he had been active in the place, and a few of whom had known her grandfather Zolly Horvath too, but no one listened to them; they were too old to be interesting to the sort of people for whom Laura’s had become the most important place to be seen. Old people had no place in the glittering ranks of the film business or the television world or Fleet Street or publishing; these were young men’s businesses, even sometimes young women’s, people for whom to be in the right place, in the right clothes, at the right time, was what mattered most of all. And Laura’s was indisputably the rightest place of all.

  Getting to be one of her lunchers took a special technique.

  First you started by booking for dinner; it was quite different in the evenings at Laura’s, because she accepted bookings then. You might have to wait three or even four weeks for a table to be available, but at least you could get in. And very agreeable it was to do so, for dining at Laura’s was quite different from lunching there. The midday wheelers and dealers vanished to be replaced by people of quieter elegance, though just as much style. There were Shakespearian actors, and authors who were so distinguished their titles never appeared in the best selling lists, and certainly were well above being picked for the Booker, and well known conductors between concerts, and politicians of such eminence that they hardly ever had to visit their constituencies. There were Americans of so much sophistication that they had heard of Laura’s even in their remote fastnesses and booked tables by phone from California and New York, and academics from Oxbridge for whom dinner at Laura’s was as essential a part of a London visit as an afternoon spent at the London Library.

  And once you got your table, then you were in for delight as well as fashion. Even the most knowledgeable of feeders had to admit that the food at Laura’s was something special. Classic Hungarian, but so refined and so well cooked and presented that it had lost the peasant roughness that so often characterises such food, and had become something that was so subtle and yet so startling and interesting that it made classic French cookery seem positively dull, and Nouvelle Cuisine even more pretentious than it looked. The cold wild cherry soup was of so superb a quality that there were diners who swore they would kill for it, while the jellied pikes served with Laura’s famous pink horseradish sauce and cucumber salad was so valued by one American regular that he had portions of it flown over to Washington via Concorde when he gave dinner parties for White House people. The chef’s way with duck livers was one of the most copied by hopeful foodies – none of whom ever managed to replicate its remarkable delicate spiciness; while there were those who said that the galuska – tiny thimble shaped egg dumplings – would float to the ceiling if they weren’t so attached to the divine sauces which accompanied the meat and fish dishes.

  No one could serve pörkölt – goulash – like Laura’s. No one could roast carp like Laura’s. No one understood paprika dishes like Laura’s. The wine list was intelligent, the Tokays superb, the coffee perfect and the puddings so splendid that their sinfulness could be ignored. Nothing that tasted like them could be regarded as mere conveyors of calories from mouth to belly and hips; these were works of art, the diners would tell each other blissfully and send for second helpings. Altogether, Laura’s was a gourmet’s delight and a glutton’s heaven.

  It was that which attached its regulars to it. Once you had discovered Laura’s and eaten there, there was no way you would not return, unless you were one of those very rare people who take no interest in their food at all. For the average person with any pretensions to late twentieth cen
tury culture, Laura’s was a find; indeed, the find. And, they would tell each other joyfully, so reasonable! It was possible for two of you to dine and drink well at one of the blue and white clothed tables, your heels hooked comfortably over the stretchers of your high-backed rush-seated chair, surrounded by the vaguely mittel-European ambience of white panelled walls decorated with pieces of hand woven cloth in sludgy colours fashioned into wallets and pouches and simple hangings, smelling the faint fresh earthiness of the plant plots which trailed lines of green creepers over the floor to ceiling windows and their glittering square panes, and sit there for two or three hours, talking and murmuring and drinking Tokay and coffee, yet spending no more than fifteen pounds a head; considering that generally in London restaurants you’d be lucky if you got any change out of sixty quid these days, that was value, real hard value.

  Once you started dining at Laura’s, she got to know your face. She would sit there at her rather shabby old corner desk with its big red-covered register and spikes for bills and the battered Victorian japanned tin box which was her till, the light shining on her bent head and lifting the curly dark hair to a reddish glow, and seemed not to watch at all; but she always knew who was there, and who with, and what they ordered and how they behaved.

  If any newcomer was anything but polite to her waiters – who were old and deliberate in their movements, but in their own way as efficient as any snake-hipped out-of-work actor of the sort employed by so many London restaurants these days – then there would never again be a table available for him. But anyone who showed the right sort of appreciation of her establishment, ordering food judiciously and showing a decent respect for the advice of old Maxie, the wine waiter who knew more about Hungarian and French wines than anyone in the world (he despised all German wines on principle; his family’s experience during the last two wars had given him a profound disgust for anything Teutonic) were welcomed readily when next they tried to book a table. What was more, they would be greeted by name when they arrived and welcomed by Laura’s famous little smile, that lifted the corners of her lips so sharply that her mouth looked as triangular as a kitten’s, in a way that would make them feel remarkably warm. And if by any chance they had recently achieved some success in their chosen fields, she would congratulate them, showing an awareness of what books were being published, what plays were being premiered, what TV programmes were being launched, that was encyclopaedic.