by Maggie Ford
He saw William nod in agreement. He was a man of a time when it had been considered civilised to sit down to meals amid quiet surroundings, such fare as fish and chips served in newspaper reserved for the lower classes unless a company of fellows felt like going out slumming. That of course had been before the war, Edwin a child then. He sipped his Scotch more slowly.
“Mrs Lett said it was a way out for the whole family. She pointed out to us that we all have our own money and don’t really need some ailing, old-fashioned restaurant.”
He referred to his uncle’s widow in formal terms not so much because Goodridge wasn’t family but because Edwin had never been able to call the second Mrs Lett “Aunt”. That had been and always would be reserved for his uncle’s first wife, Grace, whose memory his uncle had appeared to put aside hardly three years after her death for a woman half his age. Hardly able to call her Marjory, he managed to sidestep by not addressing her at all if that was possible, though luckily he saw her seldom so it wasn’t hard.
“I admit I was in agreement with the rest of them until I learned the name would be lost. I know things have to change. But seeing my father and my grandfather’s name die… That’s why I want to talk to you, Mr Goodridge.” He paused, not knowing quite what it he wanted to say. “I take it you’ve a few shares. Will you be selling?”
“Will you?” the man countered quietly, seemingly mesmerised by the pale amber colour of his half-consumed pint of bitter.
“It is a tempting offer. You might be wise to take advantage of it, Mr Goodridge, while it’s going.”
“It sounds as if you’d be glad if I did. I suppose it’d help my bank balance, as I’ll be out of a job. A bit late changing jobs at my time of life.” He chuckled. “Let’s say you’d probably feel less guilty about your part in seeing the name go if I did sell. Though my few shares wouldn’t make much of a hole, would they? I expect you’d stand to make quite a decent profit out of the deal.”
For some reason Edwin could not feel irked by the statement, spoken without any trace of bias. Goodridge seemed to know him better than he knew himself. “I expect I would,” he said slowly.
Around him the noise of drinkers seemed to grow louder, so that he had to raise his voice when he’d have preferred to use a more confidential tone. Why had Goodridge chosen this of all places to talk? “But I already have all I need to live on.”
An only child, he had inherited everything on his parents’ death: their shares in the business, their fine home in High Ongar way out in Essex, and the luxury flat here which they’d used occasionally when in London, but to him these days more than just a pied-a-terre, comfortable and convenient.
The thought, as it always did, brought back that day in July 1944 when he’d been told of their death, killed by a V1 rocket, a direct hit on a restaurant in Piccadilly. Unfortunately for them they had not been dining in Letts, which remained unscathed a street or two away. He had been just seventeen. Informed by telegram, he’d been sent home from his college, his Aunt Grace hugging him tearfully while his Uncle Henry had set about clearing up all the family matters.
Resolutely Edwin shook off the memory.
“It’s still not enough to make an argument of. It boils down to the wishes of my uncle’s widow and his son. Little I can do. I ought to sell before the shares become worthless. The same goes for you, Mr Goodridge.”
William, who had also been miles away with his own memories, came back to himself, picked up his glass and took a long slow swig, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork behind the loose skin of his thin neck.
“But you don’t want to see the name disappear.” He spoke the words as a statement, adding, “It seems to me that is something you are feeling a pressing need to consider. Has it occurred to you that if you feel that strongly about it you would put all you had – and I think with what you’ve inherited from your parents you could put in a great deal – into buying out your uncle’s widow and his son, so taking control and keeping the restaurant going?”
Edwin was beginning to feel a little rattled. It was none of the man’s business what he had. But the man was warming to his subject. “No bank would hesitate to support you for all you’d need. A safe enough investment with the property you’ve already got.”
Safe investment, yes, but did he want to risk so much? Did he even want to do it just for a name? And even more money would be needed to bring the place up to scratch to suit the new age being envisaged by post-war Britain.
“It’s too much of a risk.”
William Goodridge smiled into his glass. “So you weren’t serious after all about not wanting your father and grandfather’s great name to die.”
Edwin sat silent, stung by what seemed like an accusation. Talking to the old restaurant manager had solved nothing. Yet maybe the older man was correct about his not being serious. To risk all out of mere sentimentality, maybe get into debt, for what? To cling to a name? That was mad. What he wanted to do now was drink up and take his leave of the man who seemed secretly interested only in keeping his position – a highly attractive position, not easy to find elsewhere at his age. But that was unjust. Like himself, the man felt nostalgia, nothing more. Still, it left a nasty taste in his mouth about himself.
He sought to lighten the moment and turned his mind to William Goodridge’s daughter. The recollection brought a deep, even pleasurable thumping to his chest. The more he thought of her, the brisk way she had entered the hall of Swift House, the smile she had offered him as they were introduced, those clear hazel eyes and her fair, loosely waving hair, the harder his heart hammered. He was sure that her smile had conveyed a similar interest in him.
Seizing the chance, he asked, for lack of a better excuse to bring up her name, “Did you say Helen was your only child?” He tried to ignore the amused smile that broke out on the other’s face.
“That was what I said.”
Edwin nodded, already debating as to how he might work around to asking Helen Goodridge for a date. So intent did he become on thinking about it that the man’s voice recounting how he had met her mother seemed to recede into the distance, lost amid the countless other conversations going on in the pub.
William Goodridge too had become oblivious of his audience. His eyes glazed to all that was going on around him, his ears closed to the noise. He was seeing another time, hearing other sounds. A restaurant filled with diners, the polite clatter of cutlery against crockery and the tinkle of spoons against coffee cups; the muted chatter of social conversation over good food, fine wine. On a dais a small group of musicians was playing the popular songs of the day – not too imposing as yet. A few venturous couples were on the small dance floor.
As the evening advanced the music would become more lively, the dancers grow more energetic.
Like gorgeously arrayed butterflies, they would flit back and forth across the dance floor, arms raised in a Charleston like wings, the men in black tie and tails and white shirts, the women all shimmering colour.
Butterflies in summer. How many summers before winter came? He remembered too, very clearly, how it was when winter came.
He saw it all again, those two decades between the wars, happy for some, less so for others. And they were the carefree and the famous, those who came to dine at Letts, the famous and the notorious, the stars of film and theatre with their wives, their girlfriends, their mistresses; the titled and the politicians, the eminent rich and those who’d made their pile by less savoury means. He’d got to know something of their lives over the years – their fears, their hopes, their troubles, and something of their private lives, some of it told to him by others, the rest confided in person as he climbed the ladder of his particular occupation and came to be trusted. Showing a sympathy and understanding they all recognised, he’d become a sort of confessor figure. Yes, he’d known their secrets, developing an ability to see into their hearts – had a bent for it he supposed. As he’d said earlier to Edwin, he could have told some tales, noble and unsavo
ury. There had been more than a few questionable characters dining at Letts over the years.
There had been some memorable moments. One memorable moment that had figured greatly in his life. It had been just before Christmas 1919. A Tuesday evening, one of the quieter days of the week, the evening Mary had crept into his life, a waif of eighteen who had captured his young heart – not quite then, precisely, on thinking about it now, but… well, he wasn’t quite sure when, but she had.
Two
She stood at the half-open delivery door, the stiff December breeze seeming to blow right through her, so frail she looked; thinly clad, around eighteen, though with a face so pinched by cold it was hard to tell. As with all who suffer poverty, her expression seemed as old as the hills.
The tip of her nose pink from cold, displaying a tiny dewdrop which she wiped away with a swift brush of the back of her hand across it, she gazed in through the open back door of the restaurant, to savour the warmth of its vast kitchen as much as its appetising aromas.
Fred Dodds, one of the scullery staff, looked up from swishing plates through grey soapy water, the addition of a good handful of soda to which made sure of cleaning plates properly and reddening hands completely raw at the same time, and saw the girl standing there. His reaction was immediate. “Wot you want, then? Gern – sling yer ’ook, you.”
His rough Cockney attracted the attention of the chef de cuisine, undisputed despot of his domain. “Enough of that!” he commanded. “If you can’t speak the king’s English proper, then don’t speak at all. It puts me teeth on edge.”
About to berate the lad further, he saw the object of attention and his eyes hardened towards the creature loitering, stubborn from desperation, in the doorway. His vigilance over his large staff interrupted, he growled, “Go away, girl! We’ve no free feeds here, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
Her voice was faint but adamant. “I’m looking for work. I can work.”
“You?” Samson’s chuckle gurgled in his throat with sarcasm. It was a chuckle none in his kitchen dared at their peril to assume to be humorous. Chef had no humour. To his mind jokes had no place here. Work only was required, and few laughed in his presence, much less idled their time.
The sizeable restaurant demanding a sizeable kitchen staff, there were thirty-odd employees answerable to him at any one time: sous chefs; chefs de partie, all with assistants; commis chefs; rotisseurs; the garde manger, again with his assistants; grill cooks, staff cooks, carvers, porters, aboyeurs who passed orders between the serving staff and kitchen brigade, at other times acting as Samson’s secretary, and many more as well as the young lads who scraped and peeled vegetables or, like Dodds, spent their days with hands in suds washing down work counters and stovetops, washing up plates, cutlery and utensils, and scraping pots with wire wool and elbow grease. The place rang with noise from it all, and over it Samson reigned supreme – in control of all the finances, hiring, firing, menus, ordering, training, organising, and the thousand other things required of a head chef, the least of which was preparing a dish himself unless special circumstances called for it. A man of enviable talents, he’d been with Letts, one of the finest restaurants in London, from apprentice days, slowly climbing the ladder to head chef these fifteen years. Heavily built, his fingers would come to life over some exquisite culinary delicacy with all the grace of a prima ballerina – a joy to see yet, as with any prima ballerina, firm and concise with no hint of indecision. Should he wish to move something from one spot to another, finished dish or mere teaspoon, it was done with panache and it was more than one was worth to touch it until ordered.
He brushed his hands together after having put the finishing touches to a fine salmon mousse which he had been deftly decorating, and directed his ominous, throaty chuckle at the hungry-looking girl standing at the back door of the restaurant.
“Can’t work here, girl. You need strong arms to work here. You look half starved to me. No use in this kitchen.”
“She c’n ’elp me, Chef,” Dodds offered bravely. “Since we lorst our uwer scullery boy, I can’t keep up wiv it all. I niver knew a place ter get so busy. Couldn’t she fill in—”
“And expect Mr Lett to pay her a wage? Certainly not. We can get help anywhere these days at the drop of a hat, and stronger arms to boot.”
It wasn’t quite true. Men who’d survived the French and Belgian trenches had come home to a strange situation. There were jobs but few fit young men to fill them. For those who had lost limbs or were paralysed, those blinded or with lungs ruined by poison gases, those chronically sick from all they had endured in the trenches or in German and Turkish prisoner-of-war camps, there were few jobs. So while there were jobs, often ones offering high wages, the streets saw men without work, many of them with no roof but for the temporary shelter of Salvation Army doss-houses, unable to afford the rent for even one damp room. Any who could play an instrument did so, their shoes worn through from shambling along the kerbsides. Others sold matches, pipe-cleaners or shoelaces from rough wooden trays slung from a piece of string about the neck. War widows and their orphans often stood in doorways selling hair clips, pieces of ribbon, bits of lace. Thirteen months after the war’s end, people were becoming hardened to them, even irritated by the ill-clothed boys and girls of little more than ten or eleven with hands like birds’ claws held out for a penny, a halfpenny, even a farthing to be dropped into them. A heel-end of rock-hard loaf or a bone thrown into a bin from a cafe was a feast. A fire kindled from old bits of wood and straw in some back alley was hub to a circle of crouched figures, a drop of alcohol in a cast-off bottle cause for a free-for-all, a kick on the arse from a bobby pounding his beat often their reward for being there at all.
The girl was just another of them, considered a “scrounger”, the term uttered to ease the conscience of the more fortunate.
Dodds was different. He too had known hunger, was deeply grateful for the job he had. “We don’t ’ave ter pay ’er, Chef, do we? We c’n just give ’er somefink ter eat for ’er work.”
“And be in trouble with the law for making a slave of her? Not likely. Now get along with you, girl. And you, Dodds, get on with your work and don’t be so bloody cheeky or you’ll be out on your ear too.”
William Goodridge came in on the scene as Dodds returned to his swishing of dishes and scrubbing of pans and Samson moved to shoo the intruder away. It was a bit of job, she reluctant to go, ready to dodge any blow aimed at her while still clinging to the hope that the large corpulent man who made four of her would relent – and, William assumed, seeing her thin frame, throw her a crust of bread just to be rid of her.
He put the tray of dirty dishes he bore on to a counter and paused over the serving dish of vegetables awaiting him. He worked here as a commis de rang, clearing used plates and bringing vegetables to diners. He saw the girl flinch as Samson’s hand flashed out, missing her by inches. But she stood her ground, her eyes a clear hazel, full of challenge. She had spirit. Adversity had obviously not bowed her head as yet. And beneath those grubby cheeks she was appealingly pretty.
On an impulse, William picked up a slice of bread from a plate on the tray he had brought into the kitchen and made towards the girl, holding it out to her. “Here. Take this.”
For answer she put her hand behind her back. “I didn’t come here for food,” she said sharply. “I came for a job. Keep your bread!”
With that she turned and walked off. Chef shot his gaze back to the commis. “What d’you do that for, you fool?” he exploded, ill temper showing on his heavy features. “She’ll be back now, bringing all her mates no doubt. I said, what did you do that for?”
“She looked hungry.” He had no fear of Chef who, in command of kitchen staff only, had no jurisdiction over William on the service side. He could take his annoyance to the maitre d’hôtel of course, but over one slice of bread? Which she hadn’t taken, anyway.
Perhaps she’d come back. He hoped she would. He felt pleased with t
he tone he’d used to Mr Samson. Even so, he avoided the chef’s eyes and hurried back to the serving dish to bear it off to the dining-room before Jameson, his station head waiter and immediate boss, noticed the length of his absence. No point courting trouble. In the eighteen months he had been here, William had risen from humble clearer, dibarrasseur, to his present role. He’d come out of the army a corporal, unhurt if somewhat shaken by his eleven-month ordeal as a soldier fighting for a country that found no use for men who had risked life and limb for it. Luck, however, had singled him out immediately in the form of employment here at Letts, mainly, he surmised, because of his upright carriage – due to his aim to have become a sergeant had the war gone on any longer - and his suddenly discovered ability to ape the well-rounded tones of the better-class Londoner. All this to the joy and relief of his parents in Shoreditch who had feared for his well-being both in the war and, having come out of it unscathed, in civvy life too.
At Letts he had polished his adopted accent until it was no longer an effort. With it had come a sense of self-assurance, though it was never so imposing as to put up the backs of his superiors.
Letts was a high-class establishment with a fine reputation among the wealthy and the famous and a history harking back to the early part of the last century, he’d been told. Originally an oyster bar, it now served all kinds of expensive meals, mainly fish dishes, at prices humbler denizens of London could never hope to afford. This kept it exclusive to the dinner-jacket, top-hat and white-scarf brigade, the ladies in embroidered evening gowns, or at lunchtime in exquisite about-town Harrods suits or exclusively hand-made day dresses in fine Harvey Nichols materials. The restaurant consequently expecting its staff to measure up to such fine clientele, William ambitiously made sure he fitted those requirements.
