One Way or Another: An absolutely hilarious laugh-out-loud romantic comedy
Page 6
I sink back on the steel bench. How on earth am I going to do this? I can’t give up work because I have absolutely no money. I’m already taking more than I’m comfortable with taking in terms of floor space from Alice. I can’t ask anybody else for handouts and I can’t live off nothing either.
I run my fingers through my hair. I can’t give up this shitty job! But I cannot possibly ring up Jean-Michel and say I’m withdrawing from the selection because I need to clock in to Bernie. This the most depressing catch-22 I have ever got stuck in.
This cannot be happening. This feels so wrong. I press my hands into my eyes, but I refuse to cry. However, I might vomit. This is worse than not getting selected at all. Having a chance but having to throw it away.
Zoe claps her hands together. ‘Mel, are you on rota this week?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘Right, I think I’ve got it. Good job I know you guys hate Bernie as much as I do and have absolutely no moral issues with us lying through our teeth.’
‘No moral issues at all,’ I confirm. Mel nods along too. We’re unanimous in our deceit.
‘I’ll tell Bernie that Katie has to work the late shift to help me with childcare this week because Tash’s dad isn’t able to help out. That way, she’ll think that we’ve solved the problem between us and saved her a headache. That’s our best chance, what do you think?’
Mel frowns in confusion. ‘I don’t know, guys. It’s risky, I mean this is Bernie we’re dealing with. If she gets even the slightest sniff of us doing something behind her back, she’ll really go for us. I heard her screaming at the cleaner yesterday. Believe me, I was scared!’ Mel bites down on her lip and rubs her neck. ‘Why doesn’t Katie just take time off? That’ll sort it and it’s a lot safer than trying to mess around with the shifts.’
Zoe shoots Mel a look. ‘Because I imagine that Katie here can’t afford to, right?’
I nod. ‘I need every single penny.’
Mel nods her understanding; we’re all in the same boat on these wages. ‘I know what you mean.’
Zoe nudges her in the elbow. ‘We never got caught when we covered for each other before. We can pull this off.’
‘But that was only the odd shift. This is over a whole week, right?’
I shake my head. ‘You’re right. Thanks but I can’t ask you two to do this. It’s too much. It is too risky.’ I’m going to have to think of something else. This is my chance and I’m going to have to find a way to make it work. On my own.
Mel takes a deep breath, looks around the kitchen and then blinks her eyes, as if waking up from a trance. ‘No. We’re going to do this. What am I even thinking? We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re just helping each other out. The job will still get done. What are we afraid of, right? Ignore what I said before. All you got to do is come in for the late shift and Zoe and I will sort out all the rota stuff, okay? You leave all that to us. Bernie’s no match for us, right, Zoe?’ They wink at each other and bump hips.
‘That’s my girl,’ says Zoe. ‘You had me worried there for a sec!’
The hairs stand up at the back of my neck. Zoe and Mel would do this for me? They’d put their own necks on the line to help me out? I actually do think I’m going to cry now; tears are pricking my eyes. Zoe and Mel, what have I done to deserve such great girls behind me?
I’m going to the selection. I’m going to make it. And keep my job at the same time.
I nod my head and my eyes well up. ‘What would I do without you guys?’
Zoe shrugs. ‘You’d do the same for us. Hell, you have done the same for us. You covered me when I had to take my driving test and Bernie wouldn’t let me go.’
Mel chimes in, ‘And you baked that unicorn cake for Tash’s sixth birthday. She still talks about that cake. Friends do that. And friends don’t forget that stuff.’ We wrap our arms around each other’s shoulders in a playful group hug.
‘Hey, when you work in a home like this for as long as we have, you realise the importance of friendship, right?’ Zoe nods affirmatively. ‘The healthy residents are the happy residents, and you know what? The happy ones are those that know that someone cares about them, that someone has their back. Those are the ones who enjoy their days. The ones without that? Well, the day can feel very long. So, you go out there and do your best, girl, and remember your friends are behind you – every step of the way.’
I squeeze them both one last time and then Mel whips me with the tea cloth.
‘Right, now get out of sight before Bernie gets here and starts smelling a rat. But before you go, up you go and see Martha, she’s been asking after you.’
* * *
I pop my head around Martha’s door. She’s awake. Propped up on two pillows, newspaper in her hand, lipstick on and hair set.
‘You’re looking rather lovely this evening, Martha.’
She glances up at me, a smile breaking across her face.
‘What’s the special occasion?’ I ask.
‘New doctor. Very handsome. Bloods.’
I laugh. Only Martha would go to such lengths to get a needle in her arm.
‘It’s very important to look your best at all times. You know, when I worked in finance I knew many a colleague that made investments based on a client’s choice of tailor, rather than the sum of their balance sheet. But I don’t have to tell you that, you know that people eat with their eyes.’
I smile at her and put on the kettle. ‘How are you?’
She waves her hand in front of her face. ‘I’m fine. Never mind me, how are you?! I’ve been thinking of you all day. Any news on the Jean-Michel front?’
I perch on the side of her bed and I tell her everything. I explain about seeing Ben and just freezing, panicking, which, along with my nerves, caused me to drop the steak. I tell her about Octavia sticking up for me. I tell her about my dad thinking it was the wrong move, that I’m about to make the same mistakes all over again.
‘And this Ben? He must have meant a lot to you once upon a time to startle you like that?’
I nod.
‘How did you meet?’ asks Martha. ‘I’m an old romantic; indulge me.’
‘I met him at chef school. I’d just arrived from Ireland on a scholarship and Ben, a born and bred South Londoner, offered to show me around, help me get my bearings. There was this idiot called Ozzy in the class who kept mimicking my accent and saying that I didn’t deserve a scholarship, I should have to pay like everyone else. Ben told him where to go and he didn’t bother me again after that. That was day two, and by the end of the first week, we were inseparable. We spent four glorious years that way; we moved into a studio apartment on top of a café in Clapham and everything was perfect. Then college finished and we had to start thinking about the real world: getting jobs, juggling shifts to be together.’
‘And how did that go?’
‘Fine at first… We both worked in the industry so we knew what to expect. Long hours, no holidays… But then Ben was headhunted as a chef for a luxury cruise company. Everyone told him it was career suicide, and even I felt that he was taking himself out of the game, that he’d find it hard to get back into a high-end kitchen afterwards. But he was so excited, I could see him light up every time he talked about it. The offer had planted a seed, lit a spark in him and I could tell he just had to go. Explore, discover, get it out of his system – whatever you want to call it. He had wanderlust and I didn’t want to be the one to stand in his way. So I pushed him, I told him to go for it. I told him that he needed to do what he needed to do and so did I. And that was that, we had to follow our own paths and see where they led us.’
‘And he was okay with that?’
‘Not at first. He wanted us to do it together. To sail around the world, to travel together, to launch this big adventure. But that was his dream, not mine. All I ever wanted was to have my own restaurant and eventually earn a Michelin star. One way or another, we’d have to make a choice. Either to compromise and stay together, or to
pursue our goals and go it alone. So I convinced him that neither of us had time for a relationship at that stage. That we had to pursue our own goals first because if we didn’t, one of us would end up losing out and being resentful and that was no way to move forward.’
‘“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were,”’ says Martha gently with a smile.
‘Yes, well, Ben didn’t return. Until now that is. And he’s returned for Jean-Michel, not for me.’ I feel a sting in my eyes at the thought of this. I let him go. And it may have been partly out of love, but it was mostly out of stupidity.
Martha reaches over to her bedside locker for a tissue and hands it to me. ‘What happened next?’ she asks.
‘The café below the apartment came up for lease and I invested everything I had into it. My dream had come true, I was opening my own little place. I thought everything was working out how it was meant to but then I lost that too.’
‘And maybe it is working out the way it is meant to. Maybe you and Ben were supposed to meet again.’
I shrug. ‘I doubt it. It’s been almost three years. That ship has definitely sailed. He could be married with four kids by now for all I know.’
Martha places her hand on mine. ‘Well, let’s not speculate just yet on the ifs, buts and maybes. Stick to what we do know: the facts. Will you see him tomorrow at the selection?’
I nod again. ‘Yes, he was talent-spotted by Jean Michel’s wife so he’s already tipped to win. And he deserves to, he’s an amazing chef. To be honest, I don’t think I can beat him.’
She nudges me. ‘Enough of that. Tomorrow, show up, head held high, knowing that you have every right to be there and are as good, if not better, than everyone else.’
The whole time I’ve been talking, Martha has rested her hand on mine and listened with every fibre of her gentle self. It feels so good to talk to her like this that I’ve ended up saying much more than I intended, much more than I ever realised I felt in the first place.
‘I may not be around as much this week, with all this going on,’ I tell her.
Her face falls a little. And she nods a soft, resigned kind of smile. And immediately, I am back to being thirteen years of age. Back to when I had that conversation with my mum, all those years ago, perched on the side of a starched hospital bed just like this one. Her soft, tissue-paper-skin hand in mine telling me that it might be time that we started thinking about a future without her. That even though this wasn’t what she wanted, we’d have to be strong, be positive, make the best of it, put a smile on our face even if inside we were breaking. Until that moment, I’d believed that she’d beat it. But I knew then, from her eyes, from her sad smile, that she was telling me to place my belief somewhere else. To believe that we’d be okay without her, believe that we’d make it, that, eventually, we’d smile again for real. Not that we could ever imagine that we would. She told me to look out for the youngest, Rachel, that the boys had each other but I was the only sister Rachel had. I promised I would. Of course, I’d have promised anything.
It was soon after that conversation that she died, and I went home and realised the hole that had already been left in the middle of my family. My younger brothers and sister were eating dry cereal directly from the box. My dad was spreading greasy yellow margarine and spongey luncheon roll on day-old bread and stacking up sandwiches nobody wanted to eat. Alice was with me, and I gave her a shopping list, and with full understanding she went to hunt and gather while I set the table one place less. I lifted down my mother’s skillet from its hook beside the Aga, and I started cooking.
I cooked every night after that: hot, healthy meals. I insisted we all sat together, ate together, and looked each other in the eyes again. And slowly, the hole receded. Slowly, our broken circle healed. Slowly, just as Mum had promised we would, we started to feel closer to full again.
‘I’ll miss you but I’ll be fine. You concentrate on this new exciting adventure, that’s what’s important,’ Martha tells me, handing me the entire tissue box so I can dab my welling eyes.
‘I’ll pop in, okay? I promise you. I’m not sure what the hours are going to be, but I’ll definitely be in. I’ll need my daily Martha fix, you can count on me.’
I’ll miss Martha. Without her, I wouldn’t even be going for this. I think of what Zoe and Mel said, about how the day can be so long all by yourself, without a friend popping in for a chat and a laugh. I know Martha doesn’t have visitors; her only son transferred offices to the USA a few months ago, and that’s why she’s here and not living with him.
‘And I’ll ask Mel and Zoe to keep a special eye on you too, in case you need anything. Just let me know and I’ll sort it, okay?’
Martha smiles at me. ‘Go home, get ready, put your best foot forward and let them know you are a professional and you mean business.’
* * *
I cycle the shortcut home, not my usual meandering journey to kill time and snoop around where I used to live. This has got to be a positive. I haven’t got time now for circling old sites and relics of the past, because I’m going places, and my time is valuable again and I’ve not got any urge to look back. But as I go, I spot myself in the mirror of a shop window and it makes me stop. My jacket does look a bit grubby. It’s slightly frayed around the buttons and it doesn’t fit quite right anymore. Probably because when I got this chef jacket, just before my restaurant opened, I was broader. I was stronger and healthier and weighed about two stone more than I do now. A lot of that was down to Ben. I couldn’t resist his food. I adored him and I adored the way he fed me. Then in the space of a few months, when it sunk in how much I missed him and the joy of eating together, I kind of lost my appetite too.
I pull at my loose neckline, the result of being on the sleepless-night, caffeine-and-fear diet that I was on involuntarily for the best part of the following year. These clothes don’t fit me now. And tomorrow, I really want to look my best, look like a pro, look like I know who I am and what I’m doing. That I mean business. Just like Martha says, presentation means a lot.
I need new whites. But I’m going to have to sell something to pay for them. What’s left that I can do without?
I need my knives, that’s non-negotiable. Without those babies I’d never have been able to recover like I did, chopping like a speed demon during the pre-selection. No, they’re my tools, my weapons, part of my arm. They’ve got to stay.
I need my bike. Otherwise I’m never going to get across town to be at all the places I need to be at once. Also, it means I can move faster through the city, not have to wait on trains or buses. And ultimately, it saves me money because unless I get a flat tire, this bike runs on fresh air and pedal power. So no, the bike needs to stay.
My phone? It’s risky. After all, it’s the only way Jean-Michel can contact me, and with all we’re doing to keep Bernie in the dark, I need to keep communication lines clear and open with Mel and Zoe too, just in case we do get rumbled. And my dad would be even more disappointed in me if I came off the radar altogether. So nope, phone needs to stay too.
I check my watch. I better make up my mind quickly if I’m going to go through with this. I need to get sorted before it gets too late, too dark and the shops close.
And that’s when I realise – aha! I’ve got the time all right. I’ve got a timeless little timepiece ticking away happily on my wrist. A birthday present from Ben that he picked up in Paris for me during his final-year placement. He snuck it out from under the pillow the morning I turned twenty-six. I woke up to see him leaning on his elbow, watching me sleep, waiting for me to wake up. It was a Sunday, our usual day for lazing and eating after a crazy Saturday night service. He handed it to me in a little red bag tied with gold streamers. Even in my sleepy half-consciousness, I knew it wouldn’t be a ring. We were so in tune with each other, there just wasn’t any chance that he could carry around an intention like marriage without me picking up on it. I’d nea
rly expect him to ask me if he should ask me to marry him, if that was the case. I thought we were so different to everyone else; I thought we were so similar to each other that we’d stay together. Turns out it was the opposite. We were so similar to each other that we had to go our separate ways.
I held up the dainty little watch, the rose gold strap catching the late morning light.
‘Do you love it?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Almost as much as I love you,’ I told him without flinching.
He smiled and pointed to the tiny clock face. ‘There’s a second hand on it, if you notice. That should solve the little problem of your split hollandaise.’
‘Cheeky bugger,’ I laughed. ‘My eggs Benedict are the best far and wide, and you know it.’ And we dived back under the covers, making the most of our rare days off together.
I stroke the rounded pink dome. I really do love this watch. It fits me perfectly, it keeps time perfectly, and it’s waterproof so I never have to take it off.
But I ask myself aloud, ‘What is it really time for?’ I don’t need to read the time, I’ve got to seize the time. I need to look smoking hot tomorrow. To send a strong, powerful message to Jean-Michel and the panel, to all my competition… and to Ben. A message that says: I’m back, I’m ready and I’m going to kick ass.
I unfasten the strap and stick it in my pocket. Time to move on. Maybe Dad isn’t the only one who’s clearing out the old to make room for the new. I pull out the watch again and glance at it once more. This is an investment. If I pull this off, I’ll be in a position to buy it back. Along with all the rest of my stuff that’s in bags and boxes at the back of an East London shop.
I take out my phone and call a contact that I had hoped I was finished with.
‘Hello, Paul’s Pawns, what can I do you for?’