by Will Storr
“Why don’t you come back to mine later?” she said. “Day off tomorrow. Come on, you’ve had a face like an Eskimo’s bollock all day.”
Of course – she didn’t realise it, but she had a point. I didn’t have to fetch any Earl’s Leaf for the next service, because Glamis didn’t open on Mondays. I breathed out and shoved the mess under my desk with the side of my foot.
“Sure,” I said. “All right.”
* * *
Forty minutes alone with Kathryn in Dorothy’s old car and, already, I had begun to feel better. The moment I closed the hollow wooden door of her flat, we rose up into a magnificent kiss. Because we had been working so hard, we hadn’t really had any time alone, in private. We felt the build-up of that tension like some sort of supernatural force. First against the wall, where I found the gap under her woollen jumper and the bare cold skin of her slender waist, my hands running smoothly and bumping tantalisingly over the odd mark and mole and the mounds of her spine and up to the clasp of her bra which, eventually, I manoeuvred open. She pushed deeper with her tongue as my fingers slipped around the sides of the lace fabric and touched the tender weight of her breast. She took my arm and led me to the sofa, where we lay on the stained cushions, which began slipping out from under us as we moved. Her fingers began exploring the scars on my torso, picking over them slowly, carefully, deliberately. When she found the raised mark from the occasion, one Christmas, on which I’d cut the skin at the side of my stomach with a broken Bailey’s bottle, she let out a quiet moan. I popped open the button on her jeans and thrilled at the hem of her thin cotton knickers and how they lay flat over the skin of her narrow pelvis. I went for the dark gap in between, but she tugged at my wrist, pulled it away and then… what was that? The lock. Keys turning. Andy.
“Hello, Killian – blimey,” he said, smiling. He closed the door and then stopped to observe us on the sofa, Kathryn with half her shirt buttons undone, me with my belt hanging from my buckle. “Sorry, ha ha. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
He sat down next to me on the arm of the chair. I felt the cold he’d brought in with him from the street and picked up the faint scent of the upstairs of buses.
“It’s going great, isn’t it?” he said, lighting a Marlboro Red. “You must be pleased. Big man, eh?”
He took a series of short drags from his cigarette. For some reason, I briefly thought I could smell menthol in the smoke.
“Yeah, it’s good,” I said, sitting forward. “Thanks to you.”
He had his leg crossed over his knee, just like Max did on the television, and was wearing brand-new 501s and box-fresh, all-white, high-top Air Jordans. His shoulders were strong and square inside his pastel-blue blazer; his moustache dense and manly and perfectly trimmed. Kathryn was using the opportunity of his addressing me to surreptitiously fasten up the rest of her buttons. That was that, then.
“So how do you think Max is taking it?” I said, looking up at him. “I bet he can’t stand it, eh? And what about that Russian tart he’s shacked up with? Jesus!”
Andy exhaled gently on the tip of his cigarette. It glowed and crackled obediently under his command.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling blandly. “You’ve done so well. It’s great.”
“It’s going pretty well, yeah,” I nodded.
He took another puff and then cocked his head at me in a slightly exaggerated fashion.
“Hey, listen, mate,” he said. “I was thinking. We should talk about refreshing the menu sometime. I think it’s important that we keep things evolving, keep things fresh. You know, we have some very wealthy customers who eat at Glamis regularly. They don’t want to have to keep choosing from the same list.”
I sensed Kathryn next to me, nodding thoughtfully. There he was, perched on the sofa on one side. There she was, agreeing with him on the other. I shuffled forward, suddenly feeling as if I didn’t have enough room.
“Well, they keep coming, don’t they?” I said. “If they didn’t like my menu, they’d stop, and that wouldn’t be a big deal because there’s a million more people who want to eat my food.”
He nodded earnestly.
“That’s right,” he said. He was still nodding. Up and down went his large head. Up and down, serious-like, solemn-like, grave-like. Up and down it went, agreeing absolutely with everything I was saying. “But what about the press?” he said. “And the reviewers? And you can’t forget Ambrose. He eats off our menu every day. I’m not saying we should rearrange everything just for him, but take a bit of advice from someone who knows. It’s always best to keep the boss sweet.”
“Fuck Ambrose,” I said. “I’m making Ambrose a millionaire.”
He studied the end of his Marlboro again, as if trying to fathom what was wrong with it. His knee was practically in my face. ‘Big man.’ Big man? I stood up.
“You know, Andy, I don’t know where you get off, telling me my menu’s no good.”
Finally, he stopped gazing at his cigarette. He pursed his rosy, chubby, cracked lips. “That’s not what I said.”
I picked my way over to the other side of the coffee table. The end of my belt was still sticking out of my trousers. It was on the highest notch on the buckle, and the rest of it was jutting from my crotch, all flaccid.
“I’ll change the menu when I feel like it,” I said. “It’s my menu.”
Kathryn moved closer to him. “Come on, Kill,” she said. “Andy’s allowed to have an opinion. He does run the kitchen for you.” Her eyes darted towards my flapping belt.
“Anyone can run a fucking kitchen!” I said. “It just takes a bit of practice. There’s nothing amazing about working the pass, you know. Christ, read the papers! It’s me they’re going to give a star to when the guide comes out.”
With shaking fingers, I ran the cheap band of leather back through the hoops of my trousers. They watched me carefully. They weren’t laughing. I was pretty sure they weren’t laughing.
“Anyway,” I said. “It’s not about me, is it? I just want to prove that Max is over. He treated me like crap, he treated Kathryn like crap. He’s not getting away with it. His food’s ridiculous. Guinea-fowl and mango? Fuck off. It’s an embarrassment. Ambrose will get it eventually. Max is a liability. If King has any chance of not becoming a laughing stock by 1990, he needs to get rid of the nutter.” I glanced at Kathryn. “We should take over that place.”
“I reckon we should ignore Max, don’t you?” said Andy. “Forget about him. It’s not really about–”
But I spoke over him: “And now I’ve got enemies in my kitchen and I’ve got to deal with that.” I drove my hands deep into the pockets of the flared corduroys that I’d had since I was fifteen. “I take it you saw that thing today? In the paper? I won’t have enemies. I won’t have disloyalty.”
A silence crawled through the room. A breeze blew in from under the door. My too-short cords exposed my ankles and the cold air curled around them like the ghost of a cat. Andy hoisted a smile. “Such a good job you’re doing with those sauces,” he said, eventually. “They’re amazing, really. Unbelievable.”
The darning in my sock had gone and my toe was cold. It looked ridiculous, poking through the hole down there; staring out at the world, all bald and pink and naked.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” I said to him.
“No!” he said.
“There’s no fucking secret ingredient if that’s what you’re saying.”
Andy tapped the head of his Marlboro into the shallow metal ashtray. “All right, matey, I know that,” he said. “You need to calm down.”
I saw the thin blue vein running up the bony framework of my mother’s ankle as she left me alone. I saw her face – pale, beautiful and fascinated – through the steam of boiling water.
“I’m not your fucking matey,” I said. “I’m your boss.”
Andy stood, pushed out his cigarette and chuckled to himself.
“Going to your head enoug
h is it?” he said, leaving towards the kitchen.
“You better be careful,” I shouted after him. “All those little journo mates you hang out with. If I find out it was you that leaked–”
He stopped, just short of the doorway.
“Don’t even go there,” he said, shaking his head, as if struggling to absorb what I’d just said. “No, hang on,” he said. “How dare you?”
Kathryn looked in his direction with a fragile, uncertain expression. I pointed, right in the direction of his face, my King scar itching, my ugly teeth showing, a silver-grey fly buzzing over the ashtray.
“You’re on a warning,” I said. “One more leak and you’re gone.”
Kathryn turned to me, aghast. “Killian!” she said.
As I addressed her, tiny cartwheels of spit flew in her direction. “I’m going home.”
I walked out in my socks, my shoes hanging from my fingers, slamming the door behind me. By the time I was halfway down the stairs, Kathryn had appeared at the top.
“Come on,” she said. “Don’t go.”
“It’s just Andy,” I said. “I don’t trust him. He’s not loyal.”
“Are you sure you’re not being unfair?” she said, walking down to meet me. “I don’t think it was him. It’s just not the kind of thing Andy would do.”
“I mean anyway,” I said. “It’s crazy, what they’re saying. Drugging the food! What with? Pheromones? Please! It’s a joke.”
She gave a shallow nod. I don’t know exactly what I wanted her to do, but her reaction felt incomplete, unsatisfying.
“I’m not doing it, Kathryn,” I said.
“I know,” she said, weakly. She crossed her arms and looked at her feet. “Let’s just not talk about it.”
I made a show of idly scratching the back of my head.
“It was you that said, whatever I get I deserve it. You know, it meant a lot when you said that.”
“You do deserve it,” she said. “Of course you do.”
“I mean, just imagine where we’ll be in a year’s time if things continue like they are. You’ll be earning enough to keep your mum safe, in the best home in London, maybe even getting better.”
She smiled at that. Her hands pushed around my waist and she gazed at me with shining eyes.
“It’s really, actually possible, isn’t it?” she said.
“Totally,” I said. “I’ve just got to keep fighting. I need your back-up, though. I can’t do it without you.”
“Well, you’ve got it,” she said. “You need to do whatever you need to, Kill. Just go out there and bloody grab it.” She rested her head on my chest. “Listen, if you can’t cope with Andy tonight, why don’t I come back to the cottage with you?”
I glanced towards the exit.
“Oh, there’s no point,” I said. “I’m still in a crappy mood, to be honest. I’ll be rubbish company. Why don’t I call you tomorrow?”
As I drove back to the cold, strange cottage, I tried very hard to think about something that wasn’t Max or Kathryn or the secret that was beginning to feel like a bruise that was ripening and yellowing and spreading out over everything.
41
The Restaurant Magazine awards were held annually at the Café de Paris in the West End of London. It was the most glamorous fixture of the culinary year and, mainly due to the celebrity and minor royal guests, never failed to attract the attentions of the media – not to mention every working chef in the country. They all denied their interest, of course. It was fashionable in the kitchens of London to shrug at the mention of a nomination and, if you’d won anything in the past, to feign confusion, saying, “Did I? I’d forgotten all about it,” perhaps adding, “For me, it’s about the diners”. The curious thing about that pose was how they would gossip about the event for months in advance. Contenders would hire the most expensive suits Moss Bros could supply and frequently react with such rage when the jury went the wrong way that walk-outs and even physical tussles were not uncommon.
Glamis wasn’t nominated for any awards – we hadn’t been open long enough – and that was fine with me. I was probably the only chef on the circuit who genuinely didn’t want to attend. Whenever I was recognised – in the street or anywhere else – I experienced this shrinking, hunted feeling. So far, my refusal to make myself available to the media had had the opposite effect to that intended. The less I spoke, the more they somehow found to write. However, Ambrose had made it clear that it was important I attend this ceremony, for fear of alienating people he felt it essential to remain on good terms with. Besides, I thought, the greatest chefs in Britain and much of Europe would be there. I would meet my heroes.
The awards were held on a Monday, because that was the day most fine-dining restaurants tended to be closed. Ambrose sent a courier to Glamis with clothes for Kathryn and me. Modest as ever, Kathryn went to change in the locker room whilst I climbed into the suit in my office. I felt odd and stiff and fraudulent, like an ugly picture that had been placed in a beautiful frame. My shoes were tight and made of thin, hard leather that gripped the skin of my heels as I pushed my feet in.
“Don’t laugh,” came a voice.
I looked up to find nobody there.
“Kathryn?” I said, standing up tentatively. “You can come in. I’m dressed.”
There was a silence.
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?” I craned my neck a little. “Come in!”
“It isn’t supposed to be a fancy-dress party is it?” she said.
“No…?”
“So please explain – why am I dressed as a Cornetto?”
I stepped towards the door and tried to peep out into the corridor, the rim of leather on the backs of my shoes constricting irritably.
“Oh God!” she said, on hearing my approach. “If you laugh, I swear, I’ll turn your balls into nut roast.”
With a rustle and a blush, she moved into the room. It was a cocktail dress, black and Merlot red, that finished just above the knee. The sleeves were high and ruched into the shape of huge roses; there was a low scoop that revealed more of her décolletage than I was expecting. It was all finished off by an enormous satin bow that ran vertically up her left side, pinned in at the waist. I was dazzled. Kathryn scratched her face and bent her knee, awkwardly, as if she was desperate for the loo.
“Why aren’t you saying anything? Oh God, you’re embarrassed for me.”
“You look incredible.”
“Oh shut up.” She pulled at its low, diving neck with both hands. “Does it show too much boob?”
“No.”
“I look like a freak.”
“If you could climb into my head and feel what I’m feeling now,” I told her, “I promise you’d never be shy again.”
“I’m not shy,” she said, sighing in the way that she sighed when she wanted a hug but was too shy to say so.
“Why don’t you wear your hair up?” I asked, when I’d put her down.
I lifted it over her birthmark but, as I did so, her face dropped, an unhappy pressure gathering on her lips. I ran my fingers gently over it.
“It’s beautiful, though,” I said.
“I’m not putting my hair up.”
“All right,” I said, kissing the dark purple shadow on her cheek. “It’s okay.”
A distant thud interrupted us.
It was Ambrose, emerging from the corridor like a 1950s Bond, in a spectacular tuxedo, scarlet bow tie and shining spats, hair fragrantly Daxed and his ever-present, too-tight ruby ring stuck to his thumb like a boiled sweet that had been left too long in a trouser pocket.
“Come on, kids. It’s time.”
I winced.
“Be brave,” said Kathryn. “I’ll look after you if you promise to look after me.”
I let her take my hand and we walked the short distance to the venue in Coventry Street, my tight leather shoes scraping pain all over my heels. What made me more uncomfortable still was the man in the anorak who h
anded me a biro and an old Our Price receipt and asked for an autograph. Then the girl with the yellow exercise book. Then the woman with the diary. In the twenty minutes it took to walk from Glamis to the Café de Paris, I was stopped six times.
“Why do you look so shocked?” asked Ambrose as we rounded the corner, the celestial white glow of the venue’s lights suddenly visible. “If you ever left that kitchen of yours, you might have noticed that you have become the most famous chef in Britain.”
Then they saw us. It began with a single cry – “It’s Lone!” – and it was as if someone had kicked a wasp nest full of glitter. There was an uproar of shouting and waving and flashing cameras. I stood, rooted in fright, on the red carpet that ran from the door like a tongue. I grabbed for Kathryn’s hand as the mass of photographers, many of whom were on stepladders, called my name. I kept glancing back over my shoulder, not because I was looking for someone, but because I wanted to run away, down there, back down the alleyway, into the beautiful darkness. Ambrose placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, whilst a million tiny mosquitoes of light bombarded my face.
Eventually, we walked through the golden doors and managed to hustle a path through all the evening jackets and cocktail dresses and found a small space in the crowded lobby in which we could breathe. Ambrose said, “I really do appreciate your coming tonight. I know you’re not comfortable with all this, but it’s vital that you make the most of your celebrity – for Glamis and the Rookwood Group as well as yourself, of course. Max does a wonderful job of it, and it really does make an enormous difference.”
I broke eye contact with him.
“Do we have to stay long?”
“Max is picking something up tonight. You should at least stay for that. We need some pictures of the two of you together, with Max holding his prize.”
“It’s just, I’ve not been sleeping too well…”
Ambrose turned to Kathryn, who was absent-mindedly chewing the inside of her lip.
“Kathryn, my dear, would you be kind enough to excuse us for just a moment?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling emptily, visibly fazed by the restless thunder of hundreds of people trying to make themselves heard above each other.
