We Promise Not to Tell

by Albert Able

  Louisa loved her baby and always made the time to be a perfectly devoted mother as well as cooking and cleaning for the rest of the family but there was always one thing she regretted and that was leaving school, which had denied her natural thirst for knowledge and the determination to provide a better life for her mother and the rest of the family. Which was why, incredibly, in between all her other duties, Louisa manage to enrol at the Island’s Catering College and persuade the tutor to give her a preliminary home study course in hotel management.

  The following year Louisa’s mother once again introduced a new man into their lives. This time he was a man with an important job at the harbours and was able to support the family allowing mother to keep just one of her jobs and return to caring for her family.

  Louisa seized the opportunity to take the full time course at the college. The home tuition course she had so diligently completed meant that she had absorbed a considerable amount of theory and technical knowledge but now the practical side still had to be developed.

  Louisa started work in the kitchens, she did not really have any great enthusiasm for kitchen skills in fact the only thing she really loved was preparing sweets and showed a special talent in sugar spinning none the less eighteen months later she passed out of the college and took up her first job at the famous Reid’s Hotel as a trainee manager.

  It was of course a great honour to be accepted to train at one of the top ten hotels in the world, the downside however was that you were paid so poorly in those days that unless you had parents or someone able to support you it was almost impossible survive on the pay and so after eight months Louisa answered an advert in the local newspaper asking for hotel staff to work in London hotels.

  Louisa knew that leaving Reid’s would damage her training programme and would not look good on her CV however she reasoned perhaps employment at a top London hotel would be just as beneficial and when she discovered that the initial pay being offered in London was three times her current wage she jumped at the opportunity.

  The intense excitement of her arrival in London was soon dashed when the hotel rejected her for the trainee management position on the grounds that her English was not good enough.

  “But learning the language was to be part of the deal!” She pleaded to the agent who had organised the recruitment programme for the Madeiran workers.

  “Looks to me as though you’ll have to do a bit of kitchen portering whilst you pick up the lingo eh?” He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “I can’t send you back until you pay the air fair can I?”

  For those who could not afford it, which applied to most of the thirty budding hotel workers, the agent had paid the airfares to London but only after they had signed an agreement to repay him out of the first six months pay. Naturally it included a monstrous interest charge.

  With her original job offer cancelled Louisa’s next urgent problem was accommodation. She had to find an alternative position immediately or pay for somewhere to sleep; the few pounds remaining in her purse would not go very far.

  The agent Carlos was not a bad man but was certainly an opportunist and rather greedy. “I do have a kitchen porter job but it is without accommodation for the first two weeks.” He consulted his notebook.

  “I don’t mind being a KP but where can I stay?” Louisa asked sheepishly.

  The fact that Louisa was only just eighteen and very attractive, had not escaped Carlos’s attention. “I’m staying at a friend’s apartment whilst he’s away, you could stay there; there is a spare bedroom.” He added quickly.

  Louisa was naturally cautious but none the less curious and bearing in mind other than being raped by her drunken stepfather, which resulted in her child; she had never made love.

  Like most young ladies from her background Louisa secretly hoped that her venture into the great wide world would lead to the arms of a loving rich husband. Carlos she judged was not the one but staying at his apartment may well be quite interesting.

  In fact Carlos proved to be a good considerate friend and perhaps disappointingly for Louisa made no attempt to take advantage of the relatively naïve young woman.

  As planned, after two weeks at Carlos’s apartment the staff accommodation at the hotel where she was working became available and Louisa moved into it. It was a considerable shock after the luxury of the apartment but Louisa paid little heed and energetically transformed the tiny room into a comfortable retreat.

  Determined to prove that she was not just the best kitchen porter the chefs had ever known but especially, that she was quite willing to work extra shifts covering some of their duties in the kitchen and so as usual, fired by her burning desire to improve her education, Louisa threw herself into the roll of kitchen porter.

  There were supposed to be two other kitchen porters to rotate the shifts but Louisa only ever saw one, however, convinced that she would be paid for the extra work, she didn’t really mind, especially as it would allow her to send even more money home to her mother who had happily agreed to look after her child.

  On the day that the breakfast chef failed to appear it was Louisa who leaped forward with out being asked and quickly and efficiently cooking the breakfast for over one hundred guests.

  The restaurant manager happened to be making one of his rare visits at breakfast that morning and noticed as he ate his own food that for once the eggs were not like shoe leather but he did not venture into the kitchens to find out why and for the next ten days Louisa covered the breakfast chef’s job and no one, other than the delighted guests noticed.

  The head chef only ever appeared at around eleven o-clock in the morning, then he would sit in the little cubicle he called ‘My Office’ writing food orders and making other notes for about an hour then he would leave.

  A young Spanish chef made all the lunchtime snack service with Louisa doing most of the preparation work; the other sous-chefs were usually only available for the evening dinner service.

  Towards the end of the first month Louisa, anxious to know when and how much and she would be paid timorously approached the headwaiter when he was fussing about in the kitchen before service.

  “What do you mean?” He asked sternly. “When do you get paid?”

  “I need paid money for my work!” Louisa countered bravely.

  “But you must get paid every week like the rest of us!” He huffed “Either that or you are so bad or Chef doesn’t think you’re worth it.” The headwaiter laughed and returned to the restaurant

  Louisa was shocked into a terrible stomach cringing silence. All the hours and the hard work seemed to have been for nothing.

  The Chef was of course claiming wages for his kitchen brigade and apart from his own salary he regularly claimed wages for four kitchen porters two breakfast chefs a pastry chef and two second chefs. In reality he was drawing wages for nine staff when in fact there was only five.

  The head Chef had no idea what hours or which shifts Louisa had been doing and probably believed that she was one of the fictions names on his list.

  The headwaiter was doing the exactly the same thing except that he was being even more creative, in that he was also charging the waiters that he did have, a weekly fee for the privilege of having the job.

  Louisa was desolate and spoke to the Spanish second chef Pepito; he couldn’t understand Portuguese but Louisa could understand his Spanish better than his English. The net result was that Pepito reluctantly agreed to speak to the head chef.

  The Chef scowled as Pepito explained Louisa’s situation. “I see.” Was all he said and disappeared into his ‘Office’ about an hour later he emerged approached Louisa and thrust a bundle of notes towards her. “Here, missed you from the payroll.”

  Louisa took the money and quietly counted it in front of him. “What for this money?” She demanded angrily when she realised it was only a little more than one month’s standard pay.

  “Listen you cheeky little ‘pork and cheese’ bitch, first you have to earn your str
ipes here and then I may give you what you’re worth.” He sneered and walked away.

  Louisa turned angrily away; she did not want anyone to see the tears in her eyes.

  Pepito moved close to her. “Never mind I had to suffer his treatment at first but now I get good money” he put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her “so I think it’s worth it.” Louisa turned and fell sobbing into his arms.

  “But I work hard, how much must I do?” She sobbed.

  Pepito held her, gently stroking her hair until he felt her firm breasts against his chest and pulled her closer to him kissing her hair at the same time.

  Louisa pulled away in shock a silent scream choking in her throat, as she suddenly recalled that despicable moment when her stepfather had roughly grabbed her, mauling her body with his rough labourers hands before overpowering her, tearing her dress away and raping her.

  Pepito grabbed forlornly at her before backing away, uncertain what to do as Louisa bombarded him with a string of unintelligible Portuguese expletives.

  “I’m sorry, very sorry” Pepito begged but Louisa was beside herself with a mixture of fear and rage and ran sobbing from the kitchen to her little room in the staff house, packed her belongings and left.

  Fortunately she found the agent Carlos at the little bar near his apartment when she explained her ordeal and he immediately took her up to the apartment and made her comfortable in her old bedroom.

  “First young lady we have something to eat, agreed?” Carlos smiled reassuringly to her. “Then we can decide what we have to do to get your career back on track.”

  Although Louisa was still desperate to improve her English in order to get to the job in hotel management that she really wanted, Carlos soon found her a job as pastry chef with a small restaurant within walking distance of the apartment.

  “Well at least it’s a step up from kitchen porter!” Louisa declared triumphantly.

  Carlos travelled recruiting staff for hotels all over the country and so usually spent two weeks at the apartment and was away travelling on business for the next two weeks.

  It had only been a question of time before they became lovers Carlos was very understanding and had gradually coaxed Louis to shed the memory of her nightmare experience and gently introduced her to the bliss of shared love and from that point on Louisa’s life changed dramatically, whilst she characteristically worked long hard hours she also enjoyed running the home.

  They had a limited social life because of the particular hours Louisa worked but they always found time to go out, usually with Carlos’s friends fortunately there were several English people amongst them giving Louisa the perfect environment in which to develop and improve her English.

  When Raines Bullock opened the Three Towers Hotel, Carlos was contracted to staff the new business; this he believed could give Louisa the opportunity to push her career another step forward. The only slight problem was that Raines Bullock had already organised the reception team, mainly because the young lady he was currently ‘playing away’ with wanted the position for herself.

  Louisa however was philosophical when Carlos reasoned that the job on offer in the ‘patisserie’ was much better paid than her last position had been and she would also have a much better chance of promotion in a new business.

  Soon after she started at Three Towers she asked the hotel manager if she could possibly be considered for the position of trainee receptionist whilst keeping her job in the kitchen.

  “If I agree, you do realise I could not justify paying you any extra, at least not to start with?” The effeminate young man wrinkled his brow.

  Louisa had heard it all before but she agreed knowing that the chance to make that all-important move to ‘Front of House’ was essential to her future plans.

  The young manager was delighted, especially as he would now be pocketing another wage for his own ‘pension fund’.

  Raines Bullock never had any control over his staff from the day he opened the doors of Three Towers Hotel to the public. The heads of department, with the exception of the Banquet and Conference manager, were all bleeding the business for all they could squeeze out of it, whilst Raines Bullock tore out his hair, desperate to make the business profitable enough to pay interest on the grossly over inflated mortgages and loans he had engineered.

  All the staff involved in the ‘fiddles’ were seasoned experts, rarely interfering with the takings as these could so easily be accounted for. Instead Chefs would invoice non-existent products from a non-existent trading company they had set up in a third-party name.

  The laundry bought hundreds of pairs of sheets yet there were only ever enough for one set per bed. Hundreds of towels together with the sheets were regularly sold to lesser grade establishments with owner operators happily prepared to turn a blind eye to their origin.

  Restaurant and bar managers frequently sold their own stock or replaced expensive bottles paid for by the hotel with budget lines of a similar product.

  Porters charged cash for teas and coffees but the money never found its way into the till, in fact there was no system to manage the service.

  Marcus and I of course only took an hour or two to unearth almost every cunning little scam, which to the untrained eye would have been difficult, if not impossible to detect.

  Unfortunately because of his unbelievable arrogance and to his eternal cost, Raines Bullocks was incapable of seeing any of this and never had any chance of making the business pay.

  Louise worked for several months completing her duties in the kitchens before spending every available hour in reception learning how to master the telephone switchboard, to take reservations and to type. Her English improved rapidly and for a while she was on the crest of a wave.

  Unsurprisingly after regularly working fourteen even eighteen hours a day, Louisa began feeling very tired and occasionally quite listless. Then matters took a further turn for the worst, when she returned exhausted to the apartment one day, to find Carlos and a woman she did not know having a violent argument.

  It was quite obvious to Louisa that this woman was his wife. Carlos had never denied that he was married but claimed that they were ‘separated’ the tone of the argument suggested in no uncertain terms that Carlos had not been wholly honest.

  Louisa sagged, it was almost too much to bear as she stood outside the door listening to the vitriolic exchange but rather than enter the apartment and make matters worse, she turned quietly and returned to the hotel.

  Dave Green the night porter patiently consoled Louisa as she sobbed out her misery and listening in silence until he thought she had finally completely unburdened herself. “Look my dear” he patted her hand paternally “the best medicine for you is a large tot of something and bed. We have loads of empty rooms tonight, so I’ll sort one out for you and I know just the medicine; a ‘Hot Toddy’ that’ll fix things”

  Dave Green moved to the bar and returned only moments later with the steaming mug of liquid. “This’ll do the trick,” he gave Louisa the mug “okay 305 is unoccupied so off you go; I’ll give you a call in the morning, alright?” Dave smiled encouragement and squeezed the room key into her hand “Don’t worry we’ll sort something out by tomorrow, you’ll see.”

  Louisa thanked him and went up to room 305. She closed the door behind her placed the key on the dressing table and sniffed the ‘hot toddy’ it had a very strong though not unpleasant smell and so she sipped it suspiciously. All she could tell was that it tasted of orange and some kind of alcohol but it was very sweet and seemed harmless enough and so she swallowed the lot in two great gulps before slipping out of her clothes and snuggling into the bed.

  Louisa’s mind buzzed with the multitude of accusations Carlos and his wife had screamed at each other but something inside focused on the more important matter of where she would be able to sleep after tonight. Eventually a heavy drowsiness overcame her as three measures of Grand Mariner filtered into her blood and all her thoughts drifted away and she fell as
leep.

  Dave Green the night Porter woke Louisa just before seven thirty. “Come on Louisa got to get you out of here before the House Keeper comes on duty.”

  Louisa opened her eyes but her head was spinning, she could hardly move and she felt sick. “Oh Dave I feel terrible.” She tried to sit up hanging onto his arm.

  “Here” Dave thrust a hotel dressing gown at her realising that she was in bed without any clothes. “You better put this on whilst I help you.”

  But Louisa had no strength and fell back into the bed. “Sorry Dave,” she muttered “sorry” she repeated in a faint whisper and sank into unconsciousness.

  Dave shook her gently but when she didn’t show any signs of waking up he realised there was something very wrong about her condition. Dave looked at his watch and without further hesitation picked up the telephone and called Maria the Housekeeper.

  By chance Maria had just arrived and was on the verge of going to the kitchen for her usual cup of tea but when the phone in her little office buzzed annoyingly, she grabbed the instrument. “House Keeper.” She snapped.

  “It’s me Dave, sorry luv but I got a big problem in 305 you better get up here quick.” He didn’t wait for her to question him he knew that would cause delay.

  When Maria saw Louisa she realised instantly there was something dramatically wrong and her mood changed instantly. Taking a deep breath she ordered Dave as she gently re-arranged the sheets around the waxen-faced girl. “Better call the ambulance Mate this girl’s in serious trouble.”

  Louisa was taken to Accident and Emergency and put through a series of exploratory tests over the next twenty-four hours.

  The soft-spoken Doctor was very gentle and understanding. “We have conducted a number of tests to see what caused your condition.”

  Louisa was feeling much better and annoyed at being detained unnecessarily in hospital. “I feel fine now.” She lied well aware she still experienced dizziness and mild nausea when she sat up too quickly.

  “I’m very pleased to hear that,” The Doctor smiled “however, I want you to stay here for another twenty four hours whilst we take a more thorough look at the test results. Is that okay with you?” The Doctor smiled warmly as he stood up.