The Little Christmas Kitchen

by Jenny Oliver

  Maddy took a couple of steps forward. Inside it smelt of dirty washing up water, Lynx and stale beer. Some obscure Bluegrass played softly out of two wall mounted speakers and a TV screen flickered with an old black and white movie. The only light was from a couple of overhead spots and one of a pair of gold sconces, she wondered if it was because all the other bulbs had blown. A rather forlorn poinsettia sat on the brass bar and strands of coloured beads hung haphazardly from the three pillars that seemed to separate the bar area from the stage.

  ‘Hi there. Hi. Excuse me.’ She took another couple of steps forward into the murky shadow of the bar.

  The guy mopping the floor looked up.

  Maddy took another step inside. ‘I’m actually looking for work. Just over Christmas. I’m–’ she paused as the guy looked back down at the floor. The girl behind the bar moved on from the whiskeys to the vodkas. Maddy sucked in her bottom lip, wondered whether she should leave but then she heard someone, she thought the guy, mumble, ‘You need to see Mack then.’

  She watched as he squeezed out his mop and kicked the bucket over to behind the bar, swept some keys off the shiny surface and disappeared through swing doors at the back.

  Maddy wondered if she was meant to follow. And when nothing happened she backed up a couple of paces thinking it might be better to cut her losses.

  But what then?

  Another season on the boats. Another winter in the garage. Another year of sitting on a chair in the corner of Dimitri’s bar with her guitar as everyone she knew chatted amongst themselves while she provided the backing track.

  She looked over to the corner of the room, to the tiny stage with two spotlights on the ground pointing up towards a microphone and a ripped velvet star curtain, the fairy lights that worked twinkling.

  ‘You need a job.’ She heard a man say as he pushed open the swing doors and strolled over to the bar, mid-fifties trying to look younger, receding hair quiffed back, collar of his pink shirt turned up. He pressed a button on the till and started counting the notes.

  Maddy watched, biting her lip, shifting from one foot to the other. ‘Yeah. Yeah I do.’

  ‘What can you do?’ he said, sifting through the notes, one after the other and turning them so they all faced the same way.

  The girl dusting the bottles paused and turned her head slightly to look Maddy’s way, sizing her up like a hyena.

  ‘I can sing.’ Maddy said, doing a half-hearted point towards the stage. ‘I’m pretty ok at singing.’

  The man, who she presumed was Mack, kept on turning the notes without looking up and said, ‘Pretty ok is no good to me.’

  ‘Well. Actually I’m pretty good.’ She started to walk forward towards the bar. ‘I’m really good, I hope. You know, it’s hard to judge your own talent.’ She did a little laugh. Mack glanced up, stony-faced.

  ‘Ever done any bar work?’ he said, going back to the notes.

  Maddy realised if she was going to get anywhere she had to change tack. She rolled her lips together, straightened her shoulders, ran her hand through her snow-damp hair and pulled her confidence back up from where it was draining out through her toes. ‘My mum owns a restaurant back home, my best friend has a bar, I’ve worked in both. I can make most cocktails, I can pour three pints at once, I can carry a table’s worth of food and I can sing brilliantly.’

  She saw the corner of Mack’s mouth curl up as he slammed the till shut, rolled up the notes and shoved them into his back pocket. ‘I can’t help you I’m afraid.’

  Maddy watched him pick up a spreadsheet on a tatty piece of paper and peruse what she assumed were the shifts his staff were working. He glanced up after a second and seemed surprised still to see her standing there.

  ‘Yes you can.’ she said. Thinking about everything it had taken to get here. ‘You have to.’

  Mack laughed almost as if taken by surprise, a deep rumbling that echoed around the empty room. He put his elbows on the bar and leaned forward, watching her, his chin resting on the knuckles of one fist. ‘Where’s back home?’ he said after a second.

  ‘It’s a little Greek island. Tiny. You’ve probably never heard of it–’ she rambled, awkward under the spotlight of his stare.

  ‘Yeah you’re probably right.’ he said, standing up straight again. ‘I’ve been to Kavos, twice, years ago. Don’t remember any of it. I was plastered from the moment the plane touched down.’ He rubbed his hand over his forehead. ‘Bad days.’ he said, then stared at her again silently.

  Maddy didn’t say anything. He seemed to be deciding what to do with her.

  ‘Ok. I’m a man down tomorrow night.’ He straightened up, ran his hand up and down his neck beneath his upturned collar. ‘I’ll see what you’re like.’

  Maddy pressed her lips together to hold in her smile.

  ‘Don’t get too excited.’ he said, bending down to swipe a Coke from the fridge. ‘It’s just dirty, sweaty bar work.’

  CHAPTER 17

  ELLA

  The sky blackened in the afternoon and everyone grumbled about rain. The waves had got up and the sound as they rumbled the pebbles along the beach filled the soupy grey air.

  Dimitri was just tying the boat to the jetty when the looming clouds split at their seams. The water came down so hard it was painful, battering Ella on the back as she ducked her head and clambered off the boat. Her clothes were drenched in seconds, Maddy’s woollen jumper hanging down almost to her knees with the sodden weight.

  ‘Oh shit I forgot the fish.’ Dimitri shouted over the noise of the clattering rain.

  ‘But it’s pouring.’

  ‘Go inside.’ he called as he jumped back onto the boat, scooping up the fish in soaking wet arms.

  But Ella found herself waiting for him. Reluctant somehow to go back to the taverna alone. Like there was now a fragile connection between them. A bond made of fine gold thread that came from time spent alone together. After he’d caught the fish there had been a kind of euphoria in the air, Dimitri on a high casting more lines until the front of the boat looked like a spider’s web. ‘I never catch anything, Ella. Never. I am the crappest fisherman on the island. Probably in the whole of Greece. They say that even with bloody dynamite I wouldn’t catch anything. Look at it.’ He’d held the giant fish aloft. ‘Look at it! You’re my lucky charm.’ He’d laughed, ruffling her hair with a hand that she preferred not to remember had just been holding a fish. It had taken all her willpower not to straighten out her hair, but to sit and smile like she was carefree enough to let her hair be ruffled.

  They hadn’t caught anything more. Not one float even bobbed with the hint of a bite, but they had lain, calm and relaxed along the two benches moulded into the plastic of the boat, felt the waves roll them as they talked about things that weren’t to do with husbands or wives or relationships. She told him about her work, he talked about the bar.

  When she’d said, ‘So what do you want to do next?’ he’d looked at her quizzically.

  ‘What do you mean, next?’

  She’d sat up and leant on her elbow. ‘You want to run a bar forever?’

  Dimitri had laughed, put his hands behind his head and stared up at the darkening clouds. ‘Nothing’s forever, Ella.’

  ‘No I just mean, you know, do you want a restaurant? Do you want to open another bar on the mainland? You know – don’t you want to grow?’

  ‘No.’ he’d said, a slight shake of his head. ‘I think the world has enough trouble with people wanting growth, expansion, all that rubbish. I have my bar, I have my customers, I have my friends, I have my surf board, I have my bike. What else do I want?’

  Ella screwed up her face. ‘I don’t know. But what about ambition?’

  ‘What about ambition?’ He glanced her way. ‘You think these aren’t ambitious goals? Friendship? Happiness? Fitness? You want me to have more lines on my face?’

  ‘No.’ she said, trying to reformulate her point in her head. To make him see that a bar on this island wa
sn’t enough. Couldn’t be enough. But her argument was faltering in her head. She felt confused. The lull of the boat and the openness of the sky making him seem more right and her more wrong. So she said instead, ‘You don’t have any lines.’

  He smiled and sat up to point to the grooves next to his eyes. ‘What are these then?’

  ‘I think those ones are ok.’ She felt her mouth quirk up in a half smile.

  ‘You like my wrinkles?’

  ‘They’re ok.’

  ‘Well who’d have known.’ he said, lying back again and grinning up to the clouds, ‘She likes my wrinkles.’

  They hadn’t talked much after that. Just lain there. Ella forcing herself to relax and enjoy the silence, the nothingness. Trying to ignore the thousand thoughts in her brain and just look up at the clouds.

  ‘It’s getting cold.’ she’d said after about five minutes. Dimitri had got up and thrown her a blanket.

  ‘What happens if it rains?’ she’d asked later as the sky inked over. ‘If there’s lightning, isn’t being on a boat the worst place to be?’

  ‘Ella.’ Dimitri had opened one eye and then held his finger to his lips. ‘Ssh.’

  Now, as she held the rope for the boat, pulling it close so that he could jump back easily, the rain pummelling her like hail, she wanted this moment to last forever. To keep out the real world. She wanted to wrap the day up and hold it close. Back in the taverna she would go and find a computer and read the email from Max and feel everything that would come with it, Dimitri would fall back on his smart remarks and play up to the attention of her doting mother which she would watch jealously, unable herself to move beyond polite.

  She watched him as he hooked the fish’s gill with his finger and held it aloft with a grin, the rain plastering his hair to his head in wet tendrils, dripping off his nose and eyelashes. She watched as he tipped his head back to the sky and opened his mouth wide, watched as he laughed out loud as he slipped jogging to the end of the boat. Watched as he stumbled and held out a hand for her to steady him. Felt his strong grip in hers, his fingers tightening as the weight of him lurched to the side but then steadied. Felt the pull of resistance along her arm as she helped to tug him up to the jetty. Saw the lightning flash in the distance. Heard the thunder roll loud and heavy above them. Saw Dimitri’s eyes distracted by the stunning fork of light on the horizon.

  ‘Oh shit, I’m going in.’ he said as he slipped again, instinctively tightened his grip on her hand as he skidded off the side of the boat.

  ‘No. No. Let go.’ She tried to pull away, tried to lock her toes against the wood, tried to balance herself with her free arm, but it was no good. Her bare feet paddled frantically against the jetty, her body tipped forward and she felt suddenly that there was no ground beneath her. Until she smacked the surface of water like she was breaking through ice, submerged in the sharpest, coldest water she’d ever been in. Her skin tingled like it had been stung. The breath stuck in her chest like she was about to have a heart attack. She gasped and inhaled, water icy in her throat, while seaweed wrapped around her ankles like fingers drawing her down, the sodden jumper engulfing her frozen limbs as she tried to push herself to the surface.

  Then, as she struggled and kicked and gasped, she felt Dimitri’s arm around her. ‘Calm down, Ella.’ he said, voice bemused. ‘We’re only in about ten feet of water.’

  Ella opened her eyes, stopped struggling for breath as she found herself heaved upwards and cradled to Dimitri’s chest while he sidestroked towards the shallows.

  ‘Like old times.’ he winked.

  Immediately Ella recoiled, humiliated as she remembered her poor young self floundering in the water. Shoving her hands against his chest, the movement surprised him and he lost his grip on her just as a great roll of waves crashed through them. Ella felt herself panicking again as big arcs of frigid sea bashed against her head and a huge rumble of thunder brought with it a greater deluge.

  ‘It’s ok, Ella. It was no big deal.’ he shouted over the noise of the battering rain as he tried to steady her.

  ‘It was to me.’ she gasped, arms trying to tread water, burning with cold, feet sliding on the seaweed.

  ‘No, don’t be daft,’ Dimitri hooked his hand under her arm and yanked her upright. ‘It was funny, sweet.’

  ‘Yeah, hilarious.’

  ‘Let me help you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you swim?’

  ‘Yes.’ she mumbled, the cold paralysing her bottom lip so she could barely speak. ‘Just not very well.’

  ‘Get that jumper off. It’s pulling you down.’ Dimitri tried to lift the sodden wool over her head.

  ‘I’m fine.’ She pushed him away as a massive wave smashed into her head, the water gushing into her mouth as she tried to speak.

  ‘For god’s sake, let me help.’ Dimitri gripped her arm again, and then she felt him pull her towards him and she was too cold and too shocked by the force of the wave to stop him. She felt his hand on the skin of her waist, closer, tighter than before, so she couldn't kick away. She could feel her cheek pressed against the damp material of his t-shirt, smell his skin and the feel the graze of his stubble on her forehead. She tried again to free herself, too aware of him, befuddled by the icy ocean, the rain hammering down on them, her mouth tasting of salt and raw from gulps of seawater, but his arms locked her hard against him.

  ‘Chill out.’ he shouted.

  ‘Let me go you great oaf.’

  ‘No. You’re slowing us both down and I’m fucking cold.’

  ‘Well leave me here.’ She struggled again.

  ‘Yeah right.’ He laughed and she could feel the rumble of his chest against her face as she tightened her lips together in a sulk.

  The waves tumbled against them as he half swam, half walked them forward, the drag of the water with each receding wave drawing them back like they were in battle. Dimitri huffed with exhaustion. Ella felt her body go numb. The rain seemed to get heavier, hitting the water with great thumps.

  And then finally they were shallow enough to stand. Dimitri blew out a breath. Ella opened her eyes and saw him shake his hair away from his face. But as she reached up to swipe her own matted hair from her forehead, Dimitri tipped her up and dumped her down with a splash.

  ‘There you go, you can walk now.’ he muttered.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ella shouted as she batted about in the waves trying to right herself. When she stood up, straightening her clothes with an indignant huff, she glared at Dimitri and added, ‘That was totally uncalled for.’

  ‘What was?’ he asked, hands out wide as if he had no idea what she was talking about, rain and lightning and thunder all clashing about on the horizon.

  ‘That.’ She gestured towards the water. ‘You didn’t have to drop me.’

  ‘Jesus Christ woman. One minute you don’t want me near you the next you don’t want me letting go. You’re fucking nuts.’

  ‘Don’t you swear at me.’

  ‘Why not? Someone needs to.’ He ran his hands through his hair, slicking the water away down his back as the rain kept pummelling. ‘Christ I thought we’d got past this. You know, had a good day. You are unbelievable.’

  ‘Well you had to bring up that last time, didn’t you?’ Ella wiped under her eyes suddenly more than aware she might have her same mascara bags.

  ‘Because it was funny. Ha ha, you know, a joke. A joke!’

  ‘Well I didn’t see it as very funny.’ she said, all demure and prim. Annoyed with herself for not saying, we did, we had got past it, but she was embarrassed, her pride had been dented and she felt stupid because he’d seen that she couldn’t swim well, so instead she had fallen back on her stubborn aloofness. Unable to backtrack now, she threw him a haughty sneer and turned around to splash her way through the shallows with an ungainly lift-her-legs-up walk like she was trudging through knee-high snow.

  ‘You’re unbelievable.’ Dimitri shouted again.

  Ella didn’t
turn, just kept pushing through the water, wobbly on feet numb with cold.

  A moment later she heard what sounded like water being smacked, and then Dimitri shouted. ‘And I lost my bloody fish.’

  CHAPTER 18

  MADDY

  There was a spring in Maddy’s step as she picked out vegetables from the market stalls along Berwick Street. She was so pleased she splashed out on steak at Whole Foods, then got overexcited by the self-service section and filled the little paper bags with shrivelled charcoal peppercorns and fleur de sel, earthy brown rice and scoops of flour, then she moved onto the spices and sampled a pinch of fennel – squeezing her eyes shut at the bitter tang. Her basket already overflowing, she balanced a box of flashy Earl Grey tea leaves on top and, thinking about breakfast and the possibility of making croissants, cut a slab of butter and snapped up a bar of the darkest chocolate they sold.

  When it came to paying she decided not to think about the cost. She’d had a shitty day and there was nothing like good food to cheer herself up. She was going to go back to Ella’s, cook up a feast, drink the bubbles and then maybe soak in the huge tub with the fancy taps.

  It was only as she passed a pop-up stall outside the tube station selling cheap tinsel and terrible baubles that she thought about the tree lying on the floor.

  ‘What can I get you love?’ the stall-holder said through lips clenched around a cigarette.

  ‘Enough to decorate a tree for–’ She rummaged in her pocket and pulled out the note she had left. ‘Ten pounds.’

  The guy laughed. The cigarette wobbled up and down. ‘Better be a pretty small tree.’

  Maddy made a face. ‘It’s massive.’

  He shook his head. ‘I can do you a bunch of tinsel.’ He held up a big, furry red and green clump. ‘And a couple of these.’ Boxes of pink spangly baubles, some shaped like hearts, some like lanterns.

  Maddy made a face thinking of the decor of Ella’s flat. ‘What about those instead?’ she asked pointing to the box of much more stylish silver stars.