For the first week he never actually saw the fabled Jacques. With seventy people working in the kitchens Mark felt confident he could pass his whole period there without anyone being aware of him.
Each morning at six he would start peeling, then hand over the potatoes to a gangling youth called Terry, who in turn would dice or cut them according to the third chef's instructions for the dish of the day. Monday sauté, Tuesday mashed, Wednesday French-fried, Thursday sliced, Friday roast, Saturday croquette ⦠Mark quickly worked out a routine that kept him well ahead of Terry and therefore out of any trouble.
Having watched Terry do his job for over a week Mark felt sure he could have shown the young apprentice how to lighten his workload quite simply, but he decided to keep his mouth closed: opening it might only get him into more trouble, and he was certain the manager wouldn't give him a second chance.
Mark soon discovered that Terry always fell badly behind on Tuesday's shepherd's pie and Thursday's Lancashire hotpot. From time to time the third chef would come across to complain, and he would glance over at Mark to be sure that it wasn't him who was holding the process up. Mark made certain that he always had a spare tub of peeled potatoes by his side so that he escaped censure.
It was on the first Thursday morning in August (Lancashire hotpot) that Terry sliced off the top of his forefinger. Blood spurted all over the sliced potatoes and onto the wooden table as the lad began yelling hysterically.
“Get him out of here!” Mark heard the
maître chef de cuisine
bellow above the noise of the kitchen as he stormed toward them.
“And you,” he said, pointing at Mark, “clean up mess and
start slicing rest of potatoes. I 'ave eight hundred hungry customers still expecting to feed.”
“Me?” said Mark in disbelief. “Butâ”
“Yes, you. You couldn't do worse job than idiot who calls himself trainee chef and cuts off finger.” The chef marched away, leaving Mark to move reluctantly across to the table where Terry had been working. He felt disinclined to argue while the calendar was there to remind him that he was down to his last twenty-five days.
Mark set about a task he had carried out for his mother many times. The clean, neat cuts were delivered with a skill Terry would never learn to master. By the end of the day, although exhausted, Mark did not feel quite as tired as he had in the past.
At eleven that night the
maître chef de cuisine
threw off his hat and barged out of the swinging doors, a sign to everyone else they could also leave the kitchen once everything that was their responsibility had been cleared up. A few seconds later the doors swung back open and the chef burst in. He stared around the kitchen as everyone waited to see what he would do next. Having found what he was looking for, he headed straight for Mark.
“Oh, my God,” thought Mark. “He's going to kill me.”
“How is your name?” the chef demanded.
“Mark Hapgood, sir,” he managed to splutter out.
“You waste on âtatoes, Mark Hapgood,” said the chef. “You start on vegetables in morning. Report at seven. If that
crétin
with 'alf finger ever returns, put him to peeling 'tatoes.”
The chef turned on his heel even before Mark had the chance to reply. He dreaded the thought of having to spend three weeks in the middle of the kitchens, never once out of the
maître chef de cuisine'
s sight, but he accepted that there was no alternative.
The next morning Mark arrived at six for fear of being late, and spent an hour watching the fresh vegetables being unloaded from Covent Garden market. The hotel's supply
manager checked every case carefully, rejecting several before he signed a receipt to show that the hotel had received over three thousand pounds' worth of vegetables. An average day, he assured Mark.
The
maître chef de cuisine
appeared a few minutes before seven-thirty, checked the menus, and told Mark to score the Brussels sprouts, trim the French beans, and remove the coarse outer leaves of the cabbages.
“But I don't know how,” Mark replied honestly. He could feel the other trainees in the kitchen edging away from him.
“Then I teach you,” roared the chef. “Perhaps only thing you learn is if hope to be good chef, you able to do everyone's job in kitchen, even 'tato peeler's.”
“But I'm hoping to be a ⦔ Mark began and then thought better of it. The chef seemed not to have heard Mark as he took his place beside the new recruit. Everyone in the kitchen stared as the chef began to show Mark the basic skills of cutting, dicing, and slicing.
“And remember other idiot's finger,” the chef said on completing the lesson and passing the razor-sharp knife back to Mark. “Yours can be next.”
Mark started gingerly dicing the carrots, then the Brussels sprouts, removing the outer layer before cutting a firm cross in the base. Next he moved on to trimming and slicing the beans. Once again he found it fairly easy to keep ahead of the chef's requirements.
At the end of each day, after the head chef had left, Mark stayed on to sharpen all his knives in preparation for the following morning, and would not leave his work area until it was spotless.
On the sixth day, after a curt nod from the chef, Mark realized he must be doing something half right. By the following Saturday he felt he had mastered the simple skills of vegetable preparation and found himself becoming fascinated by what the chef himself was up to. Although Jacques rarely addressed anyone as he marched around the acre of kitchen except to grunt his approval or disapprovalâthe latter more commonlyâMark quickly learned to anticipate his
needs. Within a short space of time he began to feel that he was part of a teamâeven though he was only too aware of being the novice recruit.
On the deputy chef's day off the following week Mark was allowed to arrange the cooked vegetables in their bowls, and spent some time making each dish look attractive as well as edible. The chef not only noticed but actually muttered his greatest accoladeâ“
Bon
.”
During his last three weeks at the Savoy, Mark did not even look at the calendar above his bed.
One Thursday morning a message came down from the undermanager that Mark was to report to his office as soon as was convenient. Mark had quite forgotten that it was August 31âhis last day. He cut ten lemons into quarters, then finished preparing the forty plates of thinly sliced smoked salmon that would complete the first course for a wedding lunch. He looked with pride at his efforts before folding up his apron and leaving to collect his papers and final pay envelope.
“Where you think you're going?” asked the chef, looking up.
“I'm off,” said Mark. “Back to Coventry.”
“See you Monday then. You deserve day off.”
“No, I'm going home for good,” said Mark.
The chef stopped checking the cuts of rare beef that would make up the second course of the wedding feast.
“Going?” he repeated as if he didn't understand the word.
“Yes. I've finished my year and now I'm off home to work.”
“I hope you found first-class hotel,” said the chef with genuine interest.
“I'm not going to work in a hotel.”
“A restaurant, perhaps?”
“No, I'm going to get a job at Triumph.”
The chef looked puzzled for a moment, unsure if it was his English or whether the boy was mocking him.
“What isâTriumph?”
“A place where they manufacture cars.”
“You will manufacture cars?”
“Not a whole car, but I will put the wheels on.”
“You put cars on wheels?” the chef said in disbelief.
“No,” laughed Mark. “Wheels on cars.”
The chef still looked uncertain.
“So you will be cooking for the car workers?”
“No. As I explained, I'm going to put the wheels on the cars,” said Mark slowly, enunciating each word.
“That not possible.”
“Oh, yes it is,” responded Mark. “And I've waited a whole year to prove it.”
“If I offered you job as commis chef, you change mind?” asked the chef quietly.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you 'ave talent in those fingers. In time I think you become chef, perhaps even good chef.”
“No, thanks. I'm off to Coventry to join my mates.”
The head chef shrugged. “
Tant pis
,” he said, and without a second glance returned to the carcass of beef. He glanced over at the plates of smoked salmon. “A wasted talent,” he added after the swing door had closed behind his potential protégé.
Mark locked his room, threw the calendar in the wastepaper basket, and returned to the hotel to hand in his kitchen clothes to the housekeeper. The final action he took was to return his room key to the undermanager.
“Your pay envelope, your cards, and your withholding tax forms. Oh, and the chef has phoned to say he would be happy to give you a reference,” said the under-manager. “Can't pretend that happens every day.”
“Won't need that where I'm going,” said Mark. “But thanks all the same.”
He started off for the station at a brisk pace, his small battered suitcase swinging by his side, only to find that each step took a little longer. When he arrived at Euston he made his way to Platform Seven and began walking up and down, occasionally staring at the great clock above the reservations hall. He watched first one train and then another pull out of
the station bound for Coventry. He was aware of the station becoming dark as shadows filtered through the glass awning onto the public concourse. Suddenly he turned and walked off at an even brisker pace. If he hurried he could still be back in time to help the chef prepare dinner that night.
Mark trained under Jacques le Renneu for five years. Vegetables were followed by sauces, fish by poultry, meats by pâtisserie. After eight years at the Savoy he was appointed second chef, and had learned so much from his mentor that regular patrons could no longer be sure when it was the
maître chef de cuisine'
s day off. Two years later Mark became a master chef, and when in 1971 Jacques was offered the opportunity to return to Paris and take over the kitchens of the George Vâan establishment that is to Paris what the Savoy is to LondonâJacques agreed, but only on condition that Mark accompanied him.
“It is wrong direction from Coventry,” Jacques warned him, “and in any case they sure to offer you my job at the Savoy.”
“I'd better come along, otherwise those Frogs will never get a decent meal.”
“Those Frogs,” said Jacques, “will always know when it's my day off.”
“Yes, and book in even greater numbers,” suggested Mark, laughing.
It was not to be long before Parisians were flocking to the George V, not to rest their weary heads but to relish the cooking of the two-chef team.
When Jacques celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday, the great hotel did not have to look far to appoint his successor.
“The first Englishman ever to be
maître chef de cuisine
at the George V,” said Jacques, raising a glass of champagne at his farewell banquet. “Who would believe it? Of course, you will have to change your name to Marc to hold down such a position.”
“Neither will ever happen,” said Mark.
“Oh, yes it will, because I 'ave recommended you.”
“Then I shall turn it down.”
“Going to put cars on wheels,
peut-être
?” asked Jacques mockingly.
“No, but I have found a little restaurant on the Left Bank. With my savings alone I can't quite afford the lease, but with your help ⦔
Chez Jacques opened on the rue du Plaisir on the Left Bank on May 1, 1982, and it was not long before those customers who had taken the George V for granted transferred their allegiance.
Mark's reputation spread as the two chefs pioneered “nouvelle cuisine,” and soon the only way anyone could be guaranteed a table at the restaurant in under three weeks was to be a film star or a cabinet minister.
The day Michelin gave Chez Jacques its third star, Mark, with Jacques's blessing, decided to open a second restaurant. The press and customers then quarreled among themselves as to which was the finer establishment. The reservation sheets showed clearly that the public felt there was no difference.
When, in October 1986, Jacques died at the age of seventy-one, the restaurant critics wrote confidently that standards were bound to fall. A year later the same journalists had to admit that one of the five great chefs of France had come from a town in the British Midlands they could not even pronounce.