The Piano Man Project (23 page)

Outside, Honey found not only Mimi but Billy too, along with two women in their forties who she didn’t recognise.

‘Honey, fetch some more of those frivolous little handcuffs, my darling,’ Billy called, slinging his arms around the shoulders of the two identical-looking women. ‘We’ve got company today. Michelle and Lisa here have come to help the cause.’

The women nodded in unison, and Honey found herself distracted by their uncanny likeness to both each other, and to Susan Boyle. ‘My auntie Titania lives here,’ one of them said. ‘She’s my auntie too,’ the other said, rather redundantly adding ‘we’re sisters,’ for clarification. ‘Twins,’ the other said, and they both nodded solemnly. Honey slipped back into the shop for more cuffs and then dutifully chained all four of the protesters to the railings.

Billy had opted for red skinny jeans and a t-shirt that declared ‘Old boys do it better!’ and when the twins removed their Pac-a-Macs they revealed matching white t-shirts handpainted with ‘We Love You Auntie Tit!’ across the front. It was unfortunate – or fortunate, depending on how you wanted to look at it – that both women were extremely well endowed, because their ample cleavages had eaten several words from the slogan, leaving them proudly announcing ‘We Love Tit!’ across their busts. They smiled serenely, and Billy nodded and threw a theatrical wink towards the press, who’d gathered as on most days in the hope of action.

‘Quite right too, ladies. Don’t we all!’

Light bulbs flashed, and Honey knew that thanks to the sisters’ t-shirts, the campaign would once again be flashed across the front of the papers. It had made the local TV news for the first time last week too, which had sent Billy into a Brylcreemed spin of excitement. Surely it must be having some effect up at head office by now? They might say that no press is bad press, but surely being made to look heartless was bad PR for a company who made their money on retirement homes?

‘I think it’s amazing what they’re all doing here,’ a passer-by said, pausing next to her on the footpath while the press took their shots. Honey smiled at the woman with the buggy laden down with two young children and shopping.

‘Thank you. It means so much to everyone to stay here,’ Honey said. She was fast becoming accustomed to her role as public spokesperson. ‘I just can’t imagine what would happen to them all if the home closes.’

‘If I didn’t have these pair with me I’d have joined in.’ The woman grinned and gestured to the kids, and then smiled and went on her way. Honey stood and looked down the length of the railings, her mind whirring with ideas. How many people could they fit along there, she wondered? The railings wrapped around the street corner and carried on, so actually, quite a few. Thirty? Forty? More? As she turned to head back to the shop she met an anxious-looking Skinny Steve coming in the other direction laden down with warm tea for the protesters.

‘You’re doing a great job, Steve,’ she said, patting his shoulder as she walked by.

‘Don’t go!’ he whispered loudly to her retreating back, and she stopped and turned slowly, unnerved by the desperate edge to his already thin voice.

‘You okay?’ she asked, carefully.

He shook his head, wide eyed. ‘The agency chef is going crazy in there, Honey. He won’t listen to a word I say.’

Honey frowned. ‘I heard there might be a few problems.’

Steve huffed and picked nervously at a spot on his chin. ‘Problems? Even I know better than to give this lot a prawn vindaloo.’ Steve spoke urgently, as if it were a relief to get it off his chest. ‘The staff have been going crazy because everyone wants the loo all the time. Old Don shat on Elsie’s slippers this morning because they couldn’t get him there quick enough.’ He shook his head and pulled a face that indicated he’d probably witnessed the incident. ‘It’s bad, Honey. Really bad.’ He shook his head.

‘He’s in there right now making a chilli hot enough to take the skin off the roof of your mouth. I know, because he made me try it.’ Steve swallowed painfully. ‘I don’t think he likes old people very much. In fact …’ He looked at Honey fearfully, as if she were a police officer taking his statement. ‘I think he might be trying to kill them all with spicy food.’

Honey almost laughed, but held it in because actually, it wasn’t at all funny. It was highly unlikely that the agency had sent them a chef who harboured homicidal tendencies towards the elderly, but this was clearly a problem that was too big for Skinny Steve’s skinny shoulders. There was little to no point in suggesting he take the matter up with Christopher; in fact there was every chance Christopher had handpicked the worst chef he could find himself.

‘I’ll nip over there and have a word with him when I get a chance, Steve,’ she said, smiling encouragingly. ‘In the meantime, just try to steer lunch in the right direction, okay?’

Steve nodded, a vigorous duck of his head that almost spilt the tea on his tray.

Thirty thousand feet above ground level, Tash was also serving tea, and as the plane hit a pocket of turbulence it sloshed from the pot onto the lap of the passenger closest to her.

‘I’m terribly sorry, sir,’ she said, putting the pot down quickly and grabbing a cloth. Dabbing at the guy’s paperwork, she noticed it was sheet music rather than the usual reports or graphs passengers studied in transatlantic business class.

He put out a hand and stopped her, and when she looked him in the eyes she found him smiling. ‘Hey, it’s fine,’ he said, his accent placing him as American. ‘It wasn’t very good anyway. You’ve just saved me a job.’

‘You write music?’ Tash asked, always ready to take the time to chat to passengers, especially ones with sexy blue eyes and an easy smile.

‘I try, anyhow,’ he nodded ruefully. ‘I’m a pianist.’

Honey left it until after lunch to go over and look in on the new chef. Pushing the kitchen door open tentatively, she could hear shouting and clattering from within. Inside, the new chef had his back towards the door and held a frying pan held aloft, waving it around in the air as he yelled at Skinny Steve. Honey was sure he didn’t intend for it to look threatening, but nonetheless it did rather look as if she’d walked in thirty seconds before Skinny Steve took one for the team.

‘Whoa there,’ she said lightly, clearing her throat, and then ‘Er, hello?’ a little louder when the chef failed to even register her presence. He spun around, frying pan still in the air.

‘What?’ he spat in heavily accented English, his dark moustache bristling with contempt. Judging from his appearance, Honey hazarded a guess at Spanish, or possibly Mexican. He wasn’t a tall man. An unkind person would have even called him short, but what he lacked in height he made up for in volume. ‘What do you want, woman!’ he shouted, and Honey watched the pan carefully in case it came down on her head as she approached him slowly.

‘Do you think you could, umm, put that pan down?’ she tried, summoning scant hostage negotiation skills gleaned from the movies.

The chef looked slowly up the length of his arm and stared at the pan as if he was as surprised as anyone to see it there.

‘You means this pan?’

Honey nodded and smiled the small, quivering smile of the mildly terrified.

Chef’s eyes moved from the pan to Honey, and then across to Steve, which was the point when he started to growl.

‘Ooohkay,’ Honey said, and catching Skinny Steve’s eye she flicked her head towards the back door that led to the garden. He didn’t need telling twice. Like the worst hero in the world, he made a dash for freedom and left Honey to dodge around the chef and slam the door to stop him from chasing Steve.

‘Whaddya do that for!’ he shouted, and slammed the pan down hard on the counter. Honey jumped, but stayed splayed over the door like a police cut-out.

‘You were frightening him,’ she said.

‘What is he? A man or a mouse?’ The chef’s chin wobbled. ‘He tell me all morning,
don’t do this, don’t do that
.
They
won’t like this, they won’t like that
.’ He picked up a whole chilli from the work surface. ‘
And they definitely won’ta like these!
’

He bit the chilli in half and ate it without turning a hair. ‘My mama in Mexico has these for breakfast and she is one hundred and three.’ He shoved the rest of the chilli in and swallowed. ‘These people,’ he waved vaguely towards the dining room in disgust. ‘Bland. I just try to spice up their lives, and that boy …’ he looked murderously through the window for Steve. ‘He won’t let me. Who is in charge here? Him, or me? My chilli con carne won three red peppers in the Chihuahua Chilli Awards 2010. Three peppers!’ He picked up three more chillies, and quite alarmingly shoved them all in his mouth at once. Honey stared, transfixed, as he stood with his hands on his hips and chewed them all up with difficulty.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’ she whispered, as tears ran down his cheeks.

He spat out a chilli seed. ‘I not cry because of the chillies. The chillies are delicious. I cry because my soul is crushed. Crushed by these people who look as if they are made of paper and will only eat bland, bland food.’ He’d gone from angry to maudlin in a blink, impressive for someone stone cold sober. ‘I cry because I miss my mama. These people remind me I should go home and kiss her wrinkly cheeks again.’ He mopped his tears with the corner of his apron, which he then took off and slung on the stool. ‘I will go now,’ he declared. ‘This minute. I will go and see my mama.’

‘But …’

He held up both his hands to stop her speaking. ‘My mama. I will go now.’

‘In Chihuahua?’ Honey said doubtfully, and he glared at her with a curt nod.

‘But what about dinner?’

‘I made chilli.’ He waved towards the bubbling vat on the stove. ‘Skin and bones knows what to do with it.’

Honey could only presume he was referring to Skinny Steve, and furthermore she guessed that the only thing that chilli was going to be useful for was stripping paint. She watched helplessly as the diminutive chef slung a bag across his back and flounced out of the kitchen, flounced back and grabbed his bunch of chillies, and then flounced back out again, this time for good.

‘We can’t serve it like this,’ Honey said, having braved a tiny taste of the chilli on the end of a teaspoon. Prickles of sweat had broken out on her brow and she’d reached instantly for water. ‘Do you have any idea how to calm it down?’

Steve shook his head, his brows knitted together into a unibrow. After a full minute’s thought, he finally spoke.

‘No.’

Honey took a calming breath and tried to summon her inner Nigella. ‘Water, maybe?’

Steve shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. It’d turn into soup.’

He was most probably right, but he’d also given Honey another idea. ‘Soup? Do we have any tomato soup? That might work.’

Steve considered her suggestion, and then turned to rummage in the wall cupboards. Lining up four huge tins of soup on the counter, he turned back to Honey.

‘It’s worth a shot,’ he said. ‘Shall I put them all in?’

Honey nodded. Even her complete absence of cooking knowledge didn’t stop her from knowing that the chilli needed as much dilution as they could throw at it. She nodded encouragement at Skinny Steve as he tipped each can in and stirred the pot.

‘Now test it,’ she said.

‘Why me?’

‘Because you’re the chef,’ Honey exclaimed.

‘I don’t like chilli,’ Steve muttered, looking doubtful.

Honey sighed and picked up a spoon. ‘Move out the way.’

The consistency had certainly changed; it was way too gloopy and vivid red, horribly like road kill you’d avert your eyes from on a country lane. She wouldn’t want it for her own dinner, and she felt sorry for the residents come mealtime tonight. Dipping the spoon in, she gingerly put a little into her mouth.

Laying the spoon down slowly, she shook her head.

‘It really hasn’t helped much,’ she croaked, reaching once more for the tap.

‘What are we going to do?’ Skinny Steve whispered, looking stricken. ‘It’s almost two. If I don’t have something on the table at half five they’re going to lynch us.’

Honey briefly considered mentioning that she wasn’t, in point of fact, kitchen staff, and running for the hills, but she’d seen Skinny Steve sprint just now and had no doubt he’d tackle her and bring her down before she made it as far as the door. Besides, he was desperate, and she wasn’t hard-hearted enough to desert him in his hour of need. Which kind of left them both with a monumental problem. They had to serve dinner for around thirty people in just over three hours and didn’t have a clue between them how to do it.

‘Do you think the agency could send a replacement in time?’ Steve asked.

Honey really doubted it. She crossed the room and swung the fridge door open, feeling a sinking sense of déjà vu about the whole situation. The last time she’d done this she’d managed to pull off a coup, but that wasn’t likely to happen twice in one lifetime. The chiller offered up very little in the way of inspiration, definitely nothing that looked like it might save their bacon. Although there was actual bacon …

‘Do they eat bacon and sausages?’ she asked.

Steve screwed up his nose. ‘Some of them. Bacon gets stuck in their false teeth. Or they don’t have any teeth.’ He shrugged apologetically.

‘And sausages?’

He looked more hopeful. ‘Yeah. We could do sausages.’

‘With …’ Honey tried to coax him into creating a dish. He was the more experienced cook of them both, he did this every day.

‘… Mash!’ Skinny Steve practically shouted, lighting up like a just-plugged-in Christmas tree. ‘Bangers and mash!’

Honey grinned, relieved at yet another disaster averted. ‘Now you’re talking. Get some potatoes, there’s peeling to be done. You do peel potatoes for mash, right?’

You know that warm glow of pride you get when you do something really well and everyone tells you you’re a marvel? It wasn’t quite that good, but by Honey and Steve’s standards the sausage and mash feast followed by their trademark magic whip pudding was a roaring triumph. It was only as they were gathering in the dishes afterwards that Steve checked the kitchen calendar and went a sickly shade of green.