Think Yourself Lucky (12 page)

They met halfway along the hall, between a cartoon postcard of an almost spherical bather poking his stomach out of the sea above an ambiguous caption and a card of a Turkish lagoon. Stephanie gave him a quick kiss and a glass. "I just thought we might like a drink," she told him, "but let's celebrate if you're saying we should."

The living-room boasted even more books than she kept in the kitchen. As her armchair gave a delicate leathery sigh David sat on a chair that didn't quite face hers. "I don't suppose I am."

"We don't know who they're getting rid of."

This seemed both too pointed and too vague, and David's chair amplified his uneasy restlessness. "Who?"

"That's what I'm asking. We don't, do we?"

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," David said and was still more disconcerted to realise that he should have grasped it. "Work, you mean. You're thinking of Andrea."

"That's who, the snotty ex. Ex marks the snot."

"More like Rex does. He's the new man. Maybe not such a new kind, the way he seems to treat her. Still, I get the feeling that's what she may like."

Stephanie took quite a drink from her glass. "Are you wishing you'd had the chance?"

"I'm not wishing for anything I haven't got."

"No complaints at all? Now's the time to bring them up."

"You shouldn't even wonder if there could be."

"Don't make me out to be too ideal, David. Nobody can live up to that all the time. They shouldn't be expected to. So to get back to Andrea..."

"She's still deciding as far as any of us know. We haven't even heard when she thinks she'll have to."

"She couldn't just be saying it to keep you all on your toes."

"Lying about it, you mean?" His flare of rage went out as he said "I wouldn't be able to tell. I don't feel I know her since she was promoted. Maybe that means I never really did."

"I think there's more inside us all than anyone else knows, except I hope that isn't true for us."

Everything he'd said so far had felt like a postponement, but now it seemed more like a barrier he had to struggle over. "I don't know," he said and tried again. "I don't know if you've had a chance to look at that blog I was telling you about."

"Do you mind if we don't talk about that just now?"

"Why?" Even this felt more like a hurdle than a question. "What have you found on it?" he had to ask.

"I haven't looked." She topped up his glass as an excuse for replenishing her own. "To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten about it," she said. "I've had other things on my mind."

At once David felt he should have had, and guilty too. "You mean Mick's?"

"He thinks we should be open seven days from lunchtime. He's been talking about opening for breakfast too."

"He can't expect you to cope with all that by yourself, can he?"

"He's started hiring short-term help for me so he doesn't have to pay them too much, and to be truthful they aren't very good. He's insisting on serving meals when I'm not happy with them."

"Tell him it's your kitchen and your reputation."

"He says they're mostly his and he can live with them."

"Then let him and you find somewhere that appreciates you."

"I've been looking around, believe me. There's nothing at the moment that seems like a good move." Stephanie restrained herself to a sip of wine before saying "We're about to lose a waiter. Mick's taking over some of his service. I can't say I'm particularly looking forward to shutting down every night."

It took David some seconds to understand. "Being on your own with him, you mean," he said, and when Stephanie stayed quiet "What's he been up to?"

"Nothing I can't deal with, David. Its just uncomfortable, that's all."

"Would you like me to have a word with him?"

"Oh, David." With an affectionate laugh that he tried not to find patronising she said "I wasn't trying to make you play the avenger. That isn't what I want you for."

"You're making me feel helpless."

"You mustn't. I'm not, so you aren't. I'm lucky I've found you." She took a sip that seemed designed to demonstrate she didn't need more of a drink. "I feel better for talking, so you've helped," she said. "Now what did you want to tell me about your blog?"

"It isn't mine. That's all." The opportunity to talk about it had grown so remote that he felt as if the words had been snatched from him. He stood the glass beside his chair and went to her. "Are we ready for bed?" he murmured and took her glass to plant it on the carpet. As she rose to her feet he put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed them hard enough to be trying to crush his thoughts. He'd said enough for now—for longer than that. He needn't feel secretive just because she couldn't see his face.

No, I don't need a menu. I'll just sit here in the darkest corner and watch. Anyway, I can read the menu on the table that's closest to my lurking orphan chair. I expect the format's meant to tell people how fresh the food is, because the card looks like a slate covered with childish writing you can wipe off—in fact, an idle diner has turned MARINATED OLIVES into MA I ATE LIVES. I'm guessing the misspelled list is the work of the manager, since he mispronounces items every time he insists on talking his customers through them. He's a pneumatic sweaty object in a dinner suit that leaves him looking like a bouncer in disguise, and he greets newcomers with horrible jollity and seems determined to take as many orders as he can, a performance his staff have to try to make amends for. He's playing the sommelier as well, and when he uncorks some wine for a pair of women he asks "Who's the man?" He lectures a fellow on how to taste wine—"Just sip it like a girl"—and does his best to shame another diner into not ordering his steak well done—"Everything's well done here, no, it's better." If anyone leaves food on their plate he interrogates them about it while straining to seem chummy, which makes him sound like a father talking down to a child, maybe even one with learning difficulties, that new excuse for bad behaviour. Everyone has some of those, and it's my job to help them learn, but they always catch on too late.

Not that the diners don't deserve Mr Prick. Some of them might be trying to act worse than him. One man picks fish-bones out of his open mouth and drops them next to his plate, and another doesn't just blow his nose over his food but pokes his handkerchief up each nostril and screws it around with his little finger—I'm surprised he doesn't use the tablecloth. A woman scowls at her meal and digs it over with a fork like a customs officer searching for illegal substances, and a granny sucks her wrinkled whitish lips in as if she's fending off her soup before she even tastes it, a routine that makes her mouth look like the hole she must be sitting on. The worse his clientele behave, the more obsequious the manager grows. "You're the customer," he keeps telling them, but the question isn't who deserves him most—it's who deserves me.

The competition's hotting up. Two men who've been stroking each other's hands throughout their appetisers have leaned their heads together, not for a kiss but to complain. The high rapid muted racket puts me in mind of headphone leakage, a noise that always makes me want to squeeze the phones until they're squashed deep into the wearer's ears. When their muttering fails to attract Mr Prick they add shrill tuts and increasingly unrestrained groans that sound less like gripes than evidence of some kind of mutual pleasure. Perhaps the idea offends the manly manager, because he makes it plain he's dealing with someone else's bill and then spends time ushering the escapees to the door, where he shakes the man's hand and pecks the woman's fleeing cheek before he says "Don't forget us. Come back soonest," for the entire restaurant to hear. At last he saunters over to the gay couple, that's to say the glum duo. "Can I do something for you gentlemen?" he says not much more quietly than he saw the leavers off.

The taller and floppier of the pair flaps a hand at his mate's plate. "You assured us this wouldn't be contaminated."

The manager peers at the pasta and less happily at him. "Nothing's that way here that I've heard of," he says like at the very least a challenge.

"You guaranteed it was gluten free."

"Who's saying different?"

"My spouse is."

"Sensitive sort, is he? Can't he speak for himself?"

"He most certainly can. You tell him."

"Grateful, I'm sure. I will." The sufferer is squat and wide enough to take anything his partner can offer him. "I have a pain," he informs the manager.

"Looks like you're dining with him. Aren't you going to ask them who's the man?"

No doubt Prick can't hear my suggestion, but he does say "Maybe you brought it with you. Where've you got it?"

"Here." Faddyfat rubs his outthrust stomach and winces like a mime. "In my tummy," he says as well.

"No call for that," the manager warns Wristy as he extends a limp soothing hand. "How long have you been ailing?"

"As soon as he swallowed your first mouthful," Wristy declares.

The manager looks close to responding with more than a retort until Faddyfat says "I know what's wrong with me."

"You're not the only one, and you can't have got it here." With enough of a pause to have changed the subject Prick says "My chef makes the pasta and she knows what to do about your kind."

While Wristy looks eager to take this as an insult Faddyfat says "I knew what it was the moment I put it in my mouth."

Prick makes it obvious that he's suppressing an answer before he strides to the kitchen entrance. "Can you get out here? There's a couple want a word."

"Give me a minute and I'll be with you."

"That's women for you. Never ready when they're needed." When this meets no appreciation the manager stares at Wristy's plate. "Are you another one like him?"

"Whatever can he mean?" Wristy asks his partner.

"I couldn't begin to imagine."

"Another one that doesn't like flour. Because if you're not," Prick says, "you could try swapping. I reckon you don't mind what's been in each other's mouth."

There's a silence that the other diners add to, but it's broken by the chef. "Here I am. Who wants me?"

I wonder what she thinks she looks like with Prick's name printed on the apron across her breasts. Her eyebrows are raised as if her hopes are high, but she doesn't know how much of a smile to put on. Prick indicates the couple with a thumb that glistens from having wiped his forehead. "They're telling me that's not pure."

Chefanny turns to the pasta protester. "You're the gentleman who's gluten intolerant, yes?"

Faddyfat sticks out his belly to caress it. "I know when it feels wrong."

"Go on, tell him you bet he does."

I don't suppose Prick hears my suggestion, and the chef says "I've told everyone I work with in the kitchen about keeping ingredients separate."

The manager doesn't so much swing towards her as lurch. He's going for a tackle, even if it was only verbal. "Are you saying you didn't make it yourself?"

"Bartek did. He has before. I've been satisfied with him."

"He better hadn't be getting his own back. Weren't you keeping an eye on him?"

"Not all the time. I was sure he knew what he was doing."

"Maybe I'm sure as well."

How long have they all been arguing about an ingredient? It feels as if they're using up the last of the air of the restaurant, burning it up like the candles on the tables that are occupied. I have to restrain myself from flying out of my corner and stopping at least one of them from needing any more air. Now it's Wristy's turn to waste some. "Since you've admitted liability, what would you like to offer us?"

"What are you, a lawyer?" When the man lets him think so Prick says "What would I like? I've already said you can swap."

"Can't we give them more than that?" Chefanny protests.

"Want to spend my profits, do you? We'll be having a talk in the changing room."

Faddyfat greets this with a comical squeal to which Wristy adds a hoot, and the manager turns on them. "Expecting to come back for a comp?"

"No," Wristy says. "We just aren’t expecting to pay for this meal."

"Maybe you'd like a chat with the police."

"We wouldn't mind at all," Faddyfat assures him.

"Fond of men in uniform, is it?"

"Fonder than you can afford to be," Wristy says and takes his partner's hand as they rise to their feet. "You've said a few things they might be interested to hear."

"What do you think you look like?" Prick swings round in search of some agreement from the other diners, but he doesn't find it or me. "You lot won't be happy," he tells the couple, "till you've pinched half our words and stopped us saying the rest."

Faddyfat offers Chefanny a sad look. "Commiserations if you have to put up with this sort of thing."

"All girls together, eh?" As if he's scored with that the manager says "Go on, take yourselves off and do whatever you do. We used to have a couple like you on the team, and they were no use to the rest of us either. Too interested in everybody else's balls and not the ball."

"Oh," Wristy says with a good deal of surprise, "were you a player?"

That's their exit line, and the manager follows them to the door. He looks eager to speed them on their way with a pair of hefty kicks, if he's capable of those any more, but contents himself with waving one hand while he rests the back of the other on his hip. He shuts the door with an expressive slam and turns to his customers. "Maybe now we can say what we like."

"We'd like the bill," says Nostrilpoker.

"I'll get it. You be seeing to the kitchen," Prick tells the chef and fetches the bill from behind the bar. "Enjoy your evening?" he barely asks.

"We didn't care for the floor show."

"Too much of a song and dance, eh? They pranced about all right."

The silence feels choked until Nostrilpoker says "We didn't care for how you spoke to them."

"I can speak how I like in my own bloody place. Anyone think different?"

I see Prick thinking that nobody does or else they don't dare to argue with him. Nostrilpoker pays the bill and is holding the door open for his wife when he says "We'd have left a tip except it's you. God help your staff."