Work Text:
"Skim
a stone across the river
Throw all my money in the wishing well..."
Fairground Attraction, The Moon is Mine
"Why're we open?"
Con says.
He's leaning against the wall out the back, getting to the end of a
prison-thin rollie held between finger and thumb.
"Dunno."
Typical Magpie. Small and sharp as a weasel, but the best line cook
Con's ever worked with.
"Got no prep, no customers. Feels like a morgue in there. You know
what the crack is?"
"Dunno," Magpie says.
"You put that in the bin when you're done," Con says. He's
two years senior and has the scars to prove it.
Magpie grinds the stub to shreds under his boot.
Con shrugs.
Langham
taps a thumbnail on the wineglass: ching bright and sharp as a knife.
"You make me polish that again and I'm out of here," Vicky
hisses.
"Keep your knickers on, kid," Langham says. His accent's slipped.
Front of house, you could swear he's a fifth arrondissement Parisian.
Off stage, it's Southall.
"I can't believe you made me come in for this," Vicky says.
"I could've had a hot date tonight."
"Later," Langham says.
Vicky snorts. "Right, you and the wine list? Give it a rest, Lan."
"Would I mess you around?"
"Yup."
"Be on your best, sweetheart," Langham says, and moves the
napkin a millimetre nearer the plate.
"And
then this Brazilian guy says, Richie, you want fries with that? And
he's just got the cutest accent and Richie's like in convulsions-"
"So what're you doing tonight, Jon?"
"Oh, here and there, you know." He's in front of the television
with a bottle of Cava, but he's not going to say so.
"What happened to that guy you were seeing last month?"
"Visa ran out." Found behind the speakers with a young thing
from Basildon.
"Thought he was the one."
They all are. "Nah. Young, free and single, that's me. Daniel,
who ironed that shirt for you, your girlfriend? Throw it over, iron's
still hot."
"Ta. Hey, you seen the book?"
"Langham called twenty minutes ago. I had plans, y'know, but the
great man pleaded and here I am..." Steam hisses.
"One booking."
"You're kidding? What?"
"One booking. He's got Con and Magpie, and Vicky on the bar."
"You must be joking." Jon flips the shirt.
"Says it's important. It'd better be."
"Oh, someone's upset. You all right?"
"Fine. I'd thought we were closed, anyway."
"As of shut-down last night, I thought we were too. What did Langham
say about couples? I reckon it was that guy asked him where the pianist
was last year that did it."
"What about that woman who said she had allergies. Could we bin
the roses? Remember her?"
"How could I forget the dress - like a sparkler with pink bits,
and I don't mean that nicely. Here, don't crease it."
"Ta."
It's
always eerie like this, before the restaurant fills. Just her and the
tables, and Langham at the end of the bar with the book and an unlit
cigar. He's turned the lights low tonight and lit candles, and even
though Vicky's feet are aching already - it's her tenth shift in a row,
thanks to a new and over-young catering graduate who didn't know it'd
be like this - the place looks good to her eyes. The tableclothes are
starched and the cutlery's silver. The glasses are pure Polish crystal
clear and sparkling, and the plates are simple white porcelain. Langham's
bought tiny midnight blue violets for the tables. Checking the settings,
she catches moments of scent elusive and sweet.
"When's the booking?"
"Seven," Langham says. "Vicky, you changed your hairstyle
today?"
"New colour. You like it?"
"Goes with the linen," Langham says.
"Well-" Vicky says, but Langham's standing up. The best Maitre
d' in the trade. Vicky knows she's good, but Langham's got that sixth
sense about customers, just seems to know when to pour a little more
wine or leave people be. Right now he's checking the fit of his gloves
- it's a bad sign, he's nervous - but he's walking towards the door
before it opens.
'..that's it?' Vicky thinks.
The man in the doorway, dripping damp and peering in from water-speckled
glasses, is not someone she recognises. He's young: absurdly young,
for the Maison's prices: fresh-faced and uncertain and hesitating in
the doorway, looking round as if he's come to the wrong place, but Langham's
got that leave-it-to-me smile on. The coat changes hands, and although
Vicky can just imagine what Langham's thinking about rain on his dinner
jacket it gets hung up with care and the customer gets the full-on walk
to the table, chair held out, napkin shaken and folded. It's a professional
compliment wasted on this one: he looks round like he's never been in
a restaurant before, poking the cutlery as Langham moves back to the
bar. To her he looks like a baby blackbird, all elbows and gape.
"Water,"
Langham hisses under his breath to Vicky. "Just water."
Five
minutes later the second customer arrives, which is a surprise, Vicky
thought one booking - but Langham's not fazed. Then, hey, one customer,
two, what difference does it make? They couldn't be more unalike, this
pair: the new one's tall and hawkish with it, long hair sleek with rain.
He stands in the doorway as if he owns the place, great black coat falling
over his hands and the briefcase he's holding. Carries himself like
he's someone and the case is Italian leather, but Vicky doesn't recognise
the face. And she would. It's a proud face, beak-nosed and singularly
distinctive. He won't let Langham touch the briefcase and hangs the
coat up himself, and when Langham tries to take him to the number three-one
by the window he points at number sixteen instead. It's colder and smaller,
but the customer's always right. Vicky can see Langham's disdain in
the line of his back.
Glenlivet,
no ice, splash of water. He orders short and sharp this one, pointing
at the menu, not like table five who'd frowned and couldn't make his
mind up and handed the card back with a smile and a shrug.
"Steak?"
Con says. "He wants steak? He's got the best kitchen in
London waiting for him and he wants steak?"
"You heard me," Langham says. In the kitchen, he's king, he
knows it. "And make it good, will you?"
"What d'you expect me to do, stick it in the deep fat fryer?"
Con says, but Langham's gone.
"You got that chicken hot-to-trot?" he says.
It's right under his nose in two seconds.
"Toss you for the oysters," Con says. He's chopping onions,
fast, and Magpie's put the butter in the pan: great whoosh of steam.
They're cooking.
"Soup
and steak for table five," Langham says. "Oysters and Coq
au Vin for sixteen. No mistakes, lads, I want this perfect."
Jon can't remember the last time Langham took an order. It's not his
job: Langham was born black-suited and gloved with the wine list in
his hand.
"I'll take five," he says, and thinks, that boy's pretty.
Not so bad for an off night. He sashays a bit, just in case, bringing
bread, and gives his best smile that shows off all the new whitening,
but the boy blinks up at him like he's never seen a gay waiter before.
No one's that naive. Smiles though, quick and shy and enchanting.
Don't flirt with the customers. He can hear Langham say it.
Daniel's
not having a good night. He's swopped the glasses and wiped down the
table and now table sixteen wants the plates changed. Vicky leans her
elbows on the bar and raises a comradely eyebrow.
"He'll learn," Jon whispers in her ear. "Just wants to
play with the big boys."
"You wish," Vicky whispers back.
"Table five. Cute."
"As a button," Vicky says, before she remembers where she
is. "Lay off, Jon."
"One
soup, one oysters - Magpie, where's the lemon? Get the fucking-"
"Plated," Magpie grunts and when Con looks down it damn well
is.
"Sod."
Magpie flicks a teaspoon of sunflower oil at the back burner and sends
the flames ceiling high: Con winces.
Table
sixteen's jumpy as a waiter on the take, restless and frowning. Vicky's
just about got to the stage of sending over another whisky when he moves
himself. Glance round at the windows, flick of his eyes at the bar and
he's up. The three of them at the bar tense. A walking customer's an
unhappy customer, this time in a sitting, but the man's not headed for
them - it's his briefcase he's after.
He's not a handsome man, table sixteen, not by any stretch of the imagination,
but there's something about the way he moves that draws the eye. Vicky's
watching, so she sees the moment when he looks up and freezes. He's
seen the young lad at table five.
His face changes, hardens, sours. Vicky looks round to catch Daniel's
eye, just in case, and finds him and Jon watching too.
Table sixteen straightens up. He's got his hand in his pocket. Vicky's
got her fingers crossed but it doesn't work. Almost as if he can feel
the eyes on the back of his head, table five turns round.
Stands up. Knocks the chair over, standing up. Catches the tablecloth.
Drags it: cutlery crashes to the floor, the glass is over, the linen
wet, the violets scattered, and table five himself is white as a sheet
and shaking.
They're all holding their breath.
Then table sixteen gives an odd kind of bow, clipped stiff and formal.
He waits. Table five doesn't move. Table sixteen waits on.
And then finally table five dips his head in reply. The moment he does
table sixteen spins on his heel and stalks back to his setting. Snaps
his fingers for Daniel.
Jon's already over at table five and clearing the mess. Poor fool, the
customer's trying to help, and it takes five minutes before the whole
thing's sorted and that's five minutes of Langham breathing hard at
her elbow. It's beneath the man's dignity to pick up spilled plates,
but a soiled piece of linen's a blow to his heart.
They've changed seats, the customers, moved themselves sideways, and
half the setting is off. Thank God for the starters, which gives them
something to do other than look at each other, although Vicky could
hear the shout from the kitchen when Daniel went for the plates and
knows that three minutes under the lights of the serving counter won't
have done the oysters any good.
"Fucking
waste of a-"
"Con. Stuff it. Eat them yourself, no one else in tonight."
"What the fuck happened?"
"Steak spilled the table. You on time?"
"What do you think?"
"You and Magpie up for desert?"
"Haven't cooked one since Paris," Con says, automatically.
"Magpie'll do it. Here, youth, have an oyster."
He tosses the thing across the kitchen and Magpie catches it in his
mouth neat as a perfect six.
"Was
that good for you, sir?" Jon says to the customer at table five
who has baby-soft skin and eyelashes sooty as a kitten's. Jon's falling
in love right on the floor of his own damn restaurant.
"That was smashing. Thanks. Hey-" Table five says. "Do
you think..could I have a glass of wine, with dinner?"
Jon can't help it, he looks twice to see if the lad's over eighteen.
"I'll send the Maitre d' over," he says.
"No! Can't you.." Table five blushes adorably. "I've
never seen a wine list before," he says. "Is there something
you'd drink yourself?"
Table
sixteen has ordered a bottle of the `84 white burgundy with his main
course and it's Langham who serves it, elegant as a Mucha drawing. Langham,
pouring wine, has an arch to his wrist and a knack with the napkin that's
unique in London and miracle of miracles, table sixteen seems to appreciate
the art. They taste in silence, and the expression of appreciation on
their faces is almost exactly the same. The timing is perfect, Langham's
smiled and acknowledged the compliment and is just about walking away
when Daniel appears with the main course.
Which means table five's got his steak. Vicky turns round to check and
- what?- finds the man out of his seat and walking. Away from his table,
past her, towards the only other customer in the place. At table five,
Jon, theatrically open-mouthed, is still holding the steak; Langham's
standing at the end of the bar with his napkin still in his hands; Daniel's
stopped serving veg with the spoon half-way between dish and plate.
He stops, table five, and says something short and quick to their other
guest. Who says something back, equally snappish. Table five shrugs
and cocks his head on one side. Table sixteen flicks his fingers across
London's best Coq au Vin in dismissal: table five picks the plate
up and starts walking back to his own table.
The gentleman at table sixteen stands up. Vicky can almost see the air
crackle. He looks, under the polite mask of his face, furious. For a
moment it feels as if violence is a real possibility and Vicky's fingers
are already itching for the panic button.
Then, suddenly decisive, he gathers up bottle and glass, no, two glasses-
she's racing out to collect the cutlery - and starts walking over to
table five. Sits down.
Never before. Never, ever before. Vicky doesn't dare look at Langham's
face. She busies herself with helping the boys as discreetly as she
can: cutlery just so, glass, fresh water, serving tray, mustard and
port jelly, and during all the necessary rearrangement the young man
whose table it is doesn't take his eyes off the man he's invited...ordered?...to
join him, who himself seems unable to look away.
They know each other, these two men, and not happily either.
"Capitalising on fame, Potter? Your sort of restaurant?"
"Freedom makes strange bedfellows of us all. Snape."
She gets Jon and Daniel and herself out of the way as quickly as possible.
"You would know."
The sound of a flung down knife.
'They're
lovers.' Jon's written it on a paper towel and shoved it under her nose.
Vicky shakes her head at him but Jon wiggles his hips and grins his
way back to the kitchen.
The two men at table five are talking. Brief, snapped out statements
sent across the table. They eat in parenthesis, not looking at the food.
Langham's refilling the glasses at five minute intervals.
"God's
sake," Con says, looking at dessert. "You can't send that
out, it's as pink as a flamingo on steroids. What's in the fridge?"
Magpie tosses out cream, chocolate mousse, an apricot. Two Mars bars,
which Con puts on the counter for later. Strawberries.
"Now you're talking," Con says.
"I
was invited."
"By whom, exactly?"
"You don't know either?"
'Business deal gone bad,' Jon writes.
'Stop it,' Vicky writes. 'I want to listen.'
"Were it not for the fact...Enough. There was a certain tone to
the direction."
But across the counter Langham's pointing at the kitchen. Vicky grimaces,
but the hand becomes more emphatic. She drags Jon away by the tail of
his waistcoat.
"So what do you think?" Jon says, safely beyond the kitchen
door. Con and Magpie are huddled over something on the worktop.
"They're customers," Vicky says. "I don't know."
"But don't you think it's romantic?" Jon sighs. "Strangers
in the night...."
He sings flat. Vicky puts the kettle on and says, "Tea? Con? Daniel?"
He's just come in from the backyard, smelling of starlight and cigarette.
"Ta."
"So what's with you tonight?" Jon says. "Table sixteen
getting you down? I saw you drop that spoon."
Daniel shrugs. He's quiet by nature, shares a small flat over in Bayswater
with his girlfriend and has three months to go before he'll be looking
for his first law placement. Vicky'll miss him, she always does.
"Nothing."
"Kathy not left you, has she? Goldfish died?"
"No." Daniel looks down at the tea, blinks. Looks up. "Gonna
be a dad," he says.
Con drops a plate.
Jon whoops.
Daniel, slowly, smiles. Shy and worried and proud all at once: Vicky
could hug him. She does. She says, "What're you doing here, then,"
and, "Jon, open the champagne." Langham can wait. They drink
a toast to welcome the new baby and another for the road, and then Vicky
calls a taxi and sees Daniel off in it. Back in the kitchen, she finds
Langham shouting at Con and Jon hiding the bottle behind his back, nothing
new. She slides the champagne under her arm and takes it back to the
bar, she'll explain later.
The
two men at table five are leaning across the table now, intent. Conversation's
faster and smoother. The glasses have been pushed to one side and the
young man's actually drawing something out on a napkin. Table sixteen's
tracing the lines, hair jammed behind his ear and eyes bright. They're
both a little flushed and the bottle of white burgundy's got half an
inch left in the bottom.
"Told
you," Jon says behind her back.
Vicky huffs and polishes liqueur glasses: Langham points at the kitchen,
taps his watch and frowns. Jon disappears at speed.
He comes back with the precious Lalique bowls and nothing in them but
strawberries. Langham flings up his hands, scowls and shakes his head
emphatically. Smiling sweetly and falsely, Jon shrugs.
'Fine,' Langham's face says, and promises retribution later.
Jon pours the lad's cream with an arch raised eyebrow and a perilous
tilt to his hips, and the look on table sixteen's face is an image for
the gallery, disdain and possession all at once. He looks at his plate
like he's never seen the fruit before, but table five looks up and smiles
and reaches for his dessert spoon. The lad closes his eyes with the
first berry, slow and absorbed.
Table sixteen leans back in his seat and reaches for the wineglass.
Cradles it between his fingers - his hands are beautiful, long fingered
and slim - but doesn't drink. His eyes are on the man across the table,
and his expression, unguarded, is very nearly tender. Something so far
from anger it's almost affection.
It takes table five ten minutes to eat the bowl, and when he's done
he gets table sixteen's as well, pushed across the table with a dismissive
flick of the wrist. But the thank-you smile, that's something else,
swift and so intimate Vicky begins to think Jon might be right. They
might be lovers, these two. Mismatched as they are, there's something
about the way they sit, the echoing tilt of their heads, that fits.
She pours another glass of Glenlivet and one of Glayva. Jon slides the
drinks onto the table with the discretion he can manage if he tries,
but neither of them notice. They're talking.
"Do you remember..?"
"The words of the man. One never knew."
Vicky props her elbows on the bar and watches, and in few minutes Con
and Magpie come out for the post-clear down vodka to join her. Magpie's
brought her a chocolate mouse with frosted mint and cranberries, bless,
and she eats it slowly thinking about one night in a little bistro in
Campden long gone now, when she looked up and someone said, Vicky, have
you met..?
It's time for coffee.
"We must be fools. It's almost impossible."
Snort of amusement. "Mr. Potter, if the elimination of the absolutely
impossible leaves only the incredible, however unthinkable it may seem,
then one must accept the incredible. Tell me . . "
"Hmm?"
"How else would one conceive of you and I at a single table?"
She looks round, but Langham's still sitting at the bar. Table sixteen
thinks it's time for coffee as well: he looks at the bar - which is
unusual, no one should have to look for a waiter in the Maison - and
gestures. Langham straightens his cuffs again, walking to the table,
and when he's there he listens and shrugs and says something apologetic.
Shocked, Vicky checks the cafetiere, but it's ready to go.
Table sixteen's got an arrogant frown. He says something emphatic, and
Langham shrugs again. Table sixteen's just about to say something very
rude - Vicky can predict it from the line of his mouth - when the young
lad reaches across the table. He puts his hand on table sixteen's arm,
and says something low, and smiles. Shrugs himself. Table sixteen frowns
even more. Table five turns his palms up, as if to say, no bother, I
just thought...
And table sixteen nods, once and decisively. He snaps his fingers at
Langham without even looking - which isn't something customers do to
Langham, but on this occasion the Maitre d' looks more relieved than
upset. He comes back to the bar and lets the pair sort out their own
clothing. Vicky cocks her head, intent.
"I think you should know. There is a conversation I have been wanting
to have with you for a very long time."
Table sixteen pauses with his coat half-slung over his shoulders. "A
conversation you were somewhat directed to have?"
"No," table five says. "This is personal. I don't think
it will hurt."
"Potter..."
"No. Harry. Just Harry."
"...Harry. If you must."
But the man has a tilt to the corner of his mouth that's almost amused.
A moment shared, a private conspiracy of two. Vicky knows what that
feels like. She's been lucky, in her lover.
Leaving,
table sixteen gives the group at the bar a final, slightly suspicious
glare. Behind him, the lad from table five, Harry, looks back.
He's grinning all over his face, table five. Heart stoppingly happy,
triumphant. He's got one hand, very lightly, on table sixteen's back
and with the other he's giving the tiniest of waves.
Vicky's waving back before she has time to think twice. Then she has
to blow her nose, and so does Jon, but he's meant to be the romantic.
Then she says, because in the space she's a professional first, "Lan,
they didn't pay."
"It's been paid for," Langham says, expressionless and dry.
He reaches out and closes the book, night over. "It was paid for
six years ago."
He looks at Vicky. The Maison had opened six years ago to the month.
She'd never asked where he'd got the rest of the money, never wanted
to know, never asked who the absurd old man with the beard was.
"Don't worry about the kitty. Double pay for the shift," Langham
says. "Go home. Take the champagne."
Jon's never been so fast picking up his coat. "Five o'clock tomorrow!"
Langham shouts after him.
"Fucking
ten minutes to midnight." Con says. He turns up the collar of his
coat and looks at the sky. "Fucking extra shifts. You know what
he can do next time? He can stick his extra shifts where the sun don't
shine."
The moon's full and bright. It's stopped raining.
Con checks: the taxi fare's in his pocket, and he holds out his hand.
He doesn't need to look round. Magpie's hand slips into his as easy
at it did ten years ago. There's more scars on that hand now, but it's
as thin and alive as when Magpie was a skinny seventeen.
"Come on, youth," Con says. "Let's go home."
Vicky
locks up. The rest of the place is Langham's, his dream, his restaurant,
the one they planned for and saved for and dreamed over when they were
students, but the keys are Vicky's.
She turns round. Langham's waiting for her on the kerb.
"Good night?"
"You've no idea," Langham says. He smiles down at her, a smile
that's all hers and one that if the customers saw they'd never recognise.
"Thank you."
"So," Vicky says, as they walk together and in step down the
little lane with its low mews cottages. "Who were they?"
Langham shrugs. "People I heard about." He looks down. "People
who did something..." He stops. In the street, walking, Langham
stops and reaches out his hand and touches Vicky's cheek like she's
something precious and fragile. "I love you, Vicky MacAllister.
Best waitress in the business."
Vicky takes a swing at him with her handbag, but she doesn't mean it.
"Aw. Lan."
An Evening at Le Maison has been translated into Russian by Olga - you'll find it
here.
Please consider feedback to the translator.