High Season (2 page)

Because Rae's is small, with only a handful of rooms, a great little spa and a kick-arse restaurant, the rooms are often booked out by the rich and famous. They take over the joint for a week or a weekend and enjoy the privileges of whatever success they've had, which is why lunch with Paris is not unusual and today . . . well, the relief on the security guy's face is palpable. But there's still tension in the air due to the fact they didn't tell us they were coming. And Vinnie—who owns Rae's—likes to be told such things. Scotty looks particularly stressed so I guess he hasn't been able to contact Vinnie to let him know Paris is in the house. But still, lunch service is going well. And this is despite everyone being hungover from New Year's Eve. Everyone but me. And I'm not messed up because New Year's Eve and I go way back.

2

On New Year's Eve fifteen years ago, from half past ten until four in the morning, there wasn't a single shot of smack traded on the streets of Kings Cross. There was a calm around the streets that I had never experienced before. There were a few outbursts that blew up like spot fires before being doused or moved along, but the general feeling was one of calm intensity. Everyone was either sitting at outdoor cafes or leaning against doorjambs or slouched into the crevices of buildings, watching . . . waiting . . . for the dope to turn up. Everyone agreed it would; everyone knew someone who knew something who said it was travelling; and all anyone could do was wait. Some people couldn't sit it out and they blew across town or traded down to alcohol or something else low-grade, but for the purists, for the ones who needed heroin and nothing less, it was just one more challenge in a life of crime. The actual countdown at midnight to the birth of the new year was strictly for the punters. And there were plenty of them, laughing, kissing, drinking, pinching, poking and blowing off steam. Truly, if there's a bigger amateur's night than New Year's Eve, I haven't heard about it.

It was about four am when the dope hit. There were still a lot of partygoers out and about, and for about twenty minutes they ruled the streets as every hooker, hustler and drugstore cowboy moved through the crowd and disappeared into boltholes and mirror-balled rooms, beneath stairwells and stoops, up to rooftops and into hour-stay motel rooms. And because everyone was so utterly fucking grateful the dope had turned up, there wasn't a lot of pushing and shoving; there was respect among the crew that we'd waited this one out; we'd come through something, together. And the word was, the dope was good. It was grade-one, straight-off-the-boat, pink-fucking-rocks. It could have been one hundred percent battery acid and no one would have minded. Every single hopeless junkie in the neighbourhood would have shot it up and hoped to get one last ping before the lights went out.

The weirdest thing was, I discovered while sitting in a hotel room in Hampton Court where a hooker lived with her three-year-old son and a bunch of other low-life scum, the dope really
was
good. As soon as I put my shot away—a larger than usual shot given the utter torment of having waited so long—the rush to my head was better than any I had ever experienced before. And while I'd dropped plenty of times and lived to tell the tale, this was different. Everything went quiet as I pushed the fit home, pulled it out, then instinctively stood up and started for the door. In that moment of bliss, I knew this was as close as I was ever going to get to the sensation of my first shot, no matter how long I kept looking or how much dope I continued to use. It was such a pure, utterly pinging stone that I felt every organ in my body slowing, starting to close down, like . . . they wanted to stop functioning. Another thing I knew was that unless I managed to get across the road and into the club where Caroline, my girlfriend at the time, had been waiting for several hours—without so much as a phone call—she was going to be so powerfully pissed off I might never get close to those unbelievably perfect tits again. And the third thing I knew was that, if I was going to drop from an overdose, it was of the utmost importance that I didn't do so in that room.

Of course it was rude to just up and leave but I didn't give a fuck. The pressing nature of my insights motivated me away from any concerns for etiquette and towards the safety of either dying alone in a darkened laneway or collapsing into Caroline's milky chest.

It wasn't until I hit the ground at the entrance of the hotel that I realised I wouldn't make it to the club. And the bitumen, as I hurtled towards it, became a landscape in miniature; layers of rock-hard chewing gum and tiny pot-holes morphed into a patched history that blew up into a storyboard of loves gone wrong and addictive despair. And then nothing.

Until I awoke at St Vincent's Hospital with a team of medical staff screaming over the top of me, ‘Breathe!'

To which I replied, ‘Fuck off—I can breathe, you idiots.'

Stuff gratitude. They knew the score about giving a junkie Narcan, a drug that immediately nullifies the effects of opiates.

To go from being utterly stoned to awaken more straight than you've been for many years . . . well, it's a shock to the system and one that medical staff in emergency wards are ready for. Never mind that the good hard-working doctors had just saved my life—I was stoned, you morons!

The moment after I began breathing again, all the medical staff except one took off in order to deal with the next crisis while I got a lecture and a bright yellow envelope, the contents of which I was advised to read if I didn't want to end up dead. The doctor who'd stayed behind asked if I'd seen anything on the other side. But I hadn't. It was just blackness and nothing.

3

There's a gentle two-foot swell down at Watego's Beach where old-timers on longboards slide to the right, two steps forward, one step back, then disappear out of view of the restaurant pass. There are no walls to the restaurant at Rae's. Diners sit around a semicircular space, and what separates them from the other punters, who are out enjoying the best of what Byron Bay has to offer, is more cultural than physical. If it rains the plastic sheets are flung down off the roof but otherwise it's all fresh sea air and envious looks from those doing the lighthouse walk.

Crisp linen drapes the tables and pink frangipanis, which have fallen from the ancient tree at the entrance to the restaurant, litter the timber floor. Lunch is fully underway with Paris and Nicky and their entourage. Scotty is calm about service but scratching at his bald head because he still can't raise Vinnie on the phone.

‘How are the girls?' I ask him.

‘Yeah, yeah, good,' he replies. ‘Still fucking hungry though. Who said models don't eat?'

‘They're not models, mate. They're—'

‘Yeah, whatever. They want a couple more green papaya salads and another soft-shell crab.'

‘Tell me she wants it fried this time,' I say.

‘She wants it however it's on the menu, Chef,' Scotty says, grinning faintly.

‘Correct answer,' I say, winking at Choc, whose job it is to get the crab underway.

‘You're a genius, Chef. They love it all,' Scotty carries on.

‘Correct again, Scotty. And I don't care what people say about you, mate—I think you're a top bloke,' I tell him, taking the piss. ‘Vinnie called back yet?'

‘Fuck off,' Scotty replies, and heads back to the floor.

Jesse, Choc and Soda are surprisingly impressed with Paris, Nicky and their friends. Their earlier cynicism has all but disappeared, even Jesse's, which is actually a little disturbing. No one is used to Jesse being anything other than a relentless piss-taker and for him to be a fan, or at least not outrageously nasty about the girls, is high praise where we come from. And we do all agree that there's something about the girls. They're not so much sexy as surprisingly classy. Given that our perceptions of Paris Hilton have been gleaned from tabloids and gossip mags, the boys in the kitchen are a little surprised to find that Paris and the girls look rich, rather than crass. And really, given the wealth and privilege that she must have grown up with, it shouldn't come as such a shock. Even though they are casually dressed, they exude a different aura to your average pretty girl. They look and smell and move like princess cats, like American royalty might.

Jesse's seeming affection for Paris has me suspicious, though. Since I've shuffled him over to the larder section for lunch service rather than have him do woks, his usual station, I would have expected him to be rambling on in his semi-angry whine that has the rest of the world somehow indebted to him. And it's not that I don't relate to that, it's just that I'm a little too old to get away with such banter now if it isn't done in a self-deprecating way. But Jesse's not whining, and that's odd. Something's going on and I don't like not knowing what it is. Call it being a control freak or a pain in the arse or just plain nosey, but I've found that if I'm not up to speed on what's happening with the crew, they often surprise me by leaving suddenly or taking a week off or performing some other random act that throws the line, and therefore the kitchen, into disarray.

‘How long on that
som dtam
, Jesse?' I call.

‘Two minutes, Chef,' he yells back.

‘Choc, how long on the crab?'

‘One minute, Chef.'

‘Jesse, get the salad up in one,' I demand.

‘Yes, Chef!'

‘You like larder, don't you, Jesse?' I say, trying to tease a reaction out of him, something that might give me a clue as to what's going on.

‘No, Chef, but I enjoyed sleeping in so I don't give a fuck if I have to do larder.'

‘Jesse doesn't give a fuck, people. Did everyone hear that?' I call to the crew.

‘Yes, Chef,' they respond.

‘You've been sleeping in a lot lately, Jesse. Have you got a new boyfriend?'

‘Yes, Chef,' he says, not biting.

‘Well, we'd all like to meet him someday so we can see why your section has gone to shit.'

‘I'd bring him in, Chef, but I'm afraid you might steal him off me,' Jesse answers.

‘Give me that salad,' I order.

‘Yes, Chef,' says Jesse, turning around from his section to put the salad on the pass in front of me. And as he turns, I see that he doesn't actually look that well. He looks upset or hurt. And that's not normally Jesse's go. Like I said, these kids are tough, they can handle the heat, but intuitively I pull back on the piss-taking and get back to business.

‘Choc, clap that order out and let's go up on table four,' I call.

‘Yes, Chef.' And Choc claps twice for the floor staff to come collect the food. (I don't know why we clap at Rae's rather than ring a bell like every other kitchen I've ever worked in, but like a lot of traditions there doesn't have to be a reason—it's just how it's done.)

Scotty comes in and collects the soft-shell crab and green papaya salads for Paris's table.

‘Oh, Scotty? Vinnie called for you, mate, but we told him you were busy,' I say.

‘Fuck off, Chef,' Scotty growls.

‘He'll understand, mate. I'm sure he will,' I lie.

‘It's not my fucking problem his phone's off,' Scotty says, shaking his head. It's a headshake that's resigned to knowing Vinnie won't see it that way. Basically everything is Scotty's fault, and while that might not be rational it's how it is at Rae's.

The boys in the kitchen are all looking at Scotty and smiling slightly nervously at the thought of Vinnie turning up unexpectedly and ripping into him.

It may seem a little juvenile or even cruel the way chefs and waiters take the piss out of each other, but it's just a way to distract themselves from the physical punishment of working in a commercial kitchen. The life of a chef is very demanding on the body. As a person gets older, male or female, the reality of performing for sixteen hours a day, six or seven days a week, begins to lose a little of its gloss. It's like, here I am at Rae's on New Year's Day after doing about ten days straight—each day a double lunch and dinner service—and my legs no longer want to play. My Achilles tendon is refusing—just straight-out refusing—to bend. And it's not just my body; my mind is constantly buzzing with so many details that require thinking about in order to maintain a semi-organised kitchen that absolutely none of it makes any sense. My nervous system is shot after so many years in the kitchen, and the idea of not walking with a weird gait or of having a stomach that's not contending with sixty-nine different kinds of food is a novel thought which, in my quieter moments, forms a very pleasant fantasy.

Scotty tries phoning Vinnie again. He knows Vinnie will want to look after Paris, maybe even buy her a drink. It's not as if Scotty hasn't got enough to worry about in terms of Vinnie's relationships with difficult celebrities. Bret Easton Ellis, who's telling anyone who'll listen how cute those Australian shrink-wrapped copies of
American Psycho
are, is staying in penthouse one. For some obscure reason he has chosen the Byron Bay Writers Festival to launch his latest book. Apparently it's the first writers' festival he has attended anywhere in the world and he seems determined to make the most of the experience. On top of that, Baz Luhrmann is in penthouse two with CM and the kids, and there's a whole scene going on between Bret and Baz because Bret, during some interview, told the audience that
The Great Gatsby
was never going to make a decent film; how books and films are fundamentally different things. And he knew that Baz had the rights to
The Great Gatsby
. This has made for a tense atmosphere during breakfast, when the restaurant is reserved for hotel guests. It's been Scotty's job to ensure they never cross paths. And the thing about Paris is that, while everyone loves Paris, she's not staying in the hotel and no one bothered to tell us she was coming in for lunch.