The Dish (10 page)

While the other writers have headshots at the top of their columns, my byline has a picture of a knife being sharpened. (When I won Best Newcomer at the FWA three years ago and Roger went on stage to pick up the award, I admit I
was a bit gutted – Dad would have loved a photo for the mantelpiece. Sandra had drunkenly leant across the table and whispered: ‘Hard to blow your own trumpet when there’s a silencer in it . . .’ It’s the same sentiment Jess has but Sandra means the opposite. Sandra’s delighted I don’t get credit in my real name but my ego is girl-sized, not Fergus-sized; I can think of little worse than being in
the papers myself.)

March’s issue only went on sale yesterday but the Twitterverse will have picked up on something already. Ah yes, no surprises, straight to the kittens . . .

@minkowki: Brilliant article on spoilt Euro cats in #TheVoice – reminds me of Cat Cafés

@MissKittyBotbot: Tokyo Cat Cafés #furryamazeballs!

@Goatlover: Check out Tokyo Owl Cafés – #Harrypotter

Tokyo Cat Cafés, let’s
have a look what that’s about . . . Oh my goodness, how extremely Japanese. Ah, but look at this adorable fluffy cat hiding from another cat, in a paper bag! This café’s website has headshots of all the cats
waiting to meet you
! Look at little Birt! He looks like he’s just been wearing a bowler hat! I send a link to Dad and Jess: even she’ll find it funny. Maybe I should suggest to Fabrizio he
introduce some guest cats for customers to stroke; might give him a stroke . . .

I flick briefly to my own column. There’s my review of a New Mexican restaurant located in an old ironmonger’s shop – Kiki came up with the headline ‘Albuquirky’. Also my review of Trovese in Kensington, ferociously over-priced (£23 for Penne Arrabbiata?) And there’s my piece on Pop-Ups: I’ve questioned whether we’re
seeing novelty over substance: last summer a pop-up Mac ’n’ Cheese place on the rooftop of a luxury clothing store on Bond Street received gushing coverage in the press but the pasta had been as soft and grey as autumn/winter’s cashmere.

That’s the thing about food in London: it’s become super-fashionable: posh burgers, trendy chickens, exposed filament lighting and Mayfair basements posing as
Brooklyn bodegas. Some restaurants seem to have forgotten a simple fact: eating out should start with good food.

No doubt someone will get the hump over my piece – Lord knows there are more important things in this world to get annoyed about. But guaranteed, once an opinion is printed, people kick off. And nowadays they do it online, globally, in a heartbeat. It’s only ever words, twenty-six
letters, just in different orders. Words.

I’d forgotten how nervous I feel when I go on a date with a man I actually fancy. Last night I couldn’t sleep and when I wake at 5 a.m. there’s a tense throbbing in my stomach. Why on earth did I agree to a 7.30 a.m. date? I have dots for eyes at this time in the morning. At least when I met Adam on Sunday, I had a gin-and-tonic-meets-fury rosy glow to my cheeks – but today I look like a ghost.
A dead ghost. Well OK then – a ghost.

Outfit . . . This blue and white polka dot dress is lovely! Short sleeves though . . . I open the curtains to peek outside. The sky is still black and it’s that changeable time of year – one day icy, the next almost springlike so you never know where you stand. What the hell – I’m sweating with nerves anyway, I’ll be fine after a coffee.

By the time I change
Tubes at Baker Street, I’m in mild-panic mode, a loop of worst-case scenarios in my head. Sunday was so much fun, Adam and I didn’t stop nattering all day but was that only because we were pissed? What if I immediately blab about my review? What if it’s just horribly stilted and awkward? My mouth is so dry I can barely swallow.

At Liverpool Street station I rush to the coffee cart for a double
espresso, then head outside to Hope Square, trying to calm down as the mass of commuters floods past me into the city, a life force, all desk-bound to jobs like my sister’s: jobs that make no sense on paper, but make this city pulse and grow, then sometimes shrivel, only to surge back again.

Seven twenty-three a.m., best get a move on. The day has turned out bright but the wind is bitter and
I pull my coat tighter as I head along New Street, quickening my pace. When I reach The Peak I turn my gaze up, and up, and up. It’s just an hour of toast and a chat; it’s not a big deal. Even so, my heart beats faster as I step into the glass lift, press the 66th and shoot north at five metres per second, my stomach heading south as we go.

I have no breath, I have no breath, I have no breath
left to lose, but my lungs fill with sheer delight as the lift pulls me up through the sky and the city spreads out below. First sight is the church of St Botolph’s, its old bricks and stones bordered by freshly cut grass; next to it the rectangular surprise of a basketball court. A moment later, barely visible through trees, the fattened brackets of Finsbury Circus give way to a Monopoly of streets
and houses and stations. As we rise higher, a scattered patchwork of secret gardens and roof terraces unfurls, rainbow parasols halfway to the clouds, while on ground level dense thickets of park emerge, and to the left the still, black ribbon of the Thames. Far out on the horizon the bouncing arc of Wembley swoops a greeting to the whole of the west, you can see for miles and miles and miles.

At the top, the temptation to press the down button is too great, so I do, feeling my stomach flip all over again as I plummet back to the bottom, my ears popping halfway. They could charge for this, I’d pay ten times over.

Time to man up. Time to woman up. Get out of the lift, you idiot! I scan the dining room full of pinstripes and power suits, looking for Adam. The recession is clearly over,
in this postcode at least, if they can charge £11.50 for toast and jam and still have a full house at 7.34 a.m. on a Thursday morning.

There he is, in the corner booth by the window. From this angle he’s in three-quarter profile. His nose is strong, with a tiny bump on the bridge, and it makes his mouth underneath look almost vulnerable were it not for his strong jaw, which today is covered in
dark stubble. I don’t believe in anything at first sight – well, lust, perhaps. And this is second sight, but still, there is some very basic, hardwired connection between my eyes, my brain, and this man’s face.

Adam turns, notices me, and his face relaxes into a smile. Those pale blue eyes under almost black brows . . . that dimple . . . He must know how good-looking he is, but there’s none
of that cock-sure arrogance you normally find with the pretty boys.

He stands to greet me; he smells clean and cool, like cold stone and limes. I try not to sniff him too obviously. I sit in the booth and he slides in close to me, our legs resting lightly together.

‘Sorry I made you get out of bed early, my days are crazy – I didn’t finish calling suppliers till two a.m., then my adrenalin was
so shot I couldn’t sleep.’ He rubs his face with his hands until his cheeks colour. I resist the urge to smooth down a tuft of his thick, dark hair that’s sticking up.

‘How
do
your hours work, anyway?’ Straight in there – where was he last Thursday?

‘I’m doing AFDs at the moment – All Dayers – so eight forty-five a.m. through till one a.m., with the occasional split shift – thirty minutes off
at tea.’

‘Exhausting! You must have had a day off since you started?’

He counts on his fingers. ‘Two weeks, four days and I’ve worked every sitting.’

‘Not one shift off?’

‘We barely have toilet breaks. My boss Jonn would go mad if I wasn’t overseeing, and I don’t trust the team. Max, my sous, is the worst: last week I discovered a job lot of silver gelatin he’d hidden in the store cupboard
which should’ve been bronze – if you made a panna cotta with that you could play cricket with it.’

78
. . .
Cauliflower panna cotta – as hard as a squash ball, less tasty.

‘At least Sundays we’re closed,’ he says, giving me a quizzical look – then realisation dawns. ‘Oh! It’ll get easier after the first month. I should have more of a personal life then.’

He might have been in the far corner
of that kitchen . . . For the whole time I was there, though? Still, if I probe any further he’d be within his rights to ask for a lawyer.

He hands me the menu. ‘What do you fancy?’

You. And everything on this menu, but mostly the sausage, eggs and potato scones, with a side order of sourdough. I can’t look that greedy in front of him. ‘Yoghurt, granola and pink grapefruit?’

‘Fibber!’ he says,
laughing. ‘Honestly, what do you want?’

‘Sausage, eggs and potato scones with extra sourdough.’

‘My Granny Ailsa used to make the best tattie scones. She used to have to hide them so me and my sister wouldn’t scoff the lot.’

‘My grandma used to do that too!’

‘With tattie scones?’ he says, in surprise.

‘Similar – potato latkes.’

‘My gran used to stand with her spaniel Laddy at her heels,
watching us search the kitchen. She’d pretend to be cross when we found her stash, but if I turned and caught her eye she’d have a secret smile on her face.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t cutesy hide and seek round Grandma Esther’s. She once walloped Jess when she caught her with a mouthful and my sister had the audacity to go back for more!’

‘My sister was crazy too,’ he says, laughing as he snaps the menu
shut. ‘Right, two sausage, egg and scones – we’ll see if they’re as good as Gran’s.’

‘Oh. Is that wise?’

He raises his eyebrows. ‘Do you think grandmas in the afterlife are hovering over us, primed to defend their potato legacies?’

‘I wouldn’t risk it. Ghosts can become quite uppity, you’ve seen
Poltergeist
.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you,’ he says, a smile twitching at the corner of his
mouth.

‘I mean, if I ordered them, you could always try some of mine?’

‘Or I could just order them too? But by the way you’re shaking your head, I’m guessing you’re one of those weirdos who freaks out if two people order the same thing.’ He raises his eyebrows at me indulgently. ‘What would you like me to have?’

‘I don’t mind . . .’

‘Full English with black pudding?’

‘They have an annual
black pudding throwing contest near where I used to live, I reckon I’d have won if I’d ever entered.’

‘It’s only the idea that’s off-putting. You’d like it if you didn’t know what was in it.’

‘But I do know – once you know something you can’t un-know it.’

‘Eggs Benedict? No? Why don’t you just tell me what I want,’ he checks his watch. ‘And then we might still have twenty minutes left to talk
to each other.’

‘Double stuffed French toast with mascarpone, berries and a side of bourbon glazed bacon?’

‘A heart attack on a plate,’ he says with delight. ‘And ghost friendly.’

A familiar looking waiter approaches and smiles at me in recognition and I automatically smile back.

‘Laura, this is Olly, an old mate.’

‘Nice to see you again,’ he says to me. ‘How’s it all going, Ads? I’m hearing
insane shit.’

‘Don’t ask . . . I’m doing hundred-hour weeks, the menu’s too big, the Robata can’t get up enough heat. They spent all that cash on toilets, then bought the grill second hand – cheapskates! Any pot-washing jobs here?’

Olly laughs. ‘Do you guys fancy a little glass of bubbly, on the house?’

‘I’d better not, but Laura enjoys a tipple first thing in the morning, don’t you, dear?’

I shake my head in embarrassment as Olly heads to the kitchen.

‘So how do you know Olly?’ says Adam.

Rather than say, quite innocently,
He recognises me because I have eaten here before
, my brain freezes. ‘I don’t know him.’

‘He said “nice to see you again”?’

‘He’s your mate – he must have been talking to you.’

Adam shrugs.

‘I guess I just have one of those faces,’ I say. ‘You know, I look
quite generic.’

‘Generic?’

‘You know, a common face . . .’

‘I know what generic means but why would you say that about yourself?’

‘Because it’s true. My features aren’t distinctive.’ I cover my eyes with my hands. ‘Tell me, Adam, what colour are my eyes . . .’

‘They’re grey-green, Laura. When the light shines directly in them they’re more green, and that dress is making them look almost blue.’

I feel colour spread up my cheeks.

‘You know who you remind me of?’ he says.

Please don’t say Shaun Ryder.

‘Cate Blanchett.’

I snort with laughter.

‘You do, though,’ he says. Oh dear, I think I love this man.

‘Ah well, that must be who Olly thought I was, she’ll have been in yesterday for a fry-up!’

‘You’ve got a very kind, open face. Quite
malleable
. . . is that the word?’

‘I think that
means good under a hammer. But anyhow, please be quiet because you’re making me blush.’ And while I don’t want to be one of those couples who snogs in restaurants, least of all at 7.39 a.m., I really want you to kiss me RIGHT NOW!

He smiles a naughty little smile, as though he can tell exactly what I’m thinking. ‘By the way, Laura, you should order what you want, it doesn’t matter what anyone
else is having.’

‘It’s not what you’re meant to do though, is it?’

He looks at me, perplexed.

‘Not in my family,’ I say. ‘Mum and Dad used to take us out on our birthdays and Jess always used to think the grass was greener, so I’d have to give her half of mine anyway – it made sense to order different things. And God forbid I wanted the same as her . . .’

‘So your menu phobia can be put down
to sibling rivalry?’

‘Yes, Sigmund Freud.’ I roll my eyes. ‘So you’ve got a crazy sister too?’

‘Vicky? She’s not crazy anymore, but she was wild when we were kids, always out getting stoned, whereas I was at home, helping Mum in the kitchen, my father in the background muttering I’d turn into a poof. But if I didn’t go and find Mum there, I’d never see her so I was knocking round her knees from
the age of five.’