Thicker Than Soup (10 page)

“It's too early,” she mumbled, “Go away.” It continued to ring. She closed the kitchen door but on it rang; on and on. “Damn it.” she muttered and went into the hall, lifted the receiver and dropped it decisively into its cradle.

Within seconds it started again and in sudden hope thought it might be John. She grabbed the receiver. “Hello.”

“Sally? Are you all right?”

She sat on the stairs, raw with disappointment at hearing Diane's voice.

“Sally. I can hear you. Talk to me. Please.”

No-one else had known about James. “What do you want?”

“Sally, are you all right?” Getting no reply, Diane continued. “I've called loads of times, and I've knocked on your door. Sally, talk to me.”

“What do you want?”

“You sound angry, Sally. Are you angry with me? I saw John yesterday; he looked awful. He told me he isn't Sammy's father. Why did you tell him? What happened? Sally? I'm worried about you.”

So Diane hadn't told him. “You'd better come round. This evening, later, after eight?”

“Here, I brought red.” Diane put a bottle down. “You sounded like you could do with a drink. What on earth's happened?”

“Sorry Diane, not for me. I'm struggling to feed Sammy. But you have some.” She finished chopping an onion and picked up the mushrooms.

“Then keep it for another time; I'd just as soon have a cup of tea. Shall I make some?”

“Mm, please.”

Diane filled the kettle and set out the cups. “So. Are you going to tell me what's happening?”

Her tears, mostly onion tears, felt real. “Diane, did you talk to John whilst I was at my Mother's?”

“Yes, of course. Why?” Diane looked puzzled.

“Did the question of Sammy's paternity come up in any way?”

“What? No. I only saw him for a minute. He picked Malik up and they went for a game of squash. I thought at the time he looked as though something might be bothering him but he often looks a bit stressed these days.” Diane put a hand on Sally's arm. “You're not thinking I told….? Sal! No way! I haven't told anyone. Not even Malik.”

A weight lifted. “I didn't think you'd told him. Not exactly. I wondered if something might have been said by accident, or maybe you'd told Malik and he'd let something slip. Maybe.”

“No way. Malik doesn't know.” Diane put tea in front of Sally. “You don't think…. James…”

Sally shook her head. “He had too much to lose. And anyway, apart from timing, he's had no reason to believe that Sammy might be his child and he'd definitely prefer it that way. But something must have made John wonder. For some reason he'd checked Sammy's clinic card and saw that he's blood group ‘O'. He's A, and so am I. So he decided that Sammy can't be his.”

Diane knew straight away. “But that's not right! Almost any combination can be ‘O'. ‘O' is universal. Sally, we've got to tell him. He's wrong!”

Turning the down the heat below the sizzling frying pan, Sally shook her head. “He's not, though, is he? He's not wrong. I couldn't lie to him, Diane. I've never lied to him. I deceived him – I cheated on him, and I went along with things I knew weren't true, but I never deliberately lied to him. And so when he asked me, directly, if he was Sammy's father, I couldn't deny it.” Mushrooms went into the frying pan. “So now he knows.”

“Oh God. And he's left you? Oh, Sal. I'm sorry.” Frying mushrooms seemed absurdly mundane given the conversation. “But he must be Sammy's father. Sammy looks like him! Sally, you've got to talk to him. Tell him it was a dreadful mistake. Once! Only once. And you must tell him that ‘A' and ‘A' can make ‘O'.”

“It wouldn't do any good.” She crushed ice crystals from the cream with the spatula. “He won't accept what I've done. He'll never forgive me for sleeping with another man; his pride won't let him.”

“It's crazy. Did he never sleep with anyone else?” A look of disbelief on Sally's face hurried Diane on. “I don't mean whilst he was with you, but I bet he's had a few one night stands along the way. Talk about double standards! Women are expected to be pure and virginal on our wedding day whilst men are wimps if they don't sow their wild oats. There's a lot of healed virginities out there!”

“John's old fashioned like that; he's never talked about previous relationships, not even Janine. But you're right. All's fair in love and war, but only for men.”

“But he knows you're not that kind of woman. He knows you wouldn't sleep around. I can't believe he's left you and Sammy.” Diane spooned stroganoff over rice and they started to eat. “Mmm. Nice.” She swallowed. “Can't you get a test done to prove who the father is?”

“Can you imagine John agreeing to that? And anyway, it's not just about Sammy. It's about what I did.” The wine bottle was still on the table and she looked at it then moved it, and temptation, out of the way. “I'm glad you've come round. For one thing, at least I'm eating.” She forked some meat. “You're right. There are double standards but people are different too. Some women do and some don't. And some men respect women and some don't. John has strong views about women and he respected me. Now he doesn't.”

“But what about Sammy? He'll have a right to know who is father is one day. What'll you say to him?”

“I don't know, Diane, I really don't know.” Her fork dropped to the plate. “I can't eat any more. I don't know what's going to happen, but John and I are finished and I have to make a life for Sammy and me. I'll not pursue John. He's free to do what he wants. One day, I suppose when Sammy is old enough, I'll tell him what happened.”

“Oh Sally. What a mess. What are you going to do?”

*

What indeed. So many questions and so few answers. She'd never felt so helpless.

John dipped his finger into the brandy butter and considered what was needed to balance the flavour. Vanilla, or a pinch of cinnamon? Certainly some lemon to cut the butter. He mixed three small portions. “Hey, Graham.” The chef he'd hired for the Christmas period looked up. “Come and try these; tell me what you think.”

Graham savoured the first, the second, and finally the third. “That's bland,” he said, indicating the second. He tried the first again, then the third. “That's the one.” He pointed to the first. “Cinnamon. That's good.”

“Yeah, I agree.” He tasted the three again and made a note to amend the recipe. It had been Alain's idea to serve complimentary mince pies and brandy butter during Christmas but producing them was a tiresome burden with a full quota of lunches and evening parties spanning almost three weeks.

Picking up the staff rota he noticed the date; December 21
^st
. The shortest day. Or, more relevantly, the longest night. He yawned and rotated his head, easing the muscles in his neck. Free time came in minutes these days and it wasn't going to be much of a family Christmas. Sammy wouldn't know and Sally, he was sure, would understand, particularly this first year. He'd make it up to her after the New Year parties were over, when the restaurant would be closed for a whole week. They'd have their Christmas then.

The staff rota showed the temporary waiters, all students from Bath College, were spread evenly across lunches and evenings. He changed them so that one covered lunches and three did evenings for the next three days and deciding that Julia could work out the logistics, helped himself to a mince-pie and escaped to his office. There, if only for a few minutes, he could eat his pie in peaceful solitude. Closing the door softly he sank gratefully into his chair, raised his feet to his desk, and with eyes closed let the world disappear – except for the caramel waft of fresh-from-the-oven sugary pastry. Opening one eye he saw, neatly framed in the ‘V' of his feet, his mince pie sitting squarely in front of a photo of Sally holding newly born Sammy. Already, at two months old, he was hardly recognisable. This newcomer, this stranger who'd appointed him father. Labels were discomforting; ‘businessman' or ‘restaurateur' didn't sit well but they were at least pleasing. ‘Father' was unsettling, an illusion that had become reality. Or a delusion. Guilt sat heavy below his heart, wedged against a rib and twisted the knife he'd pointed at his own parents since he'd known he'd been adopted; it's unnatural to not love one's own child. He wrapped his arms across his chest. “Like mother; like son,” he muttered. Love, affection, tenderness, an innate drive to nurture and protect, where were they? A branch tapped the window as a robin landed. Sally, like a bird, fed and cosseted Sammy to the exclusion, it seemed, of all else. Including him. She'd been besotted from the start and seemed to know exactly what to do, whereas he was clumsy and inadequate and covered his confusion with a mask of pride and humour as everyone fussed and cooed and uttered ridiculous comments about resemblances. And after Sally fed, bathed, changed and dressed him she'd hand him over like a wrapped gift and he'd feign infatuation with his tiny son. He said the right things, kept his fears hidden, and prayed that affection would grow as Sammy did.

The mince pie disintegrated as he bit through the perfect pastry into the warm, toffeed fruit and dripped its juice onto the bookings diary. Dabbing it clean with his fingers he saw every line of every day was full to New Year's Day. And that evening, more than half of the tables were scheduled for two sittings, including two office parties. With walk-ins too, Julia would need energy, foresight and a deal of conjuring to manage food flow, drinks, and the performance of the student waiters.

With pre-orders already in for the parties, tables were being set up as John passed through the restaurant. His practised eye paused on Rick, one of the students, setting up one of the party tables. Young and keen, Rick's enthusiasm was blunted by clumsiness, and though it had been easy to laugh when he caught his apron on a door and halted abruptly so that the door had swung back and hit him from behind sending a tray of cutlery to the floor, it hadn't been so funny when a mishandled attempt to catch a dropped butter knife had toppled a dirty plate into a customer's lap. It had cost John a cleaning bill, a complimentary meal, and possibly lost customers too. Accidents were too frequent to be ignored and he admitted sadly that Rick hadn't been the best choice.

Rick saw him watching. “Looks good, eh?”

“Not sure.” Crackers between glasses made it difficult to see where each place and glass belonged. “Looks a bit crowded to me.” He stacked crackers in woodpiles in the centre of the table. “Try that, eh?”

“Good thinking.” Rick set about collecting the crackers only to knock over a glass and, in saving it, dropped the crackers and sent a fork cascading across the floor.

“Guess that proves the point.” John moved away. “Good save though, and keep smiling.” All hands would be needed over Christmas and Rick was Julia's problem. He hoped she'd give him safe work or find a way to tone down his eagerness.

“Ok, where are we all?” It was five-thirty. “Let's talk.” The daily meetings had been Julia's idea to combine the needs of the restaurant and kitchen and had soon proved their worth. “Now, if you thought last Saturday was busy let me tell you, it was an appetiser.” He watched faces. “You all know what you need to do tonight so I'm not going over any of that. Any questions on the menu or timings, talk to Graham or Julia. That's their job. Ok?” Heads nodded. “Graham, I need the market orders before we finish tomorrow. Any minor changes you need to make, I'll trust your judgement. Any doubts let me know.” Graham nodded and scribbled in a notebook. “Julia, you did a great job on Saturday. Keep your waiters on the ball like that and it'll be fine. But I saw a dirty knife go back to the kitchen. Not good enough. Make sure your waiters see things like that before a customer does, and Bob, you make sure it doesn't happen! Right? Questions?”

“Yes, I've a question.” Shirley half raised a hand. “Can someone help plate up tonight? Beth's busy with early prepping but should be done by then. Otherwise I don't know how we'll serve the parties together.”

John looked at Graham then at Beth. Both nodded. “Good idea, Shirley. But keep an eye on presentation; it's new to Beth.”

Within ten minutes the meeting ended and he tried to think of something uplifting to finish with. “Great stuff.” He remembered the daily motto on his calendar that morning. “Remember, it's not the ingredients in the dishes that lead to excellence, it's the ingredients in the restaurant. Knowledge, discipline and expertise. Aristotle said that excellence isn't an act, it's a habit. We're not acting here, so let's have an excellent evening.” Despite a wry eyebrow raise from Graham, John was pleased with his off-the-cuff motivator which would, he was sure, inspire the students.

The evening rolled by, as did the next day, and the next week. John had worked through Christmases before and many a New Year's Eve had been spent in a kitchen. But he'd never worked twelve double shifts in a row and by the end of New Year's Eve he found himself struggling with a batch of invoices, unable to sort them into alphabetical order. As the door closed behind the last customer he lowered his aching body into a chair and lit a last cigarette. Sally had given up and he'd promised her that his New Year resolution would be to quit. So, tomorrow. Sucking smoke into his lungs he looked at his Rothkoesque painting. If someone had suggested he was superstitious he'd have decried such nonsense but every day he'd touched the painting and as he did now, drawn strength from it. Taking a last pull on his cigarette he stubbed it out. “That's the last one,” he told the painting. In response blue and green lured his turgid brain into a sense of serenity so that had Graham not shaken him he might have succumbed to its hypnotic powers. Finding strength from somewhere he checked the alarms, double checked his cigarette was out, and wishing his painting a prosperous New Year locked the doors on nineteen eighty one.

*

John felt Sally slip from the bed. He looked at the clock; five-twenty something. He clung to the comfort of sleep and luxuriated in the warmth of the bed until noises from the kitchen indicated the day had begun. Looking at the clock again he struggled to comprehend it was it now ten-fifteen. Saturday had already disappeared in a haze of coffee and sleep and Sunday was in danger of doing the same. Stretching his limbs he visualised coffee and a cigarette, then remembered he'd stopped smoking and immediately longed for a cigarette. Food, he thought, would distract him. Bacon! He hoped there'd be bacon in the fridge.

*

Ski Sunday flickered silently on the TV and filled the late afternoon with blue light. Across the room John saw that Sally had fallen asleep with Sammy still at her breast and his artist's eye framed the picture; her face, Madonna-like in the blue cathode light with a single tendril of dark hair falling across the whiteness of her breast directed his eye towards Sammy's glowing contentment. It was an evocative mother and child. He rose from the sofa and resisting Sally's drowsy constraint took Sammy from his mother's lap. Turning the sound down on the TV he settled back with Sammy and watched skiers swishing through slalom poles at seemingly impossible speeds. He'd never skied and imagining the thrill of speed on snow thought he'd like to. Tensing as a skier almost lost balance he watched another skier accelerate faster and faster through the poles until suddenly a barrier was hit and skier, skis and sticks flew. Oblivious of Sammy he jumped – then remembering the small body on his knees clutched at him quickly. To his amazement a smile appeared on Sammy's face which, on catching John's eye turned to a chuckle. John gasped; for a second he doubted what he'd seen and heard but there was no mistake. His son had smiled and laughed with him. He'd communicated with him. The icy stone lodged in his chest melted and skiers forgotten he folded Sammy to his chest and breathlessly suppressed his unmanly tears.

*

The next morning John woke before eight feeling refreshed and ready to get on with life again. Putting his head round the nursery door and seeing the cot empty he felt an unexpected disappointment that Sammy's day had started without him and went to find him in the kitchen with Sally. Exchanging him for an airmail letter he'd picked up on the way, he stole Sally's toast whilst she made him some coffee and tried to raise another smile by singing to his son. “Sammy the little Paki boy.”

“Don't call him that!”

He didn't understand. “Well, he is. It's ok.”

Sally objected indignantly. “He's not a Paki! He's part Pakistani. Like me. Don't say Paki, it's horrid.”

Relenting, he sang again. “Sammy the little Pakistani boy.” As Sally neither approved nor disapproved – she was too busy opening her letter – he danced his slice of toast in front of Sammy. “You'll be asking for toast too before long, won't you? Well you can't have it yet; you're already too fat for your carrycot. You're a very big little boy.”

Some notes slid from Sally's envelope. Green dollars. When he'd toyed with going to The States around ten years previously, a pound had bought about two dollars, which, if it hadn't moved much, made this around forty pounds; enough for the travel cot Sally talked of and with some left over. He knew little about this grandmother who Sally said had sent the money other than she was said to have been a great beauty. Suspended as he was in a generational vacuum it was as well to accept the futility of wondering if his own grandmother, or indeed his mother, had been beautiful, though it was conceivable his father, whoever he had been, might have once thought so. Sally talked about a family she knew little of but she did, at least, know who and where they were. Suddenly an idea struck him. They'd go together to Pakistan! What a wonderful idea! He shared his excitement with Sally. “We could go to Pakistan! The restaurant's done well over Christmas, and you'll probably get a job again soon. We could save some money, get married and blow the rest on a honeymoon in Pakistan.” Buoyed by the boldness of his idea, he secured Sammy under an arm and kneeling in front of Sally proposed to her – for some reason in a jovial West Country voice. “Not quite what I'd planned, me holding the baby and all, but would you do me the honour, etc, etc?”

He saw her face cloud but it was a passing moment and then she was his Sally again, beautiful and playful and answering him in an even worse accent than his own with… well, not quite yes but definitely not no. Feeling blessed, he stood and rubbing his knee – the floor was hard – dared to believe that at last, happiness was his. The restaurant was going well. He'd discovered fatherhood. He'd given up smoking for three days. And Sally had agreed to marry him – almost. Life was good.

*

The icy air was oddly calm when he went back to work and after kicking aside mail and turning off the burglar alarm he turned the thermostat up. It was early to be at work, none of the other staff would be in for hours, but having taken Sally and Sammy to catch the London train his day had already started. He re-acquainted himself with his painting, then listened to the answer-phone, recorded a message of greeting for the New Year and putting his gloves back on went to his office, pleased to have come in early enough to get the place warm after the break. He turned on the radio and continued to sing along with Blondie as Jimmy Young closed his programme on the pip of eleven
as a weather warning was announced. Heavy snows, it cautioned, would hit the south and west. Police advised people to stay at home. Looking out of the window he groaned; flakes were already falling. In terms of business, the last thing he wanted in January was a weather warning.

An hour later snow blinded the windows and by two, the few reservations had cancelled. As staff arrived John sent them home and resigned to losing an evening's takings, retrieved files and paperwork from the office, set the heating to stay on, and locked up. Snow squalled in his face and hair as he crossed the car park and sweeping the white blanket from the windscreen he wondered how the roads would be. With snow melting into his socks the possibility of a long walk home was distinctly unattractive so, when the engine of his beloved Scimitar car fired he gave the dashboard a tap of appreciation and crept across the eerily silent gravel on to the tarmac. He'd bought the car just a year ago, when the last New Year's witching messenger parted him from his final Alain bonus. ‘
Carpe Diem'
, it had urged, ‘
It's the 80's, a new decade'.
Sally, he remembered, had been less enamoured. She'd wanted new carpets. But carpets were just carpets and the sleek, fibre-glass Scimitar GTE was, he was sure, set to become a classic. Below him the tyres crunched snow-hushed roads as they crept slowly home.