‘That’s it,’ she hollers at a pitch that would make Maria Callas rush out for a throat spray. ‘I can’t go on! Either he goes or I go. I don’t mind the nig nogs. I don’t mind the equipment–though it’s rotten!’ She bangs her glass down and half its contents jump across the bar; a loss which is speedily made good–‘it’s him!’
‘It’s the head waiter she’s on about,’ whispers the barman. ‘They don’t see eye to eye.’
‘Nobody tells me how to cook,’ snarls Big Red, giving me a hint that she is not the Phantom of the Opera in drag. ‘Nobody ever has, and nobody ever will.’
While she is looking at the ceiling over the rim of her glass, a thin, effeminate man wearing a dinner jacket rushes in. He is wringing his hands as if he hopes to extract water from them.
‘Calm yourself, Mrs Caitley,’ he squeals. ‘Calm yourself. Think of the guests.’ The last sentence causes an enormous shudder to run through Mrs Caitley like an earth tremor in a raspberry jelly.
‘I would beg to inform you,’ she says icily, ‘that thinking about the guests has been my one pre-occupation throughout twenty years in the hotel business.’
‘And I can assure you, dear lady, that I have no less a desire to serve the best interests of our patrons.’
‘Don’t you “dear lady” me, you odious pipsqueak.’
As heads begin to pop round the door, Mrs Caitley picks up a bowl of mildewed peanuts that Sidney has already rejected and begins to hurl them one by one at the head waiter. She is a lousy shot as Sid is quick to find out when he cops one in the eye, but it is an impressive sight, reminding me of one of those big Russian ladies warming up for the discus.
‘Good–wholesome–English–fare,’ she pants as she empties the bowl. ‘I-will-not-cook-continental-garbage.’
‘Cor, love-a-duck,’ says Sid as we cower towards the dining room. ‘What a blooming carve-up.’
‘Are they at it again?’ says Sandra breezily as she bounces past. ‘Oh, I am sorry.’
She does something with her mouth which makes me think of juicy strawberries and I fight an immediate impulse to pull her down behind the reception desk.
‘Let’s nip out for a cup of cha and a wad,’ I say as I peer into the dining room.
‘No,’ says Sid firmly. ‘We’re going to see this through.’
The dining room is the darkest room yet and I expect to see a coffin lying on a couple of trestles in the middle of it. One reason for the gloom is probably the state of the table cloths which look like the ones that were not washed in New Wonder Sudso. The menu holders are curling at the edges and mine has a dead fly behind its acetate sleeve. The Cromby is very hot on flies.
The main thing that strikes you about the menu is that although all the dishes are printed in French, this has been crudely crossed out in Biro, and an English equivalent put beside each entry. Thus ‘Potage Creme Royale’ becomes ‘Brown Windsor Soup’ and ‘Petit poissons au style Portugaise sur pain grillé’ appears as ‘Sardines on Toast!’ In this it is not difficult to see the hand of the dreaded Mrs Caitley. You don’t have to be good at doing crosswords to know that she likes the frog-loving head waiter less than wire-wool knickers.
That creature comes across the floor at a fast mince like a ballet dancer about to launch himself into full flutter. He is patting his hair and throwing his head back and has obviously been through an ab-so-lute-ly ghast-ly experience in the cocktail lounge.
‘So sorry about that aw-ful scene,’ he squeals. ‘Now, have you decided what you’d like? The veal is a dream today. I made the sauce myself and it is quite, quite delicious–though I say it as shouldn’t.’
He gives us the kind of smile which immediately makes you look out of the window and Sid and I order the soup and mixed grill.
‘This place gives me the creeps, Sid,’ I say when Superpoof has pushed off. ‘You want to turn it into a sanatorium or get rid of everybody and start from scratch.’
‘Dodgy, Timmy. I don’t have the training for your first caper, and if I bring a quack in I’ll have to surrender some of my control. Also, there’s too much capital investment in equipment. Your second alternative appeals to me but I can’t chuck the whole bleeding lot of them out in one go. The place has got to keep functioning. It’s going to be my livelihood, remember. Yours too. No. What we’ve got to do is winkle them out one by one and replace them with reliable people. Also, we want it to be their idea that they should go. Redundancy payments would cripple me with some of these buggers. They were practically born in the broom closets.’
‘You really think about it, don’t you, Sid?’ I say admiringly. I mean, he is a shit-heap, but you have to hand it to him for applied villainy.
‘Got to, Timmo,’ says Sid smugly. ‘That’s one thing my experience with Slat taught me. You’ve got to cover all the angles.’
I consider asking if having a butcher’s at the property he was considering buying could be considered as one of the angles but decided against it. There is no point in sullying our relationship with verbal aggro at this stage.
The food, when it comes, is not as bad as I had expected. Bad, but no worse than my Mum dishes out. When you have tasted my Mum’s grub then you have tasted nothing. The only seasoning she knows about is the three after spring. Rosie gave her a cookery book one Christmas and she used it to prop up the wonky leg on the dresser. That is probably why I am so generous about Mrs Caitley’s efforts. You could float a pepper pot on the brown Windsor soup and the peas should have been served with a blow-pipe, but the mixed grill is quite tasty once you put the Worcester sauce to work on it and I have no complaint about the chips.
‘Do you fancy the Bombe Surprise?’ I say to Sid who is looking around for the drinks we ordered at the beginning of the meal.
‘I’d like to drop one on that bloody wine waiter,’ he says. ‘The service in this place is diabolical.’
By the time the bloke does come we are into the coffee and Sid tells him to piss off and bring us a couple of brandies.
‘That’s going to be one of the good things about this job. We should be able to get stuck into some very nice nosh once we get the place sorted out.’
‘Amongst other things,’ I say as I watch June and what is presumably Audrey, tripping past for our little rendezvous. ‘I’m glad you decided you wanted June.’
Sid looks up and his face when he sees Audrey is a real study. This bird is a knockout and she gives us both a long, cool look which demonstrates real interest. She has long shoulder-length black hair and a sultry expression which makes me think she probably scratches. I down my brandy so quickly that I get prickles up my nose.
‘Don’t want to keep them waiting, do we?’ I say, starting to get up.
‘Timmo. Please! I thought you were beginning to understand what it’s all about. Never appear too eager. Surely you know that?’
‘Yeah, Sid. Sorry. I just wanted to get out of this place, that’s all.’
As if overhearing me, Superpoof zooms to our side and fixes me with an engaging smile. This bloke really has it all. Head cocked on one side, hand dangling limply from the wrist.
‘Can I have your room number, please. You are together, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, but we’re just good friends,’ says Sid brusquely. ‘One two seven.’
‘If you’ve bought the bleeding hotel I don’t know why we didn’t have separate