posh voice, that’s what it is. You’re just like Dad when there’s a whiff of the nobility about’
I can see that Sid is getting the needle and this impression is confirmed by his next remarks.
‘Let’s forget about Miss Ruperts for a minute,’ he says, ‘and let’s talk about what you’re going to do.’
‘Your Personal Assistant,’ I say brightly.
‘That kind of thing,’ Sid nods his head slowly. ‘But first of all you’ve got to learn the ropes. I’ve already mentioned that this place needs a commissionaire.’
‘You don’t expect me to hang about outside all day in some poncy uniform, do you?’
‘Not all day, Timmy, no. You are going to have so many other things to do, there won’t be time–waiting, working in the kitchens, portering–’
‘Hey, wait a minute!’
‘No “heys”, Timothy. I want you to undertake a thorough apprenticeship in the hotel business. I only wish I could join you myself.’
‘Why can’t you?’
‘Lazy majesty. It’s a French expression meaning that if you are the boss you are expected to ponce about all day doing nothing, otherwise it upsets people.’
‘It wouldn’t upset me, Sid.’
‘You are not people, Timmo.’
‘But they’re going to think I’m some kind of nark, Sid.’
‘Of course they won’t. They won’t realise you are reporting back everything you hear to me, unless you choose to tell them. This experience is going to be vital, Timmy, because you’ll be able to learn about every fiddle the staff are pulling, from the inside.’
‘I don’t like it, Sid.’
‘Well, you know what you can do then. What did you think you would be doing? Sitting in a little office in a pinstripe suit?’
‘It would make a change from some of the things I’ve been doing lately.’
But, of course, Sid has me firmly under his thumb and when I appear at the meeting at which he addresses the staff, I don’t even get a place on the platform. Miss Ruperts introduces him and it would make you sick to hear the way she goes on. She must have sworn off the stuff for a couple of hours beforehand because her hands are not shaking and every word comes over crystal clear. ‘Better days ahead’, ‘Exciting new prospects’, ‘Marching forward into the seventies’, are some of the golden oldies that come tripping off her tongue and these are only bettered by Sid who bounds to his feet and gives his all in true Funfrall manner. I am quite pleased to find that nobody registers any enthusiasm at all except Mrs Caitley who says ‘Hear! hear!’ periodically through Miss Ruperts’ address. I later learn that they were land girls together during the war and have been in tandem ever since. What a diabolical thought! Milk production must have dropped off something awful when the cows saw those two flexing their pinkies.
Sid eventually draws to a close, one of the hall porters farts and there is a ripple of applause. I personally think it is for the fart, which is quite an effective one. What is interesting is to observe the reaction of Sandra, June and Audrey now that they know who we are. The last two seem to think that they have been conned while Sandra is clearly impressed. All through Sid’s speech she gazes at him like he has just discovered how to make gold bars from fag ends and her contribution is a sizeable slice of the ripple of applause that greets the end of his ramble through cliché land.
On the other hand, she looks through me like an empty goldfish bowl and I feel it is going to be some time before I get another piece of nooky from that quarter. The fact that I am posted to the kitchens on the first part of my training course does not help matters. In my greasy clobber I hardly look likely to give Smoothiechops a run for his money.
Make no mistake about it. The people who work in the kitchens of large hotels are not likely to crop up in the Vogue social column very often. Some of them are rough. Very rough. If it was not for the frying pans I would have thought I was in the engine room of an Albanian minesweeper lent to the Irish navy. One bloke is tattooed from head to toe and keeps gulping down swigs of meths whilst there are two Spaniards who cannot understand a word of English and spend most of the time holding hands behind the chip slicer.
The female presence, apart from Mrs Caitley, is virtually non-existent and I, for one, am grateful. When you look around you it is easy to see why chefs are usually men–big, strong men. It is a tribute to Mrs Caitley’s muscle power that she can wield any authority at all and still have enough strength left for her marathon hassle with Mr ‘Superpoof’ Bentley–that is the name of the maitre d’hotel, or head waiter to you and me. Normally, the chef de cuisine has total authority over the choice and preparation of meals and Mr B. is pushing his luck in trying to get in on the act.
That is another thing you soon learn when you work in a hotel. Everybody is ‘Mr This’ and ‘Mr That’. There is none of the informality that used to prevail at the holiday camp. This is presumably because everybody in the business seems to have worked their way up from the bottom and is very jealous of preserving their status.
And talking of working your way up from the bottom, I have never seen so many concrete parachutes in my life. I have nothing against queers, except the toe of my boot if they become too persistent, but really! After peeling millions of potatoes and scraping blackened cooking pots in a temperature of over a hundred degrees, and in an atmosphere so steamy that you can hardly see the dripping walls, the last thing you fancy is being touched up by some joker as you bend over to sluice your greens.
My dismissal to the kitchen does at least help my relationship with June and Audrey. Like everyone else on the staff, they trust me less than a Vietnamese threepenny bit but at least when they see me crawling along the corridors towards my new room–yes, Sid has moved into the management suite and I have been relegated to the ‘Penthouse Club’ or attic, as it is also known–they realise that being a nark is not all easy sailing.
‘Trying a bit of work for a change, are you?’ says June, as we bump into each other on my first evening.
‘Don’t be like that. I’m knackered.’
She is all tarted up and obviously about to grab a bit of the gay night life that Hoverton has to offer before it closes down at half past nine.
‘Why aren’t you downstairs with your mate?’
‘You ask him that. He wants me to learn the ropes. At the moment I feel like hanging myself with one of them.’
‘It’s not nice down there, is it?’ says June with a hint of sympathy creeping into her voice. ‘You have to be careful when you come out into the cold. It’s easy to catch a chill.’
‘I’ll remember that. Where are you going?’
‘They have a dance down at the Pier on Fridays. Do you fancy coming?’
‘I’m not much of a dancer at the best of times and tonight I couldn’t stand up for the national anthem. Thanks anyway. Another time.’
‘You sure you’re all right?’
‘Oh yes. Just fagged out, that’s all.’
I
