I am not taking any more of this,’ Mary says. ‘Your father has groped me. I’ve got a good mind to ring the police.’
Max’s expression is resigned as he turns to Terence. As annoying as it is for us to have to deal with him, it’s harder for Max. He’s actually related to the old man. He can never get rid of him. ‘Dad, did you?’
Terence waves his hand. I’m just glad it’s out of his pocket now, given what he’s done. ‘She’s overreacting. It was only a friendly pat. I was telling her she’s doing a good job.’ He looks at Mary. ‘You should be grateful for the attention, frankly.’
Her frustrated scream doesn’t need any interpretation. ‘I quit. Max, that’s it. I’m not going to be harassed by that man. Find yourself someone else to deal with him.’ She yanks off her apron and shoves it into the other waitress’s hand. Amber looks like she’s not sure whether to follow her colleague or not. Then she goes back to her phone.
This is a disaster. There’s no way that Amber can handle service on her own. She barely does any work as it is. ‘Wait, please, Mary! You can’t quit. We need you!’ I say. ‘Max, tell her!’
But it’s no use. She’s already striding across the lawn towards her car.
Now what am I going to do? ‘Max, I can’t run the restaurant all by myself. No offence, Amber.’
Amber looks up from her phone. ‘Hmm? Oh, none taken.’ She goes back to crushing candy or whatever she’s doing on that thing.
‘Well, Max? What are you going to do?’ This is his fault, after all. If he’d shipped his horrid father off after the hospital, Mary mightn’t have quit.
Max’s jowly face flashes several expressions as he works out an answer. He’s not great at thinking on his feet. ‘Well, we can always microwave ready meals,’ he finally says. ‘That would free you up to take over for Mary.’
He sees the look on my face. ‘Or put them in the oven?’ he tries. ‘I don’t know. Whatever you do when you cook.’
Whatever I do when I cook? ‘Max. I prepare three meals a day, carefully balanced for the residents’ nutritional requirements. Not to mention their weird phobias and dietary whims. You really think you can replace all that with a few ready meals?’
I can’t keep my voice from shaking. I’ve worked here for three years, and this is all he thinks I do?
‘They have some very good ready meals now,’ he answers. ‘I’m only trying to make a suggestion.’
Everything I’ve done, the exacting planning, budgeting and bending over backwards to make food that the residents will love, has made no difference in my boss’s eyes. I’m nothing but a glorified takeaway delivery person to him.
‘Hey, don’t get upset,’ Nick says. ‘Please don’t.’ His voice is so full of concern that I just choke up more. When he puts his arm around me, it squeezes out a very unladylike sob.
To be clear, though, this isn’t sadness. It’s fury. How dare he.
‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to offend you.’ Nick’s eyes search Max’s, looking for an apology. Meanwhile, I can’t stop thinking about being in the crook of Nick’s arm with his lips inches from mine.
‘Well, he bloody well did offend me,’ I mumble. I haven’t worked this hard to be dismissed by someone who thinks the supermarket sells haute cuisine.
‘God, no, I didn’t mean to upset you, Phoebe. I’m sorry. We’ll get another waitress for you, I promise. We can get a new one tomorrow, right, June?’ He sounds like he’s replacing an ice cream cone that I’ve dropped on the floor.
All this rage can’t only be about Mary quitting, or Max’s insensitivity. Deep down it must be about Mum too, because she put this soundtrack in my head in the first place. ‘You’re Not Living Up to Your Dreams’ was on the greatest hits album, but the B-side included classics like ‘Why Can’t You Be More Like Your Brother’, and everyone’s perennial favourite: ‘If Only You’d Try Harder’. She didn’t want to hear that I was living up to my dreams, and doing the best that I could. Maybe I haven’t dealt with that as well as I’d thought.
‘We’ll get a temp to fill in for Mary till we find a replacement,’ June says, enveloping me in her arms. ‘Don’t worry.’ Like a relay baton, Nick passes me off to my best friend. ‘Want that drink later?’ she asks. ‘I’ll buy.’
‘God, yes, thanks.’
Nick offers to bring Terence back to his cottage. I’m surprised that the old man agrees to go. Whenever Max tries getting him to do something, he unleashes a tirade that would make a sailor blush. Nick definitely has a way with people. As they walk off, I can hear him speaking quietly to Terence. He’s a perv-whisperer.
‘He really is good, isn’t he?’ I say.
‘That’s the best hiring decision I ever made,’ June answers. ‘Aside from you, of course.’
It’s thanks to my lucky stars that June hired me. Otherwise I’d have had to leave our little home town to find work after the bistro closed down.
The bistro was my first job out of catering college. It wasn’t overly fancy, at least not when I first started working there. It teetered somewhere between a builder’s caff and someplace that served food au jus. Set in the old town fishmonger’s shop, its walls were tiled white with a pretty Victorian green border running around the whole room. We only had seating for twenty-eight, with the open kitchen behind the old fish counter. Jen, my boss, kept as many of the original features as she could. Pale green ironwork surrounded the huge plate-glass front windows and door, which rattled awfully in winter, so we had a heavy velvet curtain in front to keep the customers from blowing away whenever someone came in.
There were fishy touches all over the restaurant: some of the original adverts for jellied eels and pilchards in old money, weighing scales with their enamelled dish on the battered sideboard. Fishhooks hung from the ceiling and the old barrel by the door held customers’ wet umbrellas. We even used the display counter – once upon a time piled with ice and seafood – for our desserts.
Jen had upmarket ideas when she hired me. Best of all, she believed in me. But, being fresh from catering college, I had yet to believe in myself.
I don’t mean that I didn’t have the skills. I knew my pâté from my parfait. I just didn’t have the confidence. Yet there I was, the new cook in a newly reopened bistro – Jen had the word ‘café’ prised off the front of the building, and ‘bistro’ just fit, though it always looked squashed together. I got to have complete say over the food we served. Once I got over the shock and stopped panicking, I started to love the job. Every week Jen and I sat down together so I could tell her what I was planning. I didn’t have to ask permission for my menu. My catering school friends were gobsmacked when I told them that. Most of them were prep cooks, waking at 5 a.m. to chop mountains of onions, and there I was, designing my own menus.
Jen was thrilled and so was I. Finally, finally, I was an actual cook, just like I’d always planned.
