Dinner at Mine (34 page)
For several seconds Matt held his phone cupped in his palm, ostentatiously not looking at it. Then it vibrated powerfully in his hand, sending a shiver all the way up his arm. He clicked on the
message.
‘Fuck off,’ it read. There was a little emoticon of a clenched fist.
From: Matthew Phillips
To: Dinner At Mine
Sent: 22.31
Subject: Assessment of dinner cooked by Marcus and Sarah, by M Phillips
Food:
Asparagus: Somewhat bland. Sauce enjoyable. 7
Kidneys: Intense flavour. Well spiced. Juice combined pleasingly with brioche. 9
Octopus Salad: While visually impressive, the dish was a disappointment. Tough and over-chewy, with flavour quickly lost. Other ingredients somewhat
meagre. 6
Oxtail Stew: Satisfying thickness. Sharpness of the vegetable complementing meat well. 9
Apple Fritters: Enjoyable. Perhaps too heavy considering other courses. 7
Ambience /Hosting:
Wine: Pleasant Tempranillo. Not plentiful, however. 7
Conversation: Aggressive, hostile. Often intellectually incoherent. 5
Company: Generally adequate, apart from one episode of violence. 7
Overall average: 7
Matthew Phillips Barrister
New Green Chambers
Sent from my BlackBerry®
From: Rosie and Stephen
To: Dinner At Mine
Sent: 22.34
Subject: Dinner
Hi Marcus and Sarah,
It feels a bit odd doing this while you’re watching us. You’re staring, actually. It’s a little bit off-putting. If I were you, I would
choose this moment to go and make some coffee or something. That would be tactful.
Of course, you must be very upset that the evening wasn’t a success. Please don’t worry, though; a lot of it wasn’t your fault. We’re not going to
hold you entirely responsible. You can’t be blamed for Justin and Matt.
Although, a good host should probably know how to separate guests who aren’t getting on. I don’t mean to judge, but there were at least a couple of moments
when you could have headed the whole argument off.
The problem is, I think, that Marcus is not very warm as a host. It’s all very well aiming for technically impressive food – we’ll come to that later
– but so much of the enjoyment is about atmosphere. It’s your task to create that. I’m sorry to say you didn’t do a very good job. It obviously doesn’t come
naturally, but it doesn’t even feel like you were trying. I mean, if no one’s saying anything, you have to jump in there and get the conversation going again.
And not to harp on, but people were running out of wine. You just can’t let that happen. I know you were distracted by all the dishes you were trying to do, but no
one ever said this was easy. Perhaps you’ll blame Sarah for that, I don’t know.
Anyway, I can see Matt’s finished already so I’d better get on to the food. Stephen certainly liked the salty cod balls, or whatever they were. Such a pity
there weren’t enough for everyone else. Myself, I found them too salty.
I know you said the asparagus was local, and I’ll take your word for it. Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t at its best, so I can see why you felt you needed
to jazz it up with that sauce. But really, that was gilding the lily a bit. (Although it isn’t lily season either!)
The kidneys certainly did what it said on the tin. Strong, powerful flavours. Personally, I found them a bit too aggressively meaty. But that’s just my taste.
Stephen loved them.
And then the octopus! There’s no denying it looked impressive. But by this point you should have been aware of the danger of trying too hard. I think I once had the
same dish in Moro, so I could see what you were trying to do. And I suppose many people would say that it’s better to be ambitious and fail than to achieve mediocrity, wouldn’t
they? Personally, I prefer something tasty.
I’m afraid that by the stew it was all getting a bit much for me. I certainly wasn’t hungry any more, and I found it far too rich. The spices didn’t
really cut through the stickiness in the way I think you were going for. Although Stephen liked it.
I don’t have much to say about the pudding. You can’t really go wrong with apple fritters, can you? Although they were a little too sweet.
Well, I suppose it’s the moment of truth now. Exciting to think we’ll find out who’s won any moment now, isn’t it? Not that that would affect our
scoring at all. So: seven out of ten.
Yours,
Rosie and Stephen
From: Justin Davidson
To: Dinner At Mine
Sent: 22.35
Subject: Sustainability Concerns
Dear All,
I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what I’m meant to write now. It’s becoming increasingly hard to pretend that food is the most
important thing here.
I know you’re all judging me for hitting Matt. It’s true that violence doesn’t solve anything. But he deserved it. I just don’t think that we, as a
society, should be tolerating that kind of selfishness and greed. This is someone who just reaches out and takes what he wants, not caring about what that does to everyone else. People have the
right to resist aggression, don’t they?
I know I’m meant to be talking about the food. Not that I could really eat very much of it. But in fact I’ve been getting concerned that, from the
planet’s point of view, we’re all a little bit like Matt. We all just reach out and take what we want: we kill animals, plunder fish from the sea, spew pollution into the atmosphere
flying asparagus halfway round the world. We all know it can’t go on. At least, I hope we do. And for what? So that we can say somebody has won. Why does anyone have to win? That’s
the lesson I think we all need to learn from this.
I’d like to leave now. I know some of you will still want a score. I don’t see what good it will do anyone. So: 6½.
From: Charlotte Wells
To: Dinner At Mine
Sent: 22.36
Christ. Well, I’m glad that’s over. One more of those things and I’d be in serious danger of stabbing someone. I won’t say
who.
Was this the worst of the lot? The sad truth is that it probably wasn’t. At least it was entertaining. Justin, you may be one of the most annoying men on the planet,
but I was right behind you there. Shame it didn’t turn into a fight, though. God, I would have loved that.
The food was OK, actually. A proper amount of meat this time. If Justin had eaten a couple of those kidneys and built himself up a bit, we’d all have been picking
Matt’s teeth out of the Danish furniture. And I did like the stew. I realize it was probably meant to be ironic in some awful way, but you know what? It was a nice, tasty stew.
You had to let us all down with the octopus, though, didn’t you? Just in case we were in any doubt that you were a massive cock, you had to bring out a fucking
octopus on a plate. I mean, why not just shout, ‘Look at me!’, get your knob out and garnish that with parsley? Apart from anything else, I’m sure it would have been less
effort for you. It tastes of rubber, for Christ’s sake. (Yes, yes, I mean the octopus.) You can poncify it however you like, but it’s still basically like chewing the end of a
pencil.
And look! My glass is empty. Are you offering to top it up? No, you fucking well aren’t. You’re glaring at us all like we’re taking some kind of exam.
Well, we’re not. We’re marking you. Then I’m getting the hell out of here.
Score: 7 (And count yourself lucky. It was the punch that got you that extra point.)
Sent from my iPhone
‘Come on, have you finished yet?’ Marcus blurted.
His whole body was tense, right leg jiggling with nervous excitement, and Sarah felt an acute spasm of repugnance. It surprised her with its intensity. She hadn’t realized things had got
that far. There was no doubt that this bloody competition had brought out the worst in Marcus, and she hadn’t liked him for a lot of it. But it was still a shock for her to look at him
leaning forward over the table, an impatient snarl on his face as he demanded that Rosie hand over the laptop, and feel so completely revolted.
‘Nearly there,’ Rosie said.
‘Hurry up, you’re not reviewing us for
Time Out
,’ Marcus said. ‘All I need is a score. Preferably a high one.’ There was no laughter in his voice as he said
it.
‘All right, calm down . . . There,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ve sent it.’
‘Give it to me, then.’ Marcus almost snatched the MacBook from her hands.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘The password.’
Sarah had forgotten about this bit. She felt a surge of frustration as Marcus typed his two characters and pushed the computer across the table to Rosie.
‘Charlotte, you’re next,’ he said.
Slowly, the laptop made its way round the table, two digits at a time. The solemnity of the absurd ritual almost made Sarah laugh out loud. This is what the Freemasons would be like if it was
run by computer nerds. Sarah tried to catch Rosie’s eye to see if her mocking amusement was shared, but Rosie was already craning forward as the computer moved back to Marcus, stretching
across to see at the same time as he did what came up on the screen.
There were fifteen new messages. Rosie sprang from her seat and crouched in next to Marcus where she could read them. Charlotte, then Matt, got up and came round to stand behind her. Stephen
shifted his chair a little bit closer. Only Sarah and Justin stayed where they were. Sarah tried to catch his eye in shared scepticism, but he was gazing away across the room.
In profile he was perfectly defined against the uplighters, and seemed deeply contemplative. Wise, perhaps. And he was right, wasn’t he? There were far more important things to worry
about. There was a lot Sarah could learn from him, she was sure.
But at the same time, despite her silent rage at Marcus, the glowing messages drew her in. She watched as Marcus and Rosie worked their way through them, picking out the scores. Each wrote them
down on their own piece of paper. Sarah leaned in closer. Hmm, Rosie was doing well, wasn’t she? A very generous mark from Justin.
‘The duck was not overcooked,’ Rosie said briskly as she read Marcus’s e-mail.
‘Yes, it was,’ he replied.
‘It was pink in the middle.’
‘Mine wasn’t.’
Oh God, Sarah sighed, Marcus could be such a dick sometimes. Look at that message. ‘For which points must be deducted.’ Who the hell did he think he was?
Although, actually, Charlotte had been a lot ruder in her first e-mail. Yes, she was drunk, but did she really think everyone was that boring? Sarah sneaked a look upwards. Charlotte
didn’t seem at all ashamed; she was even grinning. Sarah was surprised to find herself hurt. She had quite liked Charlotte, despite her unfortunate views. She was good company and fun, at
least; but now it turned out . . . Well, there we are. Justin was right about her as well.
The silence hardened like boiling sugar. Marcus and Rosie had totted up Rosie’s score, and Rosie looked a little disappointed before quickly hiding the emotion with a bright smile.
‘Well done, Rosie, good score,’ Marcus said, with a smirk that he didn’t try to hide. He clearly thought he was going to win.
They moved on to the second evening. Everyone, except Justin, leaned in a little closer. Marcus and Rosie again wrote down the marks independently. Marcus gave a quiet but triumphant snort as
the numbers came up short.
‘Bad luck, guys,’ he said.
Neither Charlotte nor Matt looked particularly distressed.
‘No one spotted the tart, though,’ Charlotte said.
‘What do you mean?’ Marcus asked.
‘I knew it!’’ said Rosie.
‘Ah, but you didn’t, did you? Otherwise you would have said.’
This puzzled Sarah, but no one stopped to ask what it meant because Rosie had moved on to Justin’s scores. Marcus impatiently clicked forward to his own marks.
Rosie seemed to have written quite a lot. Marcus scanned through it quickly, looking for the number.
‘What do you mean, I’m not warm enough as a host?’ he protested.
‘I’m sorry, but that’s what I think,’ Rosie said.
‘What the hell do you want, dancing? If the atmosphere was wrong, blame these guys!’ Marcus gestured dismissively towards Matt and Justin. ‘Seven! That’s absurd. What
does that even mean, “trying too hard”?’
‘Shall we look at the next e-mail?’ Rosie replied.
‘Seven! Jesus, did no one appreciate what I was trying to do?’
‘And a six and a half,’ Rosie said, not without enjoyment.
‘I might as well have just defrosted a lasagne!’
But he went quiet as they opened the last e-mail. Sarah gasped quietly as she read Charlotte’s penultimate paragraph, but Marcus scrolled quickly over it, pretending he hadn’t
noticed. Really, quite disgustingly crude, Sarah thought, as she tried to stifle a laugh.
Another seven. Rosie and Marcus both wrote it down. Marcus added the scores quickly in his head, making sure everyone noticed. He stared at them. Rosie was using the calculator on the laptop.
Marcus grabbed the computer from her and added the scores again. It came out the same.