The Dish (22 page)

The palate part’s fine: I eat a lot, I think
about food and read about it a lot.

The being secretive part I’ve always found tough – particularly these last three weeks.

The memory part can be tricky. I don’t take notes or photos. It draws attention, but it’s more than that. Call me a grouch but I think interrupting your meal to adjust your Bratwurst for Instagram, like some culinary Terry Richardson, is rude to your fellow diners, plus
it puts a filter between you and the experience. (It reminds me of when Dad and I went to see the ‘Mona Lisa’ and all I saw was a swarm of iPhones.) So I don’t drink on the job – sure, it enhances your enjoyment, but it clouds your brain; try remembering which five micro leaves were in your starter when you’re halfway past pudding and two bottles of red.

But the hardest part? It’s also the most
fun part: bread. Trying to describe bread in a new way every time is not a piece of cake. And I always eat the bread because if you can’t get your bread right, you probably can’t get your ballotine or your en cocotte right. You have to think pretty hard how to describe the texture of the inside of a roll for the 150th time.

So after I’ve cleared it with Roger, I divert my phone and hop on the
Tube to Edgware Road.

‘Back again?’ says our waiter from Sunday, as I walk into Darband after the lunchtime rush. Two old men sit silently smoking shisha pipes by the window, their strawberry smoke mingling, not unpleasantly, with the smell of chargrilled meat.

‘I’ve come to ask you a small favour.’

‘You want the recipe for the bread?’ He shakes his head. ‘Family secret.’

‘I wondered if I
could watch you making it?’

He looks at me like I’m some sort of gluten pervert, then shrugs.

‘Nima – show the lady the bread!’ he shouts to the cook standing in a grease-stained apron in the small open kitchen.

The chef takes a springy dough ball from a selection resting under a tea towel, dips one side in poppy seeds, then rolls it on the floured counter till it’s barely a millimetre thick.
He grabs an oversized flattened pincushion from under the counter and delicately drapes the tissue-thin dough over it, then turns to the clay oven, an Ali Baba style pot with a circular opening at the top, a fiery furnace below. With one hand he takes the dough-draped cushion and thwaps it hard against the inside wall, so the dough sticks to the pot like a cartoon character who’s just run into
a wall. He whips away the cushion and the bread stays happily stuck to the side of the baking hot clay for thirty seconds, at which point he plucks it out and brushes it with melted butter.

He gestures for me to sit while he slides the giant circle on to a plate, prepares a small side dish of yoghurt, another of radishes, and pours me a fresh mint lemonade.

The waiter watches from the corner
with quiet satisfaction as I tuck in.

‘So what
is
in it?’ I say.

He laughs. ‘Flour, water, poppy seed and nafas.’

‘Is that a spice? Like sumac?’

‘Nafas? We put it in all our food, but you don’t buy it, you create it. The word means breath . . . but more than that, it is a quality, like love or soul. You can taste it, can’t you?’

I finish the last bite and take a fiver from my wallet.

He
shakes his head. ‘It’s on the house.’

‘I insist.’

‘And I insist,’ he says sternly. ‘Today you are my guest – tomorrow I may be yours.’

Now
that’s
what I call good service.

Back in the office it’s still a ghost town, so I set to work thinking about how best to describe the bread. Its surface is cratered and dimpled like the moon, but coloured in shades of cream and brown, and pockets of charcoal.
Its texture is three different things simultaneously, chew and crunch and soft, like a great southern Italian pizza, but without that small millimetre of slightly wet dough you get at the front of your teeth when you bite into it.

Sandra reappears from upstairs at 5.30 p.m., and gives me a suspicious look. For the next two hours she sits, twitching and occasionally looking over her monitor to
see if I’m making any attempt to move. It will physically pain her to go home before me – she would rather sleep in her chair. She wins – at 7.45 p.m. I realise I’m hungry again. I email the document to myself so I can carry on at home. I’ve finished Darband, and am halfway through writing up the old Thai café near Wormwood Scrubs prison with the amazing papaya salad!

As I shut down my computer
and say goodbye, a flicker
of relief passes over her face.

There’s been a constant stream of visitors to Roger’s office all day – but at 5 p.m., I seize the opportunity of a gap in his schedule, arm myself with two cups of tea and find myself hovering on the threshold of his doorway.

‘Parker, am I supposed to be somewhere?’ He looks up wearily.

‘Have you got a minute?’ I say, biting the inside of my cheek as I notice the wall behind him. April’s
page layouts are up and my two pages have now been typeset and pinned in pride of place behind Roger’s head. The photo of the toilet has been dropped in and the designer has pulled out a quote in bold next to it: ‘
GREED, PRETENSION, VULGARITY
.’ It’s not exactly ambiguous.

‘Looking good, isn’t it?’ he says, proudly. ‘And for a headline Kiki’s suggested “Bog Standard” or “Nightmare on Eel Street”,
though how about “Flash In The Pan”?’

‘Very good,’ I say, taking a deep breath. ‘Roger: I wanted to ask your advice.’

‘Ooh, I like giving advice. A bit like an insult, more fun outbound than in.’ He holds his palm out for me to take a seat.

‘OK. So the thing is, the night we went to LuxEris, I’m almost positive Adam wasn’t on the pass, and I think his sous-chef mucked up the entire meal.’

‘OK.’

‘Adam cooked for me at the weekend and I’m convinced he’s hugely talented, is a perfectionist to the point of being anally retentive, and that the night we ate there was an anomaly.’

Roger says nothing, but turns to look at the layout behind him.

‘And I’m aware I have a personal relationship with him,’ I say, blushing. ‘And I’m even more aware heaven and earth have been moved to give me
extra space which I’ll need to fill.’

‘Keep talking.’

‘And I’ll pay for it myself, but I think the food deserves a second chance. Not the toilet, not the pricing, just the food, because it’s his reputation on the line, but it’s also mine.’ Please, please, please . . .

Roger closes his eyes briefly, then opens them and smiles gently. ‘The thing about advice is, no one ever actually listens to
it, do they?’

‘I’m asking because your opinion matters to me more than anything. If you think I’m doing a Fergus . . . thinking with my penis . . .’

‘If you do have a penis, perhaps you’d like to write about it for May’s issue?’

‘If you think I’m letting my feelings cloud my judgement, please say, because I don’t want to do a Fergus. But I think this scenario is different. And if the food is
terrible second time around I’ll say it is, Roger, I won’t fudge it.’

‘Laura – I worked with your mother for a decade, I’ve worked with you for nearly half – you’re cut from the same cloth.’

‘And we can also run the noodle bar copy which is done, and fill the space with one of these?’ I say, handing him my work. ‘The Persian’s the strongest.’

He gives the pages a glance. ‘Laura, I’m sure these
are good. Regardless: my advice is to sleep on it. What you’ve written,’ he points behind him, ‘is the most original copy you’ve done – it’s powerful, it’s sharp and it has impact. I can see you’re worked up about this, but I would take a moment to consider what you’re throwing away here.’

‘OK . . . and I’ll come back to you tomorrow?’

‘Make it Friday, tomorrow’s wall-to-wall turkeys.’

I do
the calculations: I don’t want to revisit on a busy Friday or Saturday. They’re shut Sunday, so Monday.

‘If I do go back—’

‘Don’t ask me to come with you,’ he says, half-smiling.

‘Please?’

He buries his head in his hands. ‘I must have done something truly terrible in a former life.’

‘Thank you, Roger,’ I say, getting up to leave. ‘Oh – by the way, how was your seminar?’

He brings his hand
to his throat and pretends to choke himself.

‘As good as that?’ I say. ‘And golf, on Monday?’

His smile remains on his face but I can see it’s being held up.

He nods, and I nod back. His nod seems to say:
some secrets are secrets for a good reason.

‘Hey babe, you’re home,’ says Amber as I walk in and find her lying on her yoga mat wearing a pink vest and a silver thong. Annalex, also in a
pink vest which says ‘Downward Dog’, sits by her feet, occasionally licking one of Amber’s tangerine-painted toenails.

‘How was your day?’ I say, kneeling to pet Annalex. She looks at me plaintively from under furry grey brows, as though she’s scared that one day Amber will humiliate her further by dressing her in a matching dog-thong.

‘Exhaustifying.’ Amber rolls on to her stomach and stretches
out her arms like Superman. ‘I had a meeting at Berners Tavern for like two whole hours. Then I had to pop to my atelier, then I saw my therapist,’ she says, her perfect mouth forming a pout.

‘And?’ I stay standing. If I dare sit Amber will have me trapped for the evening.

‘She thinks the whole argument was because Mark can’t express his hurt child.’

‘I thought Mark had a hissy fit because
you broke his juicer?’

‘She says I need to visualise everything I want Mark to say – and then it will happen.’

‘Is that so?’ I say, nodding in wonder at how Amber’s therapist manages to squeeze Amber like an orange for £150 an hour in pursuit of Amber’s Higher Purpose. I wonder if her methods work for the Grand National?

‘Everything happens for a reason,’ says Amber sagely, as if this is the
first time she’s used this phrase, rather than the first time she’s used it tonight. She rolls herself up from the mat in one elegant curl, scoops Annalex under one toned arm and heads for the bathroom.

The only time Amber and I ever had an actual argument was when we were watching footage of a typhoon a few years back. The reporter had done the dummies’ guide to what causes cyclones and then
the footage had switched to heart-breaking images of crying orphans. The death toll was in the thousands and Amber had piously said, ‘Everything happens for a reason.’

‘What possible reason would that be?’

‘It’s too early to tell.’

‘Amber, you just heard them say it happened because of atmospheric pressure in the North Sea. That’s the
reason
.’

‘
Everything happens for a reason
means it’ll turn
out for the best.’

‘It is often used in that way, but it’s not what those words literally mean.’

‘Laura, it
will
have a Higher Purpose.’

I’d pointed at the woman on the screen standing in wreckage, tears streaming down her face. ‘Tell
her
about your Higher Purpose.’

‘
Everything happens for a reason
means make the best of the situation.’

‘It doesn’t. What those words literally mean is: causes
make things happen: you drop a glass and break it because your hand is slippery, not because God wants you to have better glassware.’

‘No, babe, er, no.’

‘OK, take us: the
reason
I live with you is
because
my old flatmate sold her flat.’

‘That’s so simplistic: a Higher Purpose is at work. People enter your life for a reason, a season, a lifetime . . .’

Seriously? Mum died, Tom ran off with
whore-face and I abandoned my career so I could end up in your shoe cupboard hiding a toaster in my wardrobe? Please don’t tell me
that
is part of a cosmic master plan.

‘Babe, I guess some people are just more spiritual than others.’

You can’t stay irritated with people for long though; certainly not the ones you have to live with, so now, anytime Amber says ‘everything happens for a reason’,
I just let those words wash over me like one of her Moroccan Rose Oil mist sprays that hovers in the bathroom air long after she’s finished spritzing.

When I get into bed later, I think about the reason Adam’s path crossed mine . . .

Is he the one?

Is the universe finally compensating me for a decade of heartache?

Is life showing me that good things can happen to good(ish) people, and that
I am actually one of those girls who it
does
work out for?

No. Adam’s path crossed mine because I was trying to lay my hands on a custard doughnut. Mind you, if that’s not a Higher Purpose I don’t know what is.

‘
Bellissima!
’ says Fabrizio, as he kisses me hello and circles his finger in the air for me to do a twirl. ‘You have a quiet afternoon?’

‘Yeah, I’m meeting a friend here.’

‘Man friend?’ he says, sniffing the air.

‘The one who made that pastry I gave you.’

His eyes widen. ‘My God, I forgot, I was so angry last Friday, three customers busting my balls about wait time – if you want shit
coffee, visit the Albanian!’ (Fabrizio is at war with a café round the corner that sells muddy brown liquid and cinnamon-caramel chai lattes.) ‘I wrap the pastry in tissue and leave it under the counter and I only find it again on Monday, when I think – pastry, three days old? Should go in the bin.’ He shrugs.

‘You threw it away?’

‘No – but only because I always check, maybe the smell is OK
– I smell, actually is OK so I eat.’

‘And?’

‘Eh, Madonna!’ he says, patting his heart. ‘Is like . . .’ His eyes narrow as he tries to pin down the thought. ‘Is like the
most
beautiful crispy, light pastry, like . . . like
una sfogliatella pero’ non dolce con, all’interno, una fantastica sorpresa
. . .’

‘Slow down, Fab, you’ve gone into Italian.’

‘
Allora
, OK, is . . . light, but not light like
a feather, ah, in Italian there is a word but in English?’ he says, pointing to the sky. ‘The guy who made it: he’s an Italian?’