Don't You Forget About Me Read online

  ‘Sure,’ he’d said, with a look and a smile that got me right in the heart and groin.

  I was so excited I was almost floating: I know the exact day I’m going to lose my virginity, and it’s going to be with him.

  I’d gone to the Holiday Inn earlier that day, checked in, left some things, gazed at the double bed in wonder, come back and reminded my indifferent parents I was staying at Jo’s. Luckily my sister was away, as Esther could smell a fib of mine a mile off.

  The party was in a plastic shamrock Irish pub in the city centre, a function room with a trestle table full of beige food and troughs of cheap booze in plastic bins, filled to the brim with ice that would soon melt into a swamp.

  It was strange, both Lucas and I being there, knowing the intimacy that was planned afterwards, but pretending to be distant to each other. I caught sight of him across the room, in a black corduroy shirt, sipping from a can of lager. We shared an imperceptible nod.

  Up until now, keeping our involvement to ourselves had felt pragmatic. Tonight though, it finally felt off. What was there to hide? Did it imply shame, whether we meant it to or not? Would he rather have been open? Was it an insult he had tacitly accepted?

  I was a little anguished, but we’d set a course we had to sail now. I could raise it later. Later. I could barely believe it’d arrive. My head swam.

  I was drinking cider and black, too fast: I could feel my inhibitions dissolving in its acidic fizzle. Richard – now, Rick, I’d learned – Hardy said: ‘You look fit.’ I quivered, murmured thanks. ‘Like a high class prozzy with a heart of gold. That’s your “look”, right?’

  ‘Hahaha,’ I said, while everyone fell about. This was grown-up banter and I was lucky to be part of it.

  As the evening wore on, I felt like I was in a circle of light and laughter, among the halo-ed ones, and I didn’t know why I’d underestimated myself until now. I mean, OK I was inebriated, but suddenly, being liked seemed a total cinch.

  Jo and I shared a wondering look with each other: could school really be over? We’d survived? And we were going out on a high?

  ‘Hey, George.’

  Rick Hardy beckoned me over. He was calling me George, now?! Oh, I had truly cracked this thing. He was leaning against a wall by a bin of tins, with the usual gaggle of sycophants around him. Rumours were he wasn’t going to bother with university: his band was getting ‘big label interest’.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ he said.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Not here.’

  Rick unstuck himself from the wall in one sinuous, nascent rock star move, and handed his drink to an admirer. He outstretched a palm and gestured for mine – I could feel multiple pairs of eyes swivel towards us – and said: ‘Come with me.’

  In surprise, I put my drink down with a bump, put my hand into his and let him lead me through the throng. My bets were on either a new car or a large spliff. I could style either out.

  I glanced over at Lucas to reassure him this wasn’t anything, obviously. He gave me the exact same look as when I’d first been sat next to him.

  How badly are you going to hurt me?

  1

  Now

  ‘And the soup today is carrot and tomato,’ I conclude, with a perky note of ta-dah! flourish that orange soup doesn’t justify.

  (‘Is carrot and tomato soup even a thing?’ I said to head chef Tony, as he poked a spoon into a cauldron bubbling with ripe vegetal odours. ‘It is now, Tinkerbell tits.’ I don’t think Tony graduated from the Roux Academy. Or the charm academy.)

  In truth, I put a bit of flair into the performance for my own sake, not the customers’. I am not merely a waitress, I’m a spy from the world of words, gathering material. I watch myself from the outside.

  The disgruntled middle manager-type man with a depressed-looking wife scans the laminated options at That’s Amore! The menu is decorated with clip art of the leaning tower of Pisa, a fork twirling earthworms, and a Pavarotti who looks like the Sasquatch having a stroke.

  He booked as Mr Keith, which sounded funny to me although there’s an actress called Penelope Keith so it shouldn’t really.

  ‘Carrot and tomato? Oh no. No, I don’t think so.’

  Me either.

  ‘What do you recommend?’

  I hate this question. An invitation to perjury. Tony has told me: ‘Push spaghetti vongole on the specials, the clams aren’t looking too clever.’

  What I recommend is the Turkish place, about five minutes away.

  ‘How about the arrabiata?’

  ‘Is that spicy? I don’t like heat.’

  ‘Slightly spicy but quite mild, really.’

  ‘What’s mild to you might not be mild to me, young lady!’

  ‘Why ask for my recommendations then?’ I mutter, under my breath.

  ‘What?’

  I grit-simper. An important skill to master, the grit-simper. I bend down slightly, hands on knees, supplicant.

  ‘… Tell me what you like.’

  ‘I like risotto.’

  Maybe you could just choose the risotto then, am I over thinking this?

  ‘… But it’s seafood,’ he grimaces. ‘Which seafood is it?’

  It’s in Tupperware with SEA FOOD marker penned on it and looks like stuff you get as bait in angling shops.

  ‘A mixture. Clams … prawns … mussels …’

  I take the order for carbonara with a sinking heart. This man has Strident Feedback written all over him and this place gives both the discerning and the undiscerning diner plenty to go at.

  Here’s what some of TripAdvisor’s current top-rated comments say about That’s Amore!

  This place redefines dismal. The garlic bread was like someone found a way to put bad breath on toast, though they’re right, it did complement the pâté perfectly, which tasted like it had been made from a seafront donkey. The house white is Satan’s sweat. I saw a chef who looked like a dead Bee Gee scratching his crown jewels when the door to the kitchen was ajar, so I left before they could inflict the main course on me. Sadly, I will never know if the Veal Scallopini would’ve turned it all around. But the waiter promised me everything was ‘locally sourced and free range’ so there’s probably a Missing Cat poster somewhere nearby if you follow my drift

  Admittedly I was stoned out of my gourd on my first and last visit to this hell hole, but what the f**k is ‘Neepsend Prawn’? This city is not known for its coastline. I would have the Pollo alla Cacciatora at this restaurant as my Death Row meal, in the sense it would really take the sting out of what was to come

  I told the owner of That’s Amore! that it was the worst Bolognese I’d ever tasted, like mince with ketchup. He said it was the way his Nonna made it in her special recipe, I said in that case his ‘Nonna’ couldn’t cook & he accused me of insulting his family! I’m not being funny but he looked about as Italian as Boris Becker

  That’s Shit more like

  2

  ‘When did you know you wanted to be a waitress?’ Callum, my only colleague front-of-house says, trying to swill an Orangina in a cowboy manner, re-screwing the cap with a sense of manly purpose.

  He has a shadowy moustache, armpit sweat rings and his only hobby and/or interest is the gym, doing classes called things like Leg Death. I often fear he’s trying to flirt. I pitch my tone with him as very ‘older sister’ to discourage it.

  ‘Uhm … I wouldn’t say I wanted to do this. Or want to do this.’

  ‘Oh. Right. How old are you, again?’ Callum says.

  Callum, being a not-that-sharp twenty-two-year-old, doesn’t realise when his thought processes are fully evident. He once mentioned to me that the step machine was great ‘even for people a stone, or a stone and a half over their ideal weight’.

  ‘Thirty,’ I say, as he double-takes.

  ‘Woah!’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No I mean you don’t look that old. You look, like … twenty-eight.’

  Lately, I am f
eeling the fact that I used to be ‘of ages’ with people I worked with in the service industry, but increasingly I am a grande dame. The thought makes my stomach pucker like an old football. The future is a place I try not to think about.

  When I took the job at That’s Amore! I was a month behind with my rent and told myself that it was retro, with dripping candles in Chianti bottles in wicker baskets, red-and-white-check wipe-down tablecloths, plastic grape vine across the bar, and Italian Classic Love Songs: Vol 1 on the stereo.

  ‘Why don’t you get a proper job?’ Mum said. I explained for the millionth time I am a writer in waiting who needs to earn money, and if I get a proper job then that’s it, proper job forever. Somewhere in the back of a wardrobe, I have my old sixth form yearbook. I was voted Most Likely To Go Far and Most Likely To Get A First. I have made it as far as the shittest trattoria in Sheffield, and I quit my degree after one term. But apart from that, spot on.

  ‘You’re going to be a very old waitress without a pension,’ Mum replied.

  My sister, Esther, said supportively: ‘Thank God no one I know goes there.’

  Joanna said: ‘Isn’t That’s Amore! the one that had the norovirus outbreak a year back?’

  Having sampled the ‘rustic homely fare’, I’m not sure that norovirus wasn’t unfairly scapegoated.

  Now, I could take a lump hammer to the looping CD. I want the moon to hit Dean Martin in the eye like Mike Tyson.

  It turns out my role is less a waitress, more an apologist for gastronomic terrorism. I’m a mule, shuttling the criminal goods from kitchen to table and acting innocent when questioned.

  They told me that a free lunch was a perk of my meagre wage, and I soon discovered that’s an up-side like getting a ride on an inflatable slide if your plane crashes.

  What really sticks in the craw is that, due to a combination of confused pensioners, masochists, students attracted by the early bird ‘toofer’ deal, and out of towners, That’s Amore! turns a profit.

  The owner, a really grouchy man known only as ‘Beaky’, claims Mediterranean heritage ‘on my mama’s side’ but looks and sounds totally Sheffield. He comes in every so often to swill the grappa and empty the till, and is happy to let it lurch onward with Tony as de facto boss.

  Tony, a wiry chain smoker with a wispy mullet, is tolerable if you handle him right, meaning, accept his word is God, ignore the lechery and remind yourself it’s getting paid that matters.

  Tonight isn’t too busy, and after bussing the mains to the lucky recipients, I sip a glass of water and check my frazzled reflection in the stainless steel of the Gaggia machine.

  A call from across the room.

  ‘Excuse me? Excuse me …!’

  I assemble my features into a neutral-interested expression as Mr Keith beckons me over, even though I know exactly what’s coming. He picks up his fork and drops it back down into the congealed, grout-coloured sludge of the carbonara.

  ‘This is inedible.’

  ‘I am sorry. What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘What’s right with it? It tastes like feet. It’s lukewarm.’

  ‘Would you like something else?’

  ‘Well, no. I chose carbonara as that was the dish I wanted to eat. I’d like this, please, but edible.’

  I open and close my mouth as I don’t know what the fix for that is other than firing Tony, changing every supplier and razing That’s Amore! to the ground.

  ‘It’s obviously been sat around while you made my wife’s risotto.’

  I’d make no such wild guesses, as the truth is bound to be worse.

  ‘Shall I get the kitchen to make you another?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ the man says, handing it up to me.

  I explain the situation to Tony, who never seems to mind customers saying his cooking is rank. I wish he would take it personally, standards might improve.

  He takes a catering bag of parmesan shavings out, flings some more on to the dish, stirs it around and puts it in the microwave for two minutes. It pings, and he pulls it out.

  ‘Count to fifty and give him this. The mouth will taste what the mind is told to,’ he taps his forehead. I can’t help think if it was that easy, That’s Amore! would have a Michelin star instead of a single star rating average on TripAdvisor.

  Thing is, I’d argue with Tony he should whip up a replacement, but it’ll be just as bad as this one.

  I sag with embarrassment. My life so far feels like one long exercise in blunting my nerve endings.

  Having waited a short while to reinforce the illusion, I march the offending pasta through the swing doors.

  ‘Here you are, sir,’ I say, doing the Basil Fawlty-ish grit-simper again as I set it down, ‘I do apologise.’

  The man stares at the plate and I’m very grateful for the distraction of an elderly couple in the doorway who need greeting and seating.

  With crushing inevitability, as soon as I’ve done this, Mr Keith beckons me back. I have to leave. I have to leave. Just get past this month’s rent first. And booking that week in Crete with Robin, if I can persuade him to it.

  ‘This is the same dish. As in the one I sent back.’

  ‘Oh, no?’ I pantomime surprise, shaking my head emphatically, ‘I asked the chef to replace it.’

  ‘It’s the same plate.’ The man points to a nick in the patterned china. ‘That was there before.’

  ‘Uhm … he maybe did a new carbonara and used the same plate?’

  ‘He made another lot of food, scraped the old pasta into the bin, washed the plate, dried it, and re-used it? Why wouldn’t you use a different plate? Are you short on plates?’

  The whole restaurant is listening. I have nothing to say.

  ‘Let’s be hard-nosed realists. This is the last one, reheated.’

  ‘I’m sure the chef cooked another one.’

  ‘Are you? Did you see him do it?’

  The customer might be right, but right now I still hate him.

  ‘I didn’t, but … I’m sure he did.’

  ‘Get him out here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get the chef out here to explain himself.’

  ‘Oh … he’s very busy at the stove at the moment.’

  ‘No doubt, given his odd propensity for doing the washing up at the same time.’

  My grit-simper has gone full Joker rictus.

  ‘I will wait here until he has a few minutes free to talk me through why I have been served the same sub-par sloppy glooch and lied to about it.’

  Glooch. Good word. Just my luck to get the articulate kind of hostile patron.

  I head back into the kitchen and say to Tony: ‘He wants to speak to you. The man with the carbonara. He says he can see it’s the same one as it’s on the same plate.’

  Tony is in the middle of frying a duck breast, turning it with tongs. I say duck. If any pet shops have been burgled recently, it could be parrot.

  ‘What? Tell him to piss off, who is he, Detective …’ he pauses, ‘… Plate?’

  In a battle of wits between Detective Plate and Tony, my money is on the former.

  ‘You’re the serving staff, deal with it. Not my area.’

  ‘You gave me the same dish! What am I supposed to do when he can tell?!’

  ‘Charm him. That’s what you’re meant to be, isn’t it? Charming,’ he looks me up and down, in challenge.

  Classic Tony: packing passive aggression, workplace bullying and leering sexism into one instruction.

  ‘I can’t tell him his own eyes aren’t working! We should’ve switched the plates.’

  ‘Fuck a duck,’ Tony says, taking a tea towel over his shoulder and throwing it down. ‘Fuck this duck, it’ll be carbon.’

  Complaining about the effect on the quality of the cuisine is a size of hypocrisy that can only be seen from space.

  He snaps the light off under the pan and smashes dramatically through the doors, saying, ‘Which one?’ I don’t think this pugilistic attitude bodes well.


  I Gollum my way past Tony and lead him to the relevant table, while making diplomatic, soothing noises.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ Tony booms, hands on hips in his not-that-white chef’s whites.

  ‘This is the problem,’ Mr Keith says, picking up his fork and dropping it again in disgust. ‘How can you think this is acceptable?’

  Tony boggles at him. ‘Do you know what goes into a carbonara? This is a traditional Italian recipe.’

  ‘Eggs and parmesan, is it not? This tastes like Dairylea that’s been sieved through a wrestler’s jockstrap.’

  ‘Oh sorry, I didn’t realise you were a restaurant critic.’

  Tony must be wildly high on his last Embassy Regal to be this rude to a customer.

  ‘You don’t need to be A.A. Gill to know this is atrocious. However, since you’ve raised it, I am reviewing you tonight for The Star, yes.’

  Tony, already pale thanks to a diet of fags and Greggs bacon breakfast rolls, becomes perceptibly paler.

  If this wasn’t a crisis and wildly unprofessional, I’d laugh. I pretend to rub my face thoughtfully to staunch the impulse.

  ‘Would you prefer something else, then?’ Tony says.

  Tony folds his arms and jerks his head towards me as he says this, and I know in the kitchen I’m going to get a bollocking along the lines of COULD YOU NOT HAVE HANDLED THAT YOURSELF.

  ‘Not really, last time I asked for you to replace my meal you reheated it. Am I going to be seeing this excrescence a third time?’

  I notice Mrs Keith looks oddly calm, possibly grateful someone else is catching it from him instead. Unless she’s a fake wife, a critic’s stooge.

  ‘I thought you wanted it warmer?’

  ‘Yes, a warmer replacement meal, not this gunk again.’

  Tony turns to me: ‘Why didn’t you tell me he wanted a new dish?’

  I frown: ‘Er, I did …?’

  ‘No, you said to warm it up.’