You Against Me

Sixteen

‘Simple things have great weight,’ Dex said as he laid out butter, milk and flour on the work surface in front of Mikey. ‘You ever think how these three ingredients make a basic white sauce, but once you have that, you can make so many other things? Mornay, for instance, or soubise.’

This was what Mikey liked about cooking – you started with something simple and you added another simple thing to it and you ended up with something new and complicated. Alchemy, Dex called it, which was something to do with magic if you were French.

Dex had asked him to make a béchamel sauce for the lasagne. It was Mikey’s favourite meal – all that pasta and cheese, and he knew Dex rated his sauce. He’d even swapped jobs with him and was now scrubbing out baking trays at the sink.

‘I made lasagne for my mum once,’ he told Dex. ‘You should have seen her face.’

‘She was proud?’

‘She was gobsmacked. She didn’t know I could do stuff like that.’

‘You have a gift, Mikey. It’s what I’m always saying.’

Mikey put butter in a pan and watched it soften, shifted it about with a wooden spoon for a bit, then sieved in an equal weight of flour and stirred. It formed into a greasy ball, slippery and hot in the pan. He added hot milk, slowly moistening the roux with it.

It was great not to have to worry about anything else but what was happening on the stove. Mikey knew that a good roux should be stiff and pull away from the sides of the pan, that an onion stuck with clove added flavour to the milk. Simple things he’d discovered.

‘I think one day you will be a saucier,’ Dex said. ‘You know this is the highest position of the station cooks?’

‘No, I don’t want to make sauces all the time. I want to be a sous-chef, in charge of the whole meal from beginning to end.’

‘Well, you must work hard then. You must practise and listen well and when the time comes, the food will tell you what your specialism is.’

Mikey laughed, because the idea of food telling him anything was amazing and ridiculous all at once. Dex chuckled too. It was great standing there together laughing.

Jacko came in then. He was carrying a pile of salad boxes and gave them both a puzzled look. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Mikey is perfecting the art of the roux,’ Dex said, and he waved the dishwashing brush at Jacko like a wand. ‘He is whisking and whisking and ignoring the ache in his hand.’

‘Well, it’s really busy out there, you know.’

‘We know,’ Dex laughed, ‘which is why we are hiding in here.’

Jacko banged the boxes down. ‘So, am I supposed to chop these lettuces all by myself?’

All morning Jacko had been edgy and Mikey knew it was his fault. He’d been late for work every day last week and Jacko had covered for him. Today, he’d even lent him the car. Mikey had thanked him, promised him a game of pool and a pint after their shift, but maybe that wasn’t enough.

‘Come and have a go, Jacko,’ he said. ‘This needs attention for a while. You do the whisking, I’ll do the lettuce if you like.’

‘No, ta.’

‘You might love it.’

‘Why would I? I don’t want to be a chef.’

Dex frowned. ‘What finer ambition is there?’

‘Plenty. There’s a whole world out there.’

‘And yet you’re still here, the longest-serving kitchen assistant we ever had.’

Mikey watched Jacko stumble for words. He knew he’d gone to the job centre loads of times in an effort to get away from the pub. He hated peeling and chopping vegetables, said the smell of cooking got under his skin. But all he’d been offered was a job stacking shelves, and the woman at the job centre had said there was competition even for that. Mikey felt sorry for Jacko suddenly, and upset to see him blushing.

‘Maybe you’ll meet a girl,’ Mikey said, ‘and she’ll look after you.’

It was meant to be kind. It was meant to make Jacko smile, so that everything could be all right between them again, but the look Jacko shot him said he hadn’t taken it that way.

‘Talking about yourself, Mikey?’

‘What are you on about?’

‘’Cos you always meet plenty of girls, don’t you?’

Mikey stopped whisking. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Jacko stepped back, hands raised as if Mikey was about to shoot him with the whisk. ‘Just saying we had a plan, remember?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘And you asked me to help you. But then you let a girl get in the way.’

‘It’s not quite that simple, is it?’

Jacko shrugged. ‘She didn’t tell you anything useful and now you’ve let another five days go by. She’s not the solution, Mikey. It seems pretty simple to me.’

‘I was busy last week.’ Mikey spoke very slowly, so Jacko would remember his mum had been AWOL and he’d had to cope with Holly and Karyn alone. ‘And I had a meeting this morning, remember? Or maybe you think I should’ve gone round his house before the meeting and kicked his face off in front of his parents?’

‘Maybe you should.’

‘Are you nuts?’

‘Boys, boys!’ Dex said. ‘Look, now you’ve brought the boss in with your noise.’

Sue stood there, arms folded, looking the three of them up and down. ‘I need a waiter.’

‘And every day I tell you, you’re looking at chefs,’ Dex told her.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I am looking at one chef, one kitchen assistant and one dishwasher.’ She took a step in and tapped Mikey on the shoulder. ‘And I think you know which of those three you are.’

Mikey shook his head at her. ‘I’ll be a rubbish waiter.’

‘You’ll get tips.’

‘I’ll drop stuff.’

‘I’ve got a shirt that’ll fit you and those trousers will have to do.’

‘But I’m in the middle of making a sauce.’

‘I’ll do you a trade. You do some waiting and I’ll turn a blind eye to your time-keeping.’

Jacko laughed as Mikey snatched the shirt and went off to change in the toilets. Sue hovered outside the door waiting for him, then took him into the bar and got him a name badge.

‘You’re called Tyler today,’ she told him.

There were loads of people in the bar area – tourists disappointed with the weather and holed up in caravans and chalets; this would be their day’s main event. One couple had wet hair from the mist, sitting together like a pair of seals, sleek heads bent over the menu. Such ordinary clean lives. It made Mikey feel entirely crap.

He wondered about his mum, whether she was awake yet, if Karyn had managed to sober her up, if Holly was enjoying school. He envied his little sister suddenly – all that glitter and finger paint and sitting about with your mates.

Sue took him with her as she went to greet a family loitering in the doorway. ‘Table for four, is it? Follow me, please.’

She led them to the back of the eating area – mum, dad, a couple of kids. Mikey trailed behind. He wondered what it would be like to be their son, their big boy, coming out with them for his lunch. But the fantasy only lasted until they’d sat down, when Sue turned to him and said, ‘I’m only going to say this once, so listen up.’

She gave them the speech about how they should help themselves from the starter bar, then go up to the carvery to get their main course and veg. ‘Tyler will look after you,’ she told them. ‘He’ll get you drinks and desserts and anything else you need.’

Mikey stood there watching them settle themselves down. They completely ignored him. The little kids fought over the free pencils and drawing booklet, the woman folded their wet coats onto the backs of their chairs and the bloke kept checking his mobile. Mikey smiled at the woman, wanted her to see he knew what an idiot her husband was. He didn’t want to be there, it was obvious. The woman smiled back. ‘What’s at the starter bar?’ she said.

The bloke picked up his menu and scanned it, like maybe he could answer the question, but Mikey jumped in first. ‘There’s different salads, melon, or hot soup.’

‘What flavour?’ the woman said.

‘I’ll find out.’

The bloke looked up. ‘Shouldn’t you know?’

He didn’t notice his wife smiling at Mikey as if she was sorry. She knows he’s a git, Mikey thought, and she wants us all to forgive him. He recognized the look from his mother’s face. She wore it whenever she got pissed and started getting nostalgic about some old boyfriend. Mikey wished he could gob in the soup. And that would just be for starters.

Back in the kitchen he envied Jacko, sweating now from the ovens, turning the parsnips off their baking tray, emptying steaming piles of peas into bowls. Dex was sprinkling cheese over the finished lasagne. It was familiar in here.

‘How’s the real world?’ Jacko asked.

‘Full of tossers.’

‘Could have told you that.’

Which was a small moment of warmth.

Maybe Mikey had been imagining the bad vibes, maybe everything was still OK between them. Just to check, he said, ‘I’m going to get the bastard, you know. I promised Karyn and I haven’t given up on it.’

Jacko shrugged. ‘You need to hurry up, that’s all I’m saying, or it’ll never be done.’

He made it sound as if he was in charge, as if Mikey hadn’t spent days churning all the details round in his head.

‘All right,’ Mikey said, ‘what about Saturday?’

Jacko nodded. ‘I’m up for that.’

‘We both get a half day. We’ll do the golf-club thing.’

They high-fived to seal the deal. Mates again.