A Bitter Feast(80)
“They’re close, aren’t they? You’re lucky to have that.” Gemma thought of all the support her friend Hazel had been to her and her kids.
“Bea and I both lost our mums. That’s how we met, you know. I came back to Evesham when my mum was ill—she had a heart condition—and got a job in a pub there. Bea was the front of house manager. After my mum died, Bea and I invested in this place. We’ve been like family ever since.”
The kitchen door opened and Kit and Ibby came out, carrying bags of rubbish to the big bin. Ibby seemed to be telling Kit a story. Kit was listening, rapt, and laughing as they went back in. He hadn’t even noticed Gemma and Viv.
“Ibby’s all right, too,” said Viv. “In spite of the attitude. He’s known Grace since she was a baby. If anything were to happen to him—” Viv balled her tissue in her fist and met Gemma’s gaze. “Gemma, who could have done such a terrible thing to Jack?”
“I’m sure that Detective Inspector Booth will find out. But these things take time. Try not to—”
But Viv was shaking her head. “I don’t feel safe here anymore. I thought I made the right choice, raising Grace on my own. Coming here. Now I wonder if any of my choices were the right ones.” Her voice rising, she went on, “I should never have agreed to the luncheon. I got greedy, thinking I could have more than this, thinking I could push my cooking up a notch, thinking maybe I could actually have a relationship with Mark. Sometimes I wonder if it was just my wanting those things that brought Fergus here.”
Before Gemma could ask what she meant, Kincaid and Colin Booth came through the archway from the car park. One look at Kincaid’s face told Gemma that the most important thing she had to do right this instant was to get him to rest. Anything else would have to wait.
Late September 2007
The next few weeks went by in a blur of long shifts and short tempers. One of the line cooks quit after Fergus had given him a royal bollocking in the middle of service, leaving Viv and Ibby to take up the slack until Fergus could hire somebody new, which he didn’t seem bothered to do. Even before that, Viv had struggled to get the kitchen running with any kind of precision again. The food was good, Fergus’s plates were exquisite, but the kitchen had lost its chemistry.
Like a cancer, the disruption spread. There was discontent in front of house. Plates were sent back by dissatisfied customers. Fights broke out among the waitstaff. Front of house got in a brawl after service one night with the crew from a neighboring restaurant, and one of their best waiters ended up in the A and E getting stitches in his head. Viv had been furious, not least because one of the waiters involved had been Ibby’s friend Danny, and for days afterwards Ibby had been impossible to work with.
She’d carried the newspaper clipping tucked into her work bag, intending to confront Fergus over it, but she was afraid if she let her anger boil over, the situation in the kitchen would become untenable. She had too much invested in this job and this place to risk losing it all. So she avoided being alone with Fergus as much as possible. She cooked, she smoothed ruffled feathers. And then she went home after service to her flat. Alone.
The days crept by towards the first week in October, and the closer it came to the release date for the Guide, the higher the tension grew in the kitchen. There was constant gossip in both front and back of house—someone knew someone who’d heard a leak—but there was no mention of O’Reilly’s.
On the morning of publication, they all gathered early in the kitchen. Fergus looked as though he might be ill, and Ibby was chewing his nails and sniping at everyone. When Viv volunteered to go to the nearest newsagent’s, no one objected.
She felt a little queasy herself as she watched the newsagent unpack the newly arrived box, then pull out and ring up her copy of the red book. Taking her package outside, she stood, watching the traffic whiz past on Edith Grove, trying to still her shaking hands. Well, it was not going to get any easier, she thought, and slid the book from its plastic bag.
She thumbed through the pages, breathing hard, despair mounting.
Then she saw it.
O’Reilly’s, Chelsea. With the distinctive red rosette. “For an innovative and beautifully presented take on traditional Irish cuisine.”
They had done it.
Her mobile rang, then rang again, but she didn’t answer. This news had to be delivered in person.
She jogged back to Phene Street, and when she reached the restaurant, she almost tumbled down the kitchen stairs. She stood in the doorway, her hands behind her back, trying to keep her poker face. They all turned to stare at her, looking stricken. Before Ibby could start to swear, she thrust the book up overhead and whooped, “We did it! We got the bloody star!”
“Jesus fecking Christ,” mumbled Fergus, looking like he might faint. Then he crossed the kitchen, grabbed her round the waist and whirled her round before kissing her soundly in front of everyone. Then he snatched the book from her hand. “Woman, did you mean to give me a heart attack?”
They all gathered round. Fergus read the entry aloud, then the book was passed reverently from hand to hand.
Lunch and dinner service passed by in a blur. Everything went exactly the way it should and Viv thought they’d never turned out more sublime food. A good thing, too, as the word had spread quickly and the house was packed, with barely a letup in midafternoon.