Just Desserts

�Just Desserts� is a tale very much in the vein of Roald Dahl's short stories. It is an exercise in confounding the reader�s expectations � leading them up the garden path � before the final �reveal�. Importantly though, the tale does not have any tricks

Just Desserts

By A.J Kirby

 

 

The restaurant Forty-Eight perched right in the middle of the city’s spice rack of eateries; a street known as ‘Eat Street’. No expense had been spared in the purchase of the ingredients which comprised the opulent frontage, stylish interior and majestic kitchens. The restaurant’s PR budget had been huge, a starred chef had been hired, and the menu painstakingly determined. But something was missing; the cherry on the cake was still to be applied. They needed the reviewer to visit and give his stamp of approval, or otherwise. 

A thumbs-up from the reviewer was worth its weight in gold. Aspirant restaurateurs would quite happily have allowed him to sleep with their virgin daughters in order to gain his endorsement. But which of their lone-dining businessmen that evening was the reviewer? To which of that group of boisterous young gents should they offer this different kind of dessert? Or maybe the reviewer was a woman, that one in the corner who ate the lobster so cruelly as though performing a dissection. For the reviewer famously visited the restaurants in disguise; or rather, he wore a cloak of anonymity which meant that he could pen the most realistic reviews.

Free from fear of reprisals because of his mysterious identity, the reviewer had made his name by lacing his reviews with the bitter taste of contempt. His technique was to brutally slice and dice the pretentious surroundings by which the restaurant hoped to make itself stand out from the crowd. He would ridicule little brasseries for their delusions of grandeur. He would antagonise the larger restaurant chains as factories of mass-produced rubbish. He liberally sprinkled into his reviews a snooty disregard for the competencies of the waiting staff who took his orders, and he applied a curmudgeonly meat tenderiser of criticism to their finely presented starters. Everything was offered up for his distain- his coup de grace was often using his words like a cleaver to slash open the chef’s heart on a plate. Figuratively, of course.

His was a reign of terror which ruined many a young man’s lofty ambition, which melted away the ice-sculpture of many a well-wrought dream. They knew he was coming. They knew he was coming.

 

The reviewer was known to slip unnoticed into places such as the brasserie that night; he was famed for melting into the atmosphere, for blending in so that even the most attentive of waiting staff would accidentally ignore him. Could he be this man in a simple grey suit, buttoned up tight against the wind which has whipped his hair up like a soufflé? This fat man with an almost impenetrable facial expression? Could it be this man who walks down the street clutching the hand of his wife in his chubby hands, almost dragging her along? He is certainly suitably nondescript; fat would be the only suitable word for him. Well, fat, and maybe grey. As is his companion; effortlessly you would guess her profession as Librarian. She looks as though she spends too much time in the grey indoors. They walk greyly past the feathered plumages of the young night-owls of the city, keeping their heads down, not speaking. Yes, this is the kind of man that could be our reviewer. And he leads his wife into Forty-Eight on its third night of existence.

“Welcome to Forty-Eight. Can I take your names, Sir?” says the pretty girl who is marking names off a list at a lectern by the front door. She is wearing a stylish black dress, but rather too much make-up.

“Of course; Barrow. Mr and Mrs Will Barrow; we have a reservation for eight.”

The girl stifles a smile, eyes dart to the floor in embarrassment.

“Will Barrow?” she repeats, purposefully elongating the vowel in the man’s first-name. Making it sound like wheelbarrow.

“I’m on your list…” He leans over the lectern himself now, pushing her out of the way with his flabby belly. He’s studying the list of names too, managing to note three or four local celebrities before she finally picks out his name, smudging some of the writing with her sweaty hand.

“Ah, of course. We have a lovely little table for you; overlooking the river,” she smiles again. It is almost like a nervous twitch.

“Overlooking the bins, you mean,” he says, coldly.

“Um… we have to have bins Sir. Would you prefer it if we found somewhere else for you?”

“That would be acceptable,” he agrees, turning to his companion and shaking his head wearily. His double-chin wobbles in agreement.

“Would you like me to take your coat, Sir?” She has now, apparently, given up all attempts to smile.

“No thank you,” says Mr Will Barrow. “I am a little cold tonight, and would prefer to be comfortable….”

The pretty girl’s eyes have already drifted away.

“…Uh, excuse me, but my wife would like you to take hers… And please be careful with it, its very expensive.”

The girl nods wearily. “Of course,” she says. “Would you like to take a seat at the bar while we get your table ready?”

Mr Barrow raises his eyes to the ceiling and waits as the girl manipulates his wife’s arms, tugging them through clinging sleeves. Then he strolls into the bar area, nose in the air as though sniffing out his prey.

           

The girl carefully places the coat on a hanger in the cloak-room; she then stealthily slips her hand into both pockets, searching. The pockets are empty though, and she stands hands on hips, thinking for a moment.

“Michelle; is it him?” Another person has joined her in the cloak-room; one of the Kitchen Porters. He is wearing a white lab-coat which is soaking wet down the front.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell… He’s certainly an arsehole,” she mutters.

“Yeah, but our guy is not just an arsehole. He’s an arsehole which is ready and willing to s**t all over this place,” the Kitchen Porter hisses.

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Nobody knows what he looks like. He goes incognito. But watch this guy. If it’s him, he’ll carefully select the most difficult dishes from the menu, at the busiest possible time, and see how you cope…  And he’ll pay. He always pays. Otherwise it affects the honesty of his review.”

“Well, looks like Mark’s got to deal with them now… They’re waiting for a different table in the bar. And Jed; I think his wife’s drunk…”

“I don’t blame her,” said Jed, before swinging back through into the kitchen.

 

Mr and Mrs Will Barrow sit, knees awkwardly bumping against those of another couple on the too-low settee opposite. The other couple are writhing in an all-too-public display of affection. Mr Barrow hardly masks his sneer. Mrs Will Barrow, meanwhile, absent-mindedly fiddles with the wooden apples in a bowl on a small, pointless table to her right. This means that she is turned half-away from her husband’s bulk, as though giving him the cold shoulder. Finally, she picks up one of the wooden apples and begins to study it with childish wonder, before turning to show it to the Mr Barrow.

“Look; they’ve spelled the eight in forty-eight like ‘ate’; that’s clever isn’t it?”

“No, Eileen,” he snaps. “That is not clever; that is tacky and crass, just like this entire place. No table ready for us? Oh dear, oh dear.”

“Please don’t be like that,” she hissed. “You promised that we’d just have a nice meal. You said that we’d talk… we’d enjoy food for once.”

The other couple, sitting opposite, manage to break off their near-copulation on the settee to glance over at the funny grey couple who are clearly bickering.

“No, I am not,” he breathes. “Just drink your wine.”

And drink her wine she does. She had hardly even put the glass down anyway. There was nowhere to put it; ornaments littered the glass table. She could, perhaps, have rested it on the woman’s knee, opposite. Maybe the woman wouldn’t have even noticed.

“The white wine is a pleasure to the taste-buds. It tickles your tonsils as it slips gracefully down the throat,” says Mrs Will Barrow, but there is nothing graceful about the way she pours it down the gaping chasm that is her mouth.

“Can you not behave yourself?” he snarls, gripping her arm forcefully, digging his long fingernails into her bare skin a little harder than is necessary.

“No; I clearly cannot,” she smiles, girlishly. “And that’s why we never go anywhere any more. I’m only having a bit of fun with you. You talk that way sometimes, you know.”

Eileen front- crawls to her feet, ascending from the depths of the sofa as though swimming from the bottom of a swimming pool. Then, without a word, she totters towards the bar, clutching her handbag like it was one of those polystyrene floats. Mark, the barman is an adept lifeguard though, and anticipates her desperate thrashings quite brilliantly. He has already popped the cork of a second bottle of wine, and is pouring two glasses. The wine slips into the glasses like a discarded silk scarf sliding sensually to the floor. Mrs Barrow watches in rapture as the barman free-pours it to exactly meet the line on the glass. She claps her hands together, and exclaims: “Lovely!” And then she navigates those rough seas back to the settees with far more poise.

            The pretty girl from the front of house is waiting for her at the settees. She is inviting the other couple to their table. Mr Will Barrow is not impressed. He too is now standing, shaking his head. The pretty girl runs her hand through her scraped-back hair, as if trying to soothe a head-ache.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but this couple have been waiting for longer than you.”

“…waiting for how long, exactly?” says Mr Barrow, loudly, moving closer to the girl, as though in threat.

“Well, for about half-an-hour... don’t worry, your own table will be ready soon. Mark will prepare you another drink whenever you wish. On the house, of course.”

“Look,” interrupts the man from the other couple, finally managing to unlock his mouth from his partners’ for long enough to speak. “Feel free to take this table. My girlfriend and I are quite happy enjoying a leisurely drink in the bar.”

“Like they do in France…” his plastic girlfriend chips in.

“In France,” says Mr Barrow, carefully. “They do the long, leisurely meal thing when they are at home. It is a total myth that restaurants there would let you moon the night away, not spending any money…”

“Forget it mate,” says the other man, before turning to the pretty girl. “We’ll take that table, thank you very much.”

 

The kitchen is slippery with activity; a sauna of colour. A cascade of clattering metal, and the hum of muttered conversation; too many cooks crowd around the pans. Waiters rush in with leaning towers of plates, crashing them down onto the work surface by the bath-sized sink. Jed is there, elbow-deep in this sink, scrubbing at the burned sauce at the bottom of a pan. His face creases into a steely resolve as he begins to dig his fingernails under the sauce’s waxy residue, and at last, it starts to come off. He has the satisfied air of a man who is working hard at a job, and seeing results. He squirts another dollop of washing-up liquid into the pan, rinses it under the tap, and then wipes it dry with a tea-towel, before finally handing it back to the chef, who immediately re-fills it with sauce.

“Has Wheelbarrow ordered yet?” he asks the chef.

“He’s onto the main course. White pudding for starter,” replies the chef, who resembles a white pudding himself, all sweat and gristle. “Going to do the pudding for him yourself?”

“I’d prefer it if you did it. I wouldn’t trust myself,” moans Jed.

“You have to start cooking again sometime boss,” says the chef, lovingly stirring cream into the sauce. There is a faint smell of burning in the heated air of the kitchen. 

           

The restaurant; all exposed-brickwork and mood-lighting, modern art objects hanging off the ceiling. Chandeliers? We rejoin the happy couple as Mr Barrow has started to pepper his conversation with words such as ‘cornucopia’, ‘subtle flavourings’ and ‘disappointing’. His wife watches him in barely disguised contempt, but does not attempt to interrupt him. They have finished the starters.

“And despite the obvious care and attention which has gone into the presentation, it is a shame that the same cannot be said for the taste. For, since the gastronomic revolution in this country, the attitude has become very much laissez-faire. In my humble opinion however, pear and white pudding do not go.”

“Why did you order it then?” she finally says.

“I ordered it because I thought nothing could be as majestically bad as the monkfish and chocolate slop served in the Dog’s Diner next door. I admit; I was wrong.”

“Yes dear,” replies his wife, who is playing with her cutlery.

“And you’ve order the seafood for main course? Brave choice,” he smiles, sarcastically.

“Just because you get sick from prawns doesn’t mean that I have to avoid them entirely,” she says, to her fork.

“So, you’re saying that you’d like to poison me. Is that it?”

“Yes dear,” she says, forgetfully, holding the spoon in front of her face. Her face looks thin and drawn in the reflection.

“You’ve drunk too much,” he says, grabbing the bottle of wine from her side of the table, placing it at his elbow. She tries to reach across the no-man’s land of the centre of the table, but almost burns herself on the candle and withdraws, to fight another day.

“Is that your critical analysis of the situation?” she says, loudly. Other diners turn to stare at the odd couple by the window.

“Eileen; shut up. You are making a show of yourself. And me,” he snarls.

“Like on the plane?” she is almost shrieking now. Her voice becoming higher and higher pitched. “Who made a fool of themselves on the plane? Why, you, dear. You made a fool of yourself, laying into that poor air hostess like that.”

“We paid ten pounds for that meal, and they serve us slop,” he says. Conversely, his voice is becoming a guttural, big-cat growl, bubbly and deep.

The pretty waitress enters the scene and abruptly ends the confrontation. She collects up the hardly-touched starter plates briskly and adeptly, but her hands are shaking.

“Has it been a very busy night for you love?” asks Eileen in sing-song.

The pretty waitress smiles, consolingly at Eileen, and then bites her lip.

“…um… yeah. Very busy; there’s a lot of pressure on right now, what with us only opening on Thursday.” She has the trace of a common Leeds accent which she is trying very hard to disguise.

Mr Barrow seizes upon it as a sign of weakness: “Well, I can’t say that we’ll be coming back here. Not an auspicious start.”

“Well, I hope that our main courses may change your mind…” says the pretty girl, weakly.

 

The reviewer’s acerbic comments were often poisonous for the restaurants he visited; a poor meal or less than perfect service and he could literally close them down with one peppery sweep of his pen. The reviewer can start and end gastronomic fashions. He is the King-maker; a savage, cut-throat man who has tasted the delicacy of eating a man’s balls for breakfast. In the kitchen, they are all-too-aware of this fact.

“It’s him,” says Michelle, slapping her hand down on the work surface in grim finality.

“You’re sure?” asks Jed, drying his hands on the front of his white jacket. “Because I’m not going to start cooking, creating again for just any old punter.”

“Jed, it’s him. And I think he has a tape-recorder in his pocket. He refused to let me take his jacket… and he talks into it. Holds his head down when he speaks. It makes his chin all crumple up into about ten chins…. Uuuurrrggghhh.”

The chef is making menacing, cutting gestures with the huge knife in his hand.

“Okay Michelle, I believe you. And so, I will make him dessert.”

 

Mr Barrow pushes his food around his plate in defeat. He chases the scattering peas up an avenue of roasted parsnips, avoiding the road-crash which is the steak. It is bleeding profusely onto the dainty Lilliputian plate.

“You don’t want to be here, do you?” asks his wife, clutching her Brobdingnagian wine glass as through trying to strangle the life out of it. “It’s not your scene is it? You can’t eat this stuff…”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Eileen. I just can’t believe that people in this day and age think they can get away with serving such muck.”

“What are you moaning about now? It’s always ‘in this day and age’; when you made that scene at the hotel, it was all about how they couldn’t treat people like that ‘in this day and age’. When was this golden-age you always hark back to? Is it servants you want? Is that the service you feel that we deserve?” The screechiness returns to her voice with a vengeance.

“I feel that we all should be treated like good customers. I feel that everybody has the right to get value for what they pay for.”

“Why is this not value for money?”

“Pretension is not an adequate substitution for the real thing,” he says, maintaining a grip on the side of the table.

“No, but the ‘real thing’ is being here, in the candle-light, enjoying fine wine, and appreciating that somebody has created something for us,” said Eileen, slowly.

“Your meal; all I can see is carefully balanced pellets of goat pooh flanked by the flourish of a trickle of seagull diarreah,” he says, staring down her plate. “All the creativity’s gone out of cooking. It’s now just all show.”

“That’s your summary? That’s your review? Well shame on you. What you really mean is that you miss your mother’s ton of over-done veg, her blow-torched whole- chicken suppers…”

“I don’t enjoy these flimsy children’s portions, no,” he says, loosening his tie.

“What you really enjoy,” she counters. “Is complaining.”

“Too far this time…” he mutters, hardly even bothering to form complete sentences now.

“I’ve seen you late at night,” she says, levelling her stare at him over the rim of her glass. “Ordering your takeaways; burgers, chips, grease, pizza, fried chicken. You chuck it all in the wheelie-bin, thinking I don’t know about it. But I smell it. It seeps out of your pores. Fat; you wallow in the stuff.”

“No…” he gasps, and stares at his wife, open-mouthed.

“You don’t want to eat off these nice plates,” she continues relentlessly, tapping her knife on the side of the plate. “You want to eat off cardboard, off polystyrene. You want the juices to soak through the flimsy material and onto your lap. You want to wipe your mouth with your sleeve like the working-class hero you’ve always wanted, but never dared try to be.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he gasps, trying to regain some control.

“It’s true! You only come to places like this so that you can complain about something,” she smiled, menacingly. “It’s all one-upmanship isn’t it? You just want somebody you can look down your nose at for trying to do something good.”

A thin line of snot begins to trail from fat Mr Barrow’s nose. He appears to be fighting back tears. The pretty girl comes to his rescue, offering a sprinkle of salt or a grinding of pepper for their main course.

“Everything okay with the main course?” she asks.

“Everything is fine dear,” sing-songs Eileen.

“Hmm… reasonable,” mutters Will Barrow into his chest.

           

The kitchen is swathed in a hushed, reverential silence while Jed concentrates on his dessert. A big man, his actions demand an audience. He is an actor on a stage, a weightlifter attempting an unfeasible lift. But he is making delicate sponge cakes; a traditional family recipe which he’s refined, refined, refined. He separates yellow soul of the egg from the globular mess of egg white with surgical precision. Then he beats the yolk into sugar with incredible cyclonic force. His cooking is a carefully staged performance, requiring an incredible grasp of timing. The diners are already on their main course, and he is still only in the preliminary stages of creating their dessert. He increases the flicks which his wrist give to the whisk with every cycle, and finally, finally, the mixture starts to become uniformly smooth; the eggs have now nearly doubled in volume. He dances over to a second bowl, and whips the egg whites into peaks, adding dashes of sugar into the mix.

            Now the coup-de-grace; he places the whipped egg whites on top of the beaten egg yolks, folding the two into one submissive whole. As he is doing this, he sprinkles in the flour, and also the secret ingredient; finely ground macadamia nuts. This nut will add a rich, creamy flavour to the dessert. A savoury kick which will inspire the person eating it to ask themselves what was that taste that just flickered across my tongue? The ground macadamia nuts will also act as the perfect cover for the ground glass that he begins to liberally add to the mix; tiny shards which Michelle is grinding up with a pestle and mortar.

 

“I wasn’t very hungry,” snaps Will Barrow to the waitress as she collects his virtually full plate from the table.

“But you still want to see the dessert menu?” she asks, somewhat hopefully.

“He likes his puddings,” sing-songs Eileen.

“I would like to take a look at the menu,” he says. “I may, or may not order a dessert. I would like to see what constitutes a dessert in this place.”

“Oh, but desserts are our speciality,” says the waitress with a wide smile. “I’ll get you a menu right now.”

“Why didn’t she bring us one in the first place?” hisses Will Barrow to his wife, once the waitress was out of earshot, or at least, not directly in front of him.

“She’s carrying our plates away - she can’t do three things at once,” replies Eileen. “Are you going to carry on being like this?”

“Well, it seems like they are playing for time… maybe the desserts aren’t even ready yet,” Will narrows his eyes. “Tell you what; I’m going to order the most difficult thing on the menu. Something they can’t just whip up in five minutes, like, say, cheese and biscuits. I’ll ask for something they actually have to take a bit of time to create.”

“That’s nice dear,” says Eileen, blankly. “Get them to make you a sponge cake like your f*****g mother used to make…”

This time it was Will Barrow who took a large gulp of his wine.

 

In the kitchen, the chefs, Kitchen Porters, even the waiters and waitresses gather around the oven. Thirty-five minutes have passed, and the cakes are about to be removed.

“He’s asked for the sweet-menu,” says Michelle through the visible heat.

“Well, make sure that he orders the sponge,” replies Jed, sweat pouring down his face. “And we’ll need to give the cakes a bit of time to cool off. Chef; get me some ice cream.”

 Will Barrow is also sweating profusely, but he refuses to remove his jacket. His wild dark hair has now matted onto his temples in clumps. His wife is grilling him.

“So, a quick burger on the way home is it?” she asks. “You’ve had your fill of food in places like this…”

“I can’t help business, can I? It’s not my fault that I have to eat out a lot.”

“No dear,” says Eileen.

And now, the pretty girl is back at the table, handing out elaborately crafted dessert menus.

“I particularly recommend the Forty-Eight Sponge,” she says, with a slight wink at Eileen. “Our chef is an expert at making it so it melts in the mouth.”

“Fine, give me that then,” says Will Barrow, closing his menu, ignoring the fact that the waitress had been speaking to his wife.

“And for madam?” says the waitress, fiddling with her tiny pencil with which she wrote the orders.

“I’m fine, my dear,” says Eileen. “I’d just love a coffee though.”

“Good choice,” affirms the waitress.

 

The dessert arrives; a majestic tower of calories, a wonderful just-baked aroma mixed with the sweetness of vanilla. Will Barrow snatches up his spoon in his fat hand and promptly destroys the artistry of the creation. Where once there was a walled castle, and turrets, surrounded by snowy ice cream mountains, now there is a soggy, mauled mess of stodge. He dives into it with his spoon, scooping it up to his waiting mouth. And he swallows. And he repeats the action. Nearby, the waitress has a close eye on this trougher. And so does his wife. She can hardly keep her eyes from him, as though he is a car crash happening over and over again. And he keeps eating; rivers of cream flow down his chins, his piggy eyes are closed in pleasure.

            And now, more cream is spouting from his mouth. It’s a raging geyser now, not a river. But the cream is not white any more. It is red. It is blood. The waitress races to them, throws a table cloth over him, tries to stop the flow. He is moaning; a terrified, bestial howl. And Eileen just sits quietly, watching. Other diners are now alerted to the spectacle. One woman emits a sharp piercing scream which lasts for over a minute, before passing out, her face landing directly in the middle of her halibut. One man, a businessman, judging by his pinstriped suit, is jabbing the numbers nine, nine, nine into his mobile phone. The chef and Kitchen Porters line the walls; mouths open in wide O’s of shock.

            Fat Will Barrow has slumped off his chair now, and is lying across the floor, head against the table leg. The waitress frantically grabs at more napkins, table cloths, dragging them off tables, leaving plates and cutlery still in place like some magic trick. And Eileen just sits quietly, watching. Will Barrow has stopped his howling now though, and distant police sirens can be heard.

“I… I think he’s dead,” gasps the waitress.

And Eileen just sits quietly, watching.

 

            She’s still in the same position now. The policeman is trying to speak to her.

“And, of course, you’ve no idea why anyone would want to do this?”

Eileen snorts her response. “No idea? Is that what you expect me to say? Well, maybe I do have an idea; my husband was a cruel, cruel man.”

“You think it was his critiques on the restaurant then?” says the policeman, trying to place a calming hand on her arm.

“Well, yes, he wasn’t nice to waitresses and the like…”

“It was a bit more than that though, wasn’t it?” said the policeman.

“He liked complaining. Making other people’s lives a misery.”

“That’s what I thought, Mrs Barrow. And Mrs Barrow? I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  

The reviewer’s offerings were published in The Life, a highbrow weekly newspaper which was digested by the hoi polloi of the city. As an additional cruel twist, she would inform the restaurants of their forthcoming publication, leaving them to stew in their own terrified juices until the newspaper actually appeared on the shelves. How she loved those phone calls; the power they gave her, the intoxicating scent of being so close to being unmasked. She almost gave herself away, so keen was she to hear that awful gulp of realisation on the part of the restaurateur when they understood the heavy facts. She only wished that she could see their weak, under-cooked come-faces, exposed in that single moment to the fact that life was all about chance.

The newspaper was due to appear on the shelves the next day, and she’d waited long enough. She picked up the phone and dialled the number. It was answered in just three rings.

“Is that Brasserie Forty-Eight?” she said, through the voice-disguiser.

“Yes Sir,” replied the voice at the other end of the phone.

“I’d just like to inform you that you may want to be looking out for the review of your restaurant in The Life this week.”

Silence.

“Well, yes, you’re probably right to be quiet. Even I must admit that it’s possibly the worst dining experience I’ve had in my life. But every cloud has its silver lining; at least my dining partner got his just desserts.”

 

ENDS

 

Reviews

[Vonnette]

I can sum this up in one word. RIVETING! However, I will choose to say more. The continued allusions to food woven throughout the story worked perfectly; "Spice rack of eateries", "the cherry on the cake", "His technique was to brutally slice and dice the pretentious surroundings", to list a few, worked perfectly. I loved how you describe her personality as "grey". That totally paints a whole picture with the use of one word. I loved the irony of this story and your creative way of telling it. What a great twist at the end. Loved it, Loved it, Loved it!!!!!