11. Chef

11

Chef

 

When I moved to France, I was lucky enough to have moved with a job waiting for me, the job was as a chef in a small, independent hotel, whilst the hotel was owned by an English couple, all of the staff were French. My French language upon arrival was the equivalent to a GCSE language qualification - which as anyone who knows will tell you, is useless. The speed of a foreign language, all of its nuances and the fact that everyone speaks in slang make communication with the natives difficult to begin with.

           The people I worked with were good people, however only one of them spoke conversational English �" meaning I could only converse with one of my colleagues during the start of my time there. Her name was Adrienne and it’s because of her kindness and patience that my first few months living and working in La Charente were not a complete nightmare. She worked as a waitress at the hotel, she was in her mid twenties and attractive in that exciting, exotic way that only a foreign girl can be. She had big brown eyes, a delightful smile and was enjoyable company.

             Within a few weeks Adrienne and I grew quite close and for my eighteenth birthday she gave me a necklace. The necklace she told me would bring me luck and prosperity as long as I wore it. It was essentially a piece of lace with a small, engraved piece of stone hanging from it. Had she of bought this from a shop, I might have put it in the bin but it was clear that she had made it herself and put a lot of effort into doing so and this made the gift a hundred times more precious. As a result, I wore it and still do to this day.

              Whilst I was attracted to Adrienne, our relationship was strictly ‘good friends’ and it never had the feel of becoming anything more. This was mainly down to the fact that she had a boyfriend but also because we both enjoyed the uncomplicated nature of our relationship and had an unspoken pact to keep it that way. What I had with her felt like the kind of pure, enjoyable friendships you have as a child and whilst she was definitely not childish, Adrienne was certainly child-like in many ways. Ways that were endearing and added to her charm.

               After work had finished, usually at around midnight, it was customary for the staff to enjoy a drink together in the hotel bar. This is a common thing in France and a tradition that I embraced and enjoyed. One night Adrienne and I were sat having a drink following a particularly enjoyable shift, we were laughing and spirits were high. Remy �" the aforementioned boyfriend, was due to pick her up after work and he was late, so we sat in a corner and talked whilst the rest of the staff stood around the bar reminiscing in their speedy French way about the day they’d had. I can’t remember how we ended up talking about it but the subject of blind dating came up. Not blind date as in the popular 90’s TV show involving four idiots and a curtain but as in blind people, dating. I was telling Adrienne that a blind person could use their fingers to feel somebodies face and build a picture in their mind of what the person looks like. Without warning she immediately scrunched her eyes tight shut and proceeded to start touching my face. We giggled as she felt every crevice and bump on my façade commentating as she went. “Oh no, he is very ugly” she’d say in her thick French accent, “He feels to have the face of an English man for sure.” We laughed and she removed her hands, clearly pleased with herself. She then took my hand in hers and placed it on her face, asking “what about me?” Nothing funny came to mind so I swiftly removed my hand and simply complimented her. “Tres jolie.” (“Very pretty”) Which to my enjoyment brought a smile from her.

              At this point out of the corner of my eye I saw Remy was stood watching us with a face like thunder. I’d only met Remy a handful of brief times when he had picked Adrienne up after work but I knew he was a frightfully serious man. I also saw him as controlling and manipulative and simply out of my like for Adrienne I disliked him. I disliked the way he treated her, as a small example of the relationship they had; Adrienne always addressed him as ‘chef’. In France the word chef has two meanings the first is, as we know it a term for a catering professional and the second translation is: boss, head, leader, master. Remy wasn’t a catering professional, he had no problem with his girlfriend calling him master; acting as an inferior and that to me was a little weird.

           He stood there looking at us, he seemed angry. Despite the innocence of the situation I could see how it looked. We were sat alone, separate from the others and our actions despite the reality could have been perceived as flirtatious. This made me feel a little awkward, Adrienne however in her naïve and child-like way simply smiled and cheerily shouted “Salut Remy!” He didn’t smile back he just said “Allons.” (“Let’s go”). Adrienne stood up “oui chef” she said and smiled and said her goodbyes, following Remy out of the building. I finished my drink and gave the event no further thought.

                The following day, mid afternoon, I was prepping vegetables for an evening’s service. My head chef was in a dour mood and the atmosphere in the kitchen wasn’t great. I looked at the clock and grinned; I knew Adrienne was due to begin her shift in five minutes; she would always brighten up the place and bring everyone a smile. This day however was different; when Adrienne walked in she was down, her face was the picture of sadness and when I offered her a “bonjour” instead of her usual joyous “Salut Stew” and warm embrace. She merely, coldly said “bonjour” and without even looking at me walked straight through the kitchen to the service area.

              Adrienne hardly said a word to me throughout the shift and it wasn’t until our post work drink, that I had a chance to ask her what was wrong. Her ambience was different; so much of her beauty came from her happiness and personality that watching her like that had been difficult, like watching something beautiful die. Once I’d asked the question, she looked at me solemnly and muttered “I cannot speak to you anymore.” A mixture of confusion and anxiety forced a slight nervous laugh, “What do you mean, you can’t speak to me anymore?” There was a long awkward pause before Adrienne turned and walked out of the hotel bar. I remember my head spinning slightly, wondering what was going on.

            I followed her outside �" the night was warm and dark and beautiful lanterns dimly lighted the hotel courtyard. I shouted her name, she turned to me and said “please Stewart, Remy will be here any minute now and I cannot be seen with you.” Her voice sounded stressed and frightened. “Why?” I could barely believe what I was hearing, essentially my best friend in the whole world was telling me she wanted nothing to do with me. “What will Remy say if he sees us?” I challenged her. She stopped and turned to me, I walked to within a couple of steps; her face was unhappy and serious. The faint lighting gave her sorrow a dramatic look and I felt as though the whole scenario was too much for her. She looked at me and slowly and quietly, her voice anguished she said, “It is not his words that give me fear.” We stared at each other for a short while, her statement painted the picture and made her actions that followed unnecessary. She un-tucked her shirt and pulled up the bottom of it to reveal her stomach and lower ribs. The entire area was covered in bruises, barely any of her clean flesh showing through a mass of gruesome purple. I covered my mouth with my hand and felt my eyes well up. My voice cracked as I whispered, “Adrienne… you have to leave him.” She looked down and replied, “I have to go.” Turning away and walking to the edge of the hotel premises she never once looked back at me. I stood there in shock, powerless and delicate.

           After this, our relationship dissipated. My French was virtually conversational at this point and reluctantly I made new friends. Adrienne left to work elsewhere around a month after Remy had violently beaten her because he’d seen us chatting and laughing together. I will always feel grateful for the help she gave me. The help to understand the language and culture and the friendship she allowed me when I was lonely and a weird foreigner to everyone else.

            Despite our distance a few months later and the fact I hadn’t seen or heard from her in that time, the news of Adrienne’s death hit me extremely hard. I remember locking myself away in a dark room for days and crying. I never found out what insignificant crime she was deemed guilty of by her b*****d boyfriend but he’d lost it and brutally beaten her into a coma, one that she never came out of. A beautiful, intelligent young woman killed by the raging jealousy of a man that saw her as his property. Remy went to prison for her murder and I remember this being told to me as if it would make me happy but it didn’t, not even a little. I regularly wish I could go back in time and make things right for Adrienne and save her from the fate she’d met. Her death was one of the many triggers that lead to me returning to England; the only piece of her I have left is the necklace she made for me, an emblem of her creativity and thoughtfulness. An emblem I wear everyday.

           Like many things, domestic abuse was never something I treated with the contempt it deserves. It can be hard to when you have no personal memory or attachment to it. If you’ve never experienced something or seen a loved one go through it, then it’s difficult to envisage the ways in which the victim suffers. Since meeting Adrienne and being told of her death, I developed a new found hatred for it. It doesn’t matter how big or small, domestic abuse of any kind is something that turns my stomach and fills me with resentment.

 

It’s been a few weeks since Rachel phoned me, crying. When I’d answered there’d been a silence and then she excused herself saying “I’m sorry Stewart, I shouldn’t have called you.” She hung up and then wouldn’t answer when I phoned her back.

           I’m sat in church; I’ve been for four weeks running. I’m not sure what keeps bringing me back but I feel like I don’t want to miss it somehow. I’m sat at the back next to Chloe, who seems to have taken me on as a project, trying to figure me out. She’s incredibly smart and perceptive and every week she figures out something new about me. I worry it’s only a few months before she squints at me and says, “you’ve killed someone, haven’t you?”

            Rachel is sat at the front with her fiancé Andrew. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since before the phone call, she’d not been to church at all in the time I’d been going. She looks incredibly beautiful and I can’t wait for the service to end so I can talk with her. Ironically, the service today involved Amare preaching about the sin of coveting another man’s wife. I thought about how I felt about Rachel and how she was with Andrew but swiftly justified it in my mind They’re not getting married for a couple of months, so you’re ok till then.

               After the service, Rachel introduces me to Andrew for the first time. He’s tall and good-looking but lacks any charm or charisma. There’s also something about him that makes me feel a little uneasy, I can’t tell what it is though and simply put it down to the fact he’s Rachel’s fiancé. They don’t stay and talk for long before Andrew excuses them and they leave. Chloe and I are left standing together and I’m not sure why but I decide to tell her about Rachel’s phone call, weeks ago.

           She looks at me with her expressionless face, analyzing me and asks, “Why do you think she was crying?” The emphasis on the word “you” indicating she already has her own theory. “I’m not sure” I reply, “I have no idea, you two are pretty close though, what do you think?” Chloe looks at me and her response is unsettling. From what I know about her, she is clever, perceptive and has an incredible ability to look beyond the surface and correctly see what’s really going on. Whenever she offered a conclusion I was inclined to believe it and in the short time I’d known her, she’d never been wrong. So when she says the following words it unnerves me. “I think Andrew hit her.” She says in an almost eerily calm manner, empathy and sympathy are not words you’d regularly use to describe Chloe’s feelings. She continues, “No one else seems to see it but to me it’s obvious… He’s done it before and he’ll do it again. It’s always the same; she won’t be at church for a few weeks then she comes back wearing a little too much make up. Covering the last of the bruising.” I feel my throat close, “what makes you so sure?” I ask the question hoping she isn’t sure at all, hoping it’s a rare wild theory. “I know his ex-girlfriend.” Chloe says with a truthful confidence. “He used to beat her. If it’s in a guy, it’s in a guy.” I feel sad, I love Rachel and I want to help her. “What can we do?” I say, my voice sounding a little desperate and Chloe raises an eyebrow as I speak, she looks me in the eye and placidly says, “Nothing, you can’t help someone until they want to be helped.”

                As soon as I’m alone, I feel a rage flow through me. I remember Adrienne and Remy, remember how it ended. I imagine the story fragment by fragment, replacing Adrienne’s image with Rachel’s and it hurts to watch it. I touch my chest with my fingertips and feel the small, engraved stone hanging from my neck, underneath my shirt, and with a passionate anger and will to act; I think to myself, I will not let it happen again.   

 

 

Reviews

[AprilRN1210]

hmmmmm another layer to the growing plot... interesting...