Lorenzo Speaks

Help is on hand for a struggling catering company, but how is the message getting through?

LORENZO SPEAKS

 

 

I wasn’t ready to leave. I think I still had a lot to offer. It was my body that gave out. But my mind is full of ideas, more so if anything out here than when I had to deal with all the office politics. You never knew what was coming round the corner next in that place, what with old Pollock in charge. She had a mind of her own that woman. Whatever was clearly the sensible thing to do, she chose not to do it.

That’s why they’re heading for trouble. I can see that now, now that I’m out of it. Clearly they have problems and it’s all down to her. The staff is willing enough, turn up on time, do their jobs properly and come up with ideas to please her. Only she’s never pleased with anything, that one, unless she’s thought of it, and that’s where it starts to go pear-shaped. The things she comes up with!

There was that time when she thought we could serve the Lord Mayor’s Banquet Bird’s Nest soup to impress the visiting Chinese �" not sure what they were, bankers or politicians. Same thing in China. Anyway, they weren’t impressed. Turns out there’s only one chef in Britain who claimed he could make it. So he had to be hired, at great expense, let me tell you, and when we found out what the ingredients were, that was a shock. You’d never get away with it in the U.K. You’d have the conservationists and the RSPB down on you like ton of bricks. So the whole shooting match had to be flown in from Hong Kong which cost more than we were going to make in profit for the whole evening. Still she wouldn’t back down, not even when the press got hold of the menu and we had demonstrators waving banners outside Mansion House. That made more of an impression on the Chinese than the soup did. Apparently they don’t eat things like that much in China any more. Too much bother to prepare.

No-one touched the soup, but all the journalists wrote about it. It was in all the papers next morning that the City was ready to go to extreme lengths to please the Chinese banks, with headlines like ‘Birds of a Feather,’ and ‘Cuckoo in the Nest’ �" that sort of thing.

I’ll say one thing for her though. It was a daft idea and a financial disaster, but it was a publicity masterstroke. Everyone had heard of Banquo Brothers after that. Not for the right reasons, but she used to say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I’m not so sure though. We’d been a regular catering firm with a list of healthy corporate clients for all the years I’d been there- sticking to traditional favourites, like sausage rolls and devils on horseback for most of the functions and for dinners we tended to go for the traditional English favourites, roast beef and pheasant, that sort of thing. Beautifully done mind you. We never had any complaints and we made a tidy profit.

After the Bird’s Nest Incident we had a lot of new business. But everyone wanted us to come up with something extraordinary: novelty cooking they called it. 

We had some great ideas, I don’t mind telling you. Do you remember that car made out of cake that they had on the telly? We came up with that - and made it.- and served it to the whole of the Birmingham motor show.

The problem wasn’t ideas. Oh no. We had more wacky ideas than you could shake a stick at. Someone even suggested we roasted peacocks and flamingos once, for one of the King’s official dinners. It looked beautiful, but there were problems with that one too. People are funny about what they eat. They’re quite happy to tuck in to pheasant and chicken, but flamingos are too fine apparently. I think they’re all beautiful myself, and we wouldn’t have so many chickens and pheasants if they weren’t bred to eat, so why not flamingos? Trouble is, the meat’s a bit tough.

Of course I’ve lost my appetite now so it’s all the same to me, but I still have plenty of ideas. More than ever now I’ve got a kind of perspective on things. I meet people from everywhere here and they set you thinking. It’s not just the food, for instance, but the order you serve in. I mean, what about ending with soup like they do in the Asia, or serving chicken covered in nuts and sugar and spices? There are so many things we, they, could do. Brilliant ideas! And they’d all be more cost effective than the crazy things the firm’s been doing.

I still care you see. I can’t bear to see the company I worked for man and boy go down the pan. The books had shown a loss for five years in a row when I left and we’d eaten up most of the reserve. So now banks have stopped flinging money around like they don’t know what to do with it, Banquo Brothers is in real trouble.

But people still have to eat. That’ll never go out of fashion. And they’re still working away from home �" travelling to the office and back every day on the train. So it’s the people you want to feed �" not the companies. There’s a nice woman I met here who gave me the idea. ‘Let them eat cake,’ she said. She says it quite a lot actually. And I thought, ‘why not?’ Banquo Brothers are champion cake makers. We’ve proved that with the car. Why not open up our offices, right by Cannon Street station, and serve them cake on the way home! We’d double our turnover in a week.

No problem with ideas. Like I said, it’s a stimulating environment here and they’re pouring out of me. But the trouble is I can’t get through. I know all the people. They haven’t changed. Everyone remembers old Lorenzo �" ‘Waiter to the Stars’ they called me on the silver cruet set they gave me when I left. I was hoping for a gold watch. That would have been a fitting reward for devoting my life to the company. But there wouldn’t have been room for the inscription. And I didn’t have it for long anyway, so never mind. It’s all immaterial now.

So as I was saying, La Pollock is still in charge �" no thanks to her business skills but more to her charms in the bedroom as I discover now. I had no idea that my cousin was such an old goat. You learn a lot you didn’t know when you’ve got a bit of distance.

Anyway, so I try to get her on the phone. You know, start with a chat, for old time’s sake, how’s business, that sort of thing, and then slip in an idea or two for her to take away and mull over. But I can’t get through. I remember the number, no problem, like a chant it is. Five five five triple three. Banquo Brothers can I help you? Never forget that. But when the phone rings and I say, ‘Hello Cathy it’s Lorenzo,’ she can’t hear me. At least I suppose she can’t, cause she keeps saying ‘hello, hello’ and then puts the phone down. I suppose my circumstances have changed. That’s why.

So I used a more direct approach. I went to la Pollock’s office and knocked. She could hear that alright. She got straight on the phone to Cathy and asked her to find out where that dreadful knocking was coming from. She said it was so loud she couldn’t think! So did she pay attention? Did she ever. She completely ignored me and got straight back on the phone to my cousin. Honestly, those two. Whatever would Maria do if she found out?

So then I thought I’d go for the subtle approach. I waited until la Pollock was asleep and I crept into her room and whispered in her ear. I think it was the cake idea I mentioned to her. Anyway I laid it all out, how much you’d charge, what kind of a licence we’d need to get �" just selling wrapped slices of cake, mind. No tables or chairs or plates or what not. The whole idea.

Honestly that woman’s so dense I wash my hands of her. I waited till she got to the office expecting her to announce her great ‘idea’ at the meeting. Nothing. But then, when she was on the phone to Marco, she told him about this terrible dream she’d had. She said she’d dreamed the office was teeming with grey people in city clothes, all demanding cake, and she said ‘Old Lorenzo was back with his cheesy grin, giving out slices of cake from a basket, and showering all the desks and telephones with crumbs.’

Cheesy grin! I like that. I was the only ray of sunshine in the whole miserable cloud most days. Well she can abuse me all she likes because she’s nothing to me now.

Banquo Brothers though, that company meant everything to my uncle and I won’t let it go down the pan, even if she is in charge. My poor weak soft cousin.Marco.

But I see a possibility in little Roberto. He’s eighteen now and he’s started work in the office. Can’t believe that. It was only yesterday he was stealing ice cream out of the fridge. But he’s gone to work for La Pollock.

I think he’s promising.  He’s a bit of a dreamer. Spends a lot of time standing around smoking a cigarette outside the office. But that’s where I see my chance.

There’s someone here who says he talks to his old friends all the time. He goes to his daughter. He says it’s just a question of tuning in to what they’re thinking and clearing enough space to make yourself heard. Trouble is it’s not as easy as it sounds. I tuned into Roberto, at least I think it was him, and it was a bit of a shock, I don’t mind telling you.

There was this dreadful noise, like cat’s claws scraping down a wall. Horrible.

I had to pull out at once. And yet he looked so peaceful. Wasn’t talking to anyone, just standing there by himself, staring into the middle distance, dragging on his cigarette from time to time. Who would have thought there was such a lot of noise going on inside? Then I noticed this little white wire coming from his pocket to his ears. Didn’t see that the first time. Must be some kind of piped music. Can’t see why anyone would want to pipe that noise to their ears, but perhaps it sounds better when you’ve got the body, you know, and you can move your hips to the rhythm. I did a bit of that once myself, except in my day there was a rhythm. My tango used to make the ladies swoon. Pity the ladies didn’t make me swoon. Then I could really have enjoyed myself.

Still I’ve been getting a bit clever with Roberto. I’ve learned to pick a time when there’s nothing much going on in his life. This morning, for instance. They sent him out to get some envelopes, and I could tell he was going to take his time. It was one of those beautiful clear mornings, the way it is after rain, when everything looks washed brand new. I used to love those mornings! He was ambling along the pavement with the sun on his face and his hands in his pockets, and I just slipped the thought in. Just like that. Nothing in his head, and then he had this brilliant idea for a new soup, Something I’ve been working on. It’s basically a strawberry soup with a basil twist. Stunning! His thinking tends to food you see. So I’m starting with that..

There’s a long way to go. It’s not easy with these youngsters. He has a mind like a sparrow. Hopping about here and there. You get a thought in, think you’re in tune, and then, hey presto, hordes of his friends arrive, gossiping, laughing and drinking, replaying all the crazy tricks they’ve got up to the night before. Then he’s off dreaming about some girl who’s clearly too old for him and no good at all. And I’m saying, hey, the soup! It’s a good idea. And the soup’s back for ten seconds, but. then you get the other stuff that’s so hard to deal with. He starts talking to himself like his dad did. He was a bit harsh with the kids, Marco.  ‘Don’t be such a thick a*s Roberto �" whoever heard of strawberry soup!? It’ll never wash. Anyway leave the cooking to the women. It’s girly stuff. Do you want people to think you’re a poof?’

There’s nothing wrong with poofs! Some of us know how to express our feminine side better than others that’s all, and if you shut your eyes to that, you shut out half the world.

So I’ll keep trying. It’ll take some doing before he’s ready to act on his ideas, but I think I’ve got the knack of tuning in now, so I’ll keep talking.