Page 8 of Don't You Forget About Me
In a battle of wits between Detective Plate and Tony, my money is on the former.
‘You’re the serving staff, deal with it. Not my area.’
‘You gave me the same dish! What am I supposed to do when he can tell?!’
‘Charm him. That’s what you’re meant to be, isn’t it? Charming,’ he looks me up and down, in challenge.
Classic Tony: packing passive aggression, workplace bullying and leering sexism into one instruction.
‘I can’t tell him his own eyes aren’t working! We should’ve switched the plates.’
‘Fuck a duck,’ Tony says, taking a tea towel over his shoulder and throwing it down. ‘Fuckthisduck, it’ll be carbon.’
Complaining about the effect on the quality of the cuisine is a size of hypocrisy that can only be seen from space.
He snaps the light off under the pan and smashes dramatically through the doors, saying, ‘Which one?’ I don’t think this pugilistic attitude bodes well.
I Gollum my way past Tony and lead him to the relevant table, while making diplomatic, soothing noises.
‘What seems to be the problem?’ Tony booms, hands on hips in his not-that-white chef’s whites.
‘This is the problem,’ Mr Keith says, picking up his fork and dropping it again in disgust. ‘How can you think this is acceptable?’
Tony boggles at him. ‘Do you know what goes into a carbonara? This is a traditional Italian recipe.’
‘Eggs and parmesan, is it not? This tastes like Dairylea that’s been sieved through a wrestler’s jockstrap.’
‘Oh sorry, I didn’t realise you were a restaurant critic.’
Tony must be wildly high on his last Embassy Regal to be this rude to a customer.
‘You don’t need to be A.A. Gill to know this is atrocious. However, since you’ve raised it, I am reviewing you tonight forThe Star, yes.’
Tony, already pale thanks to a diet of fags and Greggs bacon breakfast rolls, becomes perceptibly paler.
If this wasn’t a crisis and wildly unprofessional, I’d laugh. I pretend to rub my face thoughtfully to staunch the impulse.
‘Would you prefer something else, then?’ Tony says.
Tony folds his arms and jerks his head towards me as he says this, and I know in the kitchen I’m going to get a bollocking along the lines of COULD YOU NOT HAVE HANDLED THAT YOURSELF.
‘Not really, last time I asked for you to replace my meal you reheated it. Am I going to be seeing this excrescence a third time?’
I notice Mrs Keith looks oddly calm, possibly grateful someone else is catching it from him instead. Unless she’s a fake wife, a critic’s stooge.
‘I thought you wanted it warmer?’
‘Yes, a warmer replacement meal, not this gunk again.’
Tony turns to me: ‘Why didn’t you tell me he wanted a new dish?’
I frown: ‘Er, I did …?’
‘No, you said to warm it up.’
I’m so startled by this bare-faced untruth I have no comeback.
‘No, I didn’t, I said …?’ I trail off, as repeating our whole conversation seems too much treachery, but am I supposed to stand here and say this is all my fault?
