Chapter 3
3
MINNIE
Six Months Ago – December
‘Mushroom vol-au-vent or smoked salmon blini, sir?’
A man with thick fingers and wet lips picked up a small beige pancake with some anaemic salmon and a limp sprig of dill placed on top of it and sniffed.
‘No disrespect, love…’ he said, like a man who was absolutely about to be disrespectful. ‘But you’re catering an awards do for the restaurant industry and you’re serving up this shit?’
Minnie was shocked. She was so used to being invisible at these events. Twirling and turning, her face obscured by a large black tray or a shiny silver platter. Ignored at work, when this summer, only a few months ago, she was filming in Norway and staying in an idyllic summerhouse on a fjord. Having a little no-frills fling with her co-star Dexter. Now she was at The Dorchester, on the restaurant industry’s biggest backslapping night of the year, and someone was actually engaging with The Help, even if he was being rude. To Minnie’s utter surprise she found the blunt man with a bullish face and a crinkled nose refreshing.
‘Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,’ Minnie said, lowering her tray so she could look him in the eye. ‘If it were up to me I’d be serving my granny’s colcannon and beef stew. Artfully plonked on top of ridiculously small pancakes of course.’
The man liked Minnie’s sass and held her eye. She wasn’t tall but she was as tall as him.
‘Now you’re talking,’ he said, licking his lips.
‘It’s stick-to-your-bones good,’ Minnie said, as if she were passing on the recipe. ‘None of this bollocks.’
She continued on her round as if she were mid-Viennese waltz and the man grabbed her arm with brazen fingers, his appetite whet.
Minnie wasn’t sure what it was about the man. He wasn’t as handsome as the German guy she had dated at drama school. He wasn’t charming like the politician’s son her parents had tried to set her up with. He was definitely not as sexy as her co-star last summer. This man was probably double her age and had chins that held anecdotes of excess and bonhomie, but he certainly had a spark about him. Maybe it was his confidence. Maybe it was the award he was clutching in his other hand, like an Oscar.
‘Congratulations,’ Minnie smouldered.
Minnie liked pretending she was someone different at these events. A spy or a mistress. A thief or a showgirl. When really, she felt completely split down the middle. Half of her felt proud to be grafting when she didn’t have to; the other half of her was embarrassed that she, Minnie Byrne, daughter of Geraldine and Jeremy Byrne and part of the Byrne acting dynasty, was invisible.
‘What did you win that for?’
‘Best newcomer. Which is a bit of a joke at my age.’
‘What’s your restaurant?’ Minnie held his gaze.
‘Well it’s a chain. First time a chain has won best newcomer, that’s how fast we’re rolling out.’
Minnie knew she was meant to be impressed by this, so she raised her eyebrows flirtatiously. Tonight she was pretending to be a call girl, even though she had no intention of sleeping with anyone.
‘Will I have heard of it?’
‘If you haven’t, you will by tomorrow. We’ll be all over the papers.’ The man’s Essex accent sounded charming. ‘Sexy Seafood. We’re a chain of upscale fish restaurants.’
‘What does that mean?’ Minnie pictured a Japanese chef in a sleek commercial kitchen, massaging a fish’s belly in a certain direction to bring out some kind of undiscovered, coveted flavour.
‘It means it’s fancy innit.’
Minnie didn’t think this bolshy man’s fancy restaurant would be as fancy as her best friend’s understatedly fancy restaurant in Camden – in fact she was miffed Hilde wasn’t here at all, but not many independents were. Although Hilde not being here did give Minnie a little freedom to do whatever the hell she wanted tonight. Maybe she would come back around again for this guy. She could do with cutting loose.
‘Oh, right, fancy…’ Minnie winked as she twirled into the darkness to carry on with her job. Thrilled to know that the man, tongue hanging out and little eyes spellbound, was watching her weave away.