The maître d’
the ma?tre d’
Cee is the head chef, and everything behind the kitchen doors is her domain.
Emily is her ma?tre d’, and together they’re navigating a new world.
Things have changed in the last five years.
Before, the most innovative thing for foodies was the advent of the gourmet burger.
Now, street food has run roughshod over all, punters tripping over one another for a chance to pay fifteen pounds for a bowl of deep-fried slop served from a hatch in a converted fire truck.
In restaurants like theirs, the plates have got smaller, the dishes more unassuming, the ingredients more hyper-local.
Everyone wants to try eel, or offal. Everyone wants everything elevated.
Emily leaves that up to Cee. Her domain is out here, and it’s her job to know everything there is to know about the diners.
Their dietary preferences. Their deepest secrets.
Tonight is a friends and family evening ahead of the launch, so digging up the necessary dirt hasn’t been too hard.
Cee likes to talk after a shift, after a couple of glasses of wine.
Emily welcomes Cee’s family and leads them to a pride-of-place table, knowing instinctively who each of them is.
There’s Harry, Cee’s jolly husband, a red-meat-lover whom Emily has met several times before.
There’s Raff, her rambunctious one-year-old, partial to a purée.
The androgynous-looking young man in the silk shirt must be the brother, Augie, a pescatarian with sunken cheeks and a dreamy half-smile.
There’s Clara, the sister, who’ll eat anything.
And her partner. Seb. Mister tall, dark and handsome.
An actor, apparently. Emily doesn’t know a thing about him.
‘How are we tonight?’ Emily says, glancing at the two empty seats.
‘We’re very well,’ says Augie, a glint in his eye. ‘It’s just us.’
Cee had said it was a long shot, to expect her parents.
Her mother is still getting better. Her father can never be counted on for anything.
Emily knows that, since her mum’s illness, since Raff, Cee has grown closer with her siblings.
She’s also heard the war stories, and so she knows that for the Cowans, this is as normal as they can hope to get.
‘Pork cheek with celeriac purée,’ says Cee, arriving at the table, because she insists on bringing out the meals herself. ‘I’m sweating like a pig.’ She points at Harry, clicks her fingers. ‘I need you. These edible flowers won’t arrange themselves.’
Harry stares wistfully down at his plate. Then he sighs, smiles, and heads for the kitchen, leaving Raff in the trusted hands of his seatmate, Seb.
‘It’s OK,’ says Seb, as the child’s lip begins to wobble. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Listen to this.’
He holds up a thumb, abruptly enough to stop the child from crying. Seb licks the thumb, brandishes a wine glass like a magician. He runs his thumb around the edge of the glass, and a reverberating, sonorous sound has the child held rapt.
‘Voilà,’ Seb says. ‘Music.’
Raff is hypnotised. Then his gleeful giggles fill the surroundings.
Emily heads off to deal with another table.
When she returns later to clear their plates, Seb is feeding the baby the last of his own purée, and Augie is leaning into his sister to say that her partner is a wizard, and Clara is watching on with an expression Emily finds hard to parse.
‘Mushroom and tahini chocolate mousse,’ says Cee, as she serves up the final course. ‘Trust me.’
They do. And like everything else Cee turns her hands to, it works by the force of her own volition.
Emily knows that next in Cee’s sights is her own restaurant, her own Star.
For now, an evening without disaster is enough.
Once the plates are cleared away and the kitchen is cleaned down, the whole thing becomes a lock-in, and Harry takes Raff home to bed so that Cee can get diligently drunk with the rest of the staff, an open bar courtesy of their uber-rich owners.
Augie is drinking from a highball glass, talking deeply with one of the young waiters.
Then he’s rising from his seat, encouraging the waiter to dance, roping in all the other waiting staff, too.
Outside this crowd are Seb and Clara, talking quietly to one another, taking the opportunity to sneak off and smuggle their drinks through the balcony window.
Emily isn’t a dancer, so she stays at the sidelines.
Besides, it’s in her nature to be nosy. It feels as if they’re inviting her to listen in.
‘Why is it always balconies?’ Seb is saying on the other side of a fluttering curtain.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have a feeling that we’re going to talk about something deep,’ Seb says. ‘I’ve had the right amount of drinks. And we’re out here.’ He takes a sip. ‘Try me.’
Clara laughs. ‘OK, then,’ she says. She takes a while. She softens her voice. ‘What was your sister like?’ she says. ‘You never talk about her.’
Emily can tell that this is a big one. If Seb is startled, he doesn’t let it show.
‘Can I tell you the truth?’ Seb says. ‘I can barely picture her. The real her, not the her in photos. Bouncy hair. A smile without her front two teeth. I feel guilty, for not remembering more. But when you’re thirteen, you don’t take notes. You don’t think anything is ever going to be taken away.’
‘You’re brave, you know,’ Clara says. She glances back through the curtains. Augie, lording it over the dancefloor. Cee, in stitches at the sight. ‘I don’t think I could have handled it.’
‘I didn’t have a choice,’ Seb says. ‘My parents were grieving, too. They used to fight. I think they only stayed together for my sake.’ He sighs, scratches his beard.
‘Ellie’s room was exactly as she’d left it.
For ages. And she had this doll, which was a baby, and I kind of adopted it.
Fed it and dressed it and tucked it in at night.
It was stupid. I was already seeing this therapist, and when my parents caught wind, they all thought I was regressing.
So they did Ellie’s room up, put the doll away with the rest of her things.
Stuck a drum kit in there instead, because they thought it would help my anger issues.
’ He pauses, seems unsure whether to continue.
‘But I didn’t have anger issues. I just wanted my little sister back. ’
‘You care for other people,’ Clara says. ‘It’s all you care about. Some might say it’s a fault. I think it’s your best quality.’
There’s a silence. Emily looks down into her drink, feels the warm breeze from the window behind her. Out there is the slam of cab doors and the crush of sirens, the constant pressure of an entire city. In here, clinking glasses and a murmur of easy conversation, a world away from it all.
Clara speaks again, but only after a while. Her voice is almost a whisper. ‘You’d be a wonderful dad.’