Lunching at Laura's Read online

  By the time Laura had finished checking the last of the Extras, and had set the presents for Anya Zsuzske ready by her place at the head of the table, there were sounds from below that told her that lunchtime had begun. The first rattle of the door, the soft buzz of voices, Maxie’s dull rumble as he greeted a familiar face, the higher tones of a convivial customer looking forward to a couple of hours of happy greed, and she stopped by the long mirror on the wall besides the customers’ coat stand to look at herself, needing to be sure, as an actress would have to be sure, that she was fit to step onto her stage.

  Because it was Zsuzske’s party she had dressed more than usually carefully this morning, going through her wardrobe in the five o’clock lamplight, yawning and trying to imagine how she would look by daylight, and not sure she had chosen well, but now she could see she had. The deep heather colour of her well-fitted dress and the old, cream lace collar that set it off looked both neat and becoming, and for once her hair was behaving itself. It had a great tendency to curl ever more wildly when she was busy, and that took years off her, making her look like a schoolgirl. She regarded this as her major handicap; at thirty-five, with a successful business well and truly under her hands, she should be elegant and soignée and should look her age; instead she looked rather like a more than usually sensible head girl in a well run school, and that always annoyed her. But since there was nothing much she could do about that she had to live with it, and she took her comb and lipstick from the pocket in the seam of her dress (no restaurateur could ever manage without pockets, she had long ago told the woman who made her clothes) and made swift repairs and then, pulling her dress more neatly round her firm hips, went quietly downstairs to start on the second phase of her day’s work.

  The labour of the morning, the dawn marketing, the book-keeping, the organising and supervision were now over. She had to be hostess, unruffled soother of anxieties both behind the scenes in the kitchen and in her main arena, the restaurant, and also later, a guest at her family’s party. All that before an afternoon of clearing up and more bookkeeping and preparing for the evening’s repeat performance. It was a formidable day’s labour, yet no one looking at her as she emerged into the cool green light of her restaurant would have guessed she had anything at all on her mind apart from the pleasure of the moment, which was greeting the first arrivals from City Television who were coming in from Frith Street.

  Alistair Balfour smiled as he saw her and held out both hands expansively. ‘My dear Laura! Now I feel I am alive! To see you – it was what I needed most of all. How are you? Have you been supervising my dumplings for me as they should be supervised?’

  ‘How could I have had any thought in my mind today other than your dumplings, Mr. Balfour?’ He had long ago begged her to call him by his first name – as did many others – but it was one of her rules never so to address customers; and she was not being merely proper in being so firm about it. She knew that her careful way of speech amused people and gave her a style that many admired; it was a sort of gimmick, but none the worse for that. ‘And the rizi bizi and goose –’

  ‘And the lecso –’ Alistair said greedily but she ignored that, looking at the man standing beside him. He was a good deal younger than Balfour, who was lean and elegant and grey all over – hair, clothes, everything – and clearly past fifty; this man was wearing a suit and a neat tie but still managed somehow to look unkempt as a boy would. He had dark hair that curled very tightly and yet wildly on his big head, and a heavy face with a full mobile mouth and wide dark eyes. About thirty, Laura thought, and then was irritated with herself; she was doing this too often lately, looking at people and trying to assess their age in relation to her own. It seemed so short a time ago that she had been just a girl; sometimes it felt as though she had gone to bed one night as a nineteen year old and woken up next day to discover someone had stolen fifteen years in the night. To be thirty-five – only five years off forty; ridiculous –

  Now she stifled the thought as Balfour, recognising his social responsibility, said, ‘Laura, this is a newcomer to City. Used to make commercials – you know, those shampoo ones where everyone runs barefoot through long grass in slow motion. He’s just joined us to do some real work – the sort that doesn’t make money –’

  The young man reddened and held out one hand. ‘How do you do, Miss – er – Miss –’

  ‘Horvath – but everyone calls me Laura,’ she said and shook his hand. ‘And you are –’

  ‘Sorry, Laura,’ Balfour said. ‘Joel – ah – what is it – Coplin. Ah, here are Buzzy and Jeffrey at last – come along, chaps. I’ve no doubt the wine waits above, winking at the glass’s brim –’

  There was a little flurry of excitement as more people arrived and then a positive traffic jam as still more came into the Yard and towards the door of the restaurant. The day, which had started dull, had lightened considerably and there was now a thin sunshine splattering the cobbles and people seemed happy enough to linger outside in the faint warmth and wait as Maxie and Janos took coats from those who could get in and stowed them and Dan and Miklos showed people to tables, and Jon ushered those from City in towards the staircase.

  Laura moved through the hubbub, welcoming people by name, never seeming at a loss for an identity and Joel Coplin watched her, lingering at the foot of the stairs as his guide and mentor, Balfour, greeted other people. Was she Soho born and bred, he wondered? Had she been a child in these streets, and had her parents before her grown up here too? This was a mental game he found himself playing more and more, wondering about the people he saw around him in the streets, and he made a small grimace at himself and tried to fix his attention on the people to whom Balfour was now introducing him. It was quite absurd to have been as affected as this by finding himself working in Frith Street.

  ‘Buzzy Lethbridge, this is Joel Coplin, our newest director. Just joined us. Jeffrey, of course, you know Joel – must do. You interviewed him, I imagine, when he joined us –’

  Jeffrey Charlton, a tall thin and very lugubrious man, shook Joel’s hand limply. ‘No – actually – good to see you, Coplin. Know about you, of course. It was Brian Crowner I think who took you on? Yes – I was in LA doing a bit of selling, you know, so it was Brian – yes. Good to have you with us – now, Alistair, is everything organised, pens and paper and so forth? We are supposed to be having a think tank, after all. It’s not just food, I hope.’

  ‘It’s mostly food,’ Alistair said blithely and grinned. ‘Oh, it’s all right, I’ve got the folders ready. Sally’s bringing ’em. Now, Buzzy, you take Joel up, and I’ll sort out the others – here they come –’ And he went busily to greet the newest arrivals now pushing through the door as the room buzzed with talk and laughter and the first corks began to pop as Maxie set to work in real earnest.

  ‘You picked a good time to join City,’ Buzzy said as he led the way up the stairs. ‘This think tank Alistair organises every spring – it’s the best thing we do all year. He’s a greedy bastard, thank God. You’re in for a treat.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Joel said politely and stood looking around at the big room into which Buzzy had shown him. It was cool and clean and the table that was set in the middle for seventeen people looked inviting, but he was looking at the walls.

  ‘That panelling, sir – it looks to be very old. How old is it, do you suppose?’

  ‘You’re an American,’ Buzzy discovered, tilting his smooth dark head to one side and looking directly at Joel for the first time. ‘Yes, of course you are. You look like an American. Like that chap who married that actress – the one with the nose, you know who I mean?’

  Joel, trying not to let his irritation show, said, ‘Canadian, sir. Not American. Canadian.’

  ‘Same thing,’ Buzzy said cheerfully. ‘No damn difference so far as I can tell. You all talk the same – now, where’s the menu? Let’s see what Alistair’s organised for us this year. Goose, no less! Jesus, that’ll make everyone fart tomorrow. Good day
to be out on a shoot, if you ask me. Share these good things with the open air – you like Hungarian food, Collins?’

  ‘Coplin, sir,’ Joel said, still polite. Stupid bastard, he was thinking; got to keep well out of your way, and he began to edge down the table so that he could sit as far away as possible from Buzzy who had clearly earmarked a chair for himself. ‘Yes, I think I do. Not sure I know a great deal about it.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you get much more than hamburgers in America, hey? Well, you’ve come to the right place here. You’ll get good food here –’

  ‘You’ve been to the States, sir?’ Joel said, his voice silky. ‘Know it well?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Lethbridge was still staring down at the menu he was holding. ‘Hell, no. I’m the financial manager, remember, not one of the poor sods who have to go wandering around, selling the stuff we make. I just deal in the money once it’s in. Never been further West than the Algarve, thank God. You won’t get me going to America – not my style at all. See enough of what they get up to there on the screen. No offence, old boy, of course.’

  ‘Oh, none in the world,’ Joel said savagely and went to stand by the window to stare out into the Yard as at last other people came tramping up the stairs to fill the room with noise and chatter. How long had this building been here? And what sort of people had been in it when it had been, as it must once have been, a house where people lived rather than worked? Everything about the shape of this elegant room showed that it had been a private dwelling once, no matter what some philistines had done to it since and he turned his head to look again at the handsome pale amber panelling that marched round the walls. A beautiful place; he’d have to find out more about it, if he could.

  And then, as Jeffrey Charlton took his place at the head of the table and Alistair Balfour jerked his chin at Joel to show him where he should sit, he pushed the thought away. Damn it, he was here to make a living in television, not to indulge his new found passion for history. He’d get over it eventually, no doubt. He’d only been in the country a few weeks after all, and at City TV in Frith Street only four days. He’d get used to being here eventually, he hoped. And he smoothed his napkin on his lap and looked with interest at the plate of sausage and pepper salad that was being set before him. It certainly looked attractive and it smelled fascinating. He was, he discovered, hungry.

  4

  By half past one, the system was running at full blast, and doing it as smoothly as butter melting on a hot plate. In the kitchen Angie was roaring steadily at the top of his not inconsiderable voice as dish after dish emerged from his flashing hands to be snatched from the serving table by Dan and Janos, Miklos and Jon, and delivered to the tables in the restaurant. Leno and the rest of the kitchen staff circled and bustled, dodging and dancing to the tune of his shouting and Maxie shot in and out of his cubby hole with its wine racks, beside the cold room, his corkscrew so busy that it should have been red hot.

  Upstairs all of the Extras were full and happy, with Zsuzske at last settled in her place (it had taken over ten minutes to get her large bulk up the stairs, pulled in front by her son Paul and propelled from behind by her grandsons Charles and Richard) and the casual waiters who had been brought in for the day to look after them were coping well. The serving of the main dishes had been so carefully planned by Angie that all they had to do was collect food from the dumb waiter that trundled its rickety way up from the kitchens below to the little servery at the top of the stairs and set it on the tables; each serving was clearly marked, and each side dish was provided in sufficient quantity for all the lunchers to be able to help themselves without risk of supplies running out. There was even enough lesco, for Freddy had wrought well at Berwick Street market and brought back enough plump glossy yellow peppers to make gallons of it.

  Laura, sitting at her high desk, looked around her domain, cocked an ear for sounds of discontent from above and hearing none, relaxed. Soon, she would be able to hand over to Maxie, who would in his turn allow Dan to deal with any late requests for more wine, and be able to join the family upstairs. She had been able to greet her great aunt, kissing her papery old cheeks affectionately, but she wanted to spend a little time sitting beside her. She was profoundly deaf now, old Anya Zsuzske, but for all that, it was possible to talk to her a little, and Laura wanted to do that, if she could. There couldn’t be much time left for conversation with a woman of ninety one.

  She caught sight of the three men with their heads together on the other side of the restaurant, at the table in the corner near the door, and her brows creased a little. That was an odd collection; she hadn’t noticed before quite how odd but now she could relax and she watched them from under her brows, puzzled.

  Joe Davriosh; she knew him, of course. Everyone knew him. The estate agency he ran in a small alley that ran off Bourchier Street was a shabby place, but everyone knew that there were few sales or lettings of premises in and around Soho that did not somehow touch the little office, whoever was selling what and to whom and that some of the money that changed hands always managed to stick to Joe Davriosh’s eager fat fingers even if he had nothing to do with the deal. To see him in the restaurant was not unusual; she accepted his bookings because he was so much a part of the Soho scene that it was impossible not to, though she didn’t really like him. She had no reason to feel so about him; he had never done her or any friends of hers any harm for all his meddling greed. All she knew was the gossip that went round about him, and the way brows went up and lip corners went down when his name was mentioned, but still she didn’t like him much, and she certainly didn’t like the man he had brought with him.

  Him she had often seen, and had as often refused when he had tried to book her tables. She had no control over the guests her customers brought of course, so she could do nothing about it, but she was unhappy in the extreme to see Donald Preston sitting at one of her pretty tables, even if it wasn’t one of the best.

  She bent her head to her cash box as the man looked up, not wanting to catch his eye. He looked harmless enough; no one could pick any quarrel with his neat dark suit complete with double breasted waistcoat and sober tie. There was nothing in the least flamboyant about him; he looked more like a respectable middle aged Harley Street doctor who was balding a little, running to fat perhaps, tiring a little, than what he was, which was the owner of at least three of the strip shows within a stone’s throw of Little Vinegar Yard, and it was whispered, of one or two even more unsavoury businesses.

  Laura had often wondered whether her dislike of the man and his doings was based on a distaste for sex itself rather than his exploitation of it; was she being as prissy and absurd as her mother had been, she who had reddened with shame if anyone so much as mentioned underwear in her hearing, and who had regarded any comment, let alone discussion, of the relationship between the sexes as disgusting? Her mother had come from so respectable and ordinary an English family that marrying anyone as exotic as a Hungarian – even one who was a second generation immigrant and therefore as English to listen to and look at as she was herself – had been shocking enough; she had learned to change many of her attitudes during the twenty three years of her marriage to Tibor, but she had never lost her dislike of public displays or talk of sex, and inevitably much of her thinking had been passed on to her only daughter. Is that why I hate the man so? Laura asked herself now, pushing away from the surface of her mind the deeper doubt that sometimes assailed her. That she was in fact as narrow as her mother in every way; after all, wasn’t she still unmarried at thirty five? Hadn’t she avoided men all her life so far?

  But that was not to be thought of, so she didn’t, and looked instead at the other man sitting with Davriosh and Preston, wondering who he was; but she couldn’t recognise him, and commonsensibly she pushed the question away too. If he were to have any business with the other two that might affect this, her own corner of Soho, she’d find out soon enough. She always did, after all – and she lifted her brows at Maxie who looked swiftly
round, checking his tables, and then nodded, and as though they had discussed it she knew it was now all right to go upstairs. Maxie would cope from now on; and she slipped quietly out of her seat and went as unobtrusively as she could to the staircase. No need for anyone to be aware that she wasn’t there, as she usually was, watching over their comfort all through their lunches.

  ‘Who owns the place?’ the third man at the Davriosh table asked, as he watched her go. ‘Whoever it is, he’s got a good one there. Not much she doesn’t see, is there? I’ve noticed –’

  ‘She does,’ Davriosh said, and reached for a piece of bread with which to mop up the last of the paprika sauce which had adorned his chicken. ‘And she doesn’t miss a goddammed thing; not a goddammed bloody thing. If she fancies you, you can get a table here. If she doesn’t, forget it. She’ll never take your bookings, will she, Don, hey?’ And he grinned wickedly at the man facing him.

  ‘I don’t blame her. She’s a lady of principle,’ Donald Preston said lugubriously. ‘I wouldn’t take my bookings if I owned a place like this. Full of class, full of it. Never mind. She’ll take them in future. Once we get this business sorted out.’

  ‘If she’s still here,’ the other man said quietly. He was a small man, quiet and nondescript, with the sort of vaguely ordinary face and vaguely ordinary manner that made him quite unmemorable. The person who saw him in the morning and recognised him when he met him again in the afternoon was rare; generally he went about his business as unremarked and as anonymous as one of the sparrows that chattered in the gutters outside in Little Vinegar Yard. It was an appearance he had long cultivated, and of which he was very proud; it was a considerable business asset to look so dull and ordinary, he would tell his colleagues on the rare occasions when he was in an expansive and talkative mood. ‘The man they hate but never remember,’ he would say and laugh softly and contentedly.