Don’t You Forget About Me. Mhairi McFarlane

       2

      ‘When did you know you wanted to be a waitress?’ Callum, my only colleague front-of-house says, trying to swill an Orangina in a cowboy manner, re-screwing the cap with a sense of manly purpose.

      He has a shadowy moustache, armpit sweat rings and his only hobby and/or interest is the gym, doing classes called things like Leg Death. I often fear he’s trying to flirt. I pitch my tone with him as very ‘older sister’ to discourage it.

      ‘Uhm … I wouldn’t say I wanted to do this. Or want to do this.’

      ‘Oh. Right. How old are you, again?’ Callum says.

      Callum, being a not-that-sharp twenty-two-year-old, doesn’t realise when his thought processes are fully evident. He once mentioned to me that the step machine was great ‘even for people a stone, or a stone and a half over their ideal weight’.

      ‘Thirty,’ I say, as he double-takes.

      ‘Woah!’

      ‘Thanks.’

      ‘No I mean you don’t look that old. You look, like … twenty-eight.’

      Lately, I am feeling the fact that I used to be ‘of ages’ with people I worked with in the service industry, but increasingly I am a grande dame. The thought makes my stomach pucker like an old football. The future is a place I try not to think about.

      When I took the job at That’s Amore! I was a month behind with my rent and told myself that it was retro, with dripping candles in Chianti bottles in wicker baskets, red-and-white-check wipe-down tablecloths, plastic grape vine across the bar, and Italian Classic Love Songs: Vol 1 on the stereo.

      ‘Why don’t you get a proper job?’ Mum said. I explained for the millionth time I am a writer in waiting who needs to earn money, and if I get a proper job then that’s it, proper job forever. Somewhere in the back of a wardrobe, I have my old sixth form yearbook. I was voted Most Likely To Go Far and Most Likely To Get A First. I have made it as far as the shittest trattoria in Sheffield, and I quit my degree after one term. But apart from that, spot on.

      ‘You’re going to be a very old waitress without a pension,’ Mum replied.

      My sister, Esther, said supportively: ‘Thank God no one I know goes there.’

      Joanna said: ‘Isn’t That’s Amore! the one that had the norovirus outbreak a year back?’

      Having sampled the ‘rustic homely fare’, I’m not sure that norovirus wasn’t unfairly scapegoated.

      Now, I could take a lump hammer to the looping CD. I want the moon to hit Dean Martin in the eye like Mike Tyson.

      It turns out my role is less a waitress, more an apologist for gastronomic terrorism. I’m a mule, shuttling the criminal goods from kitchen to table and acting innocent when questioned.

      They told me that a free lunch was a perk of my meagre wage, and I soon discovered that’s an up-side like getting a ride on an inflatable slide if your plane crashes.

      What really sticks in the craw is that, due to a combination of confused pensioners, masochists, students attracted by the early bird ‘toofer’ deal, and out of towners, That’s Amore! turns a profit.

      The owner, a really grouchy man known only as ‘Beaky’, claims Mediterranean heritage ‘on my mama’s side’ but looks and sounds totally Sheffield. He comes in every so often to swill the grappa and empty the till, and is happy to let it lurch onward with Tony as de facto boss.

      Tony, a wiry chain smoker with a wispy mullet, is tolerable if you handle him right, meaning, accept his word is God, ignore the lechery and remind yourself it’s getting paid that matters.

      Tonight isn’t too busy, and after bussing the mains to the lucky recipients, I sip a glass of water and check my frazzled reflection in the stainless steel of the Gaggia machine.

      A call from across the room.

      ‘Excuse me? Excuse me …!’

      I assemble my features into a neutral-interested expression as Mr Keith beckons me over, even though I know exactly what’s coming. He picks up his fork and drops it back down into the congealed, grout-coloured sludge of the carbonara.

      ‘This is inedible.’

      ‘I am sorry. What’s wrong with it?’

      ‘What’s right with it? It tastes like feet. It’s lukewarm.’

      ‘Would you like something else?’

      ‘Well, no. I chose carbonara as that was the dish I wanted to eat. I’d like this, please, but edible.’

      I open and close my mouth as I don’t know what the fix for that is other than firing Tony, changing every supplier and razing That’s Amore! to the ground.

      ‘It’s obviously been sat around while you made my wife’s risotto.’

      I’d make no such wild guesses, as the truth is bound to be worse.

      ‘Shall I get the kitchen to make you another?’

      ‘Yes, please,’ the man says, handing it up to me.

      I explain the situation to Tony, who never seems to mind customers saying his cooking is rank. I wish he would take it personally, standards might improve.

      He takes a catering bag of parmesan shavings out, flings some more on to the dish, stirs it around and puts it in the microwave for two minutes. It pings, and he pulls it out.

      ‘Count to fifty and give him this. The mouth will taste what the mind is told to,’ he taps his forehead. I can’t help think if it was that easy, That’s Amore! would have a Michelin star instead of a single star rating average on TripAdvisor.

      Thing is, I’d argue with Tony he should whip up a replacement, but it’ll be just as bad as this one.

      I sag with embarrassment. My life so far feels like one long exercise in blunting my nerve endings.

      Having waited a short while to reinforce the illusion, I march the offending pasta through the swing doors.

      ‘Here you are, sir,’ I say, doing the Basil Fawlty-ish grit-simper again as I set it down, ‘I do apologise.’

      The man stares at the plate and I’m very grateful for the distraction of an elderly couple in the doorway who need greeting and seating.

      With crushing inevitability, as soon as I’ve done this, Mr Keith beckons me back. I have to leave. I have to leave. Just get past this month’s rent first. And booking that week in Crete with Robin, if I can persuade him to it.

      ‘This is the same dish. As in the one I sent back.’

      ‘Oh, no?’ I pantomime surprise, shaking my head emphatically, ‘I asked the chef to replace it.’

      ‘It’s the same plate.’ The man points to a nick in the patterned china. ‘That was there before.’

      ‘Uhm … he maybe did a new carbonara and used the same plate?’

      ‘He made another lot of food, scraped the old pasta into the bin, washed the plate, dried it, and re-used it? Why wouldn’t