Guilty Pleasures (35 page)

From the Diary of Millicent Deafly:

I think my people are very tired. Maybe I’ve been driving them too hard. We’ve been very busy this year, and our work hours are very demanding.
 

They’ve been exceptional and this slip is a clear indication of overwork. Thank God we’re not working on Saturday. It will give them all a break, myself included.

Will, however, was very apologetic. I think I’ll forgive him. Strange, I know next to nothing about him, except that his grandfather was Irish, his mother’s a bitch, and he has a
very
agile tongue . . .
 

I know every inch of his delicious body, but nothing about his past, other than that abusive bitch-slut who seduced and dumped him.

I’ll interrogate Mr. Wilfred Lancelot Pecklise mercilessly.

Chapter 27

Show some passion. Make her feel desirable.

Do not, however, pant and slaver, and absolutely no dry humping!

Do not tear at any garment. As passionate a gesture as it may seem, it is probably something that will seriously annoy her.

We are required to walk an extremely fine line between being passionate and seeming bestial, between manly forcefulness and male aggression
.

Watch some movies from the forties. The love scenes hit just the right note, a masterful mix of helpless desire and controlled passion.

Try being a gentleman
.

—Sensual Secrets of a Sexual Surrogate

Shortly after Millie left, Serge trotted in as briskly as a milk-fed lamb, and just as blissful. “Willie, what a night, my boy. What a night,” he chortled gleefully. “Old Hendricks surprised me. I didn’t think that old shit had it in him.”

“I think we all surprised each other last night. Millie was not impressed.”

“Oh, bugger that. She’ll get over it. It did no harm to the business. The party was a roaring success, and Mrs. O’Donnell got royally rogered by the house stiff. What more could she want?”

Lance wisely kept his own counsel.
 

Serge took out the menu and started sorting out his work order, muttering under his breath. “Bloody seven courses for the frigging freaks, not that they even know what they’re bloody eating. A menu worthy of Queen Vicky herself: Angels on Horseback, Cream of Celery Soup,
Salmon en Papillote
, Pheasant Mandarin,
Beef Anisettes au Champignon
, Brussels Sprouts in Mustard Sauce, Plover’s Eggs in Aspic, and to finish off, Nesselrode Pudding. And
that
Will, is where we start—with the pudding.”

“Sounds amazing,” Lance said. “Victorian, you said? Yum . . .”
 

They washed up and Serge set Lance to cutting the candied fruits, chestnuts, and pineapple into half-inch cubes and soaking them in sherry, while he made the chestnut purée and the custard. He blended the two together, while Lance carefully slivered the blanched almonds.
 

Finally, Serge poured the crème into a fanciful mould and placed it in the fridge. An hour later, he slowly stirred the fruit and nut mix into the thickening sauce. Meanwhile, he made the aromatic white wine and herb aspic for the boiled plover eggs, the mustard sauce, the celery soup, sautéed the pheasant in Madeira, grilled the broad brown mushrooms with butter and garlic, and seasoned the meat and the salmon in readiness for the last-minute preparation of those dishes.

“Who are these Little Dorrit people, Serge?” Lance asked. “Regulars, right?”

“Every fucking month, there they are. Bloody Dickens wrote this fucking book about some namby-pamby wimpy girl—did it in instalments, too. A serial they called it, so these arseholes come in here every month, eat like pigs, and read this shit to each other. ‘Like he wrote it,’ they say. It costs them a fortune to read a book about being down and out and in debtor’s prison.”

Hendricks came in at seven, pale-faced and contrite. “Mr. Moreno, Wilfred, good evening.”

“Hendricks, you old dog. Didn’t think you had it in you, man. I’m proud,” Serge said, embracing his cringing midriff. “Good taste, too. She is prime.”

Lance grinned at Hendricks’s obvious embarrassment.

“Um, thank you, Mr. Moreno, I think . . .”

“So? Tell us everything.”

“A gentleman, Mr. Moreno, does
not
tell.” He blushed. “I can, however, confess that I was surprised. Yes, very surprised. I will be seeing Mrs. O’Donnell again, if she will allow me to. She is a most captivating lady.”

“Oh,
that
good.” Serge chortled. “Go for it, my man. I wish you luck, or failing that, a stiff dick.”

An uncomfortable Hendricks excused himself and scuttled away to oversee his arriving staff.

“You shouldn’t, Serge, the poor man . . .” Lance laughed.

“If you can’t take the heat, then you’ve no place in my kitchen!” Serge grinned. He dished up grilled mushrooms and a cheese salad for the two of them, reached for a bottle of red wine, and poured. “Dig in, Willie. Drink up. It will wash away that fuzz in your brain. Best cure for a hangover is another drink.”

“Sorry, I’ll pass.” Lance shuddered, and reached for nice plain, cool water.

Serge smacked generous lips over the complex tannins of the dry red. “You don’t know what you’re missing. A lovely vintage, upper Douro region, practically unknown, a connoisseur’s secret. We are serving it to those ignoramuses tonight. I couldn’t let it go unsavoured.”

“You drink to that, Serge, my man!”

Serge sighed and took another sip. “Alas, to go unsavoured from this brutal world . . . reminds me of this one story. I had this friend who had a little anatomical disadvantage, see, a very little one, too. So, he decided to
improve
his lot—”

Hendricks hustled in. “Mr. Moreno, if I could trouble you—”

“What’s the matter, man? Sky fell on your head?”

“Two of my waiters are not coming in, which leaves me with just two for a twenty-two seater. I was wondering, if Wilfred agreed of course, if you could lend him to me?”

Serge raised questioning eyebrows in Lance’s direction. “Well, Willie. Do you wanna see the freaks up close?”

“I have no objection, Mr. Hendricks, but I might not be as good as your other staff in a formal affair.”

“Don’t worry. Watch the others, and I’ll signal you. Serve from the left, remove from the right. As soon as someone is finished, you step in unobtrusively and remove the dish, cutlery and all. When placing a dish before a guest, place your free hand behind your back, not on the back of the chair. Watch your section of the table attentively. The guests will be signalling for service very discreetly. You’ll be fine if you remember that.”

“I’ll do my best. What do I wear?”

“There is an extra uniform; I’ll set it out for you. It should be fine. Come get ready at eight, please.”

Not long after, Millie rushed in equally flustered. “Serge, there is an extra guest tonight. I have to go review the seating order and put out another place setting. They’re bringing in a guest speaker at the last minute. We can handle it, right?”

“Sure, Millie, I always cook loads. It’s not Orson Welles, is it?”

“Funny. It’s some French girl who wrote a book on Dickens. At least I won’t be sitting through another epistle of Amy’s adventures.”

Could it be Francine? George’s wife?
Lance felt the room sway dangerously around him. It could not be. Fate was tightening its noose around his sweaty little neck, and he wouldn’t be hiding away safely in the kitchen. He was going to be out there, under Millie’s eagle eye. “Good evening, Millie, I hope it’s all right . . .”
Please say no
. “But Hendricks is two men short and he asked me to step in.”

Millie frowned. “Serge, can you spare Will?”

“It’s fine, Millie.” Serge waved a nonchalant hand. “I’ve got everything under control.”

“Go ahead, Will, and thank you.”

Lance hurried to the locker room on trembling legs. He was about to have a panic attack. He found Hendricks sprucing himself up. “Sorry, Mr. Hendricks, but I haven’t shaved today.”

Hendricks motioned him over to the locker room. Will followed and Hendricks silently handed him a new disposable traveller’s kit, complete with razor, toothbrush, paste, and tiny tubes of shaving cream and hair gel.
 

So that’s where they kept them!
Lance laughed, never thinking to look above the women’s hygiene section. Lance lathered up and gave himself the closest shave of his life, carefully reshaping his sideburns. He combed back his hair and smeared on the gel.
Not bad.

He decided not to panic. Francine had met him only once in his Lance persona, with his fashionable scruff and loose wave of carefully tousled hair, and his slight swagger. Besides, she’d been so besotted, gazing at George in that ridiculous way, that he doubted she’d even noticed he was in the room.
 

Hopefully, she wouldn’t look too closely at a lowly waiter. He’d keep his head down, and look humble. Hendricks would not be assigning him, inexperienced as he was, to the head of the table. He should be reasonably safe, or so he hoped.

Hendricks took him through the serving order, explaining the placing of the platters on their chafing dishes on the sideboard. The salon was resplendent in candlelight, the chandelier throwing prisms of light onto the snowy linen, the silvery cutlery and the rows of cut crystal long stem glasses in front of each place setting.

Close to eight thirty, the guests started to arrive. Hendricks signalled them and they lined up in front of the sideboard with their shoulders squared and hands behind their backs. Millie, pretty in a long silvery-grey velvet gown and grey pearls came forward to greet the society’s president and members with charm and a delighted smile. There she was, Francine Fromage. Someone or something was out to get him.

The Little Dorrit Society milled around, introducing her to each other with many exclamations of delight. Finally, they started to seat themselves around the long table, and Hendricks stepped forward to the head for permission to start serving dinner.

Lance was lost in a thousand details, moving swiftly from sideboard to table, and couldn’t have identified a single one of the guests in a police lineup if his life depended on it.
 

The courses seemed endless, and the hum of conversation blended seamlessly with the buzzing in his head. At long last, Hendricks wheeled in the huge pudding, slathered in whipped cream, resplendent with sugared cherries, candied angelica and
marron glacés
to an enthusiastic outburst of applause from the apparently insatiable Little Dorrits. Finally, they proffered the cheese platters and the fruit, serving the sherry, Madeira and port as requested, and stepped back to stand at attention before the now depleted sideboard.

The president, a jolly-looking man with a beautifully coiffed silver beard, miraculously unmarred by the huge amounts of food he’d consumed, rose to thank Millie for the magnificent victuals, and to introduce a new delight, Mademoiselle Francine Fromage, Dickens scholar extraordinaire.

Francine rose to thank him and proceeded to charm them all with her unaffected enthusiasm.

Hendricks signalled a retreat.

Lance and the other two waiters quietly withdrew. He heaved a gigantic sigh of relief. He’d been invisible; he was untouchable. Once more, Fate had tried to trip him, and he’d leaped over the yawning pit to safety. He slipped out of his waiter’s black and back into his whites, hurrying to the kitchen to help Serge tidy up.