Songs from the Violet Cafe (8 page)

He laughed, a high sound in the back of his throat. ‘I fancy you,’ he said. ‘You’ll die of love for me before the night’s out. You need to get ready for work or you’ll have Mrs Trench on your back. You always call her Mrs Trench. Always.’

As she stood, Jessie felt a wave of nausea and for a moment the room swam. It felt as if John was poking fun at her, yet she couldn’t be sure.

Marianne and Evelyn, and Hester the other cook, arrived in that order, one by one. Jessie thought Marianne might be about her own age, with skin that appeared transparent and sharply etched cheekbones. She dug her hands into the pockets of a wide flowing black
skirt with black and gold flowers embroidered all over it; she carried a bag slung casually over her shoulder, her chin slightly tilted.

‘Right on time tonight, Marianne,’ said Violet Trench, with a note of approval. Jessie supposed immediately that Marianne was her favourite — you could tell who the bosses liked. But Violet’s pleasure contained a reproach as well. ‘I do wish you’d get changed before you come.’

Marianne disappeared through a door and reappeared a few moments later, wearing a dark green waitress’s dress, partly obscured by a green and white checked apron. She still looked beautiful, her waist tiny beneath her heavy breasts, her hips swaying in a way that struck Jessie as insolent.

Evelyn was already wearing her uniform when she arrived. This girl had such black hair that there was something almost swarthy about her. Her dark glittering eyes showed no sign of welcome. She acknowledged Violet by raising one eyebrow, so thick and straight it might have been a man’s, as if she didn’t really belong in this place.

The last to arrive — for the time being at least — was Hester, a woman of indeterminate age, although her moist face was youthful at first glance. She was the younger of the two women from the bookshop.

Hester bustled through the café, brushing her hair behind her ears, her face pink and fraught.

‘Hester, meet Jessie, our new dish-washer.’

‘Where’s Belle?’

John shrugged. ‘Vamoose. Who knows?’

Hester studied Jessie, a tired frown resting between her eyes. She gave no indication of having seen Jessie before, except for a puzzled flicker of recognition, but yet Jessie felt that in the space of an hour or two, she had moved into another world where she was already known and knew others. Hester spoke past Jessie, as if she wasn’t there. ‘Mrs Trench won’t get rid of Belle that easily.’

‘You could say mercy is in short supply,’ said John and laughed, another of his curious high musical peals.

Hester looked pained, finally acknowledging Jessie’s presence.
‘You can wash dishes, can you? I mean, you have had experience?’

‘Yes,’ said Jessie.

‘You have to polish everything, not just a rub and a swipe.’

‘Plenty of clean pans,’ Jessie said.

‘Exactly’ Hester wiped her arm across her forehead, displaying a wet armpit. She seemed reassured.

‘You’ll have to roll up your sleeves,’ said Marianne. Hester had immersed herself in a conversation with John, their heads bent over a list, John speaking rapidly, as they planned the specials for the night, and about something else that made them lower their voices. ‘You do get your hands wet,’ Marianne added. There was a touch of malice in the way she spoke, a sort of anticipatory glee as if she foresaw Jessie’s downfall. Marianne and Evelyn adjusted their waitresses’ uniforms and straightened their curved caps. In the café beyond, the sound of voices rose as people greeted one another and chairs were pulled back, then moved into place. The staff in the kitchen stood poised with an air of readiness. This was the moment Belle chose to come racing in the door, fair ponytail askew, her prominent blue eyes frantic. ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ She threw her jacket over a hook.

Hester spoke to her with a mixture of relief and reproof. ‘What are you doing here, Belle? I heard you were sick.’

‘Who said?’

‘Your mother,’ John said.

Belle blinked rapidly. ‘Why does she do this to me?’

‘Because she thinks you shouldn’t be here,’ said Evelyn, who had hardly spoken a word to anyone. ‘She doesn’t think you should be down in the muck with people like us.’ Her tone was sarcastic and mocking, as if she believed what she said, but not about herself.

‘She thinks we might defile you,’ Marianne said. ‘Belle’s a Christian, you know,’ she added, for Jessie’s benefit. ‘She should pray for her job, don’t you reckon?’

‘No,’ whispered Belle, ‘she wouldn’t do that to me.’

‘I’ll pray for you. Lord have mercy upon us,’ Marianne cried, throwing herself into a dramatic swoon on the floor, one hand trailing across the bench above her. ‘La belle dame sans merci.’

Hester’s hand flew up to cover her smile. ‘Stop it all of you. The point being, who is going to do the dishes, Belle or Jessie?’

Violet’s face appeared at the door. Marianne scrambled to her feet, less gracefully than she had fallen. ‘I can hear you in the café,’ Violet said. ‘The first person who speaks another unnecessary word this evening can leave at once. I mean it. Hester, I thought you had more control over the staff.’

Hester flushed deeply. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Trench. Ma’am.’

The room had gone quiet; the tension in the air was so palpable it felt as if something would break. Violet’s eyes settled on Jessie. ‘The girl I was going to interview tomorrow can’t come. I’ll try you out as a waitress. If you drop anything in a customer’s lap, I’ll dock your pay.’

Jessie collected herself. This was her last employer’s trick — a little intimidation, a threat, the prospect of a shattered treasure on the floor reaping punishment. Miss Early had called her clumsy so often that she had come to think it must be true. The atmosphere in the room deepened. Jessie guessed that if she said no, that she was leaving, they would all suffer Violet’s wrath. Much later, when she believed that her life was entwined with that of Violet Trench, she would think these were acts of protection. In all the times she would recall that scene in her head, she never remembered a phone ringing, or someone coming into the café to speak to Violet. So she couldn’t think how Violet might have received a message in those few frozen moments. But then in that dreamy haze, an evening spent somewhere between her appalled astonishment at her flight from home, and fascination with her new surroundings, anything could have happened. She would learn, through something like osmosis, the way Violet held young women in the palm of her hand, and the power she had to make a difference in their lives.

For a moment, Belle’s desperation, as she stood quivering beside the bench, infected everyone in the kitchen.

‘I guess experience costs,’ Jessie said.

She did, she told herself, have a brand-new life.

‘Give her a uniform, Hester, if you’ve got one long enough, and a cap,’ Violet said, when barely a beat had passed between her and
Jessie. ‘As for you, Marianne, you’re behaving like a child. Get out there and take some orders. You’re on a last warning.’ She turned and walked back into the café. Belle tipped soap flakes into a stream of running water.

Hester took a uniform from a folded pile at the end of the bench and threw it to Jessie. ‘We’ve got a table for eight coming, they’ll all want their orders served at once. Marianne and Evelyn will take those — you can do the small orders. We’ve got a special guest coming tonight. He’s a friend of Mrs Trench, her oldest friend in the world. It’s his eighty-fifth birthday. He has a seat by the window overlooking the lake, the one you were sitting at when I came in. He’s patient, he won’t mind if you take a little while. All the same, everything must be done exactly right.’

Evelyn reappeared from the café. ‘I don’t want to do table six,’ she said to Hester.

‘Neither do I,’ said Marianne at almost the identical moment, holding a sheaf of dockets from her first orders.

‘Why?’ said Hester.

‘My father’s out there.’ Evelyn’s enigmatic face faltered for the first time.

‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ snapped Hester. ‘He’s usually here.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Evelyn said in a hopeless way.

‘Poor Evelyn, always misunderstood,’ Marianne said, almost too softly to be heard.

‘But my mother’s out there too, at table nine.’

‘Girls,’ said Hester, ‘haven’t you had enough warnings for one night? You’ll go where you’re told.’

‘God’s truth,’ said Marianne.

Belle said then that Marianne shouldn’t talk about God like that. Now that she was elbows deep in suds she seemed to have recovered. Her prominent eyes had acquired confidence since Violet’s intervention. Out in the café, the noise level was rising. Marianne offered Evelyn an awkward hug, as if to say she was sorry.

Outside, dark had fallen, blotting out all but a shimmer over the lake; inside, creamy lamps had been switched on. The café was full of humming life; to Jessie it looked like the set of a movie, full of people in a foreign place where everyone on the set spoke the language, but those off stage could only stand and watch.

‘Could you start taking orders?’ Marianne said urgently. ‘Is that woman off her head?’ Referring to Violet Trench. ‘You don’t have a clue, do you, Jessie? Did Hester tell you the specials?’

‘She said there was a special guest.’

‘No, the special dishes, you idiot.’

So Marianne had to stop then and show her how you took orders in turn from each person, not mixing up the dockets, so that the food flowed back to them in the order they had asked for it. Jessie found herself beside a table, notebook in hand, reciting the soup of the day, French onion, and our fish is terakihi, cooked very lightly with a delicate lemon sauce, our special tonight is grilled lamb with a Turkish sauce made from onions, tomatoes, capsicum and pine nuts blended with wine. How chic it sounded, she would remember. And for those of discernment, there was chicken with truffles,
poularde
de
truffée.
Marianne made her say it two or three times over and seemed pleased with her efforts. ‘I’ve never seen a real French menu before,’ Jessie said.

‘An adaptation of the classics, I suspect,’ Marianne said dryly. ‘You’ve learned French, have you?’

‘Just at school.’

‘Same here. Not that the French understand me.’

‘You’ve been to France?’

‘Not likely. The French come here sometimes when they’re visiting. As you know, this town gets a lot of visitors. Now, about the
wine. People might ask for it. You ask them if they want a cup of tea, and if they say yes right away, you go out and ask her ladyship if they can have one. If they seem surprised and ask why a cup of tea when they’ve asked for wine, tell them straight — we don’t serve it, we keep the law. You understand?’

‘I think so. But if it’s a Frenchman, mightn’t he be surprised?’

‘Ah well, that’s different. You still ask Mrs Trench. I promise you’ll get to know which is which.’

Jessie saw that Marianne had taken table six, after all, and that the man sitting there was the man who had spoken to her in the street. Evelyn’s father. He winked when he saw Jessie, and grinned. His companions were a couple of men in their thirties and forties perhaps. A business dinner of some kind, Jessie guessed from words overheard. Marianne moved forward. ‘What would you like, sir?’ she asked, and he laughed. The men with Lou Messenger were not bushmen or farmers, but outdoors kind of men all the same, with smooth tanned complexions. They wore suede ties with coloured shirts and, out in the kitchen, Marianne said it was a business celebration, a good sale their company had just made. Hadn’t Evelyn been told about the sale?

‘It’s not what I’d heard,’ Evelyn said. ‘Ask my mother.’ Her voice was full of a startling bitterness. ‘Tell the new girl to tell her.’ Jessie overheard this in a snatch as she whisked away another plate in the rising heat of the kitchen, and shivered. A quick wink didn’t go unnoticed in this place.

‘Don’t, Evie,’ said Marianne, as if they knew each other better than they were letting on.

Jessie had, in fact, been delegated to the table where Evelyn’s mother was sitting, because Evelyn wouldn’t serve her and her assembly of surprising friends either. Evelyn seemed to be the one who got away with things.

Jessie tried to think of the menu as if it were a poem, or the law of torts, but found herself tripping on the
poularde
de
truffée,
because the author was playing with his spoon, banging it on the side of his water glass. It made her think of Grant and Belinda and Janice, so
much so that she almost stopped. Evelyn’s mother, whose name was Freda, stared at her in an intense kind of way as if willing her to get to the end. Jessie thought that this might be a job lived on the edge of desperation. Even so, at the end of her performance, the author slow-clapped.

Violet was there in an instant. ‘There’s a pie cart at the end of the road if you’d rather.’

‘Oh please,’ said Freda. Her eyes darted over to table six, but her husband didn’t seem to be paying any attention.

Violet straightened her shoulders. ‘You did well, Jessie,’ she said, before she moved off.

Alongside Freda there was an odd assortment of men wearing cravats at the throat of their white shirts, smoking cigarettes in gold-patterned holders, a woman with an overloud laugh and bright lipstick who had come along because there was nothing in the fridge at home, a sallow youth with red-rimmed eyes
,
as well as the famous author in his checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and the frail-looking woman with big eyes and hollow cheeks. At Violet’s insistence, the famous author had taken off his hat and put it at his feet. He said he’d like a beer — any chance of a beer?

‘Would you like a pot of tea?’ Jessie asked.

‘Tea, for Chrissake, I don’t want tea.’

‘I think she means
tea
, you know,
tea
,’ said his girlfriend. ‘I think I’d like a cup of
tea
.’

It was like a complicated dance, waiting on tables in that crowded room. Marianne did it best, gliding among the tables with a feline grace, looking as if she was enjoying herself. Her broad shoulders bent again and again over the tables, delivering food with an accomplished ease. In the kitchen hardly anyone spoke to one another, although thighs touched and brushed as the chefs concentrated at the stove, and the waitresses flung the dockets on the spikes overhead. Once, later in the evening, Belle got in Evelyn’s way as she dashed over to John with a sauce pot, causing a minor collision. Evelyn’s dessert order, a
crème
brulée
wearing an exquisite net of spun sugar, teetered in mid-air before she saved it with a flick of her wrist. Evelyn turned
a glower of rage upon Belle, and then shrugged her shoulders as if she was beneath her contempt.