The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs (15 page)

— Beverly. Beverly Skinner.

Sandy Cunningham-Blyth furrowed his brow, trying to cast his mind back, but it seemed that he genuinely couldn’t recall Beverly. He shook his head and sighed. — So many passed through here at one time.

— She had green hair, quite unusual back then. She was a sort of punk. Well, not sort of, she
was
a punk.

— Oh yes! A delightful girl as I recall, the old chef sang, — though hardly a girl any more, I suppose!

— Naw, Skinner agreed, as Sandy Cunningham-Blyth again seized the cue to move back into tales of the restaurant in its heydays. It was general stuff, but Skinner was content to play it cool and develop a relationship with the ex-chef as the drinks flowed.

Then Cunningham-Blyth started to crumble. After a spate of drifting in and out of consciousness, by the time last orders came round he had completely passed out. Shannon turned to Skinner. — I’m going home. Alone, she added, aware that she always had to make that statement in order to fend off his advances at this time of the night.

— Aye, fair enough, Skinner said. — I’m going to get the old boy into a taxi.

Shannon was slightly disappointed not to have to repel
Skinner’s ardour, though his generosity towards the old drunk increased his standing in her eyes.

Skinner had managed to rouse Cunningham-Blyth, staging an inpromptu farce, which involved getting him across the road, into the station and inside a taxi before he conked out again. It was a pantomime performance with the lead alternately coaxing, cajoling, begging and threatening. Before the alcoholic coma claimed him, the former chef had managed to bark out a Dublin Street address. The worst part was getting him out the cab and up the stairs. There was an excruciating search through the veteran cook’s pockets for his keys, but Skinner doggedly persevered. The stairs were a nightmare; Cunningham-Blyth was bulky, moreover his weight would shift, as he would appear in semi-control, before sinking back into total inebriation again. At one stage Skinner feared they would both go crashing down the steep stairs or, worse, cowp over into the well.

After the ordeal of getting him into the flat and on to a bed, Skinner decided to explore Cunningham-Blyth’s apartment. It was roomy, with a large, well-furnished drawing room and an impressive island kitchen. This room wasn’t used frequently though; opened tins, strewn takeaway boxes and empty beer cans testified that Sandy’s parties weren’t as lavish as of old.

This flat is fucking minging.

Skinner prepared to leave but then he heard crashing noises and went back to investigate. There was a heaving sound and he saw Cunningham-Blyth puking up into the toilet at the end of the hall, his trousers down at his ankles. — You awright there, mate?

— Yes . . . Cunningham-Blyth turned round slowly and splayed out on the floor, his back resting against the jacks. Skinner couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. The old chef jerked like a puppet, and the similarities didn’t end there, as he had no genitals: where they ought to have hung there was only
some ugly red and yellow scar tissue. On closer examination, Skinner thought that he could make out a sack, which may or may not have had something in it, but there was certainly no penis. Out from this angry formlessness came a tube feeding into a plastic bag, which was attached by a belt to his waist. The bag was slowly filling up with yellow liquid right in front of Skinner’s eyes.

Through his drunken fug the veteran chef registered Skinner’s horror, immediately noting its source. Prodding at the bag he laughed. — The number of times I had to empty this old bugger tonight . . . still, at least I remembered. Sometimes I forget and it bursts open. On one occasion recently, there was a very unsavoury incident . . .

Skinner was aghast. — What happened to you . . .?

Cunningham-Blyth, as if sobered by his embarrassment, hiked up his trousers and pulled himself up on to the rim of the toilet pan, where his buttocks perched precariously. Silence hung for a second or two. When he commenced speaking it was in clipped, detached tones. — As a young man back in the sixties, I became interested in politics. Particularly the national question. I wondered how it was that most of Ireland was free, while Scotland was still in servitude under the English Crown. I looked around at the New Town, its streets named after English royalty due to that toady Scott, while a great, Edinburgh native son and socialist leader like James Connolly merited little more than a plaque on a wall under a shadowy bridge . . . ehm, do you really want to know this?

Skinner nodded, urging him to carry on.

— I was always a recipe maker . . . a
concocter
, I suppose one might say. As a gesture, I resolved to fashion a home-made bomb and blow up one of the symbols of British imperialism that litter this city. I had my eye on the Duke of Wellington’s statue at the east end. So I made a pipe bomb. Unfortunately, I had the device between my thighs as I was packing it with explosive. It went off prematurely. I lost my penis and one of my
testicles, he said, now almost cheerfully, Skinner thought. — It probably wouldn’t even have scratched the Iron Duke. Cunningham-Blyth shook his head and gave a resigned smile.

— I was eighteen years old and had only known one woman, a strapping wench who taught primary school in Aberfeldy. She had a face like a bag of spanners but there’s not a day that goes past that I don’t think of her with a song in my heart, and yes, I can feel it, the phantom erection, as strong and thick as an old beat bobby’s truncheon. Look after your old fellow, son, the old chef said ruefully, — best fucking friend you’ll ever have and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Skinner stood paralysed for a few seconds, then nodded curtly to Sandy Cunningham-Blyth and left the flat. His head swam as he snaked down the cobbled streets of the New Town towards the black, oily waters of the Firth of Forth.

I’m finding out the bedroom secrets of the Master Chefs alright, but not the ones I want.

SPRING SETTLED CAUTIOUSLY
into Edinburgh, as unsure of its tenure as ever. Its citizens, though customarily wary of its fickle bounty, nonetheless enjoyed its arrival with optimism. The staff at the council’s Environmental Health Department were no exception. There was expected to be some positive news about the departmental budget, and employees gathered in the conference room to hear John Cooper tell them that this was being increased, in real terms, for the first time in five years. This meant a reorganisation, which would put another Principal Officer post on the establishment. Somebody was on a promotion.

Though it was often joked in council circles that Cooper could make a promotion feel like a redundancy, the news was heartily welcomed by most of the employees present. Skinner looked at Bob Foy and saw a muscle twitch in his face. Wondered if anyone else did. He glanced round at Aitken, impassive, who was retiring, then McGhee, who had stated his intention to go back to his native Glasgow. Then he saw Kibby, looking serious and focused. He’d been working hard to get into Foy’s good books lately, and with some success, Skinner recognised. His own promotion prospects were harder to take stock of. His heavy drinking had not stopped but it had certainly plateaued during his developing relationship with Shannon.

So during one of the first genuinely mild nights of the year, the departmental staff found themselves in the Café Royal. Bob Foy, as Principal Officer in the section, had suggested a pint after work to celebrate the good news. One pint, of course,
became several, and in the oak-panelled and marble-tiled grandeur of the bar, people soon grew happily intoxicated. Brian Kibby was the notable exception. As was his habit, he chose to limit himself to soda water and lime for most of the night.

Skinner found his cynicism crank up in correspondence with the units of alcohol in his system. Scrutinising his colleagues’ faces – bright, smiling, optimistic – his thoughts grew dark. Everybody was keen, especially, Danny Skinner thought, Brian Kibby.

Oh aye, Kibby’s keen. If there’s one word that’s synonymous with him, that’s it. They all said it, the old hands: ‘Aye, he’s keen, that laddie.’

And Skinner felt that Kibby, with this keenness, would shape up to be his closest rival for the new post.

Skinner did what he generally tried to do in these circumstances: shame Brian Kibby into having a drink. — Soda water and lime . . . hmm, ducky! he lisped at Brian in front of Shannon, on whom Kibby still had an obvious unrequited crush. After a long stint on the soft drinks, Kibby eventually relented to Skinner’s baiting and sipped two pints of lager tops. It didn’t spare his colleague’s derision but he felt he didn’t stand out so much with a full pint in his hand.

Get lost, Skinner.

To escape the harassment, Brian Kibby went up to the jukebox and made some selections. He was hoping to impress Shannon, because he knew that a lot of girls liked Coldplay, through the postings on the official site.

There’s a really beautiful-looking girl who posts on there, from her avatar picture, but maybe she loves herself too much, putting the picture up like that. No as good as Lucy but, or Shannon.

Kibby stole a poignant look at Shannon McDowall, who was laughing at some racy joke Skinner had made, as the track ‘Yellow’ struck up:

— What fucking muppet put
that
shite on? Skinner screwed his face up, looking around. When he saw Kibby redden, he rolled his eyes in a canny exasperation and turned to Dougie Winchester at the bar, shouting up more drinks.

— Ah think they’re no bad, Winchester opined.

— What sort ay music dae you like? Kibby asked Shannon.

— All sorts really, Brian. New Order’s probably my favourite band. Do you like them?

— Eh . . . ah dinnae really ken their stuff. What dae ye think ay Coldplay? he asked hopefully.

— They’re okay . . . she said, screwing up her face, — but it’s like . . . background music. You know, elevator music, supermarket music. It’s just a wee bit bland and insipid, she said distractedly, as Skinner passed a glass over to her.

That must mean that she thinks the likes of me’s bland and insipid . . . just good enough for the background . . . no like the likes ay Skinner . . .

With the evening suitably soured for him, Brian Kibby finished his drink, made his excuses and headed off. When he got home he drank two pints of water, then had a Horlicks with his mother.

When he went to bed his stomach was knotted, his head buzzed and he couldn’t sleep. All he could think of was the Principal Officer’s job and the man who would be his main rival for the post.

Danny Skinner.

We got on okay at first, but Danny seems to see himself as the golden boy. Oh aye, he didnae mind me when I was content tae play second fiddle to his wisecracking, but he disnae like it when I get credit in my own right. No, not one bit. And Skinner takes the mucking around at work and college too far, and he tries to bully me, to make me the butt of his daft jokes. Everybody knows that his drinking is out of control. And to think that Shannon went with him, with Skinner. She’s crazy. I used to think that she was smart but she’s just stupid and easily conned, like so many of them.

Danny Skinner, though acutely aware of the threat Kibby poised, could do little about it. One midweek evening in a High Street pub, his voice took on a weary resignation as he
defeatedly agreed to another pint from Rab McKenzie.

I should say no.

He had the presentation tomorrow, the one on the new set of procedures that many in the department were calling the unofficial first interview, as Brian Kibby was undertaking a similar one the following day. Aye, he thought, I should call a halt now and go home; get a good night’s sleep so that I’ll be on the top of my game. Yet since Kay had walked out of his life a good night’s sleep had become something of a rarity. It was hard to sleep in an empty bed. Shannon and he had only slept together twice. On both occasions she’d taken a taxi home after unspectacular, perfunctory drunken trysts.

Not only was there no Kay, but there was still no contact with Beverly either. He’d gone past the shop one afternoon, glimpsed at the chunky body and scarlet head of his mother as she put another woman under the dryer. But no, let her wait. The next time he spoke to her it would be to see her reaction to two simple words: the name of his father.

He thought about the book again,
The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs.

De Fretais and Tomlin, the American guy, were the only other young chefs at the Archangel who got a mention. Cunningham-Blyth is definitely off the list. Surely it couldnae be that fat cunt De Fre . . .

Naw. No way.

Gloomily looking into his half-full glass, Skinner could project to tomorrow and see his trembling, unassertive figure bowed and sweating under the fluorescent strip lights, feeling himself internally cowering before Cooper and Foy.
No better than Kibby
, he snorted to himself as he watched McKenzie at the bar, obtaining another drink.

Another fucking pint.

Yes, every casual enquiry would be amplified and distorted; decoded by his fevered, racing brain into a harsh interrogation, designed to show him up for the drunken, inadequate malingerer that they believed him to be.

The problem, and paradoxically the solution, to this nagging awareness of the next day’s horror, was more drink. The consciousness of the evil to come would leave him with a few more pints. Then they’d stagger on to a club or either back to his, McKenzie’s or somebody’s they met on the way with a hastily procured carry-out. All this fear would be forgotten, until it returned with savage interest the next morning, as the alarm clock ripped him out of unconsciousness.

And there would be Kibby, in early at the team meeting for networking purposes; fresh, enthusiastic and, above all, keen.

He turned to McKenzie, looking quite sorrowfully towards the full glass his friend was setting down beside him. — Is it worth it, eh, Rab?

— Doesnae matter whether it is or it isnae, it’s what ye dae, eh, McKenzie retorted, as stoical and implacable as ever. Vulnerability and Rab McKenzie went together like gerbils and fishcakes.