Ginger sponge and custard
Outside there was just the occasional car swishing past on wet tarmac and one late-running lorry noisily double de-clutching as it approached the junction with the A23. Stan wiped the condensation off the windows with the now-sodden sleeve of his thin windcheater and peered out again at the near-deserted car park. Huge puddles rippled in the wind.
“He’s late.”
“He’s always late,” growled Lennie, spooning up the last of his custard. He swallowed it with a grimace and took a mouthful of over-sweetened tea. They were the only customers left, the clattering of dishes in the kitchen a clear sign that Ethel wanted home; Stan and Lennie, however, had had orders from Percy that they were to stay put until he arrived.
Stan pushed his chair back and limped off to the lavatory. Meetings with Percy always upset his stomach, and now his knee was hurting badly after he’d lost his footing climbing down from the bedroom window. At least he hadn’t dropped the watches. How Percy had heard about the three gold Rolexes in a nondescript semi in Reigate was a mystery, but he knew not to ask.
Lennie was left staring absently at the yellowing photographs on the walls: Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace. Ethel couldn’t understand why her customers made jokes about the name ‘New London Café’.
“Well, did you enjoy that, my darling?” Ethel came over to pick up Lennie’s pudding bowl. “I haven’t made it before.”
Lennie nodded. “It was alright, Ethel, yes. Nice bit of heat coming through from the ginger, you need that on a night like this.” He shot a baleful glance at the wall heater which Ethel had turned off earlier. “But your custard... Oh dear, your custard… Sugar’s off the ration now. You could be more generous with it.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” She sniffed noisily. “This friend you’re waiting on, will he be much longer?”
“Percy? He should be here soon.”
“It’s just that… Will he want anything to eat?”
“Nah. Not Percy.”
“I could always make him a fresh pot of tea.”
“Nah. Percy doesn’t do tea.”
“Is Percy his real name? I’ve never met a Percy before. Nor a Blotch neither, come to think of it.”
“So, Percy Blotch. What of it?”
“Well, it’s such a funny name. Is he foreign?”
“Ethel, do yourself a favour. Some things, you just don’t ask. Especially about Percy.
Stan came out of the lavatory just as the café interior was suddenly lit up by car headlights. They heard it splashing through the puddles and then the driver gunning the engine before switching off.
Stan wiped the window again and peered out. “He’s got another new car!” he exclaimed. “It’s a Zodiac, I think.”
“That’s a tart’s car if you ask me,” started Lennie, but then the café door was flung open and there was Percy filling the door frame, a small cardboard suitcase in hand and the shoulders of his khaki overcoat spattered with rain. Ethel came out to have a look.
“Now, no hanging about,” declared Percy, checking that the café was empty. “I need to get home. It’s mum, she’s not well.” He opened up his suitcase on a nearby table and handed Ethel a couple of packs of nylon stockings. “Now, this is for your trouble. They’re best quality, and I hope the shade’s to your liking. Just remember, you haven’t seen me tonight. And you closed just after six.”
“No, Mr Blotch, it couldn’t have been, because…” Ethel began.
“It was just after six,” Percy repeated gently. Unfailing courtesy was one of his trademarks, even when he was inflicting serious damage on someone.
“Sorry to hear about your mum, Percy,” ventured Lennie.
Percy shook his head slowly. “She’s in a lot of pain, I’m afraid, a lot of pain. And trust me, I know about pain. The trouble is, they don’t know what the matter is. I must speak again to her doctors. Anyway, where are my watches?”
Black Forest Gateau
“You’ve got chocolate all over your mouth.”
Stan tried to use the window as a mirror but couldn’t see properly for the glare from the car park floodlights. He took a swig of water and ran a finger round his lips.
“Oh, for Chrissake, go and wash your face. Percy’ll be here soon.” Lennie shook his head in disgust. “And he’s bringing Deirdre this time.”
Stan stumbled unhappily over to the toilet. He didn’t care for the Red Lion; it had been okay in Ethel’s day when it was the New London Café, but after that it had all been poncified and gone downhill. It was handy, being just off the A23, and busy enough mid-evening to be anonymous, but chicken-and-chips-in-a-basket followed by black forest gateau played havoc with his stomach, and as for the prawn cocktail… typical hairdressers’ food, he thought to himself. Lennie liked the Red Lion, but then Lennie was a snob. Driving a Rover suited him.
Watching Stan struggling through the shag-pile carpet. Lennie wondered if the time had come to replace him with someone younger and fitter, maybe someone with a few more spokes to his umbrella. Then he noticed Percy’s lilac Daimler XJ12 gliding into the car park and doing a couple of circuits before he found a big enough parking space. Why was Percy doing so much better than he was? True, the demand for coke in the West End had definitely slackened; everyone said that with the inflation rate so high there just wasn’t so much cash around, but Lennie was convinced that Percy was short-changing him in some way. He just couldn’t work out how, and that annoyed him.
Stan returned just as Percy and Deirdre were coming into the dining room, Percy with one bear-like arm around Deirdre’s shoulder and the other holding a crocodile-skin attaché case like the one Stan had brought in with him. Percy had obviously been spending his profits cultivating the Peter Wyngarde look, but with mixed results; his bespoke pinstripe suit was fine, but the platform shoes were a disaster.
“Deirdre, these are my good friends Lennie and Stan,” stated Percy. “We go back quite a long way.”
“Delighted, I’m sure!” responded Deirdre in an unexpectedly cut-glass accent. Her hair was pure Farah Fawcett, and her scarlet dress improbably short. Her huge solitaire diamond engagement ring was dazzling. “Percy darling, I’d love a pina colada – a large one, please.”
“Sure. Lennie? Stan?”
They both shook their heads, pointing to their half pints of Skol.
“I’d like a glass of malted milk, warm please, and an egg sandwich,” he said to the barman when he came over.
“Percy’s so kind to me,” simpered Deirdre when she’d gulped down her drink. “I’m getting a Mercedes for my birthday! Isn’t that right, Percy darling?” She nudged him and giggled, then sneezed loudly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and powder my nose.”
“Reckon your nose looks pretty well powdered already,” Stan grinned. Then he wished he’d kept his mouth shut as Percy leaned across to punch his nose, hard.
“Be polite to the young lady!”
“He didn’t mean any harm, Percy. Be fair, it just slipped out.”
“Lennie, you know me. When am I not fair? He’s been disrespectful to Deirdre, though, and that’s not right. Now, where’s my stuff?”
Lennie checked that the crocodile-skin attaché case which Stan had put under the table was in a place where Percy could easily grab it as he left; with Percy, smooth transfers were non-negotiable. He nodded a brief “OK” to Percy who, with a sad smile, passed his serviette to Stan so that he could start to repair the damage to his face.
Tiramisu
Jazmin tossed her spoon aside. “This tiramisu is disgusting. I knew it would be. It’s just cream and sugar…just gross.” Her list of things about the UK that were ‘gross’ was still growing. First it had been the weather, then it was the food, and now it was the men. Men!
She had time for only one man, Percy Blotch. She’d met him a few years ago while working at his Mayfair escort agency in a last-ditch attempt to fund the final year of her MBA. At an age when most entrepreneurs were coasting towards retirement, Percy was setting up a new consultancy, Blotch International, to bring girls from Vietnam to work in London’s massage parlours and nail bars. If Percy had the vision, Jazmin understood international supply chains and, once she’d graduated, quickly worked her way up to be Director of Operations in place of his wife, Deirdre, who wasn’t well – ever. Jazmin’s only condition had been that she could be home-based, home being a one-person apartment in a smart high-rise on the outskirts of Vienna. Her visits to the UK were rare and usually only to check on the London end of the supply chain.
If Percy had a fault, it was his sentimental streak. Why else would he still employ the miserable specimen sitting opposite her wolfing down his bowlful of English trifle? What was his name again? Les? Len? Lennie? Yes, that was it, Lennie. It was absurd that Lennie could work part-time on the grounds that he was still grieving for his business partner Stan, whose badly battered corpse had been found a few years ago in the foundations of a derelict pigsty not half a mile away. And then there was Percy’s crazy wish to keep the business in the family when he’d gone. Succession planning, Jazmin thought, was all very well but not when it involved his son, Peter. Unusually they had had words, angry words.
“Peter is as much use as a chocolate teapot, Percy. You know that!”
But Percy didn’t understand teapots in any shape or form; he never had. “I’ve decided that you and Peter will get married. He loves you! And you love him, don’t you?”
“And live in the UK? No way! Are you sure you’re feeling OK, Percy? No dizzy spells? No headaches?”
“Then think of the power, Jazmin! The influence! Think of the name – Blotch and Blotch!”
Was it any wonder she had sleepless nights?
“I’d like some fruit,” she instructed Lennie. “Look, they do have fruit here!” She pointed mockingly at the plastic vines trailing through the yellow metal latticework round the bar.
“Mario, please bring fruit for my friend Jazmin here. And tell me, why is this place so cold?”
“Because you were last here in July. I have had to close for good the function suite that was part of the old Red Lion, but still I cannot afford to switch the car park lights on. You should come more often, you know, and bring more of your friends like this delightful young lady.” He beamed at Jazmin who smiled back glacially. “And I cannot afford fresh fruit. Why don’t I open a tin of fruit cocktail, and serve it with ice-cream and a sparkler on top? The sparkler would be with the compliments of the house.”
“No!”
“So that’s a ‘no’ to the sparkler?”
“No to all of it. Just bring me a coffee - Americano, decaf, cold milk on the side, semi-skimmed, hold the sugar and the little crunchy biscuits. OK?”
With Mario back in the kitchen, Jazmin leaned across the table and hissed angrily at Lennie. “Now, where are these girls?”
“Be patient. Peter will update you when he arrives. Jazmin, you worry too much.”
“And you, Lennie, are a fool. You need me to look after you.” She waved Mario away as he attempted to serve her coffee. “If some of the girls got lost on the way you wouldn’t even notice.”
They were glaring at each other so furiously that they didn’t hear a car pulling up in the car park and the outside door opening.
“Hi Jazmin darling!”
“Peter! Good to see you!” Her lips brushed his cheeks, so lightly he barely felt them.
Outside there was just the occasional car swishing past on wet tarmac and one late-running lorry noisily double de-clutching as it approached the junction with the A23. Stan wiped the condensation off the windows with the now-sodden sleeve of his thin windcheater and peered out again at the near-deserted car park. Huge puddles rippled in the wind.
“He’s late.”
“He’s always late,” growled Lennie, spooning up the last of his custard. He swallowed it with a grimace and took a mouthful of over-sweetened tea. They were the only customers left, the clattering of dishes in the kitchen a clear sign that Ethel wanted home; Stan and Lennie, however, had had orders from Percy that they were to stay put until he arrived.
Stan pushed his chair back and limped off to the lavatory. Meetings with Percy always upset his stomach, and now his knee was hurting badly after he’d lost his footing climbing down from the bedroom window. At least he hadn’t dropped the watches. How Percy had heard about the three gold Rolexes in a nondescript semi in Reigate was a mystery, but he knew not to ask.
Lennie was left staring absently at the yellowing photographs on the walls: Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace. Ethel couldn’t understand why her customers made jokes about the name ‘New London Café’.
“Well, did you enjoy that, my darling?” Ethel came over to pick up Lennie’s pudding bowl. “I haven’t made it before.”
Lennie nodded. “It was alright, Ethel, yes. Nice bit of heat coming through from the ginger, you need that on a night like this.” He shot a baleful glance at the wall heater which Ethel had turned off earlier. “But your custard... Oh dear, your custard… Sugar’s off the ration now. You could be more generous with it.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” She sniffed noisily. “This friend you’re waiting on, will he be much longer?”
“Percy? He should be here soon.”
“It’s just that… Will he want anything to eat?”
“Nah. Not Percy.”
“I could always make him a fresh pot of tea.”
“Nah. Percy doesn’t do tea.”
“Is Percy his real name? I’ve never met a Percy before. Nor a Blotch neither, come to think of it.”
“So, Percy Blotch. What of it?”
“Well, it’s such a funny name. Is he foreign?”
“Ethel, do yourself a favour. Some things, you just don’t ask. Especially about Percy.
Stan came out of the lavatory just as the café interior was suddenly lit up by car headlights. They heard it splashing through the puddles and then the driver gunning the engine before switching off.
Stan wiped the window again and peered out. “He’s got another new car!” he exclaimed. “It’s a Zodiac, I think.”
“That’s a tart’s car if you ask me,” started Lennie, but then the café door was flung open and there was Percy filling the door frame, a small cardboard suitcase in hand and the shoulders of his khaki overcoat spattered with rain. Ethel came out to have a look.
“Now, no hanging about,” declared Percy, checking that the café was empty. “I need to get home. It’s mum, she’s not well.” He opened up his suitcase on a nearby table and handed Ethel a couple of packs of nylon stockings. “Now, this is for your trouble. They’re best quality, and I hope the shade’s to your liking. Just remember, you haven’t seen me tonight. And you closed just after six.”
“No, Mr Blotch, it couldn’t have been, because…” Ethel began.
“It was just after six,” Percy repeated gently. Unfailing courtesy was one of his trademarks, even when he was inflicting serious damage on someone.
“Sorry to hear about your mum, Percy,” ventured Lennie.
Percy shook his head slowly. “She’s in a lot of pain, I’m afraid, a lot of pain. And trust me, I know about pain. The trouble is, they don’t know what the matter is. I must speak again to her doctors. Anyway, where are my watches?”
Black Forest Gateau
“You’ve got chocolate all over your mouth.”
Stan tried to use the window as a mirror but couldn’t see properly for the glare from the car park floodlights. He took a swig of water and ran a finger round his lips.
“Oh, for Chrissake, go and wash your face. Percy’ll be here soon.” Lennie shook his head in disgust. “And he’s bringing Deirdre this time.”
Stan stumbled unhappily over to the toilet. He didn’t care for the Red Lion; it had been okay in Ethel’s day when it was the New London Café, but after that it had all been poncified and gone downhill. It was handy, being just off the A23, and busy enough mid-evening to be anonymous, but chicken-and-chips-in-a-basket followed by black forest gateau played havoc with his stomach, and as for the prawn cocktail… typical hairdressers’ food, he thought to himself. Lennie liked the Red Lion, but then Lennie was a snob. Driving a Rover suited him.
Watching Stan struggling through the shag-pile carpet. Lennie wondered if the time had come to replace him with someone younger and fitter, maybe someone with a few more spokes to his umbrella. Then he noticed Percy’s lilac Daimler XJ12 gliding into the car park and doing a couple of circuits before he found a big enough parking space. Why was Percy doing so much better than he was? True, the demand for coke in the West End had definitely slackened; everyone said that with the inflation rate so high there just wasn’t so much cash around, but Lennie was convinced that Percy was short-changing him in some way. He just couldn’t work out how, and that annoyed him.
Stan returned just as Percy and Deirdre were coming into the dining room, Percy with one bear-like arm around Deirdre’s shoulder and the other holding a crocodile-skin attaché case like the one Stan had brought in with him. Percy had obviously been spending his profits cultivating the Peter Wyngarde look, but with mixed results; his bespoke pinstripe suit was fine, but the platform shoes were a disaster.
“Deirdre, these are my good friends Lennie and Stan,” stated Percy. “We go back quite a long way.”
“Delighted, I’m sure!” responded Deirdre in an unexpectedly cut-glass accent. Her hair was pure Farah Fawcett, and her scarlet dress improbably short. Her huge solitaire diamond engagement ring was dazzling. “Percy darling, I’d love a pina colada – a large one, please.”
“Sure. Lennie? Stan?”
They both shook their heads, pointing to their half pints of Skol.
“I’d like a glass of malted milk, warm please, and an egg sandwich,” he said to the barman when he came over.
“Percy’s so kind to me,” simpered Deirdre when she’d gulped down her drink. “I’m getting a Mercedes for my birthday! Isn’t that right, Percy darling?” She nudged him and giggled, then sneezed loudly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and powder my nose.”
“Reckon your nose looks pretty well powdered already,” Stan grinned. Then he wished he’d kept his mouth shut as Percy leaned across to punch his nose, hard.
“Be polite to the young lady!”
“He didn’t mean any harm, Percy. Be fair, it just slipped out.”
“Lennie, you know me. When am I not fair? He’s been disrespectful to Deirdre, though, and that’s not right. Now, where’s my stuff?”
Lennie checked that the crocodile-skin attaché case which Stan had put under the table was in a place where Percy could easily grab it as he left; with Percy, smooth transfers were non-negotiable. He nodded a brief “OK” to Percy who, with a sad smile, passed his serviette to Stan so that he could start to repair the damage to his face.
Tiramisu
Jazmin tossed her spoon aside. “This tiramisu is disgusting. I knew it would be. It’s just cream and sugar…just gross.” Her list of things about the UK that were ‘gross’ was still growing. First it had been the weather, then it was the food, and now it was the men. Men!
She had time for only one man, Percy Blotch. She’d met him a few years ago while working at his Mayfair escort agency in a last-ditch attempt to fund the final year of her MBA. At an age when most entrepreneurs were coasting towards retirement, Percy was setting up a new consultancy, Blotch International, to bring girls from Vietnam to work in London’s massage parlours and nail bars. If Percy had the vision, Jazmin understood international supply chains and, once she’d graduated, quickly worked her way up to be Director of Operations in place of his wife, Deirdre, who wasn’t well – ever. Jazmin’s only condition had been that she could be home-based, home being a one-person apartment in a smart high-rise on the outskirts of Vienna. Her visits to the UK were rare and usually only to check on the London end of the supply chain.
If Percy had a fault, it was his sentimental streak. Why else would he still employ the miserable specimen sitting opposite her wolfing down his bowlful of English trifle? What was his name again? Les? Len? Lennie? Yes, that was it, Lennie. It was absurd that Lennie could work part-time on the grounds that he was still grieving for his business partner Stan, whose badly battered corpse had been found a few years ago in the foundations of a derelict pigsty not half a mile away. And then there was Percy’s crazy wish to keep the business in the family when he’d gone. Succession planning, Jazmin thought, was all very well but not when it involved his son, Peter. Unusually they had had words, angry words.
“Peter is as much use as a chocolate teapot, Percy. You know that!”
But Percy didn’t understand teapots in any shape or form; he never had. “I’ve decided that you and Peter will get married. He loves you! And you love him, don’t you?”
“And live in the UK? No way! Are you sure you’re feeling OK, Percy? No dizzy spells? No headaches?”
“Then think of the power, Jazmin! The influence! Think of the name – Blotch and Blotch!”
Was it any wonder she had sleepless nights?
“I’d like some fruit,” she instructed Lennie. “Look, they do have fruit here!” She pointed mockingly at the plastic vines trailing through the yellow metal latticework round the bar.
“Mario, please bring fruit for my friend Jazmin here. And tell me, why is this place so cold?”
“Because you were last here in July. I have had to close for good the function suite that was part of the old Red Lion, but still I cannot afford to switch the car park lights on. You should come more often, you know, and bring more of your friends like this delightful young lady.” He beamed at Jazmin who smiled back glacially. “And I cannot afford fresh fruit. Why don’t I open a tin of fruit cocktail, and serve it with ice-cream and a sparkler on top? The sparkler would be with the compliments of the house.”
“No!”
“So that’s a ‘no’ to the sparkler?”
“No to all of it. Just bring me a coffee - Americano, decaf, cold milk on the side, semi-skimmed, hold the sugar and the little crunchy biscuits. OK?”
With Mario back in the kitchen, Jazmin leaned across the table and hissed angrily at Lennie. “Now, where are these girls?”
“Be patient. Peter will update you when he arrives. Jazmin, you worry too much.”
“And you, Lennie, are a fool. You need me to look after you.” She waved Mario away as he attempted to serve her coffee. “If some of the girls got lost on the way you wouldn’t even notice.”
They were glaring at each other so furiously that they didn’t hear a car pulling up in the car park and the outside door opening.
“Hi Jazmin darling!”
“Peter! Good to see you!” Her lips brushed his cheeks, so lightly he barely felt them.