7 December 2023

Pass

A Christmas short story.

By Neil Tidmarsh

The chef frowned at the order he’d just plated and shook his head. “No one’s going to eat this” he muttered.

“Course they will.” The runner waited impatiently for the chef to put the order down on the pass so she could take it to table seven. She was in a hurry. It was a busy night, two days before Christmas and the restaurant was packed, an office party exploding with festive spirit at every table, twelve months of steam venting at last thanks to an ocean of prosecco. Paper hats and crackers all round, Christmas play-list on the sound system and clouds of cotton-wool snow and tinsel and paper chains hanging overhead. “Looks delicious” she added encouragingly. It did, too. She could see it through the pass. She could feel her mouth watering. Lucky table seven.

“No” he said, still squinting at the dish. “I mean it. No one’s going to touch it.”

“Why not?” The runner could hear and feel the customers getting noisier and hungrier and more and more inebriated behind her. Shouts and screams and laughter were beginning to drown out the choir of King’s College Cambridge and Bing Crosby and even Maria Carey. Come on, chef, get a move on! “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing” the chef murmured. He was still holding the plate. “That’s the whole point.”

The runner sighed with frustration. She knew that some chefs could be prima donnas, but this chef – the chef who was running the pass – was quiet and hard-working, a tall, thin, taciturn man who kept himself to himself. So why was he being difficult all of a sudden, tonight of all nights, the busiest night of the year?

At last the chef put the plate down on the shelf between them. But when she reached out for it he snatched it back again. “No” he said.

The runner blinked with surprise. “Come on!” She laughed nervously. Was this some kind of joke? She was used to chefs teasing her, playing tricks on her. They did it to all the runners. But this chef – serious and intense – never made jokes or played tricks. So what was going on? “Table seven, they’re waiting for it!”

The chef shook his head. “They can wait all night” he said quietly. “All year, if they like. But they’re not getting it. Not this one. No one’s getting it.” He turned away from the pass.

I’m not putting up with this, she thought angrily. Not tonight. She marched round the corner and through the door into the kitchen. Luckily everyone in there was too busy to notice her, a mere runner, trespassing on their territory. The porter was filling the dish-washer, one of the younger chefs was frantically putting together starters and desserts at the cold station, the other was prepping at the hot station. Only the older chef, standing with his back to the pass, was strangely and disturbingly idle, staring down at the dish in his hands and ignoring the printer spilling orders all over the work-surface beside him.

“Where’s table six’s desserts?” a waiter shouted through the doorway.

“Done them.” The dessert chef glanced towards the pass. “They’re still sitting there!” He suddenly noticed the runner. “Get those desserts out!” he yelled. “Right now!”

“But table seven’s mains!” She gestured, pleading, to the older chef. “Come on, it’ll be going cold!”

The chef simply shook his head.

The other runner appeared in the doorway with an armful of dirty plates. “It’s crazy out there!” He frantically scraped the scraps off into the bin beside the porter’s station and dumped the plates in the sink. He turned a flushed and harassed face to his fellow runner. “What the hell are you hanging around in here for?”

“He won’t…” She felt her voice wobbling. “I can’t…”

“And what’s this?” The waiter pointed to the order-tickets piling up around the printer. “Someone on strike or something?”

The two younger chefs looked up, suddenly aware of the older chef’s inactivity. “What’s up, boss?” one of them asked, surprised and puzzled. “Boss..?”

The older chef closed his eyes and breathed in the aroma from the dish in his hands. “At last!” he murmured. “I’ve done it!” He opened his eyes. There was a strange gleam in them. “After all these years, all that training, all that work, night after night, in kitchen after kitchen, restaurant after restaurant, across three continents…” He looked serious and intense at the best of times but now he looked half crazy. “How often did I tell myself ‘Give it up, it’s a fool’s errand, a hopeless quest, a mad ambition’? But thank God I didn’t!” He laughed. The sound of it was extremely unsettling. “Because here it is! A masterpiece! Absolute perfection!”

They all stood there, staring at him. The two runners, the waiter, the two younger chefs and the kitchen porter.

“A simple turkey roast! Who’d have thought it?” The chef was still laughing, quietly but madly. “Not fugu-kimo nabemono or galantine or chile en nogada – but a traditional Christmas dinner with all the trimmings? Incredible!”

“Yeah, well” said the porter. He didn’t like the chef – he thought he was stand-offish – and he had a soft spot for the runner. “Someone out there’s still waiting to get their teeth into it, ain’t they? And it ain’t fair on someone in here either.” He winked at the runner. “Is it, love?”

“Come on, boss. Give plate to girl.” One of the young chefs laughed uncertainly. “Good joke, but she got work to do. We all got work to do.”

“You think this is a joke?” The chef’s eyes flashed with anger.

“For God’s sake, the whole place is grinding to a halt!” The waiter waved his hands in near panic. “Everyone will be walking out without paying if we don’t get moving!”

The chef shook his head. “I don’t care. Not now I’ve done this. Nothing else matters.”

The two younger chefs gasped. They were deeply shocked. He was the boss, he was running the pass, how could he abandon his responsibility, his authority, just like that?

“Right” the porter said. “You hand over that plate or we’ll – ”

“Oh yes? You’ll do what, exactly?”

“Give that plate to that girl or I’ll take it off you myself!” The porter advanced aggressively.

“Back off!” the chef shouted. There was a rattle and a flash and suddenly he was brandishing his huge chef’s knife. Nine razor-sharp inches of polished steel gleamed in the kitchen’s harsh light.

The porter faltered, the point of the knife trembling against his chest.

“What the hell’s going on?” The front-of-house manager strode into the kitchen, her high heels clicking angrily on the tiled floor. “There’s a riot brewing out there!”

The porter’s back was to the door, so she didn’t see the knife. The chef quietly and carefully put it back on the work-surface behind him.

“He won’t hand the plate over” the porter said. “Reckons it’s too good to eat or something.”

“It is too good to eat” the chef said. “It’s perfect.”

The manager looked round at the pale, tense faces, at the idle hands, at the plate the chef was cradling as if it was his new born child. She wasn’t sure how far her authority stretched in the kitchen, but someone had to take control. And fast. “All right. Leave it. No one eats it. But replace it. Cook another one. Get back to work, everyone, for God’s sake.”

“No.” The chef put the plate down behind him and took off his hat. He started to take off his whites. “My work’s done.”

“What?” The manager was aghast. He can’t do this. Not tonight. Not with a full house. Not with every table yelling for their food. “Wait!”

But the chef was already disappearing through the door.

She turned to the stunned and silent faces round her. “You two” she said to the young chefs. “Take over at the hot station and run the pass.” She turned to the porter. “You take over the cold station. The starters and desserts. Ok? The waiters will prep for all of you.” She turned to the runners. “You’d better do the waiting as well as the running. And the dish-washing. And tell everyone the desserts and drinks are on the house.”

That might just keep the show on the road, she thought as she dashed after the chef. A storm of protests and queries exploded behind her but she ignored it.

The chef had already reached the tiny changing room at the bottom of the stairs. He turned to face her, clutching the dish in both hands protectively, as if he was expecting her to snatch it from him.

“You can’t take that with you” she said, thinking fast.

“Yes I can. I made it. It’s mine.”

“No. It’s the restaurant’s property. The plate, the ingredients.”

He frowned, puzzled and hesitant. “I’ll buy them.”

She shook her head. “They’re not for sale.” He’s having some sort of breakdown, she thought. I should have seen it coming. “Tell me about it. We can talk in the office. Come on, it’s right here.”

They sat down on either side of the little desk in the cramped little office. The dish which should have been on table seven sat on the desk between them. She looked at the chef, expecting him to talk, but he was silent and impassive as if there was nothing more to be said.

“This is all wrong. Such a waste. You cooked this so another human being could enjoy it. Didn’t you? If you didn’t, what’s the point?”

The chef sighed and leaned forwards, deep in thought. “A painter…” he began, hesitantly. “He doesn’t work to please his customers or patron, does he? Not if he’s a true artist. His art – that’s what he works for.” The gleam in his eyes made him look quite mad. “He works day after day, hoping he’ll eventually produce something perfect. The ideal picture. And then he’ll be able to lay down his tools, his work done.”

“All right. But…” Her mind was racing, wrestling with the problem of getting the chef back to work as quickly as possible, but at the same time imagining the chaos and disaster upstairs in the kitchen, in the restaurant. What a nightmare. “Having achieved this… this masterpiece, why not let the customer appreciate it? That wouldn’t detract from the achievement, would it?”

“Looking at a painting doesn’t destroy it. But eating…” He glared at the manager. “No one’s going to eat that. No one’s going to destroy it.”

“But it won’t keep forever, will it?” she said, exasperated. “In an hour’s time it’ll be stone cold. In a day’s time it will have dried out. In a week’s time it will have gone off completely and you’ll have to throw it out. Time will destroy it. It’s inevitable.”

The chef blinked, his eyes wide and staring and confused.

“And how do you know it’s perfect, anyway? Have you tasted it? Has anyone tasted it? The proof of the pudding, and all that?”

“I know it’s perfect. I can tell.”

“You’ll never know for sure. Not without tasting it.”

He looked at the dish, shaking his head but biting his lower lip.

“And you’d better hurry up about it, because it’ll be past its best soon, won’t it, and you’ll never know for sure then.” She opened the drawer in the desk and took out a knife, fork and spoon wrapped in a paper napkin. “Go on. Or you’ll never get a good night’s sleep for the rest of your life, wondering about it.”

He took the cutlery uncertainly. He held the knife and fork to the dish in front of him. Then he stopped. His hands were shaking. He wants to do it, she thought, he wants to know, but he can’t bring himself to spoil it.

“No artist can judge his own work” she said. “That’s what a novelist friend of mine says. He relies on his editor’s opinion. Let me do it. You trust me, don’t you? My taste? My judgement?”

He nodded, but his hands remained frozen. Come on, come on. She thought about the apocalypse unfolding upstairs. She thought about the money she’d invested in the restaurant as a part-owner, the money she’d persuaded friends and family to invest. Were they going to lose it all? She knew of many other restaurants which had collapsed after only one disastrous night.

He passed the knife and fork over just as she was about to snatch them from him. She quickly cut a slice and popped it in her mouth. She chewed slowly.

The chef leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. “Well?”

She swallowed, nodding. “Lovely” she said politely. “Still warm, surprisingly.” She cut another slice, forked it, chewed and swallowed. “Very nice. But…”

The chef’s face darkened. “But?”

“A touch too much… sage, is it? And… did you remember the salt?”

The chef leapt to his feet. “Lovely?” he shouted. “Very nice? The thing’s perfect, I tell you! Perfect!”

“Well, it’s certainly delicious, I’ll give you that, but I wouldn’t go as far – ”

“No!” The chef roared with fury and disappointment. He shook his head. He was trembling all over. “No, no, no!” He struck out violently at the dish, knocking it off the table. It crashed to the floor. “I can do perfect! I can! I’ll prove it! I’ll show you!”

He ran out of the office and back up the stairs, still roaring. He burst into the kitchen. It was noisy and chaotic in there. Everyone was shouting at everyone else. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and burnt food. Shards of broken plates skittered about underfoot. “Out of the way!” he yelled. He pushed the waiters out of the kitchen and the porter back to his station. “I’m running the pass! I’m back on hots!” Everyone – the waiters, the porter, the two young chefs – started cheering. “Silence!” he roared. “Back to your positions! Back to work!”

Down in the office the manager breathed a sigh of relief. But… She looked down at the knife and fork in her hands and frowned, puzzled. The taste – surely she had imagined it? No, it was still in her mouth, on her tongue. Like nothing she had ever tasted before. Extraordinary, indescribable, out of this world. She’d once worked as a food critic in the national press – her evocative and lyrical prose had won awards – but that taste was beyond words. She licked the knife and sucked the fork. Yes, there it was. The taste of perfection.

Before she knew what she was doing, she’d dropped the knife and fork and was on her knees under the table, scraping the remains of the food off the floor with her fingers and biting and licking and chewing at the messy handfuls. Then she suddenly came to her senses. She forced herself to stand up. She wiped her hands on the paper napkin. Go back upstairs, she told herself. You’re needed up there. There’s work to do.

Later that night, when the last customer had gone and the chef brought her supper out to her, she couldn’t look him in the eye. She’d lied to him. The deception had been necessary but she felt that she’d betrayed something sacred. She tried eating but she had no stomach for it. I’ve tasted the food of the gods, she thought, so the food of mere mortals won’t have any flavour for me ever again.

When she went down to the office she saw the cleaner coming out of it with the remains of the food of the gods in the bottom of his bucket. She surprised herself by collapsing onto the chair and bursting into tears.

“Good night! Happy Christmas!” The runners and the waiters and the chefs and the porter were saying goodbye to each other upstairs as they left, everything forgiven and forgotten now that the crisis was over. “Good night! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”

She wiped her nose and dried her eyes, got herself out of the little office and began to lock up.

Cover page image: Divadavid / wikimedia commons / creative commons