“I haven’t got another job vacant at the moment,” protested the manager. “Unless you’re willing to peel potatoes for ten weeks.”
“Anything,” said Mark.
“Then report to the kitchen at six tomorrow morning. I’ll tell the third chef to expect you. Only if you think the head porter is a martinet just wait until you meet Jacques, our maître chef de cuisine. He won’t clip your ear, he’ll cut it off.”
Mark didn’t care. He felt confident that for just ten weeks he could face anything, and at five thirty the following morning he exchanged his dark blue uniform for a white top and blue and white check trousers before reporting for his new duties. To his surprise the kitchen took up almost the entire basement of the hotel, and was even more of a bustle than’ the lobby had been.
The third chef put him in the corner of the kitchen, next to a mountain of potatoes, a bowl of cold water and a sharp knife. Mark peeled through breakfast, lunch and dinner, and fell asleep on his bed that night without even enough energy left to cross another day off his calendar.
For the first week he never actually saw the fabled Jacques. With seventy people working in the kitchen Mark felt confident he could pass his whole period there without anyone being aware of his existence.
* * *
Each morning at six he would start peeling, then hand over the potatoes to a gangling youth called Terry, who in turn would dice or cut them according to the third chef’s instructions for the dish of the day. Monday sauté, Tuesday mashed, Wednesday French-fried, Thursday sliced, Friday roast, Saturday croquette … Mark quickly worked out a routine which kept him well ahead of Terry and therefore out of any trouble.
Having watched Terry do his job for over a week Mark felt sure he could have shown the young apprentice how to lighten his workload quite simply, but he decided to keep his mouth closed: opening it might only get him into more trouble, and he was certain the manager wouldn’t give him a second chance.
Mark soon discovered that Terry always fell badly behind on Tuesday’s shepherd’s pie and Thursday’s Lancashire hot-pot. From time to time the third chef would come across to complain and then would glance over at Mark to be sure that it wasn’t him who was holding the process up. Mark made certain that he always had a spare tub of peeled potatoes by his side so that he would escape censure.
It was on the first Thursday morning in August (Lancashire hot-pot) that Terry sliced off the top of his forefinger. Blood spurted all over the sliced potatoes and onto the wooden table as the lad began yelling hysterically.
“Get him out of here!” Mark heard the maître chef de cuisine bellow above the noise of the kitchen as he stormed toward them.
“And you,” he said, pointing at Mark, “clean up mess and start slicing rest of potatoes. I ’ave eight hundred hungry customers still expecting to feed.”
“Me?” said Mark in disbelief. “But—”
“Yes, you. You couldn’t do worse job than idiot who calls himself trainee chef and cuts off finger.” The chef marched away, leaving Mark to move reluctantly across to the table where Terry had been working. He felt disinclined to argue while the calendar was there to remind him that he was down to his last twenty-five days.
Mark set about a task he had carried out for his mother many times. The clean, neat cuts were delivered with a skill Terry would never learn to master. By the end of the day, although exhausted, Mark did not feel quite as tired as he had in the past.
At eleven that night the maître chef de cuisine threw off his hat and barged out of the swing doors, a sign to everyone else they could also leave the kitchen once everything that was their responsibility had been cleared up. A few seconds later the door swung back open and the chef burst in. He stared round the kitchen as everyone waited to see what he would do next. Having found what he was looking for, he headed straight for Mark.
“Oh, my God,” thought Mark. “He’s going to kill me.”
“How is your name?” the chef demanded.
“Mark Hapgood, sir,” he managed to splutter out.
“You waste on ’tatoes, Mark Hapgood,” said the chef. “You start on vegetables in morning. Report at seven. If that crétin with half finger ever returns, put him to peeling ’tatoes.”
The chef turned on his heel even before Mark had the chance to reply. He dreaded the thought of having to spend three weeks in the middle of the kitchen, never once out of the maître chef de cuisine’s sight, but he accepted there was no alternative.
The next morning Mark arrived at six for fear of being late and spent an hour watching the fresh vegetables being unloaded from Covent Garden market. The hotel’s supply manager checked every case carefully, rejecting several before he signed a chit to show the hotel had received over three thousand pounds’ worth of produce. An average day, he assured Mark.
The maître chef de cuisine appeared a few minutes before seven thirty, checked the menus and told Mark to score the Brussels sprouts, trim the French beans and remove the coarse outer leaves of the cabbages.
“But I don’t know how,” Mark replied honestly. He could feel the other trainees in the kitchen edging away from him.
“Then I teach you,” roared the chef. “Perhaps only thing you learn is if hope to be good chef, you able to do everyone’s job in kitchen, even ‘tato peeler’s.”
“But I’m hoping to be a…” Mark began and then thought better of it. The chef seemed not to have heard Mark as he took his place beside the new recruit. Everyone in the kitchen stared as the chef began to show Mark the basic skills of cutting, dicing and slicing.
“And remember other idiot’s finger,” the chef said on completing the lesson and passing the razor-sharp knife back to Mark. “Yours can be next.”
Mark started gingerly dicing the carrots, then the Brussels sprouts, removing the outer layer before cutting a firm cross in the stalk. Next he moved on to trimming and slicing the beans. Once again he found it fairly easy to keep ahead of the chef’s requirements.
At the end of each day, after the head chef had left, Mark stayed on to sharpen all his knives in preparation for the following morning, and would not leave his work area until it was spotless.
On the sixth day, after a curt nod from the chef, Mark realized he must be doing something half-right. By the following Saturday he felt he had mastered the simple skills of vegetable preparation and found himself becoming fascinated by what the chef himself was up to. Although Jacques rarely addressed anyone as he marched round the acre of kitchen except to grunt his approval or disapproval—the latter more commonly—Mark quickly learned to anticipate his needs. Within a short space of time he began to feel that he was part of a team—even though he was only too aware of being the novice recruit.
On the deputy chef’s day off the following week Mark was allowed to arrange the cooked vegetables in their bowls and spent some time making each dish look attractive as well as edible. The chef not only noticed but actually muttered his greatest accolade—“Bon.”
During his last three weeks at the Savoy, Mark did not even look at the calendar above his bed.
One Thursday morning a message came down from the undermanager that Mark was to report to his office as soon as was convenient. Mark had quite forgotten that it was August 31—his last day. He cut ten lemons into quarters, then finished preparing the forty plates of thinly sliced smoked salmon that would complete the first course for a wedding lunch. He looked with pride at his efforts before folding up his apron and leaving to collect his papers and final wage packet.
“Where you think you’re going?” asked the chef, looking up.
“I’m off,” said Mark. “Back to Coventry.”
“See you Monday then. You deserve day off.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m going home for good,” said Mark.
The chef stopped checking the cuts of rare beef that would make up the second course of the wedding feast.
“Going?” he repeated as if he didn’t comprehend the word.
“Yes. I’ve finished my year and now I’m off home to work.”
“I hope you found first-class hotel,” said the chef with genuine interest.
“I’m not going to work in a hotel.”
“A restaurant, perhaps?”
“No, I’m going to get a job at Triumph.”
The chef looked puzzled for a moment, unsure if it was his English or whether the boy was mocking him.
“What is—Triumph?”
“A place where they manufacture cars.”
“You will manufacture cars?”
“Not a whole car, but I will put the wheels on.”
“You put cars on wheels?” the chef said in disbelief.
“No,” laughed Mark. “Wheels on cars.”
The chef still looked uncertain.
“So you will be cooking for the car workers?”
“No. As I explained, I’m going to put the wheels on the cars,” said Mark slowly, enunciating each word.
“That not possible.”
“Oh yes it is,” responded Mark. “And I’ve waited a whole year to prove it.”
“If I offered you job as commis chef, you change mind?” asked Jacques quietly.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you ‘ave talent in those fingers. In time I think you become chef, perhaps even good chef.”
“No, thanks. I’m off to Coventry to join my mates.”
The head chef shrugged. “Tant pis,” he said, and without a second glance returned to the carcass of beef. He glanced over at the plates of smoked salmon. “A wasted talent,” he added after the swing door had closed behind his potential protégé.
Mark locked his room, threw the calendar in the wastepaper basket and returned to the hotel to hand in his kitchen clothes to the housekeeper. The final action he took was to return his room key to the undermanager.
“Your wage packet, your cards and your PAYE. Oh, and the chef has phoned up to say he would be happy to give you a reference,” said the undermanager. “Can’t pretend that happens every day.”
“Won’t need that where I’m going,” said Mark. “But thanks all the same.”
He started off for the station at a brisk pace, his small battered suitcase swinging by his side, only to find that each step took a little longer. When he arrived at Euston he made his way to Platform 7 and began walking up and down, occasionally staring at the great clock above the booking hall. He watched first one train and then another pull out of the station bound for Coventry. He was aware of the station becoming dark as shadows filtered through the glass awning onto the public concourse. Suddenly he turned and walked off at an even brisker pace. If he hurried he could still be back in time to help chef prepare for dinner that night.
* * *
Mark trained under Jacques le Renneu for five years. Vegetables were followed by sauces, fish by poultry, meats by patisserie. After eight years at the Savoy he was appointed second chef, and had learned so much from his mentor that regular patrons could no longer be sure when it was the maître chef de cuisine’s day off. Two years later Mark became a master chef, and when in 1971 Jacques was offered the opportunity to return to Paris and take over the kitchens of the George Cinq, Jacques agreed, but only on condition that Mark accompanied him.
“It is wrong direction from Coventry,” Jacques warned him, “and in any case they sure to offer you my job at the Savoy.”
“I’d better come along. Otherwise those Frogs will never get a decent meal.”
“Those Frogs,” said Jacques, “will always know when it’s my day off.”
“Yes, and book in even greater numbers,” suggested Mark, laughing.
It was not to be long before Parisians were flocking to the George Cinq, not to rest their weary heads but to relish the cooking of the two-chef team.
When Jacques celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday the great hotel did not have to look far to appoint his successor.
“The first Englishman ever to be maître chef de cuisine at the George Cinq,” said Jacques, raising a glass of champagne at his farewell banquet. “Who would believe it? Of course, you will have to change your name to Marc to hold down such a position.”
“Neither will ever happen,” said Mark.
“Oh yes it will, because I ’ave recommended you.”
“Then I shall turn it down.”
“Going to put cars on wheels, peut-être?” asked Jacques mockingly.
“No, but I have found a little site on the Left Bank. With my savings alone I can’t quite afford the lease, but with your help…”
Chez Jacques opened on the rue du Plaisir on the Left Bank on May 1, 1982, and it was not long before those customers who had taken the George Cinq for granted transferred their allegiance.
Mark’s reputation spread as the two chefs pioneered “nouvelle cuisine,” and soon the only way anyone could be guaranteed a table at the restaurant in under three weeks was to be a film star or a Cabinet Minister.
The day Michelin gave Chez Jacques their third star Mark, with Jacques’s blessing, decided to open a second restaurant. The press and customers then quarreled amongst themselves as to which was the finer establishment. The booking sheets showed clearly the public felt there was nothing to pick between them.
When in October 1986 Jacques died, at the age of seventy-one, the restaurant critics wrote confidently that standards were bound to fall. A year later the same journalists had to admit that one of the five great chefs of France had come from a town in the British Midlands they could not even pronounce.
Jacques’s death only made Mark yearn for his homeland, and when he read in the Daily Telegraph of a new development to be built in Covent Garden he called the site agent to ask for more details.
Mark’s third restaurant was opened in the heart of London on February 11, 1987.
* * *
Over the years Mark Hapgood had often traveled back to Coventry to see his parents. His father had retired long since but Mark was still unable to persuade either parent to take the trip to Paris and sample his culinary efforts. But now he had opened in the country’s capital he hoped to tempt them.
“We don’t need to go up to London,” said his mother, laying the table. “You always cook for us whenever you come home, and we read of your successes in the papers. In any case, your father isn’t so good on his legs nowadays.”
“What do you call this, son?” his father asked a few minutes later as noisette of lamb surrounded by baby carrots was placed in front of him.
“Nouvelle cuisine.”
“And people pay good money for it?”
Mark laughed and the following day prepared his father’s favorite, Lancashire hot-pot.
“Now that’s a real meal,” said Arthur after his third helping. “And I’ll tell you something for nothing, lad. You cook it almost as well as your mother.”
A year later Michelin announced the restaurants through-out the world had been awarded their coveted third star. The Times let its readers know on its front page that Chez Jacques was the first English restaurant ever to be so honored.
To celebrate the award Mark’s parents finally agreed to make the journey down to London, though not until Mark had sent a telegram saying he was reconsidering the job at British Leyland. He sent a car to fetch his parents and had them installed in a suite at the Savoy. That evening he reserved the most popular table at Chez Jacques in their name.
Vegetable soup followed by steak and kidney pie with a plate of bread and butter pudding to end on were not the table d’hôte that night, but they were served for the special guests on Table 17.
Under the influence of the finest wine, Arthur was soon chatting happily to anyone who would listen and couldn’t resist reminding the head waiter that it was his son who owned the restaurant.
“Don’t be silly, Arthur,” said his wife. “He already knows that.”
“Nice couple, your parents,” the head waiter confided to his boss after he had served
them with their coffee and supplied Arthur with a cigar. “What did your old man do before he retired? Banker, lawyer, schoolmaster?”
“Oh no, nothing so grand,” said Mark quietly. “He spent the whole of his working life putting wheels on cars.”
“But why would he waste his time doing that?” asked the waiter incredulously.
“Because he wasn’t lucky enough to have a father like mine,” Mark replied.
NOT THE REAL THING
GERALD HASKINS AND Walter Ramsbottom had been eating cornflakes for over a year.
“I’ll swap you my MC and DSO for your VC,” said Walter, on the way to school one morning.
“Never,” said Gerald. “In any case, it takes ten packet tops to get a VC and you only need two for an MC or a DSO.”
Gerald went on collecting packet tops until he had every medal displayed on the back of the packet.
Walter never got the VC.
Angela Bradbury thought they were both silly.
“They’re only replicas,” she continually reminded them, “not the real thing, and I am only interested in the real thing,” she told them rather haughtily.
Neither Gerald nor Walter cared for Angela’s opinion at the time, both boys still being more interested in medals than the views of the opposite sex.
Kellogg’s offer of free medals ended on January 1, 1950, just at the time when Gerald had managed to complete the set.
Walter gave up eating cornflakes.
Children of the Fifties were then given the opportunity to discover the world of Meccano. Meccano demanded eating even more cornflakes, and within a year Gerald had collected a large enough set to build bridges, pontoons, cranes and even an office block.
Gerald’s family nobly went on munching cornflakes, but when he told them he wanted to build a whole town—Kellogg’s positively final offer—it took nearly all his friends in the fifth form at Hull Grammar School to assist him in consuming enough breakfast cereal to complete his ambition.
Walter Ramsbottom refused to be of assistance.