The Chef's Choice

“You can’t run away from her forever, Paul, and you may not be able always to protect Janet from her. Anyway, for my own selfish reasons I don’t want you to go.”

“You’ll be able to get another chef.”

“Yes, but he won’t be Paul. In any case, we signed a two-year contract. Perhaps I’ll hold you to it.”

“I don’t think you’d do that, Alice.”

She smiled; “No, I wouldn’t do that, but I badly want you to stay. Your loyalty and hard work have been excellent, and I don’t want you to leave just at the point where things are starting to look very good for the Inn. You and the rest of the staff have stuck by me through the hard times; I want you to share in the good times that I believe are now ahead. And I tell you, it has been the restaurant that has spearheaded our success.”

“But Alice…”

“There are no ‘buts’ about it, Paul. I’ve already received advance bookings months ahead of time. The quality of our cuisine is the one thing that is mentioned consistently. People are beginning to think of Egret Reach as a good place to spend a week or more in, instead of the one-night stopovers. Next winter I shall be upgrading the accommodation. I need…I want you to be here with me. Give it a bit of time and see what happens.”

Doubtfully I agreed to give it a few weeks. Janet was being looked after in our apartment by my assistant, Judith, so I went through the door that opened into Janet’s bedroom and on into our lounge. It was the first time I had ever used that communicating door.

I thanked Judith for taking care of Janet, and said I would come to the kitchen shortly and do what I could.

Janet had only been told I had cut my hand, and when she asked how it had happened I continued the fiction of an accident. I could not bring myself to tell her of her mother’s arrival.

The following weeks found me in a state of constant anxiety. I felt as if any moment Sybil would come bursting into the apartment or kitchen. I had gone back to sleeping badly, and when I did get to sleep, I had nightmares that involved wild animals, all of which were Sybil, rampaging through the restaurant, destroying everything in sight.
It was in the middle of the third week while preparing menus, when the in-house telephone rang in the kitchen. It was Alice calling me from reception.

“Paul would you come to reception, there’s a police officer wanting to speak with you.”

My stomach turned over. It had to be about Sybil.

On arrival, I found an uneasy looking policeman waiting for me.

“Mr.Paul Carter?”

“Yes.”

“Husband of Mrs.Sybil Carter?”

“Yes.” I wished he’d just get on with it.”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you your wife is dead, sir.”

Whatever else I had expected, it had not been this. I struggled to find some response.

“How…?”

“The official verdict won’t be known until the coroner’s enquiry is held, sir, but I think I can safely say, an overdose of heroin.”

“But she was in hospital…”

“That’s just it, sir. Somehow she slipped out and got what they call, ‘a fix’. She was found lying under a railway arch, dead.”

I wondered how she got the money to get her “fix,” but I would probably never know.

“You will be expected to appear in the coroner’s court, sir.” He gave me date place and time. It meant a trip to the city.

Coroner’s court and funeral followed. The clergyman conducting the funeral spoke of a “life wasted.” I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

From what I heard in the court, and other snippets of information that came my way, I was able to piece together a rough outline of what had happened to Sybil after she left me.

Before she had actually left me the man she ran away with had started her on some sort of dope. She progressed to the hard stuff and the guy had dumped her. She worked as a prostitute for a little while to get money for her habit. When she became too physically unattractive to carry on in the “game,” she came in search of me.

I returned to Egret Reach and the Inn depressed. Yes, the preacher had been right; “A wasted life.”

I took up the rhythm of my work once more. I resolved that I would not tell Janet what happened to her mother until the time came when she asked the question. The female staff had all become her “aunts”, and Bob, the washer-up, “Uncle Bob.” She seemed surrounded with affection and was happy.

Her relationship with Alice was a little more complex. Janet spent a lot of her outside school time with Alice, even spending time in her quarters. Janet’s conversations with me were heavily laden with, “Mrs. Albright says” this or that. Clearly, there was much love between them, but Alice was not an “aunt”. She was still “Mrs. Albright.”

Whatever gap the departure of Sybil had played in her life, it now seemed filled with the love she was experiencing. For myself the same could not be said.

Regarding relationships with women, when Sybil left me my first reaction was “No more women in my life.” A common response I believe by both men and women when they have felt betrayed by someone of the opposite gender. With the tragic death of Sybil, a line seemed to be drawn under my life to that point. Something new must now emerge, something that would fill the void that I began to now experience.

The love I had for my daughter and the task of caring for her had seemed sufficient, but now came maintenance time. Psychologists and others have pointed out that if in caring for others we fail to care for ourselves, if we seek to ignore our own needs or even deny them, then eventually we will run out of energy to continue caring. It will become a drudge, a burden and a duty, that we may end up resenting.

I cannot say that I started to resent caring for Janet, but together with my workload, I began to find things burdensome. I felt I lacked the energy and drive that had carried me forward so far. That I also understand to be a common experience when people have suffered a marriage break down or similar loss. There is a burst of energy that ends in exhaustion or even collapse.

I had reached the point of emotional exhaustion that began to take its physical toll. I felt emptiness in my life, but an emptiness that I could not or did not want to identify.

I have said I am not the temperamental type of chef, but now I started to become irritable with the kitchen staff, having to struggle to curb my tongue over minor errors. I even began to snap at my beloved Janet, and started to mentally curse Alice and what I thought of as her driving ambition for the Inn.

It was Janet who quite unconsciously – unconsciously because she was asleep – who began the change for me.

Every night when I had finished work I made a point of looking in on Janet as she slept, to see that all was well. One night I looked into her room as usual, and to my surprise saw the door open on Alice’s side, and Alice standing looking at Janet. We had never coincided in this way before in our checking on Janet.

I whispered to Alice, “Just looking in before I go to bed.” Then I felt a catch in my throat and my stomach muscles contracted. Alice was wearing only a nightdress, and the light was on in the room behind her. The light shone through the thin fabric of the nightdress, and I could see the outline of her body. She was partially in profile to me, and I could see large, firm breasts, a slight swelling of her belly and firm thighs. For once her hair was loose and fell in a cascade over her shoulders.

Not until that moment had I ever consciously seen Alice as the object of my sexual desire, but now, in an instant, I lusted for her.

I am sure that Alice had no idea that she was all but naked before me, and she whispered, “She’s fast asleep. Good night, Paul.” She left the room and shut the door.

I stood rigid as a statue for what must have been a minute, although it seemed like hours. I wanted that woman, but I had renounced women! Any sexual relief I had needed had been dealt with by masturbating. In any case, Alice was my boss. Even if she was in the least bit interested in me sexually, I knew the dangers of sexual entanglements between the employer and employee. It usually ended in recriminations and tears. But from that moment, I came to see Alice in a different light (no pun intended).

My feelings for Alice now added to my already touchy behaviour. It also began a period of serious introspection. This wretched process finally drew me to the conclusion that it was not sex only that I wanted. I wanted to love and be loved. True, there was mutual love between Janet and I, but I wanted adult love, the love between a man and a woman, a love that would include my daughter.

It was then that Janet came into the equation again. I realised that one side of the formula was already present. It was plain to see that Alice and Janet loved each other. The other side, me, it seemed, was not present in the equation.

One morning I was sitting at the desk in the small office beside the kitchen that I now had. I was struggling to work out menus and supplies for the coming days. Alice walked in and sat down.

“What is it, Paul?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What’s eating you?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, you’ve been like a bear with a sore head for some time, and your not getting any better.”

I tried to sidetrack her by talking about the tragedy of Sybil’s death, but she was not deceived.

“Its not just that, Paul. Let’s be honest with each other. You were worried sick that Sybil would come looking for you again, and might have arrived when Janet was around. You didn’t want her back however much you might have felt responsible and sorry for her. Cruel though it might sound, by overdosing she did you and Janet a favour. You know that and so do I, so, what is it?”

She had me cornered. Even if I wanted to lie, I could think of nothing that would sound convincing. I remained silent.

“Paul, you once trusted me enough to tell me the story of your marriage problems. Why you won’t trust me now I don’t know, but I want to show how much I trust you. I would like to tell you the story of my marriage. Will you listen?”

Relieved to get the pressure off myself I said, “Of course.”

“I’ve never sat with anyone and told my story before. I won’t bore you with endless details, but just get out what I want to get out.”

“I was married to a barrister. We had a child, a little girl. When she was four I was out shopping one day. I started to look in the display window of a women’s fashion store. I wasn’t concentrating, didn’t even notice that Peggy had let go of my hand. The first I knew was a squeal of car brakes. Peggy had run into the road. She was killed.”

Now I began to see the significance of Janet in her life.

She went on, “It was the most terrible tragedy of my life – I suppose in anyone’s life. My husband was beside himself. When the facts came out, it was I who was responsible for Peggy’s death. The recriminations went on and on day after day. I carried not only my guilt, but the burden of his growing hatred for me as well.”

It ended, of course, with his leaving me. I was very sick for a long time, and was admitted to a psychiatric nursing home. When I came out, I was determined to do something that I felt was worth while, something challenging. I wanted to pick up something that was broken and mend it.”

She made a gesture that took in the Inn. “This place. I had a tidy sum left me by my parents, the rest I borrowed.”

“It wasn’t enough, Paul. Your work here has been exemplary, but when I interviewed you, it was a little four-year-old girl who got you the job. It wasn’t hard to work out something of your situation, and I thought, ‘I might be able to help a little girl like my Peggy’. You know I love her, don’t you?”

“Yes, Alice, I know.”

We were now exposed to each other. We were both aware of the tragic dimensions in the other’s life. This freed me for more intimacy.

“Is the Inn and Janet enough, Alice?”

“No.”

“What more, then?”

“You know what more, Paul, so stop running away. I’ve had to admit a great aching void in my life. I’ve admitted it to myself, and now I admit it to you. For God’s sake, Paul, I can’t say more.”

“I love you, Alice.”

“I know that, Paul. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I want to marry you.”

“Good. Tell me more.”

“I want you body and soul.”

She stood and leaned over the desk and planted a soft kiss on my lips. She said, “I can do something about the body almost immediately, the soul we’ll deal with later.”

“I have another secret I want to tell you, Paul. It’s been a secret between Janet and I. One day recently she said to me, “I would really like to have a mummy. Would you be my mummy, Mrs. Albright.”

“With some difficulty because I was choking trying not to cry, I told her we would have to ask you. Well, it looks as if that matter is settled. By the way, in case you should be in doubt, Paul, I love you very much for all sorts of reasons we can go into in bed – that is, after we’ve calmed down. Shall I make the wedding arrangements with the parson, or will you?”

“I’ll telephone him for an appointment now and we can make the arrangements together, Alice.”

“Good. In the meantime, Paul, there is no lock on the door on my side of Janet’s room.”

“I’ll remember that, Alice. I’ll remember it when I finish work tonight.”

“Lovely, darling. Don’t work too hard.”

First time I ever heard a boss say that.