plus my microscopic drossy pit. So Fredo’s command to get in a taxi and go to a written address pleased me: chance to see New York at last! I waved to Rose and explained to Josephus and Jonie and Delia and Lil, left them arguing the toss about who was to do what, and left.
The taxi man was local. “I’m the only remaining New Yorker behind a wheel,” he told me. “You’re lucky you got me. Now, they’re all African, Hispanos, Europe, you name it. Next month I quit, run my own service on Long Island with my dumb brother-in-law. He’s a schmuck…”
I listened in bafflement as his family hatreds came out. I’d never heard anyone speak like this before. Was it the custom? To tell a stranger your native city stank from garbage? That you’d kill the mayor if you could? That your President shoulda done law ’cos he’s stoopid? That your son was a bum? By the end of the journey I was stunned. I hadn’t even looked out of the window.
“How much?” I asked, alighting in this enormous driveway. A large house loomed above up narrow stone steps, an ominous place in spite of the lights and music on the terrace.
He spoke with disgust, explained, “It’s down to Fredo, my brother-in-law. You believe my luck?” And drove away into the glittering night leaving me standing there being watched by two silent goons.
One beckoned, examined my bag. I felt my nape hairs rise. Being looked at like that brings out the coward in me every single time. Life’s always on the wobble, and men this tranquil exist solely to tip life out of control.
“My waiter’s things,” I said, nervous.
Silence, broken after a couple of centuries by a woman’s irritated voice calling was he here at last and get him in here. I received my bag and was shoved to the rear entrance, where another bulky goon was standing, knowing I was coming and saying nothing. His hands hung down. He made no reply to my nervous “Hi there!”
“Where the hell have you been?” The same woman, by her voice, light hair and smart in dark blue and ruffles, comely but modern.
“I only knew a little while ago, ma’am. Mr Manfredi sent me. He’s had a road accident.”
“In there. You’re
The place was beautiful in a modern way, by which I mean clean and spacious and wretchedly dull. As I changed into the jacket—slightly too big, but it had to do—I could hear music and a faint kitchen clatter. The aromas were mouthwatering. I managed to get the shoes on, too tight but no time to argue, and tried combing my hair. It never works. Ready.
“For chrissakes! What’ve you been
Shapely walk, white gleaming corridors of below-stairs, following into a lift—incredible. A lift! In somebody’s house!—then a pit-stop at some unnumbered floor.
“Manners above all. Y’hear? You done this before?” Her voice was a whispering bandsaw. This was a lady with whom I would never argue.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The place was plush. Other flunkeys were standing about the edges of the concourse. Pale lavender carpet, a grand staircase asking for gowned starlets to make riveting descents, chandeliers and antiques. Paintings on the walls that bonged into my chest and shut my mind off from common sense. A superb Chippendale library table which some lunatic had placed against the wall where its loveliness would be concealed. Sacrilege. Why not in the library, for God’s sake? I found myself tutting in annoyance. The woman furiously told me to pay attention.
“The butler’s Mr Granger. I’m Jennie, catering. The captain’s Orly, okay?”
“Mr Granger, Jennie, Orly.” The white-gloved old bloke was straight out of rep theatre.
“Follow Orly’s instructions. Don’t speak if you can help it. Got it?”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She wasn’t a catering manageress. She was a very very frightened catering manageress. Like I was a scared waiter. I wondered if we were all terrified. On the way into the lavishly appointed corridor —too much rococo wallwork for my liking—I realized some flunkeys were more flunkeys than others. Two waiters were nervous as I was; three others similarly attired were not nervous at all. These were stiller than the rest. They didn’t look at the guests. They looked at me, the other waiters, the spaces between.
“Just in time. That’s Orly. Take position by him.”
Orly was an agitated smoothie positioned across the spacious entrance hall. Dark slicked hair, very mannered, slim, colourlessly delighted to be in charge. Only twenty guests, I counted, so nothing major.
Jennie glided away into the servants’ regions. I took stock.
This was class. The ladies were glamorous, stylish from the certainty that all this richness would still be here in the morning. Looking young was their game. A couple were middle aged but doing brave battle—we’d have trouble selling spuds tonight. The men were monosyllabic, except for a garrulous laugher with silvered waved hair. Politician? The remainder were too economical for my liking. Economy always chills me. They were economical with smiles, words, gestures, though they’d have passed for a first-night crowd anywhere on earth. Dinner jackets tailored, rings a little too flashily genuine. There was tension in the air, with everybody eager to pretend otherwise.
We got down to it at a gesture from Mr Granger. The grub looked superb, but I was more interested in the antiques around the room. Twenty’s no great number, is it, and I had time to fall in love with a vase on a pedestal —daft, really, sticking a Greek krater where us blundering servants might knock it off. These are worth a fortune. Think early Wedgwood if you’ve never seen one. It almost made me moan with lust. It stood glowing, its twenty- four centuries emitting radiance you can’t buy. (Well, you can, but you know what I mean.) I kept trying to get near its inverted-bell shape to see if its two handles had ever been injured and re-stuck. The red-figure styles, like this, are the sort to go for. It was worth this whole house…
Orly gestured so I leapt to it, serving vegetables. Italian seemed to be the grub theme, but well done. Somebody expert in the kitchens tonight, thank heavens. Veal done in some posh way, broccoli, some sweet-aroma pale things I’d never seen before, and boats of other veg, it looked good enough to eat (joke). They left almost everything, ungrateful swine. It broke my heart. I could have wolfed the lot.
“Certainly, ma’am.”
