Daniel is fifteen, and he has a summer holiday job scrubbing pots in an hotel kitchen.
He is too young for employment in a commercial kitchen, but it is the Lake District and frankly everybody is so desperate for staff that nobody cares. Most hotels would employ a chimpanzee by July if he could turn up sober and on time, and reach the sink if he stood on a chair.
Of course, you have read romantic stories about unpromising pot-boys who grow up to rescue the damsel and make their fortunes before becoming a handsome knight. Unfortunately, there is not much chance of this pot-boy becoming a knight. He is skinny, and small for his age, with flopping yellow hair and protruding teeth.
The hero of this story is really the chef in charge of the kitchen, whose name is Sidney. He is not likely to become a knight either. Sidney’s hair is beginning to go grey. His skin is so brown that it is almost black, and he is rather fatter than he should be. This is probably because he drinks too much on his nights off, which are Tuesday and Wednesday, being the quiet nights for the hotel trade.
However, he does get the girl, which makes him the hero even though he is not a knight. I do not think you need to feel cheated about this. Plenty of stories have got along very nicely with far less promising heroes than Sidney.
The girl that Sidney gets does not work in the hotel kitchen. She is actually Daniel’s mother. She is a dispatcher in the local taxi office, and worries about Daniel because he is rather a long way along the autistic spectrum and not doing very well at school.
Daniel has got the job in the hotel kitchen all by himself. He knows that his mother does not have much money, and that there are no circumstances under which she would give him some for the purpose of purchasing Robux, which are currently his heart’s desire.
Robux, for those unacquainted with young people, are an online currency. You can use them on an Internet platform called Roblox, to purchase pictures of fashionable clothes. These are worn by the picture of your gaming character whilst he shoots at other people’s pictures in exciting on-line games.
Hence, a few days ago, Daniel timidly approached the assistant manager of the prestigious Lake Shore Hotel and was immediately given an apron and instructed to turn up on Friday evening at five o’clock.
Sidney is used to pot-boys coming and going. The work is hard and heavy, and very boring. Daniel looks at the floor whilst Sidney’s gaze flicks over him, until he hears Sidney grunt. Sidney tells him that his job is to scrub the worst of the leftover dinners off the plates and pans, and to put them into one of the three dishwashers for a final wash and rinse. Then he is to unload the dishwasher as it finishes and stack the plates on the shelves under the worktop.
A kindly waitress called Ellen shows Daniel where to leave his jumper, and how to wrap the strings of his apron around himself and tie them at the front. Then she leaves Daniel to get on with it, because already there is a stack of greasy plates, some with bones and unwanted vegetables squashed between them, and Sidney is shouting for her, because they are busy.
All evening Daniel scrapes and scrubs the plates. He is learning new things all of the time. He learns about the cold sticky feeling of mayonnaise and tomato sauce between his fingers when he scrapes out the little bowls. He learns that if you are not careful, forks will keep dry lumps of people’s crusted dinner stuck to their tines, and that they need special soaking in very hot water. He learns that the food that smells so savoury and appetising when Sidney arranges it on the plates, smells slightly nauseating when it is reduced to leftover lumps of fat and smears of congealing gravy.
Mostly what he learns is that Sidney likes to sing, very loudly, whilst he works.
It is almost eleven o’clock when he has finished. Everybody else has finished as well, and Sidney takes an enormous pizza out of the oven. Daniel is not sure whether or not he is supposed to sit down and eat some of it, but Sidney waves him towards a stool, so that Daniel understands that it is all right.
They all sit down at the staff table. There are eight of them altogether, but the three waiters say some rude words and flick one another with the pot towels, and go off to drink at the Lamb and Flag pub before they go to bed.
Daniel does not need to rush off anywhere. His mother will not finish her dispatching job until long after midnight, but he is not sure about the pizza. He is a bit frightened of unfamiliar food, because some feelings in his mouth are so dreadful, such as the ones you get with prawns, or gristle, or mushrooms, that they make him want to be sick. He knows that this is rude when somebody has made a special effort with food for you, and so he is extra-careful about eating new things until he is sure that they are safe.
He is relieved to see a large bowl of chips. He knows that these are all right, and he sits down next to a sous-chef, who is called Ryan, and who is smoking.
When Sidney comes to the table, he throws a ladle at Ryan. Ryan makes a rude gesture but nevertheless throws his cigarette out into the yard through the open door. He shoves his elbow against Daniel as he leans across the table for a handful of chips.
Daniel moves out of his way, as politely as he can, and does not look at him.
“Think you’ll stay, then, fatty?” asks Ryan. Daniel knows that this is a joke, because he is not fat at all. He is so thin that his mother can circle his arm with her finger and thumb.
Sidney puts a slice of the pizza and a scoop of chips on a plate and pushes it towards Daniel.
Daniel does not know what else to do, so he takes it.
“Eat it all, boy,” Sidney says, in his smoky-deep voice.
Daniel blushes pink and picks at the chips with his fingers. He thinks that he might be hungry, but he is not sure, because it is difficult sometimes, to know what his inside feelings are trying to tell him.
Sidney watches him, and says nothing. Daniel eats very slowly, unlike Ryan, who shovels in handfuls of chips and two more slices of pizza, before going to the fridge for a bottle of beer.
Daniel aches all over. His arms and his back are more tired than he has ever known. When he gets home that night, he does not shoot anybody with his still-unfashionably-dressed Roblox picture. He goes to bed and sleeps for ten hours.
Daniel does stay in the kitchen of the Lake Shore Hotel, and after a couple of weeks his Roblox picture is very sharply dressed indeed, with a natty hat and an AR-15 rifle for the purposes of exterminating other pictures. He discovers that Ryan has a smartly-dressed picture as well, and sometimes after Daniel has gone home and Ryan has gone back to his staff bedroom, they switch on their computers and shoot other pictures in the cyber-universe together.
Sidney watches him all this time, and one Thursday night, when they are quiet, he calls to Daniel and tells him to stop what he is doing and watch Ryan arranging salad on plates.
“What you showing him for?” Ryan asks rudely. “He isn’t interested in food. He only ever eats chips.”
“No, you wrong, Ryan,” says Sidney, in his jazz-gravelly voice. “Food matters everything to this boy. He cares so much about it that he notice everything. Not like you. Feeding you is like pouring water into a leaky bucket. This boy is different.”
Daniel’s face burns. He does not know what to say.
Sidney carries on.
“This boy notice every little thing about what he eats,” explains Sidney. “When he puts something into his mouth, he doesn’t just swallow it. He feels it and thinks about it. I know. I watch him. That right, boy?”
Daniel is overcome. He wants to be a hundred miles away from Sidney’s gaze, but Sidney is right, and Daniel nods.
“That what it takes to be a brilliant chef,” Sidney says, proudly. “Someone who notice every tiny thing. Someone who care. Not like you, who don’t think about anything only beer and girls. This boy here, he knows what’s important. Show him. Show him what you do.”
Ryan sighs and takes a handful of leaves. He spreads them on the plate. Sidney takes one and hands it to Daniel.
“You see this, boy,” he says. “This going to be cool and papery in your mouth, flat on your tongue and taste a bit bitter. In the heart it should crunch. Try it.”
Daniel is frightened of green things, but somehow Sidney’s words have made it safer. He puts the leaf in his mouth, and finds that Sidney is exactly right.
“Green leaves with everything,” Sidney says. “No plate that won’t be more beautiful with green leaves. Leaves is calm and tranquillity, boy. Leaves for a gentle soul. Leaves are the reason people come to the Lake District. They want to be among leaves. Look. This one emerald-colour, bright and new. This spinach is graveyard-dark. This one red-veins, like it just been pulled from a beating heart.”
Sidney takes over from Ryan then, and Ryan takes the unexpected opportunity to slope off outside for a cigarette.
“When you eat, every little thing matters,” Sidney tells Daniel as his quick fingers fill the plate. “You don’t want to fill your soul with rubbish. A man should only put beautiful things into his heart. When you see the plate, your soul should lift to see how perfect it is. See. The beetroot has a deep, warm taste, sweet and glad, dark promise on the plate. Try it. Now tomatoes. They burst and fill your mouth with sharp bright life when you bite them. Feel that tiny sting. Tomatoes have so much life you shouldn’t ever cook them without a little spoon of sugar to feed them.”
Daniel eats the things that Sidney has given to him, and is astonished to discover firstly, that he is not frightened, and secondly, that Sidney is right.
“When you fill the plate, you think of all these things,” Sidney says. “A little onion, not much, because onion bites. Reminds you that life smarts sometimes. Carrot, maybe, sweet and wholesome, make you work a bit to chew it. When you fill a plate, you make a present for somebody, make them excited to see it.”
Daniel watches as Sidney arranges the present-salad on the plate, and he sees how the colours glow. He reaches his hand out and touches the tomato, with the tip of his finger, and feels its silky-smooth skin.
Sidney smiles, and Ellen flaps through the swinging doors and shouts: “Party of eight, table seventeen,” and so Sidney bellows for Ryan, and they are all busy.
After that Daniel watches everybody create the beautiful present-dinners. Ryan fills the plates with bright salads, or with swirls of potato and perfectly-symmetrical lines of beans, and Sidney slides slices of fragrant dark beef, or delicate pink salmon, beside them.
Sometimes, if they are quiet, Sidney hands Daniel a tiny fragment of cheese, or a spoon of wine-rich gravy, and tells him how it should be in his mouth.
Daniel tastes it and thinks.
I hope you have not forgotten about his mother, who is the girl that Sidney is going to get in the end. It turns out not to be very difficult for him to get her, because she loves him a little bit before she has even met him, because Daniel is becoming so brave and adventurous. He laughs more than he used to, and his arms have become thicker.
One afternoon she is rushing to get ready for work. Daniel is going to go to work as well, so she does not need to worry about feeding him, which is a relief, but she still has her own sandwiches to make, and she is so late that she wonders if she could afford to buy some ready-made from the Tesco shop on the corner.
Daniel has come into the kitchen for a drink of orange juice, and hears the anxious catch in her voice. He has never done anything like this before, but he says that he will make her dinner whilst she finishes the ironing. She is so surprised that she agrees, although secretly she thinks that probably she had better get some sandwiches on her way out as well.
Daniel fills her Tupperware box with emerald leaves, and black olives, and cucumber dipped in vinegar, and carefully sliced sunshine peppers. He crumbles white cheese into it, and tosses it all with a little pepper and oil.
He slices the ham and the chicken as thinly as he can, and rolls the slices around sticks of asparagus, into slim fingers. He lays them on the top of the salad, lightly dusted with a little paprika. Then he spreads a little salty butter on the bread and toasts it until it is crisp. He slices it into neat triangles and puts it in a second tub, so as not to make crumbs in the first.
His mother watches him in complete astonishment. His fingers have become so deft, his concentration so perfect, and her dinner so beautiful she would not want to eat it, if it did not smell so green and fresh and hopeful.
“That’s just lovely,” she says, and her voice sounds a little choked.
Daniel smiles.
“I’m practising,” he says. “One day, when I grow up, I’m going to be a chef.”
When Daniel’s mother gets to work, she telephones the Lake Shore Hotel and asks to speak to Sidney.
She is a little fluttery when he answers, but nevertheless determined. She tells Sidney how very grateful she is for the changes she has seen in Daniel. Sidney has been very kind to Daniel, and she wants Sidney to know that Daniel now wants to become a chef, and it is thanks to him.
Sidney listens politely, and says that perhaps he might be interested in an apprentice chef when Daniel leaves school. He is very busy at the moment, but perhaps if Daniel’s mother would like, they could get together for a drink on Tuesday night, and he could explain a bit about it.
I think you can work out the rest.