Page 34 of Love in Tune

Honey left it until after lunch to go over and look in on the new chef.

Pushing the kitchen door open tentatively, she could hear shouting and clattering from within.

Inside, the new chef had his back towards the door and held a frying pan held aloft, waving it around in the air as he yelled at Skinny Steve.

Honey was sure he didn’t intend for it to look threatening, but nonetheless it did rather look as if she’d walked in thirty seconds before Skinny Steve took one for the team.

‘Whoa there,’ she said lightly, clearing her throat, and then ‘Er, hello?’ a little louder when the chef failed to even register her presence. He spun around, frying pan still in the air.

‘What?’ he spat in heavily accented English, his dark moustache bristling with contempt.

Judging from his appearance, Honey hazarded a guess at Spanish, or possibly Mexican.

He wasn’t a tall man. An unkind person would have even called him short, but what he lacked in height he made up for in volume.

‘What do you want, woman!’ he shouted, and Honey watched the pan carefully in case it came down on her head as she approached him slowly.

‘Do you think you could, umm, put that pan down?’ she tried, summoning scant hostage negotiation skills gleaned from the movies.

The chef looked slowly up the length of his arm and stared at the pan as if he was as surprised as anyone to see it there.

‘You means this pan?’

Honey nodded and smiled the small, quivering smile of the mildly terrified.

Chef’s eyes moved from the pan to Honey, and then across to Steve, which was the point when he started to growl.

‘Ooohkay,’ Honey said, and catching Skinny Steve’s eye she flicked her head towards the back door that led to the garden.

He didn’t need telling twice. Like the worst hero in the world, he made a dash for freedom and left Honey to dodge around the chef and slam the door to stop him from chasing Steve.

‘Whaddya do that for!’ he shouted, and slammed the pan down hard on the counter. Honey jumped, but stayed splayed over the door like a police cut-out.

‘You were frightening him,’ she said.

‘What is he? A man or a mouse?’ The chef’s chin wobbled. ‘He tell me all morning, don’t do this, don’t do that . They won’t like this, they won’t like that .’ He picked up a whole chilli from the work surface. ‘ And they definitely won’ta like these! ’

He bit the chilli in half and ate it without turning a hair.

‘My mama in Mexico has these for breakfast and she is one hundred and three.’ He shoved the rest of the chilli in and swallowed.

‘These people,’ he waved vaguely towards the dining room in disgust. ‘Bland. I just try to spice up their lives, and that boy …’ he looked murderously through the window for Steve.

‘He won’t let me. Who is in charge here?

Him, or me? My chilli con carne won three red peppers in the Chihuahua Chilli Awards 2010.

Three peppers!’ He picked up three more chillies, and quite alarmingly shoved them all in his mouth at once.

Honey stared, transfixed, as he stood with his hands on his hips and chewed them all up with difficulty.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’ she whispered, as tears ran down his cheeks.

He spat out a chilli seed. ‘I not cry because of the chillies. The chillies are delicious. I cry because my soul is crushed. Crushed by these people who look as if they are made of paper and will only eat bland, bland food.’ He’d gone from angry to maudlin in a blink, impressive for someone stone cold sober.

‘I cry because I miss my mama. These people remind me I should go home and kiss her wrinkly cheeks again.’ He mopped his tears with the corner of his apron, which he then took off and slung on the stool.

‘I will go now,’ he declared. ‘This minute. I will go and see my mama.’

‘But …’

He held up both his hands to stop her speaking. ‘My mama. I will go now.’

‘In Chihuahua?’ Honey said doubtfully, and he glared at her with a curt nod.

‘But what about dinner?’

‘I made chilli.’ He waved towards the bubbling vat on the stove. ‘Skin and bones knows what to do with it.’

Honey could only presume he was referring to Skinny Steve, and furthermore she guessed that the only thing that chilli was going to be useful for was stripping paint.

She watched helplessly as the diminutive chef slung a bag across his back and flounced out of the kitchen, flounced back and grabbed his bunch of chillies, and then flounced back out again, this time for good.

‘We can’t serve it like this,’ Honey said, having braved a tiny taste of the chilli on the end of a teaspoon. Prickles of sweat had broken out on her brow and she’d reached instantly for water. ‘Do you have any idea how to calm it down?’

Steve shook his head, his brows knitted together into a unibrow. After a full minute’s thought, he finally spoke.

‘No.’

Honey took a calming breath and tried to summon her inner Nigella. ‘Water, maybe?’

Steve shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. It’d turn into soup.’

He was most probably right, but he’d also given Honey another idea. ‘Soup? Do we have any tomato soup? That might work.’

Steve considered her suggestion, and then turned to rummage in the wall cupboards. Lining up four huge tins of soup on the counter, he turned back to Honey.

‘It’s worth a shot,’ he said. ‘Shall I put them all in?’

Honey nodded. Even her complete absence of cooking knowledge didn’t stop her from knowing that the chilli needed as much dilution as they could throw at it. She nodded encouragement at Skinny Steve as he tipped each can in and stirred the pot.

‘Now test it,’ she said.

‘Why me?’

‘Because you’re the chef,’ Honey exclaimed.

‘I don’t like chilli,’ Steve muttered, looking doubtful.

Honey sighed and picked up a spoon. ‘Move out the way.’

The consistency had certainly changed; it was way too gloopy and vivid red, horribly like road kill you’d avert your eyes from on a country lane.

She wouldn’t want it for her own dinner, and she felt sorry for the residents come mealtime tonight.

Dipping the spoon in, she gingerly put a little into her mouth.

Laying the spoon down slowly, she shook her head.

‘It really hasn’t helped much,’ she croaked, reaching once more for the tap.

‘What are we going to do?’ Skinny Steve whispered, looking stricken. ‘It’s almost two. If I don’t have something on the table at half five they’re going to lynch us.’

Honey briefly considered mentioning that she wasn’t, in point of fact, kitchen staff, and running for the hills, but she’d seen Skinny Steve sprint just now and had no doubt he’d tackle her and bring her down before she made it as far as the door.

Besides, he was desperate, and she wasn’t hard-hearted enough to desert him in his hour of need.

Which kind of left them both with a monumental problem.

They had to serve dinner for around thirty people in just over three hours and didn’t have a clue between them how to do it.

‘Do you think the agency could send a replacement in time?’ Steve asked.

Honey really doubted it. She crossed the room and swung the fridge door open, feeling a sinking sense of déjà vu about the whole situation.

The last time she’d done this she’d managed to pull off a coup, but that wasn’t likely to happen twice in one lifetime.

The chiller offered up very little in the way of inspiration, definitely nothing that looked like it might save their bacon. Although there was actual bacon …

‘Do they eat bacon and sausages?’ she asked.

Steve screwed up his nose. ‘Some of them. Bacon gets stuck in their false teeth. Or they don’t have any teeth.’ He shrugged apologetically.

‘And sausages?’

He looked more hopeful. ‘Yeah. We could do sausages.’

‘With …’ Honey tried to coax him into creating a dish. He was the more experienced cook of them both, he did this every day.

‘… Mash!’ Skinny Steve practically shouted, lighting up like a just-plugged-in Christmas tree. ‘Bangers and mash!’

Honey grinned, relieved at yet another disaster averted. ‘Now you’re talking. Get some potatoes, there’s peeling to be done. You do peel potatoes for mash, right?’

You know that warm glow of pride you get when you do something really well and everyone tells you you’re a marvel?

It wasn’t quite that good, but by Honey and Steve’s standards the sausage and mash feast followed by their trademark magic whip pudding was a roaring triumph.

It was only as they were gathering in the dishes afterwards that Steve checked the kitchen calendar and went a sickly shade of green.

‘Oh no,’ he muttered, making Honey look up from stacking the plates.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s Old Don’s birthday tomorrow. There’s a party at three o’clock.’

‘A party?’ Honey repeated, her tired brain hurting with the effort of more frantic thinking. ‘As in a party that needs party food? Like sandwiches, and sausage rolls and things?’

‘And a birthday cake,’ Steve mouthed, the look of a hunted deer back in his eyes.

‘Can you bake?’ Honey asked, already knowing the answer before he shook his head.

She was no Mary Berry either, despite having watched every series of The Great British Bake Off .

She freely admitted to having taken more notice of Paul Hollywood’s baby blues than the technicalities of baking, an oversight she now bitterly regretted.

‘Shit.’ She dropped onto the nearest stool. ‘We’re sunk.’

Steve looked like a defeated featherweight boxer, all slumped shoulders and downturned, dejected lips.

‘I’ve had enough of all this,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m sorry, Honey. I know this is bad of me, but I quit. I can’t do this.’