The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [234]
During the break Mark waited for his friends outside the factory gate until their shift had ended and listened to their stories of weekends spent watching football, drinking at the pub, and dancing to the Everly Brothers. They all sympathized with his problem and looked forward to his joining them in September. “It’s only a few more months,” one of them reminded him cheerfully.
Far too quickly, Mark was on the journey back to London, where he continued unwillingly to cart cases up and down the hotel corridors for month after month.
Once the English rain had subsided, the usual influx of American tourists began. Mark liked the Americans, who treated him as an equal and often tipped him a shilling when others would have given him only sixpence. But whatever the amount Mark received, Sergeant Crann would still pocket it with the inevitable, “Your time will come, lad.”
One such American for whom Mark ran around diligently every day during his two-week stay ended up presenting the boy with a ten-shilling note as he left the front entrance of the hotel.
Mark said, “Thank you, sir,” and turned around to see Sergeant Crann standing in his path.
“Hand it over,” said Crann as soon as the American visitor was well out of earshot.
“I was going to the moment I saw you,” said Mark, passing the note to his superior.
. “Not thinking of pocketing what’s rightfully mine, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Mark. “Though God knows I earned it.”
“Your time will come, lad,” said Sergeant Crann without much thought.
“Not while someone as mean as you is in charge,” replied Mark sharply.
“What was that you said?” asked the head porter, veering around.
“You heard me the first time, Sarge.”
The clip across the ear took Mark by surprise.
“You, lad, have just lost your job. Nobody, but nobody, talks to me like that.” Sergeant Crann turned and set off smartly in the direction of the manager’s office.
The hotel manager, Gerald Drummond, listened to the head porter’s version of events before asking Mark to report to his office immediately. “You realize I have been left with no choice but to fire you,” were his first words once the door was closed.
Mark looked up at the tall, elegant man in his long, black coat, white collar, and black tie. “Am I allowed to tell you what actually happened, sir?” he asked.
Mr. Drummond nodded, then listened without interruption as Mark gave his version of what had taken place that morning, and also disclosed the agreement he had entered into with his father. “Please let me complete my final ten weeks,” Mark ended, “or my father will only say I haven’t kept my end of our bargain.”
“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 a day off his calendar.
For the first week he never actually saw the fabled Jacques. With seventy people working in the kitchens Mark felt confident he could pass his whole period there without anyone being aware of him.
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