The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [280]
“How about you?” I said, turning to Anna. “Another dry martini?”
Jonathan looked surprised. “You haven’t had a dry martini since …”
Anna scowled at him and said quickly, “I’ll just have a glass of wine with the meal.”
Since when? I wondered, but only said, “I’ll have the same.”
Mario reappeared, and handed us our menus. Jonathan and Anna studied theirs in silence for some time before Jonathan asked, “Any ideas?”
“It all looks so tempting,” Anna said. “But I think I’ll settle for the fettucini and a glass of red wine”.
“What about a starter?” asked Jonathan.
“No. I’m on first call tomorrow, if you remember—unless of course you’re volunteering to take my place.”
“Not after what I’ve been through this evening, Pipsqueak. I’d rather go without a starter too,” he said. “How about you, Michael? Don’t let our domestic problems get in your way.”
“Fettucini and a glass of red wine would suit me just fine.”
“Three fettucini and a bottle of your best Chianti,” said Jonathan when Mario returned.
Anna leaned over to me and whispered conspiratorially, “It’s the only Italian wine he can pronounce correctly.”
“What would have happened if we’d chosen fish?” I asked her.
“He’s also heard of Frascati, but he’s never quite sure what he’s meant to do when someone orders duck.”
“What are you two whispering about?” asked Jonathan as he handed his menu back to Mario.
“I was asking your sister about the third partner in the practice.”
“Not bad, Michael,” Anna said. “You should have gone into politics.”
“My wife, Elizabeth, is the third partner,” Jonathan said, unaware of what Anna had been getting at. “She, poor darling, is on call tonight.”
“You note, two women and one man,” said Anna as the wine waiter appeared by Jonathan’s side.
“Yes. There used to be four of us,” said Jonathan, without explanation. He studied the label on the bottle before nodding sagely.
“You’re not fooling anyone, Jonathan. Michael has already worked out that you’re no sommelier,” said Anna, sounding as if she was trying to change the subject. The waiter extracted the cork and poured a little wine into Jonathan’s glass for him to taste.
“So, what do you do, Michael?” asked Jonathan after he had given a second nod to the wine waiter. “Don’t tell me you’re a doctor, because I’m not looking for another man to join the practice.”
“No, he’s in the restaurant business,” said Anna, as three bowls of fettucini were placed in front of us.
“I see. You two obviously swapped life histories during the intermission,” said Jonathan. “But what does being ‘in the restaurant business’ actually mean?”
“I’m on the management side,” I explained. “Or at least, that’s what I do nowadays. I started life as a waiter, then I moved into the kitchens for about five years, and finally ended up in management.”
“But what does a restaurant manager actually do?” asked Anna.
“Obviously the interval wasn’t long enough for you to go into any great detail,” said Jonathan as he jabbed his fork into some fettucini.
“Well, at the moment I’m running three restaurants in the West End, which means I never stop dashing from one to the other, depending on which is facing the biggest crisis on that particular day.”
“Sounds a bit like ward duty to me,” said Anna. “So who turned out to have the biggest crisis today?”
“Today, thank heaven, was not typical,” I said with feeling.
“That bad?” said Jonathan.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. We lost a chef this morning who cut off the top of his finger, and won’t be back at work for at least a fortnight. My head waiter in our second restaurant is off, claiming he has flu, and I’ve just had to sack the barman in the third for fiddling the books. Barmen always fiddle the books, of course, but in this case even the customers began to notice what he was up to.” I paused. “But I still wouldn’t want to be in any other …”
A shrill ring interrupted me. I couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from until Jonathan removed a tiny cellular phone from his jacket pocket.
“Sorry about this,” he said. “Hazard of the job.” He