Yes Chef, No Chef

chapter Ten



With the mystery of tomorrow’s personnel meeting whirling around in her mind Katie left work on time that evening because she’d asked her mum for dinner and ran up the stairs to her new flat with two bags of shopping. She knew her mum was concerned and even though she’d told her the flat was great and she was settling in easily, she knew having her to visit would be the only way to put her mind at rest.

Katie was hanging her coat in the hall cupboard when her mum said, “You see, Katie, I like to be able to imagine you in a place and know that it’s safe. I mean, when you were in the apartment with Tim I never had a moment’s hesitation…”

It was on the tip of her tongue to remind her that she was nearly thirty and a grown woman but knew her mum would worry about her no matter what age she was.

“Yes, Mum, I know,” she said. “And that’s why I’m cooking you a lovely dinner so you can see I’m really very comfortable and safe here.”

Leading her around each room she told her about Claire going off to Africa and her mum ooh’d and aah’d and agreed that the flat was clean and cosy.

“Not as nice as your apartment with Tim, though,” she said following her back into the kitchen. “Ah, Katie, is there no way you can patch things up with him? I mean, he’s nice to look at, has a good job, rich parents, and that lovely apartment. You know, nice young men like Tim don’t grow on trees.”

Katie sighed and beckoned her to sit at the table. “No, Mum, because it turned out that he wasn’t so nice in the end. I mean, he certainly wasn’t the guy I fell in love with that’s for sure.”

Her mum tutted and shook her head slowly. “I just can’t understand it. I mean, your father wasn’t a saint by any means but he was a good man and that never changed from the day I met him to the day we lost him.”

At the mention of her father Katie felt the usual sadness settle upon her. For a couple of years after he’d died the pain and grief had felt raw but since then she’d sort of got used to him not being around and the missing him had settled into a calm melancholy. She knew she wouldn’t, and never wanted to, forget him but hated to see the pain that still lingered in her mum’s eyes when they talked about him.

The small kitchen window was running with condensation from steam billowing up from the pans and she opened it. “I know,” Katie said placing a pot of chicken casserole into the middle of the table. “But it turns out that Tim wasn’t anything like dad after all.”

She lifted a tray of crunchy roast potatoes from the oven and then strained fresh green beans and broccoli through a colander heaping them into serving dishes.

“Katie, love, this chicken is delicious and it’s so tender,” she said. “And the vegetables are just how I like them. Not too soft and with a bit of a bite.”

She smiled at her mum’s comments and felt calm and uplifted. She wondered why cooking made her feel like this and in some cases if it was an act of love? She’d discussed it with Tim one night and he’d thought it was because she liked to be in control of the food and people’s diets. But she’d refuted this and told him it was because it gave her the chance to care for the people she loved. And she certainly loved her mum dearly. Since her dad had died she seemed to have heaped all her love and attention onto her mum which according to a book Lisa had read was a normal reaction to grief.

They ate the rest of the meal quietly chatting about her two brothers, the firm of decorators who were coming to paint the outside of her house and about her trip to Shrewsbury. In fact, she tried to talk about every topic she could think of rather than Tim and by the time her mum was leaving she thought she’d succeeded but in the hall she stopped to look at the flowers Katie had arranged in a vase.

“Aren’t these gorgeous, just look at those roses,” she exclaimed. “Who are they from?”

Katie sighed. “Lynne and Graham. They arrived at work this morning.”

“Oh my. Wasn’t that kind? I hope you’ve thanked them properly. You never know, they might be able to talk some sense into him.”

Katie took a deep breath in exasperation. “Yes, I’ve thanked them, Mum, and if I couldn’t talk any sense into Tim I don’t think anyone can,” she snapped, and then feeling guilty put her arm along her shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you to the bingo on time.”

“Well, I’m not going to give up hope,” she said. “Because no matter what you say, Katie, I’m sure he was the right one for you…”

“Yes, Mum,” she muttered following her to the Micra.

Climbing into the car her mum said, “And Katie, if your father was here he’d say the same thing himself.”

“Yes, Mum,” she answered, starting the car and looking over her shoulder before pulling off down the road.

“He chose your name, you know,” she said with a dreamy expression on her face and Katie knew she was thinking of her husband in their early days together. “I’d chosen the names for Jack and Michael and he’d said it was his turn to choose the name if you were a girl.”

Katie had heard this story a hundred times but smiled while she drove slowly listening patiently to her.

“He’d just finished reading a novel where the heroine was called Katie and stated that if you were born a girl then that’s what we would call you…”

Katie pulled up outside the bingo hall and taking her hand from the gear stick she reassuring squeezed her mum’s hand before she got out of the car. “You’ll just be in time for the last game,” she called out to her then turned and waved goodbye.

The next morning Frances had rung to say she wouldn’t be into work until later because her mouth was still sore from the dentist’s handy-work and Katie had told her to take it easy. Therefore, when she anxiously made her way along to personnel for the meeting she still had no idea what it was all about. She sat down opposite from David Shaw in the small windowless room and smiled tentatively at him. Susan arrived soon behind her and sat next to David facing her and immediately asked how she was settling into Claire’s flat. Katie assured her it was fine and then decided the atmosphere, whilst not exactly tense, seemed a little strained, almost as though they were waiting for something big to happen.

David was in his early sixties with a large face and huge bushy eyebrows that she often thought would actually start knitting together if they weren’t kept trimmed apart. He folded his big, chubby hands together in front of him on the desk and tried to smile convincingly at her.

It didn’t work and the hairs on the back of Katie’s neck stood up and her palms began to sweat - she clasped her hands together under the table to stop them trembling. Something awful was going to be said she could just feel it and her mind raced, wondering if she’d done something horribly wrong with one of the projects.

David started telling her what a brilliant team leader she was and the contribution she made on a daily basis to the department was exemplary and thanked her for the application for the project manager’s role. She breathed deeply deciding after this praise she couldn’t have made any huge blunders but shuffled uneasily on the plastic chair - her whole body was perspiring now in trepidation.

“But, unfortunately the decision to recruit anyone for the post has been taken out of my hands and no applicants are to be selected,” he explained. “Our chief exec has parachuted in a high flier with vast expertise in project managing, albeit not in a food category,” he said and then deliberately avoided any eye contact with her.

She couldn’t believe it and looked wildly between him and Susan.

David grunted trying to clear his throat. “Erm, apparently he came in yesterday and was interviewed by the MD and our personnel director who have decided that his outside experience and promise of new strategies will be a fantastic asset to the new advertising campaign and in turn, the company.”

This couldn’t be happening her mind screamed, after all the hard work she’d put into the department they were bringing in someone else over her head. Was it legal she thought frantically, but there again, who in their right mind was going to argue with the MD and chief executive?

She stared hard at Susan who although in size, shape, and colouring was the total opposite to Frances, she did have the same protruding grey eyes. They were downcast now as though she too couldn’t bring herself to look Katie in the eye and she stared at the white parting in Susan’s hair where the black colour had once been. Susan continued with more babble about how sorry they were that on this occasion promotion was not an option but that she must rest assured her application had been noted and that she would always be the first to be told about any future advancement.

David stood up to leave. “So, I know I can count upon you to welcome him onto the team when he arrives next month,” he said picking his folder up from the table. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me I have to be at another meeting in five minutes.”

Katie stared at him hurrying through the doorway and still felt too shocked to comprehend or say anything back to either of them. Susan then stood up and mumbled an apology and muttered that she’d only found out this morning and scurried out the door behind him.

Unbelievable, she thought, within the space of ten days she’d lost her boyfriend, her lovely apartment, and now had been turned down from what she’d been almost certain was going to be her new job. Casting her eyes upwards towards the ceiling she muttered, ‘what next, eh? What else are you going to throw at me?’

Suddenly the door opened and she looked up to see Frances standing there with watery eyes.

“Oh sweetheart,” she soothed, “I’ve just seen Susan in the corridor and she’s told me. Are you OK?”

“Christ, somebody up there doesn’t like me at the moment,” she said with a huge choking sob threatening to escape from her throat. “I just can’t believe it?”

Frances actually knelt down in front of her and put her arms around her. “I know, honey, you must feel like shit. But I do know Susan didn’t know anything until she came into work this morning and I know she’d have given me a tip-off earlier if she had.”

Katie nodded glumly. “Oh, I know none of it’s her doing and none of David’s either. They’re just the two poor sods that had to tell me.”

Frances hugged her tightly. “And of course, who the hell wants to argue with the chief exec, nobody, eh? Well, not if they want to keep their jobs.”

Katie still felt speechless. She couldn’t think of anything else to say but got up thanking Frances while they walked slowly to the staff restaurant together arm in arm for a coffee break.

By the time they’d made their way back up to the office everyone was abuzz with the news. What date was he starting? Which company had he come from and what was he like? But, reassuringly to Katie, they had all come to her desk to commiserate with her.

Slowly she was coming to terms with the disappointment that the job wouldn’t be hers and she wouldn’t be moving up to the manager’s floor. Harry and Alice both told her they were sorry but were also glad in another way because they didn’t want to lose her as their boss and Frances was being funny trying to cheer her up by stating they were all a bunch of boring farts upstairs and she’d be much happier down here with her friends.

But try as she might, she just couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of her paperwork and looked around the room at the same faces she’d been working with for eight years. She was stagnant and bored and the thought of carrying on with the same old job made her feel weary - there was nothing new for her to learn and no new challenges lying ahead, and worse than all of that was the fact that she’d have to report into someone else all over again. Sending texts to Sarah and Lisa she told them briefly what had happened and hoped they’d come to hers tonight to share some wine and supper. The thought of being alone tonight was awful and she decided she was going to get very drunk indeed.