Only half my dining-room manpower had actually turned up, so they, and I, were still busy setting up the tables when the first of the lunch guests was due to arrive. We had nearly made it, with only the wineglasses on a couple of the tables still to be put out.
MaryLou had just stood back and watched us as we worked.
We had laid starched white tablecloths over the stained and chipped plywood tables, and it had instantly improved the look of the room. I liked using Stress-Free Catering, since their equipment was of a higher quality than other catering services. Kings-pattern cutlery and decent water glasses and wineglasses soon transformed the bare tables into settings fit maybe not for a king but certainly fit for tractor and harvester manufacturers from across the pond.
Carl had even managed to rescue the pink-and-white carnation table centerpieces from the cold-room before it was sealed, and they, together with the alternating pink and white napkins, gave the final touch to the room.
I stood back and admired our handiwork. I was sure the guests would be impressed. Even MaryLou seemed to be pleased. She smiled. “Just in time,” she said as she placed seating name cards around the tables.
I looked at my watch. Twenty-five to twelve. Only the daylight outside told me it was a.m. and not p.m. My body clock had stopped hours ago and needed rewinding with a decent sleep before it would start again.
“No problem,” I said.
I felt clammy all over and longed to put my head down on a nice feather pillow. Instead, I retreated to the kitchen and doused my aching crown under cold water at the sink. I hoped that Angela Milne couldn’t see me through the window. The Food Standards Agency wouldn’t approve of a chef wetting his hair under the kitchen tap. I emerged slightly more refreshed, but, overall, it wasn’t a great improvement. I yawned loudly, with my mouth wide-open, leaned on the sink and looked out across the parade ring towards the town center.
Newmarket on 2,000 Guineas day. The town was abuzz with excitement for the first Classic race of the year, with every hotel room for miles occupied with the hopeful and the expectant.
Newmarket was nicknamed “Headquarters” by racing people, although it had long since relinquished its role as the official power base of the Sport of Kings. The Jockey Club headquarters had been established at Newmarket in the 1750s to regulate the already-thriving local racing scene, and it had soon expanded its authority over all Thoroughbred racing in the land. Indeed, the Jockey Club had wielded such power that in October 1791 the Prince Regent, the future King George IV, was investigated for “irregularities in the running of his horse Escape.” The irregularities in question were that the horse pulled up on one day at short odds only to win the next day at long. The prince sold his horses and his stud and never returned to Newmarket, and it is much rumored that he was, in fact, privately “warned off” by the stewards, although officially he was just “censured.”
Nowadays, the Jockey Club was still a huge influence in Newmarket itself as it owned not only the two racetracks, but also some twenty-four hundred acres of training paddocks around the town. But the role it once had in running and controlling British racing has faded away to almost nothing with the establishment first of the British Horseracing Board and then, more recently, the creation of the British Horseracing Authority, which has taken over the inquiries and disciplinary matters within the sport. The Jockey Club has returned to what it was at its original meetings in a London tavern, a social gathering for like-minded individuals who enjoy their racing. That is, of course, unless they happened to be a professional jockey. There are no actual jockeys in the Jockey Club. In the eyes of the members, jockeys are servants and have no place socializing among their betters.
Carl roused me from my daydreaming.
“We can only get half the pies in these ovens,” he said, “so we’re borrowing the space in the ovens down the passage. They’re serving a cold buffet, so there’s plenty of room.”
“Great,” I said. I was so tired I hadn’t even realized there was a problem. “What time do they go in?” I tried hard to do the mental arithmetic. First race at five past two, so sit down to lunch at half past twelve. Each pie takes thirty-five minutes. If there are forty pies, minus the five people who aren’t coming, that makes…forty minus five pies…if one pie takes thirty-five minutes for the filling to cook and the pastry to go golden brown, how long does it take forty minus five pies…? The cogs in my brain turned ever so slowly and then ground to a halt. If five men can build five houses in five months, how long will it take six men to build six houses? Did I care? I was beginning to think that the pies should have gone into the ovens the day before yesterday, when Carl saved me.
“Twelve-fifteen sharp,” he said. “Sit-down time is twelve-thirty, pies on the table at one o’clock.”
“Great,” I said again. And my head on the pillow by one-thirty. Fat chance.
“And potatoes on in five minutes,” Carl said. “All under control.”
I looked at my watch. It took me quite a time to register where the hands were pointing. Ten to twelve. What is wrong with me? I thought. I’d stayed awake for longer than this before. My stomach rumbled to remind me that nothing had been put in it for a while. I wasn’t sure that it was such a good idea to eat at all, in case it came up again in a replay of the night before, and I wasn’t at all keen on that. But perhaps hunger was contributing to my lethargy.
I tried a dry piece of French bread. It seemed to provoke no immediate reaction from my guts, so I had another, larger piece. The rumblings abated.
The guests would be arriving in the boxes and I was hardly dressed to greet them, so I went down to my Golf, stood between the cars and changed into my work clothes, a pair of black-and-white, large-check trousers and a starched white cotton smock. The top had been loosely modeled on a hussar’s tunic, with two rows of buttons in a sort of open V down the front. MAX MORETON was embroidered in red on the left breast, below a representation of a Michelin star. I had discovered that to look like a chef was half the battle in convincing customers and critics alike that I really did care about the food they ate and that I wasn’t simply trying to fleece them.
I made my way back up to the boxes only to find MaryLou stomping around outside the elevator, looking for me.
“Ah, there you are,” she said in a tone that implied I should have been there long before. “You must come and meet Mr. Schumann. He’s our company chairman.”
She almost dragged me by the arm down the corridor to the boxes, which now had large notices stuck to the doors: DELAFIELD INDUSTRIES, INC.-MAIN EVENT SPONSOR.
There were about twenty people already there, some standing around the tables while others had made their way out onto the balcony outside to enjoy the watery May sunshine and the magnificent view down the racetrack.
My role was as guest chef for the event rather than just the caterer. The usual racetrack hospitality company and I had a fine working relationship that was beneficial to both parties. They had no objection to me having “special” access to the track, and I would try to help them out if they were short staffed or stretched with a big function. Their managing director, Suzanne Miller, was a frequent client at the Hay Net, and she always claimed that it was a benefit for her company to have an association with, as she put it, “a local gourmet restaurant.” The arrangement had worked well for more than five years, but time would tell whether it would survive Suzanne’s approaching retirement. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t. The growing success of the Hay Net meant that I was finding it increasingly difficult to devote the time and energy needed to my track events, and I was not good at saying no to longstanding clients. If the new boss of the caterers didn’t want me on his patch, then I could always blame him to get me off the hook.