AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PART1
THE CHEF
PROLOGUE
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO
Xavier
Afinch chirped somewhere nearby. It was a proud chirp, loud enough to channel through the crisp February breeze and announce the bird’s presence over the polluted noise of buses, vagrants, and pedestrians hurrying their way down South End. Right in the middle of Croydon, on the roof of my mother’s flat and above our restaurant on the street, a bloody bird was the loudest thing around.
I took a pull on the cigarette I’d pinched from Emmanuel, the dishwasher, then turned to glare at the bird. It hopped toward me along the rooftop ledge, looking for crumbs, maybe, or seeds like Mrs. Abbott sometimes left on her window next door. Its beak opened again, and out came a song audacious enough to match its orange plumage, the only bright thing in this godforsaken corner of London with its crumbling bricks, deserted storefronts, and tagged signs.
How fucking dare that bird, today of all days?
“Fuck off,” I ordered it, and then, as if to emphasize the point, I stubbed out the cigarette a few inches from the finch and rose to my feet, pinched in the too-tight shoes Mum had bought me last year for a school performance. My feet were so big then she’d had to order them special, save up a month’s wages from selling bentos to the Japanese school downtown. Now my feet were almost a size fourteen.
But who would find me shoes now?
The finch chirped again, took another daring hop, then chirped once more, proud as can be. Cheeky bugger. Couldn’t it recognize a brush-off when it saw one?
“I said, fuck off,” I told it. “No one wants to hear your silly song this morning. We’re busy.”
“Well, I hope you’ve got better manners for the rest of us.”
The bird flew off, and I turned to find Elsie Crew standing at the rooftop entrance, tapping her black patent leather shoe and beckoning me with a gloved hand. She looked as prim as ever in her typical skirt and buttoned jumper. Only this time, everything was in black. And Elsie never wore black.
But we all were today.
“Your relatives are asking for you, boy. I can’t understand a word they say, but I think the one who’s your granddad wants to talk.”
I sighed but obediently rose. Not my style, I know, but I owed her respect, at least. Elsie was Mum’s best friend. Her only friend, really, since it’s hard to make many when you’re dividing your time between raising a kid and running a restaurant. They’d met when Mum first started the izakaya, just after I was born. Elsie was volunteering at the library, and Mum needed to work on her English after she had to drop out of university to have me. She took Elsie’s class, and then Elsie started coming round the restaurant until she eventually started working there too, managing the books when Mum didn’t have the time.
Now we were both out of a job. And out of one Masumi Sato.
Elsie had been taking care of things over the past week. Okay, she’d been taking care of me. Not hovering the way the rest of them did, but really useful things like Mum used to do. Changing bedding or Hoovering the floors. Things I never learned because I was too lazy or stubborn. A bad son.
I’d learn them all now, though. I’d learn every fucking one and wear an apron to boot if it would bring Mum back.
“I’m coming,” I told Elsie, suddenly unable to contemplate what that meant to either of us. A world without Mum. Fuck. It hurt so fucking much.
“Wait, boy.”
I turned to find Elsie extracting a mint and a can of air freshener from her bag. She offered the mint, which I took without argument, and then proceeded to douse me with the spray.
“Elsie!” I protested, waving my hand through the scent. “Christ, I didn’t ask to smell like a fucking rose garden.”
“Watch your mouth,” she said, as always, without a pause. “And it’s better than smelling like a pub, I daresay. You’ve still got relatives to care for down there, and they’ll want answers without thinking Masumi’s son is no better than a common street urchin.”
“Maybe I am a street urchin.” I waved away the spray, though some of it did land on me. Great. I smelled like a bloody flower shop.
“You’re too tall for that,” she countered with another stealthy spray. “You can’t pickpocket when you stand a foot above most people on the street. No way to blend in. Especially with those eyes and that smile.”
I just scowled.
Elsie’s face softened, and it was then I noticed the small lines around her gray eyes and pursed lips had deepened over the last week. “I know it’s hard today, but don’t forget to smile,” she said and reached up to tuck a bit of my black hair out of my face. “Your mother did love it so.”
She turned and dabbed a finger in the corner of her shining eyes. I sighed. I wasn’t the only one struggling in the wake of Mum’s death.
