Seedling 3: the Trial BeginsIt was fortunate I had the changing room to myself. When I saw the actual uniform on me, well, I was taken aback. I wasn’t quite as cavalier and “at ease” with the outfit as I’d expected.
First of all, it wasn’t the uniform I had seen online. Oh no. That “suburban gay ninja” look was for the waiters. Somms? Well, I’ll tell you what I looked like. I looked quite obviously the elf who wanted to be a “dentist”; that’s the long and short of it. The stripey shirt had fine lines and clung to me like a leotard. Heavy canvas drawstring trousers in slate blue tied around my midriff and had to be rolled up ten centimeters above the ankle, per detailed printed instructions I’d been given by Mike. PRINTED. On top of this was a matching waistcoat cut in fitted “hipster” style – meaning it couldn’t even meet around my decidedly stocky ribcage. Instead it pinched me at my neck and fell open like I was a monkey playing brass cymbals in a Moroccan street market. The shoe size? Well, mandated plimsouls in blue and white that made me flat-footed and conspired with the pantaloon trousers for a visual height appearance of about three point five feet.
Yet, instead of devolving into tears and crawling into a bathroom stall, I simply burst out laughing. This absurdity of life was reaching new proportions and shouldn’t I enjoy it, really? I mean, if I wore this ensemble home I’d probably be mistaken by the crackhead as a kinky sex performer and pull some real cash. Not impossible. Honestly, looking in that full-length mirror, I had to wonder, what isn’t possible? I made one more appraisal in the glass, tried to tighten those drawstrings round my waist, grabbed my “civvies” and went back out into the hallway.
“Remember your assignment. AR Riesling at briefing, yes?”
Mike sounded all business. His words were like knives, an assault, practically. I’d not heard him this way. He looked my direction as I stepped out and I straightened up my spine.
“OK. Yeah, fine. You can wear the waistcoat open that way, no worries”. He wiped his nose, jerked a thumb towards the guy at his side, but didn’t bother to look him in the eye.
“Paul, this is Eoin, one of the somm team”.
“Pleasure,” was Eoin’s response. I shook his hand and did the “nice to meet you”, but left it at that. Whatever was happening in this hallway, I didn’t want a part of it. This kid had a brutally strong Irish brogue but it couldn’t hide that something was awry. Still, being Irish, a macho swagger took him from his locker and on into the changing room. I instinctively felt concerned for him - but also wondered how that swagger translated into leotards and pantaloon trousers.
*
“It’s all planned out quite ingeniously by role and rank”.
Hannah was explaining the logic of the Seedling uniform heirarchy while we waited in line for staff meal.
“Management wears the green, like I do. So, same for Mike, for example, but he has only the green trousers and then his white shirt is made by Bron of High Street. See Omar, over there? Tall man with beard? He’s a manager like me, so you see. Same. Bron of High Street. Diana(painted lady)? She’s in reception but she is head maitre’d so green for her, too. But then you see her staff, they have their own uniform”.
I’d seen their uniform. It looked like someone had thrown a sheet over themselves for a quickie Halloween ghost costume and their head accidentally found its way out. So wide was this cheese grater of a dress, that I doubted it fit through the Tube turnstile.
“Are you vegetarian? No? I was for two years but then I quit. As I was saying, that’s reception. And then waiters. Head waiters have the bolero jacket, so full sleeves. Like Marco. (she pointed at Marco. He smiled.). And then regular waiters only have the waistcoat, no sleeves. You, see, you’re Beverage so you wear the canvas blue. But the bar, they have blue pinstripes on their tops and you have white and blue because you’re beverage but also a somm”.
She tapped her forefinger against her forehead.
“See where I’m going with this?”
Not really.
“You have blue, yes, because you’re beverage, but you also have white in the pinstripes because you work on the floor!”
Hannah looked as excited as if she’d just witnessed the first East Berliners climbing over the wall.
I delicately layered my plate with a few stalks of swiss chard and a spoonful of slow-cooked lamb. The rest of the food looked carb heavy and I was already challenged by the clingy elfin wear - better to play it safe.
Front of House members walked briskly towards the conservatory space, slipped into the wrought iron chairs and started wolfing down their meals. Most were aiming to squeeze in a cigarette before briefing. I was taking my time. But when I entered I wasn’t sure exactly where to sit and a lifetime of childhood cafeteria humiliations came surging back. I was unpopular in secondary school, yes, but at least I didn’t wear plimsouls.
I settled on a spot in the corner, next to a dude who I assumed was a kitchen porter. My theory was he might not speak English and I wouldn’t be forced to interact. Everything was going to plan when, a somm entered. I knew he was a somm because he was wearing lots of blue canvas and the secret riddle of a pinstripe shirt. He smiled and made a beeline for my previously-safe corner.
“Hi, I’m Cosmo”.
Brilliant. Perfect name for a twelve year old Italian boy.
“Paul, I’m on a trial”.
“Great!” He smiled really long, staring at me and nodding his head. Then he turned back to his plate and began pushing around some polenta.
Damn, I wish I could have some polenta with my kabuki-wear.
The room was pretty quiet. There was chatting between a couple of the bar staff, and every once and a while the phone rang at reception, just past the double doors. Cosmo was eating quite slowly. His hair was long and dark at the front and fell in perfect curls around his cheeks. He was a bit the noble chevalier of a medieval novel, mixed with One Direction. He turned towards me and paused.
“How old are you?”
Somewhere down the long banquette was a stifled giggle. I looked up, calmly, and landed Cosmo squarely in the eyes.
“Me? I’m forty. How old are you?” I smiled, hoping I looked friendly.
“I am twenty-three”.
“Ah, nice. Twenty-three is a good age”.
“Yes”.
Then he went back to his polenta, but with a bit more gusto now that he’d gotten that pressing matter off his chest. I felt a flush of heat and my head went dizzy for brief moment. It was probably only the mounting surrealness of this lunch trial, but I loosened my drawstring trousers, just for good measure.
*
“OK, so Diana, who is coming in?”
Omar had already taken us through a few service points, most of which had to do with where to put silverware, position numbers, tidying the waiter-station and making sure we walked on the floor and not the walls, or ceilings or something along those lines; I dunno, I was starting to blank out. His slow drawl combined with his Canadian accent wasn’t exactly riveting. And, I did have only a few greens and some minced lamb, after all.
Diana executed a hair toss and began reviewing her notes.
“Yes, so table fourteen we have Don Wilton, has visited us four times and likes a banquette. Oh.... I’ll move him. And, let’s see, at twelve-fifteen we have Lady Denton. You will recognise her. Lovely lady, large hats. And at twelve..”
“What table?”
“Excuse me?”
“What table Lady Denton is at?”
Diana looked at Marcos with obvious irritation, but responded calmly.
“That would be table four, at twelve fifteen. And then, also at twelve fifteen we have a couple from Ontario who emailed and said, let me seeeee, ‘my wife is vegan and I’m gluten intolerant and a river view table, please’. But we don’t have river views, so a no on that. Table thirty-three, as... of ...now”.
She drew the last sentence out as if she were daring Marcos to demand a table number, and simultaneously threatening to move the Canadians, last minute, out of sheer spite.
Mike was perched at the edge of the group. Mostly he kept his hands in his pockets, but occasionally he picked at some lint on his shirt or corrected Hannah or Omar when they misstated the origins of Beenleigh Blue or the heritage breed of some pig we were serving. I really wanted to pipe in and say that, as a foreigner, I had no fucking idea what any of this food was. Instead, I Iistened to eight more minutes of guest notes before Omar turned to Mike.
“Beverage?”
Mike looked up. “Eoin is going to talk about our new Riesling by the glass”.
Eoin walked tentatively to the somm station at the end of the bar and picked up the slim, German bottle. Much like Cosmo, he was young and, yes, chevalier indeed. Long curly brown hair parted to one side and down nearly to his ears, very pale blue eyes and decorative stubble to round out the look. The leotard-esque top clung to his biceps. He looked positively ripped. I’d been around; I’d seen people get hired based on their looks – I mean, I’d been hired for my looks, back in the day – and he screamed priority hiring - but this was Seedling so I assumed he came with a resumé, too. Which, hey - pretty boy with a palate? More power to him.
Mike shifted his weight from one foot to the other, placed his hands casually back into his pockets, and waited. Eoin glanced at him and began.
“Right, so this is the AR Riesling. And, Riesling is the grape. This wine’s from Germany and....”
It then became the strangest and most awkward thing I’d seen in a while. Eoin simply stopped speaking. He stared ahead for a moment and then bowed his head, sheepishly. Was it just nerves? Because, isn’t this what he did everyday? But the silence continued. Worse was the entire waitstaff looked as pained as Eoin did. I looked over at One Direction, but he only raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Hannah, she narrowed her eyes and turned her head to the side, then mouthed something to herself. Then, she put a finger into the air and looked at the ceiling, followed by the placement of her hand on her hip and a feral shake of her blond mane that suggested she’d had a thirty-second internal powwow and had now decided Eoin did not deserve her sympathy.
Mike just stared at Eoin. It was becoming painful, interminable, and I thought to myself, come on man! Riesling, high acid, cool climate, marginal, Saar Valley, tributary of Mosul, difficulty ripening, lean mineral qualities, steep vineyards, newly demarcated region! Truly, you could know nothing about the wine, never have tasted it, and still bullshit your way through a lunchtime briefing. What the fuck is going on, here?!
Mike calmly stepped in. His speaking was measured, yet derisive in a disappointed, parental tone.
“OK. So folks what we have here is a Riesling from a very small producer in the Saar Valley, which is a quite cold sub-region of the Mosel in Germany...”
Mike started grabbing a few wine glasses for the staff and I rushed over and did the same. Eoin stayed in place, shell-shocked. Mike took the bottle out of Eoin’s hands without even looking at him.
“Riesling is a hearty grape and can survive the German climate but only sings in the best combination of conditions which is part of what makes it such a fascinating wine. These vines are old and, really, the fact Riesling is considered one of the great noble grapes of the world but you are able to affordably drink a wine that should be commanding two, three times the price says a lot about some of Germany’s missteps in the past and how far from fashion Riesling has fallen. Hervé Bar...”
Mike spoke with clarity and precision, but also had a way of engaging the staff. And, I could see that he knew it and enjoyed it. One Direction was furiously taking notes, and Hannah had returned to her narrow eyes, but now had her head turned to the opposite side. I took this as subtle approval from the enthusiastic manager.
This was making it all the more painful for Eoin, and I think everyone in briefing suspected this was by design.
When Mike finished his(very interesting) mini-dissertation, he asked if any of the staff had questions. An Italian girl from the bar raised her hand.
“Yes, Marty?”
“Who is this new somm?”
Mike found himself genuinely smiling and perhaps a bit embarrassed for the oversight.
“Sorry. This, everyone, is Paul”.
There were various “hellos” and nods and waves and then somewhere in the back I heard a raspy whisper..
“He’s forty...”
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