The Making of Henry Caine

The Making of Henry Caine

The Bishop's northern burr pummelled his brain like a bell hammer.
Dissonant phrases rang with some discomfort, and positively refused to
be mute. 'Do Unto Others, Do Unto Others' - oh if only these chaps
would stick to religion, and leave the sociology and politics to...
well...

Under normal circumstances, Mr Michaels would've shaken off this
straggler with a brusque and determined spurt of pace. But here he was,
caught between the prayer mat and the car park, a back shuffling
mendicant before him and a head freshly filled with charitable dogma.
He stopped to confront the fellow, thinking how it was that the fates
so often did conspire to test an honest man; aware too, that nothing
short of an outright rejection would've been enough to rid himself of
this persistent little wretch. His attention conceded, he began to
absorb a few details of the creature that hunched here before him. He
noted the unusually formal nature of the beggar's dress, the vacant
gaze that fell below his own, the painfully obvious smell of cheap
liquor. The man was speaking now in a low lamenting drone. Michaels
struggled to pull out words from the murmurs. Lost job? No home? A
death in the family? It was altogether the usual fare, but then there
was charity; then again, there was the Bishop.

"I'm very sorry but I really don't see how I can be of any help to you.
I simply do not give to street beggars. I'm afraid I don't believe in
all that, you see? I'm sure that if you were in my shoes...well... Why,
I might as well be pouring whiskey down your throat." A sudden but dim
light formed in the beggar's eyes that faded rapidly back into
resignation, and beyond that again into nothingness. Oh damn the
church, thought Mr Michaels, his own sense of guilt surprising him not
a little. Then he felt guilty for damning the church. Oh damn it all,
damn it all to hell.

"All right, all right", he said, talking to no one in particular. "Look
man, what's your name?" The man spoke. "Yes, Yes. If you want my
assistance, you're going to have to speak up."

"Henry Caine."

"Right, Henry", he pulled out a pen and scribbled something out on a
notepad before ripping out the leaf. "My name is Howard Michaels, and I
own a restaurant just to the west of town -La Gen?se; you can't miss it
-and you my boy, you are the new kitchen hand." He shoved the paper
forward, "You start tomorrow. Now if you'll excuse me, I am a very busy
man, you know? Goodbye."

At that Howard Michaels strode off towards the car park, quite
satisfied that the situation had been comfortably resolved, and at
minimal expense too. A fellow like that wouldn't last a day in a job of
honest work, not a day. But that was not his fault. He had done his
bit, both within the church and without. He had after all put paper
into the collection plate. Paper! And no mere greenback either,
everyone had seen it. Yes, yes, he had maintained both charity and
integrity with an admirable fortitude He thought again of those
mischievous fates, and oh how they did just love to conspire...

---

It was still dark on Monday morning, when Henry stumbled up the pathway
to La Gen?se. Past the dark waters of the ornamental pond, around the
rustle of the thorny bush, and right through a bed of more forgiving
growth, he made his way by touch and sensation alone, till coming to
rest at the base of a tree. He slumped forward onto his belly, where,
amidst the rot of apples, prematurely fallen, he surrendered slowly to
deep, deep, sleep.

"Come on, get up! I know you're not dead so don't try and fake it." He
felt a pain in his side but couldn't focus on the source. Nor could he
place the disembodied voice that chastened him.

"Come on, come on now. Look, this is private property, not a drop in
centre. Now get!" Another pain, not so sharp as the one before, but
Henry saw nothing but white light and black shadow. Again there was
pain. Again.

"That's right. That's right. I can kick you all day if you like it.
Come on now. Move! God knows that I'm a busy woman, and I've got better
things to do than to waste my time on the likes of you." Some semblance
of consciousness brought him to rummage though his pockets. He heard
her tut, her puff of irritation as he emptied his possessions on the
grass. He felt for the paper that Michaels had given him. Still on his
knees when he found it, he held it up to the voice. As she snatched it
away he felt dizzy and sank back to rest on all fours.

"Oh wonderful. Quite marvellous. I ask for a hand and he sends me a
soak. Look at you. You're an altogether formless little mess, aren't
you? Just look at yourself. Go on. You're hardly a man at all, when
even a good one is next to useless. Still, I suppose you're no good to
me asleep; you're going to have to get up. Come on now."

He felt her strong grip on the back of his collar as she lifted him up,
carrying him the way that a bitch would carry a pup. Once in the
kitchen, she set him down without ceremony on a sack of potatoes.

"There", she said, "You might as well get some rest now. I don't need
you for a few hours yet. My name's Genevieve by the way. Don't bother
to tell me yours." She turned and left him there, alone as when she had
found him.

Light beamed into the room now, catching the dust from Henry's rough
landing in glittering rays, and reflecting in glints from the stainless
steel surfaces, the industrial appliances. But Henry saw nothing of the
airborne dust, or the delicate patterns of random collisions. All that
he saw was the white light that streamed in from the window. It was the
light that held him there, compelled, as if in a trance.

The harsh clink of crockery burst through his ears, forcing the door of
his consciousness, and robbing its defence against the flood of
sensation that followed. The loud conversation, the laughter, the
sizzle and hiss of pots and pans, the scraping of metal on metal, and
the smells of onion, herbs, and searing flesh, filled him so fast he
felt giddy in seconds. The strong woman's hand gripping the back of his
collar, pulling him upright, pushing him forward.

"Plates and dishes on the right. Scrape them off, clean them with the
jet, then stack them in the washer there. The green button means go,
got it? Detergent and cloth on the shelf below the sink -yes?"

It was well past midnight when the work was finally done and Genevieve
could set about locking up. She had been working as tirelessly as ever
that night, even more so in fact. She was not much surprised to find
the new kitchen hand asleep on the sack of potatoes. All he ever seemed
to do was sleep. She bent down towards him, bringing her face within
inches of his, and slapped his cheeks gently once or twice, and looked
to his eyes for signs of life. As he came to, she was jarred from her
usual composure by that curious way he had of looking right through her
as if she were not even there, like a blind man she thought. But this
was no blind man. No, he wasn't blind at all, no cataracts, no stick,
no nothing -blind drunk maybe.

"The light?" The first words she heard him speak. She followed his gaze
to the window.

"The light's gone. It's nighttime now. You Know, 'night', as in
'goodnight'?" She pulled him up, shoved a couple of notes into his
pocket and pushed him out through the door, down the garden path, and
out onto the street. As he stumbled his way off to who knows where, she
waved at him, saying "Bye, Bye!" and thinking 'good riddance'. When he
was gone, she released a great sigh, a sigh of exhaustion and of
relief. She wiped the dust from her hands on her skirt, and finished
locking up, thinking little or no more about it.

When she arrived the next day, the man was already there. Again he was
sleeping but she did not try to wake him. She just shrugged briefly,
tutted a little, and stepped right over him to get on with her usual
routine. But it was not long before he followed, and she saw him again,
sitting on the potato sack, staring, not at her, but in the direction
of the window. She tried her best to ignore him, sweeping, polishing,
checking her inventories, and booking lists. She succeeded for the best
part of an hour too. But she found the man's gaze so very unnerving;
his eyes seemed pulled to the window as if by magnets. She soon found
herself unable to resist but glance at him and wonder, just as he
couldn't help but do nothing much at all. Oh dear, she thought, she was
far too soft, too soft by half, and that was a fact. How on Earth did
she end up with these people? It must have been weakness. What else
could it be?

"Look, if you're going to be a regular around here, I need your name -
for the books, all right?"

"Henry Caine."

"Right, Henry, well my name..."

"Genevieve."

"Yes. Well done. Right, well I'm the manager round here Henry, so you
do what I say when I say it - yes?"

"Yes."

"Good."

And so Henry stood and walked to the sink, and waited for work to
arrive. He did not move from that spot all night, not even for a
second. He just stood there with his hands in the sink, staring through
the window at the scudding white clouds, and out at the firmament below
them. In truth, he was not a good washer of dishes. He was, in fact,
quite bad. He was inhumanly slow, and didn't look at what he was doing.
He just stared through the window, watching the onset of darkness with
a rapt fascination, barely aware of the crockery and cutlery stacking
in mountains about him. He was standing there still, and virtually
inert, when Genevieve tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"Come on Henry, time to go time." And she guided him out and through
the door.

And so it went on, Genevieve carrying the burden of his work as well as
her own, and seeking to find the thing this man might usefully be able
to do. On Wednesday she sent him to cut herbs from the garden, which he
did quite well, though he made no effort to separate the basil from the
rosemary, or the rosemary from the thyme, so it took her as long to
divide them as it would to have cut them herself. On Thursday he lulled
in the garden all day, and later, lulled there all night. Seemingly
beneath an impregnable enchantment, he glimpsed at the Sun through the
trees, then counted the stars through the night. On Friday she asked
him to bone her some trout, and to pluck her some fresh shot pheasant.
It was then that she thought she had finally found it, the thing he
might usefully do. For though he wasn't fast, his work was quite
flawless, and she could not help but be pleased for her man, and
equally was pleased with herself.

When Henry arrived that Saturday afternoon, Genevieve was already hard
at work. She had become so used to finding her strange little man
already in the garden, waiting, that his tardiness surprised her. She
had thought not to see him at all that day. Yet here he was, and with a
marked improvement about him too. He was clean-shaven, and looked as if
he might have washed -his hair was neatly combed. To her, it all made
him look faintly comical. She couldn't help smiling.

"My, my Henry, now look at you! Don't you look smart?"

"Ahem." Henry brushed himself down and smiled broadly. It was not a
pretty smile, but then, you can't have everything, can you?

"Well, well..." She fought the urge to laugh. "Now...erm
yes...right...well have I got some work for you today Henry! Quite the
little butcher aren't we?" Henry moved to smile again, but thought
better of it. "Well today there's fresh pork to trim, and roast beef to
slice, and well, I'm sure we'll think of something else after
that."

So Henry trimmed and skinned and sliced and diced to perfection. He was
picking up quite a speed too. So much so that Genevieve frequently felt
the need to check his work, and each time she saw that it was good, and
she was altogether very pleased with her funny little man.

That night, after closing, Genevieve found Henry standing beneath the
apple tree.

"Ah Henry, I was wondering where you'd got to. That was quite a showing
today, you know? Well done." She slipped three notes into his hand
instead of the usual two.

Henry smiled the same ugly smile with which the day had begun, though
Genevieve would swear later, that in the half-light, there was
something almost pretty within it, if you knew what you were looking
for. He reached up, and plucked two apples from the tree. He tossed her
the first before biting extravagantly into the second. The crunch made
her wince. Henry just turned and walked assuredly, though perhaps
rather rigidly, straight down the path, out through the gate, then off
and beyond into the great wide night. And that was the last La Gen?se
ever saw of the kitchen hand, Henry Caine.

---

Generally speaking, Howard Michaels had made it a rule not to test
untried restaurants on his more distinguished guests, but so far, he
had to admit, things were going splendidly. The Bishop seemed in most
agreeable spirits, the conversation was good as the wine, and the
starters had gone down very well indeed. So much so, that Michaels
found himself thinking how he might procure a few of these fine dishes,
and bring them to the menu at his own La Gen?se. Perhaps he might poach
the chef? Indeed, as the night went on, and the dishes became
increasingly succulent, tender, and most delightfully of all, amicably
priced, the role of culinary head-hunter became more and more
appealing. In fact, so prevalent had the notion become that he had
quite forgotten the purpose for which the meal had initially been
arranged.

When the bill came, Michael settled it with his usual tip of fifteen
percent. To pay more would be ludicrous. After all, the waitress does
little more than fetch and carry. A mere mule to the master in the
kitchen, she is not responsible for the quality of the dish, at least,
not unless it is very bad indeed, or God forbid it, cold. He did,
naturally, ask to thank the chef, at which the waitress had smiled
politely and tottered off into the kitchen. Pretty little thing, he
thought, though she had too much girlish frivolousness about her for
his complete and unqualified approval. The Bishop's applause, and
rather course "Bravo!" alerted Michaels to the chef's arrival. He
hurriedly pulled a business card from his wallet and turned to see a
familiar face.

"Why, I know you, don't I? I'm sure I do. Have you worked in other
restaurants before?"

"I did work once, at La Gen?se."

Michael racked his brain. A stream of names and faces, not always
connected, raced though his mind. "Oh yes! Yes, I remember you. Well
I'm jolly glad you've found your feet at last, eh? You see! Work! Work
is the making of a man is it not? Tell me, have you ever looked back
since the day you accepted my offer?"

"No sir, I haven't"

"And have you ever gone back to drinking, or," he assumed a hushed tone
in the interest of discretion, "drugs?"

"I haven't, not since..."

"Splendid! Then I may rest well in bed tonight, eh? Well I never, such
a very small world. Here, take my card. I can always use a good chef,
you know?" He turned to the Bishop. "Surely David, you will concede
that there is no greater vindication for a position such as my own,
than to have been the very making of man such as this?" The Bishop
looked back, sceptical and silenced. But Henry spoke. He spoke loudly
and surely, and clear as a bell.

"With respect Mr Michaels, it was not you who 'made me', oh no. Really.
It was not you at all... How did you find the spare rib, sir? It's
something of a speciality, you know?" And he beamed again that ugly
smile with its prettiness veiled inside.