THE PARISIAN RESTAURANT
Richard Mason
Age 16, I was given a copy of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. This made clear that the first step on the path to becoming a world-famous novelist is to work in a Parisian restaurant. I spent all my money on a plane ticket from Johannesburg to Paris and bought the Condé Nast Restaurant Guide. By the time I was halfway through the alphabet, I had learned not to confess my true age, or my total inexperience. I got a job at a chic establishment with a sweeping staircase, near the grands magasins. The maître thought I was 22.
Like a mini European Union, the restaurant was owned by a Franco-German couple. The maître d’hotel was French, the waiters Italian, Spanish and Rumanian.The plongeurs were Polish, the doormen Latvian.These races were unified by their hatred of the global glamorati who were the only people who could afford to dine there. On my first day, their grievance centred on a Texan lady with a cruel face and expensive hair. She was wearing a brand-new Chanel coat, and had sent her salad back thr ee times.
Having taken her coffee order, Matteo spat under the foam of her cappuccino before drawing a chocolate swan on it. We watched, fascinated, as she drank it.
An hour in, and I felt like an old pro. I walked down the grand staircase, bearing a glass of ruby grapefruit juice on a silver tray. I may have stumbled. It is possible Matteo pushed me. In any event, the glass left the tray and fell six feet onto the shoulder of the Texan lady.
Time, literally, stopped.When it started again, the Texan was shrieking and Matteo had vanished into the kitchen.The grapefruit juice had ruined the coat and her maquillage. Matteo appeared, bearing a soda water canister. As she screamed for assistance, he stood in front of her and shouted, “Trust me, madam.” Then he sprayed her. And sprayed her. He soaked the dress, turning it see-through. Her hair collapsed. Snot streamed from her nose. “I make everything OK!” he cried, gaily.
Moments later, both fired, Matteo and I sat in the sunny street outside the restaurant. He handed me my first cigarette and said: “Welcome to Europe.”
Richard Mason (born Johannesburg, South Africa, 1978) is the son of anti-Apartheid activists who brought him to the UK when he was aged ten. His first novel, The Drowning People (1999 published by Einaudi in Italy), sold more than a million copies in over 20 countries and was translated into 22 languages. His latest is Who Killed Piet Barol? (2016, published in Italy by Codice).