Cock & Bull - Laura Barnard Page 0,12

weirdo’s takes this moment to come out of the men’s toilet holding a toilet brush.

‘I don’t know what happened, but the toilets after flooding.’

‘What?’ Blood hell. Just what I need.

The suit gets out a pen from his satchel and hovers it over his clipboard. ‘This really isn’t a good start.’

‘You can’t hold some lunatic blocking our toilet with a huge turd... or shoe for all I know, against me.’

He ignores me and pushes the door open into the kitchen which we’ve been using as a glorified dressing room. All of our make-up is spread over the kitchen counter. Shit.

‘Well this isn’t good at all.’ He tuts, writing something down. Somehow, I doubt it’s a smiley face.

Clooney disappeared while I received a full telling off. I feel like a naughty pupil at school. Ella only reappears, carrying Suki like she’s some fashionable chihuahua, after the suit has given me a copy of our report. God, they’re strict with rules. There’s a list as long as my arm of things we need to improve. We also have to take a food hygiene course, paid for by ourselves. If we carry on like this, I’ll have to use that emergency credit card in my knicker drawer.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ I demand.

She jumps at my tone. ‘Sorry! I was in the garden, trying to figure out what we’re gonna do with it.’

Daydreaming more like.

‘Meanwhile, I was getting my arse kicked by an inspector. Is this how it’s always going to be? You swan off while I do everything?’

‘Woah, over-reaction or what!’ She waves me off with her hand. I wish I could be as carefree as her. Even for a day.

‘Whatever. We’re not even serving food but we’ve still got to keep everything clean.’ I’m getting a headache at just the thought of it.

She shrugs, arms folded over her chest. ‘Well then, why don’t we?’

‘Why don’t we what? Keep it clean? ’

‘Not that, dummy.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Why don’t we serve food. Hire a chef and get him to keep everything in order.’

‘We can’t afford to employ anyone.’ We can’t even afford to do the course.

‘Well the way I see it we have to spend money to make money. Look at the location of this boozer. It’s hardly a grab a pint on the way home kind of place. We need to make this a food destination pub. We could be loaded come next week!’

God, she’s like a female Del boy. But maybe she’s right. We could do with getting more people through the door. I suppose in this kind of business you do have to spend money in order to make some.

‘Okay. First thing tomorrow we advertise for a chef.’

‘Or Cheffer.’ she smiles, completely serious.

‘Huh?’ God, she’s exhausting.

‘Well we don’t want to be sexist. Include female chefs too.’

My God. How can I be stuck in Ireland with the one person who thinks a female chef is called a cheffer? Send help!

Chapter Seven

Monday 21st September

By Monday we’re interviewing for chefs. I still haven’t heard back from the estate agents, so I’m not holding my breath on being able to get out of this place anytime soon. I was expecting a slightly bigger turn out than three people to interview for the job, but I suppose it is a small town.

We walked down the road last night and managed to get on the internet. Someone had written on a message board to ask chefs to make an omelette when interviewing them. Apparently it tells you a lot about a person. I don’t even like eggs, so I have no idea how we’ll judge them.

The first man hadn’t been to culinary college, had no previous work experience and his omelette looked more like under cooked scrambled egg. That was an easy no.

The second applicant was a woman who stank of body odour. As soon as she came into the room we decided she was a no. We only had to look at each other. I don’t care which food college she studied at, nobody wants food cooked by someone who can’t even keep themselves clean.

The third applicant sits before us now. A long skinny man with glasses and a bald head apart from the little tufts around his ears. I don’t get why men don’t just shave it, rather than clinging onto those few pathetic hairs.

He’s sitting with his arms crossed over his chest. I don’t have to be a body language expert to see that he’s not that friendly.

‘So...’ I look down