Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,42
jumping to conclusions? Did he not mean: where shall you have the restaurant? Not: where shall we? I decided it was not the time to press the point.
‘I would have a place like this,’ I said. ‘Traditional, yet modern.’
‘It can’t be both,’ said Mark.
‘Of course it can,’ I said. ‘This restaurant has traditional values with white tablecloths, good service, fine food and wine, and a degree of personal privacy for the diners. Yet the decor is modern in appearance and the food has an innovative nature with Mediterranean and Asian influences. In Newmarket my dining room is purposely more like one you might find in a private house, my food is very good but less imaginative than I would attempt here. It is not that my clients are less sophisticated than London folk, they’re not. It’s just that they have fewer restaurants to choose from and many come to eat at the Hay Net often, some every week. On that regular basis, they need to be comfortable rather than challenged, and they want their food predictable rather than experimental.’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ he asked. ‘I’m having cod. Surely that’s predictable?’
‘Wait and see,’ I replied, laughing. ‘I bet you look at it twice and ask yourself if it’s what you ordered. It won’t be a slab of fish in batter with chips that you would get wrapped in newspaper at the local chippie. It comes with a cassoulet, which is a rich bean stew, usually with white haricots, and a purée of Jerusalem artichoke. Would you know what a Jerusalem artichoke looks like? And what it tastes of?’
‘Hasn’t it got spiky leaves, that you suck?’
‘That’s a globe artichoke,’ I said. ‘A Jerusalem artichoke is z type of sunflower, and you eat the roots, which are tubers, like potatoes.’
‘From Jerusalem, I assume.’
‘Actually, no.’ I laughed again. ‘Don’t ask why it’s called the Jerusalem artichoke. I don’t know. But it definitely has nothing to do with Jerusalem, the city.’
‘Like the hymn,’ said Mark. ‘You know, did those feet, and all that. Nothing to do with the city. Jerusalem there means “heaven”. Perhaps the artichokes taste like heaven too.’
‘More like a radish,’ I said. ‘And they tend to make you fart.’
‘Good,’ said Mark, laughing. ‘I might need my own train carriage home.’
Now, I decided, was the moment.
‘Mark,’ I said seriously, ‘I will have absolute discretion in any new restaurant, won’t I? Just like at the Hay Net?’
He sat and looked at me. I feared for a moment that I had misjudged things.
‘Max,’ he said finally, ‘how often have I asked you how to sell a mobile phone?’
‘Never.’
‘Exactly. Then why would you ask me how to run a restaurant?’
‘But you do eat in restaurants,’ I said.
‘And you use a mobile phone,’ he countered.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I promise I won’t discuss mobile phones with you, if you promise not to discuss restaurants with me.’
He sat in silence and smiled at me. Had I really outflanked the great Mark Winsome?
‘Can I have a veto?’ he asked at length.
‘On what?’ I asked rather belligerently.
‘Venue.’
What could I say? If he didn’t like the venue he wouldn’t sign a contract for a lease or a freehold. He had a veto on the venue anyway.
‘If you provide the finance then you get a veto,’ I said. ‘If you don’t, then you don’t.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Then I want to provide the finance. Same terms as before?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I want more than 50 per cent of the profit.’
‘Isn’t that a bit greedy?’ he said.
‘I want to be able to empower my staff with participation in profit.’
‘How much?’
‘That’s up to me,’ I said. ‘You get 40 per cent and I get 60 per cent and then I decide, at my sole discretion, to give as little or as much of that as I want as bonuses to my staff.’
‘Do you get a salary?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Same as now. But I get 60 per cent instead of 50 per cent of the profit.’
‘How about during setting up? Last time you took a salary from my investment for the first eighteen months.’
‘But I paid it back,’ I pointed out. ‘This time I won’t need it. I have savings and I intend to back myself with them as far as my salary is concerned.’
‘Anything else?’ Mark asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Ten years is too long. Five years. Then I get tie chance to buy you out at a fair price.’
‘How do you define “fair price”?’
‘I can match the best offer, public or private, made by an independent third party.’