Fifty-First State Read Free

catering for members of Queen Victoria’s Parliaments and the scribblers who wrote about it.
    The small windows on either side of the door are masked by lace curtains little different from those which had hung there in the days of Empire. On the six inches of lintel above the front door the name ‘Sugden’s’ is picked out in black on white. No larger sign could be allowed, nor could any changes be made to the front of the building, but this lack of advertising was not a disadvantage, perhaps the reverse.
    Inside the front door is an oak counter, manned at that time by two elderly sisters, big Miss Bonner and small Miss Bonner. To the left, still,is the restaurant, a large room, which was probably at one time the drawing room and dining room of the house. Most of the back wall is now a large window looking out on to a small walled patio, where at night soft lamps burn and, in summer, tables stand.
    On this particular night, only two parties of diners remained. One was a group of six men, sitting at the back of the room. The man at the head of the table for six – two businesslike-looking Chinese men, a Frenchman and three Englishmen – called for his bill. William Frith, a tall, thin man in his early thirties came forward with the bill on a plate and handed it to the host, a former Cabinet Minister, who enquired jovially if anyone would like a last drink before they parted. All, to William Frith’s relief, declined. ‘All right, then, gentlemen,’ said their host. ‘But I shall be more insistent when we meet after the contracts are signed. I won’t take no for an answer then.’
    After he had dealt with the bill and seen the men off, relocking the front door after them, William returned to his post. Only two diners, a man and a woman sitting near the windows, were now left so William took the opportunity of sitting down. He wore a dinner jacket and a black tie, his pale brown hair was still sleek and tidy after a long evening but his long face was pale and there were smudges under his large, pleasant brown eyes. He had spent most of the day painting his bathroom, before going on duty at six.
    William loved his job. All he wished now was that the couple by the window, lingering over Armagnacs and black coffee, would go, freeing him to go upstairs, get into his day clothes and take the bus back to his flat in Shepherd’s Bush and his wife, Lucy. However, the restaurant owner, Jack Prentiss, had a firm policy that Sugden’s clients should be allowed to stay almost as long as they liked. A lunch might stretch into dinner, a dinner into the early hours of the morning and still the staff would not cough, yawn, shuffle, look discontented or attack the guests by asking, too often, if they required anything else. Only at three would Jack, who lived upstairs and whose hours of sleep were tailored to the movements of his business, come downstairs and ask his guests to leave.
    William’s eyes, large, soft and fringed with dark curly lashes, rested on the remaining couple seated by the window. His job was to know who belonged to which party, ministry or newspaper, although he himself had no interest in politics. From childhood on he had tuned them out, the way other people tune out football, high finance or health information. Of course, he knew that the pretty, dark-haired woman in the pale linen jacket was Mrs Julia Baskerville, Labour Member of Parliament for Whitechapel Road and Stepney Green, elected three years earlier by the poor London constituency. That was after her predecessor had blotted his copybook with his leadership and been deselected, to be seen nomore. Before that she’d been – what? – a teacher, a lecturer or something. Julia’s good-looking companion, who reminded William vaguely of Lawrence of Arabia in the classic movie, was Joshua Crane, the Conservative Member for Frognal and South Hampstead. He’d been in the House for ten years.