The Devil's Larder Read Free Page A

seemed discomforted as well. One wrote an unsigned paragraph in the complaints ledger. He said the club
had begun to sound ‘like a public alleyway’ and not a refuge where merchants and traders might come to find a little peace. Another told the manager, ‘You’ve turned the
place into an orchestra pit.’
    The manager had one last card to play. He could not ask the waiters to whistle without cease whenever they were working. They served nine-hour shifts. Nor could he sack the waiters and require
the members to collect their meals themselves. That might suit the spirit of democracy, which was fashionable in the town at that time, but would not please his businessmen. Instead, he took upon
himself the job of carrying dishes and servers of meat only along the corridor into the dining rooms. The members could then help themselves to as much as they wanted, as many chops, as much carved
beef, as great a number of chicken wings as they could despatch at one sitting. So they were satisfied.
    The waiters provided all the other services, of course. The manager could not do everything, nor could he be expected to have eyes in the back of his head. He had to trust his waiters
ultimately. He was past caring if they helped themselves to vegetables on the way along the corridor, or poked their tongues into the soups. His main tasks had been to save the flesh and stop the
whistling. He had succeeded, too. He was, though, once in a while and much to his alarm, tempted himself in that dim corridor by all the smells and flavours of the meat. And, at those times, a
colleague on the staff might catch him whistling, as small boys do to help them cope with their remorse.

8
    I F A NNA WAS allergic to aubergines she hadn’t noticed. She was unhesitant in buying them and cooking them and eating them.
On shop display their plumpness and their waxiness were irresistible, though, honestly, the flavour was too tart sometimes. A pinch of sugar helped. But tartness is often the price you have to pay
for beauty. She’d learned that lesson from too many of her friends.
    Her symptoms were discreet: a little flushing, possibly a touch of wind, and occasionally – following a dinner party or a late meal out – what her mother called a flighty head, but
nothing sinister or even inconvenient. She did not suffer from rashes or palpitations. There were no seizures. So she had little opportunity to discover that aubergines did not suit her, that
aubergines were treacherous and damaging. They seemed to her too flawless to be harmful, too pleasing to the eye. She liked the aubergine’s affinity with olive oil and garlic, its generous
response to mushrooms or tomatoes. It kept good company. She liked its versatility, just as happy to be stuffed as fried, just as tasty in a moussaka or a ratatouille as in a dip or served as
fainting priest.
    Anna took the usual precautions in her kitchen, of course, cutting off the bruises and the sponge, scooping out the pips and degorging the bitterness in a saltwater soak, before she put the
fruit into its saucepan or its dish. She had been told that it was bad luck to slice an aubergine lengthways or peel an aubergine. Good fortune came to those who favoured cubes, or wheels of fruit,
rimmed with blue-black tyres of rind. Indeed, she’d lived a life of good fortune and good health, she thought.
    She was well into her seventies before her joints seized up. Then even simple tasks – like cubing aubergines – became a challenge and a cause of pain. She had a walking stick for use
inside the house. ‘You should give up the toxic foods,’ her younger and exquisite neighbour said, ‘or else you’ll stiffen up completely. Your fault!’
    What were ‘the toxic foods’? The neighbour listed all the usual suspects – pickles, citrus fruits, bananas, fat milk and cheese, red meat, green meat, tomatoes, coffee,
chocolate, shore fish, cheap wine, rhubarb – and then she raised her knife to stab the little