Viscera by Edward Knight

Credit: Franz Marc

Forks on china; gentle conversation. Hummingbird waiters darted from table to table, leaning genially while stopped and cursing silently while in flight. Beneath it all a lascivious red carpet was expanding its shaggy empire to every corner of the dining floor.
‘Are you quite ready to order, sir?’ A waistcoated man of topiaried facial hair leaned over with his lean hands clasped at nipple height. He had been standing there for approximately thirty-five seconds. ‘Perhaps an aperitif?’
‘No, thank you. I’d just come in for some, er,’ Arthur scanned the menu without taking in a single word, ‘food.’
‘Excellent choice, sir. Are you aware of today’s specials menu?’ Some teeth joined the waiter’s grin. Arthur shook his head.

‘Ah, well you are very fortunate indeed as tonight we have stocked a carnival of culinary temptations. For starters we have seared cuts of wild hare, truffle-stuffed partridge gizzards, lightly sautéed spleen of stoat and the flambéed feet of five febrile pheasants with a buckshot jus. For mains there is horse shanks doused in wine and betrayed to succulence, forest hogs fed to combustion on the giblets of lesser beasts, flame-licked fox cubs of untimely demise, spatchcock starling with battered owl hoots and lastly the fried mind of the all-seeing cerebellum squid.’

The waiter’s hands rubbed more rabidly with each dish. Noticing, he stopped.
‘Is there any dessert?’
‘Tiramisu.’

‘Right. What would you recommend?’
‘Well, it is not strictly part of the menu but I would recommend the grilled mutton kidneys draped with a tangy urea gravy. An inspirational dish.’
‘I had no idea animals were so… edible.’
‘Indeed. I always say that if your maw is not adrip with cerebrospinal fluid then you have thrown the best bits away.’
‘Can I just have some bread?’
‘Bread is complementary, sir. How about some deviled hamster hearts on toast?’
‘Can I just have some bread on its own and then I’ll think about what I’m going to order?’ The waiter looked agitated. He glanced around the room.
‘Of course, sir. I will return with your bread post haste.’ He hummed his way to a set of doors at the back and disappeared.

 
It was remarkably busy for that late in the evening. Guffaws and chortles rolled on the blanket of cigar fumes. It seemed to be a rather upmarket establishment, and Arthur wondered how he came to be there. He certainly could not afford any of the food.
‘Mind you, they were just small fry.’ A heaving, expectorating voice carried from the next table. ‘Amittai Inc., they were called. Father and son operation. Tried to negotiate. Pathetic, really. Imagine it, the likes of them thinking they could negotiate with the likes of us. Ha! We’re just bigger fish, they soon saw it. Then there were a few others. Sorry little scuttling doo-dads, snapping away at our heels. Gobbled them all right up – and that’s just this year. You know, we’re not just bigger fish, we’re bloody great sharks, aye Greta!’

The speaker and a woman of equal enormity snorted with laughter, he in a dinner jacket with crimson bow tie and she in a dress of identical colour. They looked to be brother and sister. Around the other side of their large table sat four straight-backed men.

A waiting waiter pounced.
‘So, that will be the whitebait, the lobster and the shark?’
‘What?’ the man said, sneezing a spume of champagne. ‘What in the hell are you talking about? Oh actually, yes, bring all of those immediately.’ The waiter nodded and left. It did not seem to have been his first visit to that table, judging by its scattering of plates and bones; an animal graveyard exhumed by flood. The man turned back to the stony four. ‘Always room for more small fry!’ Again he and the woman collapsed into laughter. Their opposites sat as statues.
‘You have quite the sense of humour, Mister Sputum,’ one said.
‘Oh please, enough of the formality. You can call me Master Sputum!’ The mouth howled; saliva sprayed. ‘Lord Sputum! The Grand Archduke Sputum, Sovereign of all Sputamia!’
After a little while the large man regained his breath. ‘No, in all seriousness, you can call me Hans. My sister and I started our company all those years ago with an ethos of openness and friendliness. Do you remember, my Grety,’ he turned dotingly to his sibling, ‘how we would bake gingerbread for all the other children on our street?’
‘Of course, my darling.’
‘That is my most cherished memory.’ He placed his hand on hers. ‘And my second most cherished memory is when we realised we could make them pay for it!’ More corpulent mirth. ‘And you know, if you’re a gingerbread seller and you pay some older kids to smash the local bakery up then you can charge whatever you want – assuming of course your customer base can’t go without them, which, thanks to the ground-up contents of mummy’s depthless calm-cabinet, they –’ The globular Greta coughed primly. ‘Yes, well, tricks of the trade and all that. Mum’s the word. Skeletons should stay in the closet, Grety’s always saying. Although if I had my way I’d mount them above the fireplace!’

Without waiting to finish his laughter he ripped the leg from a roasted quail and fanged its flesh from the bone. His sister rolled some cured ham into a tube and inserted it into her neck, bypassing teeth and tongue altogether.
‘Oh, Hans,’ she said, ‘you’re such a boor.’
‘Well I’m just letting these gentlemen know that you and I come from good, philanthropic roots, and that as a result of the proposed deal our two great companies may move forward in mutual benefit and so on and so forth.’ A sliver of quail skin flapped from the corner of his mouth. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I must pop to the little boys’ room.’
‘Ooh, me too.’ Greta added. ‘Except, you know, the little girls’ room.’ With some effort they got to their feet and tottered out of sight.
‘I trust everything is in place,’ one of the men said from beneath a pointed and strangely anachronistic moustache.
‘Of course,’ drawled a second. ‘I say, what are we doing here, anyway? I’ve never seen such repugnant people.’
‘Because the boss wanted to know if there would be any advantage to a merger rather than a takeover, or to letting them stay on as shareholders or something to that effect. I’m not entirely sure. Who knows what she’s ever thinking, the crafty minx. Either way, on tonight’s evidence I would say no.’
‘What, uuh, what will ’appen to them?’ said a third, accent listing silkily.
‘They have assets,’ returned the first between stabs of a toothpick, ‘but their finances are in such a mess that we’ll be able to force everything they have. Every last doubloon. There’ll probably end up on the street. Marooned on some traffic island, perhaps, snuffling at passersby.’ Cutlery clinked endlessly in the background. The second gave a decisive throat-clearance and raised his iced water for a toast.
‘Good riddance,’ he said. The fourth grinned silently into his gazpacho.
Another waiter approached Arthur, attenuate, as they all were, and with a kindly smile.
‘Are you ready to order, sir?’
‘I just asked for some bread, thank you.’ The waiter looked perplexed.
‘Are you quite sure, sir? None of the other waiters has been assigned to your table.’
‘Yes, I spoke to someone. He had hair kind of around here and here.’ Arthur drew some imaginary lines around his mouth and along his jaw, unsure sure as to why he had suddenly become so attuned to facial hair.
‘Ah. That was Donatien. I am afraid he does not work here.’
‘Sorry?’ The waiter sighed.
‘When a waiter or waitress sees a table that has been served they will often just assume that it is being tended to by one of their colleagues, but sometimes it is actually being served by Donatien. He comes in and takes orders from his own menu, then goes and prepares the meals in his van. He always parks in a different place so we can’t catch him. I’ve no idea how he gets in and out.’
‘So he’s running a restaurant inside your restaurant?’
‘Odd, isn’t it. He’s extremely skilled. Mostly serves roadkill.’
‘Yes, the menu was a bit… gamey. Apart from the squid.’
‘The squid is a rather more abstract dish. Very good, though. I would recommend his entire menu, as long as you have an open mind and a resilient gag reflex. Except the hare. Puns are an acquired taste, after all.’
‘You’ve eaten his food?’
‘He was for a time under this restaurant’s employment. And besides, how could I not? Such a fantastic chef. You know,’ the waiter bent more acutely at the waist, drawing his mouth to Arthur’s ear, ‘he is famed in certain circles for having developed a technique involving the organs of a single animal being reduced in a mixture of its own blood and effusions at a series of different but extremely precise temperatures whereby it is possible, once all water has evaporated and the resulting substance forced through a fine sieve, to have extracted the very essence of the animal’s sentience. He would mix it with capers and shallots to make a delightful vinaigrette. It was much sought-after, if I remember correctly.’
‘What does it taste like, the essence?’ The waiter pursed his lips and writhed his jaw slightly, as if synthesising the taste from memory.
‘Rather… Well, I suppose rather ga–’
‘Gamey, yeah.’
‘Quite. The man is a genius, in truth. Sadly he was fired when he tried to serve people.’
‘They don’t like chefs serving the customers?’
‘No, we don’t know where he got them from. He may have had a deal with someone in the hospital morgue.’
‘What? Oh. Oh right.’ Arthur had the feeling that Donatien’s off-piste mutton kidneys were not from elderly sheep at all.
‘Anyway, sir, I am dreadfully sorry about all this. Please feel free to select a course from the menu entirely on the house, by way of apology.’
‘Just some bread, thanks.’
‘Delectable, sir.’ Giving a slight bow the waiter left to return a few minutes later with a basket of rolls. Arthur dispatched them and left.

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