Owen Sheers - Service lyrics

Imagine a theatre, mid-morning, back stage. Wardrobe are ironing the costumes, a chippy checks a flat and out front a lone Hoover hums around the table legs picking up what's left of last night. This is what it's like. Boxes left at the door, the co*kles came at two, the oysters at four. The tables are given skirts like girls at a prom dress fitting. Tucked in, ready to start again. The Sommelier spits a boxer's mouthful of red, lays down the gla** and picks another, holds it to the light like a carver, turning his work in the sun. Back in the kitchen, 9 am and prep begins. No longer the off stage corridors of a theatre, but now a submarine. Radio on and ten working in here, at their stations - Garnish Hot starters Meat Fish Mousses Crossing and re-crossing each other with the knowledge of lover, instinctive as matadors, tipping their hips from the thumb-horns of a carried tray, a bucket, a slab of pink salted pork being taken out back to be bagged and hung in the water bath like a regular Houdini. Outside it's an autumn morning, clean air, a yellow leaf falling, a f*g, deeply drawn, last night's rain drying on the flagstones. But no time to linger here ... So back through the swing door, into the kitchen's hot breath, where a sea ba**, lifted from its cool box where it's been stored all night, upright just as it would swim, is laid out, opened with one score of the knife and its bones unstitched with a plyers until its flesh reads nothing, a pink blank page waiting for nothing but heat and the tongue. Behind this a witch's cauldron of onion puree pops and spits like a New Zealand mud pit, as 30 duck hams, hung for a week are parcelled and tied like presents for the tree. And so it goes: Salmon piled high like the deckle-edged leaves of a medieval man*script. Oysters shucked and given pa**ion fruit yolks. Book marks of mackerel, powdered, blown down their seams, rolled into tigered ballotines. In pastry the cups are laid out, a pence pieces to weigh them down like coins on the eyes of the dead. The hot sugar work gets underway; silicon mat, plastic pin, the tuile mix rolled flat to see-through sheets. Heat up, meat glue brushed, fish cubed and cut all the way to 11.30 and clean down. A canvas white-washed, wiped, ready to start again. The waiters slip into gold waistcoats, move about the tables like sharks through coral reef. Radio off. 12.45 - the first cover is in. The ticket machine pokes out its white tongue which is torn at the root and hung like a photograph drying in the dark room. 'Check!' The submarine dives, dives and the woven walking begins, again. Two lamb done - you can go on those!' Out front a suit unfurls a napkin over the globe of his stomach, a sail tacking tight above his belt, already on the last notch. The waiter presents a bottle like a new-born baby. 'Four oysters away!' Out back the scallops are pinched, co*kles flame open. 'How long on the chicken?' The chef stands at the door performing final checks, an author, copy-editing the text, while out front, a father and son take their place. He's young, fragile, pale, hair neatly parted as a book open at the centre page. His father takes a water his son, a flute of champagne, one stream of bubbles threading its core, delicate and finely strung as their conversation. So, what's the story here? No one can know for sure, except that there will be one. A young chef, got his first job? A graduate from college? An army recruit? A jockey? First race won? 'Done! You can go on that one!' And the stories go the other way too. Look at those oysters, just a few hours ago they were shifting on the ocean floor, until a solitary Scottish diver came, swaying in the night time North Sea like an idea in a simple giant's mind, to pick them, and carry them up through the heavy water and out into the air, to here, presented on a plate, white as snow, smooth as marble hard as bone. And so it goes, until the last cover leaves and the submarine slows and the waiters shed their gold, take a f*g outside. The kitchen is wiped down again, the cases of food stored. The washer's sprayer pours, the tables are stripped and the Sommelier goes back to his bottles, picks a long stemmed gla** and lifts it to his nose, a dart player, weighing his arrow, a gardener scenting his rose.