Loup de Mer and Nothing Soup

LOUP DE MER AND NOTHING SOUP

NOTE there is nothing sensitive here (bar a couple of mentions of cancer, the before to this story's after). Indeed there is little conflict and no drama. Sorry to anybody who thinks that's boring. But this is about good food and good friends. And I wish everybody here a Happy Christmas.

His friends came over on the Balthazar and arrived on the beach just as Johnny was sweeping down the stone forecourt. It was the first time they had seen him in quite a while, Brian and Liz and Karen. They all wore shorts and t-shirts. They walked up the path towards the slightly raised house and then they all embraced him on the doorstep between the Corinthian pillars that formed the outer joins of the stone and glass rectangle that had created a enlarged porch effect in front of the main building. Johnny wore a yellow cotton checked shirt rolled up to the elbows and navy shorts.

“Come in you lovely people”, he said warmly.

The front room had a grey sofa and matching armchairs, a side table, a few books in a foldable bookcase, and a couple of architects’ drawings and a big David Roberts print of Karnac on the walls. There were mosaics on the stone floor.

“There will be no more clutter in my life”, he smiled.

“You look well”, said Brian, and Karen gave him a little squeeze.

“Yes, I feel pretty good. The weight’s coming back and the stoma reversal went well. And guess what, I can now eat what I want- first time in months. So I’m cooking for you all and we’re just going to talk like we used to talk about whatever we want. Let me get some wine for everybody.”

He disappeared but quickly returned with a plastic bottle of white wine in one hand and a tray of tumblers in the other.

“See. No corkscrew needed.”

“Local?” asked Liz.

“Very. Sulphite free.”

He poured four glasses and handed them round.

“Good to see Kostas again”, said Brian.

Johnny nodded.

“You go back a long way don’t you” said Liz.

“I met him years ago in South London near where I had my office. He had a barber’s and a steakhouse back then. Worked really hard, and ran a poker school at the weekend.”

“Does he own this island?”

“Yes. Yes he does. Right now I’m the only person staying here. Just the three houses. He uses one as a sort of pop-up restaurant in the summer.”

“What peace and quiet”

“Yeah”.

After drinking their wine- only Karen had a fill-up- Johnny took them into the kitchen where they all sat round a pine table. Johnny busied himself cutting up a big Cos lettuce and the talking went on.

“I was thinking of Lec the other day. Has anyone seen him recently?”

Nobody had.

“How he loved his dope”, Johnny smiled as he thought back half a lifetime.

Then he brought a huge wooden bowl to the table with the Cos leaves all arranged at angles to each other and in the gaps there were olives, green and black. He produced a bottle of dressing and splashed some over the leaves along with a bit of pepper and handed everybody a fork and some oxblood-coloured napkins.

“What’s in this”, asked Liz.

“It’s Caesar salad dressing”, Johnny replied “I love it. First discovered it in Vancouver years back”

They all crunched into the leaves.

“Greece is the place isn’t it”, said Karen.

“Yes it is”, replied Brian. “There’s something special here. Piraeus, Aegina, this island.”

“How does it work?” asked Liz. She hadn’t been an item with Brian for that long and hadn’t as long a history with the others.

“How do you mean, Liz?”

“Well there’s no shops here “

“A boat comes over with supplies”

“How often?”

“As often as needed”, smiled Johnny.

“You know Johnny”, said Brian “He’s got his feet well under the table here. And there is a phone signal you know.”

“There wasn’t for quite a while”, remembered Johnny.

He jumped up from the table.

“Time for some soup.”

He got a big pot out of a cupboard and put it on a hob of the cooker. He took some butter and cut a generous slice of it.

“I wouldn’t want to have an electric cooker”, said Liz “I’ve always used gas”

“You can’t really here”, said Johnny “Real possibility of earthquakes.”

He was crumbling a stock cube into a pestle and shaking some herbs into the pot.

“What’s going in the mix?” asked Karen.

“You wait and see. Let’s have some music.”

There was an old CD player in the corner and Johnny got it going. Some pan pipes started playing.

“Oh wonderful”, said Brian “Local music as well.”

“Not quite”, said Johnny “He’s actually Romanian but we’ll have some rembetika later.”

“And some Clash maybe”, suggested Brian

“You can take the boy out of London but you can’t…” grinned Johnny

They listened to the music and the talking subsided till Johnny brought the soups over two by two. They looked a trifle watery. Karen was the first to put her spoon in and lift it to her lips.

“Wow! This is good. What is it?”

“I used to call it Cream of Nothing Soup but I didn’t put any cream in it this time.”

“So how would you differentiate it from water?” asked Brian

“By tasting it”, answered Karen.

“Yes but what’s in it?” insisted Brian.

“Actually, it’s not bad”, said Liz.

Johnny was beginning to realise that Liz was not a wow kind of girl.

“Yes”, said Brian.

Now they’d all had a sip Johnny was ready to talk.

“First I put a good dab of butter into the pot. Then I crumble up a whole fish stock cube. Then I get busy with herbs and spices. At the moment I’m using tarragon and fenugreek.”

“Well we are in Greece” said Liz

“Fenugreek hasn’t actually got much to do with Greece, Liz”, Brian pointed out.

“So refreshing but with a definite tang”, said Karen.

“You might expect something like this in a Chinese restaurant”, suggested Brian

“I’m not sure I would”, said Johnny not wanting to part with ownership of his beloved concoction.

Johnny had also put some fresh bread on the table and Brian was cutting it into slices. Meanwhile Johnny had got up from the table again and was getting four sea basses out of the fridge.

“Hey”, said Brian “This is really shaping up.”

More butter was going into a big skillet and one by one the bass went in to join it. Some outside lights had come on and somehow the big glass doors had opened again, and the sound of the sea breathing in and out competed gently with the sizzling seabass. Johnny had also cut up some potatoes into small pieces and was putting them into a smaller pan.

“What are you doing these days, Karen?”, asked Brian.

“I’ve just gone back to Bristol to do my thesis”

“Oh I thought you were pretty established in your practice”

“I can combine the two. My sort of architecture doesn’t require constant presence in the office”

“So what’s the thesis on?”

“It’s core is the Parthenon. What I hope is a new look at how they used light and positioning and perspective. How what it seems is something of an illusion. How nothing is quite as straight and classical as it might seem.”

“Where would that lead to?” asked Liz.

Johnny was noticing how Liz wanted to challenge all the time. It could sound belittling although he wasn’t sure that was her intention. She was new to the group and maybe felt she needed to assert herself just to fit in. He wanted the evening to pass off without conflict or bickering. He’d had his own drama and it was called cancer. And that was quite enough for the moment. He’d been surprised how relatively young he was when it had taken hold.

So he immersed himself back in his cooking. He’d blanched some thin pieces of green vegetable and was adding them to the bass skillet.

“Are they some sort of bean?” asked Liz who seemed to be back on his case again. The way the woman said “some sort of”.

“No”, he replied blandly, “They’re samphire”.

“Oh I’ve heard of that”, she said “Very hip and Crouch Endy.

“Well”, he smiled “I do live in Crouch End. But it’s very simple stuff. It’s grows all around Britain’s shores. It’s not like it’s something exotic imported from Thailand”.

“And yet many people have never heard of it”, said Brian “I was asking for some in Morrison’s and the assistant went and got me some sunflower oil”

“You should speak more clearly, Brian” said Liz.

“Brian”, said Johnny “Do you want to get some more of the wine out of the fridge I’m about ready to dish up”.

Johnny led the way in opening up his bass. How buttery it felt. And more tarragon- Johnny’s herb of the moment.

The potatoes and the samphire came in their own separate dishes. One was plain white, the other a warm sunshine mix of red and yellow.

“Love the dish”, said Brian

“Got it in a Spanish shop at the top end of Portobello”

“Best end. As you close in on Golborne”

“Where the first Law Centre opened back in the 60s”.

Johnny was a lawyer, the good sort who helped the down-trodden and tried to spread Legal Aid around like the marmalade on his breakfast toast.”

And where Goldfinger built Trellick Towers”, added Karen, the architect.

“Goldfinger!” Liz butted in “I thought he was a Bond villain”

“Named for him”, smiled Karen “Some folk just don’t like brutalist architecture”

“How’s the fish?” asked Johnny, not so much to attract praise but to get people eating. Talking was for later. Everybody said it was beautiful and so was the samphire.

They ate in silence for a while. More samphire went on certain plates.

“That was good, though I say it myself”, said Johnny.

He laid his knife and fork next to each other on his plate.

“When I was a kid everybody in catering knew what that meant and what anything else didn’t. The number of times waiters try and take your plate away these days when not only is there food on it but the fork and a knife are at an angle”.

“Stickler for standards is our Johnny”, said Brian

“Well I mean…

“Careful. He’ll go full Donald Pleasance on us at any moment”

“What I can’t abide”, said Karen “Is bar staff who want to put ice in your brandy.”

“Was this fish caught by Kostas”, asked Brian, perhaps to change the subject

“Well not literally”, replied Johnny “He’s a bit busy for that these days. Arranged by him let’s say.”

“How many bedrooms have you got here, Johnny?” asked Liz

“Just two”

“We’re all staying here tonight aren’t we”

“Yup”

Funny, thought Johnny, how the conversation subtly starts to change after a few glasses of wine. Like saying “yup” instead of “yes”. And other things.

“You haven’t really seen the place have you Liz. I’ll show you round.”

“Did you design it, Karen?” Liz asked.

“Uh-huh. I saw you looking at the Corinthian pillars at the entrance. They were really a sort of joke, pastiche I suppose, but they’re there now.. Bit fussy. Johnny doesn’t like clutter. There’s absolutely nothing in the bathroom except the plumbing and a couple of towels”

“Are they oxblood too?”, Liz asked.

“You catch on quick, Liz”, smiled Karen “But you thought we were just good friends, me and Johnny, didn’t you.”

“No…”

“Good friends can do anything they want with and to each other”, said Karen.

“Am I going to show Liz around anytime soon?” asked Johnny.

The door to the porch had seemingly closed itself and the outside lights had switched off. People were getting tired and soon enough Johnny was left on his own downstairs ostensibly to tidy up but really he just wanted to sit and think.

He thought back over his life. He’d known Brian since school when they’d sat in coffee bars at the weekend and talked and smoked. Karen was from the girl’s school (single sex back then) but part of the same crowd. Brian had married her best friend Mo but they’d drifted apart. Still friends though. Karen had always meant a lot to Johnny even though there had been others. Probably not any more.

You never know at the time who was going to stick around in your life, maybe for decades. Once there had always been Johnny and Brian and Lec, but Lec had somehow slipped away. Pity that. Connections, long-term connections, were vital in life. The cancer had been a real shock but he reckoned he’d kicked it into touch. His real life was starting up again. With good friends and good food. He switched the downstairs lights off and contentedly climbed the stairs.