Something that didn’t smell quite right

Yesterday evening I made a journey into south-west London in order to have the latest in a lengthy line of ‘swift and cheerful’ catch-up early evening meals with my daughter at a local version of a well-known pizza chain establishment. Normally I bomb up to her place in Oxfordshire where she lives with her partner but on this occasion, with him away – and taking in her plans for Bank Holiday Monday – it made much greater sense for her to come down to my neck of the woods.

No one-parent relationship with even grown-up kids like mine is perfect. In our case their mother died of cancer some twenty-four years ago when they were ten and nine and in the immediate aftermath we somehow together found a way of coping because, when you think about it, that’s what people always do when they have to.

Our version tended towards the straightforward, blunt, ‘let it all hang out, heart on the sleeve, tell it like it is’ approach. I cannot say I (or rather we) sat down and worked out that this was what would work best for us. Maybe it was because of the kind of people we are. Maybe it was the support of others. Maybe it was just luck. Anyway, it just sort of happened. I cannot even say it was entirely successful. We each had our trials and tribulations along the way but we’ve ended with a three-way relationship in which I like to think we’re pretty close even though we don’t live in each other’s pockets or get together too often – circumstances see to that – and I couldn’t say we’re over-emotional or lovey-dovey as some close families can be, but at least we’re okay with what we have if you see what I mean. There wouldn’t be much we could do about it if we weren’t, of course, because that’s how it is – whether we like it or not.

Anyway (and now I’ve reached this far I cannot recall quite how/why I began my blog today in this fashion) a few years back, recognising we that although we were regularly in touch we didn’t see each other as often as we used to, my daughter and I instigated our occasional ‘meals together’ scheme.

The first couple of times, because of circumstances, time was at a premium so we literally met up outside her place at 6.30pm, shot straight down to her local town centre, parked up and went into her local Pizza Express, and ate a one-course meal in 75 minutes flat. Afterwards I dropped her back home and then hit the M40 down towards London. Result: a round-trip for me, including meal, of about three and a half hours. This suited us both – she works a full day and could see her old man for an hour or so and still – if she wanted – later continue working at home, relax with her partner when he got back from his work (if he hadn’t already joined us at the trough) and/or go to bed reasonably early. It also meant that I could go to bed not too far after my normal bedtime which also happens to be quite early.

Then – and this sort of thing happens often with our family – what began as a necessity then developed into a norm. We asked ourselves occasionally why we didn’t vary it a bit – e.g. me stay-over and trundle back home in the morning, or perhaps going further afield and making more of a relaxed banquet of it – and (to be fair) we have sometimes opted for a visit to a nearby Italian or Indian restaurant instead of just nipping for a pizza – but what became sacrosanct was that the meal was always non-alcoholic  or nearly so (I was going to be driving afterwards) and that it never lasted longer than approximately 75 minutes.

And so back to last night’s episode – a true story, by the way.

We arrived at the restaurant, a thriving and what I’d describe as an upmarket example of the type, and were shown to a two-person table at the top end, from where my daughter ordered a glass of Merlot and a pitcher of tap water with her meal and I a diet Pepsi Cola with ice and lemon with mine.

Time and conversation passes. Our waitress eventually comes over to offer us the dessert menu, which we naturally decline and then simply ask for the bill. She then walks perhaps ten metres away to her work station, whereupon what I can only describe as the mother of all ‘whiffs’ envelopes us.

I am not joking. It began (as I later told it to a third party) as if the poor girl had potentially desperate tummy trouble and deliberately or otherwise had ‘let a serious one off’ right beside my right ear – or indeed nostril – and then guiltily walked away. Within two or three seconds the stench had become horrendous. It felt as though the whole restaurant had become affected by it. I looked to my left and the series of individual tables along the wall to see if other diners were also suffering as we were. To be honest, it didn’t particularly appear so.

I suppose partly worried that my own daughter was now wondering whether perhaps I had ‘let one off’, I aimed a phrase not un-adjacent to “Christ, are you getting the same smell as I am?” at her. She certainly was, describing it as strong and ‘sulphur-like’.

Eventually I could take this no more and called our waitress over to complain about it. She immediately apologised and said she’d go to investigate and/or speak to the manager.

When she returned a couple of minutes later, she was carrying a small bowl of herbs or spices (I thought it was).

My daughter pointed up at the white box-thing above us on the wall: “Could it be something to do with the air-conditioning?” she asked.

The waitress replied “You’re absolutely correct …” and then went on to explain (I kid you not) that the problem lay in the flat above the restaurant – apparently, sometimes, presumably coinciding with when those in it flushed their toilet or toilets, the flat’s sewerage system somehow connected with the restaurant’s air-conditioning equivalent. This was an ongoing problem.

(The aforementioned bowl of herbs or spices was apparently intended to help waft the worst of the stench away, or else somehow make the situation tolerable for diners).

Within five minutes we had paid and walked out into the street. I remarked to my daughter that it was the first time I’d ever been in this – or indeed any – well-established restaurant chain which had subjected it diners to such conditions. It was one of those “You couldn’t make it up” situations – and I didn’t.