I decided to put this online because I read a news story last week (2nd March 2011) about a Greek pizza restaurant owner in Pennsylvania who tried to sabotage two rival restaurants by dumping mice in their toilets. The following story was written about 6 years ago:
Pietro Caprici once ran a profitable restaurant-cum-bar in London’s Soho. He was fortunate in that his establishment had attracted a legendary status due to the infamous nature of the hard core of his clientele, which consisted of a mixed and ragged group of successful artists, not-so successful writers, film company execs, minor pop-stars and a variety of society wannabes or had-beens. The core of this group was an ancient, charismatic American publishing millionaire, who had spent just about every day at Pietro’s place for as long as he could remember. Historically, here was the place to eat, get and stay drunk, do deals, and rest upon the shoulders and the comfort of those who were not strangers. But the world was changing and this was such a compact microcosm – soft-focused with alcohol, drugs and age – that they failed to notice the circling wolves of change were closing in. Maybe it was just arrogance. Outside the doors of Pietro’s place, sex shops closed and reopened as delicatessens, patisseries or fashionable wine bars. Damp rooms that once had done a healthy business in unhealthy executive massage became comfortable offices for agents of one kind or another. Attics, once used only as the last resting place for pigeons, became luxury loft apartments.
Pietro was the first to notice. Not so much because the streets were cleaner, but because his takings were shrinking. He had run his place for more than twenty years, but the last two in particular had been different. For years he had profited from violent drinking – even if there were only a few hardy regulars in, but recently cirrhosis had seen off a couple. Suicide another. Yet another had actually sold a film-script and moved to Los Angeles. Then there was that damned trend to move to the country or another country. He couldn’t help feeling there was something increasingly sad about the pocket of life he was sustaining. There used to be something strangely romantic about watching people drink themselves out of life, while dreaming of art in the process. This had meant there was always the hangers-on: the young wannabe artists or writers who sought notoriety rather than art and naively thought that fame and success were something that you could catch like a virus if you could get close enough to someone considered to be either famous or successful. This shifting perimeter was welcome as long as its constituents could buy drinks. But such was the capacity for consumption of those at the heart of it all, those on the outside rarely had enough money to keep the pace for long enough to keep them inside. Of course there were alternative tickets to the inner circle, particularly sex – the more creative the better. It was the shrinking periphery that first worried Pietro. He had a daughter of his own, Anna, now at University. She worked hard for good grades. Like most young people these days, she was ambitious. She enjoyed life, but she treated her education like it was part of a business plan. Anna wanted to go into either economics or politics, but Pietro had noticed a similar attitude in those of her friends who were in the arts. It seemed that success in art was now more about the hard sell, than a hard life. And the pitching arenas were the increasing number of bright, light, and busy bars, now spreading like a social infection – as it seemed to Pietro. He decided that something had to be done.
Thinking about it later, he was embarrassed by his own inexperience. The mice were the equivalent of dipping one’s toe into a swimming pool to test the water before gingerly stepping in. In all honesty, the mice were not successful. He had started by humanely trapping those that ran around his own kitchen. He would then visit one of the new bars or restaurants, and surreptitiously release the rodents while on his way to or from the toilet. After a lot of waiting while idly listening to Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’, his eventual call to the environmental health people guaranteed an inspection, and – Pietro hoped – a closure until the ‘problem’ had been sorted. There were so many bars that he managed to completely deplete the significant mouse population of his own kitchen. He resorted to buying them from Petticoat Lane market, getting a good deal for buying in bulk. While browsing among the stalls he also found some giant African cockroaches – bought as a job lot by the stallholder after they had been used in a TV game show. If Pietro knew anything, he knew a six-legged, brown, indestructible, hard-shelled bargain when he saw one, and several hundred of them scrabbling furiously in black bin-bag was too good to miss. He negotiated such a good deal, he wasn’t too bothered that he lost a fair few on the Tube on the way back.
The mice and the cockroaches were a start, but they did cost money, and, if Pietro was honest about it, the results were not really that effective. The Environmental Officers simple gave a warning, promised another inspection and recommended a pest control company. The anticipated closures never happened. The need for a new strategy was compounded on Pietro’s last trip to Petticoat Lane when there was not a mouse, nor any bargain insects to be found (he did momentarily consider the locusts, but not seriously). Impatiently, he bought the closest thing he could find – Russian hamsters.
Of course a plague of Russian hamsters was a great source of amusement to the environmental health officers who turned up at the trendy ‘Met-All’ bar in Greek Street. The only action taken was a temporary closure in order to catch the tiny fluff-balls – most of which ended up as school pets. The bar opened again after about an hour. Frustrated, out of pocket and exasperated, Pietro searched for a new plan. One that was more effective, less expensive, and didn’t involve rodents or large, exotic insects. His flash of inspiration came one evening while he was lighting candles in his bar.
Waste bins full greasy kitchen and restaurant waste burned well. They demanded the attention of the local fire brigade, generated lots of water and disruption, and generally guaranteed a few days closure while the place was cleaned up and checked over. But when one blazing bin accidentally set alight to the restaurant it belonged to, the results gave Pietro a strange, deep-rooted feeling of comfort and happiness which had little to do with salvaging his declining business. The accidental spread of combustion started a run of visits by the West End Fire Brigade into Soho to douse a series of mysterious fires in bars and restaurants. The tabloids latched onto ‘The Soho Bar Burner’.
One such tabloid with a blazing headline lay on a fine table in a large house in Hampstead. Around the table sat a business consortium from various locations around Eastern Europe. Over sub-zero vodka, they discussed the bad-luck that seemed to be dogging their business ventures in Soho. They had spent several years buying up most of the retail businesses, sex industry and buildings there — from vendors who were keen to sell with or without the necessary encouragement. The fact was that this was more of a hobby for them, rather than the serious business of import and export that they did with various governments around the world. A hobby was meant to be a casually enjoyable way of laundering pocket money, but somebody had dropped a red flag in with the expensive white shirts. It needed sorting out, so an investigation was instigated. The services were employed of an ex-policeman who had been asked to retire from the force after being presented with a dossier which listed a range of allegations, none of which could be actually proved, but not of which could be actually disproved either. Walter Mole settled into an early, but lucrative retirement, pursuing with renewed vigour the variety of business opportunities only dabbled in previously.
Walter might have been a bad cop, but he was a good detective. The trail was simple enough to follow. He started by compiling a list of all the problems that had started happening to all the restaurants. No stoner was left unturned. He included every event, including all the visits by environmental health officers. He was given a list of all the bars owned by the business consortium, and proceeded to interview the manager of each one, a task that was not at all unpleasant. Walter thought it only polite to accept any drinks on offer. He noted that there had been a short, but intense plague of mice in some of the consortium’s bars several months ago. But it was news of the giant cockroaches and hamsters that prompted him to get in touch with his contact in the environmental health department.
Finding someone who had bought a couple of dozen Russian hamsters in one go wouldn’t be too difficult. Pet shops proved fruitless, but a stallholder on Petticoat Lane proved to be very helpful. Of course he remembered selling bulk hamsters – to an Italian man who had become one of his best customers, in fact he had even invited him to his restaurant in Soho, but said there was no way he’d ever go:
‘I ain’t stupid! What do you fink he does wiv them poor little creatures!’
Walter Mole thanked the stallholder.
The light of revelation is illuminating, but not always beneficial. Pietro didn’t get involved in the rambling conversations of his customers, which were often repeated because of alcoholic amnesia. Besides, he had heard it all before, and it was rarely interesting. However this conversation was much more serious than usual, and the group would occasionally look at him, which was unusual. Eventually, Corrie, a sometimes successful artist in her mid-thirties, turned to Pietro and asked:
‘Who owns you Pietro?’
‘Nobody owns me — except maybe my wife — and my mother — and my daughter, oh — and of course my mother-in-law…’
‘—No, not you personally, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but who owns this place?’ She looked around the restaurant.
‘This? This is my place. My grandfather bought it when he first came to England. He built up the business from nothing. My mother and father, God bless him, ran it until he died and now it’s my business, bought and paid for with blood, sweat and tears!’ Pietro was prone to a little exaggeration. ‘Why do you ask?’
An elderly man, with a smooth, completely bald head and dark glasses replied in a slow, American voice:
‘Because if you do own this place, you’re probably one of the only places around here not owned by the Russian Mafia.’
‘That’s crazy! All these new bars are independent! And they won’t last.’ As far as Pietro was concerned, this talk of ‘Russian Mafia’ was just more drunken ramblings. He knew they all smoked pot, so they were obviously all paranoid. He turned away indignantly — not wanted to face the reality about the way things were changing.
‘It’s true. A friend of mine, a reporter on the Sundays, has been doing some research for an article — about how trendy it’s all getting around here. He was looking into where this new money has come from, and he’s traced it all back to the same group of guys from eastern Europe somewhere – Russia, Chechnya, Ukraine – those kinds of places. You’re the last of a breed, Pietro, soon they’ll have you as well! You see!’ The group returned to their conversation.
It was too much for Pietro to take in. How could he believe it. What none of this group knew was that Pietro’s grandfather was Russian. Many old occupants of this part of London had come here from mid- and eastern Europe, to escape poverty, persecution and revolution. Many found homes in the West End alongside work servicing the theatres through their trades as cobblers, dressmakers, painters, milliners and carpenters. Others made a living from servicing these trades people – through cafés and restaurants, greengroceries, butchers and bakers, schools. They same story as immigrants into any city, in, and from, any country across the world.
It was four o’clock in the morning, that time of the day which is, like February, neither here nor there, when the full impact of his situation finally hit Pietro. He had slipped into sleep without any trouble, his wife spooned around his back as usual. He awoke at four with a mind as clear as a blue sky after a thunderstorm. He had, to put it simply, fucked up big style. He had inadvertently been playing games with the Russian Mafia. They were bound to want to play games with him. Besides which he had one of the only independent establishments left in Soho. A visit was inevitable. But how would they know it was him? Maybe they would think it was all a series of coincidental accidents — the odd waste bin fire here, a few mice and hamsters there, surely they wouldn’t even think that any of it was deliberate. Maybe the hamsters were a bad idea. But words kept running round and around inside a single track in his head: ‘…the last independent business in Soho.’
Pietro paid rapt attention to everyone who came into his place over the next few days. He could be very off-hand to customers, blatantly rude sometimes, but now everyone was treated with care and consideration (he was amazed by the amount of tips his family were bringing in). His daughter Anna worked as a part-time waitress, his wife Gina did most of the cooking, along her nephew Antonio, who had come over from Italy five years ago for a two-week visit. Pietro also worked the tables and acted as maitre d’, maintaining an attitude which balanced finely between subservience and pomposity.
He didn’t have to wait long: three of them came in late one lunchtime. They were dressed casually, but expensively – cashmere jumpers under leather jackets. Gold watches and too-many gold rings. Bad complexions, and hair that was just too long to be smart or fashionable. At first Pietro thought they might have been record company execs, a thought that lasted until they ordered a beer and a vodka each, plus ‘nibbles’. They sipped the beer as they talked amongst themselves. They looked around the restaurant every now and then, glanced at Pietro occasionally. He didn’t like the way their eyes lingered on Anna. Eventually they each picked up their vodka glass, downed them in one, slammed them back on to the table, stood up, and left.
Burning his own restaurant was the most heartbreaking thing that Pietro had ever done. Tears streamed down his face and he begged forgiveness from his grandfather and his grandmother, his father and God. ‘Always I try to do only what was best for our family!’ He sobbed in an Italian accent – despite the fact that he normally spoke perfect English — being born and raised in London. Whenever he became emotional an Italian accent crept into his voice. Without realising it he also always swore in Italian.
His family had lived above the restaurant for decades. It was Pietro’s father who had decided to move to the suburbs “to give his children a better life”. Pietro had thought about, but — just as previous generations — never got round to, clearing the upstairs rooms on the two floors above the restaurant, which full of boxes and junk left there by his grandparents. He had never even bothered to look at what was in them. Whatever it was, it burned well. With the tracks of tears still on his face, his eyes red and bloodshot with grief, and a heart which seemed to be dragging his entire body, Pietro sat on the late bus back to Clapham. He was in a daze as he walked the hundred or so yards to his house, opened the front door as silently as he could, climbed the stairs, slipped into bed and curled up behind his deeply sleeping wife, who did nothing more than stir gently.
That he didn’t wake when the phone rang was a surprise, because he didn’t think he would sleep. But his wife was shaking his shoulder: ‘Pietro! Pietro! It’s the phone for you!’ His consciousness gradually emerged from somewhere deep.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Sergeant Allinson of the Metropolitan Police. Are you the owner of “Tsarovski’s Tavern” in Soho?’
‘Uh huh? What’s happened?’
‘I have some bad news for you sir, I’m afraid there’s been a fire…’
‘There’s been a few of these around here over the past few months. Course none were as serious as this. Fire investigators said that it was the stuff stored on the upper floors that made it so intense — old oil paintings and antique furniture they reckon. Of course we won’t be able to compensate you for them as they were works of art and antiques, and not included in the normal insurance, but we should be able to sort out the building and furnishings and stuff. It’s going to be some time before you’re back in business though. There’s nothing left but the brickwork — the heat must have really been on!’ The loss adjuster tucked his clipboard under his arm, pocked his ballpen into his inside jacket pocket. He then reached into his side pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, ‘Smoke?’ He offered Pietro. They were both standing up to their knees in charred wood and water. The loss adjuster in green Wellington boots, Pietro in patent leather shoes.
‘This is a no smoking restaurant!’ He said, while looking up at a network of black rafters against a blue and grey sky— as harsh as a Paul Nash war landscape. The adjuster slipped his cigarette back into the packet and the packet into his pocket.
‘Ah well, we’re making a new world! There’s not much else to be done here. We’ll sort out the paperwork and get a cheque to you as soon as we can. Shame about them antiques and paintings though… Goodbye Mr. Caprici.’
Although everything has gone to plan. Pietro was grieving. He felt like he had let down his own family as well as parents and grandparents. And then there was the antiques and paintings — which would now always be a mystery. Burning the bar was half the plan. The next involved getting out of London, away from any threat. The insurance money was generous and arrived fairly quickly. Pietro thought about selling his house and moving the whole family to Italy. But he realised that although his family were mainly Italian, and his wife’s family were Italian — he was English and he’d never been further than Southend or Brighton — both far too close to London to be comfortable.
He remembered part of a conversation in his bar, when someone had raised an indignant, very drunken voice and shouted ‘London! London! London is the arsehole of England! …And Manchester is two-hundred miles up it! I wouldn’t be caught dead there!’ The whole group had laughed themselves to tears.
Manchester was therefore the only place he could think of going, mainly because he needed somewhere he wouldn’t be caught dead in. Half-heartedly he rented out the Clapham home, sold the patch of parched land and brick shell to a property developer, packed his family into the car, and followed the dirty back of a removal van at sixty mph up the M1 and then the M6. It rained solidly from Birmingham onwards. He heard his wife failing to sniffle back the tears. Tears began to roll slowly down his own face and one word kept shouting inside his head: ‘Arsehole!’
Curtis Bollington © 2010
Cute write..