I am now going to tell a little story about how businessmen can behave when accompanied by a: other business men, b: 6 bottles of wine, (standard choices are Chablis, sancerre, as for red, generally chateau neuf du papes.) and c: one waitress 10-20 years their junior. I’ll give some pointers as to what not to say: “Do you want anything else”, “Is there anything I can help you with” “Would you like a large one?” “Do you fancy dessert?” Don’t even offer two businessmen with lots of paperwork an extra table so they can ‘spread out’. So I’m standing at the front desk, a reasonably quiet day, lunch time is prime time. Up come the first candidates. “Hello there, how are you?” “Hello. I have a booking under the name Stewart…for six.” (Oh hell, Six) “ahh, no problem sir, I have reserved that middle booth for you, will that be o.k?” “Perfect”. As you see all is going well so far. There’s often one loud mouthed cockey one from the off set, usually the shortest, and later on most sinister, the one who isn’t paying the bill, the one who’s always pressing for the bottle of Mersault at £70 a pop. The one who slides his foot over yours when you’re taking the desserts and coffees. I never really noticed people’s appearance really, not in such fine detail, not until you start to feel them watching you, then all of a sudden it’s perfectly reasonable to analyse who these characters really are. You start to see the little burst veins in their ruddy plump cheeks, the glistening at the corners of the mouth and blackening of the lips from the red wine. Walking heart attack kits my boss calls them. When you feel their eyes roaming over you like you’re prey, and the loud comments about how much they just made on the stock exchange, and they mention to me, a waitress and illustrator, that they are rolling in it. They may tell me: “I just made a 100 grand” and I’ll say, “that’s fantastic. Do you fancy dessert?” A collection of illustrations by Laura Quick and Anna Magnowska                    < BACK