A Recipe For Disaster

My uncle was proud of his chosen métier
when working as a chef in a top restaurant.
As a disciple of Georges Auguste Escoffier
he knew that good food was very important
to the rich patrons who frequented the place.
He’d have prepared the best gourmet fare
and urged the slow staff to keep up the pace.
To hear him shout “ça marche” wasn’t rare.

He had sex appeal and boyish good looks,
married the daughter of the eatery’s owner,
an expert accountant looking after the books
who everyone thought was shy and a loner.
She wasn’t pretty but he couldn’t care less
because he realised that she was the key
to his advancement and eventual success:
a wealthy tycoon was what he wanted to be.

Ambitious selfishness had gone to his head
and thought of his wife as a bargaining chip.
That she resented this can be taken as read
but all the time she kept a stiff upper lip.
When her father died she inherited the lot,
closed the place down; dismissed the  staff.
Divorce and severance is all that he got
and now is a cook in a workmen’s caff.

© Luigi Pagano 

from my collection "Cherry on TOP"