The Wedding Banquet

“A couple more bottles of white wine please,” one of the guests was calling out as she gingerly balanced a tray of empty plates and dishes on one hand.
Marta turned round and smiled. “Sure,” she replied, hoping she had not misunderstood the order.

“It’ll be easy. You’ll see,” Matt, the manager had said to her when he left her in charge of the wedding banquet. She and three other Spanish waiters had only been working at the restaurant for a week and had a rudimentary understanding of the English language. She was spending her summer in England, in a small village in Hertfordshire where she hoped to improve her language skills while earning some money.

Matt had explained that his mother was unwell and that he had to go to Manchester to see her that weekend.
“Piece of pie,” he’d added. She wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe he was talking about the food to be served at the banquet.

When she had sent her CV to the temping agency which had placed her, she had exaggerated her experience in the service sector. A few weekends helping out in her uncle’s bar in the village didn’t add up to much.

On her first day, she had consistently brought people anything but what they had ordered. She had been accused by one insolent man of robbing the restaurant when she had pronounced thirteen as thirty. His reaction was not surprising; after all, a club sandwich really couldn’t be thirty pounds.

But funniest of all was the fact that she spoke the best English in the current team of waiters. David had stunned a customer by bringing him a cup of hot cocoa when he’d asked for a Carlsberg. Miguel had offended an old dear by calling her Miss in an attempt to be polite. She didn’t look a day over eighty. Conchi just kept saying “sorry? Sorry?” and then disappeared for ages when she was asked something she didn’t understand.

At first, the owner had thought that this cost cutting scheme was really not working out. Some of the regulars had threatened to go elsewhere. But now, here they were, in charge of a fifty strong party of revelers.

The restaurant mostly served old English classics. It had been a hoot having the menu explained by Matt. All the favourites like Spotted dick, Bangers and Mash, Toad in the hole sounded like gibberish.

“But dick is not bad word?” she had asked.
“Well, yes it is,” Matt had explained patiently. “But here it means a steamed pudding that has currants.”
“And what is toad?” David had inquired.
“It’s like a small frog.”
“Dios mio!” Oh my God, Conchi exclaimed. “You English are very strange!”
“But Toad in the hole doesn’t have a real toad. It’s sausages in a kind of pastry.”
“Ah, pasta,” David was nodding.
“Not pasta. Pastry, like what we use to make pies.”

Anyway, here they were. Matt had left clear instructions and everything prepared.
They had served Roast Tomato and Herb Soup and Chicken Liver pate for starters. Next, they had dished out Steak and Mushroom Pie, Roast lamb, Mixed greens and Berries, Salmon Cakes and potatoes.
For dessert, they had brought out the so-called Spotted Dick and Trifle.

Everything had gone swimmingly. Almost. Conchi had almost forgotten to heat the Roast Tomato and herb Soup. “It’s like Gazpacho. Why we cook it?” she had wondered.

The event was a success. After the usual wedding music, somewhere towards the end, the DJ put a Flamenco song in honour of the hardworking waiters. David and Marta had done an impromptu little show to the delight of the guests who had no idea that they were merely making up the steps.
“Ole! Ole!” Conchi and Miguel had got the guests to shout out, some of them joining in.

All in all, it had gone remarkably well. It was the start of summer that promised many an anecdote.