Free High Season by Jim Hearn Page A

somewhere overhead, its fierceness giving way to afternoon shadows.
    Out beyond the pool, through the back gate, Choc is sitting on a log staring foggy-eyed at a water dragon.
    â€˜Hey, mate,’ I call, breaking his spell.
    â€˜Oh, hey, Chef.’ Choc quickly stubs out his joint.
    â€˜Listen, I just thought you should know that Vinnie is pissed off about you coming out here and sparking up. He’s talking about putting a lock on the door so no one can use it.’
    â€˜Oh, no way!’ replies Choc, who sounds eager to be neither the guy who screws up everyone else’s good time, or inappropriate with me, his head chef—the tension of which forces a stoner’s giggle out of him.
    â€˜Mate, I need you to keep your shit together until Thursday. You’ve got two days off then and you can have a blow-out, okay?’
    â€˜Yes, Chef. Sorry, Chef.’ Choc sounds overly serious as he gets up off his log and walks back past me into the pool area.
    â€˜Don’t be sorry, Choc. Just pace yourself and we’ll be through the worst of the high season in no time, all right?’
    â€˜Yes, Chef.’ He strides back into the kitchen.
    And it is nice out here in the damp undergrowth, where I wait a moment and breathe in the moist air that still has traces of Choc’s dope floating around. It’s a little plot of nature that has survived the crush of sports cars and sunscreen, the longboards and the hot open beach. And the smell of the joint has me sucking in a few extra deep breaths. But while I’d truly love a joint right now, or a couple of beers or a bottle of something red, I know that getting pissed or stoned at this point in the game is going to send me to a place I won’t readily be able to escape from.
    I take out my phone and flick back through the photos Alice sent me earlier in the day. There are two new pictures, which are of plants throwing off new shoots from previously pruned branches. Alice has taken up gardening in the last year or so with something of a born-again fervour. The plants are slowly learning who’s boss. I snap a picture of myself, careful to get as much of my blood-, sauce- and fat-splattered tunic in the frame as I can, and send if off with a Day off tomorrow! message.
    Back in the kitchen Jesse and Soda are semi-organised, which is novel. They have smashed through about twenty loads of dishes and cleared off the larder bench in order to set up the pastry section mise en place . The dessert orders are racking up on their docket clip and they are communicating: this is progress; this is good. Watching these guys take some responsibility, call the pass and clap the food out, is motivating. It means I can now fill a bucket of soapy water and start scrubbing down my section. I begin by piling all the dirty pots and pans onto the floor in the galley. I can’t afford to slow down yet or stop moving for fear that my knees will seize. It’s not a joke, I’m afraid. And I’m not that old. I’m a good four to eight years younger than Vinnie, depending on how old Vinnie is this week, and I should be fitter. My muscles and joints should be more agile and supple. But like I said, the life of a chef is physically demanding and the longer it goes on the more I realise I will have to start implementing strategies to cope with future high seasons.
    During the quieter times I’m fine, no problem, king of the world. Come schoolies week, though—that faintly ridiculous tradition where the kids who’ve completed high school all pour out from the cities and hit the party towns up and down the east coast—I know it’s time to get the yoga mat out of the cupboard and start making a fool of myself in the sanctity of my bedroom. It’s a lonely experience, my yoga practice, which, as a ritual, has all the visual appeal of an angry, overweight, mid-life contortionist rather than the elegant flow of Salutations to the Sun and Legs