I’m high on caffeine, gliding through the floor smiling and playing my part. I’m in a good moo: in two days it is Sunday, and I finally have my off day. A lovely couple are talking to me about their travels, recounting some nice restaurants they visited here and there. I told them I wanted to visit Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Hospital Road. They told me not to bother.

The hostess comes up to me and runs her finger along my back and continues walking. This is usually a sign that I am needed somewhere, so I politely end the converstation and walk towards the station where she’s standing. She doesn’t even let me open my mouth. ‘Table 15 just sat down. It’s an arrogant bunch of suits. Good luck.’ Traditionally suits, 'business' people, are taken care of by the more senior members who have a very good sales approach and skill, but I can never understand why its always me that gets the hard, arrogant ones. I deserve a break too. I want to take care of the pretty girls in red on table 2 instead. ‘They asked for you’, the hostess looks at me coldly, ‘…by name’. Before I answer back, she hits again, ‘And no, they’re not regular. There’s no trace of them on the system’ and off she goes.

I walk up to table 15 to greet them. The Maitre D' has just left the table, and as soon as he sees me coming, signals me over. ‘They don’t want to start anything before you say hello. They don’t even want water. Good luck.’ Armed with a useless two sets of luck, I am now at the table, and instinctively look at their watches. Recognising their watches is a useful technique in assessing the potential spending power of a guest. It’s a bit like assessing a lady’s Jimmy Choos and diamonds or an elderly gentleman’s too-young-to-be-his-wife companion.

Three men in suits, one wearing a Tag Heuer Carrera, the other looks remarkably like an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean. The third watch looks horrifically familiar. It’s definitely a Rolex Submariner. I have seen this watch before, on numerous occasions, and the bearer always brought me grief. I look up slowly towards his face, and all suspicion is confirmed. It’s him. All waiters have their difficult customers, and so do I. It’s this one. ‘Hello again.’ he says. ‘Seems like I found you again.’ I can’t speak. I can’t even move, I just freeze. I have served this man in three different countries, and I still never understand how he always manages to find me. I have met him in my nightmares many times more too.

I manage to breathe slowly ‘What can I get you, sir?’ His mates laugh. ‘You sound like a fucking girl. I can’t hear you. Be a MAN.’ I repeat the question, to which they snigger again. ‘Look at you,’ he says, ‘you could have been so much better than this. Such a waste.’

‘Let me organise your water, gentlemen. Do you prefer still or sparkling?’ I fetch the water, sweat running down my spine, knees shaking. I recall past encounters with this suit, and they have always been ugly. I already know that this table will keep me occupied all night. I explain their menus as calmly as possible, looking down at the table, avoiding all eye contact, but I feel the burn of his stare. It’s a pure expression of untold rage. It is so intense I stumble on my words, and I repeat the special three times.

‘Look at our waiter!,’ he begins, ‘can’t even dictate a fucking menu. All dressed up with his mediocrity and still cannot do a waiter’s job. What a joke.’ I do not answer back. I already know what would happen if I do. I will get a verbal battering in front of everyone: this guy loves making a scene. He’s doing his utmost to reel me in. ‘This waiter is the ultimate personification of mediocrity.  The youngest in his family, and the least accomplished. He probably still pays rent, does not have a car, let alone a house. By his age I already had my first business, a wife, and my family was proud of me. Look at him, far from his country, just to be an ordinary mediocre waiter.’

His friends are looking at me amused. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ I do not answer. I just stand, barely existing, hardly conscious of what’s all around me. The man is pushing all my buttons, hoping I explode, or hoping I succumb. I do not. I just feel empty. ‘You’re working in my territory, boy’ he continues, ‘This is the world I live in. This is the world of the high fliers, and here you are watching it go by, watching what could have been. I hope your mother is proud. Go away and fetch us a bottle of claret’.

Shell-shocked, I find the sommelier, and send him over to the table. I just can’t deal with them anymore. The sommelier goes, and I watch the sudden gentle approach they all talk to him with, as though they’re a totally different bunch of people. The sommelier’s face lights up, and walks past me. They have, as I knew they would, bought the most expensive bottle of Bordeaux on the list.

I continue on, and the lovely couple I was talking to earlier on signal me over. ‘Are you okay dear? You look pale.’ I can’t expel a word out of my mouth, so I just nod feebly and make my way towards the back area. Shortly after the wine guy comes up to me with a glass of red in hand. ‘This is from table 15. He told you to taste what could have been. He said you’d understand. What is that about?’

I look at the glass of 1961 and hurl it against the wall…

At the end of their meal, I see them stand up, about to leave the restaurant. I courteously open the door for them, and the suits brush by. As my nemesis walks past me, I whisper ‘Goodbye, sir’ . He doesn’t look up, not even making eye contact. He just walks on. I gaze at them disappearing in the black of the cold night, hoping he’d turn around and smile, telling me it was all a joke, telling me its okay. I linger at the door, hoping he’d turn and smile at me. I stand there, hoping.

My own father does not look back to bid me goodnight.