The joke wasn’t meant to get so out of hand, but ultimately, someone had to win. I suppose things changed when I wrote to his father. He said I crossed the line. Maybe I did. 

Where to start? At the beginning. 

I first met Jeff the Chef in December 1989.  

I was in my second year at college in London, studying politics and doing cash-in-hand catering work. It usually involved selling hot dogs at Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal on alternate Saturday afternoons, but a job had come up as a champagne waiter at advertising giants Saatchi and Saatchi’s Christmas party in Alexandra Palace.

Venues didn’t get much more fancy than Alexandra Palace, a massive grade II listed venue in between Muswell Hill and Wood Green with panoramic views of London, and those Saatchi brothers knew how to throw a party.  They recreated their Charlotte Street offices in the main hall – no expense spared – double-decker buses, trapeze acts, water fountains, Chinese dragons, the lot. It felt like the final hurrah from a decadent decade.  

I first saw Jeff in the grand entrance hall. He was a waiter too and, like me, was handing out Champagne to the arriving guests and glitterati. Also, like me, he had a ponytail. I felt a throb of envy at the length of his well-conditioned mane, easily tied back in contrast to my little stumpy one. But it would grow.

He was a good-looking guy, kind of Middle Eastern looking – big brown eyes. Everywhere I looked, he appeared, speaking to the other waiting staff and chatting up the guests. He was in his element. Eventually, briefly, we stood next to each other. My heart beat fast. I didn’t know why. He nodded a hello.

“Alright this, innit?” he said.

I nodded back, feeling shy. I was relatively new to London and on the lookout for friends. I envisaged forming a group like in the Brat Pack movie St Elmo’s Fire, but it hadn’t happened yet. But Jeff was a dead ringer for Judd Nelson, so he fit the mould perfectly. We chatted for a bit, but he was distracted like a dog on the scent of a new smell, and before I knew it, he was gone. 

As the last of the guests arrived, our job was to ensure the guests were fed and watered with canapés and bubbly. If a glass was empty, fill it. There were about 100 waiters, and out the back were crates and crates of Champagne – hundreds of bottles. We had been told in the strictest terms that any waiting staff caught drinking would be fired on the spot. This had fallen on deaf ears, and who would notice the odd glass of champers that went missing – one for you and when no one was looking one for me? Up the Revolution, brothers!  

Fast forward a few hours, and most of us waiters had cast aside our bow ties and were on the dance floor. I am throwing all my best moves – the moonwalk, the robot. What a party! What a night. What a job! I am holding a bottle of bubbly, which I pour liberally into fellow dancer’s mouths and my own. Ruby Turner is live on stage singing ‘Street Life’. I don’t care if I get fired. I spot Jeff on the dance floor leading a conga. I join in. 

After the party, Jeff and I found ourselves very drunk on a night bus heading to North West London. He lived in East Finchley with his dad, and I was down the road in a student flat in Golders Green. Also, by coincidence, we were at the same college. Although he was on a different campus studying accountancy, which was strange as I didn’t think accountants were allowed pony tails. 

 

*

 

Over the next year, Jeff and I served refreshments at various trade fairs, exhibitions and conferences. Jeff thrived in the world of hospitality. He loved  customer service and genuinely cared that there were enough doughnuts to go around.  For me, these were long and painful shifts to get some much-needed dosh, although our job at London Fashion Week was to look after the supermodels, which I enjoyed far more than serving stale muffins to tired and disgruntled pensioners. Jeff also joined me selling hot dogs at Spurs and Arsenal each Saturday, which meant we got to watch the games. Jeff supported Arsenal. I was transitioning from a Liverpool fan to Tottenham.  

Jeff was saving money for an around-the-world trip – USA, Australia and then India. My focus was on music and London was the place to be.  I had formed a band called the Pointy Birds with my flatmate Marcus, and we were learning how to become indie rockstars – going to gigs, strumming our guitars and growing our hair, which was nearly the right length. Besides, I would see these countries when we toured the world. 

One morning Jeff turned up at our flat. The front door lock was bust, so he let himself in. I was still in bed, my face buried in the pillow after a late night. I could hear him but not see him.

“Finbar, your front door is wide open.”

Jeff called me Finbar, as my middle name is Finlay. Must get that door fixed, I thought dreamily.

“You heard the news? Very sad day.”

I hadn’t.

“She’s gone.”

This piqued my interest.

“Who?”

“Our glorious leader, Maggie.”

I sat up. 

“Really?”

Jeff nodded. 

“I will miss her greatly.”

I fumbled for the remote control amongst the debris on the carpet – socks, half-drunk cups of tea, sherry bottles, spilt ashtrays.

“She is my MP,” said Jeff proudly. “Is she yours? Golders Green is part of Finchley, isn’t it?”

The TV clicked on. Images flashed on repeat of Margaret Thatcher coming down some steps in Paris, jostling journalists out of her way. I watched from under the duvet. Jeff looked out of the window at Golders Green High Street below.

“Ah, Finbar…” he said with a long, wistful sigh. He picked up my guitar and began strumming, not noticing that it was out of tune. I now couldn’t hear the telly. 

“So what, she resigned? Blimey.” I said, turning up the volume to drown out Jeff’s rendition of ‘Sunday Morning’ by The Bolshoi.

I banged the bedroom wall to inform my flatmate, fellow Pointy Bird and Labour activist Marcus. 

“Marcus, Marcus…you heard the news?”

“He’s not in,” says Jeff. “I just bumped into him on the way to work. Well, I assume he was going to work unless he wears that brown Sainsbury’s uniform for fun.”

“I wonder who will be the new PM?” I mused. “Got to be Heseltine.”

Jeff stopped strumming and put the guitar to one side. He looked me straight in the eye.

“Finbar, it doesn’t matter who is prime minister. Nothing will change.”

This annoyed me because he was probably right.

“Heseltine is the obvious candidate…” I said, trying to prove my political credentials. “Maybe there will be a snap election…”

Jeff’s mind was already elsewhere. 

“Right, Finbar, I’m off. I have to get my visas sorted. Only a few months until I go.”

Jeff left, but I was too distracted by events on TV as images of the wicked witch flicked before my eyes. 

 

**

 

And so began the Major Years. Seven more years of Conservative rule under John Major. These were the major years for us, too, as we graduated from college and began to pursue our respective dreams. I was going to become an indie rock star. Jeff left to go travelling around the world.  

I found a job in a Soho record shop mis-filing vinyl to pay the rent, and by night, The Pointy Birds rehearsed and played gigs on the Camden toilet circuit. We were on a mission to combine music and comedy and found a manager called Ricky, who found us funny. But I wasn’t sure if he was laughing with or at us. In the interim, we received postcards from Jeff in different parts of the world. He was having all sorts of crazy adventures and wild experiences that were hard to relate to life in London. 

A year passed, and one morning the doorbell rang at our flat. We still hadn’t fixed the front door, so I wandered to the top of the landing and shouted down the stairs.

“Come on up – it’s open.”

There was no reply.

I ran down the stairs and opened the door to be greeted by an Indian man with dreadlocks and a long beard. He was dressed in traditional Indian harem pants and carrying a sitar. He smiled and then bowed. 

“Dilli se Dilli mil gaya.”

I nodded hello.

He smiled and bowed again.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

The Indian man stared at me. I stared back. There was something strangely familiar about him.

“Finbar! It’s me.”

I recognised that voice. And there was only one person who called me Finbar. Jeff!

I narrowed my eyes and peered at the apparition. Was that really him behind all the hair?  

“Bloody hell. Jeff!”

He came in, propped his sitar in the corner of my bedroom and sat cross-legged on the floor. He seemed different, but I wasn’t sure in what way. He left the UK a doppelgänger for Terence Trent Derby in jeans and a leather jacket, but now he was much thinner, and there was a different kind of glint in his eye, more assured like he had seen and experienced things I hadn’t. The chorus to the Waterboys’ hit ‘Whole of the Moon’ came to mind. Had he seen the whole of the moon on his travels? And had I just seen ‘The Crescent’ while stuck in a grotty flat, a dark record shop and a smelly venue?

“So when did you get back?”

“Yesterday.”

“Wow! So what was it like? Was India a culture shock?”

“The culture shock is returning to the UK. Everything here is so grey. India is technicolour.”

Jeff began telling me his travel stories, but India had stolen his heart. He had spent quality time with various wise men at the top of multiple mountains and returned with a new mantra:

‘Heaven is Now.’

“People in the West needed to realise all this striving, yearning, and searching for meaning was pointless when the answer is under our noses.”

I nodded.

“Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water.”

I nodded again. Jeff had been on quite the spiritual journey. 

He had also learnt some Hindi.

“Dilli se Dilli mil gaya.”

It was the chorus from a famous Hindi pop song meaning ‘One day our hearts will meet’. The Indian equivalent of ‘I Should Be So Lucky’.

I laughed.

“So what’s been happening in your world Finbar?”

I told him about the imminent rock’ n’ roll world domination with The Pointy Birds. Jeff nodded his head serenely.

“I wish you luck in chasing these egotistical and materialistic dreams, but you do realise that heaven is now?”

I could see how immersing yourself in the joy of the present was a seductive vision. But having no fear of the future or regrets about the past might be easier to do in a Himalayan retreat than on the tube during rush hour. Jeff, undeterred and armed with his three-word design for life, had decided to ditch the financial security of a career in accountancy against the strict wishes of his father and instead follow his heart and pursue a career in catering. He had found himself in India and was now re-born as Jeff the Chef. 

 

***

 

A few months after Jeff’s return, in the summer of 1993, we gave notice of our flat in Golders Green. The Pointy Birds had failed to sign on the dotted line, and after a final gig to eight people at Boston Arms in Tufnell Park, we called it a day. Marcus moved back to Coventry to do an MA, and our manager Ricky moved on to write a sitcom about paper merchants. I still hadn’t given up the rockstar dream, so Jeff and I moved to Camden. I would lick my wounds and form a new band. 

We found a flat on the ground floor of a large Victorian building on the intersection of Delancey Street and Mornington Terrace – a stone’s throw from all the excitement Camden and central London had to offer. For me the timing was perfect as Britpop was about to explode right on our doorstep.  And for Jeff, he was a short bus or tube ride from the many West End restaurants where he could learn his new trade.

It was fun living with Jeff. We shared a sense of humour and a love of practical jokes, so our relationship became that of Inspector Clouseau and Kaito in the Pink Panther films.  I never knew if he might spring out from a cupboard and it was not uncommon to find a fisheye in my bed or open the fridge to be met by a live lobster. I retaliated by putting a copy of the Yellow Pages at the bottom of his already heavy bag containing all his kitchen knives. It was a continual source of amusement to me that every time he picked up his bag, he said,

 “Oh, you heavy fucker.”  

One afternoon, I was helping Jeff install a fish tank in his bedroom. He then plopped a blue tropical fish in the water. I sat on his bed to watch it swim about. It looked cool. Meanwhile, Jeff began decluttering his room, and while going through old boxes, he threw something at me. It was a small piece of material.

“Here you go, Finbar.”

“What’s this?”

“My old Kippah.”

I recognised it as one of the skull caps some Jewish people wore in the area.

“This yours?” I asked.

“It was. I used to wear it as a kid.  Before I became lapsed. I tried bacon in the kitchen yesterday.  There’s no coming back for me.  Anyway, it’s a very precious object with huge sentimental value. I want you to have it.”

I laughed. I was unsure what use I would have for his old skull cap.

“You can think of me every time you wear it, Finbar.”

I put it on my head. I wasn’t religious but felt slightly transgressive, like peeing in a pew.

“It suits you, Finbar. Keep it.”

“Thanks, Jeff, but I will decline this kind offer.”

I threw it back at him and went to make a cup of tea. 

That night, I felt something under my pillow. It was his skull cap. I laughed to myself, and the next day, when he was out, I put it inside one of his socks in his underwear drawer. Weeks later, I was putting on a shirt and felt something lodged in the sleeve. I turned it inside out to find the skull cap. We had entered a silent war of attrition. I would need to get creative.  

This kippah exchange continued for months but was never spoken of. I would plant the skull cap in a packet of breakfast cereal and snigger to myself, only to discover it had been planted back on me a few days later. Finally, I found a hiding place that was so good I couldn’t remember it myself. Or maybe he had concealed about my person, and I had yet to find it. 

One morning, a large box arrived at the flat addressed to me. I unpacked to find another box inside and then another small box inside that. What on earth was this? The boxes kept getting smaller, but eventually, in the last box was a tiny parcel wrapped in fancy pink paper with a ribbon and a bow. I unwrapped it, and inside was Jeff’s skull cap.  

I had to give him credit. It was ingenious.  

I racked my brain. How could I trump this? I needed to think outside the box. I got some paper and a pen and began to write a letter.

Dear Father

Please find enclosed my kippah. I have decided to renounce my Jewish religion.

Lots of love

Your loving son

 Jeff x

I then popped the letter in the post with the skull cap and sent it to Jeff’s dad. I knew Jeff’s dad had a good sense of humour. He rang the flat most days, and we enjoyed discussing the Tottenham-Arsenal rivalry. Like Jeff, he was a massive gooner. 

This was checkmate, and I would surely claim the spoils, of which there were none.

A few days passed, and then Jeff rang. He was at his dads. 

“You crossed the line Finbar.”

He sounded serious.

“Father is furious.”

“What?” I said, immediately regretting my move. 

“You can’t do that.”

Jeff hung up.

Had I crossed the line? Jeff was genuinely upset. I waited for him to get home and then heard the front door slam.  Followed by another slam of his bedroom door. Jeff rarely shut his bedroom door unless he was entertaining. I knocked, but there was no answer.

I opened the door. Jeff was lying on his bed, staring at his blue tropical fish. It had some wasting disease and was missing a fin. 

“Not happy, Finbar.”

I didn’t say anything. 

“I just spent the whole afternoon trying to explain.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”

That was the end of the skull cap game.  

We didn’t mention it again. 

 

****

 

A couple of years passed and life continued in Camden, but in the summer of ’96, with Britpop on its way out and the fickle finger of fame stubbornly refusing to point in my direction, I realised my indie rockstar career was not to be. It was time to hang up the plectrum. I needed to pack away all the demos – the DATs, cassettes, 4-track recordings, and 2-inch reels that spanned 15 years of different musical incarnations. Twenty songs, two albums worth, plus b-sides representing ten years of blood, sweat, tears, hopes and dreams.

I found a shoebox, and everything fit perfectly inside. As I closed the cardboard box flaps, I felt a strange sense of relief – the start of something new. But it was mixed with sadness that these songs were not destined to be played on the radio, requested at a wedding reception, or sung back at me live on stage. As I sealed the lid with masking tape on this treasure trove of precious tones, I also knew I would see these tapes again someday. We would meet again. It wasn’t goodbye, just au revoir. They’d settle like a fine wine. 

In the meantime, I started putting on gigs and managing bands instead. Poacher turned gamekeeper.  I was crossing the Rubicon from an artist to a salesman. I would live the dream vicariously through more talented others.

Meanwhile, Jeff was experiencing a similar fate. He was working hard in various kitchens in the West End but was becoming disillusioned about life as a chef. Having sharp knives thrown at him by chefs like Gordon Ramsey for not slicing onions perfectly was something of a kitchen nightmare. Being a chef was like being in the military. The mentality was work hard, play hard. Long shifts in a hot kitchen would be followed by long shifts clubbing. 

One evening, I found Jeff lying on his bed knackered after a long shift in the kitchen and then an even longer shift at Trade, a nightclub that opened at 4am. He was watching TV and using a bamboo cane to change channels. He looked exhausted and hadn’t noticed the channel he had selected wasn’t tuned in properly.  Or maybe he didn’t care.

“How’s it going, Jefferson” I said.

“Ah Finbar…”

Jeff sighed but didn’t finish his sentence.

He stared blankly at the pixelated picture on the TV.

“I’m beginning to think Heaven is not now.”

I nodded and looked at Jeff’s fish tank. The blue tropical fish was now just an eyeball and a tail. Remarkably it was still alive. 

“I think that water needs changing.”

Jeff nodded

“I don’t want to still be in this flat in 5 years.”

I nodded. Granted, the flat needed a good scrub. We had an infestation of insects, and the two stoners upstairs had lost their pet snake. I was sure I had heard it hissing under my bed. I would be happy to still be in this flat in five years. I was in London; for me, London was the best city in the world – an unconquerable playground. 

For Jeff, India was calling.

The end of Jeff’s tenure in Camden coincided with the general election in the spring of 1997. A new kid on the block called Tony Blair led a revitalised New Labour Party with a set of ‘third-way’ policies resonating with the public. Some on the left saw this move to the centre as the Tories in disguise, but it was maybe more accurate to say they were a Social Democratic Party. They were also helped by the adage that oppositions don’t win elections; governments lose. 18 years of Tory sleaze and people needed a change

My old flatmate and ex-Pointy Bird Marcus had returned to London from Coventry and was campaigning hard for New Labour, knocking on doors to canvas votes. On election night, he invited us to Camden Palace, where the Camden Labour Party would watch the results and celebrate. Jeff was ambivalent about party politics but loved a party, and this was final hurrah to say goodbye before he set off on his travels once more.

On a big screen, we watched the UK map turn from blue to red as Tory MPs lost their seats in a near-total wipeout—the night’s biggest cheer was for Stephen Twig’s understated eye roll as Michael Portillo lost his seat. Meanwhile, Jeff flounced around the venue in leather hot pants, a whip and a Tory rosette, confusing the Labour rank and file and embarrassing Marcus.

A new dawn had broken, but for Jeff the Chef, the sun had set, and it was time to go. 

 

*****

 

After that, I didn’t see much of Jeff. Our lives took different paths.  We entered a new millennium and our thirties.  Jeff returned and was living in Watford while working in IT.  Jeff the Chef was no more.  We shared the occasional phone call, email or coffee to reminisce about our student days or North London’s greatest rivalry, although in 2004, when Arsenal ‘Invincibles’ team won the league without losing a game, I didn’t answer the phone if Jeff rang. 

I eventually left the flat in Delancey Street in 1999 and moved to a flat near Camden Square, a quieter, more leafy part of town where you could hear birds sing and cats meow. I was still a music promoter and now married to Sarah with kids on the way.  One afternoon, I found my old shoebox full of old demos. I blew off the dust and spent a guilty but enjoyable hour looking through and listening to some of the old tapes. I noticed a piece of fabric wedged inside one of the tapes and, to my utter amazement and amusement, discovered it to be that of Jeff’s skull cap.

I was shocked. It was also like seeing a long-lost friend, and memories flooded back. My instinct was to ring Jeff and scream.

“You bastard!” 

For years, I had carried guilt about sending the cap to his father. Now it was clear that Jeff had played a blinder, triple-bluffing me. It also meant that it was still game on. Or maybe it was time to concede defeat. Jeff had won. How could I get it back to him anyway? We no longer lived together. I smiled and chucked it back in my underwear drawer. The irony is that I wanted to keep the hat now. 

Another decade passed too quickly, and in 2014, Jeff rang.

“Finbar. Sad news.”  

I knew his father had not been well.

“So sorry to hear this, Jeff. I was very fond of your dad.”

“We are hosting a shiva at my brother’s house. If you want to come along.”

“Sure thing.”

“Come tomorrow evening. You will be the only non-Jew. Don’t embarrass me.”

I put the phone down, feeling sad, but I looked forward to seeing Jeff. It had been years. 

A shiva was a Jewish open house period of mourning for friends and family to gather. I wasn’t sure of the details and what to wear but the next evening I drove up through Highgate and across the north circular, recalling memories of Jeff’s dad. He rang the old flat daily, and I’d fail to convince him that Spurs were better than Arsenal – the atmosphere at White hart Lane, the teams attacking philosophy and the genius of Paul Gascoigne.  In contrast defensive Arsenal always scraped a boring one nil win.  Jeff and his father wouldn’t have it. 

I parked outside the house and rang the bell.  Jeff opened the door. In keeping with the Shiva tradition, his shirt pocket was ripped, and he hadn’t shaved. Although the hair on the top of his head was still dark, his beard was silver. I couldn’t help but compare this apparition with the younger version I had met 25 years ago at Ally Pally, and no doubt he was doing the same to me—an audit of how we were ageing. We always had our younger selves to compete against. We both now had short hair, greying at the temples. Weight added. We were middle-aged. But in my pocket, I carried a connection to our past. 

“Welcome, Finbar. Thanks for coming.”

“Sorry for your loss, Jeff.” 

I handed him a bottle of wine. Jeff shook his head. 

“Typical goy, you don’t bring wine to a shiva.”

“I also brought this.”

I produced the skull cap from my pocket and placed it on my head. Jeff’s nostrils flared in amused recognition.

“Suits you, Finbar.” 

“Call it a draw?”

“A draw it is.”