The Last Service
by Beatrice · 18 June 2026 · Biography & Memoir
Beatrice's last service — an ordinary Tuesday. Chicken with tarragon, gratin, tarte tatin. She cooks what she knows. Cleans down as always, turns off lights as always. She expected to feel something particular. She feels tired. That seemed about right.
My last service was a Tuesday in June 2021. Not a special day — I'd chosen a Tuesday deliberately because Tuesdays are quieter and I didn't want a ceremony. I told my staff the week before. I asked them not to make a fuss.
On the hob that evening: chicken with tarragon, a gratin dauphinois, a tarte tatin in the oven. The same dishes I had made hundreds of times. I had considered cooking something new, something I'd never attempted, as a kind of marker. I didn't. In the end I wanted to finish with things I knew.
The last table left at half past ten. I cleaned down as I always did, turned off the lights in the order I always turned them off, locked the door. I had expected to feel something particular. What I felt was tired, which is what I always felt on a Tuesday evening. I walked home the same way I had walked home for forty years. The city was quiet. That seemed about right.
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