Good Girl, Bad Girl(53)
Evie is sitting cross-legged on a stool like an Indian swami. I strike a match and light the burner, putting on the water to boil.
“You should learn how to cook while you’re here.”
“Why?”
“You’ll be able to look after yourself when you leave.”
“I can look after myself.”
There is another long silence. I dice onions and garlic, frying them in a heavy-based saucepan.
“If we’re going to live together, we should get to know each other,” I say. “Let’s start with simple things. My favorite song is ‘Things Have Changed’ by Bob Dylan. How about you?”
“?‘Goofy’s Concern.’?”
“Who plays that?”
“The Butthole Surfers.”
“Is that a real band?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t know if she’s being serious.
“My favorite color is dark blue,” I say. “How about you?”
“Black.”
“Technically that’s not a color.”
“Bite me.”
“Favorite film: The Shawshank Redemption.”
“I’ve seen that one,” says Evie.
“Did you like it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It gives you all the answers. Nothing is left to wonder about. There’s no ambiguity. It ends with happy people hugging on a beach. When does that ever fucking happen?”
“You don’t believe in happy endings?”
“Every ending is unhappy.”
“Why?”
“Because we die.”
“Ah, you’re a fatalist?”
“A what?”
“You think we have no power to influence the future and that everything we do is predetermined, or pointless, because our fate has already been decided.”
“No. I just know we’re going to die.”
I can’t argue with that.
Opening a tin of peeled tomatoes, I empty the contents into the saucepan, breaking them with a wooden spoon and adding torn fresh basil leaves, salt, and pepper. The water is boiling. I add the spaghetti and take a block of Parmesan from the fridge, setting it on a plate with a cheese grater.
“What’s your favorite film?” I ask.
“True Romance.”
“You like Tarantino?”
“Who?”
“Quentin Tarantino. He wrote True Romance.”
Evie looks at me blankly.
I change the subject. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Margherita pizza.”
“Dream holiday destination?”
“I’ve never had a holiday.”
“But you must have somewhere you’d like to go? Greece? Tahiti? America?”
Her face is a mask.
“How about your first memory? Mine is getting chased by this big-assed swan when I was feeding ducks with my mother. We were in Henley, near where they have the rowing races.”
“They race rowboats?”
“They’re a bit more sophisticated than rowboats.”
Evie looks past me. “My father once took me sailing,” she says, as though we’ve found a common interest. “He rented a boat and we sailed out past the pier and the bay, into the open sea. The wind picked up and so did the waves. I knew Dad was scared, but he didn’t want to show it.”
Evie grows animated as she describes the waves and the wind and water breaking over the bow.
“What happened?”
“We were rescued by a fishing boat and towed back to the pier.”
“Did you do a lot of sailing?”
“I don’t remember.”
This is progress, I think, as I drain the spaghetti in a colander and divide it into bowls. I start spooning sauce onto the pasta. It’s then I glimpse a postcard on the fridge. It shows a sailing boat, heeling sideways in the wind, water breaking over the bow.
“Was any of that story true?”
Evie doesn’t respond.
“You don’t have to lie to me.”
“You don’t have to keep asking me questions.”
We eat in silence. Evie watches me grate the cheese on my spaghetti. I push it towards her.
She sniffs the Parmesan. “Smells like sick.”
“It tastes better than it smells.”
She grates a little on her sauce. I watch her take the fork, fill it with pasta, and lift it to her mouth. She closes her eyes and chews, letting out a small moan.
“Good?”
She doesn’t respond and eats quickly, with one arm on the table, protecting her food like an inmate in a prison canteen.
“I’m going for a run in the morning, would you like to come?”
“Fitness shit. No.”
“You could look for a job. I could help you put together a CV.”
“What would I put on a CV?”
She’s right.
“Have you thought about going back to school?”
“It’s too late—I’ve missed too much.”
“How is your reading?”
“OK. I try to learn a new word every day. Today’s word is ‘curmudgeon.’ It means grumpy fucker.”