Someone Else's Shoes(41)

She walks over, a little tentatively, and sits, still holding the steel tray to her chest. Aleks doesn’t speak again. He mixes something in a bowl, whisking with the speed and efficacy of someone for whom this is a daily task, the muscles clearly demarcated on his tattooed forearm. He chops herbs briskly with a sharp blade and tosses them in, then reaches over to the toaster and pulls out two perfectly done slices of toast, which he slathers in butter. He takes a plate from the low oven, his back to her, and rearranges something on it. Then he walks over, and hands her the plate. On it is eggs Benedict, crowned with glossy yellow Hollandaise sauce, on two pieces of lightly browned brioche.

“Eat,” he says, handing it to her, then turning to get her a napkin. He doesn’t wait for thanks, but walks quietly back to his work station, wiping it down with brisk strokes and clearing the pans, which he takes to the wash-up area. He is there, unseen for a few minutes, clattering pans and running water. He reappears as she is halfway through the second piece.

The eggs Benedict is the best she has ever eaten. She is weak with pleasure. She can’t even speak. She just looks up at him, still chewing, and he gives a small nod, as if in acknowledgment. “It is hard to be so angry if you have eaten good food,” he says.

And then he waits until she has finished and wordlessly takes the plate from her. He has turned and disappeared before she can speak again.





fifteen


Sam enters to find her mother and father on their hands and knees, surrounded by newspaper. Her father is putting his full weight on some kind of compression device, trying to squeeze water out of a rectangle of papier-m?ché gloop. Their living room has always been cluttered with books and piles of papers, every surface covered with items they insist cannot be moved as they know where everything is. But now her mother is feeding newspapers through a shredder in the corner, while her father sends jets of water running over the top of the old baby bath with every grunt and push. The whirring sound of the shredder means that they don’t hear her initially, and Sam picks her way over the piles of newspaper and stoops to wave in her father’s face. He is puce, and there are small pieces of paper in his hair. Hello, darling! he mouths.

Merryn stops the shredder mid-flow. “We’re making paper logs!” she announces, too loudly given there is no longer any sound in the room, bar the effortful noises of Sam’s father. “Your father saw a thing on YouTube. Saving the planet!”

“You’ve put the National Geographics in the wrong pile,” exclaims her father, breaking off to point.

“No, I haven’t, Tom. Those are over there because they contain the wrong chemicals. We’ll die in our beds if we use them, because of the gloss. And the chimney-sweep says it tars up the flue. Newspaper only. Tom, there’s too much moisture in that briquette. It will take years to dry out.”

“I know.”

“Well, push harder.”

“You push, if you’re so good at it.”

“I’ll make the tea,” says Sam, and picks her way across the living room to the kitchen.

For years she had been comforted by the ordered chaos of her parents’ kitchen, with its pinboards of Greenpeace stickers, its curling photographs of their younger days. Jars and spices jostled for space on the worktops where they had been pulled out and simply left. These days she notes the slackening standards of hygiene, spongy apples and day-old yogurts on the side. Each one is like a tolling bell, warning her of further responsibilities in days to come. They won’t contemplate a cleaner: it goes against their socialist beliefs. But they have no problem with Sam taking time out twice a week to come and clean up after them. She pulls on her mother’s rubber gloves and starts piling dirty crockery in the sink, listening vaguely to her parents bicker about briquettes.

I’ve pushed this one umpteen times. I don’t know where all the water is coming from.

“You didn’t fill the kettle all the way up, did you? It’s not ecological.” Her mother walks in, wiping her hands on her jeans. She is wearing a raspberry-colored jumper with a gray one over the top. Both have holes in the elbows through which Sam can see two small discs of pale skin.

“No, Mum. I measured out three mugs.”

“We’ve only managed two briquettes since lunchtime. How we’ll keep warm on this I have no idea. Honestly. The shed is so full of old newspaper I keep telling your father it’s a fire hazard.”

The irony is clearly lost on her. Sam washes up while her mother makes the tea and lifts the lids of various tins, letting out little ohs of disappointment when the expected cakes or biscuits fail to manifest themselves. From the other room they can hear occasional grunts or curses from Sam’s father as he attempts to compress the papier-m?ché bricks.

“How’s Phil?”

Never How are you? Sam thinks resentfully, and smothers the thought. It’s good that her parents care about Phil. Lots of people dislike their sons-in-law. She should be grateful.

“Um . . . much the same. Bit tired.”

“Has he got another job yet?”

“No, Mum. I’d tell you.”

“I called the other night. Did Cat say?”

“No. I’ve barely seen her.”

“Always working, that girl. She’ll go far. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about a television show we were watching. I can’t remember what it was now. What was it called . . . ? It was on the television. Oh, yes, she said you’d gone out drinking.”