Sweet Sorrow(36)

Instead we stuck with lager and straws, and played on the PlayStation, laughing and turning on each other like dogs in the park, and it was fun, I suppose. But I sometimes found myself trying to imagine a world in which friendship was expressed in some other way than belching in each other’s faces. I had no doubt that we were fond of each other, even loved each other, and I had my own personal reasons to feel loyal and grateful to Harper, who, during some of the recent disasters, had gone out of his way to look after me without appearing to do so.

But we always succumbed to the tyranny of banter, and a further tension came from what I suppose might be called ‘group dynamics’. Since the third year I’d considered Harper to be my best friend, and privately thought of the other two as our sidekicks, just as the other two thought of Harper as their best friend, the other two as sidekicks, and this jostling for favour gave a steel edge to every scuffle, particularly with Lloyd, mates despite not liking each other. Could I tell them about Fran? The Shakespeare thing made it tricky, and I’d either have to lie or present it as a joke, a scam on my part. I might feasibly be able to tell Harper, if I got him alone, but perhaps the harder question was could I imagine Fran in this room with my friends? It seemed unlikely, especially now that Harper was standing in the doorway with a bottle of vodka, a carton of juice and a strange, wheel-shaped object: twenty-four glass spice jars, Schwartz brand, hung by their necks from a notched wooden turntable. Harper gave the wheel a spin.

‘Gentlemen – it’s time.’

Time to play Spice Roulette, the Herb Hunter. Solemnly, we took our places in the circle, each with a teaspoon in hand, Fox the first to spin the rack, closing his eyes and muttering a prayer as the wheel slowed and slowed and came to a halt and he took the bottle nearest to hand and read the label.

‘Marjoram!’

One of the Italians, nice easy one to start; only parsley was more bland. He filled his spoon with the ancient, dusty flakes and we slapped the floor and cheered as he clamped the whole thing in his mouth, grimacing and chewing and then rinsing his mouth with the vodka and orange. ‘Just like pizza,’ he shrugged. My turn next and I watched the wheel click past tarragon, past basil, coriander, thyme, dill, chives, before coming to a stop at …

‘White peppercorns!’

‘Noooooo!’

And there was no escape as Harper tapped the little pellets out, taking care to pile them high in the spoon. The slapping on the floor began, the cheering and then they were in my mouth, gritty but not unpleasant, and I began to crunch and say, ‘No big deal,’ until 1, 2, 3, each crunched seed released an acrid vapour that scalded the insides of my nostrils and made my eyes stream with hot, viscous tears that temporarily blinded me, my mouth puckered so tight that I could barely gulp down the vodka and orange, which had no taste now, my mouth anaesthetised, blood pumping in my ears, and the music louder …

… and now I’m laughing and choking at the same time, throat burning as the gritty slurry makes its way down, some of it finding a home in the folds of my oesophagus. I cannot swallow or breathe or feel my tongue and Lloyd’s pointing and laughing harder than the rest, and I make a note that I’ll get back at Lloyd later.

Another spin and now The Prince. ‘Chives, chives, chives,’ he mutters, ‘make it chives,’ and perhaps it’s the vodka but the word ‘chives’ seems hysterically funny to me now, ‘chives, chives, chives’ but instead he gets … nutmeg, a mellow, regal spice, which he taps from the bottle into his hand, tosses into the air and catches like a peanut, crunching away, all smiles until he grimaces suddenly, sticks out his tongue, which is covered in mashed cork, and so he also gulps and gulps at the vodka until it’s gone.

And now it’s Lloyd’s turn. ‘Come on, come on, come on …’ he mutters, hoping for parsley, praying for mint …

‘Saffron! Yesss.’

We boo and jeer, because there’s something so insipid about saffron. ‘Saffron’s gay,’ says Fox as Lloyd places two or three red strands on his tongue and shrugs.

We play another round, drinking all the time. Fox gets another easy one, cumin. ‘Smells like armpits,’ he says and swallows it down. I get mint, which tastes of a greasy Sunday lunch and sucks all the moisture from my mouth, and I drain another glass of vodka and orange, mostly vodka thanks to Harper, who in turn gets cardamom, weird one, not unpleasant, the taste of the curry house. Could kill a curry now. Lloyd’s turn. Am pretty drunk so even watching the spinning rack makes me dizzy. It slows, the tension builds, we slap the floor, ‘Oooooooooh,’ and then hysteria, we’re all on our backs laughing because …

‘Cinnamon. Bastard cinnamon.’

Cinnamon is the monster, the killer, the anthrax of the spice rack and so Harper is careful to fill the spoon to overflowing and hand it solemnly to Lloyd, who looks at it with the concentration of a martial artist about to punch through a breeze-block. He centres himself, breathes in through his nose, breathes out in a series of short puffs. The spoon is in his hand …

… then in his mouth, and he turns the spoon over and withdraws it without breaking the seal, eyes wide, both hands on the top of his head, lips pouting. The seconds stretch and for a moment it seems that he might make it. But then his mouth explodes open as if blasted from the inside and a great cloud of red dust billows forth and we laugh more than we have ever laughed before, holding our stomachs, rolling on the floor and pointing as the brick dust fills the room, and he’s coughing and choking and spluttering for water, at which point we grab all the glasses and bottles, dodging out of the way as he doubles over, spluttering. I’ve a bottle of water in my hand and he gasps, ‘Give me that!’