Hard Tail(37)

Jay was staring at me like I'd announced my intention to start dressing in rabbit skins and living wild in the forest.

"What?" I asked.

"This isn't some kind of midlife crisis, is it?"

Not him as well. "I'm twenty-eight, Jay. I'm three years younger than you are."

"Yeah, but you've been living life in the fast lane, haven't you?"

"The fast lane? I'm an accountant from Mill Hill, for God's sake."

"Yeah, but you work in the City. Did work, anyway. And I know you; you never eat properly. Physiologically speaking, you're probably nearer forty."

My jaw dropped-and Olivia glided in just in time to see me standing there like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel. Mum followed in her wake, looking as though she was seething over something and would erupt any minute like the apocalypse kicking off.

Olivia gave me a cool smile. "Hello, Tim. Have you given any thought to what I said?"

It was too much. No way was I staying there to be humiliated while Olivia shared the tale of my greying pubes. I squared my shoulders, gathered my dignity-and slunk out of there like a weasel who'd been caught pushing dodgy carrots to little baby bunnies.

***

By the time I got home, all enthusiasm for going up to Mill Hill that evening had fled. I could live without the rest of my stuff for a little while longer. Actually, to be honest, I could probably live without most of it indefinitely. My clothes were all wrong for down here, Jay had duplicates of most of the decent stuff in my CD collection and as I wasn't planning to enter any tournaments down here, my sparring mitts and pads wouldn't be required.

I wondered if Kate had any plans for the household stuff. Most of it had been wedding gifts from elderly relatives; the kitchen stuff in particular had hardly been used. Was it a bit late now to return the stuff to the original givers? Of course, some of the crumblier great-aunts and uncles had died since then …  I thought guiltily of Auntie Pat and her matched set of copper-bottomed pans. Maybe I should have put in a bit more effort to learn how to use them?

Stung by Jay's comments about my diet, I'd popped into Asda on the way back and bought some healthy stuff from their Good For You range, but it was still ready meals. I had a nasty suspicion they still wouldn't be a patch on cooking stuff from scratch.

After all, millions of people cooked food every day-how hard could it be? Feeling inspired, I grabbed one of Jay's cookbooks from the kitchen shelf and flicked through until I found a recipe for something I recognised. Lasagna. That was just pasta, and pasta was easy, right? Trying not to be put off by the list of ingredients longer than my small intestine, I scanned the instructions. Chop onions …  I could do that. Brown mince … trickier but manageable. Probably. Make a roux in the usual way …  I sighed, shut the book with a snap and went off to make dinner in my usual way: pierce film; bung in microwave; wait for bell.





Chapter Ten




Wednesday morning was, if possible, even quieter than a week ago. Odd to think I'd been here only a week; I already felt like my old life in London had just been an unusually long and, frankly, uninteresting dream.

I felt a twinge of guilt at dismissing all my years of marriage this way. But it was only a small twinge, and I seemed to recover from it rather quickly.

Matt seemed a bit distracted-or maybe he just hadn't slept well. Thinking of what he might have been doing instead, I realised from the ache in my jaw I was grinding my teeth. Coffee. I needed coffee. If nothing else, it'd give me something to do with my mouth that wouldn't involve an expensive trip to the dentist.




 

 

We-that is, Jay and Matt-kept a small kettle in the back room, together with a jar of Nescafé (Matt) and some dodgy-smelling teabags (Jay). "Fancy a brew?" I asked Matt, interrupting him as he wrote up a repairs invoice in his messy-yet-legible hand.

"Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks. Coffee for me, please," he added as usual. I wasn't sure if it was natural diffidence making him doubt I'd remember his beverage of choice, or if he did occasionally come over all masochistic and have some of Jay's herbal tisane. I wasn't even sure tisane was a word; I certainly wasn't going trust it as a drink.

"Okay. Do you mind if I … ?" I waved the coffee jar in Matt's direction. "Sorry-I keep forgetting to bring in a jar of my own."

"Nah, don't be daft. You're welcome to mine," Matt insisted. He still seemed a little subdued, and I noticed, when I handed him his coffee, that he drank it carefully out of the less swollen side of his mouth.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah!" Matt stared into his mug. "'M fine."

"I mean, if you wanted to nip down to the chemist's and get something to put on that, or some painkillers, that'd be fine."