‘Guess what?’ Billie shouts enthusiastically. ‘We flew first class.’
‘What?’
‘Yep, we arrived at economy check-in and we were bumped up to first class. Both your mum and me!’
‘How can that be?’
‘Must be banker boy. They said it was all arranged and paid for.’
Lana is speechless. Could it really have been Blake who paid the difference? But he didn’t even know which flight they were on.
‘Anyway,’ Billie says, ‘it was bloody brilliant. They called us by name and acted like we were celebrities or something. I drank nearly two bottles of champagne, and your mum got to sleep most of the way.’
‘How is my mum?’
‘She’s here. I’ll put her on.’
‘Hello, Lana,’ her mother says. She looks so white and fragile that Lana almost bursts into tears. When the call is over Lana lies on the bed and wonders why Blake did that.
He is a strange man. So cold and distant sometimes and so incredibly kind and generous at other times.
At seven o’clock, Blake arrives. She runs out to meet him at the front door.
‘Did you pay for my mum and Billie to fly first class?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
He shrugs. ‘I liked your mother,’ he says shortly, and sends Lana into the Jacuzzi bath.
‘Dinner is at seven thirty sharp,’ he says. ‘Don’t come out before.’
She climbs into it and closes her eyes. It is heaven. She has bought Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and puts it on the corner ledge. Blake comes in with a glass of red wine.
‘To get you in the mood,’ he says.
‘This is not in the scene, but impressive improvisation,’
she says as she accepts it.
She takes a sip and opens her book. Fifteen minutes later, she smells it. Burning. Before she can wrap herself in the toweling robe, the fire alarms go off. She rushes to the kitchen dripping soapsuds.
Blake has opened all the windows, and is standing on a chair waving a magazine at the smoke detector in the corridor. His hair is slightly wet, he is wearing a black shirt with two buttons undone and a pair of stone washed jeans.#p#分页标题#e#
He is also barefoot. She begins to laugh.
‘Did you burn the salad?’ she shouts, above the racket.
He scowls down at her.
She goes into the kitchen and sees the blackened pieces of meat. She bins them. Shaking her head, she pops a piece of tomato from the salad into her mouth, and immediately spits it out. Salty. The salad goes the way of the steaks. The alarm finally stops blaring. She looks up and he is standing at the doorway.
‘You’ve never cooked, have you?’
‘No,’ he confesses. ‘Do you want to go out?’
‘No. Why don’t we just have some chip butties?’
‘Chip butties?’
‘Oh. My. God. You’ve never had a chip butty? You don’t know what you’re missing. You have to have one.’
‘OK.’
‘Let me get ready and I’ll pop over to the shop and get the ingredients.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ he offers.
They walk together to the local fish and chip shop where she orders a big bag of chips.
‘No fish?’
‘No fish. Now we need to go into the corner shop for some bread.’
‘Don’t we have some back at the flat?’
‘Nah. We’ve got the good stuff back there. This is poor people’s food. For this we need a loaf of cheap, white bread.’
She picks out a loaf of sliced white bread and Blake pays for it.
‘That’s it,’ she says.
‘Are those all the ingredients you need for our meal?’
‘The rest we have at home,’ she says, and with horror realizes what she has said. She has called the flat home.
But he says nothing. She hopes he has not noticed.
In the kitchen, Blake sits on the counter and watches her liberally butter four slices of bread, load two up with chips, squirt tomato ketchup in a zigzag pattern over them, sprinkle salt, and close them into two chunky sandwiches.
‘Voilà. The famous chip butty.’
‘That’s it?’
She pushes a plate towards him. ‘Taste it.’
He eyes it without desire.
‘Go on. I tasted caviar for you.’
‘That’s true.’ He takes a tiny bite and begins to chew cautiously.
‘No, no, that’s not how you eat it. You have to attack it. Like this.’ She opens her mouth and takes a huge bite.
He follows suit. It is strange watching him eat with such abandon.
‘Well?’ she demands.
‘Not bad actually. Kind of satisfying.’
‘This is what a lot of kids on the estate live on most of the time.’