24
Con tugged at the tail of the pale blue and white checked lawn cotton shirt that hung from underneath the beige merino jumper he was wearing over it. He glanced down at his narrow black jeans and pointy leather shoes. The whole outfit had set him back £150. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to spend any more money on clothes, that he was saving all his money for his private pilot’s licence. But then his salary had been paid into his account and he’d hit Covent Garden with his Switch card on Saturday and blown half of it, just like that.
He’d bought a scarf, too. Thin, like a tie. He’d seen a picture of Brad Pitt wearing one in one of his mum’s celebrity magazines, but he wasn’t sure about it now. The blokes in the post room had looked at him a bit funny when he walked in this morning, so he’d whipped it off and stuffed it in his pocket. But here, upstairs, it was different. Upstairs you fitted in by looking different, by looking as if you didn’t know that Brent Cross existed. He pulled the scarf from his pocket and wound it round his neck. Then he pushed open the doors to the Vogue fashion department and tried to look cool, calm and collected.
Daisy was walking urgently towards him, a knitted bag slung diagonally across her chest, dressed in a grey coat and scarf.
‘Oh, hi,’ he said. ‘Where’re you going?’
She smiled at him, then grabbed his sleeve, pulling him out of the doorway and into the hall. ‘I’m bunking off,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve just told them my aunt’s dead.’
He raised his eyebrows at her.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t actually have an aunt, so I’m not hexing anyone. I’m just so bored. I had to get out of there.’
Con had never skived off a day’s work in his life and felt slightly shocked. ‘So what are you going to do?’
She shrugged and stabbed at the lift button with her thumb. ‘Haven’t decided yet. Was thinking I might just go home.’
‘Seems a waste,’ he said.
‘Why – what would you do if your aunt hadn’t really just died?’
‘I dunno. Probably wouldn’t just go home, though.’
‘Hmmm.’ She furrowed her eyebrows together. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should be more imaginative. I know!’ she said. ‘I know exactly what we should do.’
‘We?’
‘Yes. Let’s go to Borough Market and buy loads of yummy food.’
‘But I can’t skive off.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘Well, what will I tell them?’
‘Tell them your aunt’s dead.’
‘Well, tell them your friend’s really upset because her aunt’s dead and you have to look after her.’
‘What! No way. That’s what girls do.’
‘God, I don’t know, then. Tell them you feel sick.’
Daisy rubbed some lip balm over his forehead and Con told his boss that he’d just thrown up. Five minutes later he met Daisy round the corner on Bruton Street and they scurried away together towards Oxford Circus, sniggering like the schoolchildren they’d only just ceased to be.
Borough Market was another world. Con had barely set foot in a supermarket in his life, let alone a food market. Con really wasn’t a food person. He had very little interest in it beyond how cheap it was and how filling it was. It helped if it tasted good which was why he liked McDonald’s. It always hit the spot. He tried not to eat crisps and sweets because his nan had always told him that if he was hungry he should eat something proper. She’d got too ill to cook for him in the end; that was when he’d started with the McDonald’s. He couldn’t handle watching her shuffling painfully round the kitchen, so he’d turned to Ronald to sustain him.
Con knew it was crap, the stuff he put into his body, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about it. His skin was good; his hair was good; he was in good shape. He’d worry about it if he started getting fat. Food was fuel, stomach lining, alcohol absorber – that was all.
But Daisy obviously thought differently.
She was dashing round this place like it was a half-price designer sample sale. She caressed jars of gooey brown onions and misshapen hunks of bread. She sniffed at wedges of pungent cheese and lumpy phalluses of cured meat. She sampled shards of fudge and oily olives. She moved from stand to stand like a distracted dog, handing over crumpled five-pound notes and arming herself with more and more droopy plastic bags.
‘Do you like gravadlax?’ she said at one point, pushing some hair out of her face with a fistful of carrier bags.
‘Grava-what?’
‘Gravadlax. It’s salmon, cured with dill.’
‘What’s dill?’
‘It’s a herb.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘What’s it like?’
‘It’s a bit like smoked salmon,’ she said, ‘but not so salty.’
He shrugged. He’d heard of smoked salmon, but he’d never eaten it. ‘I’m not really into fish,’ he said.
‘Well,’ she said decisively, handing over another five-pound note, ‘then you’ll like this. It’s not really like fish. It’s more like … ham.’
She bought huge cheese straws and slivers of rustcoloured salami, cylinders of chalky cheese and a box of large eggs the colour of clouds. Feeling guilty that Daisy was spending all her money on food that he probably wouldn’t even like, Con slipped away for a minute to find a bottle of wine.
‘What’re you having it with?’ said a man in a striped linen shirt.
‘Chicken? Fish? Spicy? Rich?’
‘I don’t know. There was some fish and some oysters and some olives and stuff.’
‘Sounds good,’ he smiled. ‘How about a bottle of Pouilly Fuisse?’
Con parted with a twenty-pound note with a gulp and took the tissue-wrapped bottle from the man. ‘Make sure it’s cold,’ he said. ‘But not too cold. OK?’
He found Daisy tasting organic chocolate. ‘Open,’ she said, guiding a piece towards his mouth.
He put up his hand. ‘Erm, no thanks, I don’t really like chocolate.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, the piece of chocolate still hovering round his lips. ‘Everyone likes chocolate. Now, open up.’
He parted his lips and felt her fingers brush against his mouth.
‘Now,’ she said, watching him with excitement, ‘tell me that that isn’t the best chocolate you’ve ever tasted in your life?’
He closed his mouth over the chocolate and let it melt under his teeth. His first instinct was to spit it out. It tasted like mud. But as it worked its way over his tongue and through his teeth it suddenly occurred to him that it tasted not just like chocolate, but like chocolate multiplied by a hundred.
‘That’s really good,’ he said.
‘See,’ she nodded, ‘I told you. I’ll get you some.’
Daisy’s house looked like a normal house, shrunk down. It had a door on the front, and two windows, and that was it. The front door opened directly into a tiny living room with a tiny sofa and an armchair in it. At the back was a kitchen built into a conservatory that led onto a garden the size of a bus shelter. But it was all very smart, all very modern. The walls were painted a muted shade of coffee, the TV was a brand-new widescreen, the curtains looked expensive and the kitchen was fitted with slate grey tongue-and-groove units lit by halogen spotlights. Through the garden doors, Con could see a chrome patio heater and tropical plants in cobalt blue pots.
‘Nice house,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Small but perfectly formed.’ She sounded slightly breathless and broke into a rattling cough.
‘Are you OK?’
‘What?’ she said. ‘Oh, the cough. It’s nothing. Just a bit of a chesty thing.’
‘Is that your sister?’ he picked up a framed photo of a biscuity-blonde girl who looked like Daisy, but fatter.
‘Yup, that’s Mimi.’ She dropped her carrier bags on to a small antique pine table in the kitchen and started unpacking them. ‘And that’s James, sitting behind her.’
‘Her boyfriend?’
‘That’s right. Her boyfriend. My landlord. Lovely, lovely James.’
‘They look nice,’ he said, putting it back. And they did look nice. Nice and boring.
He wandered back into the kitchen where Daisy was chopping lemons into quarters. The drizzle outside had turned into heavy rain and the glass of the built-on kitchen started to steam up. The table was starting to resemble one of the food stands at Borough Market. There was a silver tray piled high with crushed ice and murky oysters, dishes layered with meats and cheeses, and tumbling bunches of bloomy grapes. ‘Have an olive,’ said Daisy. ‘They’re delicious.’ He peered into a bowl and considered what he saw. Olives, in his experience, were small, black, wrinkly and sat on top of pizzas. They were not dark green, the size of walnuts and swimming in khaki oil with red bits in. He thought about popping one into his mouth, but then he tried to imagine what he would do if it tasted as bad as it looked. He might be sick. Or spit it all out down the front of his new merino sweater. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘I’m not really into olives.’
She turned then and appraised him. ‘Do you actually like any food?’ she asked teasingly.
He shrugged. He’d been rumbled. ‘I like some food. Just not …’ –he glanced at the table – ‘you know?’
‘Olives, chocolate and fish?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But you like cheese?’
‘Yeah, I don’t mind cheese.’ He smiled.
‘And salami?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
‘And bread?’
‘I love bread.’
‘What about bread with olives in it?’
She laughed. ‘So – what do you eat, then? What’s your favourite food?’
‘McDonald’s.’
‘No!’ her eyes widened.
‘Yeah. I love McDonald’s. Really, really love it.’
‘But why?’
‘I dunno. It just tastes good.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘Well, it tastes good for the thirty seconds it takes to eat it, then it’s all over.’
‘Yeah, I know, but it’s good while it lasts.’
‘But apart from McDonald’s. What else do you like?’
He shrugged. ‘Curry, sometimes. Chinese. A good fry-up.’
‘Oh, God.’ She placed her hands against her collarbones. ‘This is fate! You’ve been sent to me for a reason. I have to re-educate your palate. Now eat one of these olives immediately!’ She slid it between his lips before he had a chance to protest and suddenly he found himself chewing on something with the texture of old prunes and the flavour of rancid dog food. He gagged on the thing, but kept chewing. His teeth hit something hard in the middle, like a bullet, but he kept chewing. Daisy stared at him expectantly. Eventually some other flavours started to break through – pepper, tuna, cheese, salt – and, by the time he finished chewing, he was on the cusp of enjoying it. He swallowed and beamed at Daisy triumphantly.
‘Where’s the stone?’ said Daisy.
‘What, the hard thing in the middle?’
‘Yes, the hard thing in the middle.’
He shrugged. ‘Swallowed it.’
She brought her hands to her mouth and stifled a laugh. ‘You didn’t?!’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t I supposed to?’
‘No. You’re supposed to spit it out.’
‘What? Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, shit. Is it bad for me?’
‘No,’ she shook her head, smiling. ‘I don’t think so. You might end up with a little olive tree growing in there, though.’ She pointed at his belly.
He glanced down, then up, and smiled. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I reckon if I can eat an olive stone and not notice, then I’ll probably be all right with the rest of this stuff.’ He gestured at the table. ‘Bring it on.’
For the next two hours, Con did something he’d never done before. He dined. He feasted. He repasted. He lingered over his food. And even though not everything was to his liking (particularly the goat’s cheese, which tasted to him like something you might find underneath your toenails), he enjoyed the majority of it. But mainly what he enjoyed was sitting at a table, under opaque, steamy glass, sensing the slow slide of the sun behind the terraces, drinking perfectly chilled white wine and listening to Daisy talk.
Everything about Daisy intoxicated him, from the breathy way she said ‘fuck’ like it was a term of endearment, to the way she sucked her fingers one by one after eating anything oily. He loved the way she had an opinion on everything, from feet (‘Disgusting, but not as disgusting as tongues. Have you ever actually looked at a tongue?’) to Sicily (‘My favourite place in the universe, except my parents’ house.’) to dogs (‘Once you’ve looked into the eyes of a Pyrenean mountain dog, you’re ruined. You’ll spend the rest of your life pining for one.’).
‘Tell me something really interesting about yourself,’ she said, pouring coffee from a cafetière into two white cups.
‘Really interesting?’
‘Yes. Something mind-blowing.’
‘Shit,’ he said, rubbing his chin. ‘Why?’
‘Because there’s something really mysterious about you and I want to know what it is.’
He nodded at her slowly. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Well, after my mum went off to Turkey last year, I lost the flat and had nowhere to live. So I slept on the street. In a shop doorway. For two weeks.’
‘What – you ?’
‘Yes.’
‘God, I just can’t imagine that. You’re so … immaculate.’
‘Immaculate?’
‘Yes, your hair and your clothes. Not a crease or a smudge. You smell of Persil. You look as if you’ve just stepped off the pages of a catalogue. I mean, how was it? Was it awful? Did you wash?’
‘Yes, I washed. Even changed my underwear. It wasn’t that bad. I was still coming into work every day.’
‘Did you beg?’
He laughed again. ‘No! I was still earning a salary! It was only a fortnight.’
‘God, though. How terrible. The thought of not being able to get into a lovely warm bed at the end of the night. Not to be able to turn off the light and roll onto your side and feel all safe and secure. Awful.’
He shrugged again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what about you? Tell me something about yourself that’s going to blow me away.’
She squeezed her eyes closed briefly, then opened them. ‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you want to know? It’s a total downer.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I want to know.’
‘Well, there’s this thing about me and I don’t usually tell anyone about it, but I’m telling you because … I don’t know. I’ve got this feeling about you …’ She stopped for a second and glanced at him. ‘There’s this thing, this condition, with my lungs. They make too much of this mucousy stuff and I have to take all these pills and do all this massage so that my airways don’t get blocked up. But I’m also more prone to infections and stuff. It basically turns you into a complete wuss, this condition. I once spent a week in hospital with a cold. All wired up. Life and death. Pathetic.’
Con stared at her for a moment, not knowing what to say.
‘I told you it was a downer.’
‘No. I don’t feel ill. But then, I’ve had this all my life, so I don’t really know what it’s like to feel healthy.’
‘What’s it called, then, this condition?’
‘It’s called cystic fibrosis.’
‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that.’
‘Yes. I have a very famous condition. A celebrity condition, in fact. My condition gets invited to film premieres every night.’
‘Sorry, I …’
‘No, I wasn’t being facetious. I’m not sensitive about it. It’s just the way it is. And who cares about a silly old condition anyway, frankly? Life is for living. And eating. And drinking. Talking of which,’ she grinned, ‘shall I open another bottle of wine?’
Con nodded and watched as she took a bottle from the fridge. Her smallness, her translucence, took on a new and unsettling significance in light of what she’d just told him. The milky alabaster of her skin had a hint of blue underlying it and her fine hair looked fragile and brittle. She wasn’t a fairy or a nymph. She wasn’t a Condé Nast flibbertigibbet. She was ill. Seriously ill.
Con took a deep breath and tried not to ask her if she was ever going to get better.