Enver sat in the kitchen with Alison Vickery. Her cooking was every bit as good to taste as to smell. A while ago he had started to feel major guilt pangs about eating so much and mentioned this to Alison. She was one of those people who he met occasionally that he just clicked with. Like the missing piece of a particularly irregular cut in a jigsaw. She rolled her eyes impatiently.
‘Shut up, Enver,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with a healthy appetite.’
Enver had taken his jacket off and Alison Vickery could see his powerful ridged pectoral and shoulder muscles; she could guess at the iron-hard sinew beneath the skin.
‘You’ve got a lovely body,’ she said to him. She meant it. ‘I’m overweight.’ said Enver gloomily. ‘I eat too much.’
Sex was off the agenda, but Alison was one of those women that he felt an affinity with. Usually he was very shy with women, but not with her.
‘Well, you’re not size zero, that’s for sure. But if girls want to date Mo Farrah, they’ll hang around more athletics meetings,’ said Alison. ‘You look pretty good to me. Now, have you got any more questions?’
He looked round the sizeable kitchen for inspiration. He didn’t want this moment to end. He felt at ease in his skin.
The room was functional. She hadn’t tried to turn it into a farmhouse kitchen, or a Sunday-supplement version of one. Enver knew that Huss’s mother’s kitchen, which was a real farmhouse kitchen, was full of dog baskets, bits of machinery like distributor caps, Defra correspondence and tools. It drove Huss mad.
Only Alison’s utility room, seen through an open door, showed any signs of non-culinary activity. On top of the cupboards above a double sink, and extending to some ancillary shelving, were various industry awards that had been presented to her over the years, old framed photos, cups for netball and ice skating that she’d won, and even a stylized John Travolta in his trademark pose out of Saturday Night Fever. Things she didn’t want to throw away, but equally didn’t want to display. Enver was terrible at dancing. He thought he probably looked like a tormented bear. On the dance floor he felt like everyone
was pointing at him and sniggering.
‘So, you dance as well,’ he said aimlessly, looking at the dance trophy.
‘Oh, that,’ said Alison. ‘That’s not mine, that belongs to my ex. He loves dancing. It’s an obsession.’