the middle distance. ‘My side-light’s gone. I’m gonna have to tell Doug. He’ll blow.’
‘What happened?’
‘I dunno. Some guy pulled out and I didn’t see him. Halfway to Southend. I was too uptight, too stressed. Just stupid. It’s been churning in my stomach all the way home. Third claim in two months. Here’s the paper,’ she slung me a copy of the Guardian, ‘that’s all they had left at the services.’
‘Anything in it?’
‘Nah.’
I rolled up the paper and stuck it in my back pocket, then said, ‘We’re having a meeting in a minute, in the kitchen. D’you need a hand unloading?’
‘Nope. I’ll be fine. Better start without me.’
‘Why?’
‘Doug’ll blow when I tell him about the bump I had. I can’t face it right now.’
‘D’you want me to tell him?’
She climbed out of her cab. ‘Would you? If the moment’s right? If he’s in a good mood. Don’t mention it otherwise.’
‘Fine.’
‘Would you?’
‘Sure.’
‘Thanks. You’re a gem.’
She rolled up her sleeves and went to let down the truck’s tail.
Ray was in the kitchen devouring a packet of ginger-nuts. He offered me the packet.
‘No thanks. Seen Doug?’
‘He’s on the phone.’
I started preparing a pot of tea. Saleem appeared in the doorway, That’ s fine, Ray, those are mine but just help yourself.’
‘Sorry.’ He put down the biscuits and furtively brushed some crumbs from his beard.
‘Let me do that.’ Saleem pushed past me and picked up the teapot, took off the lid and peered inside. ‘Doug never rinses this properly.’
I took the paper from my pocket, opened it, held it high and started turning the pages. On the third page, in the Reuters column, two small items had been outlined in blue ink. I peered more closely at them. The first had the heading THUMB SALAD. It said:
A nurse who found the tip of a thumb in a take-away salad was awarded £200 compensation. Rebecca Pothecary, who bought the food from Anthony’s Take-Away on Tottenham Street, central London, ‘felt something resist her bite’, Clerkenwell magistrates were told. The sandwich bar was ordered to pay £600 in fines and costs for breaching health regulations.
Outside my paper-wall I could hear Ray reaching quietly again, gently, for the ginger-nuts; the crackle of the packet, his fingers prodding inside, his nail catching the rim of a biscuit and easing it out. Saleem had her back to him, engrossed in the task of filling the kettle, fitting on its lid. I heard the water slosh inside it.
The second item in the paper, underlined, directly below the first, had the headline, 1OO-DAY PROTEST. It said:
Peter Hawes yesterday spent his 100th day welded inside his roadside café. Mr Hawes, 48, is fighting a government decision to close down the lay-by at Guyhirn in Cambridgeshire, where he has cooked for travellers for years.
Ray had the ginger-nut between his teeth now, bit down softly. I heard the sugar snap and then an unobtrusive crunching, a short silence, another snap, more crunching. Saleem pushed the kettle’s plug into the wall and then turned on the power switch. I waited to hear the water in the kettle starting to gurgle, I waited for Saleem to notice Ray’s chewing, I waited for Ray to gag and swallow, but all I heard, suddenly, was silence, like each sound had been extracted, sucked out, expunged. I tried to turn a page of my paper but it didn’t move. My eyes focused in front of me, on the words felt something resist her bite, the words felt something resist, the words felt . . . resist the word felt felt . . . felt. Doug was standing in the doorway. Doug was standing next to me.
‘Phil.’
Feel. All the sounds returned in a rush. At once. Doug was standing there and he was smaller than I’d remembered and he had his hands in his pockets and he was smiling.
‘If this is our meeting,’ Doug said, ‘our business meeting, then what is she doing in here?’
Doug tipped his head towards Saleem. Saleem bridled, ‘Aren’t I even allowed in my own kitchen now?’
Doug continued to smile. ‘This is not your kitchen, Saleem. It is our kitchen. This house belongs to the business. You used to work here, yes. You used to have some right to live in this place. When you were a curator. But now the museum is gone, you have no function. You stay here on sufferance, you have stayed here for years, on sufferance, because you have one leg and you lost the other one in a fire, and I feel sorry for you and Ray feels sorry for you and Phil, too, feels sorry for you. But this is not your kitchen. This is our kitchen and we let you borrow it. And you should remember that fact. Now would you get out, please.’
‘Fuck you, Doug,’ Saleem said, calmly. ‘D’you know what a grenadilla is?’ she asked, not sounding in the least bit ruffled.
‘I know what a grenadilla is, yes.’
‘I gave my own flesh for this place,’ she whispered. ‘What can you give?’
Doug said nothing. He watched her and then he said, ‘Go away. ‘
Saleem laughed. I moved the paper up closer to my face as she swung past me. ‘And what’re you doing?’ she asked, saucily. ‘Eating that thing?’ Close up she smelled like a bunch of watercress. A peppery smell. I folded the paper, my face tingling. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she added, ‘I’ll borrow that.’
She snatched the paper and swung out.
Doug filled the kitchen. Ray’s fatter - twice as fat - and I’m big enough and hairy enough, but Doug has personality. Doug has backbone, is a true vertebrate. Ray and I are rheumy, watery creatures that ride the wave s but Doug’s already clambered on shore.
‘Where’s Nancy?’ Doug asked.
‘I dunno. Phil?’ Ray looked to me.
‘Outside. Unloading.’
Doug leaned against the sink. ‘Nancy’s got to go, ‘ he said, i just got a call from our insurance. She had another accident this morning. Almost killed two people. Her fault.’
Ray and I stared at each other.
‘We can’t afford the insurance premiums any more,’ Doug said. ‘They keep on going up and up. It’s out of control. We’ve got to tidy this stuff away. Nothing will work until we tidy this stuff away. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘And just hear this,’ he added, warming to his subject now. ‘She only went and contacted the insurance people from the services on her way back and said she’d pay the difference herself and something extra if they didn’t
