Page 106 of The One Plus One
‘I’m not sure I’ve got enough cash on me,’ Ed said.
She gazed at him impassively.
‘You don’t take cards?’
‘’S what the sign says.’
‘Well…do you not have a manual card machine?’
‘Most people round here pay cash,’ she said. Her expression said it was obvious that he was not from around here.
‘Okay. Where’s the nearest cash machine?’
‘Carlisle.’
He thought she was joking. She wasn’t.
‘If you haven’t got the money you’ll have to put the food back.’
‘I’ve got the money. Just give me a minute.’
He dug around in his pockets, ignoring the barely suppressed sighs and rolled eyes from those behind himand by some miracle from his inside jacket pocket and the bottom of his wallet he was able to scrape up cash for everything bar the onion bhajis. He counted it all out and she raised her eyebrows ostentatiously as she rang it up, and shoved the bhajis to one side, where they would doubtless be shoved back into a chiller cabinet some time later. Ed, in turn, shoved it all into a carrier bag that would give way even before he reached the car, and tried not to think about his mother.
He was cooking when Jess limped downstairs. At least, he had two plastic trays rotating noisily in the microwave, which was about as far as he had ever immersed himself in the culinary arts. She was wearing a towelling bathrobe and had her hair wrapped in a white bath-towel turban. He had never understood how women did that. His ex had done it too. He used to wonder if it was something women got taught, like periods and hand-washing. Her bare face was oddly beautiful.
‘Here.’ Ed held out a glass of wine.
She took it from him as if she barely noticed. He had started a fire, and she sat down in front of the flames, apparently still lost in her thoughts. He handed her the frozen peas for her foot, then busied himself with the rest of the microwave meals, following the instructions on the packaging.
‘I texted Nicky,’ he told her, as he stabbed the plastic film with a fork. ‘Just to tell him where we were staying.’
She took another sip of her wine. ‘Was he okay?’
‘He was fine. They were just about to eat.’ She flinched slightly as he said this, and Ed immediately regretted planting that little domestic tableau in her imagination. ‘How’s your foot?’
‘Hurts.’
She took a huge swig of her wine and he saw she’d downed a glass already. She got up, wincing, so that the peas fell onto the floor and poured herself another. Then, as if she’d just remembered something, she reached into the pocket of the robe, before holding up a little clear plastic bag.
‘Nicky’s stash,’ she said. ‘I decided this qualified as an appropriate moment for appropriating his drugs.’
She said it almost defiantly, waiting for him to contradict her. When he didn’t, she pulled out Nicky’s papers and dragged a tourist guide from the glass coffee-table onto her lap, where she proceeded to roll a haphazard joint. She lit it, and inhaled deeply. She tried to smother a cough, then inhaled again. Her towel turban had started to slide and, irritated, she tugged it off, so that it was just her wet hair around her shoulders. She inhaled again, closed her eyes, and held it out towards him.
‘Is that what I could smell when I came in?’
She opened one eye. ‘You think I’m a disgrace.’
‘No. I think one of us should be in a state to drive, just in case Tanzie wants picking up.’
Her eyes widened.
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Really. You go ahead. I think…you need…’
‘A new life? To pull myself together? A good seeing-to?’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘Oh, no. I forgot. I can’t even do that right.’
‘Jess…’
She raised a hand. ‘Sorry. Okay. Let’s eat.’
