Page 58 of The One Plus One
‘You must be able to think of something.’
‘Okay, why are you wearing flip-flops?’
‘That’s your question?’
‘It’s freezing out. It’s been the coldest, wettest spring since records began. And you’re wearing flip-flops.’
‘Does it bug you that much?’
‘I just don’t understand it. You’re obviously cold.’
She pointed a toe. ‘It’s spring.’
‘So?’
‘So. It’s spring. Therefore the weather will get better.’
‘You’re wearing flip-flops as an expression of faith.’
‘If you like.’
He couldn’t think how to reply to this.
‘Okay, my turn.’
He waited.
‘Did you think about driving off and leaving us this morning?’
‘No.’
‘Liar.’
‘Okay. Maybe a bit. Your neighbour wanted to smash my head in with a baseball bat and your dog smells really bad.’
‘Pfft. Any excuse.’
He heard her shift in the seat. Her feet disappeared under the duvet. He could smell her shampoo. It made him think of Bounty bars.
‘So why didn’t you?’
He thought for a minute before he responded. Perhaps it was because he couldn’t see her face. Perhaps it was because some time between the third and fourth glass he had decided she was okay. Perhaps the drink and the late hour had lowered his defences because he wouldn’t normally have answered like he did. ‘Because I’ve done some stupid stuff lately. And maybe some part of me just wanted to do something I could feel good about.’
Ed thought she was going to say something. He sort of hoped she would. But she didn’t.
He lay there for a few minutes, gazing out at the sodium lights and listening to Jessica Rae Thomas’s breathing and thought how much he missed just sleeping near another person. Most days he felt like the loneliest man on the planet. He thought about those tiny feet and their highly polished toenails. Then he saw his sister’s raised eyebrow and realized he had probably had too much to drink. Don’t be an idiot, Nicholls, he told himself, and turned so that he had his back to her.
Ed Nicholls thought about his ex-wife and Deanna Lewis until the soft, melancholy thoughts evaporatedand only the stone-hard anger remained. And then suddenly it was cold and pale grey outside and his left arm had gone to sleep and he was so groggy that it took two whole minutes to figure out that the banging he could hear was the security guard knocking on the driver’s window to tell them they couldn’t sleep there.
14.
Tanzie
There were four different types of Danish pastry at the breakfast buffet, and three different types of fruit juice and a whole rack of those little individual packets of cereal that Mum said were uneconomical and would never buy. She had knocked on the window at a quarter past eight to tell them they should wear their jackets to breakfast and stuff as many of each of them as they could into their pockets. Her hair had flattened on one side and she had no makeup on. Tanzie guessed the car hadn’t been that much of an adventure after all.
‘Not the butters or jams. Or anything that needs cutlery. Rolls, muffins, that kind of thing. Don’t get caught.’ She looked behind her to where Mr Nicholls seemed to be having an argument with a security guard. ‘And apples. Apples are healthy. And maybe some slices of ham for Norman.’
‘Where am I meant to put the ham?’
