Page 24 of A Long Way Back
“Please,” Ink added. “I don’t want to get something wrong and piss you off even more than you’re currently pissed off, which looks to be about level six on the pissed-off scale of one to ten.”
And just like that, Tay was no longer in a bad mood. “I order food online every ten days or so. My mum has just stocked the fridge and cupboards, so I don’t need to put an order in until sometime next week. I eat most things, just not anchovies, tomatoes, or kippers. I don’t like broccoli or cauliflower.”
“I saw chicken in the fridge. How about chicken and salad for dinner?”
“Fine.”
“I can…eat with you, yeah?”
Tay shrugged. He wasn’t going to force him.
“I’m finding my way by fingertips, right? I don’t know if you want me sitting at attention in my room waiting for you to ring a bell, or whether you want me around to fork food into your mouth, or to watch TV with you, or just to talk to you, or to annoy you.”
“I don’t have a bell.”
“Want me to buy one?”
“I can phone you.”
“Or shout.”
Tay huffed.
“What time do you get up?”
“When I feel like it.”
“And go to bed?”
“Ditto. I don’t need that sort of personal help.”
“So when do you need help?”
Tay sighed. “To get meals ready, to make a drink, to tidy my bed, to do my laundry—though my mother has just done that, to just be there if I do need help. I often get bad headaches and need to lie down. I guess you were told I don’t like to be touched.”
“Not just no shaking hands then?”
“No.”
“So I shouldn’t catch you if you’re about to fall over?”
Tay sucked in his cheeks.
“Or wash your back in the shower?”
He wasn’t answering that.
“What the hell did the physios do? Wave their hands over you and mutter incantations?”
“I bit down on a piece of wood and thought of England.”
Ink smiled. “Right. Do you have a job?”
“No, I laze about all day watching porn.”
Ink laughed.
“I’m a part-time forensic accountant.”
