She heaves her bags through the door and sees Tabitha in the sitting room with her feet up, reading the newspaper. When Precious left earlier this morning, Tabitha was cleaning.
“Oh good,” Tabitha says when she sees Precious. “I was just about to get up and pop the kettle on, but now you can do it.”
“Charming.”
Precious goes through to the kitchen with her bags. She unpacks the items, first onto the counter and then into the cupboard and the fridge, setting aside the ingredients for the curry. She puts the kettle on, takes Tabitha’s favorite cup from the cupboard, and throws in a black teabag.
“Do you want to help me cook?” Precious calls from the kitchen.
“Not really,” replies Tabitha, but soon afterwards she pops her head around the door, then comes in and leans against the countertop.
Precious is peeling the pineapple. The handle of a squat knife rests in her hand. The blade teases apart the spines and thick, woody rind from the golden flesh, and juice oozes all along the knife, onto her hand, onto the chopping board below.
“You know they eat you as you eat them?”
“Excuse me?”
“Pineapples digest you as you digest them. Only more slowly, so you win. When you put a piece of pineapple in your mouth it starts to digest your tongue and cheeks and gums. It’ll even take the enamel off your teeth. It’s got some sort of chemical or enzyme in or something. And then when it’s in your stomach it starts to digest your stomach too, only the acid in your stomach is stronger so works faster than the pineapple does. And you win.”
Precious does not look up. “A sobering tale.”
Precious and Tabitha eat their lunch at the table in the kitchen, while watching a daytime cookery competition on the small television fitted to the wall. They argue about which of them would do better if they were contestants on the show.
“I hate to say it, Tab, but your presentation would let you down. I love your food, you know that. You’re a great cook, but on this show you need to be all fancy.”
“No, no,” replies Tabitha. “All the fancy stuff develops gradually. At first I’d wow them with big, bold flavors and then I’d later learn how to do all the fiddly bits. They’d love me. You, on the other hand, you’re too inconsistent. No offense. I mean, sometimes your food is absolute knock-out—loads better than mine. Then at other times, I don’t know, you just lose concentration or something and bam, you’ve overcooked the veg and burnt the fish. Now don’t argue with me—you know what I mean.”
“Oh really? Enjoying your lunch, are you?”
“It’s absolutely delicious. Thank you very much for making it.”
Precious flutters her eyelashes and tucks into her rice.
After a while Precious hears a scuffling sound coming from the bathroom. “Is someone in there?” she asks Tabitha. She gets up to go and look.
“Now, Precious, love, before you get angry …”
“Oh, it’s not …”
“Well, it might be.”
“Oh, you didn’t!”
“I might have.”
Precious swings open the bathroom door.
“Oh, for god’s sake,” she says.
Inside, there is a man on his hands and knees, scrubbing the floor with a bright blue toothbrush. He stops work when Precious opens the door and he looks up, eagerly, hungrily.
“Miles!” Precious exclaims, exasperated.
“I’m sorry,” says Miles from his position on the floor. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, love. It’s this one who should be sorry.” Precious waves an arm in Tabitha’s direction.
“He was begging me to let him,” Tabitha explains. “And, well, it needed doing so I thought, why not? It allowed me to get on with some other stuff.”
Miles is still on his hands and knees, apologizing, spraying detergent, scrubbing the bathroom tiles with the toothbrush.
“If you’re worried it’s exploitative, I’ve asked around and everyone I spoke to said if it’s what he wants then there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“It’s not that,” Precious replies. “I couldn’t care less if we’re exploiting him, it’s just it’s my day off.”
“But that’s the beauty of it, you see. You don’t have to do anything at all. You can just sit around and Miles is paying us and the flat is getting cleaned at the same time.”
“But I can’t relax knowing there’s a client …”
“But he’s not a client, though.”
“But there’s still some bloke through there doing god knows what.”
“He’s just cleaning,” says Tabitha.
“Yeah but if he gets off on it, what else is he doing?”
“I’ve told him: any hanky-panky and he can fuck off.”
“I bet he loved that.”
“He did actually.”
In Disguise
Lorenzo returns home from the audition to find Robert sitting on the step that marks the entrance to their block of flats. Robert holds his head in his hands, which are marked with uneven cuts, thick with clotted blood and mild infection. There are two empty cans of lager next to him. One is crumpled and partially ripped, exposing a sharp metallic edge. The other holds its shape but lies on its side and slides back and forth as the breeze funnels inside it and pulls it this way and that.
“Where the hell have you been?” Lorenzo asks Robert. “I’ve not seen you in weeks.”
Robert looks up at his friend then returns his head to his hands.
“Jesus Christ,” says Lorenzo. He looks at the empty cans again. “You’ve started early,” he observes.
Lorenzo leans down and takes hold of Robert’s upper arms and tries to ease him into a standing position. Robert is a much bigger man than he is, and he is unable to lift him.
“I’ll get up if you take me to the pub,” says Robert.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. How about we go up to mine and have a cup of tea. I’ll make you a bacon sandwich.”
“Nope,” says Robert. “I’d rather stay here. Pub or nothing.”
Lorenzo checks his watch. The Aphra Behn will only just be open. He knows it”s not the best plan, but he hates it when busybodies withhold alcohol
