Page 25 of Textbook Romance

I smile. Back when the twins were very little and owing to quite sad circumstances, I lived with Dom for a bit. We had no effing idea what we were doing but we thought as long as we knew how to cook a decent bolognese sauce then we’d survive. I swear they now eat it at least once a week. He refers back to his list, chucking things into his trolley. The way he holds his phone, I’m getting a wonderful view of the supermarket ceiling and as before, the insides of his nostrils. ‘How are you? Sorry about the boys. Were you in the middle of something?’

‘Nothing. Just got in from school actually.’

‘Oh god, yes. First day. How was it?’

‘Interesting. You good? The boys back today?’

‘No. I have two more days for my sins… Boys, why on earth do we need that much Weetabix? Are we feeding another family?’ I see him wave his arms around, not quite telling his twins off but standing there in disbelief.

‘It’s all fibre, Dom.’

‘Yeah, Dom,’ Barney says playfully, and I laugh.

‘Jack, I have to deal with these two hooligans.’

‘Hooligans?’ I hear a ten-year-old voice protest.

‘Text me the highlights of today. Come round for tea,’ he tells me hurriedly. I salute him and hang up. Highlights? Well, there was chicken. I open up my messages to see if Zoe has replied. Still nothing. Double damn.

‘Mr Damon, good evening to you…’ The back door to the kitchen opens, the lights flash on and in steps Frank, one of my housemates, carrying a strange selection of Tupperware. Frank works in town, in IT, which means we have excellent Wi-Fi connection, and I think the printer we own as a household may be stolen. Frank only left home a year ago and his mother still worries about him, so he often appears with a week’s worth of meals that she has prepared for him, so he won’t waste away. Her legendary over-catering means that we all share in these gifts, and I tell you, the lady can do extraordinary things with rice. Frank likes a sensible coat and haircut, and knows the maths to split bills in the right way.

‘Francisco. I see your Ma has been busy?’

‘Indeed, she made that glutinous rice for you again,’ he says, unloading the boxes onto the table and into the freezer. They’re all labelled immaculately. ‘She also thanks you for soaking her Tupperware.’

‘Well, I’m glad my skills have been noticed.’

‘I hate that she likes you. Possibly more than me.’

‘Not hard, mate,’ I joke but his mum bought me an expensive bottle of Johnnie Walker for my birthday, and I know for a fact that she only gave her son socks. It was like some sort of dowry for taking in her son.

Frank pulls up a chair at our very wonky kitchen table, the legs made even with coasters and old flyers. This is the style of our kitchen – everything has been fixed and made liveable through gaffer tape and our very mediocre DIY skills. Every night we say a prayer for the fridge that was last checked electrically in 2015. Frank doesn’t tell his mother this.

‘Why were you sitting in the dark?’ Frank asks me, leaning back and grabbing a fork from one of our drawers.

‘Oh, I was contemplating something.’

‘Is it the teaching? How did your first day go? I told you the kids would be wild and unforgiving,’ he says. He did tell me that. I sometimes go to the corner shop with Frank and if groups of kids walk in, he always looks terrified and dodges them in the aisles, hiding behind the beer fridges.

‘Not that. Still finding my feet. I think the kids like me, but I also think they like the fact that I’m a sub.’

To be honest, I hadn’t really thought too much about the teaching. I’d taught English before in Italy on what was meant to be a sun-kissed, post-uni trip where I imagined myself staying in a villa and riding my bike around long stretches of sandy roads with a linen shirt half undone. I never fulfilled that fantasy. Instead, I got stuck in a two-bed flat in Naples with a landlord called Mario who was an actual plumber, I shit you not. In comparison, the students I had back then were also a bit more willing to learn. Two of the classes I stood in front of today looked like they’d rather be anywhere else. There were a lot of paper airplanes, people secretly playing Candy Crush and one girl who stood up and started to French braid her mate’s hair.

‘We were horrific to the subs,’ Frank tells me. ‘We locked one in a stationery cupboard once and the rumour was it started the onset of her alopecia. I’ve always felt awful about that,’ he adds, wistfully.

‘Not you, Frank,’ I say in shock.

‘I was a bad boy once upon a time,’ he jokes. He looks at me carefully. ‘Normally by this point, you’ve started to help yourself to my food – I thought you liked my mum’s noodles?’

‘I’ve eaten. I had a Nando’s.’

‘Like a welcome meal?’ he asks.

‘Sort of…’ Maybe that’s all it was. Just two people eating chicken, me acting as some sort of dining companion and her welcoming a new colleague into the fold. I shouldn’t read too much into things. Like when we said goodbye and she reached out and touched my arm. That was her just being nice; she does that. It’s just an arm. It was just chicken. With a really nice, attractive person who gets my jokes.

Frank puts on the kettle and scrambles around looking for a clean teaspoon. In the meantime, the back door opens again to reveal our third housemate, the one who completes the holy trifecta in this house. ‘Gentlemen! I have returned.’ Ben and I used to work in Zara together back when he was balancing out being a TV extra. He now works in television production with a sister who’s a low-level celebrity chef, so he keeps us stocked in cookbooks and regales us in stories of the Z-list celebrities he’s encountered. He inhales deeply. ‘Frank, did your mum fry us spring rolls?’

‘Yes, she did,’ Frank says, pushing a Tupperware in his direction.

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