Page 22 of One Bed

Bea watched as Gib picked up a chicken leg and bit into it. Three sets of eyes were on him as he chewed, then swallowed.

‘No big deal,’ he said. He took another bite, his teeth sinking into the red, crispy skin. Bea watched as he turned white, then red, then white again. And there it was…

‘Feeling the burn, Gib?’ she asked, her tone super sweet.

He looked down at his plate and droplets of sweat appeared on his forehead. ‘Holy hell,’ he croaked.

‘It gets better the more you eat,’ Reena told him, her mouth full. No. It didn’t. Eating more of it was like shoving the red-hot end of a poker into your eye after accidentally burning your leg with it.

Gib, because he was a man and had more pride than sense, went in for another bite. He chewed, swallowed, reached for his glass of wine, and downed it in one. ‘Shit,’ he rasped, staring at his plate, wild-eyed.

‘Good, right?’ Reena said, pleased. Bea considered telling her that it wasn’t a compliment, but stayed silent and spread butter on her bread.

Golly reached for a wing and took a small, delicate bite. ‘Jesus, Reena, you could sell that to a warlord as a chemical weapon!’

‘It’s notthatbad,’ Reena protested.

‘I think I’m dying,’ Gib croaked. Bea filled up his wine glass and pushed it into his hand. He downed it and placed his head in his hands.

‘Are you OK, Gib?’ Bea asked, now a little anxious.

He was changing colours again, like an over-anxious chameleon. Red, then white, then a pastel-vomit colour, and back to white. She was fascinated and more than a little worried. That wasn’t normal, right?

Bea stood and walked over to the counter and pulled a teaspoon out of the cutlery drawer. Reaching for the honey, courtesy of a hive on a neighbour’s property, she opened the jar as she walked back to the table. She twisted honey around the spoon and handed it to Gib. His eyes now looked like the badly congested roads on a satnav map.

Oh, dear. Gib ate the honey and eventually nodded. Few people knew honey was one of the best remedies for chilli, one she’d discovered a few years ago when Reena put too many ghost peppers in a gumbo dish.

‘Do you know that the Caroline Reaper is no longer the hottest chilli?’ Reena asked, ignoring Gib’s reaction. ‘The new kid on the block is called Pepper X and it’s nearly five hundred thousand Scoville units hotter than the Carolina Reaper.’

‘And I have every one of those units blistering my tongue right now,’ Gib croaked, laying his cheek on the cool table.

‘My chilli doesn’t even register on the Scoville scale,’ Reena cheerfully told him.

Oh, it most definitely did.

‘It tastes likepain, Reena,’ Gib told her. Bea was happy to see that his colour was stabilising. Now he was simply pale. And perspiration still dotted his forehead. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s given me brain damage.’

Reena rolled her eyes. ‘Stop being dramatic, it wasn’t that bad.’

It was that bad. Gib reached for the honey and took another spoonful. ‘I once heard a guy describing his experience with hot food as feeling like someone had put a grenade in his mouth and pulled the pin. That’s where I am right now.’

Reena patted him on the head. ‘You’ll soon get used to it.’

‘I really won’t,’ Gib assured her. ‘Mostly because I’m pretty sure you destroyed every one of my tastebuds.’

Reena frowned at him. ‘But you said you could handle chilli, Gib.’

Gib frowned at her. ‘Normal chilli, not something that can burn holes through titanium!’ he protested.

Reena dished up another helping of chicken and tucked into her food. Now that she knew Gib wasn’t dying, Bea felt like she could finish her salad sandwich. She gestured to the fruit bowl, piled high with oranges, grenadillas, and ripe, round peaches. ‘There’s fruit if you’re still hungry,’ she told him as he pushed his plate away. ‘Or salad. Cold meats in the fridge.’

Gib helped himself to another teaspoon of honey. ‘Jesus, that was intense,’ he told them, while massaging his throat.

He reached for a peach from the bowl in the centre of the table, and looked at it, debating whether he was up to eating or not.

‘So, are you coming to my cocktail party tonight?’ Golly asked him.

He cut the peach with a sharp knife Reena handed him. After popping a piece into his mouth, he cocked his head, his face still pale. ‘What’s the occasion?’ he asked.

---