Page 27 of The Price of Love
‘Great thinkers never sleep.’
‘Do they drink tea?’ I brandished a mug.
‘All the time. Noted for it. No milk, two sugars and I could slaughter a piece of toast.’
‘Bread. Toaster. Butter. Marmalade. Teapot.’ I pointed as I spoke, my arm jerking randomly around the kitchen. ‘I’m going to get dressed.’
By the time I came back down, wearing my best goat-proof clothing, Cal had made a stack of toast, which leaned dangerously over the edge of the plate, defying gravity only through the adhesive powers of marmalade.
And then he ate it. All of it. I watched, with my jaw becoming more and more slack, until the final crust was chewed and swallowed, and he noticed me.
‘What?’
‘Where the hell do you put it all? You’re . . . I mean, you should weigh about forty stone! How can you eat so much and be so, well, sort of shapely?’
‘Genuinely interested, or is this a women’s comment type thing?’
‘No, I really want to know. I mean, do you have worms or something?’ I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs and unthinkingly poured tea into another mug, holding it at arm’s length just in time for Flint’s entrance into the kitchen. Cal glanced at Flint and carried on talking to me.
‘I am, in reality, incredibly fat. I have an enormous pleat which runs down my spine. Observe how I never walkawayfrom people, only towards them. This is to prevent them noticing that said pleat stretches into Lancashire.’
Flint, decidedly less deific at this time in the morning, looked puzzled. ‘Who the hell are you?’ And then, a misplaced sense of realisation dawned. ‘Oh, right. You’re, um, with Willow, yes?’
I broke the embarrassed silence by dropping Cal’s toast plate into the sink. ‘This is Cal. He’s a friend of Ash’s.’
‘Oh. Is Ash back then?’
‘Er, no.’ I grabbed a jacket from the back of the kitchen door. It didn’t look very goat-resistant, but I wanted to get out of there before Flint really got started. ‘See you later, Flint, okay?’ I hustled Cal, as swiftly as he would let himself be hustled, to the front door.
‘And Flint is, what?’ Cal stopped on the doorstep, screwing up his face and rummaging in pockets. ‘Eldest brother?’
‘That’s right.’
Cal brandished a set of keys. ‘Phew. Glad I remembered, it’s quite hard to keep track of you lot. Right.’
I stared at him. ‘You’re driving?’
‘Well, yeah. It’s a bloody long way for a piggyback.’
‘No, I just . . .’ I managed to shut myself up.
‘You didn’t think I’d be able to drive, did you?’ Cal waved the key fob and across the road the lights on the tattiest Micra I’d ever seen blinked in response.
‘It’s not that.’ I bridled at the implication. ‘I kind of assumed you’d have a bike.’
‘Abike?’ This said in Lady Bracknellesque tones.
‘Yes. Like Ash.’
‘Oh, amotorbike. I see. No, sorry to disappoint any fantasies you might have about slipping your leg over my tank. If it makes you feel any better I could strap you to the bonnet?’
Since the bonnet of the Micra looked semi-permanent at best, I declined his kind offer and wriggled my way into the passenger seat, negotiating three Aero wrappers, an empty sandwich packet, a full bag of crisps (cheese and onion) and a lone sock on my way.
Cal was the worst driver in possession of a full licence that I’d ever sat next to. In complete silence, because his concentration was almost palpable, we ricocheted through the streets of York, along the road north and up onto the moors, where we were overtaken by several curious sheep and a bunch of octogenarian walkers. At last we pulled in to the top of the path to the house and got out. Cal was almost immediately disadvantaged.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s the bloody mud. Can’t get my balance. One of the reasons why I don’t reckon I can hang on to the place.’
‘You could tarmac the path as far as the first field, then have a kind of gravelled parking area and it’s not so much of a stretch to the house.’
