Doreen, Bernard’s wife, spares me a glance. “Stew, Aidan. Moroccan stew.”
“Oh.” I turn back to my computer, considering the possibility that she might be winding me up. In the all-female office, I’ve somehow become the butt of every joke, and half the time I don’t even realise until I get home.
Still, Google is my friend. I typetagineinto the search bar and discover that it’s actually the cooking pot, not the contents, and it’s weird as fuck. I skim the article and click through to the kind of recipe Doreen, Brenda, and Janet are discussing over tea and biscuits while I sit in the corner like a naughty child.
Chicken, olives, apricots, tomatoes...Ludo would love this.
And at the bottom of the recipe it says I can cook it in a bog-standard pan and stick it in the oven.Winner.
I take a picture of the screen with my phone and save it for later. Cooking ain’t my thing, but since the night I presented Ludo with a plate of burnt sausages and oven chips, I haven’t been able to get his answering smile out of my head. It was light and happy and warm and such a perfect reflection of how I feel every time he cooks for me that I can’t wait to replicate it. Shame my terrible kitchen skills are holding me back though. If I fuck it up, it’ll be funny, and if there’s anything in the world more intoxicating than Ludo’s smile, it’s his laughter.
The day drags on. It’s been forty-eight hours since I walked Ludo home from my place, since he kissed me every which way possible, and my craving for him hit an all-time high. We text every hour or so, but by the time five o’clock rolls round, he’s fallen silent.
Worry niggles me. I’ve told myself a hundred times to give him the space and time to deal with however he feels about me. That if he feels even half of what I feel for him, then that’s a shit-ton of extra weight on his already overloaded mind. But I don’t like it when he stops talking, even if logic tells me he’s probably working or napping or old enough not to be tied to his phone all damn day.
“Fancy a pint?”
I frown at Bernard. Somehow I’ve missed him coming into the office to lock up. “What?”
“Beer, Aidan. Your favourite thing, or at least it used to be. No one’s seen you in the pub for weeks. Been drinking alone, ’av’ ya? It’s not healthy, you know.”
My frown deepens to a scowl. “Piss off. I don’t drink no more. It’s for losers.”
I reckon I’d have surprised Bernard more if I’d told him I was pregnant. His grey eyebrows shoot up, and he searches my face, clearly looking for clues that I’m taking the mick. But it’s true. Since Ludo found me staggering around outside his house, I haven’t been able to catch a glimpse of a beer can without seeing my dad dead on the couch, as though I’m taking making an arse of myself in front of Ludo as a warning sign of what will become of me if I carry on.
Simplistic? Yeah, but it works for me. I’m not drinking because I don’t want to, and that can only be good. Plus, getting drunk means forgetting shit, and despite angsting myself into a fucking stroke every ten minutes, I don’t want to miss a moment of my life right now.
The sensation of being dropped into the twilight zone is real. I punch Bernard’s shoulder and leave the office, my phone burning a hole in my pocket. Ludo hasn’t replied to any messages since lunchtime, but I push it from my mind and make my way to the posh supermarket that will have the ingredients I need to make something that isn’t scorched freezer food.
I feel out of place the moment I set foot in Waitrose. My first mistake? I’m not wearing tweed, quickly followed up by the fact that I haven’t brought my own hessian shopping bag.
Whatever. I’ll stuff it down my ripped jeans if I have to.
I trudge up and down the aisles, searching out ingredients and trying not to think about how much they cost. Thanks to Bernard’s generosity after the accident and the dosh I’m not wasting down the pub, I’m the most solvent I’ve been in years, but fretting about money is in my blood.
So much so I’m convinced I’m seeing things when I emerge from the exotic food aisle for the third time to see my cousin Michael perusing the dessert section.
Brilliant.It’s been more than a month since he last turned up on my doorstep and weeks since we last spoke. For years I’ve been a pro at pushing what remains of my family away, of hiding from them and not feeling a scrap of guilt, but since... Ludo, apathy has proved harder to come by. Old me would’ve ducked out of the shop, head down, hands thrust in my pockets, and not given a single fuck. Post-Ludo me grinds to a halt a foot away from my cousin and chews on my lip like a weirdo.
“Uh, hey.”
Michael glances up, a box of cream cakes in his hand. “Jesus. What are you doing in here?”
“Why wouldn’t I be in here? It ain’t just for toffs.”
“Yes it is.”
“What are you doing in here then?”
Michael grimaces. “It’s my wedding anniversary and I forgot, so I’m panic-buying pudding to go with the meal I haven’t cooked.”
I laugh, can’t help it, because it’s such a Michael situation for him to be in. Dude is the most diligent fucker known to man, but the flip side is he has so much going on that important shit falls through the cracks. “So what are you having for dinner then? Fish and chips?”
“As if I’m going to get away with that. I’ve got about three and a half minutes to come up with something amazing or I’m sleeping in the shed.”
Michael doesn’t deserve to sleep in the shed. He works fifteen-hour days doing fuck knows what six days a week and still finds time to be a decent husband, a good dad, and a far better cousin than I deserve.
I hold out my basket. “Do you know what a tagine is?”
