“What kind?”
“Egg and cress.”
Lex nodded slowly. His expression was neutral. “And the lobster bisque? You try that?”
“Yes,” Barnaby said, without hesitation. “It was very good.”
“And how’d you rate the beluga caviar scrambled eggs? In the hot food section?”
“Highly. But I was more fond of the bisque, actually.”
Lex stared at him. “You’ve never set foot in a fucking convenience store in your entire life, you posh fucking liar.”
Barnaby’s ears went hot. A hot flush climbed his neck, crawling across his cheekbones. He leaned forward, reached into the bag of squid ink crisps, and put one in his mouth as a stalling manoeuvre.
It was atrocious. It tasted exactly the way it smelt; briny, faintly sulphurous, with a lingering aftertaste of marine decay.His palate, trained on twenty-five years of good cheese, proper wine, and Eleanor’s roast dinners, revolted.
“Lovely,” he said.
Lex watched him with naked delight. “You’re dying.”
“I’m not dying. They’re perfectly pleasant.” Barnaby reached into the bag and took another one. His body begged him not to. He ate it anyway, because capitulation was not an option, and he would rather digest whatever deep-sea abomination the Japanese snack industry had cooked up than give Lex Murphy the satisfaction of seeing him spit it out.
He did not return to his end of the sofa.
Lex turned back to the television, where a woman in a yellow bodysuit was approaching a gauntlet of swinging padded arms. He settled into the cushions, one arm stretched along the back of the sofa behind Barnaby’s shoulders. Not touching him, but close enough that Barnaby could feel the warmth of it.
“Right, so the rules are: if she makes it past the first three arms, she gets to pick a door. Behind the door is either a prize or a man in a foam suit who tackles her into the pit. But here’s the thing; you can tell which door’s got the foam man because the handle wobbles. Watch. See? Wobble. That one. Foam man. Guaranteed.”
“There is no way you’ve worked that out.”
“I’ve been watching this for two hours, Barns. I’m basically fluent in Japanese Game Show now. Right, she’s going for the left door. No, no,no, that handle wobbled! That’s a foam man door, love, what are you…YES! Foam man. Called it. Absolutely called it.”
Barnaby ate another crisp. The taste was not improving. He ate it anyway.
On screen, the woman in yellow climbed out of the foam pit laughing, covered in something that sparkled under the studio lights. The audience cheered. Lex cheered with them. Then hegrabbed Barnaby’s wrist and hoisted his arm above his head, waggling it in a victory wave.
Barnaby snatched his arm back. But the laugh that escaped him was real, small, startled as it was. He reached into the bag again and took another crisp.
Chapter Five
Bythe third night, Lex had a system.
The 7-Eleven on the corner outside the Village gates stocked a rotating selection of crisps, sweets, and mystery items that defied categorisation. He went every evening after his last training session, still damp from the shower, and worked his way through the aisles. He bought based on the sheer bafflement the packaging caused him.
If the wrapper had a cartoon animal on it that looked like it was experiencing a manic episode, it went in the basket. If the flavour description, loosely translated by his mobile’s camera, contained a word he’d never seen applied to food before like:seaweed butterorroasted soybean dust, it went into the basket. If the item appeared to be a sweet potato that had been compressed into a stick and then coated in white chocolate, that went in the basket twice.
He’d nicked a mixing bowl from the dining hall and christened it The Lucky Dip. It was stainless steel, industrial-sized, and was meant to be used for tossing salads for sixtypeople. He dumped everything into it without sorting, leaving wrappers half-open, and carrying it upstairs to the third-floor common room like a man bringing an offering to a temple.
Barnaby was always there these days. Every night, on the same sofa, to do the same idiotic thing with him.
He never had to come right out and saycome back tonight. He’d never texted Barnaby, though they’d exchanged numbers now. The common room existed outside the bounds of their normal interactions.
Lex dropped the bowl on the cushion between them and sat down.
“Right,” he said. “Tonight’s haul. We’ve got a prawn cracker situation, something that claims to be corn but is the colour of a traffic cone, and a sweet that I’m fairly sure is just a lump of bean paste wrapped in a leaf.”
Barnaby leaned forward and examined the contents of the bowl. He picked up the bean paste sweet, turned it over, and bit into it. There was a brief, involuntary tightening around his eyes. His jaw moved slowly and his gaze drifted to the middle distance. Then he swallowed, set the remainder down on the table, and said, “That’s quite good, actually.”
