“Good.”
“And Marie Louise decided I should spend two weeks at the station learning what I was writing about.”
“That sounds like a spectacularly appropriate consequence.”
“It has been educational.”
“Painful?”
“Also that.”
“How painful?”
“Yesterday I considered relocating permanently to the ground-floor kitchen because the stairs felt like an unreasonable demand.”
Graham laughs loudly this time.
It is warm and surprised and makes him sound less like someone who has a pass for secure buildings.
“I’m sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “I’m trying to be sympathetic.”
“You are failing.”
“Yes. I can hear that.”
“My thighs were not prepared for hose drills.”
“No one’s thighs are prepared for hose drills.”
“How would you know?” I ask.
“What?”
“About hose drills.”
“I don’t.”
“You sounded like you did.”
“I sounded like a man with imagination.”
“You have many qualities, Graham. Imagination has never been your brand.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
“The fire station has also attacked my face,” I add.
“Your face?”
“They made me shave.”
There is a silence.
Then Graham says, with deep and unforgivable interest, “They made you shave?”
“For breathing apparatus.”
