Chapter 25 #2
I kept returning to last night, to his friends, and what they were like compared to me. What was his ex like? A horrible fucker, by all accounts, but what had drawn Michael to him in the first place? Was he successful, too?
More questions snuck onto my train of thought. Why was he even with me? Was he with me? Were we together? Would we even have started whatever this was between us if I wasn’t living with him?
Ice crept through my veins as something occurred to me.
Was he sleeping with me out of pity? Or convenience?
Or both? Fuck, I really hoped not. I had real feelings for him.
Real, grown up, scary as shit feelings for him.
I’d thought he felt the same. Maybe I’d read it all wrong though.
Did he want me to stay at his, or was he expecting me to move out?
Over the last few weeks, we’d fallen into a domestic situation.
And while I knew it was really quick, it felt right.
After all, men and women got married after never living together or sleeping together.
We’d done those things and liked them, so living together just felt right.
Well, it had. Until I started thinking about things.
I hadn’t given him any choice in the matter.
I just turned up on his doorstep, and he took me in out of the kindness of his heart.
Then I assumed we were a couple and we’d stay like this.
Was he just waiting for me to get a job and move out?
Tomorrow I’d redouble my efforts to find a job.
I spent the rest of the week looking for work again and was met by rejection after rejection.
Friday came and it was an effort to drag myself out of bed.
But if I wanted something real with Michael, I needed to be his equal.
Reminding myself of this gave me the kick up the arse I needed to keep trying.
In an attempt to make myself feel less useless, I decided I would make dinner for Michael.
He’d been cooking for us every night, and he said he didn’t mind, but it just made me feel like more of a pathetic leech.
Despite him insisting that he would be doing it whether I was here or not, I still felt bad about it.
For a start, he had to cook twice as much as he normally would.
The least I could do was make him dinner.
The problem was I didn’t know how to cook. I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop me. How hard could it be? Knocking off early from another useless day of job searching, I took myself to the shops on Friday afternoon.
At the butchers, I bought pork chops because I’d watched my ma cook them hundreds of times. She shoved them under the grill, checked them every now and again and pulled them out when they were done. I knew what they looked like when they were done, so that would be easy.
From the green grocers, I bought potatoes and carrots because I wanted to be healthy.
Peeling potatoes looked simple enough, so did chopping carrots.
Boiling them would be a bit trickier than cooking the chops, because you couldn’t tell they were cooked just by looking at them, but I was sure I’d work it out.
Feeling confident, I took my ingredients back to the flat. Michael got in from the salon around six o’clock, so I’d start cooking at five, just to be on the safe side. If it was ready before he got home, I’d just put it in the oven to keep warm.
An hour later, I was about to have a nervous breakdown.
How did I fuck this up so badly? It was quarter to six, and Michael would be home any minute and nothing was ready.
It took me forty fucking minutes to peel the potatoes.
How was it so difficult? Ma made it look so easy.
She could peel a potato in thirty seconds flat.
I couldn’t get the pressure right, pressing too lightly and scraping the outside of the skin off, or too hard and gouging out half the potato. Never mind getting a rhythm going like my ma did.
At one point, when I was losing an argument with the potato peeler, the thought to phone her up and ask for help flashed into my head.
Then I remembered she’d kicked me out and would hang up as soon as she heard my voice.
The next potato I peeled got even more mangled because it was hard to do anything with tears in your eyes.
Cutting the carrots wasn’t too tricky, but they were very uneven. The misshapen vegetables were boiling away on the stove. They’d been on for forty minutes. Was that long enough? The chops still weren’t cooked, and I couldn’t for the life of me work out why.
Bending down to the oven and pulling the grill pan out, I prodded one of the chops. It was ice cold. Shit. I’d forgotten to turn the bloody grill on.
“Fuck! How did this go wrong?" I shouted to the empty kitchen and shoved the grill pan back in. I yanked the dial all the way up to ‘high’ so the meat would cook in time.
I’d just wanted to do something for Michael to prove that I wasn’t completely useless and I was worth keeping around. Last night at Seb’s house, I’d realised something. I was in love with Michael.
He was it for me. I’d finally found what I was looking for, but instead of feeling overjoyed, I was terrified.
I was so fucking frightened that he would reject me. Abandon me. Discard me just like my parents had. I knew I didn’t have much to offer, so I needed to show Michael how much I loved him and hope that was enough. Making him dinner was supposed to show him that. Until I was brave enough to tell him.
Heaving the pan with the carrots and potatoes in it off the stove, I set it down on the side. Mum boiled them separately, but I didn’t see why. Seemed like more washing up, for no reason, so I’d put the potatoes and carrots in one big pan.
Removing the lid, I looked into the saucepan. It was sort of brown. Why was it brown? I needed a colander to drain the veggies. Where would that be? Rooting through all the cupboards and drawers, I found the holey metal bowl on top of the fridge.
“Gotcha!” I cried in triumph.
Placing the colander in the sink, I poured the content of the veggie pan into it. The water drained away and my heart sank.
The potatoes weren’t in the large chunks I’d cut them into, but were now… mush. That was the only word for it. The carrots were intact but had gone floppy. And it was an unpleasant brown colour. It did not look appetising at all.
An acrid smell tickled my nostrils. What the hell is that? I sniffed the ruined veggies. It wasn’t them. Turning around I saw smoke billowing out of the grill. “Fuck! Bollocks! Shit!”
The chops were black and crispy all over. No, not all over. When I picked one up with a fork, I saw the underside was still pink and raw.
“Fucking bollocks!”
“Mick!” I heard Michael calling from the hall, and he rushed into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”
“I was trying to make dinner!”
“You made dinner?”
“I tried. But I fucked it up.” I felt like a complete failure. Not able to look him in the eye, I pointed to the grill pan of half cremated, half raw pork chops. Then I showed him the potato and carrot mush.
“I thought it would be easy. This is the dinner my ma makes when she hasn’t got time or doesn’t feel well. How did I fuck it up?”
“Sweetheart, come here.”
I looked up, and Michael was holding his arms out for a hug. I went to him, even though I didn’t deserve his comfort. I couldn’t even do this simple thing for him. I lived in his flat without paying rent, and I made him an inedible dinner. What use was I to anyone?
Still, I let him hold me.
“It’s so sweet that you tried.” He looked into the sink. “What… erm… what was it?”
“Pork chops, potatoes and carrots. I burned the chops. Obviously. You can see that. I don’t know what happened to the veg. They’re all smushed.”
“How long did you cook them for?”
“I don’t know. About an hour?”
He snorted but tried to cover it up with a cough. “The potatoes need about half an hour, but you put them in when the water is cold. And carrots only need fifteen minutes.”
“Oh. They’re also brown. I don’t know why,”
Peering into the colander, he poked the vegetables. “Did you wash the carrots?”
“Wash them?”
“Before you put them on the boil.”
“No, I didn’t know they were dirty.”
“They grow in the ground, sweetheart. You have to wash the soil off.”
“Oh yeah. Of course. I’m such a bloody idiot.”
“No, you’re not.” Swinging round to face me, he took my face in his hands and kissed me hard. “You’re not an idiot. If nobody ever told you to do this, then how are you supposed to know?” He huffed. “Your mum never taught you to cook?”
“No. She wouldn’t dream of it. If I were a girl, then yeah, of course she would have. But I’m not. I think she assumed I’d marry a nice Catholic girl who would cook for me.”
“Never mind. Let’s get this mess cleared up and then I’ll make us something.”
“Would you teach me?”
“Teach you? To cook?”
“Yeah… but don’t worry about it. It’s too much hassle. I’ll probably be shit at it even when someone shows me what to do.”
“Don’t say that. Of course I’ll teach you. We–”
Ring ring. Ring ring. Ring ring.
“Hold that thought.” He dashed off to answer the phone.
I surveyed the war zone that was Michael’s kitchen.
“Mick, it’s for you,” he called.
“For me?” Confused, I trudged into the hall. “Hello?”
“Hiya, Mick.”
“Tommy!”
“The very same. Are you busy?”
“Erm… Sort of.”
“Oh.” Tommy deflated. “We were hoping you might be up for company.” In the background, Eric was talking, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. It sounded like he said “I told you we should have telephoned first”
“Tommy? What does he mean? You did call first.”
“Yes… and no.”
“What do you mean yes and no? Tommy, I am not in the mood–”
“Tommy, tell him where we are,” Eric hissed in the background.
“What does he mean? Where are you?”
“Um… we’re in a phone box on Hallfield estate.”
I groaned. “Tommy! Why did you come all this way without warning me?”
“I wanted to see you, and I didn’t want you to make an excuse and fob me off. You’re my best mate, and I haven’t seen you properly in months.”
“Alright, alright. Give me ten minutes, will you? I tried to make dinner and… let’s just say it didn't go to plan. I need time to tidy up before you knock.”
“That’s fine!” He sounded like a kid who'd just been told he could have two puddings. “See you in ten minutes!”
Precisely ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I answered, and my best friend smiled at me and held up a paper bag with a cartoon of a fish on it.
“We brought dinner!”
“Tommy, you little beauty!”
As soon as Michael took the wrapped parcels of fish and chips out of Tommy’s hands, he scooped me up into a big bear hug.
“Get off me you idiot,” I said, but I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.