Chapter Seventeen Zig
It was getting on for seven when Zig got back to Si’s and rang the bell. The door opened sooner than he’d expected, like maybe Si had run down the stairs to get it.
“Zig!” Was that relief on Si’s face? Hard to tell, behind the beard. “Was wondering where you’d got to. I’m making pasta for tea, that all right?”
“Course it is.” He followed Si up the stairs. “Wasn’t sure what time you’d be home, so I hit the pub on the way back.”
“Yeah? Where’d you go?”
“Prince of Wales. You know it?”
Si’s face split into a grin. “Course I do. Kind of me local, that place is. Go there most Friday nights.”
“Yeah? Guess I’ll be serving you drinks.” At least there’d be one friendly face, then. And probably a few unfriendly ones right next to it.
“You— You gonna be working there?” Si’s eyes were wide.
“Yep, unless I balls it up. Ange told me to turn up tomorrow.”
“That’s great!” Si’s face did complicated things Zig couldn’t interpret. “So . . . you’re staying here, then?”
Well, shit. Zig was a bloody idiot for not realising how that had to look. “Yeah, but not here, here, right? I mean, I don’t expect you to put me up long-term. Soon as I’m earning, I’ll get meself a room somewhere.”
Si blinked a few times. “You don’t have to. You can stay here long as you want.” Then he clammed up, like maybe he regretted what he’d said.
Which would be fair enough. “I’m not gonna take the piss. Hey, maybe you could ask around for me? See if there’s anyone with a room going spare?”
“Maybe.” Si frowned. “Think Adam’s old place . . . but no, you don’t wanna live there. Bunch of arseholes, them lot.”
“Sounds like I’d fit right in.” Especially if you ask Adam.
“No, you can do better than that. And like I said, no hurry, all right?”
“Well, cheers, mate.” It made Zig feel weird. Like, warm inside, but also like he wanted to walk straight out the door again. Get away from this buff, older version of Si who was somehow still the same properly good bloke in his heart.
He wouldn’t have said that if he knew what you’d done. Zig jumped as he realised Si had been talking again. “Sorry, mate, come again?”
“I asked what hours you’re gonna be working?”
Zig shrugged, making an effort to appear normal. “Weekend evenings. Not sure about the rest. I’ll find out tomorrow.”
“That’s band night, Friday. You’ll be flat out, just to warn you.”
“Eh, a little hard work never hurt anyone.” At least being busy would stop him thinking too much.
Si smiled, and tension dropped out of his frame that Zig hadn’t realised was there. “In that case, wanna chop some veg while I put the pasta on?”
“No problem. Got mad knife skillz, me.”
“You can do the garlic, then. I hate them fiddly little buggers.”
Zig didn’t get the garlic chopped in record time, and it wasn’t his neatest either, but to be fair, Si’s vegetable knife hadn’t just seen better days, it’d been bashed on the blade by them a few zillion times.
“Babe, you gotta get some decent knives,” he muttered, blinking as he diced the onion.
“Did this one fall out of a Christmas cracker?”
“It was me gran’s.” Si’s voice had a frown in it, and Zig looked up. Shit, had he hurt Si’s feelings? “She got this fancy knife block and didn’t want it no more. Blimey, I thought you was joking about them mad skills. You done kitchen work?”
“A bit, yeah. Didn’t like the vibes, though, you know? Everyone acting like if the food don’t go out perfect we’re all gonna get strung up by our balls.”
“Worked for Gordon Ramsay, did you?”
Zig laughed. “Christ, no. The wanker definitely saw him as a role model, though. Right, what else needs doing?”
It was good, cooking together. Fun. Zig hadn’t often had that.
Too often he’d been cooking for himself alone, bumping into annoying housemates all the time.
There had been a girl he’d got on with at one houseshare, Ginny, and their schedules had matched enough to eat together half the time.
But she’d moved up north with her bloke, and he hadn’t seen her since.
Huh. He could have looked her up, maybe, when he was getting out of London. He hadn’t thought of that. Guess I know where I’ll be heading if Glasto turns out to be a bust. It should have been a relief, realising he had options.
It wasn’t.
“You all right?” Si asked, looking up from the pan. “It’s like you’re miles away.”
Zig grinned hastily. “I’m right here. Body and soul. Hey, any idea where I could get a book of local folktales? Library was fresh out of ’em.”
“Yeah? Which one did you go to?” He ground some pepper into the pan, which smelled wicked, like an Italian restaurant.
Zig’s stomach rumbled. “Uh, there’s more than one? The one near that big church. Calls itself a hub.”
“Oh, yeah, see, you’ll want the Library of Avalon for folktales and all that.
It’s on the high street, up by Market Place?
Back of the Glastonbury Experience. I mean, I ain’t been in there much, but I heard it’s where you go for all that mythical stuff.
” Si slid the contents of the pan onto two plates, and handed one to Zig.
They took them out to the living room and ate sitting companionably on the sofa.
“I saw that Glastonbury Experience place, but I thought it’d be some tourist thing.
I’ll have to check it out.” Zig expected Si to ask why on earth he wanted books of folktales, but Si seemed to accept that was a normal thing to be interested in.
It was nice. He ate another mouthful of pasta. “Fuck me, this is good. Family recipe?”
Si shrugged, a little pink. “I found it online. Mum’s more into your traditional English stuff. So where else did you get to today?” he asked quickly, like he was keen to change the subject.
Zig didn’t like to think why that might be. “She does do a mean bacon and eggs, your mum,” he said lightly. “I went up the tor. Flippin’ freezing up there. People were saying there’s gonna be, like, celebrations for the solstice—you fancy going up for that?”
“Yeah, we could do that.” Si’s eyebrows shot up, but his cheeks were pinker than ever under the beard. “Would you believe it, I’ve never been? Always thought I oughtta but never got off me arse to do it.”
Zig laughed. “Well, I lived in London all my life, but I ain’t never been to Buckingham Palace. Or the Tower, or half the museums. You don’t, do you, when it’s local? So, you’re okay with getting up there for dawn?”
“This time of year? No problem. You want me up there for 3 a.m. in the summer, mind, we might have some issues.”
They ate contentedly for a minute or two. Zig felt bold enough to address the elephant in the room. “How was lunch with your mates?”
Si shoved a forkful of pasta into his mouth in the most obvious delaying tactic in the history of the universe.
So, he’d told Adam that Zig was here. And it hadn’t gone down well. “Adam all right?”
Si swallowed. “Yeah, he’s great. Sorry. He’s got this new bloke, Corin. One of they computer wizards.”
Good, that’ll keep him happy and stop him worrying about me. “You say that like it’s some arcane magic. I know you know how computers work.”
“Yeah, but you ask him what he’s been doing at work and it’s like he’s talking another language.
Or worse, it’s the same language, but all the words mean something different.
But he’s a good bloke. Got a brain condition.
Prospo . . . prospag . . . Face blindness, that’s what it is.
Can’t recognise people.” Si cocked his head.
“Be all right with you, mind. See, the way he explains it, he can see features, but he can’t put them all together?
But he’d know you, with that hair, and them eyes. ”
“At least they’re good for something, then.” Zig’s tone was bitter, his dad’s voice scathing in his head.
“I like your eyes.” Si busied himself getting a precise combination of pasta, sauce, and veg on his fork.
“Yeah, right. Cos one blue and one brown looks so great. It’s like wearing odd shoes. Never gonna see that catching on.”
Si glanced up. “So, they’re different. So what? Be a boring world if we were all the same. And it suits you. Being one of a kind.” Then he turned his attention back to his food.
Zig’s chest was oddly tight. Like someone was squeezing his heart out to dry.
Maybe he’d better start looking for a room somewhere else sooner rather than later.
That night, Zig was drifting off to sleep on the sofa when his phone vibrated. A flash of alarm jolted through him, and he quickly quelled it. Daft. There was no way Dad—or Trent—could know his number.
Course, Ani had his number . . . No. She wouldn’t hand it out to anyone.
Fuck it. Zig grabbed his phone and thumbed it on, finding a text from an unknown number: This is Kai. You at your mates place?
Chest easing, Zig smiled and texted back, Yep. Not sick of me yet. You somewhere warm?
Im okay. Night :)
Still smiling, Zig saved the contact. Then he switched off his phone and rolled over.