Page 34 of Carry Me Home

‘I don’t eat them all.’

‘You ate them all last week.’

‘I was hungry last week.’

‘You’re always hungry. It’s pathological.’

‘It’s metabolic. There’s a difference.’

Nina reaches across me for a chip, her arm brushing mine, the warmth of her skin through my sleeve for exactly one second. She settles back. Her thigh is still against mine. I pick up my pint. Put it down. Pick it up again. Drink deep. Breathe.

‘How’s work going, Jude?’ Nina asks. ‘Kit running you ragged?’

‘Kit’s fine. It’s the customers.’ He pulls a face. ‘Everyone is feeling the pinch financially and wants things cheaper and cheaper.’

‘I know. I had someone ask why my tuna melt was three quid eighty?’ Her leg is still against mine as she talks. Is she even aware? Or am just this invisible barrier, one that’s always there but can elicit no reaction?

Her leg is still against mine as she talks. Is she even aware of it? Or am I just furniture – part of the booth, something to lean against, incapable of reaction?

I am not incapable of reaction. That is rapidly becoming the problem. In a pub. At quiz night. Like I’m fifteen.

I haven’t heard a word anyone’s said for two minutes. I tune back in, desperate for distraction. ‘Sounds about right for tourist season,’ Brynn says. ‘Last week someone asked me why the lifeboat was orange. I said it was so we could find it in emergencies. They said, couldn’t we paint it something nicer?’

‘Nicer than orange?’ Nina asks and I count the freckles dotted across the bridge of her nose, the glint of brightness as her amethyst earrings catch the evening light through the window behind us.

‘Apparently orange clashes with the harbour aesthetic.’ Brynn takes a long sip of her pint. Jude’s gaze is moon-eyed as he stares at her. When he catches me looking, I roll my eyes, but he just smirks and glances knowingly at where I’m squished next to Nina.

‘The harbour aesthetic is boats and seagulls. Orange fits fine,’ Nina says.

This is good; talking about harbour aesthetic and the colour orange is reducing the swelling in my pants significantly. Then she shifts and I have to start the whole process again.

‘That’s what I said. They filed a complaint.’

The table dissolves into overlapping complaints about tourists – the eternal summer sport of Sea Salt Bay. Nina is animated tonight, more present than she’s been in months, her bangles catching the pub light every time she gestures. She’s stealing deep-fried chips from the basket in the centre of the table with a rhythm so practised it’s almost invisible – one every thirty seconds, never looking down, always mid-sentence. She’s been doing this as long as I’ve known her. I’ve been watching her do it for as long as I’ve known her. I could write a doctoral thesis on Nina Ellis’s chip-stealing technique.

‘How’s your dad, Kit?’ she asks, and the table shifts into the careful recalibration that happens when someone mentions Reuben.

Kit’s expression doesn’t change, but the hardness in his eyes does. ‘Good days and bad days. More good than bad lately. He tried painting.’ Kit’s face folds into a frown. ‘I never thought I’d say the words “my dad tried painting”, but there we are.’

‘Painting’s good,’ Brynn says. ‘Painting’s productive.’

‘Painting’s messy. There’s turpentine everywhere.’ Kit shrugs, the practised gesture of someone who’s learned to hold difficult things lightly. ‘But yeah. He’s okay. Mum and Lily haven’t seen him yet, and I don’t blame them.’

‘Do you think he wants to see your mum?’ Nina asks, and there’s a heavy pause around the table. Kit and Jude exchange a glance and then both shrug.

‘Who knows,’ answers Jude. ‘This is Reuben Harding we are talking about.’

‘Reuben Harding with dementia,’ Kit adds. ‘So who the fuck knows.’

The bell rings – the ancient ship’s bell that signals the start of quiz night – and the pub settles into competitive silence. Ayo, who’s been running the quiz since I was a sunburnt kid with a packet of crisps and a glass of fizzy pop sitting at the end of the table while the adults played, takes his position at the edge of the bar, microphone in hand.

‘Right then,’ he says. ‘Round one. General knowledge. Ten questions. No conferring with other tables. I’m looking at you, Bill.’

‘That was one time,’ Bill calls from across the room.

‘It was four times. I’m keeping count.’

Nina leans into me, her shoulder pressing against mine, and drops her voice. ‘Ready?’