by Susan Tepper
Hoping the boy isn’t planning on cooking fish (ugh, mackerel), he wanders across to the window. A child waves to him from a double decker bus but is gone before he gets his hand up to wave back. From here he can see across to the spire of the church where Marie’s buried. There’s a golden weathercock at its tip and a rare moment of sun makes it gleam. Then the cat jumps on the windowsill, neatly avoiding the pots of cacti and swats at the crystal stars dangling from the catch, so he turns away.
“What you cooking, lad?”
He can see a mound of vegetables by a chopping board, like in an advert for soup, and the boy’s rummaging about in a cupboard near the sink.
“Bean pie.” His voice is muffled ’til he stands up with a colander. “My mum’s coming over for tea so I’m making something hearty. She’s on her own so she doesn’t cook much, and it’s nice to have an excuse to make something proper. Expand my culinary horizons and so on.”
The boy starts rinsing peppers under the tap and since he doesn’t fancy getting shredded by Clarice, he walks into the kitchen area to help. The breakfast bar is covered in bowls of fruit, piles of magazines, bags of onions, some purple, some brown, a box of mushrooms, and a proper leek like his dad grew with all the greenery intact.
“Where’d you find this beauty? Not seen one like that in years. Don’t know why the supermarkets trim them down so. Nowt on ’em usually and the green’s the best bit.”
“My mum’s got an allotment by the canal, she brings me all sorts for here and the caff.”
He’s intrigued by the peppers and the presence of the leek, he’s never heard of bean pie and can only visualise a lump of pastry covering a dish of baked beans.
“What you doing with them peppers?”
The boy finishes drying them on a cloth and plonks them down next to the chopping board. “I chop them fine with an onion and some leek – you could get on with the mushrooms while I do these, if you want to help – and fry them a little with some butter, just to soften them. Then I add some beans, once I’ve rinsed them, and red lentils and pepper. A good squirt of garlic paste, some tinned tomatoes, and gravy powder and it’s done.”
He scrapes some muck off the mushrooms and starts chopping with what Marie would’ve called a fruit knife that he finds in the block. “Do you want the stalks left on ’em?”
The boy is pushing the stalk into a yellow pepper with his thumbs.
“Sure, so long as they’re chopped fine. Thanks.”
He watches while the boy then sticks his thumbs into the hole left by the stalk and pulls the pepper in two, emptying the stalk and clump of seeds onto a dirty plate. He does the same trick with the other peppers then plucks a carving knife from the block and starts to dice them. When he gets close to his fingertips Bert can’t look and returns his focus to the mushrooms. When they’re done, he leaves them on the board and washes the leek. The boy has a good-sized pile of diced peppers now and from the smell of it has started on the onions.
“Do you want the whole leek doing?”
“Please, though I’ll only use maybe half of it. The rest can go for stew later.”
Soon the frying pan is spitting and the aroma is making his mouth water so much that he has to swallow before he speaks. “The leek’s done, what now?”
The boy’s stirring but pauses to turn and grab a handful of the greens, dropping them in the pan with the rest of the veg. The kitchen’s just the right size for two to work in, with everything in comfortable reach. The kind of kitchen he’d find manageable. “Could you take the lids off the tins and rinse the beans in the colander please? Chuck them in together, it’s all getting mixed anyhow.”
Cannellini beans. Were they named after an opera singer or was that just Marie’s teasing? He doesn’t like to ask. In they go with the kidney beans and black eyed peas, quick rinse, then the boy takes it off him and empties the contents into the pan.
“Do you want me to roll out the pastry?”
“It’s not that kind of pie. If you look in the fridge there’s a bowl of grated cheese and a dish of mashed potato. Could you get them both out and stick the potato in the microwave on medium for a couple of minutes?”
There’s food on every shelf, all sorts of sauces and leftovers and puddings and cheeses. You can barely see to the back of it. He thinks of his own fridge with its packet of ham slices and rind of cheese and resolves to stock up next time he’s in the supermarket. He can afford to now. With the potato warming and the cheese out, the boy stops stirring the contents of the frying pan and bends to light the oven.
“What now?”
“Now I’ll use last night’s mash for a topping, only I’ll add garlic paste and this extra mature cheddar then sprinkle it with more cheese aaaaand ...” he reaches behind a packet of muesli, “the magic ingredient, crumbled crisps. Makes it chewy and works better than crumbs, or so I like to think. If you put the kettle on you could make us a brew while I get on with this.”
The kettle’s purple which fits with the rainbow effect of the rest of the flat. As the boy tips the contents of the frying pan into a long terracotta dish, Bert sources some teabags in a jar shaped like a pink toad and takes the milk from the fridge. He’s intrigued by the boy’s finicking with the mashed potato, dithering about with a butter knife and spreading fingerlengths of it against the edge of the dish, then realises this is perhaps where he’s been going wrong with his shepherd’s pie which always ends up with a dollop in the middle and the mince mixed into it in an unappetising grey-brown mush.
As the boy lifts the dish into the oven a buzzer goes off somewhere near the front door. According to his watch it’s only half six.
“Could you go let my mum in while I clean up a bit? The door release is beside an internal phone, looks like a light switch. I’ve two minutes to sort the place before I get a telling off.”
She’s older than he expected, closer to his age than his son’s, and shares the boy’s smiley nature.
“How do, I’m Joan. Are you not too warm in that coat?”
And he realises that he is. And he’s hungry, and happy, and attracted to her.
Eight o’clock is coming far too soon.
7.00pm
Bratislava, Slovakia
Kapustnica
by Andrew Stancek
David looks up and sees an angel, blonde curls, dimpled cheeks, touching his forehead. He tries to lift his head. He tries to speak. She touches a finger to his lips and whispers, “Sleep.”
In his fevered dream he’s running from a fire which transforms into a rapacious dragon, and David cannot pull that sword out of its scabbard. As the sharp teeth clamp on his arm, he wakes and finds he hasn’t metamorphed but is in a hospital bed, body throbbing and disoriented. Tubes snake out of his arm. A male nurse plunges a needle into his thigh and David coughs but cannot move his strapped torso. He drifts off.
“Totally against hospital policy and against medical advice,” the shrill voice is yelling. “Doctor Zajko said another day’s observation and tests are needed. Barging in like this is an outrage, and you have no right ...” David feels straps released, blankets removed. He opens his eyes and knows he is still in a dream: Taia is touching him and grinning. Ferko is throwing clothes onto the hospital bed, shooing off the angry buzz.
“Let’s get a move on here, old-timer, before we change our minds and call off the rescue. You only get to scare your friends once a day. I’ve brought you back to life, brought you The Beloved and now it’s time to fly this coop and eat. I’m starving and I know you are, too.” David’s head is spinning but with the help of Taia scrunches arms into sleeves, has a sweater pulled over his head, stumbles up, is half-carried into an elevator and is in a downpour again. Ferko laughs but David only squints at Taia, two Taias, three Taias; he’s about to fall. It’s her perfume, his eyes might be deceiving him but his nose is not, is he touching her or is she a vision? He needs to pinch, or even better bite her, but both his arms are held as he sways.
“You ca
n thank me for saving your life later,” Ferko yells into the downpour. “While you were busy walking into traffic and getting hospitalized, I found her. And look, she’s not about to push you off the new Danube Bridge. We have to get you plumped up. No more of this ‘I can’t eat a bite’. Down this road. The best kapustnica in all of Bratislava. Forest mushrooms, home-made sausage, oak-barrel wine sauerkraut.” He drops David’s arm. David stands on his own feet, head woozy but he’s alive. She came back. He tries to touch her but she moves off. Her smile is forced. Ferko pushes the door of the restaurant open, yells, “Three servings of kapustnica. That’s for me. I don’t know what my friends will have.” Taia giggles, looks at David but when he grins, she looks away and sits hard on the wooden bench. David collapses next to her and nuzzles his head in her shoulder. Her hair. He’ll faint. The rooster in his head is crowing. The raven is swooping around the restaurant. David’s stomach rumbles, screams. Maybe he can eat after all.
8.12pm
Cyclades Islands, Greece
Hundreds
by Lyn Fowler
The sun is just setting when we hear the putt-putt of Sestos’ blue and yellow wooden boat. He pulls alongside our boat and collects John (now known as Yiannis on this trip). They motor out into the little bay only 100 metres away. We can see their shadowy figures bobbing with the boat. The light is receding now but they work quickly and quietly pulling in the net. Then they are heading back to our boat. Fresh from the net Sestos brings a bucket of slippery silver fish onto our boat and feeds them through the open porthole. The two of us in the galley catch the fish still flapping alive.
“There’s hundreds,” I cry out. Not daunted, I pat them dry with paper towel. Then we form an assembly line, quickly dusting the whole fish in plain flour with salt and pepper and then without overcrowding the pan, frying them in batches in shallow olive oil. The cooking is only 15 seconds on each side turning once but there are so many fish. The dented aluminium pan on the gas cooker is cooking them beautifully golden. I am worried that the galley and cabins will be full of smoke any minute. The oil must be hot enough to cook the fish quickly and crisply. Kostas from above keeps a concerned eye on the production in the galley. Everyone has a job to do. I keep going with my skilful hand on the spatula. I think that he has not seen so many people in the galley before.
“Where’s the wine?” I turn to see Yiannis lifting a cord from the side of the boat.
“Voila, nicely chilled I’d say. We do not see corks much these days at home. I miss the sound of the cork coming out of the bottle.”
“Yes, but what happens when you forget the corkscrew. You should always keep one in your car or your yacht in this case.”
Yiannis extracts the cork easily and he pours the wine into glasses. “Yamas,” we chorus and clink our glasses together.
We have a mountain of fish to feed six people. The only accompaniment needed is Sestos’ ripe tomatoes and a squeeze of juicy lemon that I roughly cut into quarters. I had cooked some pasta earlier feeling not optimistic about the fish catch. We will use the pasta another time. I need more faith; there is a bounty out there in the water.
Sestos says that the fish are so sweet because they feed off the rocks around the islands where it is brimming with small food and plankton.
Yiannis drops down the steps and lifts up the platter of cooked marida from the galley. He places the platter on an upturned box so we can all be close to the food. We are all eating with our fingers de rigueur. The fish are crisp and tender. The tomatoes are just as sweet as the ones at our earlier picnic on Sestos’ island. The squeeze of lemon adds a juicy tang. No one is looking around for other sauces or flavours. The meal is complete.
I sip my wine from a glass tonight. It is red wine and with a slight chill from the earlier dangling in the Aegean. The breeze has dropped and the water is still. Even our boisterous chatter has quietened. We are mellow, well fed and reflective.
We wave goodnight to Sestos. We send him home with a bottle of wine with much appreciation. Kostas shines a large torch to light the way back to the jetty as he putters off home.
We lie back on the deck and look up at a trillion stars. I am dozing under the heavens. Before tonight, I had not eaten fish from the sea to the table in under an hour.
1.15pm
New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Two and a Leaner
by Paul Beckman
Martin was running late because his boss called to wish him a happy birthday this fine April day and then took his time thanking him for getting a report out on time. Carrying a bag from the market he ran up the stairs to his apartment, key in hand, and let himself in, tossing his jacket as he made his way to the refrigerator where he pulled out the mayo, pickles, fried peppers, hot sauce, olives and lettuce.
He opened his bag and took out a twelve inch grinder roll, sliced it in half and slathered both sides with mayo and stone ground mustard while all the time sneaking peeks out the kitchen window over the sink to the apartment across the way. The kitchen was still dark so Betty Ann hadn’t arrived home for lunch yet and he calmed a bit. Martin sliced the olives and sprinkled them on both sides of the roll and then added big slices of fried peppers. He then reached inside his bag from the market and took out a container of egg salad which he spread also on both sides and then added more mayo. He liberally poured the hot sauce and then layered one side with bread and butter pickles and saw the light come on in Betty Ann’s kitchen.
He turned off the ceiling light, folded the halves of the sandwich over and positioned his camera with its zoom lens and tripod in the space between the sink and the window and closed the curtains so only the lens protruded.
Betty Ann came home every day for lunch and was a creature of habit. Not wanting to spill anything on her clothes she stripped down to her bra and panties, that is, when she wore underwear which was only some of the time. She poured herself a glass of red wine, took a sip and then walked to the refrigerator and took out her sandwich fixings. It was always the same, a croissant, egg salad and a tall glass dish of Jello along with a can of whipped cream. Eating egg salad also made Martin feel as if they were dining together.
Martin took his sandwich, too big for one hand, in both hands, hefted it, leaned over the sink and took a big bite never taking his eyes off Betty Ann. This is the kind of sandwich his father called “two and a leaner”: two hands to hold it and lean over the sink so as not to get yelled at by Martin’s mother for spilling food on the floor.
The mayo ran down his chin but he’d have to put down the sandwich to wipe it so he ignored it and took another bite. If he wasn’t leaning over the sink the sandwich would be leaking everywhere it shouldn’t.
Betty Ann looked out the window across at her neighbor’s apartment as she chewed her egg salad sandwich. She put the sandwich down and picked up her binoculars and trained them on the apartment next door to Martin’s.
Betty Ann took another sip of wine and a few drops dribbled onto her breast and she smiled and rubbed it into her nipple and then licked her finger. Martin gobbled two more bites and wished she would step back from the sink so he could see her altogether and at that moment she turned and walked to the counter for a napkin. Excited at seeing her dimpled ass and her trimmed bush, he stopped eating and watched Betty Ann wipe her mouth and then her breast. She picked up her sandwich and took a big bite and some egg salad dribbled out of the corner of her lips. Daintily she pushed it back into her mouth and sucked on her finger. This is the best April 24th ever, Martin thought out loud.
Putting down the last of the sandwich, Betty Ann lifted the dish of Jello and spooned a bit into her mouth and then shook the can of whipped cream and covered the Jello. Martin held his sandwich and stared as Betty Ann filled a large spoon with whipped cream covered Jello and sucked it off the spoon. She then shook the can of whipped cream again and squirted a large spurt directly into her mouth – head tilted back. Martin almost bit off a finger with the size of the bite he took. He chewed and
the more he chewed the more mayo dribbled out as he watched Betty Ann swish the whipped cream in her mouth and leak out as she smiled, lips slightly open. She left the whipped cream in lines dripping down to her chest and picked up her binoculars and seemed to be looking directly at Martin’s window. Martin dropped his sandwich remains in the sink and rubbed the mayo over his mouth and chin then sucked it off his fingers, one by one.
Betty Ann smiled and took another spoon of Jello while Martin scooped a handful of mayo and headed for his bedroom.
12.30pm
Forth Worth, Texas, USA
In Between a Sandwich
by Tom Fegan
Lunch for me was at Subway Joe’s. A national chain that promotes healthy eating through submarine sandwiches. They had other varieties for those not on a diet. I cheated some but only a little at this eatery. I ordered my usual turkey breast foot long on Italian bread with tomatoes, spinach, black olives and green peppers. My cheat was Swiss cheese. Ranch dressing covered the goods. I took the sandwich and unsweetened tea to a vacant table and slid into a seat. A quick blessing and thus began my attack. It was a needed break. The D.A. had not responded to my report about the murder of the tomboy Gerry Day.
I munched and mulled on the evidence acquired against Ben Tomlinson, Gerry’s neighbor. I had interviewed him in his prison cell. He declined both being interrogated with a lie detector as well as having blood drawn. Tomlinson did allow me to swab the inside of his mouth. Before I left he bounded to his feet, “I want a deal.”
I turned, “You want to confess?”
Tomlinson dropped on his bunk and shook his head. He waved me out of his cell. I grimly departed. His confession would clinch the case with the binding evidence I had. I may have pushed him too hard.
