Big Bones Read online

  It’s hot in the cafe. Even with both fans on and the windows open the air seems to be bloated and stuffy. I’m wearing my pink and orange giraffe print shirt with my long pink Mexican-style skirt. My hair is up in an electric-blue rag. I loved the look of tying it up in the mirror next to my bright orange nails. I think about all the dirty air I’m breathing in, rinsing through my lungs and puffing back out again. We are quiet so I’m giving the cutlery a polish. It’s nice to eat cake with a fork. That’s how you know it’s good cake. When it forks away in crumbles.

  Alicia’s got Max and Marcel cleaning out the shelves behind the counter. They go all the way up to the ceiling, glass jars stuffed with loose tea leaves and coffee beans. Old dust-filled water jugs and glass vases. They do say pregnant people like to nest. I hope she isn’t planning on nesting here too long.

  Where is she, anyway? Has she even sorted out my application form yet? I really don’t want to have to start considering other options.

  Marcel is perving on the girls tanning in the park. AGAIN.

  ‘Oh man, oh man. These girls are KILLING me today!’ he sleazes. I roll my eyes. ‘Girls love cake; come in here and get some cake. I’m going to write on the board “FREE CAKE” and watch the girls run in.’ I wish I had earplugs.

  ‘Oi! Marcel! If you’re gonna hold the ladder, then HOLD the ladder!’ Max orders.

  There’s only one ladder and Marcel has already made it clear that he’s not ‘risking his life for a cafe’. Fair enough. I wouldn’t have minded getting up there on the shelves but Alicia didn’t ask me to go up the ladder, probably for obvious reasons. It’s too hot anyway. I sit on my favourite metal chair to write the menu and watch Marcel hold the ladder as Max creeps up with confidence. He’s tall enough anyway and could probably reach without it, his long octopus arms stretching to the layers of dust and junk. Swirls of powder wisp out in circles, the rows of fairy lights dancing as his hands gently brush them. He’s delicate. His hands poke and shift as though the objects are soft fruit on a bush he doesn’t want to damage. He’s careful not to drop anything.

  ‘Come on, man, why are you so slow?’ Marcel sweats below. ‘I want to smoke a cigarette and talk to some ladies.’

  ‘Just don’t hold it, Marcel. It’s more annoying with you half holding it,’ he replies breezily without even turning round.

  Watching Marcel, this hot little ball of frustration, sweating beneath the tall calm willow tree of Max is making me laugh. He then starts to tell us what he looks for in a girl.

  ‘Big breasts. Big buttocks. Small waist. And long hair.’ I switch off after he adds, ‘Nothing makes me more sad than when a beautiful woman cuts all her hair off short like a boy.’

  ‘What about her personality?’ Max asks.

  ‘Huh?’ Marcel replies, genuinely shocked at this.

  I’m going to start bringing my headphones in to work.

  Max, above, from behind, his low jeans, his Calvin Klein boxer shorts peeping out … I find my eyes looking longer than eyes normally need to look at anything … unless you’re reading a really good book or watching a great slice of TV. Does this make me as bad as Marcel? Perving on Max? Is this perving? Or appreciating? Would it offend me if Max was doing this to me? NO. I’d love it.

  Marcel, yes. Gross.

  Max’s mum is from the Philippines and his dad is Irish so he has almond-shaped green eyes and buttery skin. Splattered in a supernova spray of camouflage freckles. That match his shorts. The sun makes him appear golden, like light breaking between clouds.

  I wonder if Max has a girlfriend. He never talks about girls. Maybe he’s gay?

  Then I start to realise that actually maybe Max doesn’t even talk as much as he’s COMPLETELY – SOLIDLY – ALWAYS present in my mind and that makes me think that perhaps, just maybe, I might just talk at him quite a lot of the time. And maybe with all my talking at him, I think that we’ve had a conversation, when chances are, we probably haven’t. It’s just me, obsessing.

  He starts to pass the mottled glass jars down to Marcel. The lids are thick with grey fuzz. Marcel moans, exaggerating the weight of every jar, lining them up along the counter. A customer walks in and Marcel serves him and begins to make coffee. Max stays up on the ladder rooting through the shelves. With Marcel busy Max looks back at me, cheekily grinning, mimes a bullet to his brain to demonstrate what it’s like doing a chore with Marcel and I giggle. When he laughs these new dimples appear. Oh. His teeth are fish-bone white and sharp at the sides like little daggers. He touches everything with respect. Gracefully.

  ‘Oh, fresh camomile, so much better than those teabags we do here.’

  ‘Probably so old now, been up there so long; must be like drinking dead moths.’

  ‘Shall we find out, Blue?’ I love it that he just called me Blue. ‘Fancy a camomile tea?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ I smile.

  Max hops down off the ladder. Marcel doesn’t look impressed but Max ignores his fuzzy-eyebrowed glaring and starts fiddling around with a tea strainer and the urn. I like to watch the way Max does everything; it matters that he thinks it all matters. The way he carefully spoons out the golden dried-up flowers, choosing which cups we should drink from. His long fingers lingering on the clattered saucers. Smiling the whole time. I feel myself blush. With a butter knife as a mirror under the table, I secretly check the redness of my cheeks.

  Max reappears before me with a steaming teapot and a broad smile, his eyes eclipsing the world behind him.

  ‘Well, good news … it smells like camomile,’ he says, happy with himself.

  ‘It’s gonna send me to sleep; camomile tea relaxes you.’ I bite my lip, setting out the cups and saucers he’s carried over to the table.

  ‘Does it? I find all tea relaxing.’ Our eyes wrap around each other. I find him relaxing. Like hanging out with a cat or something.

  ‘Some loose teas are really strong.’

  ‘If you brew them too long.’

  ‘It’s too hot for tea!’ Marcel snaps the moment shut and we are disappointed to see the customer exit the shop with her takeaway cup, leaving Marcel as our spare wheel, making things wonky.

  ‘No it’s not; tea makes you sweat, it actually cools you down,’ Max argues.

  I LITERALLY MADE THIS POINT IN MY OWN BRAIN JUST THE OTHER DAY. WE ARE SO SYNCHRONISED.

  ‘You should try some, Marcel.’ Max winks at me; he loves winding Marcel up.

  ‘I don’t need to cool down, man. I don’t need to.’ Marcel shakes his head and then does an exaggerated stress yawn.

  Max whispers to me … Three, two, one …

  And on cue Marcel grunts, ‘I need a coffee.’

  Max nudges me in the ribs. ‘Always know when he needs one.’

  I open up the teapot. The gravely sound of ceramic grinding; the smell of blossom.

  ‘What’s the tea saying?’ Max peers in. His face is so honest and open; he’s bashful but confident in his own way. I like the way he dedicates himself to a task, no matter how small, and concentrates on it. You get the feeling that when he’s talking to you, all he is thinking about is talking to you. He’s genuine. And kind. His kindness evaporates off him, competing with the steam from the pot of tea.

  ‘Let’s give it a go,’ I say. Looking up. We are both pretending to really care about this one pot of tea he’s made. We are invested in it, like it belongs to us. It is a device that we can pour ourselves into. Something simple and sacred that we have in common.

  Yellow liquid gold fills the cups; two loose petals float to the surface of my teacup, riding the waves and rocking on the ripples. The potpourri dried bundles are revived.

  ‘Do you want honey in yours?’ Max asks.

  ‘No thanks, I like it as it is.’

  ‘Bluebelle’s sweet enough!’ Marcel jokes, all corny.

  I realise I’ve been polishing the same teaspoon for seven minutes and my thumb has got cramp.

  ‘I could just sit here all day,’ I say. ‘Couldn’t you?�
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  ‘All life,’ Max giggles. ‘I think I could probably sit here all life.’

  ROSE WATER

  ‘Chop-chop.’ Alicia slices through us. ‘Come on, come on, none of this chilling-out-time little tea party. You’re not in the school common room now, guys.’

  Max and I jump up and snap back to standing. Max looks at me for a lingering second. I almost feel him deep-sigh as he breathes me in. I could swear he wants to be annoyed at Alicia for splitting up our romantic tea date but he’d never show it. He sees the good bones in everybody.

  BUT.

  I don’t. Not right now. ALICIA! SO ANNOYING. (Sorry I know this is not about food and here I go again but I really just need to get this off my chest like SERIOUSLY GRRRRRRR. You know when a chick just really wrestles with your patience and messes with your life, it’s like, help a sister out here. DAMN!)

  Maybe Alicia just has no social empathy. Perhaps she has no radar that shouts MAYBE THIS GIRL IS TRYING TO DO A FLIRT HERE AND I DON’T NEED TO SABOTAGE IT.

  It would make sense, the way she doesn’t understand food; she has no sense of style or taste when it comes to eating.

  I know Alicia doesn’t care about cakes properly because she likes weird horrendous flavours like rose water and that’s just not a cake flavour ANYBODY would choose to eat. I hate rose water. It stinks. I hate it. It tastes of old ladies. It ruins all cakes.

  Rose. A beautiful flower. A lovely perfume. But not a food.

  We separate across the planet floor as customers come in. A couple hunting for coffee after jogging. Rosy-cheeked and breathless. Their forefingers in a loose knot around each other as they scan the menu. My handwriting in scribbles.

  Max goes over to them. He shares that same smile he gave me. I am so envious of their eyes getting to see his smile up close. It’s wasted on them.

  The blur of the radio remixes with the beat of my heart. The people darting about outside in their summer colours like hundreds and thousands. Lost in the heat. The peak of summer.

  And here we are. Thrust against the greenhouse of the coffee shop where it’s hot and sweaty and sticky. With the face-clogging cloy of coffee. The way the black speckles from the grind get under your skin, the hit of it at the back of the throat, the bitterness of its smoky ash-like density. Then there’s the scrapes and turns of metal on metal. The crumbling clouds of carrot cake almost seem to collapse under their own sweet softness, icing melting to the point that sugar granules seem to give themselves up willingly. And Alicia, snarling. Red lipstick over the lines of her lips, arms folded, eye twitching.

  And so I am handed a wet sponge.

  I feel my flesh rolling over my clothes. It’s a pressing tightness that I like. I think chub rolling out of fabric is quite a pretty look. The idea of Max maybe watching my body makes me feel prettier even though my eyeliner is realistically probably smudged but I’ve learnt to love that look a bit too. I am buzzing after talking to Max. My body still shooting white stars through my bloodstream. I am scrubbing the front window, watching Max make coffee in the reflection. I can almost see the camomile tea running through his blood and veins like hot liquid gold to the point that he begins to shine, like a lava lamp through his skin. And to be on the other side of the room from him after coming so close feels sad and wonderful at the same time, like the nostalgia of coming home from Disneyland after the best day ever.

  TURKISH DELIGHT

  Do NOT even GET me started.

  RICE PUDDING

  It’s gross. I wouldn’t touch rice pudding with a ten-foot pole. It’s foul warmed-up sick. It’s always gloopy, it’s always lukewarm and it does nothing for jam. It actually makes jam taste worse. Dove eats so much rice pudding. Then again, Dove eats so much of everything. Her food diary would be a thousand-page novel in comparison to mine, so be grateful. She has about nineteen sugars in every cup of tea, the spoon can stand up straight on its own, every meal comes with a starter warm-up pack of cheese and onion crisps and gets chased with a jam tart or an iced bun, yet she is the size of a small fairy imp. I don’t get it. I quickly imagine her one day being a grown-up mum with three kids and she still isn’t fat. Not even then. She could turn into one of them old nans and get really into puzzles or doll’s houses and never get up and she still wouldn’t even be fat. Not EVEN then. Even if my brain tries its very best to accessorise her with the extra folds and bulge, it won’t stick. She won’t ever know heaviness like me. Ever.

  ‘How’d you stay so skinny, Dove?’ I ask her but I’m careful how I ask because I don’t want her thinking that I want to be different from how I am. PLUS I don’t want her to think that I think she’s too skinny, like bad skinny because also skinny gets as much of a bad rep as fat does. Like when people say ‘You’re so lucky you’re so skinny.’ If they don’t want to be skinny, that’s just as offensive as calling somebody fat. Funny how people think it’s rude to go round calling people fat but not skinny. Skinny people get self-conscious too.

  I watch her leapfrog off the back shed, swing into the tree, hobble up to the top, launch herself onto the fence, dangle her way along the sandpapery edge of the duck shed and, cat-like, hop up onto the window ledge of her own bedroom and crawl inside. ‘Who knows?’ she pants and smiles, shutting the window behind her.

  I reach for my inhaler and take a long, deep drawn-in puff. No matter how much I’d like to say it doesn’t bother me, I do sometimes flirt with the idea of being tiny and how much easier that might make my life. Because maybe it would make it easier for others. To not have people second-guess if I can do stuff. To not have to make comments about moving around me.

  To not make me then second-guess myself.

  To not feel like I’m in the way.

  STALE POPPADOMS

  We have three ways of making money between us, Camille and me. I have Planet Coffee and babysitting. And Camille flyers. Literally standing outside, handing out leaflets to strangers. When she first told me about the job I thought it would be flyering for cool things like club nights and gigs but because she’s under eighteen she flyers for an Indian restaurant, the Lancer of Bengal. Three nights a week she stands in the doorway of the restaurant, handing out flyers. And I go, when I can (be bothered), for company and a morale boost. Mostly it’s just us. Shivering. Sharing a pair of headphones, one in each ear, bouncing away to a song.

  The money is terrible and what is more terrible, they don’t even give us free curry. Once, when it was cold, we got a cup of chai and a basket of unhappy-looking stale poppadoms that were basically thrown at our heads like we were desperate pigeons. We still ate them because we were desperate. Because we will literally eat anything put in front of us, let alone thrown at us and because it counted as a freebie from the restaurant and we’ve been desperate for a perk of Camille’s job ever since she started there. Something we could tell our school friends to legitimise us – ‘Yeah, I ALWAYS get free poppadoms.’ Plus, stale poppadoms are delicious. I love it when they get soft like edible salty paper. It’s like the flavour of the sticky bit on an envelope. Amazing. The chai was all right too.

  ‘Help me. It smells amazing,’ Camille moans. ‘They are so tight. I’m so starving. Why can’t they just feed us, man? They make vats of the stuff. I don’t get paid enough for this crap.’ She groans, staring into the window of the Lancer.

  ‘Why don’t you just ask them for a little cup of dhal or something?’

  ‘You ask, they like you.’

  ‘They like you. It’s your job, Cam.’

  ‘I’ve only got the job because nobody else is enough of a mug to do it. They literally pay me enough for my bus ride to get here.’ Camille clicks her tongue. ‘They probably think cos I’m mixed race I can’t handle the spice. My dad literally fed me hot sauce as a kid. It’s so insulting. I’d eat their hottest curry as a dare!’ Cam grunts. ‘Go on, go tell them to dare me, BB.’

  ‘You want me to walk in and ask them to dare you to eat their hottest curry?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She be
gins to crack up at the ridiculousness of what she’s asking me to do.

  ‘You know they give chillis to people in rehab? Apparently the rush of the heat is like a buzz.’

  ‘FEED US!’ Cam suddenly screams at the door.

  We both laugh so hard. Camille kicks the bricks of the Lancer.

  ‘A bit of wee just pushed out.’

  TUNA

  ‘Not even one onion bhaji, not one; how bad is that?’

  ‘Pretty crap.’

  ‘I’d even take the burnt stuff.’

  ‘Ooooh, I’d love a peshawari naan right now, wouldn’t you though?’

  ‘I might buy one.’

  ‘Cam, you can’t buy one, that’s letting them win. You really would be a mug then.’

  ‘You’re right. Least it’s not cold.’ She sighs, deeply, scratches her head. ‘People always over order, I’d take the scraps.’

  ‘It’s just the smell that’s making you want it,’ I remind her. ‘See this is when my jacket-potato-at-the-bus-stop idea would really come into its own.’

  ‘Oi, go look desperate at the window. Hungry eyes, go on, like a peasant from the Victorian days at Christmas. Make the customers feel guilty.’ We rehearse our hungry faces. ‘We look insane.’ She laughs. ‘I want your face, like that, as my wallpaper.’ She pats her pocket. ‘I actually did bring a tin of tuna.’ She wriggles her eyebrows. ‘But I haven’t got an opener.’

  ‘A tin of tuna? What? Why?’

  ‘Yeah. I love a tin of tuna, little bit of protein on the go. I thought I picked up a ring pull one but it’s the other one. I hate that. Why would they make any tin without a ring pull?’

  I always like to think of ‘they’ as the people we assume do all these things for us in the world, like bottle our ketchup and pack our crisps, when really those people called ‘they’ could just be us. The consumers, they might like ones without ring pulls. No they would not.

  ‘I hate it when they put tuna in brine.’