Page 24 of Once Upon a Thyme

I tried to imagine my mother dating and my concentration switched back to the mouse on the beam.

A tiny, hunched outline scurrying between the walls of the kitchen, it disappeared down inside a crack where the ceiling met the top of the wall and any visions of Mum being whisked off her feet by a dashing older man were swept away by new visions of an enormous nest of mice threatening to bulge my ancient walls and bursting onto the gardens in a mass of seed chewing and plant wreckage.

I pulled the table up against the wall and climbed up to try to peer down inside the wall, which was where Zeb found me, some minutes later.

‘If you’re trying to get rid of the evidence, may I suggest a bonfire?’ He stood and looked at me for a minute, the parcel in his hands giving off a trail of steam and a fantastically enticing smell.

‘What?’ I banged my head against the ceiling, startled at his entrance.

‘You know. Disposing of financial documents relating to dodgy dealings?’

‘By hiding them in the walls? Where mice would be almost certain to turn them into confetti within seconds?’ I jumped down and the table rocked, clattering against the floor like wooden applause.

‘Great disposal mechanism. Or you could feed them to Big Pig, she’d eat anything.’ Zeb raised the paper-wrapped parcel. ‘Talking of which, here’s our food.’

Zeb irritated me, that’s what it was, I thought as I fetched cutlery and dug some plates out of the back of the cupboard.

Whatever he said, however it was phrased, it grated against my nerve endings and made me want to contradict him, to wipe away that air he had of knowing best .

This was my business, I knew how to run it and how to maximise our profits.

Zeb was only here because of my mother. His lanky presence in my kitchen was unwanted, even if he did come bearing delicious takeaways that scented the air with spices and hot oil.

He clearly saw my frown of annoyance as he laid the plates on the table, because he tilted his head at me until his fringe fell into one eye. ‘Are you all right, Tallie?’

‘Of course I am.’ The aggravation made my tone sharp and the words sound as though they had been handpicked to hurt.

‘Okay. Have you got the figures and everything there for me to look through?’ He brushed off my rudeness as though he expected nothing less, which upset me slightly.

‘Yes, the computer is ready for you when you finish eating.’ Then, because he really had been kind to bring food, ‘And thank you for the takeaway. I don’t get to eat them very often, can’t be bothered to trail into town.

Mum usually gives me a sandwich or something at hers when I fly by in the evenings. ’

Zeb didn’t even pause in his careful laying out of the food. ‘You go round there most days?’

‘I like to check on her. She doesn’t go out much and sometimes she’s too ill to eat, so I make sure she’s at least had a hot drink.’

‘So she doesn’t give you a sandwich, you make yourself one in her kitchen?

She’s got a lovely kitchen, by the way. As an ex-chef I appreciate a nicely laid out cooking area.

’ He looked at mine, rather pointedly: the Aga which was mostly used to heat the water; random units and surfaces which, thanks to my night spent sanding and oiling, looked amazing but were unsullied by food production. ‘I take it that you don’t cook much.’

The smells from the food parcels now in the middle of the table were making my stomach gurgle audibly. He’d even brought chips ! ‘I don’t have a lot of time for cooking.’ Now I sounded apologetic, what was wrong with me?

‘So your life is running this place and taking care of your mum. What do you do for fun, Tallie?’

Zeb swirled himself into one of the chairs at the table and tore himself a portion of naan bread to dip in some sauce. I stayed where I was, standing by the wall. ‘Is that a trick question? Are you trying to get me to admit to spending all the day’s takings on wild nights out in town?’

‘I’m trying to establish what opportunities there are for expansion or diversification. If you’re already up to maximum capacity – i.e., no time for anything else outside this place, then it would mean hiring more help.’ He eyeballed me through the fragrant steam. ‘It’s not personal.’

Now I was annoyed with him again for making me feel awkward.

And also, I admitted to myself somewhere deep inside, a tiny bit disappointed, although I wasn’t sure why.

Perhaps because I enjoyed bickering lightly with Zeb?

It was nice, in a vaguely masochistic way, having someone challenge me and say something other than Ollie’s usual ‘righty-ho!’ when asked to do anything.

Zeb forced me to have ideas, to think about Drycott rather than carrying out the same motions and actions as I had been for the last twenty years or so, when I’d taken over most of the physical work from Granny.

Zeb made me think. And, exasperating as he might be, I was finding that I rather enjoyed that level of challenge.

‘By the time I’ve closed Drycott for the evening and sorted everything out for the morning, it’s usually too late to go and do anything else.

Plus, there’s Mum to visit, and she sometimes needs me to do a few bits and pieces for her.

My social life is limited to the customers and any sales people who might pop in.

Which,’ I added in a momentary blurt of honesty, ‘isn’t actually very many. ’

Zeb paused, a bread-scoop of curry sauce half way to his mouth. ‘My wife had an affair,’ he said.

It was so out of context that I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. ‘Your wife did what?’

‘Come and have some of this food.’ He waved a fork.

‘There’s loads. I may have overdone it slightly.

The curry looks good, I think the battered sausage might have been a step too far though, but I don’t know what you eat so I got a bit of everything that the takeaways in Pickering have to offer.

You were just lucky that the pizza place was closed, or there would have been that too. ’

He was weird, I decided, sitting opposite him and ladling portions of random food onto my plate, which formed a pattern more complicated than the flag of Turkmenistan.

This was the second, or was it third, time that he’d talked about his life in this random, half-cautious way, as though it was a subject that slid away the closer he got to it.

‘You said your wife did something?’

‘Had an affair, yes. With that TV chef guy that I told you about, the one I trained with. I don’t blame her in one way, I was never at home, but, seriously?

With another chef ? If she’d slept with some bloke who worked a nine to five, home in time for tea and TV every night, yes, I could have understood that.

Reliable, sensible hours, consistent pay.

But – another chef ! That’s like, I dunno, telling everyone you hate tattoos and then sleeping with Jason Momoa. ’

We sat and stared silently at the battered sausage. ‘Actually…’ I started, but Zeb carried on.

‘It wasn’t her fault. I mean, it was, she didn’t fall on his penis or anything, but I really wasn’t a great husband. We weren’t a marriage, we were an accident waiting to happen.’

Another moment of silent staring. The sausage stared back. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked, at last, when the cracks in the batter had begun to look as though they wore a sympathetic expression.

Zeb shook his head and his fringe wobbled. ‘I’m not altogether sure,’ he said. ‘Perhaps because you’ve been so honest with me about your past? I suppose I want you to know that I understand what it’s like to be trapped and then to try to change things, only to find that it’s too late? Maybe?’

‘Only I’m not.’ I dragged the computer forward on its desk and fired up the screen with one hand as the other was holding something that I was very afraid might be a kebab. ‘Here are the figures for this financial year. If you go back a page you can see last year’s.’

‘Mika seems to like you.’

That surprised me into nearly pulling the monitor off the desk. ‘What? Really? No, he’s just being…’ I remembered that hand cupping mine, those bright, mischievous eyes. ‘Just being nice,’ I finished.

‘And you clearly fancy him.’

‘This is this month’s takings. You can see how they rise month on month from about April…’

‘I think he’s an utter dick, of course, but you flirting with him so outrageously is making sure that the band stick around to film as opposed to heading over to the coast or some stately home and garden.’

‘…and we’re about ten per cent up on the takings this year from the equivalent period last year, which is good,’ I continued, resolutely not listening to him, although his words were seeping through my desire to distract his attention and reaching my ‘desire to hit him with the battered sausage’ layer.

We both stopped speaking at the same time.

I turned away from my screen to see that he was looking at me over his plate, with a suspended popadom dipping dramatically under the weight of something orange.

His expression was unreadable. There seemed to be some element of hope in there, and a question rearing its head under the slightly raised eyebrows.

‘What the hell are you on about?’ I shunted myself back to the table. Despite my desire to avoid any of his questions – about my mother, about Mika – the smell of the food lured me back to my plate.

‘I like you.’ Zeb’s eyes had gone to the table now. ‘And I don’t think you deserve what’s happening here.’

His tone held a weight, an import. Every syllable bent under the doom it contained, as though they meant something other than the simple message they were conveying.