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Kier

Devon, July 2018

Echoes of that Halloween follow me all the way back to the van.

It’s only when I’m inside that it leaves me.

An assault on my senses: Zeph, already cooking, consumed. Pan hissing with fat, knife moving so fast over a red chilli that it’s almost a blur.

Neat heaps of finely chopped veg sit on the counter. Sugar snaps and mangetout, some cabbage and cucumber. The bowl on the left is heaped high with grated coconut flesh, a finely sliced mango.

He’s making a salsa. One of my favourites.

Zeph told me once where his love of cooking began; with his religious zealot parents, who called him out on just about everything. ‘Food was my only way to please them.’ I remember he smiled, but his eyes were sad. ‘Forgive me my sins if the food is good enough.’

‘Was it ever?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Only sometimes.’

He pauses chopping, looks up. The memory disperses. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey. Smells amazing.’ I set my bag down on the floor, almost over-balanced by Woody throwing himself at me. ‘Salsa? ’

‘Yeah.’ Picking up a bunch of coriander, he starts chopping. ‘How was the coffee?’

‘Good.’ I grin. ‘Still getting over seeing myself in a dress.’

‘So, do I get a look?’ Zeph pauses again. ‘There’s not some weird rule, is there, about seeing a bridesmaid’s dress, like there is about seeing a bride?’

‘I don’t think so.’ I find the photograph Mila sent me, pass him the phone.

His pupils widen, eyes slowly moving up and down the screen. Half smiling, I wait for the wolf whistle, the lazy smile, but it doesn’t come.

A sudden shift in the atmosphere.

‘You chose it?’ he says finally, sliding the phone back across the counter. ‘Not Mila?’

‘We chose it together. Bearing in mind I haven’t been in for any fittings, fits pretty well, doesn’t it?’

No reply.

Picking the knife back up, he carries on chopping, faster and faster, fingers a blur, the coriander now nothing more than dust. The smell, metallic, soapy, is suddenly overwhelming.

I swallow. The air between us has become something solid, a wall.

‘Don’t you like it?’

‘’Course.’ His voice is flat. ‘You just don’t look like you in it, that’s all.’

I look at the photograph to try to understand, but all I see is the sparkle of the moment and my embarrassed smile and the half-empty glass of champagne in the assistant’s hand. I see my slightly fluffy hair and parts of my body that aren’t usually seen in a dress, but I look like me. ‘But it’s lovely, the material, the cut …’

‘I know. I’m just saying, I prefer you like’ – Zeph waves the knife in the air – ‘like this. Like how you always dress. You don’t look comfortable in it. It’s as if’ – he pauses – ‘you’re trying too hard.’

I feel the sharp sting of tears at the back of my eyes.

Shame .

That’s what I feel. It’s familiar; it’s how my father used to make me feel. Every day, without fail.

In front of the rest of the family: I wish you’d try a little harder.

As an aside to his friend when I was sat, just a few feet away: She’s always been like this. Chaotic. Disorganised.

Out of earshot of my mother: Kier, your clothes are looking tight.

I look back at the image. Maybe I do look uncomfortable. Does my smile look false?

Zeph’s studying me. Dropping the knife, he smiles. ‘Hey, I’m just being silly. You look good, of course you do. It’s just different, that’s all.’ Using the back of his hand, he scrapes the coriander into the bowl. Bitty fragments of the herb dot his skin.

I look at the photo again, but his words have tainted it. The moment, there in the shop, the dresses, the heady champagne and the laughter, it’s been made dirty somehow.