in the foetal position and the chicken, still wrapped in paper, leaking blood on to the hob of her cooker.
Well, she thought, I wouldn’t call the experiment an unqualified success.
She cleaned up the mess, rubbed the bird with salt and oil, stuffed it with a lemon and placed it in a hot oven, along with some ancient potatoes and beans from the bottom of the fridge.
An hour later the smell woke Justin, who, for a brief ecstatic moment, thought he’d managed to cook a meal by himself. Agnes would be impressed and grateful; she would invite him across the flat once more and into her bed. The reality disappointed but did not surprise him.
That night they ate together.
He didn’t tell her about the singing rabbit, just sat and listened as she talked about her day, the photographs, her plan for a show. As the narrative unfurled he stopped hearing her words and listened instead to the delicious cadence of her speech. The sound of her voice soothed him, he drew it around his shoulders like fleece.
I will feed Agnes, he thought, and in exchange she will take me back.
And so he set about channelling every ounce of fear, anxiety, nervous energy and love – especially love – into food.
On Monday morning he found a recipe for meatballs, uncrumpled the money left over from Saturday’s chicken, shoved it into his pocket and ventured out. The brightness of the day hurt his eyes, but the world felt cold and pleasant against his skin. He approached the butcher’s window cautiously. The rabbit was gone. Perhaps he had imagined it.
He entered, asked the butcher for 500 grams of minced beef, handed him the money, accepted his package and his change, and left.
As he passed the window again, he felt cautiously triumphant. He risked a tiny sideways glance. Still no rabbit. Excellent.
The way another person might have pursued the meaning of life, Justin made meatballs, shaping each ball into a sphere so laboured and perfect, it caused his eyes to fill with tears for the flesh of the noble cow, for the perfection of three-dimensional geometric forms in nature, for the relentless universality of dinner time.
He tried explaining this to Agnes and she laughed, but stopped when she caught sight of the expression on his face. He turned away before she could see the tears fall.
Oh lord, she thought. Woods. Not out of yet.
She had hoped the cooking would bring him out of himself, lead him back into the real world. But it didn’t. In the kitchen he was like the sorcerer’s apprentice: he couldn’t stop. The orderly rhythm of recipes calmed his jangled nerves, there was no need for value judgements and approximations. He disliked pinches and handfuls, hungered after precise measures and medium (not small, not large) eggs. It calmed him to choose ingredients, to prepare each according to its true inner nature. The feel of raw materials and the sound of sizzling comforted him.
It comforted him most of all to feed Agnes.
‘It’s good, Justin, you’re a natural,’ Agnes said, helping herself to another meatball.
Yes, he was a natural. A natural lunatic. But he enjoyed putting his mind to simple tasks, enjoyed her approval, enjoyed her pleasure at eating something other than sandwiches. It made him feel closer to the person he had lost track of, the person he had been not so long ago, before his brain got all tied up in catastrophe.
And he felt closer, if only by teaspoons, to his heart’s desire.
33
Justin had planned a special meal to celebrate two weeks of living with Agnes. As he adjusted the heat under the lamb chops, he heard a knock on the door.
Wrapped in a thick winter coat, Peter Prince looked gawky and unfazed as ever, like a relic from a life Justin had almost forgotten. Beside him stood his sister.
‘Do you remember Dorothea?’ Peter asked.
‘Hello,’ she said, noting the dark circles under his eyes.
Though her face looked familiar, Justin could not recall having met her before.
The three stood in awkward
Well, she thought, I wouldn’t call the experiment an unqualified success.
She cleaned up the mess, rubbed the bird with salt and oil, stuffed it with a lemon and placed it in a hot oven, along with some ancient potatoes and beans from the bottom of the fridge.
An hour later the smell woke Justin, who, for a brief ecstatic moment, thought he’d managed to cook a meal by himself. Agnes would be impressed and grateful; she would invite him across the flat once more and into her bed. The reality disappointed but did not surprise him.
That night they ate together.
He didn’t tell her about the singing rabbit, just sat and listened as she talked about her day, the photographs, her plan for a show. As the narrative unfurled he stopped hearing her words and listened instead to the delicious cadence of her speech. The sound of her voice soothed him, he drew it around his shoulders like fleece.
I will feed Agnes, he thought, and in exchange she will take me back.
And so he set about channelling every ounce of fear, anxiety, nervous energy and love – especially love – into food.
On Monday morning he found a recipe for meatballs, uncrumpled the money left over from Saturday’s chicken, shoved it into his pocket and ventured out. The brightness of the day hurt his eyes, but the world felt cold and pleasant against his skin. He approached the butcher’s window cautiously. The rabbit was gone. Perhaps he had imagined it.
He entered, asked the butcher for 500 grams of minced beef, handed him the money, accepted his package and his change, and left.
As he passed the window again, he felt cautiously triumphant. He risked a tiny sideways glance. Still no rabbit. Excellent.
The way another person might have pursued the meaning of life, Justin made meatballs, shaping each ball into a sphere so laboured and perfect, it caused his eyes to fill with tears for the flesh of the noble cow, for the perfection of three-dimensional geometric forms in nature, for the relentless universality of dinner time.
He tried explaining this to Agnes and she laughed, but stopped when she caught sight of the expression on his face. He turned away before she could see the tears fall.
Oh lord, she thought. Woods. Not out of yet.
She had hoped the cooking would bring him out of himself, lead him back into the real world. But it didn’t. In the kitchen he was like the sorcerer’s apprentice: he couldn’t stop. The orderly rhythm of recipes calmed his jangled nerves, there was no need for value judgements and approximations. He disliked pinches and handfuls, hungered after precise measures and medium (not small, not large) eggs. It calmed him to choose ingredients, to prepare each according to its true inner nature. The feel of raw materials and the sound of sizzling comforted him.
It comforted him most of all to feed Agnes.
‘It’s good, Justin, you’re a natural,’ Agnes said, helping herself to another meatball.
Yes, he was a natural. A natural lunatic. But he enjoyed putting his mind to simple tasks, enjoyed her approval, enjoyed her pleasure at eating something other than sandwiches. It made him feel closer to the person he had lost track of, the person he had been not so long ago, before his brain got all tied up in catastrophe.
And he felt closer, if only by teaspoons, to his heart’s desire.
33
Justin had planned a special meal to celebrate two weeks of living with Agnes. As he adjusted the heat under the lamb chops, he heard a knock on the door.
Wrapped in a thick winter coat, Peter Prince looked gawky and unfazed as ever, like a relic from a life Justin had almost forgotten. Beside him stood his sister.
‘Do you remember Dorothea?’ Peter asked.
‘Hello,’ she said, noting the dark circles under his eyes.
Though her face looked familiar, Justin could not recall having met her before.
The three stood in awkward
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