Page 53 of Bare
The pirate ship. The red crayon one. Freddie’s, from the week before term ended, stuck up with a magnet shaped like a teapot. And next to it, a more recent one, in biro on a Pret receipt: a parrot with a square body and an enormous beak and the word BARRY underneath in Freddie’s capitals.
‘Is that Barry,’ Rory said, not turning.
‘That’s Barry.’
‘He’s got a beak on him.’
‘He’s a very serious parrot.’
Rory got the parmesan out and closed the fridge and came back to the stool. He put the parmesan on the counter. He sat back down and picked up his wine for the first time and took one swallow and put it back down again.
‘I hung your painting,’ Neil said. He didn’t know why he said it.
Rory’s hand stopped on the parmesan.
‘Your painting. It’s over the table. In the other room.’
Rory looked at him. Something deeper than the half-smile.
‘I told you you didn’t have to hang it.’
‘I know.’
‘Neil.’
‘I wanted to.’
‘You hung it.’
‘I hung it.’
‘For me.’
‘For the table.’
‘For me.’
‘All right. For you.’
Rory put his chin on his fist and watched Neil stir.
The rice took another twenty minutes. He did not rush it. He added stock and the stock went in and the rice drank it and gave something back and he tested a grain against his teeth at the seventeen-minute mark and again at the nineteen and at twenty-one he took the pan off the heat and dropped in the cold butter and the parmesan and stirred it hard and fast until the whole thing went glossy and loose and slumped when he tipped the pan.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is mantecatura.’
‘Show-off.’
‘You said I could be.’
He plated it. Two bowls. Black pepper, a last grating of parmesan, nothing else, because anything else would have been noise. He carried both bowls to the kitchen table and put them down on the placemats he put out an hour ago and straightened twice.
Rory came and sat down on the far side of the table. Looked up. Went quiet. Above his head, the painting. The gold, the warmth, the two figures who were not touching and were also very clearly together. He looked at it for a long time. Then he looked at Neil and said nothing and didn’t need to.
Neil sat. He picked up his spoon. Rory did not pick up his.
‘Eat,’ Neil said.
‘In a minute.’
