Page 58 of Bare
A border collie asleep by the fire lifted its head, assessed Neil with the professional interest of a dog who'd seen every type, and put its head back down. Verdict: acceptable.
Neil sat. Drank wine. Tried to remember how normal people behaved in social situations. He gripped the glass too tightly, answered Tess's questions in sentences that were either too short or too long, and knocked over the salt cellar.
But the bread helped. Patrick's bread. He tore off a piece, ate it, and the quality was so immediate, the crust shattering, the crumb dense and sour and warm, that the rest of the room fell away for a second.
‘This is extraordinary,’ Neil said. And meant it.
He relaxed.
‘He's obsessive about it,’ Rory said.
‘I'm dedicated. There's a difference.’
‘The difference is about twelve hours and a digital thermometer.’
‘The difference,’ Patrick said, with quiet authority, ‘is between bread that's adequate and bread that's worth eating. I assume you understand the distinction, Mr Ashworth. You teach English. You know the difference between a sentence that's adequate and a sentence that's worth reading.’
‘I do.’
‘Then you understand.’
Tess caught Neil's eye and mouthed: He likes you.
They ate. Tess's lamb, slow-roasted, falling off the bone, cooking that treated time as an ingredient. Roast potatoes thatPatrick had made and that were, by the unanimous agreement of the table, extraordinary.
‘These are the best potatoes I've ever eaten,’ Neil said.
‘Don't tell him that,’ Rory said. ‘He'll be impossible.’
‘I'm already impossible,’ Patrick said.
‘How do you get the outside this crispy?’
‘Goose fat. Parboiled for exactly seven minutes. Then shaken in the colander until the edges go fluffy. Then into fat at two hundred degrees for forty-five minutes. Then turn them once. Once. Once. People who turn them twice are the reason this country is in decline.’
‘Patrick has a position on potato-turning frequency.’
‘It's not a position. It's a fact.’
‘Like Neil has a position on cinnamon placement,’ Rory said.
‘You told them about the cinnamon?’
‘I told them everything about the cinnamon. The cinnamon is a central topic.’
‘The cinnamon is a spice in a jar that belongs between cardamom and cumin.’
‘Alphabetical?’ Tess asked.
‘Obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ she repeated. Looked at Rory. Looked at Neil. ‘You two are going to be insufferable together. Water and oil.’
‘We already are,’ Rory said. ‘Ask Sue Dhillon.’
Tess asked Neil about teaching. He told her about Jake Hargreaves and the but and the fire drill. She laughed, a full, head-back laugh.
‘I love that,’ she said. ‘The but. Every good meal has a but in it too. You think it's going one direction and then something unexpected happens. An ingredient you didn't plan, a temperature shift, a mistake that turns out to be better than the intention.’
