The Last Kings of Sark Read Online Free Page B

better after eating, when the food had been cleared. Before it came, we didn’t know what it would be; when it came, we might not like it. While we were eating, there were the noises, and the way that you can suddenly zoom out and find it strange to use metal things to bring food up to your mouth. Too intimate, embarrassing. We spilt things.
    After lunch, another lesson in the study. Those I remember with my nose, the dust and the dark. Pip drew a diagram of a cell which was better than the textbook’s, and I drank coffee till it coated my organs.
    Occasionally Pip would ask me questions, but it was never about what he was supposed to be learning. How old are you? – Young for my year. But old enough. What is your surname? Have you been to Sark before? Do you have a brother? Husband?
    I stalled, and then, soon, it would be supper, inside at the dinner table. Outside, inside, both were far too cold. ‘Cold spell,’ Eddy said, flicking his barometer with his finger as if he could change things. I counted beats with my teeth to try and make the meal pass. There were tall heavy cabinets, with feet which dug into the carpets. I imagined them falling over onto us. The air was heavy with the weight of having nothing to say. I don’t know if I wanted Sofi there, or if I didn’t. Would she have broken the ice or made it thicker? Either way, it was clear that she wasn’t invited.
    She made it easier for all of us by pretending it was her choice. ‘Wouldn’t want to sit with you anyway. Conversation round that table is dry as Ryvita. Dryvita. Not into it.’ I know this wasn’t true because later she told me she didn’t like eating alone, that she found it harder to swallow. But she’d lay the table and bring us our food, and clear our plates, and prod Pip for leaving his carrots, and then eat in the kitchen, stool pulled up to the work surface, with her dirty white headphones in just one ear in case Eddy called out for anything.
    â€˜She’s the help,’ Eddy said, when Pip asked if we should invite her in for dessert.
    â€˜Isn’t Jude helping us too?’ Pip replied. I didn’t like the way he said ‘helping’.
    â€˜Yes, but that’s different. Anyway, Sofi’s … Sofi’s Polish  … She understands.’
    Eddy turned to me, his hand with the signet ring held out for confirmation, and I smiled.

5
    That second night, we came home to a kettle. ‘Kett-lay!’ Sofi sang as we walked into the walnut. ‘Love a kett-lay.’
    Bonita had left us two mugs and a Sandwich Spread jar, rinsed out and refilled with instant coffee. We’d been given caster sugar too, in an old curry pot with the label half scratched off, and there were teabags, loose, on the side. A handwritten note said ‘tea and coffea’, and Bonita had done some sort of origami with our towels. I think they were supposed to be swans, but Sofi lifted hers up by its long neck and said, ‘She’s done us turkeys! Such a gangster.’
    Sofi sang songs I didn’t know and dry-brushed her teeth for about fifteen minutes. I went to the bathroom on the corridor, and got changed in there too.
    â€˜They say you live for seven years longer if you floss, you know,’ she said proudly. She wasn’t flossing (she didn’t even own any floss), but she was happy, so I didn’t point it out.
    â€˜Night night, private dancer,’ she said. And then, pants only, half-in and half-out of the duvet, she reached over towards me and turned off the light.
    When I woke, it was my second morning on the island and I wanted to see it. I got out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Sofi, who’d cast off her covers overnight and was lying on her side with an arm taco-ed between her breasts. I put my trainers on and eased the bedroom door open slowly, because slowly means quietly. I made my way to the front door. The corridors already smelt of hash