Free Ghosts in the Morning by Will Thurmann Page B

red, like the birdwatcher who fell from the rocks at Corbi è re.
    I could feel Graham’s eyes boring into me. I glared back at him, saw the disgust in his eyes, and I willed him to say something. I knew he wouldn’t, he had seen something in my eyes, he could sense that I was up for a fight. He couldn’t afford a scene now.
    An awkward silence fell over the room, then we heard the toilet door slam. Matt stepped back into the room, still looking a little angry. I took a deep breath. ‘Okay, if you’d all like to make your way into the dining room, please, I think the starters should be ready.’ I ushered the s even of them towards the dining table.
    ‘Er, who’s sitting where?’ Graham said, looking expectantly at me.
    ‘Um, put me on this end, so it’s easier for me to serve,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave you to sort out the rest.’ I h eaded for the kitchen, leaving Graham looking slightly flustered.
    A large frying pan was gently sizzling on the range cooker, and I poked one of the scallops nestling within. It felt as if it had gone beyond the point of becoming springy . I cursed and turned the heat off . Scallops needed only the barest amount of time to cook, too long and they became chewy, and it looked like they would be slightly overdone.
    ‘Oh well, at the rate they’re drinking they’ll never notice,’ I mused aloud . ‘Besides, it’ll be fine once I’ve plated up.’ I took a sip of wine. ‘ Plated up , oooh, get me. Right little Nigella I’m turning into ,’ I mumbled, then started to giggle. Using that sort of slang, I reckoned I was starting to sound like a TV chef, maybe I needed to cut down on the number of cookery programmes I watched .
    I was a good cook , if I put my mind to it , if I wasn’t feeling lazy. I wasn’t when Graham and I got married, not in the early years. I had never had any experience of cooking when I was young; there had been no hours of fun spent watching my mother home baking. Or cook at all, for that matter, all of our meals came out of a tin or packet. Supermarket own brands. And at the home, all of our meals were prepared for us in the canteen – the ‘ daily slop ’ as Anita called it. But over the years a mixture of boredom and those ubiquitous cookery programmes had led to experimentation and then to a discovery that I did indeed have some latent creative culinary skills. I wished I’d had a daughter, we could have had some fun in the kitchen together ; chopping vegetables, rolling pastry, mixing eggs and flour and sugar and laughing as the mixture spilled over the side, smiling as she dipped her little fingers cheekily into a bowl of melting chocolate - hell, maybe we could have baked cookies like they do on all those American movies...
    My sons weren’t interested in cooking. Not even Simon, in fact especially not Simon. He didn’t want to do anything that could be construed in any way as ‘girly’. As if to prove that he was not what I knew he was. It didn’t help that Graham thought I was talking rubbish , that I was just being stupid . Not that I’d ever said anything to Simon, of course. The fact was that Simon was gay but he didn’t yet realise it . Well, he probably suspected, deep down, but I don’t think he want ed to believe it, he didn’t want to accept it. I knew it, though. It was difficult to define the reasons for my certainty. There had been clues from a young age - he was more relaxed with girls, and some of his mannerisms were innately effeminate – but it was more than that. I just knew , a mother always knows these things .
    I put four scallops onto each of the rectangular plates, and wondered when it was decided that round plates were no longer trendy. Another sip of wine, and then I reached for the olive oil. A special Tuscan one - Graham ordered it online from a website with the tagline ‘ designed for shoppers with a discerning taste .’ Or as I said to Graham when I saw the prices – ‘ designed for mugs who are happy