Free In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan

supper.”
    “No, no. There isn’t enough.” The discussion was formal and restrained, barely rising above a whisper. Dissent was expressed by monologues which overlapped, the undulating tendons in the woman’s neck, the man’s left hand which clenched and unclenched. Silently I urged the woman on. I wished to be dismissed with gentle, courteous handshakes, never to return. I would walk southwards home and climb into bed. One of the infants, eyes fixed on mine, began to stagger towards me. I looked to the girl to intercept him. She complied, but sullenly, and I suspected she held back longer than was necessary.
    The argument was over, the woman was bending over a pile of mattresses preparing a bed for the babies, and her husband was watching her from a chair next to mine. The girl leaned against the wall and made a melancholy examination of her fingers. I played with the crumbs and grains. The Chinaman turned and smiled faintly at me. Then he addressed to his daughter an unbroken sentenceof apparent complexity, the final section of which rose steadily in pitch while the expression on his face remained fixed. The girl looked at me and said dully, “Dad says you gotta eat wiv us.” To clarify this her father pointed at my mouth and then to the pot. “You come,” he said with enthusiasm. In the corner the mother spoke sharply to her children who lay at either end of a small mattress crying sleepily. I looked steadily in her direction hoping to catch her eye and have her approbation. Bored, the girl resumed her position against the wall, her father sat with folded arms and filmy, vacant eyes. I said, “What does your mother think?” The girl shrugged and did not look up from her fingernails. Against hers my voice sounded hollow and cultivated, suggestive of laconic manipulation. “What were your parents talking about just now?” She looked at the black cupboard. “Mum says Dad paid too much for it.”
    I decided to leave. To the Chinaman I pantomimed by making a sick face and pointed to my stomach that I was not hungry. My host seemed to take this to mean that I was too hungry to wait till suppertime. He spoke rapidly to his daughter, and when she answered he cut her off angrily. She shrugged and crossed to the fire. The room filled with a thin, hot, animal smell which resembled the taste of blood. I twisted around in my chair to speak to the girl. “I don’t want to offend your parents, but tell your dad I’m not hungry and I’ve got to go.”
    “I told him that already,” she said, and ladled something into a large white bowl which she set before me. She seemed to relish my situation. “Neither of ‘em listen,” she said, and returned to her part of the wall.
    In a large quantity of clear hot water several dun-colored globes, partially submerged, drifted and collidednoiselessly. The Chinaman’s face puckered in encouragement. “You come.” I was aware of the woman watching me from her side of the room. “What is it?” I asked the girl.
    “It’s muck,” she said vaguely. Then she changed her mind and hissed vehemently. “It’s
piss.”
With a low chuckle and small flourish of his dry hands the Chinaman appeared to celebrate his daughter’s mastery of a difficult language. Watched by all the family I picked up the spoon. The babies were quiet in their corner. I took two rapid sips and smiled up at the parents through the unswallowed liquid. “Good,” I said at last, and then to the girl. “Tell them it’s good.” Once again not looking up from her fingernails she said, “I’d leave it if I was you.” I maneuvered one of the globes onto my spoon, it was surprisingly heavy. I did not ask the girl what it was, for I knew what she would say.
    I swallowed it and stood up. I offered my hand to the Chinaman in farewell, but he and his wife stared and did not move. “G’wan, just go,” the girl said with resignation. I moved slowly around the table, fearful of vomiting. As I reached the door