A nice meal and a glass of wine.

I've been looking at my page views and they are exciting. I know it's 'cos I'm posting up on FB that people know I've posted (I'm also doing that on Twitter and getting nothing, which just cements a view of the usefullness of Twitter that I've had for a while), but It means people are looking at bits of my books and then coing back to look at other bits.
This bit needs a touch more explanation than the others. Adam, who is 24 and an English teacher in Japan, has entered the virtual world (think Matrix) of The Land. He's also entered the 11-year-old body of its hero, Brendan Earle. It means that he's a little kid and that all of the (literally) film-star-georgeous girls around him don't pay him any attention.
He's with Phoebe McLeod, who is 12, but is in the body of 18-year-old Malika Zinta. She looks like this:

and is rather pleased. Adam is the only one who knows that she's really only 12, just as she's the only one who knows he isn't 11. The middle of a really long story is that they've had to go back to a non-fantasy part of the virtual world and have been left alone. It's the first time they've had the chance or need to actually talk to each other. This is what happens.

Phoebe

We had time to get some shopping in after the film. I was getting hungry, so Adam said that he’d do something quick. We went to a big market to get some salad stuff and meat. I couldn’t believe the meat. It was hanging up in the air! I asked him about the Food Laws, but he said there weren’t any here and anyway, this meat wasn’t real, was it? That sort of made sense, so I supposed it was really like in vitrio, and like, you know where that comes from, don’t you?

Then we went to a supermarket in China Town for rice and things. Before we went back he insisted I go into a wine shop and buy a bottle of red wine. He picked out what sort he liked, but I had to get it, natch, him being underage.

We took the Metro back out to the house. When we got in, the place was lifeless, so I asked him if we could stream some music. He pointed at a rack with loads of thin boxes and told me to take my pick, then went into the kitchen to cook.

I didn’t know any of the names of the groups written on the boxes and I couldn’t work out how you started them, so I followed him into the kitchen with one.

“Are these some kind of mem for music?” He was washing some rice in a pan.

 “Ah, right. Hang on a minute and I’ll show you.” He finished the rice and put it on to cook, then came through to show me the machine.

“That’s what they use to play music? It’s huge!”

“Yeah, well, this is a long time ago. You press this and put the disk in here, and then…” He pushed the sliding thing that had opened up and it closed. “… it’ll play by itself.” He looked at the box. “You want to listen to Nick Cave?” He looked surprised.

“I dunno. I’ve never heard of any of these bands. Are they all real?”

“Yeah. What do you listen to?” He pressed a button and the noise stopped.

“Last Chance Divas, er, Playthings, Water On The Brain, FacePlace, that sort of stuff. Is there anything like that in there?” When he said ‘no’ I could hear he meant ‘Thank God!’

“So, is there anything in there that I would like?

“Er, try this. You’ll know this song.”

He picked out another of the boxes and put the disk in the machine. “You can change tracks by pressing this button here. I’m going to get started on the meal. It shouldn’t take long.”

Then he was back out in the kitchen. The machine started playing ‘Landslide’, but not like FacePlace do it. When it was done, I got it again. The words were written in the box, so I could sing along.

When that one was done I played some of the others. There was one about a soldier who goes off to a war and gets killed. Just listening to it I was nearly crying, it was lovely. It was called ‘Travellin’ Soldier’. I’d never heard music like that before, but I knew that I’d look to see if you could still stream this when I got home. Two more songs in and Adam was coming out to set the table, so I gave him a hand. He poured himself a glass of wine. Then he saw me looking.

“Well, I am eighteen now.” He laughed.

“I’ll get another glass, but I think you should take it easy till you know how well you can hold it.”

Then he brought in the food. There was a salad, the rice that had been cooked with coconut, by the smell, steak that had been cooked brown on the outside and was still red in the middle – I knew ‘cos it had been sliced thin – in a sauce that tasted a bit of soy, but had something else in it. There was some of that French stick bread, but it was brown. We sat down to eat. It was really delicious. I was hungry anyway, but it really was good. I tried the wine. I’d never had that before, so I did just sip it, but it was lovely too. I’d stopped the music when he brought the food in, but he went over to the machine and started it again to play in the background.

“I heard you singing from the kitchen. You’ve got a nice voice. Do you like this?”

“I think it’s Malaika who has the nice voice, but thanks anyway. Yeah. I like the way they do ‘Landslide’ and the one about the soldier.”

“Okay,” he said, and moved through the tracks to another one. “Try this.”

Then he sat down and started to eat.

“How do you like the wine?”

“It’s delicious, but mecha. And I know I’m s’posed to say this to be polite, but the food is really good, I mean really. I don’t think that’s ‘cos it’s meat. When you said you’d cook I thought you were just going to heat something up. How do you know to do this without a recipe book?”

“Family tradition. Mam loves cooking, but so do her brothers, Steve and Simon. They were never around much, but whenever they turned up they’d always spend a lot of time with me. Steve was a captain in the Royal Engineers before he retired and Simon’s taught English all round the world. He’s out in the UAE working in a university near Masdar now. Between them they’ve been everywhere.

Even after mam married Alistair, they’d still come to visit and they’d always do the cooking to show us something else they’d eaten somewhere exotic. Mam taught me to do ten things well before I went off to uni. For the rest, she reckons anyone who knows how to read knows how to cook. If I’m honest, I admit to occasional episodes of culinary dyslexia, but mostly I can feed myself. This is something I used to do before the food laws came in. How about you? Does your mother get you to help with the cooking?”

“Mum died when I was six.”

Like everyone else, he did that double take people do when I say that.

“Sorry, I didn’t even think. I’m so used to it being just me.”

“No, that’s ok. I’ve had time to get used to it.”

“How did it happen?”

He wasn’t looking at me when he said that, but I knew what was going through his head. I’ve done the same thing before. It’s like a tooth coming out. There’s a hole that hurts when you put your tongue into it, but you keep putting your tongue into it. You don’t really want to, but you can’t stop it. You always want to compare.

“She was in hospital for appendicitis and she got one of those super bugs. Her case was in that class action that got brought against the government. If you don’t mind, how did your real dad die?”

“Hit by a bus. A number nine bus. Mam always says he’d have appreciated that touch. He had that sense of humour.”

“Yeah, my dad’s like that. He says that if you go to the gallows you should have a joke for the hangman ‘cos you get points for it. His is: ‘Hello mate, I wonder if you can help? I got a Viagra stuck in my throat and I’ve got this awful stiff neck.’”

He laughed at that. Then he poured himself another glass of wine. He was about to put the bottle down when he saw that my glass was empty.

“Nothing about this place feels right, does it? I know I should offer you another glass of wine, because your glass is empty, and I know that I shouldn’t because you’re underage; but I can see you’re older than I am, but I know you aren’t used to drinking wine and I don’t want to be responsible for getting you drunk, but I don’t know if the programme will let that happen, because you are under age and …” he looked at me and shrugged. “Do you want another glass? You can say no.”

I laughed. It wasn’t really funny, but it was as well... I said yes... I didn’t think he was trying to get me drunk, but he was waving his hands around while he talked more than before, so maybe he’d had too much.

The music stopped so he got up and put on another disk. “This is The Lighthouse Family. They're good at what they do and I think you'll like them.”

I listened while I ate a bit more and decided I did. I liked everything tonight. We chatted until we’d finished what was on the table, and then he went out and brought in some really good chocolate cake. It went so well with the wine. It was all super, super yummy. 

When we’d done, he put the dishes out in the kitchen, promised he’d wash them in the morning and made some coffee. I usually don’t drink coffee, but it just seemed like the right thing to do, so very not twelve, so I had some with lots of sugar and milk and we sat down on the sofa and talked and joked and I giggled.

It wasn’t really freak, but it was too. We’d been in the Land for a week nearly and hardly said anything. There was me thinking he was so unfriendly and stuff. That night we just sat and told each other things about ourselves. I told him about Dad and Auntie ‘Lexie, who isn’t really my Auntie. She was Mum’s best friend and her bridesmaid. Then she got married and moved away. She came back just a bit after Mum died, ‘cos she’d got divorced.

The guy turned out to be a nutter. He came round to try to get her to go back and was shouting and pushing her around. We arrived at her house, ‘cos she’d invited us for a meal. We found the front door open and heard this shouting inside, so Dad went in, saw the guy and hit him. Just once. He always says that in the ring you don’t threaten and you don’t hesitate. Then he dragged the guy to the door (he wasn’t in any condition to argue or walk) and told him what would happen if he ever saw him again.

He wasn’t angry. Dad rarely gets angry, but I think the guy knew he meant it. ‘Lexie never saw him again. Never ever, ever. When he’d gone, Dad just moved furniture around, told ‘Lexie he’d put the meal out while she got ready (her mascara was all over her cheeks) and then acted as if nothing had happened. I was remembering it all as I told it and I felt a bit teary. “That’s my dad all over. He’s an impossible act to follow.”

“Get on,” he said, “You’ve pulled off being eighteen, won battles and filled in a skin this morning. I’ve spent most of my time unconscious while you’ve been saving a world. I’d call that pretty good.”

Well, like, he wasn’t going to tell me that I was making a mess of things, was he? But I thought he meant it, and I blushed. I think that might have been the wine. But I liked the wine. Super, super yummy. So I got up and filled both of our glasses again. The room was swaying, but that was fine, it was only a little.

I decided that I really liked his taste in music too, so when the music stopped I told him so and asked him to choose some more through the week for me. He put on a band called Deacon Blue. They were great too and Scottish!

It was freak, ‘cos he was a little kid and he wasn’t and I felt I was doing something dangerous sitting on the sofa with him and I wasn’t. Like, he wasn’t Max and I didn’t fancy him, but I started thinking that he was ok. Y’know, okay. OK. Maybe nice even. Drinking wine alone in the house with him… I knew I was going to have to think about that a bit more, ‘cos it didn’t feel like nothing, but I’d have to do it tomorrow, ‘cos I was starting to get tired.

This was a dream, but it wasn’t. So many, many things that had never really happened to me before. I’d never had a boyfriend before and I’d never sat down with someone, drunk wine and talked like an adult, well except with Dad, ‘cos he’s Dad and that’s what he’s there for, but we didn’t drink wine, of course, ‘cos he wouldn’t let me. Natch, he’s Dad.

And ‘Lexie. I told Adam I thought they wanted to get married, but they didn’t want to say anything yet. Maybe ‘cos Dad was worried how I’d get on with ‘Lexie as a stepmother. That night was the first time I realized that it would be fine with me. I mean, not just ok, but fine. Mecha.

I can’t remember what we talked about exactly, but we both giggled a lot. I did tell him thanks once, ‘cos he didn’t do what a lot of the Elders had done when they were talking to me and keep looking at Malaika’s chest. That’s so, so rude.

I was getting too tired to talk much more though, so I said good night and went to bed. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Adam

Who was it who said, ‘I can resist anything except temptation’? It was a bloke being honest, that’s who. I knew that nothing was happening, and I knew that was nonsense. I was sitting down drinking wine with one of the most beautiful girls I’d ever met and we were at the trading confidences stage.

There must be a name for it, it must be some kind of syndrome, where you go through a traumatic experience with someone and that makes you close to them. I think it might just be called life, though. Nothing might be happening now, but a week of this and nothing would only be happening by a great effort of will. I wanted out. This was all too crazy and I didn’t need five million years of evolution pushing me to do things that I knew were even crazier.

There’s a classic Japanese anime, ‘Tonari no Totoro’, which is more magical than anything Alistair could ever have come up with. Two young girls meet a gentle monster called Totoro. After their first experience with it, they wake up and find evidence that the impossible things they did with him the night before actually happened. They dance in a circle singing ‘Yume kedo, yume ja nai’. It means ‘It was a dream, but it wasn’t’. Maybe you need to see the film to understand it. I understood it. My head was starting to go round in a circle, singing, ‘This isn’t real, but it’s too damn real’.

Phoebe was getting very giggly over Deacon Blue being Scots and singing about Glasgow one minute. The next, she was patting my hand and thanking me for not looking at her breasts (no, not hers, Malaika’s) all the time, like the old neeps back at the Gard. While I was busy thinking how little she’d noticed, and wondering what neeps were, she wobbled off, saying she was tired. Yup, I thought, and emotional.

And so was I. Getting drunk on that much wine. What was the thing going to do next, make it rain?  I listened to music for long enough to let her clean her teeth and get into her room and out of my range. Lorraine McIntosh’s voice was still soaring like some seagull over Ricky Ross’s lyrics. I switched off the CD player. The silence followed me up the stairs. I’d been listening to ‘All I Want’ from an album called ‘Walking Back Home’. Why did I set myself up like that? The music described my mood and the words said it all.

Hah, Barbara Cartland meets the Keystone Kops. The only thing that could have been more ridiculous than watching this non-event would have been watching him make a pass.