Joe

Sunday lunch in my house is like a sitcom where everyone says and does the same things every week, like they’re characters rather than real people. It’s comforting in a way, I guess. Sometimes it’s even funny and me and Kate take the mickey out of it all. But sometimes it’s just plain annoying, simple as that.

And here we are again, Sunday lunch. Dad’s picked Granny up from her bungalow and Mum’s cooked the dinner.

Dad brings some of the plates into the dining room, where me and Granny are waiting. He puts a small one in front of Granny. She looks down at her plate with a shocked expression, like she’s never seen anything so delicious-looking in her whole life. She does it every weekend.

Dad puts my plate down in front of me. ‘Thanks,’ I say. I look down at it. It’s pork, roast potatoes, carrots, cabbage, broccoli. And I feel hungry as hell.

‘The broccoli, spuds and cabbage are home-grown,’ Dad says.

‘Ooh, nothing but the best service in this restaurant,’ Granny says to me as Dad goes back through to the kitchen.

I smile back, like I’ve never heard her say that before.

Kate comes and sits down at the table. Her plate’s already on the table waiting for her.

‘Hello, Katherine, dear,’ Granny says.

Kate doesn’t look up. ‘Hi, Granny,’ she says. She’s staring at her plate. At the pork. She does this every week too.

Mum and Dad both come into the dining room. Mum’s carrying her and Dad’s plates and Dad has the gravy boat in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

‘What’s this?’ Kate says.

Mum puts the plates on the table and sits down. Dad goes round the table, filling glasses with wine.

‘You know what it is,’ Mum says. She doesn’t look at Kate. She gets the pepper from the middle of the table and grinds some on her food.

‘It’s meat!’ Kate says. She makes it sound like someone shat on her plate. Every week the same thing.

‘I should hope so too,’ says Dad, sitting down. ‘I paid good money for that at the butcher!’ He winks across the table at me and Granny.

Granny chuckles to herself and loads her fork with food. I keep my head down. I’m not taking anyone’s side in this now. I’ll wind Kate up about it later instead.

‘You know I’m a vegetarian!’ Kate says. ‘I don’t eat meat. It’s murder.’

Mum puts down her knife and fork and sighs. ‘Look,’ she says. ‘When you’re sixteen you can make your own decisions. Then you can be a vegetarian or a vegan or a fruitarian or a Rastafarian or whatever you like.’

Kate sighs. She pushes the meat towards the edge of her plate, so that it looks like it might fall off on to the table. ‘I’m not eating it,’ she says. ‘You can’t make me.’

Mum shakes her head and picks up her knife and fork again. ‘Fine,’ she says.

There’s silence for a while. Everyone sits and eats. Everyone except Kate, who just kind of pokes her food around her plate.

After a while Granny stops eating and looks over at Kate. ‘Come on, love,’ she says. ‘Eat up, won’t you?’

Kate doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look up.

‘You need meat. Your body needs the protein,’ Granny says.

Kate still doesn’t look up.

Dad stops eating. He looks at Kate. ‘Your grandmother is speaking to you, Kate,’ he says. ‘Stop being rude, please.’

Kate sighs. She slowly lifts her head and looks at Granny. ‘I’m a vegetarian, Granny,’ she says. ‘Or at least I would be if they let me.’ Kate nods her head towards Mum and Dad.

Granny looks her in the eyes. ‘Look, Katie,’ she says. ‘I understand why you’d want to be a vegetarian. I’ve seen all the TV programmes with the chickens and the pigs and what have you. It’s appalling when they keep them in cramped conditions. But not all animals are kept like that. And your dad bought this from the butcher. It’s free-range.’

Kate tuts. She says something under her breath, something like, ‘You don’t understand.’

Granny pretends not to notice. ‘Besides, love,’ she says, ‘you’re a growing girl. You need a balanced diet. You need protein and iron and –’

‘I’m not stupid,’ Kate snaps at Granny. ‘Meat isn’t the only kind of food that has protein and iron, you know.’

‘Right,’ Dad says in a raised voice, like he’s gonna shout at Kate. But he doesn’t shout. He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. And when he finally does open his mouth, he just says, ‘Let’s change the subject, shall we?’

And we don’t talk about it any more.

In fact, we don’t talk about anything. The only noise in the dining room is the clunk of knives and forks on plates and the disgusting crunching noise as Granny eats a bit of crackling. The sound makes me cringe. I hate other people’s food noises.

A minute or so later, Granny puts her knife and fork down, has a gulp of wine. She puts her wine glass down carefully. ‘There was a big fuss by those new flats when we drove into Fayrewood,’ she says.

Mum picks up her wine glass and takes a sip and nods. ‘We drove past yesterday. Awful, isn’t it?’

Granny nods. ‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘Police cars and all sorts, weren’t there, Robert?’

Dad nods. He doesn’t say anything till he finishes his mouthful. ‘Yes,’ he says eventually. He turns to Mum before he carries on talking. ‘There are more camera crews down there now, Bev. A real scrum of them.’

‘Really?’ Mum says. ‘I wonder why that is.’

Granny and Dad both shake their heads.

‘It’ll be what I said,’ Dad says. ‘They’ll have found out it’s an insurance job. You wait.’

I spend the afternoon in my room, trying to start some revision by drawing up a revision timetable. Downstairs, Granny’s watching a documentary about elephants or something while she does the ironing. She does it every week, to lend a hand, she says. Dad’s in the garage, trying to tidy it up. And Mum’s in the living room with Granny, yakking. Kate’s in her room doing her homework.

At about half four, there’s a knock on my door.

‘Come in,’ I say. I’m lying on the floor highlighting the different subjects in fluorescent pens.

Granny pokes her head round the door. ‘I’m off now, Joe, love,’ she says.

I look round and smile at her. ‘OK,’ I say.

She walks into my room. ‘Why don’t you work at your desk?’ she says. ‘You can’t do your homework on the floor.’

I smile again. ‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘I’m only doing my revision timetable.’

She smiles. ‘You’ve always been a clever lad,’ she says. She pats my head like I’m a five-year-old. ‘You’ll make something special of your life, I know it.’

I don’t know what to say to that. So I just smile again.

Granny comes right over to me and kisses me on the top of my head. ‘You’re a good lad,’ she says. ‘See you on Thursday.’

‘Bye,’ I say. And I get back on with my work.

Around teatime, when I’m in my room and I’ve finished the timetable, I’m lying on the bed strumming my guitar when I hear Dad’s car pull up outside the house. I go downstairs.

‘All right, Dad,’ I say as he comes into the hallway.

He puts his keys into the bowl near the door, takes off his jacket and hangs it up. ‘Hey, Joe,’ he says. He’s got a strange look on his face. Like something’s wrong. ‘I don’t know what’s going on out there, but there are more TV trucks down near the flats.’

‘You were right probably, Dad,’ I say. ‘Maybe they found out it was an insurance job.’

Dad shrugs. He goes through to the lounge and I follow him. ‘Let’s put the goggle-box on and have a look.’

We sit down on the sofa. Dad grabs the remote control and flicks it to the news. They’re showing a story about an England batsman who broke his finger in training.

‘Nothing,’ Dad says.

But along the bottom of the screen, there’s a rolling news thing. It says, BREAKING NEWS: A BODY HAS BEEN FOUND IN BURNT-OUT FLATS IN A DORSET TOWN.

‘God,’ I say. ‘They found a body. It’s down at the bottom, Dad.’

Dad reads it as well. ‘Bloody hell,’ he says. He shakes his head.

We both sit in silence staring at the screen. And I’m thinking, I wonder who was inside the flats? I wonder if I know them.

The story about the cricketer comes to an end. The newsreader in the studio looks straight into the camera. ‘Breaking news now,’ she says. ‘And a body has been found in the remains of a fire in an unused block of flats in the East Dorset town of Fayrewood. Fire crews were called to a fire at the flats in the early hours of Saturday morning. Police have today revealed that a body was found in the aftermath of the blaze by fire officers. They are treating the fire and the death as suspicious. Our correspondent Judith Lawson is at the scene . . .’

Dad turns to look at me. His eyebrows are raised. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he says. ‘Not in Fayrewood.’

I don’t say anything. I just look back at the TV. There’s a reporter standing on the pavement less than half a mile down the road. In the background you can see the police tape sealing off the unfinished road that runs down towards the flats. And in front of the tape are a few policemen and policewomen standing around.

‘Details are scarce so far,’ the reporter says. ‘But a police spokesman has said that they are treating the fire, and therefore the death, as suspicious. No formal identification of the body has taken place yet. But we understand that the body is that of a man.’

‘Bev,’ Dad calls to Mum from the sofa, ‘come and watch this.’

I sit there and stare at the screen. There’s an aerial view of the town. For a second I try to find our road and our house on it, but before I can, the camera zooms in on the flats. People are scurrying around outside them. They look like ants from the camera angle.

Mum comes into the room. ‘What is it?’ she says. She stands behind the sofa and stares at the TV.

‘They found a body,’ Dad says, ‘in the flats.’

Mum gasps. ‘No,’ she says. ‘How awful! Who is it?’

Dad looks up at her. He shakes his head. ‘Don’t know. They’ve said it’s suspicious. It’s a man is all they’ve said so far.’

‘That’s horrible,’ Mum says. She turns away from the screen. ‘Oh, that’s made me feel unwell.’

The news story ends and they go on to a story about a suicide bomber in Israel. Dad flicks over to another news channel. But it’s just the adverts. He switches the TV off.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘let’s just hope that it’s no one we know.’