‘So what do you eat?’ Mum was tucking in. It had taken only a matter of minutes for the whole car to smell of fish. Tanzie thought Mr Nicholls was too polite to say so.
‘In London? Toast for breakfast. Maybe some sushi or noodles for lunch. I have a takeout place I order from in the evening.’
‘You have a takeaway? Every night?’
‘If I’m not going out.’
‘How often do you go out?’
‘Right now? Never.’
Mum gave him a hard look.
‘Well, okay, unless I’m getting drunk in your pub.’
‘You seriously eat the same thing every day?’
Mr Nicholls seemed a bit embarrassed now. ‘You can get different curries.’
‘That must cost a fortune. So what do you eat when you’re at Beachfront?’
‘I get a takeaway.’
‘From the Raj?’
‘Yeah. You know it?’
‘Oh, I know it.’
The car fell silent.
‘What?’ said Mr Nicholls. ‘You don’t go there? What is it? Too expensive? You’re going to tell me it’s easy to cook a jacket potato, right? Well, I don’t like jacket potato. I don’t like sandwiches. And I don’t like cooking.’ It might have been because he was hungry, but he was suddenly quite grumpy.
Tanzie leant forwards through the seats. ‘Nathalie once found a hair in her chicken Jalfrezi.’
Mr Nicholls opened his mouth to say something, just as she added, ‘And it wasn’t from someone’s head.’
Twenty-three lampposts went by.
‘You can worry too much about these things,’ Mr Nicholls said.
Somewhere after Nuneaton Tanzie started sneaking bits of her sandwich to Norman because the tuna paste didn’t really taste like tuna, and the bread kept sticking to the roof of her mouth. Mr Nicholls pulled into a petrol station that squatted by the side of the road, a UFO that had just landed.
‘Their sandwiches will be awful,’ said Mum, gazing inside the kiosk. ‘They’ll have been there for weeks.’
‘I’m not buying a sandwich.’
‘Do they do pasties?’ said Nicky, peering inside, and his voice was full of longing. ‘I love pasties.’
‘They’re even worse. They’re probably full of dog.’
Tanzie put her hands over Norman’s ears.
Mum glanced at Nicky and sighed.
‘Are you going in?’ she said to Mr Nicholls, rummaging around in her purse. ‘Will you get these two some chocolate? Special treat.’
‘Crunchie, please,’ said Nicky, who had cheered up.
‘Aero. Mint, please,’ Tanzie said. ‘Can I have a big one?’
Mum was holding out her hand. But Mr Nicholls was staring off to his right. ‘Can you get them? I’m just going to pop across the road,’ he said.
‘Where are you going?’
He patted his stomach and he suddenly looked really cheerful. ‘There.’
Keith’s Kebabs had six plastic seats that were bolted to the floor, fourteen cans of Diet Coke arranged in its window, a neon sign that was missing its first b, and a rum baba that looked as though it had been there for several decades. Tanzie peered through the window of the car, and watched Mr Nicholls’s walk become almost jaunty as he entered its strip-lit interior. He stared at the wall behind the counter, then spoke to the man, who gestured towards some trays behind a glass screen, then pointed to a huge hunk of brown meat turning slowly on a spit. Tanzie considered what animal was shaped like that, and could only come up with buffalo. Maybe an amputee buffalo.
‘Oh, man,’ said Nicky, as the man began to carve, and his voice was a low moan of longing. ‘Can’t we have one of those?’
‘No,’ said Mum.
‘How much do you think they are?’
‘Too much.’
‘I bet Mr Nicholls would buy us one if we asked,’ he said.
Mum snapped, ‘Mr Nicholls is doing quite enough for us. We’re not going to scrounge off him any more than we already have. Okay?’
Nicky rolled his eyes at Tanzie. ‘Fine,’ he said moodily.
And then nobody said anything.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mum, after a minute. ‘I just … I just don’t want him thinking we’re taking advantage.’
‘But is it still taking advantage if someone just offers you something?’ Tanzie said. She was really, really bored of eating cold food out of plastic bags. And she had the feeling that, if they asked him, Mr Nicholls would buy them one.
‘Eat an apple if you’re still hungry. Or one of the breakfast muffins. I’m sure we’ve got a few left.’ Mum began rummaging around in the plastic bag again. Nicky raised his eyes silently. Tanzie let out a sigh.
Mr Nicholls opened the car door, bringing with him the smell of hot, fatty meat. He was grinning as he sat down. His kebab was swaddled in white, grease-stained paper, and shredded green salad bushed from both sides of the meat, like Kitchener’s moustache. Two twin bungee ropes of drool dropped immediately from Norman’s mouth. ‘You sure you don’t want some?’ he said cheerfully, turning towards Nicky and Tanzie. ‘I only put a bit of chilli sauce on.’
‘No. That’s very kind, but no thank you,’ said Mum, firmly, and gave Nicky a warning look.
‘No, thanks,’ Tanzie said quietly. It smelt delicious.
‘No. Thank you,’ said Nicky, and turned his face away.