Meanwhile, Bernard was standing under a tree explaining the mystery of the missing cookies. “So what happened was, I was worried that something might go wrong, so I thought, I know, I’ll make fourteen and that way I can pick the twelve best. So I did that, and I took the two worst ones, and I put them aside. Then I checked to see where they were, but they weren’t where I thought I’d put them, so I thought I’d just not done it, and I’d forgotten, so I put them aside again. And then there were only ten and by the time I noticed it was too late. But”— he smiled— “I found the first two in the end. They were in my apron pocket. Look.” And with an air of profound triumph, he produced two now slightly crumbly cookies.
“That’s great,” said the production assistant who was conducting the interview. “But can we just get it again, because I think a bird crapped on your shoulder.”
“You know, I reckon I did all right”— that was Tariq, sparkling into the camera like he’d been doing it his whole life instead of since that morning— “given I got hit in the face with a fridge.”
I came first on day one, Paris texted. It probably doesn’t mean anything but it’s nice.
He paused. Hope things are going well where you are. Love to Dad if you see him.
“Boo.” Tariq Tiggered him from behind again. “A bunch of us are going to the bar. Are you coming?”
Paris turned, still not feeling entirely unshitty for the whole face-fridge incident. “I’m really sorry about your cookies.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got tomorrow. And a bunch of people did worse than me despite not being hit in the face with a fridge, so I’m taking that as a good sign.”
“But ... but ... ”
“No.” Tariq wagged a glittery finger in his face. “I’m the one who got hit in the face, so I get to decide when you stop apologising. And that when is, like, three hours ago. So let’s go to the bar, okay?”
“I ... ” Picking at the sleeves of his jumper, Paris squirmed helplessly. “ ... I think I’m just going to head back to my room.”
Tariq sighed. “Are you always like this?”
“Probably.” A pause. “Um, like what?”
“Like”— his hands described circles in the air that were perhaps less expressive than he hoped they would be— “you know Romeo and Juliet? Well, if that was you, you’d be ‘if I profane with my unworthiest hand, oh no I’ve profaned, sorry for profaning, I profaned you didn’t I?’ and later you’d pop up under the balcony and be all ‘I’m sorry for profaning you earlier,’ and she’d be all ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ and you’d be all ‘yes but can we get back to the profaning?’”
Paris thought about it. “I ... I’m not ... Oh God, I am, I’m totally like that, aren’t I?”
“Yes. But you’re also really pretty.”
That was fair. He had been kind of awf— then Paris’s brain caught up with his ears and he almost winced. “Wait? What?”
“Come. To. The. Bar.”
And because Paris didn’t know how to address the pretty question without sounding incredibly needy, they went to the bar.
There was a small crowd already sitting round a table with a variety of drinks and snacks between them.
“Do you want anything?” called out Bernard. “It’s my round.”
Tariq slipped into the space available. “Sorry to be difficult, and I know it’s a social thing, but I don’t do rounds. I don’t drink, so I just wind up subsidising other people’s beer with my student loan.”
“Don’t be silly,” Bernard called back. “I can shout you a lemonade. What about you, Paris?”
“Oh. Um. Sparkling water?”
Bernard grinned at them. “Look at you two, Generation Sensible. That’s what happens when you grow up in a housing crisis.”
A couple of minutes later, holding three glasses in a sort of triangle between his fingers, with a packet of cracked black pepper Kettle Chips hanging from his teeth, Bernard made his way carefully back to the table. “Beer for me, lemonade for Tariq, sparkling water for Paris, and crisps for the table.”
He opened the crisps and laid them ceremoniously between the glasses and the bowls of olives. Then, in an effort to make them more accessible, he began tearing one side open with, as it turned out, far too much force. The packet jerked upwards sharply, sending cracked black pepper Kettle Chips fountaining in the air, before they rained gently down on the gathering.
“Thanks, Bernard.” Tanya fished one out of her wineglass, nibbled it, and then tucked it quietly under a paper napkin.
“Do you all know Paris?” asked Tariq, mostly, Paris suspected, as a polite way to fill the space in which everyone was picking crisps out of their hair, food, and, in one case, cleavage. “Paris, you’ve met Bernard and Tanya, of course, from the time you assaulted me. This is Joan.” He gestured to a no-nonsense kind of woman with a buzz cut and a denim shirt. “She’s in carpentry, which honestly I didn’t even realise was a thing anymore.”
Joan gave him a flat stare. “Where do you think banisters come from?”
“Factories?”
“And how do you think they get into your house?”
“The magic staircase elves?”
“Or”— Joan’s voice had a permanent edge of sarcasm, but she didn’t seem actually offended— “as we prefer to be called: carpenters.”
“You know,” said Bernard, “I’ve never really understood how carpenters are different from joiners.”
Joan stroked her chin. “Well, joiners tend to work off-site, with things that need large machinery. Whereas carpenters tend to start major world religions.”
There was a moment of silence. And then Bernard gave a little bounce. “Oh, like Jesus. I was thinking of the band.”
Not even Tariq seemed to know how to respond to that.
Eventually Tanya rallied, turning to Paris with the sort of smile you gave a student who’d handed in their maths homework early. “Good job on the cookies.”
“Oh, don’t.” He cringed. “I got lucky. And I know I’m going to mess up tomorrow because it’s going to be really complicated.”
“It’s just biscuits on some biscuits,” Joan pointed out.
Paris was still mid-cringe. “It’s not, though, is it? It’s your best biscuit served on an edible display stand that’s also made out of biscuit. And it has to be two different types of biscuit, which means you’ve got two chances of it going wrong, and I know one of mine is going to snap and drop the other one on the floor.”
“And if they do”— Tanya discovered a spare Kettle Chip still clinging to her hair— “you pick them up and you serve what’s left.”
This was probably supposed to be reassuring. But having had his cookies scrutinised more than anyone should ever have their cookies scrutinised, Paris could imagine, all too vividly, the way Marianne Wolvercote and Wilfred Honey would look at him as he presented them with the crumbling remains of his sugar cookie stand and two surviving biscuits roses de Reims. Wilfred Honey would be deeply sorrowful and say something like now, you’ve had an accident, haven’t you, lad, as if Paris was a toddler who’d wet himself in front of the class. And Marianne Wolvercote would raise an eyebrow and say something arch and cutting like fuck you, you’re shit. Okay, maybe not that. Maybe something a bit more BBC.