The Two of Us Read Free Page A

nothing than drink instant, so when she tells Dad, ‘Instant’s perfect,’ I feel a fresh pang of affection for
her.
    As Dad begins refilling the kettle, the kitchen smoke alarm starts emitting a jagged high-pitched beep, and my nagging headache mutates instantly into a snarling monster with very sharp teeth.
Black smoke is issuing from the toaster and Dad stands frozen, looking from the toaster to the alarm, trying to decide which one to tackle first. Still clutching the kettle, Dad snatches up a mop
from beside the fridge and whacks the smoke alarm three times until it falls to the floor in two separate pieces, one of which is somehow still beeping (albeit less enthusiastically). He stamps on
it once and it dies. The toaster pops.
    Dad smiles at Ivy like a lunatic. ‘Needed a new one anyway,’ he says.
    I pick up the fragments of smoke detector as Dad retrieves the charred toast and proceeds to scrape the burnt slices over the sink.
    ‘Dig in,’ says Dad, brandishing a blackened knife at the stacked boxes of cereal in a manner that suggests he won’t be happy until we’ve eaten all of it. And so we eat a
breakfast of burnt toast, powdery muesli and instant coffee, while Dad picks up where he left off last night, questioning Ivy and humiliating me.
    Mercifully, Ivy has work tomorrow – a two-day shoot for a German car manufacturer – and we’re on the road before ten o’clock and before Dad can inflict any further damage
to the domestic appliances or my relationship with Ivy. He insists on making us a packed lunch and sends us on our way with enough brown bananas, soft pears and thick, Clingfilm-wrapped cheese
sandwiches to keep us going for a week. There’s a significant possibility that I’m still over the limit, so Ivy drives and I press my head against the cool glass of the passenger-side
window in an attempt to take some of the heat out of my hangover.
    The Fiat came courtesy of my best friend, El; he gave it to me when he became too severely affected by Huntington’s disease to drive. One bumper sticker invites fellow road users to honk
if they’re horny, whilst the other (‘bummer sticker’, El calls it) declares: ‘I’m so gay I can’t even drive straight’. And so, as we proceed south on the
M6, we are honked and hooted and air-horned by car after car after van after eighteen-wheeled juggernaut. It was kind of amusing last week. Today, less so.
    ‘I wonder if they think I’m a woman,’ I say as a Ford Galaxy passes us, parping its horn, three gleeful children waving from the rear window.
    ‘Why would they think that?’ says Ivy, not smiling.
    ‘You know . . . the bumper stickers.’ Ivy frowns. ‘Well, you’re obviously not a man.’ I wait for a smile of acknowledgement; don’t get one. ‘So
presumably, if we’re a gay couple, I’m a woman.’ I rub my hand over my shorn auburn hair. ‘The manly one.’
    ‘Maybe they think we’re just friends,’ says Ivy.
    I spend the next several miles fretting over whether or not I have offended Ivy. Maybe some of her best friends are lesbians. Or an aunty. She’s never mentioned it and the subject
didn’t come up during last night’s interrogation, but anything is possible.
    A new song starts on the radio: ‘Could It Be Magic’.
    ‘So who’s your favourite Beatle?’ I ask.
    Ivy flicks her eyes in my direction. ‘You do know this is Take That?’
    To be honest, I thought it was Boyzone, but I nod anyway. ‘Of course.’
    Ivy says nothing.
    ‘Well?’ I venture.
    ‘What?’
    There’s an impatient sharpness to Ivy’s response, and now I’m certain she’s being pissy. Probably because I was being insensitive or something last night.
    ‘The Beatles,’ I say brightly, deciding that rather than apologizing for (and, therefore, reminding Ivy of) last night’s behaviour, the best policy is to gloss over all this
silliness with a bright coat of chirpy good humour. ‘John, Paul, Ringo or the other one,’ I say.
    ‘The