‘What is that?’ I asked, incredulous, standing beside Isaac at the worktop.
‘It’s my multicooker,’ he said, with a hint of pride. ‘It’s great, you can cook anything in here.’
‘Yes, I can tell.’ I fought back a gag. ‘There’s bits ofanythingstill in there.’
‘Nah, I just use it for eggs most days.’
I peered closer, but not too close, due to the gagging urge. The pan was covered in a thick, blackened layer of what was clearly old egg remains. ‘Isaac, you’re supposed to clean it in between.’
He glanced at me, eyebrows creasing with puzzlement. ‘Why would I do that if I’m just going to put more egg in it?’
‘Because it’s disgusting and unhygienic? How have you not got food poisoning?’
Arthur glanced up from where he was frying sausages and bacon at the hob, as if wanting to say,duh!.‘Jessica, it heats up to 160 degrees centigrade. Any bacteria will be destroyed every time it’s used.’
Isaac flicked the multicooker on while we were talking, the cloying stink of rancid old egg starting to rise as it heated up.
‘Okay, no,’ I wheezed, pressing one hand against my mouth and stepping back. ‘That is so rank. You have to wash it. Can’t you smell it?Or see it? Your business caters for hundreds of people, you know that this breaches countless health and safety rules.’
Isaac stuck his chin out like a toddler being told off. ‘I already said, it’s—’
‘Clean it, now!’ I turned to Arthur. ‘Were you going to eat eggs cooked in this thing?’
He shrugged. ‘None of us have ever got ill.’
‘And none of you have ever vomited due to the repulsive stench, and I presume taste, of whatever’s cooked in there?’
‘Not me. Elliot?’
Elliot was slicing mushrooms and tomatoes. ‘I wouldn’t eat anything that had touched Isaac’s multi-germ-factory if it was the last meal on earth.’
He nodded to a note stuck on a cabinet that read:
Do not eat Isaac’s eggs under any circumstances.
Arthur got out a clean pan.
* * *
‘Mum was right,’ I mused, as I helped myself to the last hash brown (that I’d cooked myself while adhering to appropriate hygiene standards) using an ice-cream scoop because their spoons had ‘gone’. ‘You do need help.’
‘What?’ Arthur and Isaac both looked up sharply. Elliot carried on eating, but I caught the twitch of a smile.
‘You’re eating out of a pan and a mug, because you’re allowing me the privilege of one of your three plates. These sausages aren’t cooked, they’re cremated. And this stool is the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever sat on, even if it wasn’t held together by duct tape.’
‘Okay, so our kitchen skills aren’t amazing. It hardly warrants Mum slagging me off behind my back,’ Isaac huffed.
‘It’s not only that. You spent most of my welcome lunch discussing sub-clause three of clause four point five of rule thirteen in some made-up game.’
‘Clause four point six,’ Arthur said, stuffing a chunk of toast he’d double-dipped in the pot of baked beans into his mouth. ‘Four point five is regarding the permitted diameter of the playing counters, nothing at all to do with the size of the goal!’
He shook his head, smothering laughter at my ignorance about the rules of death-ball, or kill-the-ball or be-bored-to-death-using-a-ball or whatever they called it.
‘That’s precisely my point. Given that someone who doesn’t know what on earth you’re going on about is here, supposedly being made to feel welcome, maybe include a minute or two of conversation that she can take part in?’
‘Oh. I see. I think.’ Arthur furrowed his brow.
Isaac, never one to back down if he could help it, hunched his shoulders in irritation. ‘You’re perfectly capable of changing the subject if it’s boring you.’
