Composite Creatures Caroline Hardaker (smart books to read TXT) 📖

estate agents’ office. I loved that restaurant. It wasn’t huge or flashy; it was actually quite small and always dimly lit by antique yellow lanterns on the walls, even on the sunniest of summer days. The light hardly made it through the front windows, so most people passing probably thought the place was closed and didn’t come in. But that’s why I liked it. It felt like a secret den. I’m not sure I’d have made those aesthetic choices myself, but I liked the fact that management had sacrificed success for atmosphere.

The restaurant’s speciality was a menu of over a hundred types of cultivated sushi, all listed in a little paperback book on each table. Some of them just had to be made up. Each little dish had a name and price, and a description of how it was made and the provenance of the ingredients. The back page was reserved for whatever real fish dishes were available that day. Usually there’d only be one or two, usually peachy salmon or snapper, and the cost was enough to make my eyes water. I sometimes wondered what the flesh might feel like on my tongue, slipping around like it was still living.

Before, while Aubrey, Rosa and Eleanor always debated the menu and ordered something different each time – sometimes the four of us breaking down with laughter at how horrendous most of them turned out to be – I always ordered the same thing. They’d usually berate me for that, Aubrey being the first to say, “But Norah, you’ve had that a million times. It’s dull!” Prompting me to remind them all that I wasn’t willing to pay extra for something I didn’t understand and probably wouldn’t like. Nonetheless, I loved seeing the mysterious little plates being carried from the kitchen. It was a huge part of the place’s appeal for me, and though we’d been to the restaurant countless times I still felt like I saw something new and colourful every time.

But it wasn’t just the dishes that fascinated me, it was the way people approached eating them. Some would be straight in there with chopsticks, expertly breaking the structure down into perfect-sized morsels containing a little piece of each ingredient in every mouthful. But then some people didn’t know what to do, and those were my favourites. They’d start with the chopsticks and try to pull apart this unknown thing to understand it, as if dissecting a model heart in biology class. They’d taste the mystery lumps and stalks one by one, pulling the oddest expressions as they worked out whether they liked it or not. And then others, after failing to lift a single mouthful between the sticks at all, would then migrate to a fork – and stab at the sushi with renewed confidence. As if none of their previous embarrassment even happened. They were all children exploring new toys. I think some parts of us never grow up.

On entering the restaurant, I spotted Rosa straightaway, her shoulders draped in a thick orange shawl she’d probably made herself. She stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the tables of sleek black dresses and crisp shirts, and on seeing her my stomach did the oddest little flip. She’d spread her belongings across our favourite corner table, owning it like a falcon would her nest. Rosa stood up when she saw me and wrapped me in her arms.

“Eleanor’s just in the loo. Sit, stranger.”

I dropped awkwardly onto the chair opposite and saw there was already a glass of wine sitting there. I started to move to the next chair along but she stopped me. “No that’s for you. Happy birthday.” I thanked her, and said that I’d wait for Eleanor to return before I celebrated with a slurp.

After Eleanor swooped back in and sat next to Rosa, my skin really started to prickle. Sitting side by side, they assessed each part of me like an interview panel, their eyes scrutinising everything from the flyaways at the top of my head down to the thread dangling from a loose button on my velvet shirt. My clothes felt tight and twisted, and I desperately wanted to fiddle with my hair but instead clasped my hands together on the table behind the wine glass. Had I changed that much since December 31st? They looked at me as if waiting for me to reveal something, something they couldn’t ask outright. What did they know? Had they spotted the engagement ring, perhaps? I slipped my hands beneath the table ledge and asked the innocuous question, “How’s Aubrey these days?”

Eleanor raised her glass to her lips. “Oh, she’s alright. She’s been having a tough time of it at work. She thinks the shop’s closing. Imminently. And quite predictably, too.”

Rosa chipped in: “Really? It was packed out last time I was there.”

Eleanor shrugged. “Meh, it’s just what she said. She’s having a rough time of it anyway. I’m seeing her next week at some point.”

So, though they’d both seen Aubrey, they hadn’t seen her at the same time. They likely had different ideas about how she was. Neither of them seemed to want to pursue it.

“She’s been asking after you,” Rosa said. “What you’re doing, when we’re seeing you.”

“Did you call me because she’d told you to?” I spat it out, the anger already building. Aubrey wasn’t even there, and she still had the ability to make me fume. She’ll have been spying on me to find out if I’d admitted making a mistake, and was now having to live with what I’d done. In other words, that I knew that she was right.

“Don’t be bloody stupid,” Eleanor scoffed. “You’re letting yourself down here, Noz. Stop it.”

“Well it seems a strange coincidence, doesn’t it? Aubrey wanting to know if my choices are working out, a phone call out of the blue–”

“Norah,” Eleanor’s voice was low, bristling. “It’s you that hasn’t been in touch with us. We’ve both tried to message you, but you’ve never replied. So