The Flavours of Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

spoon. You know what it does to me. And why, anyway? Why?’ I indicated the metal container beside the stove, crammed with upturned utensils – a potato masher, a handheld grater, a spatula, and most importantly, loads and loads of wooden spoons of various sizes. ‘You’ve got a million wooden spoons there, we can’t move sometimes for wooden spoons, and you insist every time on using a metal spoon with the metal pan.’
    ‘I’m trying to save on washing up. If I use this I can eat with it, too.’
    ‘Like you do the washing up!’ I scoffed at him. ‘And, by the way, in case you haven’t noticed despite me telling you this all the time – that is not porridge, it is cement.’
    ‘It’s the only way to eat porridge,’ he said. As he spooned the ‘porridge’ into the white bowl with the ring of red flowers around its rim, he made theatrical cracking sounds as though the cement-like substance was breaking the bowl.
    ‘I’ll go get the kids up,’ I said, while he switched on the television. His fingers reached for the remote to click on BBC breakfast news, and he took his seat at the table. As I passed him on the way upstairs, I ran my hand over his hair, pausing to twist a tiny sectionbetween my fingertips, twirling the black strands back into its piece of a budding dreadlock.
    Joel caught my wrist before I moved on, pulled me back and kissed the palm of my hand. ‘I’m proud of you and how you’re doing,’ he said quietly, before going back to his beige cement and catching up with the world news, his few minutes of peace before the world became full of our family.
    Like his smile, like his laughs, those words diffused warmth through every cell in my body.
    *
    The sickness is still turning, but now it’s burrowing itself deeper and deeper into my stomach. I probably need to eat more to make it stop, I feel this more acutely when I’m hungry, but I can’t eat any more. My mouth will not allow me to chew any more, or swallow any more. The sense of failure I’m feeling right now, the horror that is accepting I am a bad mother, has dragged me closer and closer to actual vomiting. Once I’ve done that, have stopped this pervading sense of wanting to chuck up, maybe I’ll feel better, maybe the nausea will subside enough for me to think clearly.
    ‘Do you have any idea what you want to do?’ I ask her.
    She shakes her head.
    ‘Do you want me to stop talking about it?’
    A nod.
    ‘Me, too,’ I admit. ‘Look, I know it’s early, but let’s go to bed, sleep on it. Talk about it again in the morning.’
    Shrug. ‘If you want.’
    I squeeze my fingers onto my temples, close my eyes and fight the bile that has gushed unexpectedly up my throat.
    I will not scream. I will not throw up and I will not scream .
    ‘You know what, Phoebe, it’s not a case of what I want, actually. I’m trying to be … This is something I seriously never thought I’d be dealing with. You don’t go out to parties or even ask to go to your friends’ houses – as far as I know you go to school and comehome. This is not something I thought I had to worry about right now.
    ‘And because this is all such a shock, I’ve not thought through how I was going to react. So, I don’t know what to say or do right now at all, let alone what to say or do that won’t set you off. Also, I’m trying not to take it personally that you decided to tell some teacher at your school before you told me, like I’m some ogre who’s going to shout at you. I thought you knew you could trust me. After last time, after – What I’m saying is, I didn’t shout at you last time, did I? I understood, I did what was best for you. But still, you go off and tell some stranger this news first.’
    ‘He’s not a stranger,’ she states simply.
    ‘Well he’s a stranger to me!’ I snap, astounded that amongst all the other things wrong in this situation she’s defending her teacher. I inhale to push air right to the bottom of my lungs, to