‘So, tell us,’ said Titus as he crossed the kitchen for the kettle, ‘what is that car of yours like to drive?’
‘A dream,’ said Jack, and plunged his hands inside his pockets. ‘It’s fuel efficient with low carbon emissions.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ said Titus, nodding his approval. ‘But what I mean is can you get it out of the slow lane on the motorway without the battery running flat?’
Sasha, who was standing close to Jack as if to shield him from bullets, felt herself dying on the inside.
‘The battery takes its charge from the engine,’ she told her father. ‘Even I know that. The technology has moved on massively.’
‘Like the times,’ Jack muttered under his breath, and flashed a grin at Sasha.
Titus had his back turned to the boy, filling the kettle with water, but he heard the comment clearly. It was amusing. The kid had quick wits. He didn’t like him one bit. If anything, thought Titus, Jack was asking to be tested.
‘I hope you like cupcakes,’ said Angelica, who had just popped upstairs to collect Katya from her crib. ‘Sasha made them herself.’
‘I used a special recipe,’ said Sasha.
‘Cool.’ Jack selected one from the plate. ‘What’s in them?’
‘Mince!’ cried Kat, just as Jack prepared to take a bite.
‘Ignore her,’ Angelica assured him. ‘It’s her only word.’
‘Mince!’
Jack looked from the toddler to Sasha and then to the cupcake. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘That’s unusual.’
‘The cupcake is vegan,’ said Sasha, under the sound of the kettle coming to the boil. ‘Try it.’
Jack inspected the cake one more time, aware that Ivan was watching him intently. Titus, meanwhile, was staring at the plate as if he couldn’t quite believe what was on offer here. Angelica shot him a look, reminding him to be on his best behaviour.
‘It smells good.’ Jack held his palm underneath the cupcake as it began to disintegrate, and quickly grabbed a nibble. ‘And it tastes… magnificent! Isn’t anyone else going to try one?’
‘Count me in,’ said Angelica, who was keen to support her daughter. Setting Katya on the floor, she took a plate and helped herself. ‘How about you, Ivan?’
The boy shook his head and looked to his father. Titus turned his attention to the table.
‘Anything my daughter has made is good enough for me,’ he said, with a hint of a sigh.
Sasha watched her parents eating, and braced herself for the worst. Both of them were clearly struggling, but putting on polite faces for the sake of their visitor. Titus was the first to swallow, just as the kettle boiled.
‘Tea,’ he croaked. ‘I think we need a cup of tea.’
‘Do you have any herbal?’ Jack turned to Sasha. ‘I don’t do caffeine.’
Sasha’s face fell. It was something she just hadn’t considered.
‘Actually, we do,’ said Angelica, much to the surprise of her husband. ‘I thought you may prefer an alternative, so I bought some camomile this morning. It’s in the cupboard above the kettle.’
‘I can get that,’ offered Ivan, as Titus simply stood and stared at his wife.
Sasha caught her eye and mouthed a ‘thank you’.
It was too good an opportunity for the boy to resist. Despite the incident in the bathroom, Ivan Savage had just one more practical joke to play. It wasn’t planned. This was a spur of the moment idea, driven less by a need to amuse and more by a chance to get even.
As his parents found their way into a conversation with Jack, asking him about the sixth form compared to the rest of the school, Ivan dropped three normal tea bags into the pot, filled it with water from the kettle, and then sought out the box his mother had bought. He found it straight away, covered in floral designs. Extracting a bag as if it was something that had accidently been dropped into the loo, he set about preparing Jack’s cup of herbal tea. Then, glancing over his shoulder to be sure nobody was watching, he reached up into the cupboard once again.
The chicken stock cubes were kept on the shelf above the tea bags. Ivan had no intention of dissolving a whole one in the camomile. He didn’t want to make it undrinkable, just different. With this in mind, he crumbled off a corner into the cup, followed by another corner for good measure. The water darkened straight away, but remained translucent. Leaving the camomile bag to infuse in the stock a little longer, Ivan transferred the teapot to the table, where his father was clearly itching to take Jack to task about his dietary habits.
‘Have you had supper?’ he enquired. ‘I’m just wondering whether a young man like you will need a snack to see you through the evening. I imagine you need to be careful about things like that.’
Jack looked a little confused.
‘I’m not sure I follow you, Mr Savage.’
‘Your blood sugar levels,’ he said simply. ‘It’s a concern, no?’
‘Dad.’ Sasha glared at her father. ‘Jack’s is in great shape. We’ll be sure to eat, OK?’
Aware that his wife was also frowning at him, Titus shrugged and carefully turned what was left of his cupcake in one hand. Everything from the bland taste to the dry texture had made him want to spit it out, but that would’ve just been rude. Instead, he poured the tea for everyone, while Ivan returned to the table and set the cup of camomile before their guest.
‘Lovely,’ said Jack, and inhaled the steam. ‘You can just smell how therapeutic this tea can be.’
Despite sitting across the table from him, Titus’s keen sense of smell immediately picked up on the fact that it contained poultry of some form. He glanced at Ivan, who was standing behind Jack looking very pleased with himself. Needling Sasha’s boyfriend about his beliefs was one thing, thought Titus, but this was just disrespectful. Even so, there was nothing he could do when Jack picked up the cup with both hands and took a tentative sip. He seemed to hold it on his tongue for a moment, before closing his eyes and tipping his head back by a degree.
‘Just what I needed!’ he said. ‘Do you know what? I haven’t tasted tea this good in a decade.’
Titus leaned forward on his elbows.
‘So, when did you become a vegetarian?’
‘Oh, ten years ago,’ Jack told him, cradling the cup with his palms. ‘It was the only way forward for me. I just couldn’t live with the thought that another living thing had to perish in my name,’ he explained, before taking another long sip of the herbal broth. ‘People say it doesn’t taste as good, but that’s a small sacrifice.’
‘What about fruit and vegetables?’ asked Titus. ‘They have feelings.’
‘Not again, Dad.’
‘Science is leaning that way,’ he insisted, wishing his daughter would just let him have this moment. ‘Look at the Venus Fly Trap. How do you think it knows when prey has landed in its clutches? And you might not be able to hear a banana scream, but that’s what happens when you peel one. You’re literally stripping the skin from its body. How can that be humane? It’s torture!’
Jack smiled, but clearly didn’t feel it was worth entering into an argument. Instead, much to Ivan’s delight, he drained the cup before suggesting to Sasha that they should be going.
‘We don’t want to be late.’