Johnny, 30 and bored, recalls the appearance of his half-brother and his half-brother’s girlfriend.
In the mornings Lawrence and Emily would cross the hall and tickle me awake, then he would disappear to make breakfast – a full English, adapted to accommodate the household rule about pork products. ‘Has to be full English,’ he would say, ‘what else?’ It seemed not to be a rhetorical question. One day Emily, citing ‘all that grease’, and exclaiming that Lawrence would ‘turn into a bloody egg’, prevailed on him to pick up pains au chocolat from Fast Mart.
‘Go on,’ she said, prodding him with a toe from her position on the purple beanbag beside my bed, ‘while they still remember being fresh.’
‘Fine. I’ll do it. For you. And the boy. But I’m not going to pretend I approve.’
‘Oh, and get us some fruit while you’re at it.’
‘Fruit? Fuck that.’
‘Fuck fruit, Lawrence?’
‘Yes, Emily, fuck it. Fuck them.’
