CHAPTER 1
Griff
31 December 2024
I used to believe that food could fix anything.
Forgotten anniversary? Dark chocolate fondant cake with a molten centre, cloaked in whipped orange blossom cream – rich enough to distract from the missing bouquet of flowers and faint smell of panic. Accidentally backed into your neighbour’s wheelie bin? Lamingtons – featherlight sponge layered with raspberry reduction, dipped in glossy ganache and rolled in a coconut peace offering. Dog ran away? Steak tartare – hand-chopped eye fillet topped with a quail egg yolk. Just enough umami to lure Fido home. Even the neighbours’ pets will come for that one.
But some wounds don’t yield to heat, seasoning or time.
My eyes rest on the beige plastic breakfast tray that has even less self-respect than I do. They say that food is love. If that’s true, then nobody loves me – not anymore.
I fling the bowl of lukewarm tinned spaghetti towards the bin. It misses, detonating on the wall in a splatter of tomato sauce. Limp noodles cling for dear life then slide into the rubbish with a wet plop.
The toast follows. Satan’s butter (also known as margarine) makes it stick for a moment before it succumbs to the same fate.
‘Not again, Greg, you old bugger!’ Allison, the manager, still hasn’t learned my name. She stands, hands on hips, green eyes locked on me in a death stare beneath cakey layers of make-up, her dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail. ‘Today of all days, when the bloody cleaner has called in sick again!’ She wipes the murdered pasta off the wall then heads to the ensuite mirror to wash her hands and reapply her lipstick, the smack of her chewing gum punctuating the silence.
Morning light seeps through the gap in the…
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