The professor has lately been working on a thesis, proposing that Dr Pepper is the finest, most sumptuous liquid yet devised by mankind. Whereas Dr Pepper Zero, you understand, Chloe, is the water of the toilet.

‘Yeah, but, we only get the zero one now,’ Chloe says. ‘There’s a tax, or summat. Sugar one’s more expensive.’

The professor rotates the can in his hand. Even the design is repellent. But he’ll drink it; he has learned not to be ungrateful. He asks Chloe: Of what animal is the liver?

‘Erm?’ 

Chloe looks to the kitchen, where short-sighted Gregor peers at his grill. The globule of sweat that lives on his nose-tip is wobbling precipitously over someone’s pork chops. Chloe calls him, but Gregor, who also has short hearing, doesn’t respond.

‘Lamb?’ Chloe says.

Very good. The professor waves her away. When she returns, bearing a heaped plate, the professor thanks her and resists the urge to touch her arm, because she has previously made it clear she does not like it.

The professor loads his fork with steaming meat and lets it catch the sunlight streaming in through the square window. Two tables away, some lesbians are eating baked potatoes. The radio starts playing Dire Straits, and the professor posits that many of the world’s problems could be solved if everyone were persuaded to sleep until noon.  

When he’s done, he puts cash on the table. He rises and rumbles a greeting to the lesbians, who giggle, and he marvels again at what an incredible country this is. On the way out, he apologises to Chloe for having earlier referred to the toilet.

‘See you tomorrow, Peter,’ she says, without looking up from the videos on her phone.

 

#

​

In Thomas and Fiona’s front garden, on a lavender bushel, there are dozens of bees. The professor stops to identify them: fat bumbles, dewy honeys, and those slender wasp-like ones that might actually just be wasps. Over the professor’s half-century on earth, the great insect chorus has perceptibly dulled—so it’s good to see this bushel still teeming. 

At the door, the professor rummages for his key. The girl at the cutters had worn a nose ring, and had made him promise to listen to a musical group called ‘The Offspring’. He had not cared for it, but had appreciated the recommendation. 

The professor opens the door and finds Fiona in the hallway, facing him squarely.

‘Peter,’ she says. ‘May we speak with you?’

 

#

​

Thomas waits at the kitchen table. His neck is in a brace—a minor car accident a few weeks ago—which forces him to sit straight-backed, like a broom. Fiona perches beside him, and gestures the professor to the chair opposite.

‘First of all,’ she says, in the voice she uses on the Zoom meetings. ‘We can’t imagine how hard this has been for you.’

‘Incredibly hard,’ says Thomas.

‘You’ve been so strong. You’re an inspiration to us, to the girls. Bonnie thinks the world of you.’

The kitchen window looks to the street. The professor doesn’t want to see their rehearsed kindness, so he focuses on a rectangular patch of glass that’s cleaner than the rest. He thinks about an idiom he used to favour when marking students’ essays, at the university he later saw blasted into rubble on the BBC News. Throat-clearing. Stop this prevaricating, this throat-clearing. Say what you came to say.

‘We’ve been honoured to open our home to you,’ Fiona is saying. ‘But we were wondering… if you’d had any luck contacting those relatives you mentioned. I think it was your aunt?’

‘Cousin,’ Thomas says. 

I have not had luck, the professor replies. Things are confused; people are displaced. There’s war in my country.

‘Of course,’ says Fiona.

‘Of course,’ says Thomas.

‘It’s just,’ says Fiona. ‘When we signed up for the programme, it was billed as a short-term thing. It’s been, well, years now.’

There is still war, the professor says. 

‘Of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘But the girls are growing up,’ Fiona says. ‘Tricia is asking about having her own room. When we bought, which we’re privileged to have done, we prioritised location over space, and—

The professor wants it to stop.

I understand, he says.

‘Oh, thank you,’ says Fiona, gushing relief.

‘Decent of you,’ says Thomas.

It’s okay, the professor says. Like British weather, you are changeable.

‘Hold on—’ says Thomas.

‘That’s—’ says Fiona.

The professor speaks over them.

Today it is sunny, but mild. When I arrived, it was hot, hot summer. You gave me clothes. I used your bath. We ate green curry and when Tricia asked about my home, I lied.

He points towards the clean rectangular patch in the window.

You had a poster, then. It said, ‘Black Lives Matter’. It is now gone. Do black lives no longer matter? Did they change? Or did you?

The ensuing silence is eventually broken by the front door opening. The girls’ beautiful voices. They rush in.

‘Peter!’

Girls! He sweeps them up. They scream. He laughs. He turns Bonnie upside-down by her ankles.

‘Mum, can Peter help me with maths?’ Tricia asks. 

Fiona’s face doesn’t move. 

‘Girls, put your shoes in the cupboard,’ Thomas says, and to the professor, he adds, ‘Look, perhaps let’s table this for another time.’

The professor, smiling: My door is open.

‘We’re good people,’ Fiona says. 

The words tumble out abruptly, like a burp. She claps a hand to her mouth.

The professor sees the girls through the doorway; Tricia helping Bonnie remove her shoes, showing her the buckles.

You are, he says.

He checks his watch. 

The Ten Bells will open soon. Tonight he’ll drink lager and watch inconsequential football. Tomorrow he’ll sleep, then return to the café. Through the square window he’ll see a sky unblemished by smoke. He’ll listen to the classic rock station, uninterrupted by the screaming of drones, and he will think, by god, this is an incredible country. It truly is.