Spray Painted Bananas

Chapter 14

‘I couldn’t sleep...’ he says. ‘I was just lying there thinking and thinking...’

He hesitates, his attention turns to the rubbery strands sprouting from the end of his torch, which he starts to pick at.

‘Come on, spit it out,’ I say. ‘We haven’t got all night, only about a couple more hours in fact and I really need to do some more sleeping.’

‘I was thinking about Bibiana.’

‘And?’

‘I asked her out.’

‘I’m sorry.’

So this is the irrational behaviour of a broken-hearted man.

‘She said yes.’

‘Oh!’

He looks puzzled. ‘Why are you sorry?’

‘I thought she’d said no and you were thinking about it.’

‘Why would she say no?’

It’s too early for this. I wish he’d thought of making me a cup of tea to make this more bearable.

‘What’s the problem Egg? Don’t you know where to take her?’

‘I’m taking her to the British Museum.’

I nod my head as if the very act might shift my thoughts along a bit quicker, because I’m confused. Why are we talking about this at four o’clock in the morning? There doesn’t seem to be a problem. The girl said yes and he knows where he’s going so why can’t we all go back to sleep?

‘So what does this have to do with me being a secret agent?’

He sits up and flashes the torch in my face. This time I’m awake enough to grab it off him. I switch it off and we’re plunged into gloomy pre dawn light. I turn my bedside lamp on and I turn to look into his pale face, part masked by his ginger beard. I wonder if he’s going to trim it a bit, at the moment he looks like a Scottish Imam.

‘As I said, I was thinking...’

‘Yes, yes about Bibiana and taking her to the museum. Does she know that’s where you’re taking her by the way? No, that doesn’t matter! I don’t care... then what?’

‘So I decided I may as well make something rather than lie there thinking about the same thing over and over, so I went to the kitchen and thought, Amber keeps saying we should eat the bananas...’