English Breakfast

By Eddy Taylor

 “Cup O’tea?” She asks.

Such a simple question, yet it paralyses me. Now, should I agree then I have to drink it, you can’t just ask for tea and then not drink. It’s impolite, practically sacrilegious to most people’s sensibilities. So if I agree, that means staying. Drinking tea, after all, is a significant investment. However, should I decline then I’m nothing short of rude. She’s offered to labour over a kettle, to pick out cups and saucers she’ll need to wash once I’m gone.

And I need to get going. I’ve got places to be, like the pub or the bowling alley. I’m sure there was something else I ought to be doing today. Yet here I am on the edge of her kitchen again. Again? Did I see her kitchen last time? It was dark and I was rather preoccupied trying to appear less drunk than I actually was.

“Well?”

Fuck. Now I have to answer. Silence is arguably ruder than refusal. I step inside and commit. “Please. Thanks.” Now I’m smiling. Why am I smiling? I’m hardly in the smiling mood, it’s been raining all morning and I’m completely sodden.

She nods in time with a hum and disappears behind one of the cupboards. Shuffling I attempt to lean on the counter with as much cool as a wet sock can muster. She carefully picks out two painted China cups. They seem a little mature for her, like something an old lady might collect without ever intending on using.

“English Breakfast alright?” There’s a twinge of excitement. Is English breakfast her favourite? Or is she just hoping I’m amenable to it since she doesn’t have anything else?

“Umm, sounds perfect.” Perfect? I’ve never had breakfast tea, I hardly even drink the stuff and never before two o’clock. Besides, I haven’t had tea since… the last time I was here. Though I wasn’t paying much attention.

She hums again in that delightful fashion someone might do when they're perfectly at ease. My whole mouth is cutting across my face like a dull knife through leathery butter. I don’t want to be grinning right now I want to be dry and warm and getting on with whatever it was I was meant to be doing. Perhaps I’m coming down with something.

Bags in the cups. Cups! She’s making two cups which suggests we’ll be sitting down to drink. I can’t sit, if I do I’m liable to never get up again. I’ll start getting comfortable which would be a disaster. She leans over the sink, filling the kettle and it’s a struggle to not stare. There’s something oddly erotic about the care she seems to take over the kettle. Or perhaps I’m making it erotic given the last time we drank tea together we were naked. Did she make the tea naked then? Who makes tea in the nude? What happens if you spill it? There’s nought to protect you. At least when you’re dressed a spillage must first pass through a thin defensive layer of a shirt or… My jumper! She’s wearing my jumper, the whole reason I came here and she’s draping it over herself as if she were a flagpole. What sort of a play is this?

“You’re ummm…” Oh god why have I opened my mouth.

“Yes?”

In for a penny. “You’re… isn’t that my jumper?”

“Oh this? Guess it does look a bit like yours.” The spitting image in fact. “No. Yours is a, it’s upstairs.”

“You sure?” She isn’t. “Cause I left a grey turtleneck here and that’s exactly what you’re wearing.” This is probably all coming across rather accusatory.

“So it’s impossible for two people to own grey turtlenecks? Maybe we just have good taste.”

Okay that must be a play right? Is she flirting with me at eleven o’clock in the morning? Easily one of the least flirtatious hours of any given day. The worst part is that like every woman who’s worn any of my clothes she looks much better in it than I do. I’m almost inclined to let her keep it for the sake of fashion. I can’t protest her wearing it. I mean that would probably be sexist somehow. Yet I do want her to take it off. Not so I can have it back but so I can see her again. Is that sexist? Certainly selfish. My hand touches the sleeve and I can sense her fingers hovering above my wrist.

Woosh! The kettle boils and I jolt back into the surface. My hand tightens around the sleeve and I pull her with me. She’s about to lose her balance. I catch her waist with my free hand. I look down to her mouth, suddenly fascinated. The pale lipstick, the tiny mole just below her nose. I want to fall into that mouth. To be caught by her.

“The kettle!” I bark, letting her go.

Post awkward shuffle she finishes making the tea as I stand in the corner like a rotten lemon. Should I have kissed her? Perhaps I shouldn’t have touched her waist? It’s not like I meant to, it just happened to be the first thing I could find. Could have been worse had my hand been any slower.

Tea in hand I drink quickly. The scalding water on my tongue seems like an apt punishment for making things awkward. She doesn’t say anything and frankly I feel that talking is a terrible idea.

Halfway through her cup she steps out of the kitchen. She’s going towards the stairs.

“You alright?” I feebly spit. Hand on my mouth as if I were a chaste schoolboy.

“Should we go and find your jumper? Unless you still think I’m wearing it?”

Painfully I swallow the last of the blistering tea. “And if you are?” I muster with a complete lack of charm. She holds herself there, looking me up and down with coy disapproval. Now I really do feel like I’m back at school.

“Then I’ll have to take it off won’t I.”

She starts going up the stairs and a childish excitement picks up my legs to follow. It's not even midday and I’m going back to her room. Now it dawns on me.

“I’m not getting my jumper back am I?”