by Matt Whyman
‘Have you chosen?’ she asked the young man sitting opposite her that lunchtime while consulting the menu in her hands. ‘I like the sound of the corn and blueberry salad.’
Only recently, Amanda had been forced to cut short an evening out when the junior lifeguard on her arm had spotted a burger joint on their way back from the pictures and declared himself to be ravenous. On this occasion, Amanda had cautiously accepted an invitation to a beachside bistro overlooking the breakers because the chef was known to do fabulous things with seasonal fruit. Unlike the lifeguard, whose idea of making an effort went no further than a red vest, surf shorts and flip-flops, the young fund manager who had invited her here had dressed carefully for their date. With a jumper arranged casually over his shoulders and a pastel polo shirt, Nate Dunlop looked both confident and relaxed as he folded his menu and beamed at his date.
‘There’s only one choice for me,’ he said. ‘The tuna with avocado and kiwi salsa.’
Amanda Dias flattened her lips, trying hard not to look crushingly disappointed. She’d had such high hopes, after all. Nate had first struck up a conversation with her under a hotel awning during an unexpected tropical storm, and then hailed her a cab home when the downpour worsened. This date had been something she’d been looking forward to, and now it was ruined.
‘The salsa sounds good,’ she said with a sigh, and considered her menu once more. ‘The tuna not so much.’
‘You don’t eat fish?’ Nate sipped at his mineral water.
‘I play no part in the rape of the oceans.’
Coughing only slightly as he swallowed, Nate set down his glass.
‘OK, so maybe I won’t have the fish.’
‘How about the meat?’ Amanda looked over the top of the menu, her eyes narrowing.
Nate looked like he really could do with moistening his mouth with another slug from his glass.
‘I sense I may be about to give you the wrong answer.’ He offered a nervous smile. ‘What can I say? I’m a sucker for a steak.’
The blinds behind Nate were set to counter the glare of the sun. When Amanda sat back in her seat to fully assess her date, it caused harsh bars of light and shadow to cut across her face.
‘There is no justification for eating defenceless animals in any shape or form,’ she declared. ‘The same goes for the fish.’
‘I see,’ said Nate, who had begun to look a little amused. ‘A vegetarian, right?’
‘Vegan,’ she told him proudly. ‘I don’t do half measures.’
Nate responded by breaking into a broad smile. Amanda knew that would vanish if she revealed just how much further down the culinary road she had travelled with her surrogate family. A chance encounter with the Savages at the table had marked the beginning of her journey from a university undergraduate who rejected all animal-based products to the young woman she had become with an appetite for people. Instead of being horrified at the sight of a family consuming a human being, Amanda considered it a revelation. This was the ultimate in progressive eating, she had concluded. Nobody was preying on another species, but simply turning on their own kind in an overpopulated and resource-starved world. In her mind, dining on human flesh in no way contradicted her beliefs. In between feasts, she continued to pursue a way of life that spared all animal suffering. As for people, they perpetrated so many crimes against the creatures of the earth that this occasional, secret indulgence was her way of biting back.
‘You know what?’ Nate said next. ‘You strike me as quite a man eater.’
Amanda cocked one eyebrow. A rare glimmer of amusement played across her face.
‘That’s very observant of you,’ she replied. ‘So, I’m disappointed that you can’t see beyond the prospect of a juicy T-bone and recognise the suffering behind it.’
‘Don’t you ever give up?’ Nate addressed her with some exasperation, only to raise his hands as if to apologise. ‘OK,’ he said, now grasping for a conversation beyond the tense small talk they had shared so far. ‘Convince me.’
‘Really?’ Amanda emerged from the shadows and leaned in on her elbows. It wasn’t just the sun on her face that brightened her expression. ‘Very well,’ she began. ‘Imagine if the meat eaters were presented with a choice.’
‘I’d say medium,’ said Nate. ‘Rare can be risky and anything more is overcooked.’
‘I’m talking about the choice between life and death,’ she pressed on, quietly irritated by the interruption. ‘One day the grazers will rise against your kind for the centuries of misery and bloodletting you have brought upon the animal kingdom. Time is running out, Nate. We are gathering in number, massing in ranks and becoming radicalised in the face of so much cruelty and suffering just so people like you can be served cheap cuts of meat. Well, enough is enough,’ she added, and banged her fist on the table. ‘A food revolution is in the air, and come that day you’ll know how it feels to be hunted, scared and butchered with your heart still beating!’
Nate Dunlop had listened with growing alarm to what sounded like a murderous manifesto – one that had started calmly but ended with people at the neighbouring tables turning to see what had possessed this young lady now glaring balefully at him. He glanced around, drumming his fingers on the table as he did so.
‘Well, it was nice meeting you,’ he said finally, and rose prematurely to his feet.
Amanda sighed to herself. ‘Not again,’ she muttered, following him with her eyes.
Nate fished his wallet from his pocket. He dropped twenty bucks on the table for the drinks.
‘It’s not you,’ he told her, ‘it’s me.’
‘Really?’
‘If I was half as crazy as you,’ he said, with some irritation in his voice, ‘then perhaps we’d be close to having a connection.’
It was only as Nate took his man bag by the strap from the back of his chair that she met his gaze for a moment.
‘Paying for the drinks won’t spare you,’ she told him.
Nate glared back at her. Then a hint of pity came into his eyes.
‘Listen, you’re a nice girl,’ he told her, before slinging his bag over his shoulder, ‘but all this talk is nuts.’
With that, he left Amanda facing the chair. A moment later, she twisted around to see him easing through the throng towards the door.
‘Hey!’ she called out angrily, which caused yet more heads to turn. ‘There’s nothing wrong with nuts!’
Ivan Savage returned to his position on the bench and sat hunched over in his shoulder pads. With his cheeks flushed, and his hair in a tangle having just popped off his helmet, he willed himself to stay calm. After-school football practice had begun over an hour ago. So far, he’d been given three opportunities on the pitch. Each one had lasted no more than a minute before the coach opted to take him off again.
‘It’s for your own safety,’ he told the boy. ‘Even with protective gear, you’re in danger of sustaining a head injury.’
‘Give me a chance, boss. It’s all I ask.’
‘Ivan, you’re playing with big boys here. Yes, it’s a game, but it’s not a game. There’s a difference.’
Reflecting on the exchange, Ivan sat there with his helmet in his hands, as if it was a skull in need of crushing.
‘Damn them all,’ he muttered, with his own team in mind. ‘Those guys should just learn to pass properly.’
Was it his fault that his teammates deliberately hurled the ball at him, knowing he lacked their handling skills? OK, so he was smaller and slighter than the other players out there, but nobody gave him a chance, and that included the coach. Ivan could barely break into a trot without being whistled off and placed on water-boy duties. Then there was the opposition. Just what was the point of slamming him to the ground like that? It was asking for payback. The boy sat there, stewing, and tried to take his mind off things by making another stab at understanding how the hell this game was supposed to be played.
If only Ivan could get his head around the rules. American fo
otball remained his perfect path to being accepted at high school. It was the country’s national sport, after all. Embracing it as an outsider would earn him lasting friendships, or so he had believed at first. Nobody at school knew Ivan’s true origins, of course. His father had ensured that their cover story was foolproof. Even so, he had expected his classmates to show a little more willingness to engage, rather than teasing him about his accent and calling him an oddball. Ivan had arrived at school eager to integrate as he knew best. Unfortunately, unspeakably sick jokes and magic tricks involving pins and razor blades that tended to result in minor injuries for his volunteers failed to bring him respect, admiration or friendship. Instead, it had earned him several visits to the high-school principal’s office. On calling in the boy’s parents, and tabling the prospect of expulsion, he had been assured by Titus and Angelica that Ivan was simply a determined soul. Everything he had done, despite being misguided, was driven by his need for acceptance. That’s when the principal had suggested that a team sport might be the way forward, with no concept whatsoever that as the school years progressed it would be his undoing.
‘C’mon, coach,’ Ivan grumbled, as the man in the Miami Dolphins jersey gravitated up and down the touchline. ‘Give me a break here!’
‘I can’t do that,’ the coach replied, with his back to the boy. ‘It would be negligent on my part.’
‘But how am I going to learn?’ pleaded Ivan. ‘All I do is sit here for session after session!’
The coach turned, looking pained.
‘Ivan, I understand your frustration and appreciate your enthusiasm, but why don’t you think about a non-contact sport? Something solo, perhaps, like … distance running.’
Ivan listened to his coach’s advice, while quietly assessing the cords in the man’s neck. He looked kind of chewy in the boy’s opinion, which wasn’t all bad with the right cooking technique. A stew, perhaps, or cooked with chopped onion, jalapeño peppers and spices for a tasty burrito filling.
‘I’m good at football,’ he said after a moment. ‘You need me on side, coach. You just don’t know it yet.’
5
Titus Savage had returned to the villa in good time for lunch. It was now heading towards late afternoon. He had tried reaching his wife on her cell phone, left a message and a text, but she had yet to respond. It was Amanda who found him in the kitchen, fixing up a snack.
‘You really should consider going vegan in between feasts,’ she said, and gestured to the salami on the counter. ‘Those poor animals.’
‘I make up for my bad habits,’ he told her with his mouth full. ‘Since we’ve been here, all the people we’ve chosen for the table have been carnivores. Amanda, if it helps, I’m making the world a safer place for the cows, pigs and sheep. We’re thinning out the meat eaters in the food chain.’
‘I can swallow that,’ she said, grinning despite herself. ‘But what about the fat content?’
Titus looked at the bread roll in his hands, crammed with meat, mayo and pickled onion slices, and cringed. Were the extra pounds that noticeable to everyone else?
‘So, how was your date?’ he asked, in a bid to shift the subject.
‘Same as ever.’ Amanda opened the door to the cupboard where the family kept the canned drinks and cordials. ‘Another gastronomic mismatch. I like a challenge, but not a lost cause.’
Tearing off a bite from his bread roll, Titus considered his lodger as she filled a glass with fruit juice. It had been at a family discussion, during the heart of a feast, that the Savage family elected to invite Amanda Dias into the fold. Every one of them was well aware of her fiery and unyielding nature. Still, as she had walked in on their secret and promptly converted as though it was something missing from her life since birth, Titus had decided that it was better to keep her with them so he could keep an eye on her.
With her place at the table assured, Amanda had gone on to embrace the concept of feeding on human meat with the same alarming passion she displayed for veganism. Convinced that people who ate animals deserved to be consumed themselves, Amanda would’ve happily dined on someone every day. As that was a shortcut to being caught, however, Titus had convinced her to restrict it to a special treat, while she continued to pursue her vegan ways in between feasts. He knew she didn’t like the fact that her adoptive family enjoyed a midweek spaghetti bolognaise, or eggs over easy on a Sunday. Then again, the Savages had transformed her eating habits. So, Amanda simply learned to tolerate it while rustling up a tofu salad for herself. Over time, and with the Savages’ eldest daughter, Sasha, now studying in New York, Amanda had become a welcome member of the household. One that Titus worried about as much as he did everyone else, for his lodger’s convictions didn’t just compromise her love life.
‘Maybe you should be more open-minded about meat eaters,’ he suggested, having swallowed his mouthful. ‘It might even help your career prospects.’
Amanda returned the juice bottle to the shelf and faced him.
‘Does a good cop turn a blind eye to a terrible crime?’ she asked him. ‘It just isn’t me.’
Whenever Amanda found work, mostly as a waitress in diners, her opinions didn’t take long to find a voice, and they were usually directed at the customers. Only recently she had been asked to leave her last job with immediate effect, which came as no surprise to Titus in view of all the American breakfasts she was serving.
‘Amanda, you can’t tell paying customers that they’re cold-blooded murderers,’ he told her, well aware that she had yet to forget her grounds for dismissal. ‘You can see how it would rub some people up the wrong way … ’
‘I held out for three months in that joint,’ Amanda replied defensively. ‘That’s twelve weeks smelling of bacon.’
Titus prepared to bite into his roll once more.
‘I guess it got into your pores.’
Amanda pulled a face, nodding all the same. ‘My dream job is out there,’ she said. ‘I just haven’t found it yet. Until then, I have the rent to pay.’
‘Amanda, you’re family.’ This time, Titus addressed her with his mouth full. The point he had to make was too important for him to wait. ‘There’s no need to take on dead-end jobs. You’ll always have a place at the table and time to work out what you really want to do with your life.’
‘You’re very kind,’ she said, and then levelled her gaze at him. ‘But I’m not a charity case. I always pay my way.’
Having cut all contact with her papa and three older brothers back in England – who regrettably considered her missing in the worst possible sense – Amanda Dias looked up to Titus as a father figure. As a matter of principle, she had rejected his offer of living at the villa rent-free. She was an independent young woman, after all, and held onto high hopes of finding employment that wouldn’t conflict with her values. Amanda chose not to tell Titus that she had an interview lined up already. If she got the post, she wanted it to come as a nice surprise. Besides, at the sound of the front door opening, Amanda knew that in moments she would no longer have his full attention.
Eight miles. That’s how far Joaquín Mendez had taken Angelica on a run that day. It was further than he had ever ventured with her before, but she had placed every ounce of her trust in him. They had headed out on the coastal route, along the beach and the boardwalks, heading south towards Boca Raton. Joaquín had run without training shoes, the soles of his feet looking toughened and tanned to Angelica’s eye, while his rhythmic, loping strides had seemed completely in tune with the terrain. She had followed close behind, in her cross trainers and white ankle socks, both of which he had asked her to remove when they reached the halfway point and prepared to turn around.
‘I want you to feel at one with the ground beneath your feet,’ Joaquín had told her, before tying the laces of her trainers together, stuffing both socks inside and then slipping them around his neck. ‘Do you feel the connection now?’ he asked, and held her gently by the wrists. ‘Run with me. Run as nature intended.’
Now, having completed the session and the drive home to the villa, Angelica felt elated. Her ankles ached like mad, but Joaquín had said that was because she’d used muscles and tendons she never knew she possessed. When it came to meat for a feast, Angelica had plenty of experience in assessing quality by squeezing and tweaking such components, yet it surprised her to feel these things at work inside her own body.
Leaving the open-top in the drive with the hood still folded back, Angelica inched her way painfully towards the front door. Then she hobbled all the way back again when little Kat called out to her from the booster seat in the car. She knew it had been one hell of a workout as soon as she had stopped off at kindergarten to collect her youngest daughter. If she wasn’t going to expire from exhaustion then she needed to eat.
‘You look fit to drop,’ observed Titus, when Angelica followed their youngest daughter into the kitchen. She found her husband in the kitchen with the lodger at the window finishing a juice. ‘Are you OK, honey?’ Titus found her a seat before she could reply.
‘Joaquín,’ she said weakly, as if that would explain everything.
‘What has he done to you this time?’ Amanda enquired disapprovingly before setting her glass in the sink. ‘Every time that guy puts you through your paces you return home half dead.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ Angelica waved away her concern. ‘I feel good, really I do. At least, I will in a minute.’
As Katya reached up to the counter and helped herself to the last of the salami, Titus fetched his wife a glass of water. Angelica sunk it in seconds. She noted the remains of her husband’s roll on the plate. Despite not eating since breakfast and having burned what felt like every last calorie in her body, she opted not to finish it on account of all the mayo.