“Will it?” Dante shot Sid a shrewd glance. “I thought I was here to facilitate yours.”
That was one way of putting it, and Sid didn’t have a sensible response, so he went back to talking about vegetables until they were close enough to the barn that he could smell garlic and herbs scenting the air. “It’s pasta day,” he said.
“Okay.”
“You don’t like pasta?”
Dante shrugged. “I’ll eat anything.”
Or not much at all, as it turned out. Sid led Dante into the barn, and they joined the line of staff already queuing up for plant-based riffs on classic pasta dishes—courgette carbonara, mushroom mac and cheese, and the lentil bolognese that kept Sid upright on days he’d rather have slept through. He helped himself to a loaded bowl, added extra olive oil for his rusty joints, and grabbed a dish of blueberries from the haul he’d collected from the polytunnel yesterday.
Dante took an apple.
Sid frowned. “Not hungry?”
Dante shrugged. “It’s a lot.”
“What is?”
“All of it.” Dante rubbed the apple on his grey sweatshirt and took a bite.
Sid waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t, and it dawned on Sid that Dante had woken up that morning behind bars. That everything that had been thrown at him ever since, even the good stuff, was probably freaking him out.
Give the bloke a break. Sid steered Dante to a quiet table at the back of the barn. He usually sat with the forestry team so they could spend an hour arguing about land management, but that was irritating on a good day. He sat with his back to them and offered Dante the chair where he’d be able to see everything and everyone around him. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think.”
Dante ripped his gaze from the bustling barn. “Think about what?”
“About how different this would be to where you woke up this morning.”
“This part isn’t so different.” Dante glanced around again. “Mealtimes are noisy inside. Cramped too, with everyone jammed into one place. It is kind of strange to know I can get up and leave whenever I want, though.”
Second-hand claustrophobia rattled through Sid. He hid a shudder around a big bite of his lunch and offered the bowl to Dante. “Sure you don’t want a little bit?”
Dante eyed Sid’s mess of garlicky lentils and spelt spaghetti. “What is it?”
“Lentil bolognese. It’s good for you.”
“It looks like you already ate it.”
Sid laughed. “What happened to I’ll eat anything?”
“Maybe I lied.”
“Do you do that a lot?”
“What?”
“Lie.”
“Not anymore.” Dante took another bite of his apple and his eyes grew distant.
Sid reclaimed his bowl and emptied it at record speed, then sat back contemplating if he had the balance and energy left to fetch himself seconds. Food was life—fuel for his faulty body—but consuming it was a trip.The fucking irony. Some days Sid thought that was how he would die, by a lightning bolt of wry bad luck. Others, it was the synthetic thump in his chest.
He rubbed at it, wishing it away, and this time Dante noticed. “Indigestion?”
“Nope.”
“Still hungry?”