The Baguette
A Short Story
They arrived at the coach station with enough time to queue for a hot baguette first. Jim thought it was extremely lucky, and quite unusual, that such a place should be still open at quarter to midnight.
“Isn’t that lucky!” Jim said to his wife Eve, his voice trembling with hunger, excitement and gratitude.
“I don’t see how you can be so hungry after such a big dinner!” Eve said, not trembling herself.
“Although there were four courses, if you consider how small the servings were, it wasn’t actually a big meal. I think if you got all the courses and put them onto one plate, you could probably squeeze them into a ball about this big.” He indicated with his hands a ball the size of a mini basketball. “I bet I could even have fitted it all into my mouth at once…” he said, and contemplatively raised the ball to his mouth, which he stretched as far open as possible, until the corners of his mouth were burning.
His wife suppressed a retch, demonstratively, Jim thought, and said “I’m glad you didn’t eat like that at the dinner!”
“You always take everything so literally!” Jim snapped, brittle with hunger. He went back to imagining gathering the whole dinner into a ball.
“I remember on the menu they said that there would be roast parsnips – I don’t remember any roast parsnips!”
“They were puréed, darling.” She replied, and he knew she put the ‘darling’ on to annoy him. It depressed him to be called darling, particularly after the word ‘puréed’.
“You mean that smear on the side of the plate was meant to be roast parsnips!! I thought it was some kind of high-end mayonnaise. And next time I order ice cream with mango and passionfruit sauce, I expect the sauce to pool in the bowl. I certainly don’t expect it to be two dots and a swirl congealed onto the plate as if they’ve been written on by a pen.”
“I didn’t make it, darling. Don’t complain to me.” She said tartly, and turned her back.
Fortunately, they arrived at the front of the queue at this point, because they may soon have come to blows otherwise. Jim calmed down at the sight of the menu board, and gazed steadily at it, mesmerised and charmed by the infinite number of ingredients on offer.
“I’ll just have a small egg and cress baguette, please.” Eve said, cutting in front of Jim, and giving him a meaningful look, telling him to hurry up.
A few minutes later, Jim had finished his ordering, and climbed onto the coach with his wife, clutching the large baguette warm in its paper bag against his chest as if it was a baby. They sat side by side, and as they ate, their moods warmed up a little, and the tension between them relaxed. Jim put his hand on Eve’s knee for a second, before he realised he needed two hands for his baguette. It really was a lovely baguette.
“It was strange being at the reunion,” his wife began, “seeing all those people I haven’t seen for 15 years.”
“Mm!!” Jim agreed, through a mouthful.
“Some people I spoke to had just changed so much!”
“Mm!!?” said Jim, his grunt expressing, he hoped, that he was intrigued and wanted to hear more. Eve wondered that he didn’t ask any further questions. She had expected he would ask who it was that had changed.
Jim wondered if he should have asked for extra olives.
She remained in silence and didn’t elaborate further, thinking that it would be a fit punishment for Jim just not to get to hear any more about it. To stew in a silence of his own making.
She glanced over at Jim and saw him studying intently the surface of baguette that was exposed to him. He then hiked down the paper bag and opened his mouth wide, sinking his teeth lovingly into the baguette. She realised with outrage that he was enjoying the silence of his own making, and not remotely aware of being punished.
“This baguette is so nice!” he said, warmly, again caressing her knee for a moment. “I think I chose the best combination of things. Do you want to hear what’s in it?” He waited for a moment, but was unperturbed by her failure to answer, presuming that she was silent because she was crippled with curiosity.
“Roasted potatoes, bacon, humous, red onion, feta, tabbouleh and a fried egg!” he said, his voice breaking on the final word. “It sounds like an odd combination, I know, but it’s so delicious! Would you like a bite, Eve?”
Eve shot a dirty look at her competitor for Jim’s attention. “That’s alright, thanks. I’m enjoying my egg and cress baguette.”
They passed another five minutes in silence, until Eve remembered a piece of gossip that she couldn’t resist sharing.
“Do you know what I found out? Do you remember my old friend Sandy who used to do pole vaulting? Well, she got pregnant from a one-night stand with a monk, and now has a six-year-old girl she’s bringing up all by herself!”
Jim turned to her, his mouth full of food, and widened his eyes as far as they would go. His eyebrows shot up in amazement, and his face was like a mask of surprise and shock. They maintained eye contact as he chewed, and chewed, presumably vacating his mouth in order to ask further questions. Finally, he swallowed, and, retaining the same expression, said a forceful “Huh!!!!!!”
He looked back down at his baguette.
“Amazing!” he said, as he took another bite.
“Are you seriously going to just sit there stuffing your face for this whole coach journey! And not ask me a single question?”
“I have asked you a question!” he said, “I asked how your evening was.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah!” he said, “I think so.”
“Hm. I’m not sure. And you didn’t ask me anything about Sandy.”
He took a hurried bite of his baguette.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart!” he said, through tabbouleh, “I wasn’t sure what to ask. You told me pretty much everything about it.”
“I can’t believe you’re still eating!” she said, “and anyway, what do you mean I’d told you everything and there was nothing left to ask! So, you seriously know everything about Sandy’s one night stand and baby?”
“Yeah, well I know she had a one-night stand with a monk. That seems like a lot of detail.”
“How can you make light of it like that? I told you about Sandy because she’s a very close friend of mine. I was quite shocked to hear she’s been having such a hard time, and to be honest I just felt the need to talk about it. It was quite difficult for me to hear.”
A piece of bacon fell from Jim’s mouth, but he caught it just in time, and put it back in.
“Oh, come off it. Don’t be such a drama queen, you weren’t upset about Sandy. You said it just like it was a piece of juicy gossip!”
“I hate it when you call me a drama queen! It’s such a stupid expression. You sound so stupid when you say it, it makes me furious.”
“Yes, it’s a stupid expression; it’s a stupid thing to be.”
“Do you know what – let’s just not talk about it. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.” She turned to face the window, and for the second time on that journey, punished him with silence.
Jim exhaled deeply, but made sure to do this only in his mind, so that Eve wouldn’t hear. He leaned back in his seat, and looked at his baguette. A further bite revealed a strange shape lying sort of at the bottom of the baguette. He gave it a careful poke with his little finger, and realised it was a sausage. His lips lifted in a slight smile. He’d completely forgotten that he’d asked for sausage as well. It’s funny when you’re eating a sandwich, and then some kind of unexpected filling pops up. He was about to turn to Eve and tell her he had sausage as well as the other fillings, but decided against it. She seemed very vexed about this baguette of his. He peered over at her carefully, paying special attention to the egg and cress baguette that her tears were dripping onto. It was possible that she regretted her choice of baguette, and was now taking it out on him. Her baguette did seem quite sad, in comparison to his. Egg and cress didn’t seem that appealing, particularly in a warm baguette. His baguette was full of wonderful contrasts – for example, the softness of the roast potato with the crunchiness of the warm baguette, not to mention the crispy red onion. The warm, salty, comforting taste of humous, contrasting with the tanginess of the parsley filled tabbouleh. The honest, English sausage and bacon balancing out the interesting Mediterranean flavours. And the fried egg, well – it just elevated the whole affair.
“I can hear that you’re still eating!” Eve said, through tears. “And I just can’t believe it.”
“Look, Eve. I’m just trying to eat so that I can be on better form for the rest of the argument. I was very, very hungry, and, who knows, this whole argument might not have happened if I hadn’t been so hungry. It just seems sensible to me to finish the rest of the baguette, because I know I’ll be on better form then.”
“For God’s sake.” Said Eve. “You always have an answer to everything. Look, it’s simple, it’s me or the baguette.”
“That’s a false dichotomy!” said Jim. “I’m not honouring that with a response. Obviously, if I ever had to actually choose between you and the baguette, for example if both of you were drowning in the water, I would choose you. But this is just you trying to bully me into submitting to your will.” He took another bite.
“Jim. All I want you to do is to put that baguette down. Even for a minute. I just want you to show me that you care enough about me.”
“Eve, what you’re asking of me is very unreasonable. I will, of course, put down the baguette once I’ve finished it, and then will devote my full attention to you.”
“It’s not putting it down if it’s gone.”
“Yes, but I’ll put the wrapper down. Look, my point is, all you have to do is wait for four minutes, while I finish my baguette. You’re making such an enormous thing out of my baguette; clearly we can’t be ourselves until it’s gone. If I put it down now, I’ll just be thinking about it.”
“You are laughable and pathetic, Jim. Look, the coach is making a stop here. Either you throw the baguette out of the window here, or you get out.”
“That’s ridiculous, Eve. I’m not throwing the baguette out of the window.”
“I’m not staying here a moment longer with you and that baguette. Either it gets off the coach, or you do.”
“Fine, fine, I’m going!” said Jim, unstrapping and taking his rucksack.
“You’re seriously choosing the baguette over me?” she shouted at him as he passed her window.
“That’s a false dichotomy!” he shouted, as the coach pulled away.
He took another bite of his baguette.