The knife chases the pea around the plate trying to herd it onto the fork, which is sloped in the correct manner. There’s already some food loaded on ready to go. The knife seems to have control of the defiant pea and onto the fork it goes – but it’s a trick. The pea leaps upward, knocking his captured brothers out of their bondage to scatter across the plate, knife in pursuit. The girl’s mouth is scrunched in frustration. She doesn’t even want to eat the gross green goblins but she’s furious that they would defy her. Their rebellion shows the weakness of her control and, like any despot, she cannot appear weak. The knife courses after the peas, a tireless hunter. The fork waits. One of the escapeas is isolated, cut off from the rest. With a wild screech the fork pounces, tines crashing down to impale the pea once and for all. But somehow fate grants a reprieve to the undeserving legume – instead of piercing the green skin, the plunging prong sends it into the air. The pea soars like a green comet over the little planet of the dinner table, a majestic arc accompanied by the praise of brass music. The diners could almost hear at its apex the scream of pure joyous defiance before it descends to golden paradise – splashing down in the patriarch’s flute of champagne.
The table is silent, all eyes fixed on the kamikaze pea.

“Emma,” the patriarch rumbles, “don’t play with your food.”

He fishes the pea out of his glass and pops it into his mouth, the sparkle of champagne still on its green hide.

The smell was a beaded curtain she had to push through to enter. At first it seemed unified but once her nose got over the shock she could parse different scents in the mix. The most powerful were the coffees; robust and earthy textures, some just released as the wood and iron grinders crushed the beans. Then there were spices, the distinctive sting of cinnamon, cloves, star anis. Cocoa sprawled lazily under it all, dark and heavy. Above these scents floated the teas, almost ethereal. They were farthest from the door and that’s where she headed. There were deep racks of loose leaf with prices by weight and a little scoop to fill the brown paper bags. Pre-weighed, paper-wrapped parcels were stacked in line with the teas, their labels plain. No cute colour-coding here. Just the names of the tea and their origins.

“We closing,” his voice was deep as the cocoa, his accent from as faraway as his wares.

“It’s only two,” she said, confused.

“Not today. We are closing shop. Permanent.”

He picks the syllables as carefully as she picks her tea. She looks around, searching for some sign of the end. But the store is as it ever was. She returns to her task, and after some deliberation pours a hundred grams of honeybush into a bag. It’s a reassuring flavor, a comfort. She goes to the counter and he rings up her small purchase on the battered register.

“You come for more. Next month we are closed.”

She nods him and thanks him. At the door she turns to look back, to breathe it in. Then she steps out into the street, the door chimes shut and the wind brushes away all the scents except for what she takes with her in a little brown bag.

He stood on the crate to reach the basin. I stood behind him and we observed each other in the mirror. This younger me, stamped with my jaw line and the subtly bent nose of my mother’s folk. He’d grow into his shoulders sooner than I had, I hoped so at least. His red-blonde hair was his mother’s though, so were his slate grey eyes. I leaned over him and showed him the strange morning ritual of the fellowship he wanted to join.

I had him cup his small hands and dispensed a blob of expanding white foam onto his palms. Then the same into my left. I spread it across my face with small circles and he imitated me on his. My fingers could feel the short rough regrowth since my shave yesterday morning. His face was soft and fresh and would be for a very long time. But it wasn’t about the practicality, the need was for a ritual. My father had taught me to shave in the same way. Inducting me into the society of men. The first step down a strange path that had led me to boarding school, to drinking, to rugby, to the army, to the border and to this moment… being a father. It’s not a path I wanted my child to walk and I thought I’d been lucky, life has other plans though. I took up my own razor and gave him a toothless mimic – he didn’t need a blade to learn. Not yet. There’d come a time for blood, but it wasn’t now.

We worked the razors across our faces, stripping off the foam and rinsing the implements in the basin of hot water. It was like peeling off a mask as we looked at ourselves with intent. At our exteriors. And it was done. Faces clean. I gave him a rough towel and his cheeks shone red.

“Go on, get dressed,” I said and the pride fled his face.

“It’s only til the end of term,” I said. “Then you’re at Andervale and you can wear what you like.”

He nodded and went to his room. I looked at myself in the mirror. I should have fought for him. But I couldn’t afford to, I told myself. Just get him into a new school where he could be happy and that would be it. My child would be fine, no matter where his path took him.

“OK, dad. I’m ready to go.”

He looked brave in the dress they made him wear to school. The dress I had made him wear for too long. He looked braver than me.

He’s intent on the coffee maker. He’s laid out all the parts on a dishcloth on the kitchen counter. She’s given up on it and is in the little adjoining lounge. Kindle propped up on her knee. She’s not reading; she’s watching him. Every now and then he puts out his hand to hover over a piece, and then folds his arms back across his chest as he rearranges and rotates the parts in his head. She can hear the waves from the open balcony. It would be a perfect view to enjoy with hot coffee.

The night has left a layer of cold over everything – just a tingle across her skin as she sits – and the sun is warming the world gently, unhurried. She wants to make breakfast on the black-iron gas hob, to share it and eat it on the balcony overlooking the bay. But the kitchen is his now. The coffee maker must be fifty years old. Probably every native to Portugal knows how it works, but to these travellers it’s a puzzle.

She would be content to boil the grounds on the stove and pour it through the sieve, but he has to solve it. It’s a challenge. So he frowns over the obsolete parts trying to parse their purpose and make them fit, while she stares out at the foreign country they’re visiting to celebrate getting married.