Eating Crow by Jay Rayner

little brother is me, only in focus: his waistline is narrower, his features more definite and assured, his hair tamed rather than rising up in some spirited revolt. His feet, of course, are shapely and boast a definable arch. Luke is the kind of man who can wear a cheap suit well. Despite this he chooses to wear only expensive ones because he is a distressingly wealthy lawyer and can afford to do so.
    As I sat down, he said, “A definite four.”
    “A four?” I nodded approvingly. “Chair or table?”
    “Chair.”
    “A good sign.”
    Our father, displaying the Swiss precision he tried so hard to deny, told us when we were boys that the quality of a restaurant could be defined by what it did with your napkin when you left the table to pee. If the waiters ignored it so that it remained in a neglected crumple on your chair, it was a substandard place undeserving of his—or our—attention. If they folded it back into the original arrangement—fan, mountain peak, or, Lord preserve us, swan—and positioned it on your place setting, they were trying too hard. True quality was a single vertical fold, the prepared napkin then laid over the back of the chair, for that presumed the meal to be a work in progress and the napkin a tool. We Basset boys had, in adulthood, adapted the napkin test into a formal competition, awarding one to five points for how intrusive waiters were when performing the act, whether they managed to get the job done before you came back or if they changed the napkin altogether on grounds of staining. It was a remarkably consistent indicator. Very few restaurants that scored four or five on the napkin test served poor food.
    Tonight we were in a new place called the Hanging Cabinet, near London’s Smithfield meat market. The proposition: great cuts of perfectly reared organic meat, classically prepared. The décor was pure meatpacker chic: bare brick walls, sanded floors, elegant bare lightbulbs; the kind of understated minimalism that £130 for two buys you in London at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Here hollowed-out beef bones, sealed at one end, were used as vases for a single blood red tulip. Bread was served in the cranial hollow of an upended sheep’s skull that rocked back and forth on its ridged peaks. The Hanging Cabinet was not shy about its intent.
    When we had ordered, Luke said, “Lynne called me.”
    I jutted out my bottom lip fiercely and dropped my aitches. “You ’avin an affair wiv my bird?”
    He grinned. “Yes, of course, but in my youthful foolishness I have let the cat out of the bag by telling you she called me.”
    “An elementary mistake.”
    “Indeed. I shall learn next time.”
    “Does she know about your size problem …” I nodded toward his groin.
    He opened his eyes wide. “Yes, she’s afraid she won’t be able to fit all of me in.”
    I recoiled in disgust. “Aw, thank you, Luke. That’s a delightful image.”
    He scratched the back of his neck and looked away over my shoulder. “Actually, she thinks you’re going bonkers.”
    “Yeah? In what way.”
    “Oh just, you know, generally. She’s a bit concerned.”
    I grabbed a heavy-crusted chunk of bread from the sheep’s skull.
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “I’m not worrying about it. I’ve always known you were a maladjusted prick. But Lynne, you know …”
    “What did she say?”
    Luke shrugged. “That you’re on some major apologizing jag. Saying sorry to everyone. Chefs, teachers, garbagemen. She tells me you even dug out Wendy Coleman. Is that true?”
    I chewed my bread and nodded. “It was good to see her.”
    “Did she slip her hands down your—”
    “Stop it, Luke. Let’s be a little more adult about this.”
    He rolled his eyes and I immediately regretted the phrasing. He bowed his head sarcastically and said, “Sorry, big brother of mine.” We were silent for a moment, weighing up the overloaded baggage of a brotherly relationship.
    And then: “Is she still, you