Ring Road by Ian Sansom Page B

Every night on the way home from work he buys his bacon for his breakfast from Tom Hines, our one remaining butcher, and every morning he eats it straight from the frying pan, mopping up the juices with a slice of bread, dispensing neatly with the need for a knife, or a plate and, indeed, for any washing up whatsoever, since the frying pan will always do for the next day, and the next; and then for lunch he has a ham sandwich with mustard, and for dinner he usually eats at his mum’s, or at Scarpetti’s, the Italian late-night café in Market Street, which is no longer owned and run by Italians, Mr Scarpetti and his family having eventually returned to their native land like most incomers within a short time of having arrived here, once they realise that our town is, in fact, like every other small town on the face of the earth and no better than what they’ve left behind, unless, of course, it’s a civil war or state torture, and even then it can be a tough decision to decide to stay. We have no actual culture to speak of and no cuisine, unless you count the tray bakes and themicrowave morning sandwiches from the Brown and Yellow Cake Shop. We can boast no local beer even, let alone a wine, and we have no town square, our festivals extend only to the traditional half-hearted summer parade and fireworks – Frank Gilbey’s attempts to organise a jazz festival a few years ago having ended in disaster – and we are not known for the warmest of welcomes. * But Mr Hemon, who now owns Scarpetti’s – and who is Bosnian – has stuck it out for eight years and it looks as though he’s going to stay, and he does a fair imitation of Billy’s mum’s sausage, chips and beans. In honour of his predecessors Mr Hemon offers espresso coffee – two heaps of instant instead of one – and keeps a bowl of Parmesan on each table, along with the usual condiments, and believe me, if you’ve never sprinkled grated hard Italian cheese on one of Scarpetti’s legendary big breakfasts with two fried slices, then you really haven’t lived, in our town. †
    I think maybe it is all the pork that gives Billy that funny smell, because he smells the same all year round, so it can’t just be the heat. As you get older there’s no doubt food can play havoc with your system: Davey Quinn, I know, for example, hasn’t eaten a Chinese takeaway for years, after a night out in south London which started in a pub, went on to a club, and ended up with a couple of tin-foil tubs of hot and spicy Cantonese which wouldn’t usually have bothered him, certainly not while in his teens or twenties, but which left him in his early thirties unable to breathe and writhing around, choking up whole sweet-and-sour pork balls, and he ended up in casualty having his stomach pumped, and he can only remember that the stuff they pumped in looked black and the stuff they pumped out was yellow, and he stank for weeks afterwards. He has never again touched chicken in ablack-bean sauce: the food of all our youths denied for ever to him. I myself – like most of us – have had to give up kebabs.
    Davey waited a while after his return to town before calling in to see Billy Nibbs, and he hardly recognised him when he finally caught up with him – he had to do a double take. Billy these days looks exactly like his father, Hugh – right down to the thick black beard and the shiny steel-toe capped boots. Hugh ran one of the four butchers that used to exist on Main Street – not a single one remaining now, leaving only Tom Hines on High Street, who is not and never was the best, whose sausages are thin and greasy, whose chops and mince are too fatty, whose joints are overpriced and who has abandoned all pretence of providing dripping, black pudding, or the cheaper offal, the standard fare of the traditional family butcher, and who has opted instead to sell his butcher’s soul for the