He was snapped out of his thoughts as Clara shouted, ‘Don’t you just love it here?’ Even at full volume her voice could barely be heard above the blend of laughter and chatter and the mellow Christmas panpipe music blaring out over the speakers.
Joe didn’t love the crowds, but the way Clara’s face was shining perked him up enough to smile; that and the sight of the bratwurst sausage logo coming into view.
‘We made it,’ Joe said breathlessly as they joined a queue of people waiting for hot dogs. ‘And I promise they’re worth the fuss. I reluctantly came with Simone last week because she wanted to start her Christmas shopping and we ended up eating two of these beauties each.’
‘Two? But they’re enormous!’
Joe looked to the ground, guilty as charged. ‘I know. But honestly, when you’ve tasted it you’ll see why one wasn’t enough. They’re incredible. And we had to make the most of it, because once the markets are gone for another year there won’t be the opportunity to have them again until next November or December.’
‘Ah, so you’re making the most of the opportunity by aiming to eat your annual quota of hot dogs in a month.’
‘Exactly.’
The round-faced man in the hut was wearing a gigantic furry hat with earflaps that hung down like spaniels’ ears. It was at odds with the professional-looking apron he was wearing, the combination giving him the air of an eccentric elf. He beamed as he rubbed his palms together. ‘Good evening!’
‘Good evening,’ Joe echoed. ‘Can we have two of your finest hot dogs, please?’
The man nodded as he pressed the meat into a bread roll. The sausage was too long, poking out at both ends, and Joe was already salivating at the thought.
‘Onions?’ the man asked.
‘Yes, please,’ Clara replied quickly. ‘And lots of them.’
Joe pulled a face and shook his head. ‘No thanks.’
Clara looked on in disbelief. ‘A hot dog without onions? What are you, some kind of maverick? Next you’ll be saying you don’t have red sauce.’
‘I don’t.’
The look of sheer horror that passed over Clara’s face at that revelation made Joe snort with laughter.
‘I can’t believe I’m willingly spending time with someone who has such terrible taste in hot dogs. I bet you’re one of those weirdoes who has mustard too, aren’t you?’ The man offered the hot dog to Clara, loaded high with the soft, curled onions. She reached straight for the bottle of red sauce and drew two thick lines of ketchup along the top of the sausage. ‘Red sauce is the only way forward when it comes to hot dogs.’
Joe accepted a hot dog from the man and handed him a note in payment. When Clara reached for her purse, Joe stopped her. ‘My treat,’ he said, as she gratefully withdrew her hand from her bag and bit into her food.
‘Mmmm,’ she said, her eyes closing as she chewed the hot dog. ‘This is amazing.’
Joe couldn’t hide his pride, as though he’d made it himself from scratch. ‘I know, right? And I think it tastes better because we’re out in the cold and there’s all the smells. It tricks your senses into thinking it’ll taste a certain way and then it doesn’t at all. It’s a million times better.’
‘I couldn’t eat it like that, though,’ Clara said, nodding her head towards Joe’s plain hot dog.
‘I like it naked.’ As soon as Joe realised what he’d said he waited for Clara to pounce as she undoubtedly would.
‘If that’s not too much information then I don’t know what is,’ she said, with a salacious giggle.
Joe glanced coyly at the floor before meeting her eyes.
‘Oh, stop acting all innocent and virtuous, you don’t have to get embarrassed,’ she said. ‘We’re only having a laugh.’
She wrapped her mouth around the hot dog sausage and although he knew it wasn’t meant to be sexual – she was only eating, after all – Joe was aware of his cheeks getting warm. All the innuendo was making him hot under the collar.
‘I’m a vicar’s son, remember? I am innocent and virtuous.’
As though to prove the point he fluttered his eyelashes, and Clara laughed. It was a beautiful laugh, Joe thought, full on and loud and brimming over with positivity. Being around Clara was certainly a tonic. The heaviness that weighed down his heart lessened in her presence.
‘Yeah, right. I bet you’re not as innocent as you make out. No one is.’
‘That sounds like an invite for me to ask about your deepest, darkest secrets.’
‘Uh huh.’ She shook her head. ‘No way. This is about you, not me! Come on. Share something that’ll surprise me.’
Joe thought for a moment as he chewed on the sausage. The herbs and spice exploded on his tongue, fizzing like fireworks against the roof of his mouth. What could he share? Nothing about Michelle, not yet, and nothing about his ambivalence towards many aspects of life, either. He wracked his brains for something witty and light-hearted. There were plenty of minor exploits from his youth, but nothing shock-worthy. The time Billy dared him to go into the ladies’ toilets at The Club on the Corner and Deirdre had been lurking outside waiting for him because one of the girls had snitched on him. He’d got into a lot of trouble over that. Or when he’d downed the best part of a bottle of White Lightning behind the bus shelter, again a dare from Billy. Billy was almost always involved when he got in trouble, now he thought about it.
‘I kissed a boy once.’ The words were out of his mouth before he could think about what he was revealing.
‘Really?’ She looked surprised. ‘Even if I’d had a hundred guesses, I wouldn’t have predicted you were going to say that.’
‘Sometimes there’s more to people than meets the eye.’
‘You can’t say something like that and just leave it there,’ she said, looking forlornly at the now-empty napkin. All that was left of her hot dog were a few stray crumbs and a smear of red sauce. ‘Come on. Spill the beans.’
‘There’s not much to spill. It was during my first month at uni. The guy I lived next to in halls had a friend come to stay.’ He could picture him clearly in his mind’s eye, even now – the slicked-back blonde hair, the sharp, pale features, the all-black clothes. ‘He looked like the actor who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films.’
Clara nodded her approval. ‘Not bad.’
‘We all went out to a club, everyone from our floor, and when we got back someone suggested we played spin the bottle. There were maybe ten of us still up, all steaming drunk. And when he spun the bottle, it landed on me. I thought he’d kiss the girl I was sat next to instead because he’d been flirting with her all night, but he didn’t. He walked straight across the middle of the circle and lowered down onto his haunches, placed his hands on my cheeks and kissed me.’
Clara fanned her hand in front of her face. ‘Sounds hot.’
‘It wasn’t. Not for me, anyway.’
Michelle had been there, sat on the other side of the circle, watching in amusement, not remotely threatened by someone else