“What’s that?” Kaden asked.
“Our national dish. Savoury rice with lamb and carrots and raisins. We’re really big on rice dishes. Sabzi pulao is spinach rice and narenj pulao is orange rice. They’re all tasty.”
Joe had looked all this up in case he was asked by the authorities. He hadn’t been. He knew where rice was grown in the country and how much they imported.
“Why don’t you choose for us?” Alistair said. “Many Middle Eastern countries share platters. We can do the same and try different things.”
“Anything you can’t eat?” Joe asked.
The answer was no, so he selected a couple of rice dishes along with Bolani—a stuffed flatbread, and mantu, traditional Afghan dumplings, and two other main dishes, along with kabuli pulao. What he didn’t know was whether he’d ordered too much or too little.
Alistair insisted on paying and after the order had been placed, Joe laid the table with Alistair and followed his lead.
“How did you meet up with Kaden?” Alistair asked, after Kaden had left the room.
Joe could feel the tricky questions coming and he had no idea what Kaden had already said. “Physically, only after I arrived in the UK but we’d been gaming online for months.”
“Did you come across the Channel in a small boat?”
“Yes. With people who neither spoke Pashto or English. It was scary. I fell out of the boat near the English coast and lost my backpack with my phone. Luckily, I’d put the documents that Kaden sent me inside a plastic bag and had it under my life jacket. I saw the authorities pick up the others and I hid, then walked the opposite way. It wasn’t what Kaden had told me to do, but I wanted to see him first.
“I had some Euros in my pocket. Enough to get a train to London. I dried out on the way. Kaden wasn’t at his bedsit so I went to his dad’s and discovered he’d been in hospital. He didn’t remember my name but his dad did. Then Kaden’s memory came back. Thank goodness.”
Did that sound okay? Joe’s heart was hammering. If Alistair challenged him, what should he do?
Kaden came back into the room. He shot Joe a quick smile that made him think he’d been listening.
“Joe is really good at chess,” Kaden said. “Maybe he can give you a game later.”
“Excellent!” Alistair looked thrilled.
Joehadordered too much food. Fortunately, it all tasted great. Alistair put what was left in the fridge.
“Chess!” Alistair said.
After Joe had won three games, he wondered whether to let Alistair win one, but something told him that wouldn’t go down well if Alistair realised, and he probably would.
When the fourth game was won by Joe, Alistair sighed. “Really good is an understatement. Well done, Joe. You play at another level. Thank you for not letting me win.”
“You’d have noticed,” Joe said.
“Thank you for thinking I might have. Right, I’m going to let Elsie out the back, then I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”
“Night,” they both chorused.
A little while later, lying beside Kaden in an unfamiliar room, Joe was awake and listening to the house. Every creak. Every distant sound. Every breath. Well, only Kaden’s breath. Alistair was two floors below. Elsie a floor below that. She had a bed in the kitchen.
He turned his head slightly. “Kaden?”
“Mm?”
“Did you hear Alistair asking me about us?”
“Yes.”
“Did I say the right thing?”
“You did.”
