Two Hundred

My brother wanted to know whether I had eaten.

I had come to ask him for money, and I thought the answer might affect the amount.

“Yes.”

He took a second bowl out anyway. He had made too much soup. This was sometimes true and sometimes the sentence that allowed him to feed me. I couldn't tell by looking at the pan.

The bill lay beside my elbow. I had printed it at work and then worried that printing it was theatrical. On my phone it would have looked less like a demand, though I would have had to hand him the phone.

He turned the paper round.

“Three hundred?”

“Two hundred and ninety-seven.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

He ate a spoonful of soup. A small orange spot appeared on the cuff of his shirt. He rubbed it with his thumb, working it into the cotton.

I began to explain the additional charge again.

“I understand the bill,” he said.

We both looked at it.

Last time, I had paid him back in seven amounts. After the sixth, he had said there was no hurry. I had been standing at the bus stop, reading that message, with the seventh amount still in my account. I transferred it before the bus arrived. Then I walked.

He said he could manage two hundred.

I thanked him too quickly. He hadn't finished.

“The rest, perhaps next month.”

“It needs paying Tuesday.”

“Right.”

His chair scraped the floor as he moved closer to the table. I knew he had been saving for a holiday. There was a picture of the hotel on his fridge, held up by a magnet from a holiday he had actually taken.

“Don't cancel anything,” I said.

“I wasn't going to.”

I was relieved, and then ashamed of being relieved at something he hadn't offered.

He picked up his phone.

“When would you need it back?”

He set the phone down again.

“I meant you could have it.”

“Oh.”

“Is that all right?”

The question was difficult. There was an answer that would make us both look generous. There was another one that would require me to describe him to himself.

“Last time you said there was no hurry.”

“There wasn't.”

“I didn't know what that meant.”

He put both hands round his bowl. It must have been cold enough by then.

“It meant there was no hurry.”

I nodded. The soup had a skin on it. I broke it with the edge of my spoon and watched it join again farther over.

After a while he said, “This means you don't pay it back.”

“Even if things get better?”

“Yes.”

He sounded cross. I could accept the money or argue with his tone; I wasn't ready to do both.

“Thank you,” I said.

He made the transfer. We watched the confirmation arrive on my phone, two little accounts of the same thing happening. Then I put the bill in my bag. There were still ninety-seven pounds missing, and the paper did not become lighter.

My brother asked whether I wanted the rest of the soup to take home.

“Yes.”

He opened the cupboard where he kept the plastic containers. Most of the lids were loose. I found one that fitted while he held the box under the ladle.

“I'll bring this back,” I said.

He looked at the box, then at me. For a moment I thought he was going to say I could keep it too.

“Whenever you're passing.”

“Sunday,” I said. “I can do Sunday.”