Memories of a salad

"This was one of the few truly happy moments we ever had, Gemma and I. We were trying to make a salad - Christ knows why, I think it must have been when that detective show was really popular. You know, the one with the lettuce. Inspector Iceberg. Brilliant stuff.

"Anyway, after about three hours you can see that we'd got as far as slicing a pepper in half, and chopping the end off a cucumber, and we stopped and looked at each other and thought, 'We're doing pretty well, aren't we?' And so we rewarded ourselves with a little drink.

"I'm not sure who took the photo. I'd say Gemma, but I don't think it can be her, because there she is sitting next to me. And it can't be me, I wouldn't know what to do with a camera. I'd just smash it.

"It's a mystery, it really is.

"It looks great, doesn't it, those tomatoes and the glass with leaves in it and everything, but we didn't get any further with making that salad. We just drank and drank and drank - that cupboard behind Gemma would have been basically stuffed with wine - and then we were sick, side by side, into those two sinks. We laughed together then, through the sick, because we'd always wondered what anyone could possibly want with two sinks in a kitchen.

"Shit, is that a fish slice hanging above my head? So that's where it got to!"