Some

(Friday night, in the flat above the chicken shop on Rye Lane. Vera comes in at nine, still in her nurse’s uniform.)

Vera: Something smells amazing. What is that?

Kwame: My grandmother’s rice and meat. It’s her recipe.

Vera: Give me five minutes in the bathroom. I want to wash the hospital off me.

Kwame: Take ten. This needs another twenty minutes.

(She comes back in a T-shirt and takes the wooden spoon out of his hand.)

Vera: Okay. How much salt goes in?

Kwame: Some.

Vera: Some? Kwame, I’m a nurse. I measure everything. Two pills, four hours, forty drops a minute.

Kwame: Read the card, then.

Vera: A little oil. Some salt. Cook the meat until it’s soft. Kwame, who writes a recipe like this?

Kwame: My grandmother. She wrote it for my mother in 1989.

Vera: And nobody asked her for the numbers?

Kwame: Everybody asked her. She always said the same thing. Taste it.

(Vera takes a clean spoon and tastes it.)

Vera: More salt.

Kwame: How much?

Vera: …Some.

Kwame: There you go. Now it’s your recipe too.