Bram was in the living room, taking his washing off the end of the sofa. We had ordered dinner, and I had gone to find milk for the tea.
“Hey, what is all that weird stuff in your fridge?”
“Standing theory is that it opens up to and gets stocked from alternate realities.”
“Where is the milk?”
“In the door.”
It was. So were butter, a small jar of mustard and the sort of bottled sauce that gets bought for one recipe. The main shelves were less familiar.
There was a shallow dish containing something pale and folded. It had a dry-looking shine. Beside it, a reddish object stood in a jar of liquid, with a narrow piece projecting from it which might have been a stalk. Seen a little lower down, it looked more like a handle. At the back was a packet with a photograph on it. Whoever had taken the photograph had stood too close for it to be much use.
I took out the milk and put it on the counter.
“Are these things yours?”
Bram came into the kitchen and looked into the fridge.
“Some of them.”
“Which ones?”
He pointed out the cheese, the eggs and a bowl of cooked potatoes. There were also three carrots in the drawer. I recognized those without assistance.
“And the rest?”
“I don't remember buying them.”
“You do sometimes buy things you don't use.”
“I know. There's the sauce in the door.”
He moved the packet aside and looked behind it, apparently checking whether I meant something else.
“I'm fairly sure about most of this,” he said.
I poured milk into the mugs. Bram closed the fridge and took his tea.
“How long has it been happening?”
“I first noticed that packet on Tuesday. But I think I'd been moving it out of the way for a while.”
He was wearing a grey jumper with one cuff turned back. I had known him for years. He had always been reasonably clear about ordinary events, provided you didn't ask him when they had happened.
“What makes you think they're from alternate realities?”
“I don't know where else I'd have got them.”
“That's not quite the same thing.”
“No.”
I opened the fridge for another look. The folded thing occupied a dish I had seen Bram use before. It was blue around the rim and had a chip shaped roughly like a thumbnail.
“This is your dish.”
“Yes.”
“So you put whatever that is in it.”
“I don't remember doing it.”
“But it's definitely yours?”
“The dish is.”
He looked at the chip in the rim.
“I recognize the container,” he said. “I don't always recognize what's in it.”
He put his mug down and leaned against the counter, waiting while I looked. The kitchen was narrow enough that one of us had to move whenever the other wanted a spoon.
“Have you seen anything actually happen?”
“There was a long dish once. I thought it was going to stop the door closing, but it didn't.”
“How long was it?”
He held his hands apart, considered the gap, then lowered them.
“I didn't measure it.”
“Could the door have pushed it back?”
“It could have.”
The fridge made a small noise. It was the noise fridges make, although I listened to the rest of it.
“Have you eaten any of this?”
“The things I bought.”
He said he'd also thrown away a few things he didn't recognize.
“There were more things later,” he said. “I don't know if they were the same ones.”
My phone rang before I could ask how much later. It was Helen, who had said she might come round. I let the fridge door shut.
“Sorry, Romy,” she said. “I'm not going to make it. There's already dinner here.”
“That's all right. Ours hasn't arrived yet.”
“Have you ordered too much?”
“Probably. We'll save you some.”
“Has Bram got room?”
I looked at the fridge.
“We may have to move a few things.”
“What things?”
“I don't really know. There's quite a lot of food I don't recognize.”
“Is it old?”
“I haven't worked that out either.”
I put the phone on speaker and laid it beside the mugs. Bram shifted his tea out of the way.
“What does it look like?” Helen asked.
I opened the fridge again.
“There's a sort of cabbage.”
“Only from this side,” Bram said.
He reached past me and turned the blue dish. At the back, the folds ended in a fine, rather even roughness. I had been about to call them leaves.
“It could be fennel,” Helen said. “Does it have stalks?”
“Not that I can see.”
“Celeriac?”
“The surface is more like bread.”
Bram bent to look.
“Not bread,” I said. “Just the surface.”
“Has he been to that shop by the station?”
“I haven't,” Bram said. “I keep meaning to.”
I put the dish on the counter, where the light was better. From above it looked less like either vegetable, although not enough like anything else to mention.
“There's something in a jar as well,” I said.
“Pickled?”
“It's in liquid.”
“What colour?”
“Red, mostly. Dark red. With a sort of handle.”
“A handle on the jar?”
“No.”
There was a short silence from the phone.
“Ginger can be quite an odd shape,” Helen said.
“It could be ginger.”
Bram took his mug into the living room. I could hear him moving plates onto the low table.
“Does it smell bad?” Helen asked.
I held the jar nearer my face. The lid was firmly on.
“I haven't opened it.”
“Perhaps don't. If it's been there a while.”
I put it back.
“Did the fridge come with the flat?”
“No,” Bram called. “I bought it new.”
“Oh. I thought it might be someone else's stuff.”
“So did I,” he said.
I lifted the packet from the back. It was green along one edge and white over most of the rest. The picture showed several pale objects on a pale background. There was also writing in small black print.
“Can you read the label?” Helen asked.
“I can't tell which way up it goes.”
“Send me a picture later. My sister buys a lot of that sort of thing.”
I said I would. I put it down beside the blue dish.
“What does Bram think it is?”
“He thinks the fridge gets stocked from alternate realities.”
“Oh.”
Bram came back for the forks.
“That was the standing theory,” I said.
“Still is.”
“Well, it's a lot of fridge for one person,” Helen said. “Things get left at the back. I found some cream the other day and I don't remember the last time I bought cream.”
“He does have quite a lot of containers.”
“That's usually what it is.”
I moved the blue dish back onto its shelf. On the shelf below was a rectangular plastic tub, the sort with a lid that bends when you try to get it off. I took it out. Someone had written Bram's name across it in black marker.
“There's one here with his name on it.”
“A lunch?” Helen said.
“Bram?”
“Yes?”
“Is this your writing?”
He put down the forks and looked. The bottom loop of the B was small, like the one he made on birthday cards.
“Looks like it.”
There was a little paper sticker on one side of the tub. Marden's, it said, above a few greasy figures.
“What's Marden's?” I asked.
“I assume it's a restaurant.”
“Have you ordered from there?”
“No.”
I turned the tub over, holding the lid in place. There was nothing on the bottom but a symbol for whether the plastic could be recycled.
“You might have had it at someone's house,” Helen said.
“He might.”
I eased one corner of the lid up. Bram waited beside me while I went round the others. There was no particular smell.
“What's in it?” Helen asked.
It was brown and low, with a thin cream-coloured line running along it. Sauce had collected in one corner. At one end, it looked as though someone had started cutting slices.
“It's been cut lengthwise,” I said.
“What has?”
I turned the tub a little.
“I'm not sure it is lengthwise.”
I pressed the lid back on, working round the rim until the last corner held.
“I'll just put this back.”
He moved the potatoes so I could.
There was a knock at the front door. Bram went down the short hall, and a moment later returned to the living room with two paper bags. I could smell the food from the kitchen.
“Is that yours?” Helen asked.
“Yes. It's here.”
I closed the fridge and took the phone and my mug through. Bram unpacked the rice and the two dishes we had ordered. The portions were generous. He passed me a fork.
“I'll let you eat,” Helen said. “Did you work out what the other stuff was?”
“Some leftovers.”
“From what?”
I looked toward the kitchen.
“Bram hasn't been specific.”