Bimbo scraped a clot of grease off with his fingernail.
- It does come off, he said.
Jimmy Sr did the same.
- Yeah, he said. - Fuckin' hell though, Bimbo. It's goin' to take fuckin' years.
- Not at all, said Bimbo.
They got paint scrapers, five of them, from Barney's Hardware and attacked the van with them, and then they started getting somewhere. Once you got the blade in under the grease and the dirt it came away easily enough. It was a little bit disgusting alright but at least they could see that it was working, the grease was coming off, and that made up for it. But the feel of it was horrible, and the smell; it was hard to describe, fuckin' terrible though. Jimmy Sr could smell it on his hands even after putting some of Veronica's Oil of Ulay all over them. And his clothes; he'd have roasted himself if he'd sat too close to the fire after a day's work. ...

There was more than just the cleaning of the van, of course. They had to become chefs before the end of the month, which was no fuckin' joke. The first time he made chips, at home, he put far too much oil into the pan and nearly set fire to the fuckin' kitchen when he lowered the chips into it. It frightened the shite out of him. But Veronica was a good teacher, very patient; she even let him make the dinner one night, which was very decent of her. He made a bit of a bollix of it - burnt fuck out of the burgers; it was like eating little hubcaps - but no one complained. She showed him how to peel spuds without peeling the skin off your hands as well, how to always peel out, away from your body, so you didn't stab yourself.

He cut his wrist the first time he did it; not cut it exactly, more scraped, but it was very fuckin' sore all the same. He nearly went out the window when Veronica put Dettol on it but they laughed later in bed, imaging trying to kill yourself with a potato peeler scraping away till you hit an artery, and then start on the other wrist, quick before you fainted. They hadn't laughed together like that in ages.

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